Personally I call them "Mildly Perilous Schemes".

Here are some stories concerning my brother:

Once, my brother caught a mouse in our garden shed. Instead of releasing it over the garden fence for one of our neighbours to worry about, he swung it by the tail and smacked it into a house brick.

Once, my brother found a wasp in a comatose state. By using a set of tweezers, he was able to successfully separate the head from the thorax. He found that by applying light pressure to the thorax, he could coax the stinging mechanism out of it's casing. He used this technique to sting the wasp's own head.

Once, my brother caught a fly and decapitated it. The head went on to live for a number of days afterwards. My brother gave it a little bit of Dairy Milk chocolate. The fly enjoyed this very much, it was visibly licking the piece of chocolate.

Once, my brother "accidentally" tripped me over when I was running indoors. I still have a noticeable scar on my chin from this incident.

Once, my brother shot me directly on my anus with an air gun. And I'm not talking about the soft fleshy buttocks.

Once, my brother pushed me out of a tree and I fell out of the tree and flat on my face. I estimate that I had fallen at a 90 degree angle, perpendicular to the floor. This would have been rather comical to anyone fortunate enough to be looking on.

I chose to join the Scotland team.

Today I had my PC moved from my old desk to my new one. I don't care much for my new desk, to be perfectly frank I am facing the wrong way. This may not seem like a great injustice, but considering that everyone else in my team faces to the West of the building, this maneuver leaves me vexed.

Fortunately I am stationed completely and utterly opposite Mr. Steven Paul Allen of Steven Paul Allen's Stories of Woe (tm). This is a small consolation, but I am sure that it will lead to a downturn in personal productivity. There's no "I" in "Team", but there is an "I" in "Ian".

Got in to work at 8:30, half an hour before I actually start. I did this in order to clear my emails and voicemails that had built up over the days that I was MIA. About 100 emails, and 5 voicemails to boot. Not good, says I.

Lunchtime was spent with Jack, discussing music and our plans to start a band. He's coming round on Saturday and we're going to see how well we "gel" musically. I hope it starts something good because I'm itching to play in a band again, I love it. Roll on Saturday.

And Friday should be good too. One of my friends is leaving work, so we're having a drinking send off for her. I relish these drinkathons, mainly because I can handle quite a bit of alcohol, and I don't get silly drunk, just happy and mellow.

All in all, it should be a nice couple of days for all of us. I am looking forward to drinking with Steven Paul Allen. I think we might be the best of drinkers. I recall last time we were having a curry and discussing whether poppadums were made out of lentils. Steve said aye, and he was right in the end.

This must be avenged.

On Monday morning I awoke and found that I had great difficulty standing up. My balance was a bit askew, and so I thought "There's nothing else for it than to visit Mr. Doctor". That's not my doctor's name.

I booked an appointment for 10:10am, which was nice. I phoned in to work to say that I had an appointment and would review the situation upon the commencement of said appointment. The appointment resulted in me being diagnosed with a rather nasty little idiot of a throat infection. I was prescribed 56 penicillin tablets (250mg each): two to be taken every four hours.

I spent the rest of the day watching TV and feeling rather sorry for myself.

First off, Sienna Miller is only famous because Jude Law used to put his dick inside her. Somehow she got picked up the media and reinvented as some sort of bohemian chic trendsetter. Well, let's be honest, she looks like she was given free reign over the local Oxfam and then proceeded to wear the worst of the worst.

But at least we've all got another day on this dying planet, thanks to Sienna turning off her phone charger. What a philanthropist.

Now then, I have seen both these films fairly recently at the cinema, but I did not care. I think "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of the greatest films ever made. Do not misconstrue the boldness of that claim, I really do enjoy it.

So when this task was completed I had a brief stint on the Xbox, and then tried to eat something for dinner. I managed but was very full, a clear sign that I am indeed sick. Since then I have eaten again so I would put my money on my condition improving.

