How To Keep An Aquarium; Simple Do's and Do Not's

As I pointed out in Tuesday's outing here, in a vague attempt to keep me from going completely off my rocker I bought an aquarium. Before we go any further, yes I am aware that that is serial killer logic. Anyway, I bought it because it's quite nice to be able to stop working for 20 minutes or so a day and go and preen over it. It is quite relaxing, mildly therapeutic and the tank itself looks kick ass.

However, that is what it is like today. I got the thing at the end of October and only just now is it behaving itself. Up until recently I have had cats, some of my best friends have dogs and a few people I know have horses. Let me tell you something, none of those animals require half as much attention as a sodding fish tank.

Now, I admit I should have probably done some research before I henced forth with the aquarium lifestyle, but I'm a bit of a dullard. When I picked up the tank, I thought it would be as simple as buying the tank, filling it up with water and chucking fish in it, throwing some food in every day and cleaning it from time to time. Oh how wrong I was.

You have to play the chemist by preening over the thing and checking water chemical levels, you have to add bacteria and check on the health of your fish, you have to change the water and clean it religiously, you have to clean out the filter, make sure the heater is working and all sorts. It is more needy than a child.

So, for anyone out there who feels like buying an aquarium would be a good life move, please look at my simple “Do and Don't” list. It will likely save your life one day, son.

DO buy a big tank. They are a tad more expensive, but they are also a metric fuckload easier to keep. With a smaller tank, any chemical imbalance will show itself much, much quicker and kill off all your fish.

DON'T listen to people at a big old chain store for advice. Most garden centres have an aquatics bit that employs people who actually know about fish, not just morons who manage not to poop themselves in public.

DO, however, buy your big items such as the tank and gravel from a large chain pet shop. They will be considerably cheaper than any small aquatics shop.

DO read absolutely everything there is to read about the Nitrogen Cycle – the process that turns ammonia (aka poop) into nitrites (aka deadly poison) into nitrates (aka not so deadly poison). Establishing that cycle properly, and this is isn't an over reaction, will be the difference between whether your tank lives.... or dies.

DON'T put too  many fish in at once. The more fish means the more poop means the more bacteria you will need. And let me tell you something, that stuff takes bloody ages to grow. In the meanwhile, while it is growing your fish will be being made rather unwell.

DO, wherever possible, steal the insides of someone's filter. A lot of the friendly bacteria you will need is on those pads, so if you can either nick one off a friend or puppy dog eye a shop into giving one to you, do it. Take that bad boy home and shove it in your filter along with the existing media.

DO find a friend who keeps the same sort of fish as you. Whether it be being able to have of their filter media to taking baby fish that they don't have room for in order to stock your tank cheaply, they will be invaluable.

DON'T buy fish based on how big they are when you buy them, get them based on how big they will get. Yesterday I really wanted to buy this cute little 'shark' type fish, until the knowledgeable man pointed out that it would eventually be so big it would struggle to fit in my tank..

DO buy fish according to their needs – some need a big shoal, some can only have one male to a tank and some need lots of females around.

DO buy a good water-chemical testing kit. Decent drop kits are £12ish per chemical you need to test for, but each will do you for well over a year.

As this has already gone from being funny to being a public service announcement, let me give you the simple 4 step guide to fish keeping

1. Buy an aquarium, put in a shit load of gravel and your decorations, fill it with water, turn on the filter and heater and leave it be
2. Wait 5 days, buy some water drop kits and a few hardy fish. I recommend 3 Swordtails (2 females, one male). Oh, and always add a product to the water that takes out the chlorine and other crap.
3. Feed them sparingly and check your water chemicals every day, adding bacteria booster as per the instructions. First the ammonia will spike, then the nitrites. If at any point you get over 2ppm of either, or a bacteria bloom (it will look like someone threw milk in your tank), do a 50% water change.
4. When both ammonia and nitrites have spiked and gone back down, add a few more fish at a time. After each addition, both readings will go back up and come back down.

If in doubt about anything at all, ask someone who knows their stuff. Much like driving and sex, everyone has to have an uncomfortable and unceremonious first time.

Things I Do To Keep Myself Sane

When people ask me what it's like working from home, I tell them that it is better than being thrown groin first into an oily pit of supermodels. I don't have a boss looking over my shoulder, I don't have to get up at a set time so long as I stick 10 hours a day in and I don't have to commute anywhere further than down the hall and downstairs.

In actuality, it's pretty dull. I don't have co-workers to chat to. I don't have a boss to hate on. I just sit at my desk with a justin.tv stream going all day and mainly churn out press releases and short web content articles that don't allow for dick jokes. When you also factor in that I can often go for a few days without actually leaving the house, you get a pretty solid picture of my life. I call it the 'struggling writer' lifestyle, where as many others call it the 'sad sack' one.

To combat this, I've build up a number of protocols to keep my from bouncing off the walls in sheer madness. The 3 I use most are -

1) Facebook

I hate Facebook with all my soul. I hate the fact that it makes me feel self conscious that I only have 200 friends. The fact that I actually know all 200 of the people and could easily invite them out for a beer is neither here nor there. I also only have 98 photos. I just don't take a digital camera with me on nights out and cannot be bothered to edit, label and tag entire reams of photos.

