RL Wandering

One flounce deletion too far

2009-10-06T17:45:00.006+01:00

I awoke this morning to a text message from someone which read Front page of sun, Matt Lucas ex husband hanged himself!! Mornin btw... X and sure enough, there is was.

A bit of hunting around found that the Times has the same information although presented with less enthusiasm. The BBC even caught up eventually.

Made late for work by the need to check this wasn't just hysterical rumour and then the need to tell people, I have spent the day in a fug of puzzlement. I was never close to Kevin, in fact I hardly ever saw him after he moved into his own flat - in spite of his regular encouragements to come and see his TARDIS. He came to Edinburgh because of someone I never got on with, which put him at a disadvantage, but it became clear to me after a few weeks that I had far more patience for his sort of behaviour than most. The broken and the needy make me go all maternal.

For a while after getting into his new place people would try to invite him out to socialise. We would say "Come for coffee, we're just around the corner"; about 1am would then come a reply, "Sorry was asleep. Come over for classic Peter Davidson eps?" His erratic sleep cycle and apparent fear of external socialising meant that the only people he saw were those who could fit into his schedule and many, I think, gave up after a while. Occasional tales of him breaking down in tears when with relative strangers gave me pause for thought, but no matter how much effort I made to include him and get him to do things, I only ever saw him on occasion when bumping into him on the street.

Instead, our communications were electronic. Every few weeks, if I hadn't heard anything from him, I would send him a (mostly tongue-in-cheek) message, "Just your monthly Kevin's-not-dead-is-he? checkup," which he seemed to take in good humour. During one of his bad spells I fielded calls and Facebook chatting from 11pm til after 1am, eventually putting my phone on silent as he kept trying to convince me to visit despite all of my protestations. He was never easy to be friends with - unless you were up for late night benders at short notice on a school night.

About three weeks ago he called me, from a new number, and asked if I wanted to come over for a Peep Show night, saying it was like a dry run for getting people round when the next Dr Who special was to be on. I told him I probably wouldn't make it; I wondered if he actually had any friends in Edinburgh who would be up for it.

In the weeks since then I kept thinking that I should get in touch, usually as my bus passed his house, and yet on a couple of occasions when I was not in the mood for lengthy distractions I consciously closed Facebook when I saw he was online because I didn't want to risk being caught up in late night dialogue. Guess who feels like a proper shit now?

It's some dark comfort to see that so many people are moved by this tragic, though not really surprising, death. I wonder if knowing the reaction would have prevented his actions, or perhaps encouraged tham? At writing, Facebook has had 40 comments on his last words (Kevin McGee thinks that death is much better than life), all but three of which have come since the news broke today. Once of his Facebook friends said "can't believe i was sitting there in you flat on friday night, now you're gone. better luck and happiness in next lifetime, hope to catch up with you then. x". On one site someone remarked:

his eyes sparkled when he smiled and he had mad hair that looked like it had never seen a brush never mind a comb. He always seemed happy doing whatever he was doing. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? His skin was milky-white and he had a wee little nose that made me want to squeeze it on the few times that I saw him. He dressed like he didn’t give a damn but impressed me with his own sense of style. He laughed at himself and never at others (as far as I know) and I wish he had stayed around.

He bought a puppy a few weeks ago. He was planning to meet a friend who was going to be in town later in the month. He was looking forward to Dr Who. People who saw him only days ago had no idea this might happen. I can't help but wonder if this was a sudden change in outlook or rather a horribly bungled cry for help. He had certainly done similar things in the past.

It feels almost surreal. My gut says that this is like someone deleting from Facebook or similar online communities only to return weeks or months later so they can get away from it and see what people say about them when they're not there. I have no belief system in place to explain this, but I can't help but suspect that somehow he is posthumously aware of the fuss.

I would never claim that I have lost a wonderful friend in this, for that would be unfair to his ex, Matt, who has backed out of his show for the time being, and Kevin's mother who was very close to him. But I do feel terrible for not having tried harder. Might-have-beens can't bring him back. Let's learn from this and be more attentive with our friends, especially the fragile ones who deserve our care.

For want of a lesser cliche, rest in peace Kevin. I can only hope that it was worth it.

Why the streets of Edinburgh are covered in crap

2009-07-24T17:05:00.005+01:00

Once upon a time, men got paid more than women. It seemed normal and natural and, other than a few crazy feminists, nobody took any notice.

This changed. Women started taking their employers to court, pointing out that they should get paid the same for doing the same job. Over time, things improved and the gender pay gap decreased fairly steadily. But it didn't go away, and nobody was more afraid of the bad press that this could bring than Local Government, especially the City of Edinburgh Council whose nemesis, the Edinburgh Evening News, took immense pleasure in decrying any perceived misstep the Council might take.

Across the land local authorities went into action, each trying in their own ways to create equality between the sexes. And in Edinburgh, the Modernising Pay scheme was put into action. Every Council employee was interviewed to ascertain what exactly it was that they did; time passed, along with the deadline, and still they worked away in the background trying to put the world to rights.

Then one day, years later, they went to the Unions with a proposal. The Unions then jumped the gun and told their members what was going to happen and that's where it all went wrong. You see, in the intervening years, sweeping changes had occurred across the Council and many people - especially the Little People - had vastly different jobs, leading to much gnashing of teeth when the proposals were released.

Once of the largest discrepancies between the sexes was found amongst the so-called 'manual workers', people like bin men (almost all men) and home helps (almost all women). For reasons now shrouded by the mists of time, bin men get a regular bonus on top of their official wage; the home helps, on similar salaries and performing tasks requiring rather more training, received no bonuses. This is now deemed to be Not Allowed.

So here we see exemplified the gender pay gap. And here also we see the only people in the Council (other than Teachers and their ilk) who a)Can make much of a visible difference by striking and b)Are actually threatening to. Furthermore, rumour has it that the ballot on whether to strike will be held amongst only the union members in male dominated area - a nice nod to equality!

And that's why we're heading into the largest arts festival in the world with rubbish on the streets. Say goodbye to the Fringe, people!

Genius!

2009-05-10T14:49:00.004+01:00

I feel like I have to rant publicly - a pleasure rant, though.

Gluten-free bread is practically an oxymoron. Bread, after all, rises nicely because of the gluten, so if you take it out you end up with either a doughy lump or a crumbly mess. At its best GF bread can just about pass for the real thing if you microwave/toast it; Tesco/Sainsbury's have some decent 'multi-seeded' creations and there are some pre-sliced things which make fabulous croutons, but there has always been something missing.

I always test any new GF mock-bread products, and Tesco are forever trying out new ideas: naan, pitta (which usually come out quite successfully), bagels, crumpets, 'sub' rolls, ciabatta (good for making crispy garlic bread but golly! are they crumbly)... so when I spotted a New! one I picked it up. Absentmindedly slicing and toasting it (slicing? That should have alerted me), it seemed nothing special. It wasn't until later when I risked a slice without heating, just a bit of buttery stuff, that I was left agape, spluttering in surprise. This was nice bread! Not just an acceptable imitation of bread which one might eat mostly out of a twisted urge to punish oneself but bread, tasting like bread, which I proceeded to devour in short order because it was nice!

This is Genius Gluten Free. It's made in Edinburgh, no less. I love it.

In other news, the Rudsambee summer concert is on course. An hour of choral goodness in Edinburgh University's Reid Concert Hall , featuring Eric Whitacre's Cloudburst and Five Hebrew Love Songs, Abbie Betinis, Morten Lauridsen, Debussy, Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek and other goodies from the last century, it's free to get into (if you want to reserve a place email info@rudsambee.org.uk) and there will be a charity collection for Arts for Well-Being: Children of the Balkans Society at the end. Do come, it will be fab.

Don't mess with Shilpa

2009-04-05T01:32:00.006+01:00

2002: Dimwit Jade Goody comes into the public eye on Big Brother.

2007: Jade Goody gets a lot of flak for being racist about Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother.

2009: Shilpa Shetty gets a £5m mansion; Jade Goody gets dead.

Is this not taking the whole karma thing a bit too far?

Abortion can be laughed at, honest!

2009-02-04T12:17:00.003Z

Amanda Palmer, who has recently released a solo album after being known as part of the Dresden Dolls, is suffering at the hands of the British PC monster. First her record label complained that her belly was too big in the video for Leeds United (what belly!?) and now many of the music channels are refusing to air Oasis, an energetic, feelgood song about date rape, abortion and how it doesn't seem matter as long as you have something good to look forward to. It's a positive song! The BBC also said she wasn't allowed to play the song on a live set she was doing for BBC Radio 6 - but then when she got there they let her do it anyway, screw The Man! Surely if the BBC, bastion of censorship, can be got around, MTV and its ilk can do better? Read the blog post. Watch the video. Offended?

Dead, dead, dead - someday you'll be dead

2008-12-30T10:04:00.003Z

And apparently there has been a much higher death toll amongst the big names than I had realised. I knew about the big ones like Arthur C Clarke and Heath Ledger, but I had missed Michael Crichton, Anthony Minghella, Levi Stubbs (aka Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors) and Geoffrey Perkins. Geoffrey Perkins? Who will carry the HHGTTG candle now that the two great powers behind it are gone!? Where will the new Mornington Crescent be birthed? And who will Michael Moore vilify in the absence of Charleton Heston? Dead in 2008.

Captives

2008-12-22T13:07:00.002Z

According to Wikipedia, "...Father Christmas was bought by the Coca-Cola company. He remains their prisoner." I just lolled all over my desk.

The accursed 'Credit Crunch' made sense of

2008-12-12T12:03:00.001Z

I'm so pleased to finally see a clear explanation of where it all went wrong! http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/newcapitalism.pdf

Traffic chaos

2008-10-13T12:19:00.006+01:00

So. Tramworks are making Edinburgh tricky to navigate, as is well recorded. At the moment the Mound is closed, with traffic diverted down Market Street/Waverley Bridge, with some people going along East Market Street to get out that end.

The High Street is also closed between Jeffrey Street and - well the bottom half seems to be generally closed. Traffic is therefore splitting off either down St Mary's or Jeffrey St, with the latter often doubling back along East Market St to go down New Street and towards Holyrood.

And now, once again, there are coaches being used as replacements for certain rail services; coaches which lurk on both sides of East Market St until they're needed. This is a piece of road which is surely asking for an accident, whether just due to too much traffic or because pedestrians can't see the too much traffic for coaches.

I'm beginning to suspect the Illuminati (or some other giant covert ruling organisation) of some cunning plot to de-traffic the center of town. Perhaps they were disappointed in the failed Congestion Charge and are now making it so impractical to drive in town that people may give up and get a bloody bus. Almost everyone I know who needs to travel into/through/across town has had a good moan about their own personal Frightful Traffic Trauma, and there aren't many people left who don't resent the tramworks. Yesterday drivers were jumpy and careless; it's beginning to feel like LA with the seething miasma of barely-repressed rage in the air.

Something is going to snap.

ADHD crazy!

2008-09-24T13:26:00.002+01:00

So apparently 365,000 children in the UK have ADHD. This would mean that roughly a quarter of UK children have Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Does anyone else think that's INSANE and suggests, more than anything else, either that the diagnostic procedure is faulty or that the diagnosis is pointless.

If this is something that affects so many young people, I really think it can't he a serious problem. Maybe we need to look nito whether this is an adaptive trait rather than a flaw? Or perhaps we should start picking out children who have blonde hair as well - after all, a lot of them will 'recover' as they approach adulthood.

p.s. While crisps on ricecakes is unarguably carborrific it's no substitute for a crisp buttie and far messier.

Surreality and the Real

2008-09-21T01:19:00.003+01:00

It's odd, but I find the universe most credible when it's at its least probable. Tonight I was trying to take some photos of the moon. Sadly, this entails all of the failings in the S9600 so it's never quite worked satisfactorily yet. My battery died midway of course - it always does when I've got it on a tripod - and when I went back out to try again I realised that it was utterly futile.

