Welcome to not very much really
It just had to be rescued : 14th January 2003
A friend of mine, we shall call him Mark W, decided to post his review of Lord Of The Rings,
The Two Towers onto some movie
review web site. Just in case the review gets deleted at some point in the future
the text has been saved below, for posterity.
Date: 8 January 2003
Summary: Rubbish... and then some
Mind-numbingly tedious bilge wherein some funny-looking kids with hairy feet
and oo-ar Devon accents wander round New Zealand getting into impossibly
perilous situations, the odds stacked against them like a great big stacked
thing (with horns!), and then escape while their adversaries inexplicably
kill each other instead. It makes the A Team look well written.
There's a big battle scene at the end which is really exciting provided
you haven't already seen Spartacus, Braveheart, Gladiator, Star Wars,
the first awful Rings film and indeed any other big-budget film made in
the last 40 years. Otherwise it's just dull.
If you're really at a loose end and tempted to see this film, give serious
consideration to tuning in to BBC Parliament instead and watching a select
committee live from the Welsh Assembly.
Happy New Year my ringpiece : 13th January 2003
Well I was going to write something here chronicling the fucking awful day I had when
my car decided it just didn't love me anymore...but I think I'll just copy in an e-mail
that I sent to Dave and Jean.....the story relates to the happenings of 8th Jan 2003
From darren.steele@anonymised.com Tue Jan 14 11:44:17 2003
Subject: RE: RAC etc
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:44:17 -0000
From: "Darren Steele" darren.steele@anonymised.com
To: "Jean" jean@anonymised.co.uk,
"Dave" david@anonymised.com
>
> So why do you want 500 of repair cover Darren?
Ah, well remembered.
Last Wednesday after I had dropped Emma off at school my car started
making the most horrendous noises whilst driving in second and third
gear. I decided I couldn't risk travelling to work with the car in this
state and so drove home to phone some garages. My first thought was to
contact VW and let them have a look; they are the experts after all.
I was told that they had no "openings" that day but if I drop it in with
them then they'd try to squeeze it in. So I dropped my car off and then
walked back home. I would have walked straight to Altrincham bus
station but I realised I didn't have a book with me and didn't want to
sit through a tortuous bus journey without something to read, also I was
in desperate need of a bowel evacuation.
So retrieve my book I did, dropping the kids off at the pool in the
process. There's a bus stop very close to my apartment and I knew that
the buses went at 'twenty to' and 'ten past' the hour. So at 9.30am I
was standing beside the bus stop...feeling a little chilly. 9.40 came
and went. 9.50 came and went. 10.00am came and went. It began to snow.
The bus arrived at 10.10 and a snow speckled steeley shivered aboard and
began the journey to Warrington bus station, before completnig my
journey with a second bus out to Birchwood. Grand total for the journey
was =A33.65 - scandalous! No wonder the bus was empty.
I arrived at my desk at 11.30am and checked the bus timetables. The
buses only run at 40mins past the hour up to 8.40am. Damn.
A few hours later I called VW who told my that a bolt had sheared off
the bell housing and had damaged the gearbox and that a new one was
required. They also pointed out that my clutch was due for renewal in
another few thousand miles so they may as well do that whilst the
gearbox was off. Grand total - one thousand five hundred of your earth
pounds. I told them they could whistle and that I wanted my car back.
Then began the fun and games.
Another garage told me they could do the work for 1000 pounds. Another
garage wanted to have a look at it before they could give me an
estimate. Finally, a friend of Emma's mum who owns a garage said it
should probably be about five hundred notes to do the gearbox. I
decided the clutch could wait.
After much discussion with mechanically minded chaps around the office
it was decided that the best bet would be to purchase some gearbox oil
to lubricate the gears before driving the beasty anywhere. VW had
kindly dranied all the oil out of the gearbox when they performed their
inspection. Anyway, I consulted the VW owners manual to see where to
pour this oil into the mythical gearbox. No mention could I find. I
popped my head under the bonnet and had a cursory glance around but in
my mechanically moronic mind I couldn't see anything with big blinking
neon lights saying insert gearbox fluid here. So I didn't.
It was with a certain amount of trepidation that Emma and I climbed into
the car to begin the 22 mile journey down the motorway to Park Motors.
The gearbox whined a little as we passed over the roadwork bejewelled
Thelwall Viaduct on the M6 but my little baby eventually made it to the
garage.
On the following Monday I telephoned the garage and spoke to the owner.