However, I find myself increasingly using it to talk to people. Back in the day, everyone used to use MSN Messenger. Today, I have about 9 people who are still old school and are logged on at times. Therefore, I am left with little option but to log on to Facebook if I want human interaction. I hate it, it makes it look like I enjoy Facebook. Also, it makes it look like I do nothing all day as I'm always on Facebook.

2) Fish

I bought an aquarium. I will admit, I am a little bit of a fan of various animals and figured that buying an aquarium would give me something to do. Where as in an office, people often go outside and smoke or make rounds of tea to take a break, I have no such luck. I can smoke at my desk and I don't like tea. Obviously, the logical thing to do to get me away from my desk for 10 minutes at a time was to buy an aquarium to tend to.

I regret nothing. Sure, it costs £150 odd to set up a decent tank and put fish in it, but it is tremendous fun. One of my fish is even named after Nat Coombs, the guy who hosts the NFL On Five coverage after a few emails got read out on air. I recommend fish keeping to everyone and will probably write an idiots guide to fish keeping on Thursday.

3) Taking The Laptop To The Pub

I admit that this is probably cheating a bit, but it works. Although a vast majority of my time is spent doing jobs for other people, I do try to make sure I have at least a day a week where I don't have to do any paid work so I can work on my own stuff. Along with churning out some gibbering rubbish here thrice a week, I write a fair old bit of stuff that doesn't see the light of day straight away. I've got one book manuscript that is doing the rounds until someones decides to recognise my genius and publish it, I'm a solid start into another and I'm also working on a charity book.

For all of these things, I don't need the Internet, email and such. Nor does it matter if I'm under the influence while writing them, as I edit my work to a stupid degree at times. So I pack up my laptop and head off to the pub.
Speaking of which, it is beer o'clock. See ya'll later!

There is something wrong about buying Miley Cyrus things late at night

I saw the weirdest person ever on Friday night.

I know that an awful lot of the general population out there are certifiable nutjobs. I'm sure that I'm probably one of them. But on Friday I managed to see the person who is quite possibly the freakiest one out there.

I didn't really want to spend any money on Friday as I had a pricey one planned for Saturday, so I just trundled round to my buddy's place to chill out, play some video games and the like. Come midnight, the inevitable trip to a Supermarket took place.

I must confess, if I have to go shopping I do go late at night. I hate everything to do with supermarkets during the daytime. I hate the traffic to even get in the car park. I hate driving around for 10 minutes until you end up parking in a part of the car park that must be in another post code. I hate walking all the way to the front door past dozens of now empty spaces. I hate all the people in there. I hate queing to pay. I hate then having to lug it all back to my car and I hate that at least one item will go off while I'm stuck in traffic on the way back home.

At night, you can get in and out inside 10 minutes flat. It is brilliant. Except, you don't half get some right weirdos. In a way it is just downright hilarious, and in others you really do fear for the human race.

Although this time I wasn't doing the full midnight shop, I still went through enough of the shop to see some of the wack jobs. One, though, took the cake.

I was thumbing through some Xbox games with my mate, as one oft does at midnight, when this guy dressed all in black wandered into the section. He looked a little bit like a sleazy Michael McIntyre, and had the full long black coat, black suit, black shoes and black shirt and tie job going on. He then proceeded to buy a fistful of Hannah Montana (aka everyone's favourite jailbait Miley Cyrus) CD's and wander off.

This creeped me the hell out. I know that there is probably something a psychiatrist could read into about me looking for cheap video games in a supermarket at midnight, but someone who looks like they want to be a hitman in a gangster movie buying products aimed at 12 year olds must take the biscuit.

Now, for a gratuitous picture and we are done...

Tony Blair Reveals Self Doubt On Eve Of Iraq War

(This is a piece which unfortunately was not deemed newsworthy enough to make The Daily Hubbub, however another piece of mine was. Check it out!)

Blair's Self Doubt On War Eve Revealed

One of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest aides has revealed that on what turned out to be the eve of the invasion of Iraq, the former Premier had suffered from serious doubts over his bedroom performance with 'wife' Cherie.

Foreign Office official and noted sex therapy author Sir William Ehrman has revealed to the inquiry being held to investigate Blair's bedroom shenanigans that the then PM used to feel terrible fear and inadequacy before he crossed the threshold.

“Oh yeah, the guy used to have some serious hang ups about his performance,” said Sir William after the inquiry chairperson bought him his third pint.

“He used to worry that this big Scottish idiot was trying to push him down flights of stairs, that his special friend George was bigger and better than him and, well, have you seen what he had to go upstairs to?”

“So I asked him what had changed since he was able to fertilise his 'wife' with alarming regularity.”

Mr Blair, who was little more than an unemployed musician before being adopted by the Labour Party, revealed that he had always thrived on the confidence that only street urchin musicians held.