Low clouds; backlit by the moon, which was peeping through a chink; predominantly sodium light pollution underneath, giving them an red cast. It was like something that might happen when playing with Difference Clouds and Lighting Effects in Photoshop, and as such would never work as a photo - well, unless I had a considerably better camera, lens, and was more experienced at night sky photography.

Oh well. So concludes a day filled with, er, nothing. Unless you count playing Spore (which really isn't All That, but I'm giving it a once through before I despair of ever getting a Good New Game) or wandering through the Quartermile in search of excitement or interesting angles.

Oh woe to the wan- I mean, Bankers.

2008-09-19T14:15:00.005+01:00

I mean, really. All that imaginary money they were giving people to buy houses with. It was inevitable.

At least it gives us joy like this.

Well, it made me happy.

Last weekend Arno and his pals were demonstrating swordplay in the National Museum of Scotland. Apparently the session I observed wasn't the best of the day, but it seemed to please the masses.

Rachael's bump has now externalised itself, after a 36hour labour and emergency C-section. Came out quite well, is the general opinion. My instinctive distrust and dislike of anything too young to have a higer education was set aside because she sat nicely for the camera.

Thomas has left the choir and now, pretty much, the country. Which is a pity beacause he's friendly and funny and everyone likes him. He had a big leaving mean a Vittoria's on George IV Bridge last night which I only caught the end of. RIP Thomas (well, not exactly dead but probably gone for good).

And finally, on a lighter note, I (eventually (about 15 months after we started planning such a thing)) had an interview for the job I've been doing since last January. And got it. Now we just need HR to get themselves sorted out and give it to me. I think it might end up as a Christmas present...

Oh, and speaking of Christmas - we've started the Christmas repertoire already! How glad am I to have a distraction from the bloody Carver and chunks of Gaelic we need to do for out mini-gig at the National Library of Scotland? (very glad, BTW)

We've got some rousing Arvo Pärt and deceptively challenging Abbie Betinis so far. Can't wait to see what other bizarre modernities Ollie pulls out of the ether! You can keep up to date with the choir's goings-on at rudsambee.blogspot.com, where Claire1 is our jolly blogger.

Censorship

2008-09-08T22:14:00.005+01:00

I do like Carol Ann Duffy. I am particularly fond of her poem Valentine.

I am not fond of censorship, although I do like a poet with a good sense of humour.

Ollie and Helen have just been to Iceland with my camera (whimper). I'll have photos up soon...

Why I want to eat Cliff Richard

2008-08-11T19:00:00.002+01:00

Because his guts are sitting in tupperware tubs in Ollie's fridge and they're made of marzipan!

Honest!

Look, here's the show and here's the guts.

And here's why they're funny:

So go and see it, okay?

2008-08-02T03:12:00.001+01:00

Way back in the Long Ago, a teenage version of myself went to see the Jim Rose Circus, in a big tent on Calton Hill. It was scary, it was freakish, it was filled with people who had honed their bodies to a state where they could truly claim to be Performers. Back then, they even appeared on the X-Files. If it said Jim Rose on the tin, it was guaranteed to be entertainment, if not necessarily in good taste.
He's not been back to the Edinburgh Festival for years, and when I saw an advert I immediately decided to go. After all, he can only have become more bizarre in the intervening decade!
So Graeme and I went to see Plague! the musical, which was a touch overlong but generally very funny. Songs will be stuck in my head for weeks. A quick wall up from C on Chambers Street to the upside-down purple cow which the Underbelly install in Bristo Square every year put us in the queue for this year's Jim Rose spectacle. And, after waiting for close to an hour and having just decided to give up and go, we were finally let into the tent.
Pretty lights, a caped man with a chainsaw, creepy voiceover... Ah, thought I, this should be good. Graeme is sure to poop his pants at this!
Oh, how sadly mistaken I was.
After a moody preamble by the man himself, explaining that he hadn';t been doing any shows because he wanted to do something New and Exciting, the show got going. And when i say Show I'm not talking about a Circus or a Freak show; this was one notch away from a Live Sex Show.
Other than a handful of things - face in glass, eating a lightbulb... old favourites - this was nothing more than some passable Metal covers and some very skinny, very grumpy girls doing eccentric things in the nude under the faint veil of a pseudo-satanic plot. It made us squirm because of the constant crotch shots rather than, for example, the Girl Squirting Blue Paint Out Of Her Ass (whitch was quite obviously a bulb of paint up there. I mean, come on! Jim Rose reduced to tacky trickery? What happened!?).
I didn't walk out surely because I was hoping - vainly, I might add - for some redeeming moment which would make it all worthwhile. Instead, we exited the theatre at two in the morning having endured an hour of what was no better than the wank fantasy of an American teen rock wannabe from the early 90s.
If you want to watch girls pulling underwear out of their orifices while an ageing, drugfucked disappointment letches over them, then go see the show. Otherwise, pay money to avoid it.

Killer gulls

2008-07-29T12:26:00.002+01:00

We've got a young seagull wandering around outside work at the moment. It's very cute, because it's not yet grown into its adult colouring.

Yesterday it looked scared and lost. There were no adults to be seen (or heard) - perhaps they were off on a day trip to the seaside, leaving baby at home. Today they're back, and the youngling has the seagull mafia watching over it. When people get close it starts yakking, and the adults start screeching and dive-bombing the passers-by. There's also a trail of babygullpoo across the pavements.

I'm looking forward to taking pictures of lacerated pedestrians. Well, not really...

Explore me!

2008-07-18T09:55:00.004+01:00

Flickr has this strange thing they call Explore. After a twisted set of calculations to do with which groups your photo is in, how many groups, how many tags, links to/from the photos, comments, favourites, views... they eventually class all photos by Interestingness. And if a photo is one of the 500 most Interesting for a particular day then it gets into Explore, which is like a showcase for the most Interesting pictures of the day.

Some people are Explore whores. All sorts of Groups exist for no reason other than to have more Groups to add photos to, in the hopes that enough Groups will guarantee a place in Explore. What many people don't seem to realise, of course, is that the Interestingness algorithms are constantly changing and since 2006 having a photo in more than 15 Groups (oh yes, some pictures are in 60+ Groups! I did say WHORE.) then it has a negative effect on the Interestingness. Fools.

My Mother has had a few pictures Explored, although they're all pictures of clouds and trees and other boring 'nature' stuff; she's as puzzled by this as I am. I finally entered Explore a couple of months ago - about time too - and was frightfully pleased when this photo went from posting to Explore in about 12hours:

See, I decided to do the 365 thing, and then found myself getting dragged into the Flickr Group Roulette Group, which challenges you to make your photo of the day fit into certain underpopulated Groups - in this case, Flickr Can Has Cheezburger which is for Flickr lolcats. I baulked at the idea, but eventually managed to do something (entailing the vile Comic Sans MS, which apparently people liked :D

Prodigals

2008-07-14T12:32:00.003+01:00

When my hair gets too long to stand up and starts to flop, everyone thinks I’ve had a haircut. Every time. It’s puzzling.

The Marktha have returned from Canada – rejoice! Martha (formerly known, for no good reason, as Steve) met Mark (aka Scone, aka Hot Throbbin’) on a holiday to Canada a few years ago and, after a whirlwind romance, was married in 2005. The following year, Mark having comet to live in Edinburgh, they moved to Vancouver, got a kitten and jobs, and other than biannual meetups with Martha’s mum for Hershey’s and general bitching, that appeared to be that. But Martha got homesick and so they abandoned the colonies for the more civilised Scottish homeland. It’s like they were never away. Yay!

Now it’s true, I’m a bit of a Dr Who nerd. But I’m more of a post-1989 nerd – I far prefer the series of original novels that were published between 1989 and 2005 to any of the other media, although I still enjoy both the Original and the New-And-Improved-With-Added-Kissing TV serieseseses (this is like trying to stop spelling bananananana! Help!).

During the post-TV Movie run of the novels, starring the Paul McGann-style 8th Doctor and published by the BBC, probably the most original of the writers – and certainly the most controversial – was Lawrence Miles. Outspoken, original, you either love him or loathe him and whichever side of the fence you live on, you are likely to be vitriolic in your reactions to the other side.

The first chapter of his Grand Plan was Alien Bodies, which introduced a new Power, Faction Paradox, and also the concept of Biodata – kinda like DNA but for your timeline as well as your genetics. The latter has suffused all of Who-land in one way or another since then, but the Faction have had a hard time of it. Miles set up a huge, universe-changing plot in his two-parter Interference, which was generally shat upon by the other authors and the BBC, resulting in a lot of bad blood and no more Mad Larry.

Instead, Faction Paradox were taken out of the Whoniverse entirely. Mad Norwegian Press rescued them and published a number of stand-alone novels over the following years, not just by Lawrence Miles but also Phillip Purser-Hallard, Lance Parkin, Mags Halliday and Kelly Hale. These were all extremely strong works, all separate and often not even featuring any members of Faction Paradox. BBV also produced a set of six audio dramas, written by Miles, and there were two issues of an abortive comic to boot.

And then Mad Norwegian Press pulled the plug. No more novels. Until Random Static came to the rescue, announcing that they would be releasing Newtons Sleep by Daniel O’Mahoney in 2008. Woo! Having only recently picked up the last of the MNP books, it wasn't until we were due to go away to Czechland that I decided I had to have it. [The last time we went on holiday, two years ago, I made a special detour to Forbidden Planet in London so that I could buy one of the previous novels; it kept me going for some time during an otherwise boring holiday…]

Having received the book in time, I had no chance to read it while we were away because we were SO BUSY. So, on our return I picked it up and made a start.

And it was a sloooowww start. The author’s previous Who-ish novels, Falls the Shadow and The Man in the Velvet Mask, had never been in my top ten favourites, far from it, but they were long ago and I knew that the style would have changed. If anything the writing was more dense. I despaired. But I didn’t want to give up – there’s so little Factionalia! And so I kept at it. And it got better.

Probably the first in the series to feature members of Faction Paradox as main cast, they’re only part of a fair ensemble. Set in the 17th Century, we jump across a period of decades, watching characters being manipulated by various Powers as the War in Heaven rages in the background. It’s confusing. The characters are almost all antiheroes, at best. And yet they’re so fascinating: seeing how their actions are governed by their paranoia and selfishness, sitting back and watching as they allow frightful things to happen – a scene where someone is hung, drawn and quartered forced me to put the book down for half an hour in disgust at the glorious gore – it’s absolutely compelling! And as the narrative cantered towards the conclusion I found myself more and more excited by it.

Slow starter indeed, but gosh! I’m tempted to hunt down other novels by Mr O’Mahoney – although I’m afraid of being let down purely because they wouldn’t be set in such a complex world which I already feel comfortable in. In the meantime, I feel compelled to register my enjoyment of the novel.

Technocomedy and photo-blogging

2008-07-06T23:32:00.003+01:00

I've lapsed somewhat, I know. It's because i spend too much time taking and editing photos; by the time I've done with them I've got no energy for words!

So your best bet is to keep an eye on my Flickr if you care at all what I've been doing...

Someone advertised a couple of computers on Freecycle today (see here to find your local network, if you're that way inclined), and since they were named models I Googled them. When I found this I laughed in mockery and wonder at how much out idea of High Technology has changed in the last thirteen years. It's worth skimming all the way through, really it is.