It was his opinion that there really was bugger all wrong with the
gearbox and that if it were his car then he'd just lob some more oil in
and see what happens. In the defence of VW mechanics he suggested that
when the oil was drained then whatever was floating around in the
gearbox and causing the problems probably got drained away at the same
time. So I told him to put some new oil in it and I'm off to pick it up
this afternoon.
This morning I joined the AA and made a 48 pound payment so that should
anything go wrong with my car in the future then the AA will kindly pay
the first 500 quid of any resultant garage bills, which is nice of them.
However their generosity only begins 14 days after membership begins.
So if my new found mechanic friend proves to be mistaken and the gearbox
is indeed cabbaged then I just hope it stays un-cabbaged for the next 14
days.
Darren "Mecha-phobe" Steele.
Goodbye cruel world : 26th November 2002
It's been two months since I've bothered writing anything here and the only reason I'm bothering today is due to me kinda giving away the fact that the place still exists to one of my colleagues.
The subject of this message relates to my impending visit to the hospital so that some blood soaked butcher with a maniacal grin can take a scalpel to my mouth and do some work on one of my teeth. I don't mind telling you dear reader....I'm fucking petrified. Ooooh, I do like being able to swear on this site :)
As for the rest of my life, still drinking too much, still trying to give up smoking [ three days off the fags at the moment ], still trying to get some money together and still spending half of my life over in Cergy.
OK, so I couldn't completely destroy all my hard work : 25th September 2002
Well since you're reading this you've either gotten lucky and your pointer happens to have wandered over the hidden link, or you've "used the source Luke" or perhaps I just told you about the hidden link. Whichever it is, welcome back.
There's really nothing new been added into this site as I've just spent the past two weeks working in California, after which I was in the office for one day before heading off for a fortnight in a little town just outside Paris, Cergy to be precise.
In case you're interested - some of my tomatos went red the other day and Emma and I scoffed them along with the only onion that I have thus far harvested. They were lovely indeed. The reason the rest of my food hasn't been harvested is due to me not being in the fucking country for more than five minutes before I get shipped off somewhere else. Ooooh, I can swear now that this site isn't in plain view. Fuck, fuck, cunty, twat, balls. Feels goooooooooooooooooood! ;)
Almost forgot to mention - first person to e-mail me with the magic password of "what hoh biffer, I believe my ring piece is aflame due to some hard boy on boy action" wins a pint....errrr, or half a bitter shandy if it's Huxxy ;)
Goodbye Happiness : 8th August 2002
In the traditional manner of announcement I'm bidding farewell
to the days of getting up late, leisurely breakfasts and afternoon installments of Spin City. I
must admit I'm not too concerned about the last part as they've started to repeat. Yes, that's
right my dear readers I am once more gainfully employed. My soul has been sold to the hi-tech company
XXXXXX. Sadly I have to censor the name for fear of a stock price crash when word gets out that
I'll be writing the software for them :)
As of Monday 12th August my sorry arse will be suited and booted and making the short journey to
my place of full time employment. No more contracting for me, it's back to the purgatory of
permanence as it's often known in contracting circles. I am admittedly very happy to be a permie
once again as I was getting a trifle pissed off with hopping from job to job and being given menial
tasks to do. Also with the contract market the way it is in the UK I'm doubly happy.
Another one bites the dust : 6th August 2002
It was touch and go whether I attended Dash and Sheanna's wedding but in the end I made it
thanks to Nigel and Joany's kind offer of a bit of floorspace for me to crash on afterwards.
The day was fan-flippin-tastic and I met up with loads of people I haven't seen for far too long
and met plenty of new people that I liked immensely. The fact that the entire night after the
main course was served is a mystery to me just made reviewing the
pictures even more fun. Nigey is adamant that the two of us popped
into the gents with the disposal camera for the obligatory nob shot but I personally have no
recollections of this, furthermore I firmly believe that as I am now a mature and responsible adult
I wouldn't have taken part in such juvenile behaviour. Anyway, I expect that Dash will get the pics
up on his homepage when he gets back from swanning
around the Carribean so then we'll all know.
The day after the wedding Dave, Luke and Caroline popped around to Nigey's on the way home and we
all ate a smashing Sunday lunch lovingly crafted by Nigey-boy-wondercook. Myself, Nigey and Tony
went down to the old Bradley Stoke Battle Cruiser and sank a few pints of the good Stellington.
I eventually made it home at about 3pm on the Monday. Smashing :)
Other than all that my life has been the usual roller coaster ride of loose women, fast cars and
multi million pound high finance deals. Yeah roight, here's some picks of my
organic weggie patch.
