For those of you who have stumbled here by mistake, this is just my archive of old posts from Vox.
My real blog is at http://www.kingofankh.co.uk
Hope to see you there 😀
A Photo I am Proud Of
Posted in Uncategorized on 25/08/2010 by KingOfAnkhI follow quite a few Twitters who blog, many of them are mummy blogs, I suppose this is to be expected when you are of my age, you tend to follow people your own age and most people I know are busy raising families, unlike me, I'd rather be living my own life than raising someone else. Anyhow…
Each Wednesday many of these cool bloggers have a photo post entitled The Gallery, I'm sure it has many rules and regulations which I have no idea about, but this weeks topic was an interesting one I felt. A photo that you are proud of.
It got me thinking about many of the photos in my collection, which one would I choose? So I diligently scoured through all of my photos trying to pick out a photo I like. It's much harder than you think. I kept thinking this is the one, then I'd stumble across another.
So rather than post just one like they all have, I'm going to post a few with the reasons, then choose an overall winner.
Here goes.
I know, you are all thinking "Bloody hell, that's KoA with two naked ladies!"
Well, yes it is. It's possibly the only photo of me where I'm actually really smiling and not pulling a silly face.
It was also at a time of my life when I was very happy, I was running a busy town centre pub and nightclub at the time and such evenings were a regular occurrence.
I suppose this is almost every man's dream, two naked women sitting on your lap. Bit tacky and unbecoming for someone of my moral stature, but you know, a man has to do what a man has to do!
Besides, who could refuse having a boob that size stuck in your face?
I did have a slight panic moment when they sat down on me though, I didn't know what to do with my hands, you know how it is, are you allowed to touch porn stars? Will their bodyguards who were carrying guns get annoyed if I made the most of the moment?
I eventually decided to just go with the flow. 😀
The second one was taken by an old workmate of mine. That's me about 200ft in the air, desperately trying to keep the shit from leaving my rectum. And before you ask, yes, I did manage to keep myself unsoiled.
It's possibly the most scary thing I have ever done, much worse than the car crash that left my car a total mess, much worse than stopping a twenty man pub brawl, even scarier than meeting your new girlfriends parents!
Why on earth did I do it? It was for charity mate!
That word, charity, makes people sit in a bath of beans for hours on end, it even made me, someone who is not comfortable with heights, jump out of a perfectly good cage on top of a towering crane with nothing more below me than asphalt. Stupid stupid stupid!
Never again I say, I still have nightmares about it. Although I did raise over five hundred pounds for a charity that looks after parents with children with liver problems, which is a cause that is close to my heart.
The third is a photo taken by me, last year I believe. This is a view from my garden, well, when I say view, it's what you can see through the gap inbetween the houses scattered all around me, and when I say garden, I mean the patch of weeds that demands strimming a couple of times a year.
I love the colours and the atmosphere I managed to capture here. From memory this was very early on an Autumn morning, I have no idea what I was doing up and about at 5am, I most likely needed a pee in the night and saw what was going on outside and grabbed the camera.
What is most amazing is that is turned out pretty cool looking, even though I was most likely half asleep and hungover. You simply cannot keep the creative side of me down 😛
I will admit that I have enhanced it slightly with Photoshop, but not much, only burning in the furthest horizon a little more to bring out the tree line.
I like it, that is all.
On to number four..
Taken by my ex, I rather like this look on me. "Is that you KoA?" I hear you ask, yes it is.
A bit of fun on Christmas Day a few years ago, I'd had a few beers, then decided that a mohawk would be a good idea, so my good friend Lorna and my ex set to work.
I was already growing the facial hair to scare my mum for when I visited for Christmas, the end result made sure that a small cardiac arrest was achieved.
I'm considering having it done again, I rather enjoyed the attention it brought, plus a lot of people feel intimidated by it all, which is a good thing in my book, you certainly don't want too many people hovering around you all the time.
So, the winner is?
This little effort by me a few years ago.
A newborn chick, newly fallen from its nest looking for an escape.
It's not a fantastic photo by a long shot, but I like it, even more so considering I was about 20ft away using 10x digital zoom on top of the 10x optical.
It surprisingly turned out sharp enough to see the uncertainty in the birds eyes.