Week of Chaos pt.4: Wednesday

2008-06-18T22:00:00.004+01:00

I’ve clearly spent too long in France. I keep forgetting we’re in Prague and defaulting to thinking about us being in Frenchland. We decided to get up early today and do Breakfast; this didn’t happen, surpisingly. We did get out before noon at least. The plan was to go to Wenceslas Square (which isn’t in any way square) and go from there. Wander wander wander. Some very large buildings around here. One rarely sees the horizon – which I’m used to, living in a city, but Edinburgh has considerably more horizon, being built on more and larger hills and having large chunks of green space to split the place up. Postcards were bought, we passed another thousand or so performances of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and kept wandering. Stopped for lunch, which was lovely (although we were served by someone who was practically a child and the restaurant wanted us to PAY to use their toilets! I had no cash so slipped away from a tutting cleaner; Helen was less fortunate...), watched the astrological clock thing in action – while hardcore tourists cheered it on – and then went up to the big museum at the top of Wenceslas not-really-Square before splitting up(!). Helen was told when and where to meet us and she went off shopping while Ollie and I went to look at Liliova, an area we had bypassed yesterday. Nobody takes down posters here. They just keep plastering them on top of each other, which makes for some fascinating advertising strata. They’re best when they start to peel around the edges. There appear to be gas lights in the streets as well – I must check when it’s dark and they are lit...

Mozart is around every corner. Apparently Don Giovanni was premiered here (Ollie posed outside the venue in question, although I think the Nazgul statue in memory of the piece is far more interesting than any Mozart is likely to be). There are also a ton of puppets on sale, Black Light Theatres on every other block and an astonishing number of Absinthe- and tobacco-related shops. They advertise Absinthe not by how strong the alcohol is but by the mindbending effects of the active ingredident. Weird, yet appealing... The buildings are a tour de force of trompe l’oeil. Very often I have to squint at them to decide whether they are excitingly built or just very well painted to look like they are relief stones, rather than flat painted surfaces – which they invariably are. There’s also a water feature around every corner, some as fountains, some as washing/drinking places. The people of Edinburgh complain that the city is undergoing constant roadworks (even pre-Trammage) and that there is scaffolding everywhere. Prague is, in this, a sister city. While the roadworks are fewer – the trams are well-settled, hurrah! – the scope of the building works take some time to sink in. There is scaffolding everywhere! And unlike Edinburgh, the centre of Prague is almost entirely made of good Old buildings, rather than being a hodgepodge of classic architecture, 60s monstrosities and new builds, so I dread to think what they’re doing. Perhaps it’s a lot of cleaning, as the old buildings still have that industrial patina which Edinburgh has mostly lost over the last few decades; many of the most interesting buildings are pretty much black. I’d also love to see the reaction of the moaning Edinburgers who bitch that the roads and pavements are uneven and a danger to pedestrians/cars. The pavements here are generally made of tiny cobbles, about 2” square and often in interesting patterns. They are not, however, even. I often find myself slipping on broken, torn up pavements and car tyres sometimes make particularly dstressed noises as they pass. We made our way back to Wenceslas ~~Square~~ Boulevard and Helen, turning up rather early in our eagerness not to abandon her. Stting outside a coffee shop waiting for Ollie to fetch some cold milky caffeine drinks, I felt an urge to take photos of the cobbles and submitted to said urge. On looking up from my attempts to make small square stones appear interesting, I realised that there was a Local looking between me and the cobbles wth a look of bafflement on his face. Grinning awkwardly I put the camera down, but we seemed to provide considerable entertainment for the remainder of their stay. Naps have been the theme of the week so far. On Monday we all collapsed for hours after little sleep and a long journey; Tuesday I passed out after dinner, followed by Helen and Ollie fell asleep in the bath. Today I skipped my nap, so I will probably collapse about 2300h, while the others romp around all night. Oh well. Tomorrow we are off to meet everyone and head to Susice; we’re a little sad about this as it’s been quite nice having no pressure to meet Mayors, climb mountains, perform etc.

Week of Chaos pt.3: Tuesday

2008-06-17T22:00:00.004+01:00

My head is still a little bit muzzy. You know how your muscles feel after a lot of exercise – not necessarily sore, but achey and tired? Well, that’s how my head feels post-flight, with a side helping of slight headache.

We managed to get out of the house a little before noon and went for a wander to the river and investigate the scary statues we had seen last night. Sadly they were far less creepy in daylight, although we managed to confirm my conviction that they were a Political thing – the statues are part of a memorial dedicated to the victims of Communism. After that we meandered towards the Castle, encountering a number of interesting water features (they may have been for handwashing, drinking... there was no way to be sure) on the way and toying with the idea of getting a funny funicular train up to the top of the hill.

There’s an unusual Christian fetishism at work in the city. We found a church dedicated to the Infant Jesus, a statue which was brought here about 350 years ago (I think) and has become like a religious barbie doll, dressed by nuns every morning. The church he lives in features a museum upstairs, filled with outfits which have been sent from aound the globe and lit like a fabric museum. On the stairs there are numerous images of the more garish sets of clothing which the statue has worn, and the church itself has a large shrine to contain him. The colour scheme is a dramatic black and gold (the whole city is covered in gold, it’s remarkable at first but eventually becomes, like the stupendous collection of architectural styles, a bit fatiguing on the Wonder), and there is one very noteworthy thing which made me happy: behind the altar – bedecked in black and gold statuary, etc. – is a large painting. This may sound unremarkable, but if you think about churches you will remember that the centrepiece is usually a giant, brutal crucifix, hanging above the altar where it cannot be missed. Here, there is a small crucifix to the side of the altar, no more than person-high, and otherwise you could almost forget that this is a shrine to a religion which glories in the torture and death of its God. It gave me hope.

The Castle in Prague is conceptually not dissimilar to Edinburgh Castle; both are a strange mishmash of buildings atop a hill, rather than a large fortress. Beyond that there are few similarities. Here there are countless examples of what look like Government buildings, mixed in with a GIANT cathedral which makes St Giles look like a cheap pretender to the title and a bewildering array of structures dating from all over the past few centuries, arranged to a-maze any invaders it would seem.

I’m concerned by the Illuminati’s unquestioned presence here. I first noticed an eye in a pyramid in the church of the Infant Jesus, and after that I spotter them everywhere – on a stained glass window in the cathedral, atop an obelisk in a square, gilded onto the tops of buildings... am I missing something here?

Getting out of the Castle is a challenge in itself; there is no clear route down, ust a lot of paths which might, if you’re lucky, do more than peter out into a dead end or No Entry sign. When we found ourselves somewhere recognisable there was a rousing cheer, even if it was a little weary. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill there was about enough mustered energy between us to get back to the apartment where we ate and napped.

Later in the evening we went for a wander again, nighttime being far easier on the constitution in warm weather. I found the wacky building I had seen on Kevin's photostream but had left the camera behind deliberately, to allow us to see some of the city at a normal pace. Of course this meant that we had to go the same way on Wednesday night so that I could take photos of things I had seen...

We ended up sitting outside a cafe/bar on the west side of the river. Helen had beer (which she drank slowly, like the English and Czechs do; if I could drink the stuff these days I'd have shown them what enjoying beer means...) while Ollie and I had girly soft drinks. Which were far more expensive than the beer, of course. Usually one gets a half litre (equivalent to a pint) of beer for about £1.25 to $1.40, while a 200ml coke will cost more like £2.00. Dammit!

While sitting about, the others had noticed something lying on the pavement a little way off and were discussing what it might be. When a streetcleaning machine came past and sucked the object up they realised it had, in fact, been a dead rat. Lovely. Two in 24 hours.

Week of Chaos pt.2: Monday

2008-06-16T22:00:00.005+01:00

We had ordered a taxi for 0530h; everyone was up, and we got into it and to the airport in good time. Coffee and Cornish Pasties were had, money was changed and we made our way to the departure gate, my anxiety levels rising steadily. Post-security I paused to put my earplugs in and purchase some fluids to take onboard. It was at this point that Helen realised we were due to be checking in NOW and so we made a break for it, pausing only to snatch some juice out of a passing vending machine.

Once on the plane, I settled in for a few hours of possible agony. I giggled at the staff when they were demonstrating emergency procedures, particularly the smirk they exchanged when doing the ‘emergency exits are located here, here and here’ section. All drugged up and ready to go, then! I love takeoff, I love landing, I like turbulence and anything that emphasises where you are and makes it feel less like a school bus. Sadly, my head doesn’t share my enthusiasm, though at least on this occasion the discomfort was less; I felt he need to jiggle my legs the whole way, no idea why, and managed to fall into a sleep-like state for a large part of the flight. Extreme ear-popping was the order of the day and I kept wondering if I was going to be singing with a ruptured eardrum. I was very relieved when we landed and I could take the earplugs out – which had started to hurt – and review the surprising lack of structural damage I had suffered.

While sitting bewildered on the bus into town Ollie befriended a local (with a Scottish accent) who was already helping a couple of Canadian girls find their way around. As a result we managed to get off at the right stop and get the connecting underground into the centre. Our new guide left us at Mustek and Ollie took over, stepping into a Tourist Information place where he got directions to our apartment. We set off (to Helen’s cries of “Ooh pipes, I want a pipe!!”), passing a Tesco on the way (Tesco, in this case, being a multi-level department store with the supermarket section hidden in the basement), with me squee-ing over the trams endlessly, yet somehow we found the place we were going – only to be sent on to the actual apartments a few blocks further away.

The apartment was lovely. Recently done up, filled with IKEA goodness and strange cupboards. Major failing? Poorly equipped kitchen. There are only the very basics as far as cutlery and crockery are concerned (literally – most of these things are Tesco Basics branded!), and nothing at all in the cupboards. I would expect at least salt and pepper, perhaps even some tea? Two large bedrooms with an array of windows (one of which is really a living room with a good sofabed and whose window/door thing sports a pigeon and two eggs on a few twigs); a bathroom, featuring a bizarrely raised bath, and a bidet, of course; kitchen, with small balcony lacking a view of anything other than the surrounding buildings and a corner of a hill and the tip of the castle in the distance; person-wide cupboard/room of the kitchen with a window and nothing else; cupboard in hall with window which opens onto the stair; further cupboard with a mattress; and finally the Other Room, which houses the boiler and looks like it should be a room-sized shower: it’s all tiles up and very smooth-edged but completely lacking in a shower. Pity.

On going a-wandering in the evening, a tramp approached Helen and spoke Czech to her. She looked blank and said ”Olliiiieeeee…”. He quickly told the tramp that we didn't speak Czech (Ollie has an unnerving ability to pick up the basics of a language very quickly), which should have defused the situation nicely; however, the tramp paused – looking thoughtful – and promptly started asking in quite comprehensible English for some money. Helen grinned in terror and thrust 20Kr (about 65p) on him before making a break for it. She then spent the rest of the evening hunting for a bathroom to wash the tramp off her hand.

While walking along the river we heard a cry of “Excuse me!” followed by some English chaps – two from Liverpool which amused Ollie muchly – asking us if we knew where "The Club" was. We’re still not sure which Club this might be and weren't a whole lot of help to them...

We paused momentarily, as Ollie and Helen inspected a peculiar object on the ground, wrapped in a tatty drinks cup. After some consideration there was a cry of “Ewwwww,” as they concluded that it was, indeed, a dead rat – rather the worse for it by the look of it!

Scattered across the city are doggie bags. I don’t mean bags to put your leftovers in, but bags for putting your dog’s waste into. They are in handy dispensers with cute pictures, all over the place! That’s surely a better use for the city’s waste-related money than a neverending stream of newly designed waste containers, all of which are in some way horribly flawed (this, btw, is a reference to the biannual relaunch of Edinburgh's litter bins, which unerringly don't do all of what they've been designed to do)?

Week of Chaos pt.1: Sunday

2008-06-16T20:00:00.003+01:00

What a long and exhausting day that was! Well, weekend. Friday was a flurry of last-minute shopping for The Trip and then a (failed) attempt to get an early night before The Recording. The early night was somewhat spoiled by a spontaneous outbreak of Poker in Ollie’s living room which left us frazzled and grumpy.

Saturday morning featured myself, Ollie and Helen trying to get to the church on time – pausing briefly for them to make sandwiches for the choir (awwww how thoughtful!).