Not a sausage : 19th July 2002
Nothing much worth reporting this week I'm afraid. Emma and I did a huuuuge walk on Saturday
from our house to Tatton Park where we stopped for a picnic for a while. We then walked on
to Knutsford and then caught the train back up to Hale. We reckon it was about 6 miles, which is
pretty damned impressive.
My attempts to lose weight have been pretty good. I've managed to massively cut down on my beer
intake and I hardly ever eat bread any more. Having said that though I've still got a beer
gut, one can't expect miracles over night can one.
As usual there are some new piccies of my vegetable patch in the onion
section.
Fame : 10th July 2002
Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been almost three weeks since an update of any kind
has been posted to this site....my where does the time go?
So as not to bore you with all the details of my mundane life, here are a few highlights.....
27th June 2002 - a mad dash to Olde London village was required to deliver a package to a central
London location. Actually, when I say a mad dash I should probably clarify this a little. The
mad dash took me as far as the North Circular, following which it became a frantic crawl through
the gridlocked streets of our fine filthy, smelly, overpopulated, vermin infested, noisy,
where-the-by-buggery-have-all-the-trees-and-grass-gone, pretentious, poncy capital city. Man I love
London...yeah roight! Seven hours to go from Manchester to Wood Lane which according to
my trip computer generated an average speed of 31mph. Wonderful. After such a tiresome
journey it seemed only reasonable to pop out for a few beers with Herr Howarth in Acton.
The Mill Hill is a fine boozer indeed.
1st/2nd July 2002 - as Jazmund had a couple of days off and as my wohman was residing in
Scarborough for a couple of days I decide to hop into the batmobile and pop down to the Metropolis.
It was quite a cool trip as one of the days was spent visiting a bunch of places I used to live, and
Jaz and I used to drink in. Jolly good fun was had by all.
5th July 2002 - had an interview at BNFL Instrumentation...didn't get it.
9th July 2002 - This day is the reason for my springing gazelle like back into action and updating
this piece of crap website. My friend Sharon works on some TV production thingy and a while ago she
asked me if I fancied being an extra on the shoot. Needless to say I was a little coy at
first, you know me - never one to want to hog the limelight and all that. After several
nano-seconds of contemplation I acquiesced and began practiscing my acting abilities.
The shoot was taking place at Bury General Hospital and I had to be there at a ridiculously early
time of 7.15 AAAAAMMMM. This necessitated a "get your fat hairy arse out of bed" alarm setting of
something ridiculous like 5.45. It was light at that time kids, just in case anyone was wondering.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I had a smashing day of hanging around drinking tea,
chatting with plenty of interesting people and standing about 30cms from Lisa Faulkner and Mel B.
Needless to say as soon as I stepped foot on set the two of them started fighting over which one
of them was to be the future Mrs Steele and then.....hmmmm. If any of you ever get to see "Burn It"
which is appearing on BBC Choice in Oct/Nov this year - and then possibly on BBC2 sometime after that
then I'm in two scenes.
Scene 1: Lisa and Mel [ first name terms now you know ] are walking toward the camera and a male
nurse is pushing a wheelchair bound patient away from the camera. In the background I walk away
from the camera and hold open a door for a couple of other nurses.
Scene 2: Lisa Faulkner is pushing a wheelchair bound patient who is talking about Tenerife toward
the camera. A little way through the old mans dialogue I, along with amother chap, will walk from
the a corridor on the left side of the background, to a corridor on the right side of the background.
In both instances blink and you'll miss me. Still, next step will be me playing ummm Luke Skywalker
or something I reckon. Still, I had a fantastic full english breakfast, pork, chips and peas for
lunch and finally some sandwiches and cakes at 6pm. The day itself was really good fun and I met
loads of fun and interesting people. I reckon I might sign on with some agency and then get myself
on Coronation Street or something. This could be a whole new career beckoning me...as sadly it
seems that the software engineering industry is disappearing up it's own anus.
Other than that I've also considered a career as a face-painter.
Needless to say the tiger masterpiece on my face was done by Emma, whereas the err mouse or rabbit
or whatever it was supposed to be was daubed on Emma's face by myself. Perhaps on closer inspection
I should leave the face painting alone.