Well, there you go. I hope you like them as much as I do. If not, you can leave nasty comments for me instead 😀
More Exposure
Posted in Uncategorized on 23/08/2010 by KingOfAnkhI know what you are thinking, he’s got his willy out again! Nope. well, not this time anyway.
I have decided to post my blog entries over four different services, namely WordPress, Blogger, Vox and Tumblr. All the posts will be identical, so there is no need to go hunting down these blogs, I just wanted to spread my wings a little.
Having already lost much of my writing due to uncertainties at other blogging platforms, i.e. Modblog & EFX2, and having heard some disquieting roumors about Vox, I thought I’d hedge my bets with more than just one service.
Luckily WordPress allows you to import all of your old posts and comments from Vox, so I now have a duplicate blog over there, Blogger and Tumblr are just another couple of back-ups for my future posts, but since I now have a few friends that blog at those services it will make it easier for us to follow each other.
So, in order to make this transition easier I hunted around for a blogging client that had the ability to multicast onto different blog services simultaneously, this was much harder to achieve than you think as all the programs I trialled don’t offer this feature! Rather odd when you think about it, I know quite a few people who have blogs with different services and such a client would be a godsend, it would at least save a lot of bother with copy and paste.
So I have finally settled with MarsEdit, although I cant multicast I can at least click a couple of buttons and it more or less does the same thing. So it saves me from having to visit four different sites and having to manually paste in a post 😀
Here’s a picture, because I wanted to test out the media uploader 😀
Don’t worry, I won’t be leaving Vox any time soon though, I much prefer the community aspect of blogging over here, plus I’m used to things being the way they are and I hate too much change in one go. Plus I love the amount of dictatorial control I have over here.
For those of you who are complete OCD about links, here are the links to all my blogs. But regardless of where I am, I will always have my domain http://www.kingofankh.co.uk/ that will always point you towards my main blog.
https://kingofankh.wordpress.com/
http://kingofankh.blogspot.com/
So, here goes, my first post from MarsEdit to various platforms, I hope it goes well.
Boop!
Posted in Uncategorized on 20/08/2010 by KingOfAnkhI haven't posted a drunken post in ages, mainly because it's not a good thing to do, and also I have not been able to get to the right stage of drunkenness to post anything. But this evening is different…
I was thinking about religion, as you do, especially when you are listening to 'You're The One That I Want' by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John.
I know, I have strange tastes in erectile music… I'm not even sure if I fancy her or him… 
Mind you, if you have to be sown into your suit, there's a lot to be said about ripping it off…
Mind you, if you have to be sown into your suit, there's a lot to be said about ripping it off…Anyhow, back to the religion bit. For those of us who don't follow a religion and keep in touch with what is going on, the Age of Aquarius is pretty much upon us. A cycle that is about 2500 years, we know this because the precession of the equinoxes are simple to measure. We are/were in the Age of Pisces, a Christian Age, where Christianity has overtaken all, much to the detriment of mankind in my opinion.
It's no accident that Christians use the symbol of the fish to denote their beliefs, Christianity is very much a solar belief. The resurrection is nothing more than a symbol for the renewal of the astrological year, the Three Kings, nothing more than the stars in Orion's belt.. etc.. I could go on…
So I was thinking, at each Age we might need a change, and before each change humanity goes through a huge upheaval. We are pretty close to finding logic and science as a new 'religion'; do you think my way?
Will the Age of Aquarius be a technological awakening? Will we strip away this archaic belief in a god? I hope so.
Spoon
Posted in Uncategorized on 15/08/2010 by KingOfAnkhI finally finished carving my spoon, I'm actually quite impressed, even if I do say so myself. I didn't expect to get such a good result. I suppose I should take on something a bit more demanding next time.
Not bad eh? From a little bit of wood I have managed to make a serviceable utensil.
It took me much longer than I expected though as my crook knife isn't as sharp as it should be, I need to find some way of getting a better edge on it somehow, which wont be easy due to the shape of it.
As I predicted, I did manage to stab myself whilst making it, it bled like a bitch for about four hours and the gash in an awkward place so it keeps opening up now and again. *sigh* I'm sure that I will survive though.