Many many many hours of recording later, we ‘wrapped’. Helen and Ollie were both quite satisfied with the outcome so we can look forward to the new CD (which I really hope will get called What Are They Doing?, after the Veljo Tormis piece we’ve been singing, Mis teil tehaske?) being filled with a unique and eclectic variety of music, rather than just a fifth disc filled with folk tunes for our public... let's see how they react!

Post-recording we had another fancy dress party, this time hosted by The Siv. I hadn’t had nearly enough time to create an exciting costume so I didn’t even try; I was also a little dazed from all those hours standing around singing with not nearly enough carbs to keep me going. Ollie more than made up for my lack of effort with his Pierrot costume, complete with accordion for that special Tiger Lillies aesthetic. A million (roughly) photos later I stumbled home, having completely forgotten my plan to snatch a few shots of the Moonwalk as it set off. Oh well.

Sunday was destined to be hellish. I had arranged to meet Ben so that I could a)Pick up a book of mine he had and I wanted to take with me and b)Borrow his old laptop. I managed to get into town and met him at the car boot sale in the Greenside Place car park, which was strangely disappointing. I blame eBay, personally: without leaving your seat it is possible to wander around the largest car boot sale imaginable, picking out the things you want without having people randomly shouting at you; it’s also a great lure for the sellers, where they have no pressure to sell in a couple of hours and are likely to get a lot more for their rubbish. So the car boot sale in person lacked something, primarily anything useful or interesting.

We went for coffee in the new café they built onto the side of St Mary’s (the Catholic one) and were generally quite pleased! The coffee was nice, Ben wolfed down his carrot cake and Robert was terribly happy to get a bacon roll for breakfast. Just as well the café wasn’t attached to a synagogue, I suppose. Laptop and book in hand (well, in bag) we set off for some last-last-minute shopping, before I had to dash home and Get Packed!

On reaching Ollie’s house, it transpired that we had a lot of things to do before sleep could be surrendered to. I had been (vainly) hoping that if we were aiming to be at the airport by 0600h then we might get to sleep before 2300h perhaps? But no. Too much, too much to do – not least of which was Helen getting the recording equipment back to the Music Department. I eventually collapsed about 0030, Ollie (I think) an hour or so after that; Helen says she ended up getting about four minutes kip before having to get moving, which explains why she slept so much on the journey...

There's so much to tell that I am going to split it up by days, so tune in later once I've caught up with Monday.

Anxious? ME?

2008-06-13T18:45:00.005+01:00

Last time I went somewhere in an aircraft I was subject to horrific head pain which had involuntary tears of pain streaming down my face and the thought "I wish I would just hurry up and die, rather than suffer this," running through my head. The return trip was moderately less cause for suicidal wishes, but I was very well rested, hydrated and stuffed full of co-codamol, tyrozets and Rescue Remedy, with earplugs for good measure. It was still awful.

In the intervening years it transpired that I had some sort of chronic rhinitis, caused by - well nobody has worked it out yet. I know some things that will make it worse but nothing so far has made it better. The swelling makes it difficult for air pressure to reach a painless equilibrium in my head.

I now face, almost ten years later, another flight. I spent yesterday with a thumping headache due to the change in the weather, pressure changes of this sort being the main cause of headaches these days. I have paracetamol, ibuprofen, steroidal nasal spray, non-steroidal nasal spray, rescue remedy, valerian, skullcap, essential oils to clear passages and, of course, earplugs. The prospect is still causing me some distress...

Furthermore, the weather in the Czech Republic is going to be a good ten to fifteen degrees too hot for my liking.

And there is to be a coach trip up a mountain so we can go for a nice walk. I hate coaches rather like some people hate aircraft. And this is on the day of our concert so we'll have to dash back to our respective hosts' houses to wash and get ready after wearing ourselves out.

I now discover that our carrier, jet2, has baggage restrictions considerably lower than standard. This is going to make it very difficult to carry camera, basics and laptop onboard - it must be under 10Kg and not in excess of 46x30x23cm- nevermind trying to fit clothes etc. into a container which will be secure, sturdy enough to be "handled as many as 15 times between check-in and Baggage Reclaim at your destination airport" and still come in at less than 17kg. A total of 27Kg? I've been known to carry more than that on a daily basis!

I dread to think what disasters may arise when it comes to staying hydrated on the flight. And of course they're sure to dislike my passpost photo, which now looks NOTHING LIKE ME.

So yes, I'm getting a little tense. Which is a pity because I really like flying.
Passport
Me now

Nerdery

2008-06-11T23:36:00.005+01:00

Three Dr Who-related things of note. Disclaimer: Yes, I like Dr Who, no I don't think the original series was the best thing EVAH, I mostly like some of the books because they can be thoroughly enjoyable. So there.

1. Just encountered an amusing quote from Russell T Davies:

[Those rumours about a new Who series get a definitive statement...] Don't ask me about Dr Who, no comment. Except, of course,the Doctor will be gay, his assistant a rent boy, and K9 a condom machine. Russell T Davies 12/11/99

2. A few years ago, just as Tennant was due to kick off, I discovered that a contemporary author of Dr Who (and Faction Paradox, no less!) novels was coming to the Edinburgh Festival. For no good reason I suggested we meet up for a drink and we did so. It was odd but fun.

3. As we are about to go on holiday to the Czech Republic (see Relative Pitch for more information on this) I feel the need for a good new book - i.e. one I haven't read at least twice before. Last time I was due to leave the country I managed to source a Faction Paradox novel I hadn't yet devoured. This time I had almost given up hope until I convinced someone selling the latest FP on eBay (the only one, I might add, to have ever sold it on eBay) to let me Buy It Now. It was only then that I realised the seller was actually the author.

In summary, it's nice to see that Whovians (this may be an official term by now. Eugh.) are far more of a community than some fan groups. Authors/writers and readers/viewers can encounter each other in far more Real ways than with almost any other TV genre. I respect that, even if I do kinda hate what they've done to the stories since putting them back on the telly.

Feline Abductions

2008-05-30T13:40:00.008+01:00

A couple of years ago I managed to convince my mother that she was in danger of becoming a Dog Person and had to get new cat(s). I sourced some adorable kittens - by luck, I hadn't met them before we received them - which were ready for delivery whilst she was on holiday in Norway. Oh no! thought I, I'll have to kitten-sit!

Eventually she came to collect the babies and has been terribly happy with them, although I gather they are still rather suspicious of her ~~demonic hounds~~ delightful doggies. They're very photogenic and behave like cats in all those important ways which dogs don't.

Except that, last Wednesday, Aineko didn't come home. She also didn't return on Thursday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday all saw the house lacking half of its Bastian complement. And so on, until this morning when I received a call from my mother telling me that the wayward beast had wandered out of the barn this morning, miaowing for food. She sounded not so much excited by this, but puzzled - understandably.

You have to understand that this is not a new thing, for her cats to vanish in unusual circumstances.

Frodo, who I only just remember, disappeared for good when I was about five years old. That's reasonably linear, I suppose. He was mostly renowned for his fabulous eyeliner.

Rover, during the summer holidays on year, got trapped in one of the school buildings across the road from us; we only found him, after about a week, because there were workman around and we wandered across the road and heard him miaowing. A hurried search for a janitor led to a released cat and a Very Happy Ally.

Charlotte went twice; once she got trapped behind the cooker of our downstairs neighbour - which went unnoticed for a while - and another time she managed to slip under the floorboards of the other downstairs neighbours. On that occasion I happened upon her yowling behind a grille in the wall on one of my regular Charlotte-searches (heh heh sounds like Charlotte Churches).

B.B. (originally to be named Bilbo Baggins but he came out female - go figure!) definitely takes the biscuit though. We lived on the first floor and behind out flat there was a flat roof, which the cats used to like wandering around on. One day B.B. didn't come back in. Notices were places around Marchmont, but there was no sign of her. We had long given up hope when, six weeks later (or five weeks, there is some debate), my mother heard a pitiful mewling sound from the bathroom window one morning. Lo and behold! B.B. returns to the very place from whence she had vanished. Much much thinnner than before (but she was always a bit porky) but not dead!

So Aineko is merely following in the pawprints of her predecessors. My mother has some very odd cats...

Oh lordy what am I doing?

2008-05-26T13:47:00.003+01:00

Well, that's the exam for this year over.

Since I clearly don't have enough to do (ha! Ahahahahahahahaha!! and further hysterical noises) I've given in to the nonexistent peer pressure and started a 365 thing. May the deity of your choice have mercy on me.

Saw this and thought of Howard

2008-05-26T08:32:00.000+01:00

Although what the Suitable For 5-9 Years armageddon could represent I dread to imagine.

Here we go again...

2008-05-24T14:42:00.004+01:00

http://cities.uk.com/edinburgh.php appears to have a small piece of Flickr API stuff at the bottom of the page, searching for Edinburgh. The outcome of this seems to be a display of the last five images tagged with Edinburgh being displayed. Shoddy.

Black-balled Medicine

2008-05-22T16:17:00.005+01:00

I'm boycotting Black Medicine. Well, I occasionally use the Marchmont branch but not Nicolson Street. It's been my preferred coffee shop since I first discovered it; I've led many wayward souls to its hard seating, extolling the virtues of illy coffee to anyone who would listen... but no more!

An important part of the Black Medicine Experience has always been the staff. Even when there's rapid turnover, over the summer perhaps, there will always be a core team who are competent and friendly - even if only to regulars. People like Natalie or Stewart, coming and going over the years, have been the eye of the staffing storm, lending a tone of consistency and (almost) professionalism to the place and helping to keep the atmosphere welcoming. It's gone now, the atmosphere. Certain members of staff (everyone knows who I'm talking about here, except perhaps the people under discussion) have spoiled it with their accents, cliqueyness, omnipresence and need to change the status quo.

Black Medicine NO LONGER SERVES ILLY COFFEE!

I can't count the number of times I've heard people say that they will travel great distances to get illy, and Black Medicine has undoubtably received a great deal of custom because of their choice of coffee. However, a certain faction has nagged the management enough (and that must mean a truckload of nagging because they do not give easily to change) that the coffee has changed. According to these people, illy is a shoddy and inferior blend. They're clearly insane, on top of being irritating mingers.

This has become such an issue for me that I have ended up with a Starbucks Card. I may disagree with them on principle - being Giant Corporate Evil, but at least they are fairly consistent and inevitably friendly.

Nobody is more upset by this situation than I am...

So, last Friday I was walking up the road with my Frappucino when I saw Andrew lurking outside the Dread Cafe, so I stood about chatting to him for a while. Before we had a change to muster resistance, a scary man with a squint and teeth that would make a dentist cry accosted us. We were expecting a quick sob story followed by a request for money but instead received a 15 minute tale of woe - he's not a junkie although he used to be, he doesn't drink anymore, he's got a job out of town and needs a bus pass and would we like to buy his PS1 which Cash Generator wouldn't take because they apparently don't sell them anymore?

A little while later I saw him harassing the staff in Jordan Valley. They were less patient; I think he may have been by that point as well if nobody wanted to give him ten quid for his toy.

I finally got someone to sit for my cloning experiments. It went so smoothly I'm kinda disappointed now.

NHS: FAIL

2008-05-16T19:48:00.002+01:00

I'm feeling conspired against. Appointment to see the Doctor (no, not The Doctor, sadly) at 1610h. I was in a panic about being late but them, as it transpired, actually arrived twenty minutes early. Not wanting to spend twenty minutes sitting in a stuffy waiting room - especially as I had just finished my book on the bus - I wandered about a bit, finally getting bored enough to go in and have a seat about 1600h.