Like a phoenix : 21st June 2002
My initial statement of steeley.co.uk in 'rm -rf' shocker was on the whole true. However,
it severely pissed me off that none of the backups I'd performed had any of my website
stuff on so I decided to reanimate the SCSI hard drive that has the data on. Most of the
dynamic PHP based site was still present so I'll work on turning that into a static site soon,
but for the time being my old old site can be found here.
This site was pretty much put together whilst I was living in Germany and chronicles that year or
so of my life. Ahhhhh, a trip down memory lane indeed.
Health week : 20th June 2002
Following the slew of comments I've been receiving from around the world regarding my lardiness
I've decided to do something about it. I've become the man I've always hated...a jogger that has
cut down on beer and given up on fags. I believe Adam, of Adam and the Ants fame put it quite
aptly.."Don't drink, don't smoke, don't eat fatty foods, don't nasally ingest Class A pharmaceuticals -
what do you do?". So after more or less a week of this shit what have I accomplished? I've gained
a pound. Jesus!
Other than that there has been pretty much sweet f.a. happenning in my life. Ummm, watched Spiderman
which was good, errrrr that'll be it. Just for the record, my current giving up on smoking began on
Saturday 15th June 2001 at about 8.30pm. Haven't had a single one yet. Come on you steeley...
If you follow the link at the end of this paragraph then it'll take you to an amusing page that I
ripped off from beta. A word of warning, don't click it if you're
easily offended. Don't click it if there are people around you as noise will come blasting from your
machine. Don't click it if your boss is unable to see the funny side of things. Ummm, listen kids - just
don't click it! However, having said all that - I bet everyone wants to click it.
It's a hangover Jim, but not as we know it : 13th June 2002
On Thursday Emma and I along with Dawn and Ed wandered down to the Stamford Arms to do the quiz.
We performed pitifully badly on the quiz but scored highly on the number of pints of Kronenburg
consumed. Upon returning home and climbing into bed the room was doing an excellent impression
of a roundabout and I had to get up. I lay in the living room for a while trying to focus
on the TV before relocating to the bathroom where I lay naked on the floor for a while. I really
haven't felt that bad in a loooooong time.
Friday was of course the day that England beat the Argies 1:0. Emma and I headed for the Stamford
to watch the match. We walked in, noticed that the bar was 5 deep with people and walked out again.
Saturday was the day of my Uncle Christophers wedding to Alison and
once again much alcohol was consumed.
On Sunday I woke up with a horrible horrible hangover and Emma and I had to attend a christening
in Orrell. I felt bloody awful, but a couple of pints at the reception soon sorted me out.
On Monday I hooned it down the M6 to Laaaandan where I met up with Jaz for a few beers. The highpoint
of this meeting has got to be me beating Jaz 7:6 at pool in the Mill Hill pub, Acton. It's the
first time in my entire life that I've whupped Jaz in a pool tournament. A happy day indeed.
The reason I was in London was due to an interview I had in Fleet on the Tuesday. As per usual
I made a complete arse of it and didn't get the job. Ho hum.
Wednesday's consumption was a couple of bottles of wine kindly provided by Mr EJ Gallo courtesy of
Jaz.
To summarise, it's been a belly busting beer drinking extravaganza and my beer belly really is
coming on well.....must drink less...must drink less.
A new feature I'd like to introduce to this beloved site is a "Sender of the most insulting and
cheeky e-mail of the week to which the only reply will be a slow and agonisingly painful death
for the sender". The prime candidate this week is my little cousin Louise. She will surely die
upon our next encounter.
From: Louise Wignall <namechanged@to.protect.the.soon.to.die.com>
To: green-fingers@steeley.co.uk
Subject: hello
Hello Darren and Emma,
This was the only email address i could find on your
site and what a weird yet wonderful site it is, WELL DONE!
It was good to see you both at the wedding and Helen and Rachael both say Hi.
Obviously you have put on a bit of weight and there is no point me telling
you not to worry about it because there is cause for concern. You are getting
older and puppy fat at your age tends to be permanent, also, Emma may decide
to find an alternative, slimmer, younger model and what would you do then?
Dont be offended, im sure your not, because nobody is perfect, well maybe
no one apart from Jack O'Neill! If you have an alternative email address
which you would prefer i sent to please email me with it.
Rachaels email is deleted@yahoo.co.uk
later,
Louise
Hippy Hippy Shakes : 6th June 2002
All day drinking on Friday due to Debbie and Lees wedding. All day drinking on Saturday
due to pub lunch followed by Junes 40th birthday BBQ. Hippy hippy shakes on Sunday. I didn't
even make it to the boozer to watch Englands pitiful performance against Sweden.
