A song I wrote back at Uni. It was about a girl I met back in my final year. But it could easily have been about any of the times I fallen for someone before, or since. And Valentine's Day seems about the right day to post it, as everywhere else seems to be lovey-dovey-OTT.

Does it Matter How I Feel?

I see you when our paths cross And you greet me with a smile, It sets my heart to beating Makes me feel all warm inside. I like to be around you I hope you like it too, But I wonder if you've noticed What I'm feeling now for you. It doesn't matter what I think 'Cos I doubt you feel the same, My look on life is far too strange I treat it like a game. I can't believe you'd cope with that I can't believe you'd want to choose me. I always like to see you I like to see your face, I like it when I'm with you My heart it starts to race. But it doesn't matter what I think 'Cos I doubt you really care, that I have a lot of feelings that you may not know are there. I'd like to tell you how I feel But I doubt I ever will. 'Cos I don't think you give a damn About the way I feel. That may not be the truth, But I'm scared to take a risk on you. So I will keep the secret of what I feel for you, I'll say I want to be your friend And that, at least, is true. I want to be around you even only as a friend, As long as I can see you It's alright in the end. I wish we could be more, but if not..... © Tiggs Panther 1999

The Weather It's really quite bad at the moment. Luckily this area of Yorkshire isn't too bad, but there's been flooding in York and Ilkley & Otley. And that's just this end of the country.

update As you've probably noticed, I've re-jigged the front page tables around. Finally got a Rant layout that I'm happier with.

Site Update I've re-organised the main body table. I'm in two minds about having a visible table-border. I don't usually use them, but I think I'll stick with this one for a while at least. More to come - as and when I think of things which will work. Update: 11:47pm I'll be playing around with the front page table-code over the next couple of days, as well as how Blogger generates my pages. There's a chance it'll break things and make the page look temporarily screwy. But don't worry too much.

Note: As of very soon, I'm going to be using this Blog/Rant column to include the site updates. The updates column will probably be replaced by having a link to the archive on the main page. Just the next stage in the evolution.

English:
Lingual Bloatware? Communication I believe that's how languages developed. Words evolved to convey the meaning of concepts, and there spread, and eventually became codified into languages. Languages developed geographical and cultural variations - which was bound to happen. The world is a large place. And thousands of miles worth of boundary were very hard to ignore. Then over the past couple of Centuries, those boundaries have slowly broken down. Travel, commerce, and the Internet. The world isn't that big anymore. Cultural identity is important. But Langage, somewhere along the way, became overly tied up with it. It's understandable. After all, language and culture are linked - that can't be denied. But it then means that Language, which intuitively seems to suggest communication, started to become a barrier to communication. I sure as Hell don't think that English is The Language. If anything, it's the lingual equivalent of Microsoft. Bloated, hopelessly flawed, but everyone just uses it anyway. If anything, it's the English and British lack of interest in other languages which have caused this. There are other languages which would probably be much more suited to becoming a Global Common Language than English. The problem is, we're all lumbered with this one. It's clumsy. It's graceless. And rather than being agreed on, it's infiltrated other languages and countries. Which, in turn, has sparked a determination to hang on to individual languages. And, as such, language has become a barrier to the very communitation it's supposed to encourage. Hell, English itself should prove this! We're a conquered country. Many times over The Vikings, the Romans, the Normans. English is't a language of conquerors, it's a language of the conquered. A mish-mash evolved form Anglo-Saxon, Celtic languages, proto-European languages, Latin. English: Pic'n'Mix Language? First by force. Then, as time went on, it cecame conquered by civilisation. We have words derived from French, the language of romance. Words from Greek, brought in by scholars. We have a lot of words brought in from Eastern culture, from the times when the British Colonies were spread over the worlds. Not only did we take our culture and language with us, we took little bits back with us. (Pajamas, anybody?) Even before the Internet, television, radio, and literature brought in still more words and phrases. War brought still more - as we adopted the words and phrases from methods used by other countries. (Kamikaze, f'r'ex) Science brought still more. Terminology derived from English, French (Pasteurisation), Greek and Latin (chemistry and medecine being full of examples) - through a combination of derived words and people's names. English evolved as a language to increase communitation. I just find it irritating when Language ends up blocking communication, instead of facilitating it.

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Hell. If another language superceded English as the default common language, I'd embrace it. Like I said, Language is communication. And as anyone who knows me can testify, I like being able to communicate. I'm not much of a linguist, and I find getting the hang of foreign grammar is always a complete bastard, but I'll speak whatever language I need to. If that's soemthing other than English - and I end up sumbling over Gender and Case all the time - so be it! I'm a chatterbox first, and an Englishman second.

Upcoming Updates

Hoping to do a few graphical tweaks to the site over the next few weeks. I'm sticking with the basic design, and colour scheme. I just want to make it look a little more, well, more designed I guess. Hopefully there won't be too many teething troubles.