In the play area were two boys, probably about Primary 1. They were playing with a good old-fashioned toy made of bendy metal and wooden beads. The game at hand appeared to be a race: each pushing a bead from the top and seeing whose reached the bottom first. When boy A won, boy B tutted and turned the toy around - impressive! thought I, he's making sure that there wasn't some mechanical bias, or maybe hoping to win next time. Second try, boy A wins again. Boy B decides they should thy two beads at once. By this point I'm very impressed by his gamesmanship. Boy A wins a third time. Boy B announces that boy A should try it with three beads, at which boy A huffs off shouting that boy B is a cheater. Now, I'm not a great sportsman, but did boy B not just grasp instinctively he concept behind a Handicap in golf? And did boy A then very simply deconstruct this concept, showing it to be flawed and thus effectively demonstrating that the 'sport' is really, truly, not that there was ever boy doubt, POINTLESS?

Out of the mouths of babes...

So there I am, waiting. And waiting. I play on the DS for a while, but I really need a good book or something watchable on my phone. Boy B wanders past, stopping just within my peripheral vision, and watches. His mother calls him but he's clearly more engrossed in the game than I am. With a final cry of "But look at the game!" he is dragged away.

A further ten minutes pass. It is now 1620h. I've become bored of gaming (for the moment, not for all time!) and put the DS away. National Geographic and Saga Magazine hold no appeal. The air is beginning to feel oppressive, the low-ceilinged fluorescent lights are gradually giving me a pain behind my left eye. Someone is taken away by a Doctor, the only remaining person who had been here longer than I. A snatch of conversation from the Doctor, suggesting that there have been delays today and apologising for the wait.

Another ten minutes. I feel on guilt about having my phone on, despite the big notices around the place, because I've set it to offline and, frankly, if anyone is likely to die because there's a bit of semiconductor tech in the vicinity then they're probably dead already. But this means I can't, say, wander the internet. In spite of the schemie girl whose raucous ringtone went off and the yah girl who just answered a call... Dammit I'm going to speak to someone!

Confusing advertising, baths and death

2008-05-13T23:31:00.005+01:00

4 free light bulbs for every customer, says the advert on the side of buses. Cue map of Europe, with Britain lit up green versus Europ lit up kinda yellow. A bit odd, but perhaps it's something to do with energy saving bulbs being a bit colder in colour than incandescents. It wasn't until I happened to see the ad on the television that I realised they were talking about the bulbs being 'green' because they're better for the environment.

9/10 customers... say BT; am I the only person who wants to amend the posters to say 9/11? I mean, it's not common for advertising literature to use numerals, is it? Perhaps I've missed a spot of media evolution, but i expect "Nine out of ten customers..."

Andrew complained that I hadn't reported his recent bath problem. He was bleaching some jeans or something equally Andrew. Probably to make him fit in better with the Skinhead thing, i would think. So: clothing into bath; add Domestos; leave and return once the nice cast iron bath is hideously scarred from the bleach. Cue me phoning to say hi and a spew of Andrew-flavoured hysteria. After a bit of 'check the internet you knob'-style advice from moi he comes upon a simple solution involving lemon juice (ah, those Old Wives had good tales) and voila! the bath is as good as new. Literally, since it's far cleaner than it was when he started. Way to offset suspicion!

Since he thinks he is newsworthy, I should probably mention that he recently had a somewhat more serious accident when his paramour of the moment (to be fair, he probably lasted a few hours; Andrew's idea of sexy fun these days is nothing if not protracted) decided to stop breathing for a few minutes. The moral of this story, kids: EROTIC ASPHYXIATION IS DANGEROUS, m'kay?

Continuing the Death theme, we were recently discussing the emotional trauma/lack of trauma suffered on the death of a pet. Clearly cats and dogs will leave a space on their passing, but fish, snakes, hampsters... the jury's still out. I developed a method to get through the deathdeathdeath which aquarium owners have to learn to live with. I never name my fish, or the shrimp, and when one of them dies without being munched too quickly for me to notice I flush them to a watery grave while playing 1000 Oceans by Tori Amos. A touch eccentric, but it works for me, although there have been bad periods where I find myself getting sick to death (sick to death, see what I did there? LOL.) of the song.

I am related!

2008-05-12T15:49:00.003+01:00

It might seem an unusual thing to be excited/confused by, but I am now feeling rather like that having spend some time with a bunch of my Relations. Nota Bene: this is a sad story, wherein I detail my sense of loneliness and distance. As such, please turn on some cheesy mournful violin music to accompany your reading.

Most people of my age, in my experience, have a close family consisting of something like: two parents (possibly separated, which can lead to step-parents, step-siblings and half-siblings), one or two siblings, a few aunts and uncles and at least one remaining grandparent. Very often these people will only be seen at Christmas or weddings, but they’ll be there, at least. In my case, close relations = Mother. No sibs, no Grandparents; I haven’t seen Auntie Maisie for a long time… and that’s it. Some people find it difficult to believe I even have a Mother – presumably seeing me as some elemental force of nature.

On Saturday just past, Mother and I went to Bothwell for a Family Do. Her Father’s Half-Brother’s Wife was having a 70th Birthday which we were to attend, along with the couple’s ten Children, 14.5 Grandchildren and all the associated Husbands, Wives and Friends Of The Family. The last time I saw any of these people was somewhere around 1990, and they’ve grown and bred since. Their collective memory of me appeared to be ‘boy with camera’ and every time this was mentioned I tried to hide my great clunky camera, worn around my neck throughout the evening. My memory of that occasion, a wedding, consists mostly of someone wearing a kilt and being tutted at later for having taken photos at very experimental angles.

Saturday was, for me, something akin to culture shock. As an only child, brought up mostly by an only child, I’ve never quite understood siblings. I see some people being very close and some hating and resenting each other; generally I don’t feel like I’m missing much. But the McGurks are so varied and numerous I couldn’t help but look at them more closely – consequently being almost silent (!!!) for most of the time.

Ranging from Andrew (46) to Julia (20(?)), they are of such differing builds and personalities that you wouldn’t think at first that they are a family. Working in Australia, Abu Dhabi, Spain, studying in Dundee, doctoring in Edinburgh… they’re certainly not stay-at-homes; apparently this was the first time they had all been together for many years. An interesting oddity is that they seem to think of themselves as names and numbers, “Kenneth, he’s number nine,” etc. which is certainly helpful for those of us who weren’t even sure how many there were.

Brief aside: just caught a glimpse of BBC News and apparently 5000+ Chinese people have been killed in some earthquake. It occurred to me to wonder why it is that this number doesn’t cause as much fuss as deaths caused by ‘terrorism’. And car crashes. It’s all so media-controlled, our emotional responses to illness and death. Fifty dead from terrorism VERY BAD NEWS; five thousand dead from ‘natural disasters’, bad news. Thousands dead from smoking-related illnesses VERY BAD NEWS; thousands dead from vehicular accidents/alcohol-related illnesses… well, that’s inevitable isn’t it? And cars are so useful and alcohol is socially acceptable so if some people get ill, die, beat their wives, cause the aforementioned car crashes? Well, collateral damage. Bloody hypocrisy.

So anyway, the McGurk ‘clan’ have left me in a bit of a muddle. There are clearly some tensions between sibs, and they’re mostly as mad as you might expect, but there’s a certain innate camaraderie in places which I cannot help but envy. It’s very hard to express the contradictory responses I’ve been left with, but I think that, overall, I do rather wish I’d had siblings to form that bond with.

Of course, on my Father’s side they’re just as numerous. He was the youngest of eight children, and most of them – long dead for the most part – dropped at least a couple of sprogs, who then went on to sire yet more Scotts… there are certainly second Cousins of mine who are my age, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that I have third Cousins who are at least Ollie’s age by now. They’re dropping like flies, apparently; a first Cousin seemingly died of heart problems at 46 recently, having been suffering from GOUT! Since they are clearly living in the 19th Century, it’s no wonder I never see them and feel somewhat alienated.

Oh, apparently Gout is often caused by high protein diets, obesity and alcohol, while cheese has been shown to help prevent it. Cheese! I should be safe then.

So, next time you are irritated by your brother/sister, spare a thought for poor, lonely me. In the meantime I will make some attempts to keep in touch with some of these people, between twitching and trying to figure out how I feel about Families.

I can see! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

2008-05-06T12:01:00.014+01:00

On Thursday afternoon my glasses went PING! I frantically tried to get an appointment with Vision Express, who I have used for the last few years, and found I would have to trail to Ocean Terminal. Alas, the buses are actually as bad as people say and by the time I got there I had missed my appointment. While there I asked how much it would be to get some frames I had (bought about a year ago from eBay) glazed and discovered that it would be £79! Plus £5 if I wanted to get them speedily. So I investigated further, and ended up with an appointment at SpecSavers on Friday afternoon. I had discovered that SpecSavers would give me two complete pairs of glasses - one could even be prescription sunglasses - for something in the region of £85-£95, so I gave up on using the spare frames. I looked through their online catalogue and compiled a list of possible frames, which I sent to people who might have useful opinions and reply quickly.

Apparently my tear film is a bit pitiful and the surface of my eyes is showing slight dryness. Eyedrops, please Mr Pharmacist!
So I went through the fraught process of selecting frames while blind. In the end I went for Damson and Odie (the latter was actually on my list - w00t!).
The Chad left us on Saturday. I was saddened by this as he had turned out to be the sort of person I would deliberately spend time with. We chatted while I was making dinner on Friday, and despite the subject of religion coming up, he being a Christian, I wasn't stoned to death and he wasn't crucified. It's a rare thing for me to get a good religious discussion.
In the evening Ollie and Jenny and Lorraine and I went to Tesco (yes, this IS something worth talking about, as you'd know if you'd ever been to a big supermarket with me or Jenny). While awaiting the silver carriage, Ollie challenged me to take an 'interesting' photo of a tennis ball that was lying in the mulch. Apparently this was a success. On the way back from Tesco Jenny led us astray and Lorraine and I ended up walking halfway to Fife - or so it seemed - from Cramond. Sunday was a day of nothing. I hate long weekends, they're so dead. I went for a wander around Bruntsfield Links just to get out of the house, but that was about it. Monday was a day off work, but I had Other Job to look forward to, so I couldn't DO very much with the day. I discovered to my delight that Cory Doctorow's new novel, Little Brother, had been released - as usual, under a Creative Commons license. I promptly downloaded it and started reading, while poking around with Photoshop and rearranging my neverendingly frustrating hard drives.

Little Brother is very good. WAS very good. I continued reading it on my phone while sitting on the bus and then, when I discovered that the Other Job was also closed (dammit, if I'd realised I could have Done Something with my day!) I sat and read it in Starbucks. And then finished reading it in Starbucks. Three hours later. It's very zeitgeist-ey, filled with YouTube and Flikr and Google and other references to the Here and Now, but that's because it's set pretty much Now and is very much to do with the internet. I've liked most of Cory's books, but I don't think I've ever sped through one quite so ferociously before. Having just done something similar, albeit over a couple of days, with Erasing Sherlock, - golly I want more Faction Paradox novels! - this is hopefully a sign that, post-Bronte, I can remember how to enjoy reading again!

On my way home after this, addled by thoughts of internet security and being watched by Them, I discovered the Meadows, filled with cherry blossom and people having Fun In The Sun. This led, of course, to a flurry of photos, some of which I was quite pleased with.

Reasons never to work with the public

2008-05-02T11:40:00.006+01:00

Overheard in Starbucks, Hunter's Square:

American Woman: "Do you take British Pounds?"

Barrista: "Errr, yes?"

(pause)

B: "Hang on, do you mean British Pounds or Irish Punds?"

(American Woman looks at Barrista as if he is insane)

AW: "English Pounds"

B: "Then, yes. Yes, we do."

(American Woman goes on to order, amongst other things, an expresso...)

B: "So, how long have you been in Edinburgh?"

AW: "Since yesterday."

(American Woman is buying a mug and Barrista is wrapping it)

B: "Where are you staying?"

(American Woman sounds terrified)

AW: "Why do you want to know!?"

B: "Um, just making small talk?”

Beltane, huh?