Blimey : 30th May 2002
The rant below about how our American [ slightly backward ] cousins were messing up the
world seems to be unfounded. The Americans seem to have rejected CARP. My my,
will wonders never cease.
Onto more intersting stuff. Many of the people visiting this site will undoubtedly
be aware of the legendary film of ill-repute titled "Debbie does Dallas". Well we
here at steeley.co.uk are proud to bring highlights of the follow up which
is "Debbie does Ashton-in-Makerfield".
As for my life there's not been too much happening really except for the arrival of my first
baby boy. He came in weighing about 1 pound and the Sky Digital installation man took about
40 mins to deliver him. Father and son are both doing well. Stargate and myself are reunited
once more. Heaven. One of the conditions of having it installed is that we had to subscribe to
the full Sky-Digital package so that'll be movies, sports, and all that nonsense.
If anyone out there wants to come around to mine to watch the all the sports stuff then I'll
be happy to explain that I'd rather place my "owd fella" into the hands of a lunatic brandishing
scissors than have my TV sullied with the likes of SkySports1. As soon as the first month is
over the sports will be the first up against the wall.....along with the movies - cos they're crap.
Rantings : 16th May 2002
Now most of you people reading this will know me and my opinions regarding our linguistically challenged
colonial cousins across the pond so I won't bore you with the old Why I hate Americans stuff. However
today I feel like having a rant about internet freedom and indeed freedom of speech in general. Below is an excerpt from
www.saveinternetradio.org which is trying to fight against the big music stations attempts
to close them down. They will of course fail miserably as all governments in the world seem to be putting the wishes of the minority
that have very deep pockets before the wishes of the people they are supposed to represent.
It's a story that is being repeated far too often in the world today. Websites are being closed down left right and centre due to
litigation by corporations who don't like what is being written about them. The European Union is constantly passing idiotic
laws [ the EUCD for one ] that are undermining the rights of the people to do exactly what they
want with things they own. Anyway, enough of my rantings, I'll just summarise by saying the EU, the British government and the idiotic
government of America are passing bills and legislation that have very very far reaching effects and they really haven't thought things
through. Tits.
America's fledgling Internet radio industry could be effectively
killed on May 21st if the Librarian
of Congress (1) accepts the recommendations of
its recent Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP")
concerning Internet radio royalty rates
and (2) sets impossibly-complex recordkeeping requirements.
Congress passed a law in October, 1998, called the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act (DMCA) which established that webcasters must pay royalties
to record labels for the music they play. However,
the CARP's recommended royalty rates are currently more
than 200% of most Webcasters' gross revenues!
If Copyright Office accepts
the CARP's recommendation, most observers believe that the decision will
effectively kill Internet radio, as
the retroactively-owed fees would bankrupt all but the very largest Internet-only
webcasters (and would probably trigger the shutdown of most broadcast stations'
Web simulcasts, including almost all the educational and community stations
).
Mailbag : 3rd May 2002
I see my mission to turn us into a nation of vegetable growers is slowly becoming a success. Following this mail from Huxxy which
was copied far and wide around the globe my web site had literally ummm 6 hits from virtually all over SE England. Come on you Steeley.
From: Steve Huxford <steve.huxford@sodoff.com>
To: get_a_job_you_lazy_tosser@steeley.co.uk
Subject: http://www.steeley.co.uk
Steeley,
So this is what happens when you drink too much stella? Pictures
of onions growing.
Two words.....'kin.....'ell!!!
Cheers,
Hux
If any of you non-green fingered people need advice on growing things then I'd be happy to help you out with all your
gardening problems. Simply pop an e-mail to green-fingers@steeley.co.uk and it'll be sure to be published in my future
section which will be titled something like "Gardening problems by Steele" and remember, in the immortal words of Mr Garrison -
"there are no stupid questions, only stupid people".
Lord why do you hate me so : 1st May 2002
I don't ask for much really, a steady supply of tea, the occasional alcoholic beverage and my daily dose of Stargate. The tea and
alcohol are thankfully still plentiful - but due to the collapse of ITV Digital my daily dose of Stargate has been stolen from me.
What's a boy supposed to do between 11.30 and 12.30 now?
Just call me Tom : Updated 9th May 2002
This stuff has been moved to the magical growing onions section.
Pictures of stuff
Obviously I've been using my time well :) - This picture will only mean anything to the people that used to live at the YMCA with me - steeley is the Image Fight god!!!
A few pictures taken on Emma's birthday
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