It all started when I was 4 years old. I was sat at my desk in Reception class, when Ryan Milner picked up the two back legs of my chair and lifted them. This caused me to collapse nose first on the table without a hope in hell of being able to stop myself from face-planting on the desk. Almost instantly my nose began gushing blood, like a tap or garden hose. This, my first nosebleed, lasted for well over three hours. From this point on, nosebleeds became a regular visitor to the house that is my life.

The next memory I have was sitting in my grandparents garden on a hot summer's day. I was eating maltesers, nothing sinister here guv. All of a sudden, my nose exploded and bled for another few hours, the little blighter. These nosebleeds would only become more regular.

I can't say for sure what causes them, I would bet that it's a handful of factors: Stress, extreme temperatures and temperature changes, slight trauma to the nose... All I know is that I have good days and not so good days.

Some days I will have nosebleeds that last for hours. The longest one I can recall was four hours in duration. After this I felt very dizzy and lightheaded, probably because I had lost more blood than you would do donating the stuff. Other days my nosebleeds will not last for as long, but I will have more of them. I think my record was sixteen in one day.

I have had treatments to try to stop them. I have had my nose cauterised twice. This is where the doctor takes a soldering iron and pokes it around in your nose until he is satisfied that something has been sealed shut by the intense heat. It is difficult to receive anaesthetic for this procedure because of where the surgery takes place.

The cauterisation did not work.

I have also had a variety of cream treatments. These are difficult to apply, especially because the blood washes the cream straight out of your nose. Really quite useless in all honesty.

The nosebleeds seem to have died off a bit with age, but they still rear their ugly heads from time to time. I have been caught unawares at work a couple of times and have garnered strange looks as I rush off to the loo with blood falling out of my face and down my arms. All of this means that I am very useful with one hand. I can continue typing, playing video games, etc, even when in the grasp of a particularly messy nosebleed.

Advocate change, manifest destiny.

One day you'll accept the truth that nothing you do could possibly alter the inevitable outcome. Still, you're happy thinking that you can make a difference. Just gloss over the reality that not even a majority can ever advocate change. Sure there are examples, but why should we drag up dead memories to fulfil our theories that the people can influence the Government.

And the Government is just that, is it not? An entity resilient to public opinion; a body that operates without it's own head. There is no logic to this game, there is only a keen sense of smell to follow the stench of money wherever it may emanate from.

Politicians are now celebrities. They have always been in the spotlight, but they've never been more human. When was it that they became these fallible, flawed, flimsy media lapdogs? You're more likely to spot the Shadow Chancellor dancing on ice than around the streets of Westminster.
Advocate choice, manifest dignity.

Democracy is a tournament of lies, a league table of deception. Who's got the most "away goals" this season? I'll put my money on the man who spends more time on an aeroplane than he does fixing the problems on his own doorstep. But then it's always been easier to put a face on the blame; pin the decisions on the donkey.

His associates will be red carded from time to time, but they're as replaceable as a light bulb. When one burns out, you remove it. You throw it out. You replace it with another that burns brightly to begin with. But before long, it burns out like the others that came before it. If one smashes it's no big deal, you just clean up the mess, brush it under the rug, and put a new one in its place. They cannot afford to let this place fall dark, because there is always someone waiting in the wings to show the lost to the new light.

This one song, "Love Explosion", is very good indeed. Their lyrics have never been exactly ground-breaking, but they are good enough to make a good song even better. I think it's something to do with the music being generally happy and carefree. I listened to this song so much that when I got home late last night, after doing a couple of hours overtime, I figured out how to play it on my guitar. Then I made my own acoustic version of it which I may record at some point.

I feel that it has been a very productive week so far. I am happy with what I am doing, and I don't seem to be incurring the wrath of salespeople or customers. This is always a happy bonus.

The first rule of "Bike Club" is "You do not talk about Bike Club".

The second rule of "Bike Club" is "No undertaking".

I've never said anything like that, but if I did it would be totally fucking gnarly dude.

I'm growing my hair. Can you tell? It's gotten to the point where almost 40% of my ears are covered by my thick brown locks. This is long for me, let me iterate that point heavily. I have not had my hair long since my university days, and to be completely frank with you, I miss long hair.