So, onwards and upwards to the next project, which I have decided should be a folding buck saw, a simple construction so that I can stow it away in a rucksack for when I'm going searching for wood.
So, what do you think of my first foray into woodcarving?
I am Alive!
Posted in Uncategorized on 10/08/2010 by KingOfAnkhSorry Voxers, I have not updated for nearly a month, no reason for it, I've just had nothing much to say, plus I have been keeping away from the internet as much as I could because I was getting slightly bored with it all.
Not much to share with you all. Fundy visited the UK and we had a few piss ups, notably the huge one in Bath, a wonderful city, something I would love to do again in the near future.
I have mostly been spending my time watching documentaries, quite a lot of Ray Mears stuff, so much so that I decided to splash out and buy a crook knife.
What the hell is a crook knife I hear you ask. Well, look at the picture.
Its basically a bent knife that is used for carving bowls and spoons, or if you are very adventurous and have a lot of time, you could build a canoe with one. I doubt I'll ever go that far, but you never know.
The one I have is almost exactly the same as the one pictured, but mine is double bladed so I can use both sides/hands to carve.
Having done my homework on such things I have been reliably informed that the Swedish are the best at making these knives so I bought a Frost Mora from Sweden, looks pretty much like a top quality jobbie to me, but I know nothing about these things.
I also splashed out on another knife, this one is meant for fine detailed work in the carving.
It looks rather lethal, but the blade is perhaps an inch and a half, but razor sharp, so I suspect that I will end up sticking it through my hand one day.
So, why did I buy these things? Good question. I'm bored all day, I literally have nothing to do most of the time so I thought I'd try my hand at carving traditional bowls and spoons, which used to be a traditional Welsh pastime. The Welsh are renowned for carving love spoons, although I don't think I'll be carving anything like that at the moment, I'm more interested in usable items.
My first project will be a simple wooden spoon to use in the kitchen, after I have mastered the technique of using the knife I thought I'd have a go at a Kuksa, which is a traditional Scandinavian drinking bowl made out of a Birch burl.
I think the greatest challenge of carving a Kuksa is actually finding a birch burl to begin with, I guess I'll just have to walk through as much forest as I can until I find one that fits the bill.
I really like the simple design of the one pictured, I doubt I'll be able to achieve such an excellent finish first time around, but I'll do my best and see how we go.
I'm sure I'll be sharing my meagre efforts with you all in the near future.
If anyone has any hints and tips I should hear about, please share your knowledge in the comments as I am 100% new to this. Cheers! 😀
Sympathy In All the Wrong Places
Posted in Uncategorized on 14/07/2010 by KingOfAnkhAgain the media is getting on my proverbial titties.
There have been two high profile gun murders recently in the north of England, one was a guy who snapped and went on a shooting rampage and the other was a guy with a grudge who shot the mother of his child and killed her new boyfriend, then went on to shoot an unarmed policeman in the face whilst he was sitting in his car.
Both individuals met their end by their own hand and for some reason the media are portraying them as victims of the brutal police force. So much so that independent investigations are being held to see if the police could have been negligent in how they dealt with the situations.
Personally, I think these bastards were cold blooded murderers. Once they had shot someone they no longer had human rights in my view. They should be hunted down like rabid dogs and put down by any means necessary, either by slow electrocution or a simple sniper shot to the head. They never had any mercy for the people they killed or hurt, so why should we have any sympathy for them?
I know I'm not alone in thinking this way, even David Cameron, our new leader, took a few minutes during Prime Minister's Question Time to say how exasperated he was with the media's representation of these killers. I don't like Cameron, but I like his straight talking on subjects like this. You have to have some respect for a politician who has the balls to say what he thinks rather than let the spin doctors hold him back.
Even showing sympathy towards the family of such men is a bit nerve grating to me; if any of my siblings or children went on a killing spree, I'd be the one to make sure they were sitting in the execution chair with my finger on the 'die you punk' button.
Instead of trying to find sympathy I'd be too ashamed of being related to such a person. I certainly wouldn't go on TV extolling the virtues of my murderous family member.
I simply cannot understand how the people who commit crime have been able to turn the tables on honest decent folk. They are not the victims, we are. Everyone needs to remember that.