2008-05-01T12:51:00.007+01:00

Oh what a day Wednesday was. Slight chaos at work with phones ringing off the hook with puzzled old ladies and their relatives. I spent the morning running to and fro trying to figure out what had gone awry. Off to school, where I once again featured as Blanche DuBois, opposed by Tracey's Stanley Kowalski. I don't think Streetcar has ever been so thoroughly entertaining, nor has a rape been so amusedly anticipated. Meet up with Ollie to pick up some music before he dashes off to meet The Chad*, head home and have a quick sing before running up to Calton Hill for Beltane. Shaun, whose ticket I had, eventually arrived in a taxi and we went up the hill... I have to say, I spent a number of years involved with Beltane to some extent or another, and drifted away largely because I didn't feel comfortable with the burgeoning hippy influence. Every year there was the debate about whether the procession should change because it goes around the hill widdershins but, Beltane being the heradling of summer, it really should be going deosil. And of course that argument would drift away when people realised that it just Wasn't Practical. on the site. So, generally, I know what it's all about.

*I should explain The Chad. Many, many moons ago, Ollie's friend Jen used to enjoy meeting men on the internet (latterly, she 'meets' them in Real Life, but since she's eating for two now I think perhaps she's cut back); one of them she ran away from home to live with, in London, but that ended badly and they both swore never to meet people off the internet again (phew! glad that resolution was so easily broken!). One of these men, though, was in Canada and fairly safe because of it. After a while Jen moved onto more visceral encounters and Chad was forgotten... until he Friended Ollie on Facebook. And then announced that he was going to be in the UK and how about he came to Edinburgh to meet Ollie (no mention of meeting Jen; perhaps he realised that he would be in danger of exhaustion...)? Since The Chad was arriving on April 30th, I said we should take him to Beltane, especially as Ollie had never been and Emma had been wowed by the improvement in the ceremony last year. And of course there would be photo opportunities hehehe.

So, Anyway. It all kicked off about twenty minutes late. I made Ollie's gang, Helen Beauchamp & Chris and Shaun get a decent view of the Acropolis and started lurking. Off to the side there were some Christians with a banner of some sort, but before I could take a photo they had rolled it up and scarpered. Probably off to pray for rain on the filthy pagans.

The moment when the drums started I confess I felt it. For that second or so, I could have been swept away by the atmosphere and abandoned this worldly realm with glee. Thankfully(?) I had a camera to look after so I just kept at it. Once the White Women had started their agonising manouevers I scurried off to the Fire Arch, which was the thing I most wanted to capture on, er, memorycard. So I was well prepared long before the procession inched its way into the underworld, even catching some of the ceremony's opening from behind!

Of course, once things were moving people started to cluster around me. Red Men crouching, be-hooded, in front of me, tripod firmly placed and a gradual crowd developing (and a few spots of rain on my screen. Hm....). Annoyingly I couldn't focus on the happenings in front of the Fire Arch, but generally I was very happy with my placement as I caught some nicely Otherworldly images of the May Queen and her coterie passing through. There was an older chap who was in danger of death, though, since he started to LEAN FORWARD and get between me and everything else, apparently while peering at his camera. But I restrained myself, and then went off to find my people and/or go to Fire Point.

I've never been a big fan of Air Point or Water Point. Banners and windchimes don't do it for me, and ever since someone suggested that Water Point enact 'the stillness of a pond' for the May Queen I have had no respect for them. I mean, there's hippies and then there's hippies... I was somewhat sad to miss getting a better view of Earth Point - they seemed to be doing something interesting with big antlered heads fighting - but it wouldn't have photographed well, to I reprioritised. Found Shaun, found Ollie, Stephen and The Chad, then left them all at water point, "Behind the big fish made of tinfoil".

Fire Point is always an odd one. It's on a small flat surrounded by steep slopes up or down, so it's very hard to get a decent view. Since there's a fascinating sense of competition there, having to outdo last year's performance, I though I really had to get a reliable vantage point. Halfway up the hilly bit, tripod set up around me, I was set for a great show. Back when I was first involved with the Beltaners, fire took the form of bonfire, fire sculptures, torches, clubs or staffs, with the occasional fire brether and once or twice a great big wire wall on a chain, filled with fire of course. Gradually poi were introduced - to the point where clubs are now a rarity(!) - and they evolved into double-wicked poit, two-wicked poi, poi with paper rope threaded through to make a WALL OF FIRE; nunchucks, bungee staff (a staff attached to a bungee cord so that, when the wick is first lit, you can create a massive blast of fire in the air) and, the last time I looked, fire fingers (wire attached to the fingers with tiny wicks at the end) and a fire neckbrace thing (with four wick-tipped sticks jutting out from the neck thing).

Sticking to the tradition of excess, Fire Point this year featured lots of poi, a fire sculpture, some more poi, fire fingers, fire skirt and fire horns (they may have been antlers, I couldn't be sure). So I took lots and lots of photos, despite the sky's continued attempts to rain on the Beltane Fire Society's parade.

It was not long after this that the sky stopped trying to rain......

excuse me, my glasses just snapped and I have to do something about it.....

...and started to RAIN. Lordy it were heavy. We shuffled around a bit, reconvened by the Healthy Options van (part of the cheeseburger van, but with Baked Potatoes as well) and put our heads together. Whil we were doing this, a strange hooded (but not painted) man leant into Ollie's face and said "FSHOO", repeatedly. Ollie made the most wonderful faces at this and tried not to giggle too much at the crazy foreigner who had clearly had his brain melted by something. After a while he moved onto me, at which point I realised he was saying "For Sure", but finding it hilarious and over slurring it on purpose. It was a little disturbing because he was leaning in as if he was going for my lips, but he didn't.Ollie and co. went to the pub, Shaun and I meandered and then hid in a bus stop until the rain died down a little before getting a taxi, all the buses having stopped by this point. On my return I had to peel my clothes off as they were pretty much welded to me with water. Bleugh.

No Videos! er, Yes Videos! well, actually...

2008-04-24T21:51:00.004+01:00

I can't decide. Flickr have started letting 'pro' users upload 90second videos. This is causing a HUGE controversy amongst the people who care. There's the NO VIDEO ON FLICKR!!! group (currently 12,908 members)and the We Say NO to Videos on Flickr group (30,118) and the We say YES to Videos on Flickr group (260)... apart from feeling like the opening sequence for Battlestar Galactica I don't think this does anything useful. My first thought was, "Of course no videos on Flickr. that's what YouTube and stuff are there for. Flickr does all it needs to do!" But then it occurred to me that video is art (well, it can be) and that perhaps video has it's place on Flickr too. Except. Well, firstly the videos in question can only be up to 90seconds which, to me, is more restrictive than useful. Second, there are already an unending stream of video hosting sites. Each uses a slightly different encoding or has a new interpretation on the 'standard' player thing, so they're horrendously annoying at times. Third, this is just asking for a never ending stream of wedding videos, holiday videos, children-running-around-in-the-garden-aren't-they-so-ADORABLE videos... Oh god please no... Most importantly, of course, one needs the latest Flash player to make it work, which fucks it all up for anyone who might want to do anything in a restrictive work environment or who for any other reason can't get it. At least YouTube and Google Video are a bit behind the technology. So, really, I'm in favour of Flickr Video in principle but in actuality am horribly opposed. We have video sites multiplying like bacteria for video, places like abinoblacksheep etc. for animation, deviantart for, er, art, and Picasa and Flickr for photos. Generally. So I'd like to keep them a bit separated please. Please?

Photos? You must be kidding, mate!

2008-04-20T16:56:00.003+01:00

Ahahaha! Terrorism! Photos? In public? You must be about to destroy the planet, I'm afraid I'll have to stop you... Best to let the BBC summarize the situation. If you're worried, this might be useful.

My metacortex

2008-04-20T12:06:00.005+01:00

I was recently accused of knowing about modes through the use of Google. While I wouldn't claim extensive knowledge of the subject, I'm not completely clueless and had not, in this case, resorted to everyone's favourite source of quiz answers. However, why on earth not? It's now quite routine for people to use a calculator/phone/spreadsheet to carry out the most routine calculations, when even ten years ago it was seen as a bit lazy, and people would complain that the Youth of Today are Not Getting a Proper Education etc. Similarly, there are still a few holdouts who have not placed their lives in the hands of mobile phones and bemoan the modern lack of memorised phone numbers, while the rest of us are relying on the things to store fifteen numbers, addresses and email addresses just for Mum. I, and many other I know, see t'internet as an extension of myself. It's reached a point where there is little that I can't find at least something about using my Special Search Superpowers, so I regularly pull up a Google or Wikipedia search, perhaps popping into the BBC News pages, in order to clarify something I may have heard in passing or seen on a headline. And really, why not? If it's there, and reliable most of the time, and easily accessed (thanks to the ubiquity of broadband and an unlimited data tariff - see how important mobiles are!?) then why on earth shouldn't I use a vast source of knowledge rather than relying on my puny brain? My ideal state, I think, is Charles Stross's character Manfred Macx in his delightful novel Accelerando (available to buy or for FREE download). In chapter 3 he loses his connection to the electronic world and in the process is so cut off from his resources that he is almost lobotomised. I'm not saying that I want an electronic lobotomy, but I long for a state where I can be that connected, nay integrated. The follow-on from this is my disgust at the idea of closed-book exams. A woman at my work is doing an HNC in administration stuff, pretty much just getting her up to date in MS Office. Now, when at work, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE has at some point or another come to me for advice on Word, Excel, Outlook, the printers... most offices have a resident Chris of one form or another. This woman has come up to me a few times for advice on her coursework, since the teaching standards are less high than the testing standards. I know from experience that these softwares are best learned through practical experimentation and experience, but these people are being given the teaching without the practice. I've become a great fan of the Help function in Excel, whenever I can't think of how do do anything, and there's also an extensive online help and advice system. In the Real World you have access to all of these systems: Help, t'internet, Chris... and yet for their exams they have to hold it all in their heads. What use is that!? It's not a useful exam, it's a test of memory. What they should be testing is the ability to learn how to find out! To know how best to use Help, where to look online, who to talk to. This is another area in which the System cannot keep up with the pace of technological change. Welcome to the Singularity.

Southland Tales

2008-04-16T11:13:00.004+01:00

While wandering around in ~~HIV~~ HMV with Ben at the weekend we came across a new DVD that caught the eye: On investigation it transpired that this was a new film from the mind responsible for Donnie Darko, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (aka Buffy), Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock), Seann William Scott (two of him) and even Miranda Richardson! While I went and asked a friendly member of staff about it, Ben sneakily bought the thing and gave it to me as a late extra birthday present. Awww.

So off to Ollie's house where we ended up not watching in as it's LONG and Ben had to get home.

Of course, I had to see it.

The reviews all said it was a bit confusing. Apparently it had been slated at Cannes a few years ago and completely recut before being released late last year. It's still confusing, but with the same tone as Donnie Darko, where you feel like perhaps you're just not intelligent enough to Get It until you realise that actually it's just very silly.

It's good. I enjoyed it. Even Justin Timberlake was good, in fact it's probably the best thing he's ever done. But it really made no sense. And, as it turns out, that's no surprise since I was only getting the second half of the story! Richard Kelly, writer/director, planned the story as a multimedia extravaganza with back story in comc form and a lot of web content - not all of which came to fruition as dreamed.

So now I have to find and read the comics, then go back to the film and see if I can probe the depths of the subplots. I'm quite happy to watch it again, it's very nicely done and has a couple of satisfying musical-esque moments. Perhaps I will inflict it upon someone else as well this time...

In the meantime, here is my favourite bit of the film. Which has now led to me listening to The Killers.

Oh. Right. Of course.

2008-04-14T22:58:00.002+01:00

Overheard at a busstop

2008-04-07T21:23:00.001+01:00

"Yeah, if I get my DLA I'm gonna go blonde again."

La Siv has vocal sex partners

2008-04-03T20:24:00.004+01:00

"He sexes me then he eats my crunchy nut," quoth she.

New Deven Green w00t!