At present I have to use VO5 rework stuff when my hair is wet/damp and hope it sets without looking too shit. I think I'm losing at the moment.

The only drawback of having long hair is the hasslement I get from my family. I swear, it's getting to the point where I get in from the hairdressers and my Mum says "You need a haircut". If I am to grow my hair back to it's former glory, I need to have the resolve of a champion not to let their comments distress me.

I had the day off work on Friday to recover from the late night that Explosions In The Sky had dealt me. I tagged along with the Spaniards as they were going to do some sightseeing in London. I thought I would join them, then splinter off to do some music shopping.

First of all, we saw London Bridge and Tower Bridge. Then we went to Westminster to see the Houses Of Parliament, then onwards to Whitehall. It's amazing, I've lived in and around London all my life, and I've never seen half the things that I saw yesterday. The changing of the guards at Whitehall, Pelicans in St. James' Park, Buckingham Palace... Usually when I go to London with friends, I bypass all the touristy stuff and write off the tourists as being "sad". But Friday was good because I got to see it from the perspective of a group of foreigners who had never seen the sights of London. Dimas was loving the wildlife in St. James' Park. Apparently in Spain all the animals are scared of humans, probably because the Spanish would eat them...

After Buckingham Palace, we went to lunch at Benihana. It was good, as always. Then on to Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Charing Cross... Looked at some guitars because Jesus is obsessed, much like me. Then we had a few drinks and I went off to browse some music shops in Soho.

Met up with them later on in the pouring rain, and started to make our way home. I was pretty tired, let me tell you. I went home on my own, got soaked walking up the hill. Then I watched "The Departed" and it was very very good indeed. "Very lovely" as Dimas would say in his very basic grasp of English.

Today was boring. I was supposed to go with them to the coast, but my sister decided to bring a friend so there wasn't any seats free in either car, and I couldn't be arsed to drive myself. What's the point in taking 3 cars? Such unnecessary pollution.

So instead I sat at home all day on my own, watched "Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer", a couple of "adult" films, and started watching "Walk The Line", but had to knock that on the head when my parents got back and Mum decided that she wanted to watch "You've Been Framed".

We just went out for dinner at this nice little country pub. Played darts. I won.

The support was a guy called Alexander Tucker, and he was very good indeed. Not that I was expecting him to be crap after reading about his recent All Tomorrow's Parties set, which was said to be magnificent. All he had was a guitar and a microphone and a loop station pedal. He then proceeded to make some rather "heavy" sounds, if you'll pardon the expression. Very accomplished drone-folk-rock. I shall be getting some of his stuff in the near future.

The main event themselves were outstanding. I can't really elaborate much on that, it was just outstanding. At one point this idiot jumped up on the stage, unplugged Michael James' bass, and then got dragged off by three security guards. Cue a frantic search for the unplugged cable whilst the rest of the band carried on, without half of their rhythm section. When the bass was finally re-connected, he held it aloft like a crucifix, or a spade.

I'm off to see Explosions In The Sky tonight at The Koko in Camden. Meeting with my dear old friend Tom. I've only just gotten him into post rock, so this will be his first instrumental rock gig. We are both looking forward to it like so much sloe gin.

I wish I had a camera, but alas, alack, I do not. I shall try to get Nigel the man bag signed, but I don't care if I don't achieve this task, I'm just anticipating some great music and some good merchandise.

Saw III was very predictable in it's execution. It was fairly enjoyable, but I found myself yawning through the "death sequences". My brother, meanwhile, was squirming away in his seat like so much top soil. There was one funny bit where this guy is put into a machine which twists his limbs until they splinter. My brother was there going "This is horrible, you'd just pass out from the pain!", and I was there going "I suppose bones probably would shatter like that, just imagine what it would feel like". I'm certain that this added to the experience for my brother, who was already visibly stirred by the gratuitous gore on-screen.

It just goes to show that the Internet has de-sensitised the hell out of me. I wonder how far I'd have to go to shock myself these days...

All in all, I give Saw III a solid 6 out of 10. The twist was a bit naff, I saw it coming a mile off. But the special effects were pretty good, as were the sound effects.