I Write Like…
Posted in Uncategorized on 13/07/2010 by KingOfAnkhI've noticed a few bloggers have had a punt on this little thing, so I thought I'd share my results too.
However, not to be pigeonholed by just one of my posts, I took a broad selection of my favourite pieces of writing over the last couple of years and a few other posts to get an average.
Apparently the writer whose style I most resemble is
Followed by
I write like
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
With a bit of
I write like
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
And one of my favourite pieces of writing got
I write like
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
Now, I don't know much about Joyce or Cooper, other than they wrote some very well known classics. I have not read any of their books so I don't know if my writing style is anything like them whatsoever, maybe one or two of you can make the distinction for me.
I like the fact that Douglas Adams popped up a few times, he is one of my favourite writers, so I'm a bit chuffed about that. I think perhaps the reason he popped up is due to a few tech posts I have written with a little bit of sarcasm thrown in.
All in all an interesting half an hour spent, now I need to find a copy of Ulysses…
Impromptu Camping Trip
Posted in Uncategorized on 11/07/2010 by KingOfAnkhLast Wednesday, when we were down the pub talking a lot of rubbish as usual @SmilingGrump suggested we should go out camping so he could use his new tent he was going to get for his upcoming birthday.
What a fabulous idea we both thought at the time, lets do it! We decided that Symonds Yat would be ideal as the river Wye is a nice and quiet river to go canoeing on.
Usually what happens then is that we both forget everything about it and three weeks after the event one of us would pipe up and say 'what happened to that trip we were planning then?'
Anyhow, on this occasion Lee actually got his telephone finger into gear and found us a campsite with only two days notice. Fair play!
Alas, according to the booking people there was absolutely no way that we would be able to book a canoe to go down the river. Not to be put off this, Lee actually went out and bought an inflatable canoe…
So off we went on our little weekend outing. A Friday evening run of the gauntlet to get to the campsite by 7pm, what we both didn't leave time for was the fact the Sat Nav was bloody useless and the roads around where we were going were built for horses not for cars, so we got pretty lost and only found the place after a few phonecalls. Turns out we drove past the place and it was as easy to find as the nose on my face, we just thought it looked too large to be the place we booked.
Anyhow, we got there and booked in, then we both had the task of putting up a brand new tent that neither of us knew anything about.
Obviously it came with instructions that would make sense to an alien from Gamma Centurii, but to a couple of technically minded blokes it made no sense whatsoever.
After two hours of figuring it out, we were finally able to put the final tent peg in.
As you can see, it was getting pretty late by the time we finished and neither of us had eaten yet, so Lee jumped in the car to find us a quick bite to eat whilst I put the finishing touches to our accommodation for the weekend.
He actually came back with a couple of kebabs, what a star!
So we settled down under the stars and shared a couple of bottles of wine and the first evening of camping was over.
I had forgotten how badly Lee snores, so my first night was a bit of a 'mare, I eventually went as far as to sleep in the storage area to be as far away as possible from him.
The next day we both got up reasonably early, decided to get some supplies from a nearby supermarket, Lee had a bust up with a woman in a garage about a non-working iPhone charger she wouldn't refund for, which eventually ended up with us making 1p.
The next thing to do was test out the new canoe, and after blowing it up, we were both reasonably impressed with the quality of it. It was also a bonus that the shop had inadvertently given him the next model up, which was larger and much more expensive, so we had a decent boat to go on the river with. Alas I wish I could say the same about the oars.
I can only describe them as being the same size as teaspoons and with the rowing power of a pair of testicles dipped in brine.
Not to be put off, we did manage to get onto the river after paying our launching fee and after ten minutes of going around in circles we both managed to row in tandem at last and made our way upriver.
I must admit I didn't do as much rowing as Lee, I got pretty tired very quickly, I seem to be more out of shape than I thought. But we managed to get about half a mile upriver before we reached some rapids and then turned back.
Even knowing that there was a shallow area, and having laughed at a couple of canoeists beaching themselves on there earlier, we managed to do the same ourselves as well. Luckily the boat was tough enough to take it.
Having made it back onto dry land without too many mishaps, I was amazed that neither of us fell in.