Here's a funny one

2008-03-29T19:56:00.004Z

Someone is stealing my Helen Sivey. http://www.squidoo.com/Timetraveler A few scrolls down the page you will see this photo. I have no idea why they're done this; at least it links to my flickr as is (mostly) appropriate to the CC-license. It's not even mine, Ollie took the photo and when I took the old phone back I uploaded a few of his photos. The ownership of the image is very confusing. I've been playing with exposures and stuff. It's amazing the effects you can get with a digital camera that would be avoided on film because it seemed 'wasteful', but now it's clever and interesting.

Cocktails and kitties

2008-03-27T10:39:00.000Z

Ahahaha! I like video editing. It's stupid and I'm bad at it but it's satisfying to force decent audio onto a shitty video.

Busy time, even without the extra pressures of school for a few weeks... Last Wednesday was Ollie's birthday, then Thursday was mine and Saturday featured a Cocktail Party. Cue trip to Makro with Ollie and Shaun-san, WOO! Gallons of mixers and lots of crisps later, we were ready for the party - well, expect that for any Cocktail Party run by someone who hasn't just won the lottery one must rely on the kindness of strangers. No, on the reliability of friends, which is even worse! Andrew was tasked with bringing Bailey's. This was easy for him because he usually turns up to any party with a bottle of Bailey's, sits and drinks it and then leaves when it's finished. He had borrowed some money from Ollie a few days previously, and one condition he was given was that he HAD TO come to the party. So, of course, out comes some excuse about unexpected familial bonding and voila! No Andrew. He will, I assure you, pay for this. I had a ten-to-ten panic when I realised that Helen Beauchamp, whose birthday it was on Saturday and who had been asked to bring some white rum, has not yet materialised and if this continued then I wouldn't be able to make any Long Island Iced Teas! This would have destroyed me. My main reason for a Cocktail Party is to convince people to bring me the right ingredients for a LIIT and having spent three hours mixing a variety of nameless yet scrumptious cocktails for people I was very much ready for one. Cue Shaun-san and a trip to Peckhams for rum and Bailey's, which turned into a Triple Sec run, as the Birthday Girl finally arrived and I decided that it was too late in the evening to be serving Bailey's without causing a queue of vomiters. And finally I had my cocktail of choice. Well, a few of them. Then I got bored and spent the rest of the evening tidying. Am I a party girl or what? Did I mention the loverley camera Ollie gave me for my birthday? Heh heh heh. I'm totally chuffed to bits - although now feeling somewhat inadequate in the gift department - and my friends are starting to feel hounded like a Princess. As are the flora and fauna of Edinburgh. And my computer is beginning to creap under the anticipated weight of thousands of nine-megapixel photos, which come in at 2.5 to 4.5 MEGABYTES. Flickr has never been so slow to upload to... I am now planning to make trading cards of everyone. I think this could be a nasty and torturous excuse for even more photos. :D

Money really doesn't buy happiness?

2008-03-14T09:37:00.001Z

Edinburgh's local bus company, Lothian Buses, is one of the major frustrations of my life. The british obsession with weather - understandable when you think about how miserable and unpredictable it is - can be matched by the Edinbourgeois need to rant about the buses. Guess why, then? In spite of this, the company keep being awarded titles like Best Bus Company in Britain. Nobody ever understands why, and it makes us wonder just how bad other services must be!

As well as the stream of awards they keep sticking on the side of the buses, there is often a recruitment sign on the back, currently telling us that the average salary for a bus driver is £24,000pa. Since this is, rarely for anything outside London it seems, actually in the region of the UK Average, you'd think these drivers might be quite happy. And of course you would be wrong. Most drivers of Lothian Buses are grumpy, obstructive, and generally elicit the same range of responses as the weather.

How is it, then, that employees of Starbucks, who will be getting half of that wage while dashing about in a hot, confined space while suffering a barrage of Stupid Customers (no, I'm not implying that there is any other kind) and knowing all the time that they are a part of an EVIL giant corporation can be so consistently cheery!? Lothian Buses driver: pots o' cash, sit down all day, miserable barstewards. Starbucks barrista: half the cash, busy and stressed, ALWAYS HAPPY AND HELPFUL. I'm consistently amazed by the Starbuckers, as no other coffee emporium seems able to get their staff to smile more than fleetingly. Are the drugging the coffee? Who knows, but i want some.

London? no, No, NO!!!

2008-03-14T00:43:00.006Z

I have Londonphobia. There was a time when just looking at a London phone number made me nervous. I'm mostly over it now, but I've been tagging and geotagging my Flickr and came to a small chunk in central London. I had managed to find the right places (I think) in Bordeaux but as I zoomed into London all I could think was "No," and next thing I had closed the tab. So it's clearly not completely gone.

Flattering conversations

2008-03-13T21:34:00.001Z

Man: You could be a ballerina. Helen Sivey: Really? Man: Yeah, well, you haven't got the build but you've got small breasts.

Eugh exams

2008-03-12T17:27:00.008Z

Well, after thirteen years of not being examined, except by doctors, it's started again. It was only a Mock exam for Literature, but still. Ouch in my head and ouch in my fingers.

We knew that there would be questions on Jane Eyre and Othello and also something on the character of Blanche DuBois and an unseen poem. I had decided in advance that I would avoid the classics so was pleased by the choice of unseen poem...

...Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Sorry, I had to go and Do Stuff for a while there... ...See, this is why it's bad being interrupted in mid-blog. You completely lose your flow. Anyway, I then had to go to a church to sing with the choir for the purpose of recording tracks for our new CD. Of course, the equipment wasn't behaving so Helen stressed a few months off her life before running back to the Music Department to get alternatives. Eventually we got going and apparently it went as well as was expected. Hurrah. Next recording date is in April... Ollie recently started working on a piece for strung quartet and choir, inspired by the Russian deity Poludnitsa. He wrote the second movement to start with, just for the strings, and then rearranged it for string orchestra. On Wednesday afternoon he was having it played (and recorded, I think) in a competition, along with three other pieces, by a string orchestra, voted on by the orchestra and judged by some... judges? Not long after this, the votes came back - the judges had placed him second of four and the players had voted his piece the best! They'll now be taking it on tour with them! Fab. You can hear the string quartet version of the piece on MySpace, on a page I had to set up for the purpose. I was shocked by how thoroughly disorganised MySpace is, when it comes to doing things with music.

Don't know why...

2008-03-11T12:34:00.006Z

...There's no storm up in the sky Sunny weather, Since my man and I are together Keeps sunning all the time I'm really quite upset. All this talk of storms and apocalyptic weather, and all we have is a sunny day with a few clouds. It's dry and even quite warm! Spoils the song, really.

Value for Chocolate

2008-03-10T10:25:00.003Z

I seem to find myself in arguments on the subject of Easter Eggs this year. First Jenny was black affronted and rendered near speechless by my purchasing of and then eating of an egg, pre-Easter. Which I punished her for by force feeding most of it to her while she was driving. Just, you know, to ensure she's going to Hell or whatever.

I was then debating the price of chocolate eggs with my mother. She said that they were a terrible ripoff and i was quick to point out that, actually, they're not bad usually and anyway it's about the shape and the thinness.

So, of course, when I next found myself near a pile of eggs in Tesco I paused for longer than it usually takes to decide which to buy (and I'm rather indecisive) and did some sums.

My egg of choice on this occasion was a 185g Flake egg, for 99p. This size of egg comes with two bars of chocolate and an egg which fits comfortably into my hand. Just. To buy two bars of Flake would usually put you back around 90p-£1 so the egg, which is approximately 100g or curvaceous joy, is effectively free! And on top of that you get a bundle of packaging - Yum.

Last year, post-Easter, Tesco had six-packs of Creme Eggs reduced to 10p each. The previous year we stocked up on 100g bags of Mini Eggs, reduced to 10p each. It's almost as if Tesco have captured the floppy-eared pascale Santa and are using it to produce avalanches of chocolate which, to them, is effectively free.

In conclusion, buy the 99p Easter Eggs because they're the best value chocolate EVA. And go to supermarkets on Easter Monday.

八 - Whassat then?

2008-03-08T19:41:00.002Z

Just to clarify: 1. ichi 一

2. ni ニ

3. san 三

4. yon 四

5. go 五

6. roku 六

7. nana 七

8. hachi 八

9. ku 九

10. juu 十

Counting the little pictures

2008-03-07T16:37:00.003Z

Stephen: What comes after Seven?
Me: Um, Eight?
Stephen: Yes, but in terms of little pictures?

I think being back at Tesco has drained poor Stephen's vitality so much that he has forgotten words like Kanji. Either that or having to learn tons of them has sent him into a self-inflicted spiral of amnesia.

The Colour of Informatics

2008-03-06T18:52:00.002Z

The new University of Edinburgh Informatics building in the former Crichton Square car park is nearing completion! This section has a bunch of different, brightly coloured, spirals. Possibly staircases? I think the finished product will be good.

Andrew's comedy life

2008-03-06T14:39:00.007Z

Andrew likes to do things for kicks that most people would baulk at the very thought of. And so he spends endless hours scouring the interweb for people who are similarly twisted. These are the people your mother warned you about, although most of them are so timid outside the dungeon that they'd never dream of doing these things without written permission...

So today Andrew found some local 19year old (apparently!) on t'internet, who announced that he would pop up to Andrew's "office" imminently. This threw the poor chap into a tizzy because he doesn't really Do Coffee with people, especially not people he's scouted for dirty sticky fisty encounters. Black Medicine is where he spends most of his free time, and people he's Meeting usually provide a venue, whether it be hotel room, dungeon or suitable stainproofed boudoir.

This tied in with reports of a be-mohawked homosexual sighted in BM by Ollie. When I arrived Andrew was, for some reason, concerned that the mohawkee might be the 19year old. Of course when this person happened to turn up it transpired that he is a friend of Martha's and NOT 19.

It was mightily amusing.

This was, of course, at the point where I had skipped out of Maths early to do my Japanese homework. I had done all I could in the classroom so I felt fully justified, and it marks the exciting event of me actually doing my Japanese homework for the first time! Not that it takes more than about 2 minutes...

In other, surreal, news I got my Jane Eyre essy back and it had been a roaring success! God only knows how - I was convinced that I had entirely failed to answer the question. In the end the only criticisms were that I hadn't noted page numbers and had been occasionaly distracted by plot. Unnecessarily. I love the fact that plot takes a back seat in these situations - no sorry, I HATE that. Plot is what I want in a novel and if it's captivating enough then character development and writing style can F*** Off if need be.

This is why I avoid Literature whenever possible. Streetcar is SO much better, even five pages in. And Jean Brodie is amusing! I will, if I can, be disowning Brontë and Shakespeare henceforth.

UPDATE: When opening Flickr I discovered this greeting: I'm pretty much speechless. Is Lolcat now a recognised language!?

It's hard to photograph snow with a phone camera

2008-03-03T20:16:00.000Z

It's still winter, btw.

Fill the whole world with the Rainbow!

2008-02-26T13:50:00.002Z

I took more but I'll need to stich them together before posting them. See, just because there are gale force winds and nasty spitting chunks of water in the air, it doesn't mean the weather's all bad!

I miss my interlolz

2008-02-26T11:38:00.005Z

Last week we were due to change ISP, for some reason that seemed good at the time. Alas, BT got involved somewhere in the middle - something technical so it's their department. After about 4 days of no internet they were pestered and eventually said they would re-do whatever it was they (had supposedly) done; it was then announced that there was a fault on the line. Since the line has been working perfectly, at good speeds as well, I can;t imagine what BT have done to brek it, but I'm sure it's their fault. Now, after a week of no internet at home I'm getting cabin fever. I've missed Torchwood, Sarah Connor, Skins... well, perhaps there is a bright side after all. Sunday ended up as a sit-about-and-watch-Babylon-5 day. In fact, the wekkend was mostly a writeoff due to not knowing what people were planning to do. After about 12 hours sat in front of the computer, doing my maths project and shuffling files around to tidy things up a bit while being sucked into the early days of the Shadow War, I discovered that my posture had done me in and I now have a sore back. Typical.

