The Clan of the Cave Bague

Lots of them. All in a dirty great big chain. First one to the Scottish Vocational Qualifications body to get duplicates of some certificates I’m missing, and the next to retrieve replacement birth and marriage certificates. Once I have birth and marriage certificates, I can get passports organised. Once we have passports and replacement certificates, we can start on the ACS stuff in earnest. God, I’ve never filled in so many forms in my life.

Speaking of passports, we’ve just pumped 38 quid into a passport photo machine – we need a set of four for our migration agent and another two for the passport applications – and there are five of us

I was a bit disappointed when I saw how the passport photos turned out, though – they’re very brown. They look like very poor inkjet prints. If I’d known they’d look like that (top tip coming up folks) I’d have taken the photos myself. I’m pretty sure iPhoto could do a better job of it.

Well, in most ways we’re not any further on but in some ways we’re miles ahead of where we were. For one thing, I have my head around the documentation required by the ACS and it turns out I’m better qualified than I thought I was. I have a whole pile of essays to write, describing how my work experience has taught me subjects contained within what the ACS consider to be a “core body of knowledge required by all IT courses”.

We’ve also made contact with D’s Uncle and Aunt, who have offered to sponsor our migration. We’ve been in touch quite a bit and are getting on famously. They seem really nice – very laid back.

I have an almost irresistable urge to write this entry in Martian, but I shall resist. ‘k, quick databurst. Third person, walking and flying a saucer, death ray, zapomatic, brain sucking anal probe (god knows what kind of traffic I’m going to get from google after this) and good old fashioned alien abductions.

The intro involves performing merciless experiments on rednecks then blowing up the village. The first level involves performing merciless experiments on rednecks, abducting them, then blowing up a fair.

I sense a pattern forming here….

Good heavens! What will they think of next! Science can now create food that tastes of precisely NOTHING. Nothing at all. Each Low Carb Rolo is a chewy slice of null. It has void taste. Remarkable.

I’m a longstanding fan of the Myst series. Uru is something I’ve been playing in fits and starts for what seems like forever. It’s got all the usual Myst mind benders in, but wrapped up in a largely free roaming 3D environment, rather than the “on rails” systems of previous Myst titles. Anyway, I’ve just popped into the worlds once more and discovered I’m completely lost with no idea what I’m doing. Nothing new there then

Aha! I think I’ve got it sussed. There’s going to have to be a bit more sneaking about and sending in engineers (and defending them) *before* annihilating all the virusy things. Makes it a lot tougher, but I *nearly* managed to beat the introductory level

It’s ACEBEST! Really nice abstract graphics which, because of their simplicity, really fly on most machines. I’m only on the first world, really, and I think I may have to restart it because I’ve stuffed up b doing some stuff in the wrong order.

It’s a strangely compelling games – one of those titles which you play for five minutes and discover an hour has passed.

Lovely. Pity it involves sitting at a desk – here’s hoping for a console version.

Oh for heaven’s sake. The BBC seem to have crawled down beside the Daily Mail in the gutter. The article linked below, written by an “expert” so misinformed she has the word “Cyberspace” in her department name, is yet another example of the press and government making deliberate attempts to frighten people.

Every time something new and innovative comes along, it’s the same thing – “oh no, you can’t use cotton wool, it may make you sneeze your own insides out – ye gods! you can’t go about sitting on grass! You may sit on a syringe!”.

So, blogging is a paedophile magnet, then. I guess the best thing is if we all just stay inside in front of our TV sets like good little consumers, never speaking to our neighbours in case they turn out to be axe murderers, never answering the phone in case it’s a weirdo on the other end, and always reporting suspicious foreign looking people in case they might be terrorists.

Go for it, Auntie Beeb – help to keep us scared – help to keep us bombarding ourselves with advertising and too afraid to protest the fact that our society is going to hell in a hand cart.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Blogging ‘a paedophile’s dream’

Oh for heaven’s sake. The BBC seem to have crawled down beside the Daily Mail in the gutter. The article linked below, written by an “expert” so misinformed she has the word “Cyberspace” in her department name, is yet another example of the press and government making deliberate attempts to frighten people.

Every time something new and innovative comes along, it’s the same thing – “oh no, you can’t use cotton wool, it may make you sneeze your own insides out – ye gods! you can’t go about sitting on grass! You may sit on a syringe!”.

So, blogging is a paedophile magnet, then. I guess the best thing is if we all just stay inside in front of our TV sets like good little consumers, never speaking to our neighbours in case they turn out to be axe murderers, never answering the phone in case it’s a weirdo on the other end, and always reporting suspicious foreign looking people in case they might be terrorists.

Go for it, Auntie Beeb – help to keep us scared – help to keep us bombarding ourselves with advertising and too afraid to protest the fact that our society is going to hell in a hand cart.

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Blogging ‘a paedophile’s dream’

It’s a larf, innit? The summer holidays are almost upon us – seven weeks the kids get off. There’s no justice. Still, I’m sure they’ll have a great time, scampering about like lunatics. Matthew’s rediscovered the trees in the orchard recently, so he’s been doing a spiderman impression. Trouble is, the first branches are quite high up so he has to clamber on a garden slide to get to them. Needless to say that as soon as he’s up, Tristan or Harmony will wander over and move the slide so he can’t get back down.

I think I’m going to wrangle the second week in July off. We have a busy month coming up with loads of stuff to organise, so that’ll at least give us a clean run at it.