We then decided to take to the country roads to find local refreshments, i.e. go to the pubs around the area and sample all the dirty cider on offer.
I must say that all the pubs we went to were really nice.
Luckily our little adventure trying to find the campsite the previous day also unearthed a few places we wanted to pay a visit to, we were obviously just popping in to see if the menu was up to standard, but it would be rude to just walk into a pub and walk out again without buying something 🙂
We managed two pubs in quick succession on our walk, The Wye Knot Inn and Ye Olde Ferrie Inn.
The lovely part of Ye Olde Ferrie Inn was the fact they still had a human powered ferry to get us across the river to our next pub. At the cost of £1 each we were able to traverse the river, expertly dragged across by our trusty Albanian ferryman. Sort of took the magic away not having a yokel as a ferryman, but still a nice experience.
Apparently there is no other way to cross the river at this point, the nearest bridge is five miles away, so this uniquely quaint method was a great laugh.
Our next destination was The Saracens Head, very busy place and it had a big group of Bristolian nurses on a bender, all celebrating a 65th birthday party. You can imagine how it was, all of them pretty much off their tits drunk and loving the sound of their own voices, but it was funny to watch them almost falling out of the ferry.
By this time we had pretty much decided that we were going back to the Wye Knot Inn for our meal, which was an amazing decision as the food was out of this world. My starter of grilled goats cheese was to die for, I simply could not shovel it into my mouth quick enough, it was that tasty.
The funny thing is, by this time we were both flagging a bit, so we decided to head back to the campsite, which had really turned itself from a nice family orientated place to a chav meat market. I have no idea where the wretched hive of scum and villainy had arisen from, but they kept themselves to themselves so I suppose I can't say much about that.
We finished off the day by drinking a bit more wine under the stars, which I have to mention, that I have not seen the stars so bright and clear in years.
The nights sleep wasn't too broken up for me this time, I suppose my tiredness and all the fresh air had made sure that my ears would not disturb my slumber.
I awoke in the morning to a pretty achy body, for some reason canoeing really takes it out of your groin area. Don't ask me why, but both of us were complaining of the same aches and pains, so it had to be something to do with the rowing action.
A Full English Breakfast was in order, so we had one. Yum!
The rest was pretty uneventful, mainly walking about, then putting all the gear away, ready for the next time.
All in all a pretty good weekend.
And just to finish off, here are a few more photos for you to look over.
Another Minor Disaster
Posted in Uncategorized on 07/07/2010 by KingOfAnkhWell, if it doesn't rain, it pours.
I went outside today to find someone had smashed the window of my car to smithereens. Initially it looked like a typical smash and grab as the back seats were lowered so they could have a look to see what was in the boot and it looked like they had rooted around everywhere else to see if there was anything valuable.
Not to be discouraged about it, I just said 'Sod it!', and walked to the supermarket anyway.
Anyhow, on returning I bumped into my opposite flats landlord, so I asked if they heard anything so I could report it to the police with a reasonable time window as I'd not heard a thing.
She had a very guilty look on her face and said that they had been looking for the owner of the car for weeks and wanted it moved because they have new tenants moving in soon, so they smashed the window in order to try and move it. Obviously not mentioning the fact that they could have knocked on my door at any time to ask who's it was, nor the fact that my car is parked in one of the several parking allotments that my block is allowed to use.
Apparently they had been asking 'everyone' in the neighbourhood who's it was, nobody knew. I suspect 'everyone' is the resident drugged up arsehole who lives a few doors down as he's the only person who is in during the daytime. Him and I don't get on for obvious reasons, so it's no surprise he kept his mouth shut.
It's very lucky I bumped into these people actually, as they had booked my car to be towed away on Friday, in fact they were going to make a nice little profit on it, £300 in scrap value.
It slightly irks me as I have a potential buyer for the car and now I have to fork out and have the window fixed and then chase these people up to repay me for the criminal damaged they have caused.
I have a good mind to report them to the police just to piss them off, but I'll try to keep it amicable until I have their money in my hand.
I'm trying my best to be upbeat and positive, but by all that is holy and scientific, there is definitely an evil guardian angel up there wringing its nasty, vile, little hands at all the fun he's having with my life at the moment.
Surely I deserve a break by now…
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