“So I said to him, what is better for building up your self confidence than picking on a smaller person who doesn't really deserve it? I thought he was just going to try to gag Ian Hislop, but it turns out he took it a bit far,” added Sir William.

“I mean, I'm sure invading Iraq was one hell of an aphrodisiac intelligence shows that egging the Lib Dem headquarters would have had the same effect.”

“Now,” finished Sir William after swapping from pints to shorts, “for a golden egg and large black pudding, I'll show you what really happened that weekend at Balmoral.”

Defending The Diva

In a very backwards way, I think I'm about to try to start defending diva-ish behaviour. I know, I know...

Some diva behaviour is a tad extreme. Assuming that The Sun tells absolutely no lies whatsoever in any way, shape or form then when Mariah Carey went on This Morning the other day, it was bedlam. Amongst the highlights of her appearance were the fact that she had an entourage larger than the crew that made the show and had someone walk backwards in front of her with their arms outstretched to catch her in case she tripped. You really do have to be a special blend of bat shit crazy to achieve that.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of Mariah, I heard a rumour about her. As it was a rumour that I can't even remember the source, of must be true as well. This rumour goes that during the inauguration of President Barak Obama, Carey through a huge strop when she found out that she would only be sat with the other VIPs at the event. Turns out, when she was invited as a special guest she thought that she would be sat up on the stage practically holding Obama's hand as he made his pledge.

Anyway, that sort of diva behaviour is simply ridiculous. No matter how big, famous and important you are there is never a justification to have the air temperature in a venue altered to be exactly what you demand it to be. There is no clause that says you cannot go on stage unless all of the lime Wine Gum's are taken out back and shot. Basically, there is no excuse for demanding a service before you perform which is either the metaphorical or literal interpenetration of getting the person in charge to clean your behind for you.

However, with all the over the top tomfoolery of stereotypical requests like a bowl of M'n'Ms with all the blue ones removed or a hooker without an STD aside, there is some merit in wanting this stuff.

At the end of the day, the sole purpose of anyone working in a creative performance job, where the product you put out there is purely there for the enjoyment of the audience, is to stick out a piece of work that the paying punters enjoy. And to do that, you have to have a happy little performer who is pleased as punch to be there. Having a grouchy little bee-hatch is just not good for business.

I will admit that for the last few days, I have not written a single solitary word. This has annoyed a few editors no end, but I don't care. I just haven't been in the mood. I won't bore you with the details, but I've spent most of the last few days in the foetal position feeling a little sorry for myself.  Today I woke up and the sun seemed a little brighter. So, I'm writing.

I suppose the point of all of this rambling goes thusly – Although a lot of the demands that some celebrities and certain 'divas' put in are highly unnecessary, there is a point to it all. It is whatever they need to perform at their best. Like it or lump it, I'm sure anyone who is parting with their hard earned cash to see them would rather know that the performer had all of their needs pampered and would put on a belting show than not be fed their duck egg omelette and have the right hump.

That is my case, your honour. It may not be the best, and is definitely very one sided, but it's all I got. The defence rests.

Handball Havoc

In a very backwards way, I think that Thierry Henry's hand ball against Ireland might be good for the sport. I know, I know... hear me out.

When it first happened, I was one of the millions who were baying for the French teams blood, screaming that it should be replayed and that Henry deserved to be hung, drawn and quartered. I crossed my fingers and hoped that FIFA would grant it, but no. They stuck by the actual laws of the game, didn't give in to pressure and France are off to South Africa while Irishmen around the globe cheer whoever are playing them.

After giving it a few days and allowing the knee jerk reaction to lull, I suppose that the decision was correct. It wasn't a full technical error, such as in the match with Uzbekistan and Bahrain where the ref gave a free kick instead of allowing a penalty to be retaken. It was human error. You cannot replay games based on human error, now matter how blazingly obvious and catastrophic it may be.

Although football fans around the world like to vilify refs as sub-human robots, they are normal people. They make mistakes. We have all made a big old cock up at some point or another. Last year I changed the radio station and in the two seconds I looked away from the road, drove up the back of a really nice BMW. That was a catastrophic cock up.

But you know what isn't human? Video replay technology. These days in football, you just can't rely on humans to make these massive decisions. You cannot. There is too much at stake financially. Plus, the refs take a massive bashing these days. It would be good to take some heat off of them.

The neigh sayers always bleat on about how it would disrupt the game, about how playing the ref is a part of it and how it would be too radical. But, of course, I know how it can be done

Do it like the NHL. They don't have a replay system like in Rugby or Cricket where it is all in house as, like it would in football, it would be used too rarely to justify such expense. They have a 'War Room' at NHL headquarters. A ref phones it in, confirms the play to be reviewed, they look at it and give the response. In football, unless you want to start a clock-stopping type protocol, you could just give the referees 90 seconds to overturn a decision, adding 90 seconds on extra time.

At least that is how I'd do it. Then a lot of the human errors in football would hopefully disappear.

No post today. Sorry about that....

....it's just that I've been cursed with having to do some real, paid work. Have a funny picture and I'll see you Sunday.