Merry Christmas!

2008-02-14T23:34:00.000Z

Overheard at work

2008-02-12T15:16:00.000Z

"Miss Selfridge has some really nice stuff but it's so expensive!" The mind boggles. Geotagging is just not happening right. The N95 should be able to pick up the GPS data and add it to the photo, but it only works if i upload the image straight to Flickr, rather than taking it off the memorycard and uploading it from the computer. Odd. Eventually, after installing Nokia's Location tagger along with ShoZu, I can pretty much get it to work. Lovely haar. It took me twenty minutes to walk from Newbattle Terrace to Morningside Park last night because I had to experiment with photos.

I hereby conclude that a)Photos of mist and such do not work well on cameraphones and b)HDR imaging does not work well with images from cameraphones.

We had visitors this weekend. Lloyd (who has appalling taste in DS games, other than loving Ouendan and its family) came to Edinburgh for the weekend which gave Jimbob an excuse to visit Stephen and Joe. There was some brief pubbing followed by a lot of NAPs, which I found odd. Lloyd ended up going to see Sweeney Todd because of the other three NAPping so hard. Well done him!

As you can see from his expression, Jimbob had a fabulous time in Edina.

Ollie, Stephen, Camhoillilieoiolilie and I went to Favorit last week, and I spent some time Paparazzi-ing the lady. In the midst of this Ollie made her do a Sally. Lovely.

Microsoft reach new lows

2008-02-08T01:03:00.000Z

I mean, if they're now making their packaging too hard to open... I missed the gym tonight. I think the hectic lifestyle is beginning to get to me - every time I tried to write Q in an equation today I actually wrote x. So I allowed myself to be dragged to Favorit to see Stephen and Caominhlieliolie.

Don't you think Fluffy Princess Momo Bloiff-chan is a looker?

Look, I've got a lot on, OK?

2008-02-04T21:38:00.000Z

Having two jobs, two courses of study, choir and (when I can fit it in during opening hours) the gym does leave one a tad tired in the head. I've still got to finish Jane Eyre and Othello while working on Katakana and trying to learn new music. Helen has a new pet. It has not died yet. I realised that I have now reached my first Terabyte. People ask if I actually need that much space but YES I DO. The quality (and therefore size) of audio, video and image files are steadily rising. I find myself with FLAC files and HD video. This takes up space! It's also frustrating to have to dig around for files when you can have them at your fingertips. I am in the process of ripping all the CDs I miss (so much MOMUS!!) I can now do this. Therefore, the space is needed. The WGA Strike has, to date, left me without new Ugly Betty, House, Prison Break, Chuck, Reaper, Pushing Daisies, Heroes and, imminently (well, after they air the next 10ish episodes), Battlestar Galactica. If I didn't already have an instinctive distrust of TV studios I'd certainly loathe them now. I've been temporarily exiled to a different building at work. I got into the office today and the power went off. After two hours of on/off lights and phones but with no network I returned to the mothership to get some work done. It was very odd.

Slack? Me??

2008-01-28T14:32:00.000Z

I know I know, but sometimes I just can't face having to TYPE things. We now have the full set of Series one Buffy figures. They're very silly. I had a mad urge to make a stop motion animation with them, getting Ollie and Helen to orchestrate it etc. but mercifully it passed. In the meantime, Ollie's camera started being WEIRD. It's a wonderful effect but not really useful for normal photographic purposes. So there goes my experimentation with HDR...

Oh well. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a touch controversial. I had read some VERY mixed reviews of the film, with a bias against it overall (especially as there is a gradual Tim Burton backlash due to him being a little formulaic/repetitive/always casting JD & HBC) and so was delighted when it turned out to be rather enjoyable. Sure, the characters a all thoroughly unlovable and the cast aren't exactly singers but the musical really could have been written for Tim Burton to film. Although HBC can't possibly compare to Angela Lansbury's original performance:

So now I can alternate between a jolly happy chubby feelgood musical about how if you just TRY HARD then you can make the world a better place, and a miserable, misanthropic, bleak and bloodthirsty musical which tells us that everyone is shit and we all deserve to die and BTW whatever you do you'll be betrayed and end up being the cause of your own downfall. Hurrah.

You know how Facebook is really evil........

2008-01-24T00:23:00.000Z

It's almost as if the Gods of Facebook are trying to make the site into a security black hole.

Eye Eye, it's been a while

2008-01-23T00:13:00.000Z

Time was, celebs were dropping dead of having too much fun left right and centre. It's not happened recently, at least not that I've noticed, so this is almost shocking/surprising. UPDATE: Perhaps this is part of a recent trend!

Happy Birthday!

2008-01-22T12:31:00.001Z

..to those people who are reminded of the inevitable inching closer to the grave today. Especially those arriving at nx+8 and 4x+1.

OLD!OLD!

Polymer Slayer

2008-01-22T12:14:00.001Z

On a recent trip to Forbidden Planet I encountered some amazingly tacky Buffy figures, reduced to £1.99 each. So I had to get one, or rather, three. This was the 'Season one' set which offered Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, Darla and The Master. I got the girls. As a gift, of course!

They're really really hideous. And make the Battlestar Galactica models of Boomer and a Cylon seem teeny in comparison. Perhaps the Galactica humans are smaller than we are...

After much mockery of the plastics, Ben and Ollie nonetheless took much pleasure in playing with these tiny new friends, mixing their clothes and accessories around to much amusement. So I think I'll have to pick up the toy boys (ah ha) if they're still available. After all, the model of The Master came with a see-through skeletal version as well!

I do hope they get as far as Season five. I want a model Glory with a hundred different outfits and snivelling minions.

The last few times I've been to Ollie's house he's been flashing me. With Hiragana flashcards. As a result I appear to have now pretty much learned the script, although I still get a little confused when trying to write them down since some of them really are just nonsensical.

This does mean, however, that I'm about 20 months ahead of the game; when Stephen started his Japanese degree he knew none fo them and had to frantically learn them all really quickly. If I can keep this up I'll have Hiragana and Katakana well learned by then, along with a bunch of Kanji and perhaps (?) even some grammar and vocab!

On the down side, I left my charger at home and so I can't spend all day watching House and also will have no battery left by about 20:00, meaning that my planned trip to the gym would be a TORTUROUS TEDIUM and thus, cancelled.

I've always said that Stephen was a bit of a hothead...

2008-01-19T15:21:00.000Z

lol.

In other news, Europe is gradually developing an anti-anti-piracy movement, beyond the Swedish Pirate Bay peeps. There are even politicians involved! There's a fabulous video at http://www.iwouldntsteal.net/ which is worth watching if you've ever had to sit through the irritating anti-piracy warnings on DVDs.

What happened to Mona's law?

2008-01-19T02:21:00.000Z

If anyone wants to give me a job that will fit around my studying and allow for full-time income I'd be pleased to know. No school today hurrah! Just lots of work. I was meant to meet Ollie at the Music Department but after hanging around for five minutes he called to say they were at the Library. Sigh. There was talk of pub. There was talk of takeaway and DVDs. I proposed doing something more... cheap and healthy? but since all the Helens were going to come, along with Camhoillillieoile SoggyCity, I was thoroughly overruled. So I went home, caught up on computeryness and was told to Be There At Eight. Time, of course, ran away. So I dashed up the road and just before arriving got a call to ask Was I coming and to say that they were about to order Chinese. Which is fair enough, but of all the possible takeaways Chinese is the most likely to be toxically glutenous; I think I managed not to be huffy about this choice of menu... Pasta is a safe bet. I try to make sure that there is pasta and soy sauce for ME in any place I may be cooking, so that was that. Ollie, Helen Sivey and Camhoileilieoile and I then spent most of the evening harassing the interweb on Aaron's laptop. Camhoilllioholie is really a nerdgirl at heart, for all of her obsession with yellow pencils. She knows 4chan and everything! For some reason I felt like a bit of an outsider. It's not like anyone was being unwelcoming, and I do hope it's not because everyone was about x years younger than me; perhaps it a part of my recent odd moods. Maybe I should get Medicated, that'd surely leave me devoid of any emotion :) So anyway I went to Stephen's briefly to deliver a folder, some salt and a pack of sponges. Then watched a little Green Wing while Joe entertained himself with Java and then helped Stephen hassle Joe into bed before walking home singing When David Heard. Now. Ugly Betty, High School Musical 2, Legally Blonde: The Musical or 30 Rock to send me to sleep? Hm.... Update: For as long as anyone alive can remember the has been an unofficial diagonal across the top section of Bruntsfield Links, leading from the junction of Warrender Park Road and Whitehouse Loan to the corner of Brunstfield Place and Bruntsfield Terrace. In 2006 there were gas works cutting across this area, followed by a very muddy autumn. As a result THIS PATH IS NO MORE. The rough route can be made out here; I've scribbled a line next to the remaining pathiness. This is, to those of us who grew up in the area, an astonishing example of how small things can have fairly major influences.

NSFW Day!

2008-01-17T14:57:00.000Z

Well, at least I woke up before 9 today! This is just plain weird. And made me squirm slightly. I'll give you some space to scroll down because little old ladies in workplaces might be appalled. ... ... ...space... ... ... ...more space... ... ... ...how about a tasteless joke to pass the time?... ... ... ...What do spinach and anal sex have in common?... ... ... ...If you were forced to have it as a kid, you'll hate it as an adult... ... Here you go then!

So... sleepy...

2008-01-17T00:57:00.000Z

I had a stupid day:

Wake up c 1045.
Dash to work.
Check calendar. shit I've got a class at 1200.
Dash to School, pausing to pick up some music from Ollie on the way.
Get to class.
Check timetable oops I should be here tomorrow. BYEEE.
Wander around with Ollie until class at 1300.
Go to class.
Nobody about oops this class is tomorrow as well how stupid am I being?
Go to library.
Wander around music section. Absentmindedly text Ollie to tell him how stupid I am.
Meet Ollie in library.
Leave Ollie so I can go to class 1400.
Hm. Nobody about I wonder why oh it's 1430-1645, not 1400-1600.
Give up on ever having a brain.
Go to work for a while.
Choir! Envoi and En Une Seule Fleur are both quite challenging.
Walk Ollie and Helen home, then walk back on my tod (avoiding site of recent local stabbing), chatting to Mother.

And now I'm near unconscious.

Watashi wa bit busy desu

2008-01-15T18:09:00.000Z

School and work take their toll on my time. In brief, then... Ollie and I had a lovely meal on Sunday c/o John and Susan. Orange and ginger baked salmon, whole new potatoes and some flash-fried courgettes, sugarsnap peas and pak choi. Mmmmmmmm. Read the beginning of Jane Eyre. OUCH that's a mean story. Othello is really boring. Especially the Branagh/Fishborne version. Miss Jean Brodie is fun though. I spent a couple of hours yesterday forcing Stephen to make some simple sense of Japanese at me. Which left us both a bit frazzled, but I feel slightly more ready to learn some now. I've been answering the question how are you with snotty. Which is, I expect , due largely to the damp, cold weather getting in my face. I'm also suffering a teeny bit from soggy feet, as the shoes I wear most often have worn out just enough to let some damp in under extreme wet conditions. And the nice new shoes I bought really aren't WET shoes. Let's see if anything exciting happens tonight.

"Looks like a no-brainer"

2008-01-12T23:54:00.000Z

Last night it became VERY icy while Ollie and I were at Helen Sivey's. Which was very pretty.

As often happens when I'm walking home I called my mother for a blether, but unfortunately Steve must have been online because the line was engaged. Aha! thought I, she's likely to be on Skype! Why not try to get her through that? A bit of internetting later I have Fring installed and prepare to Skype. Or course it doesn't work as hoped. She was very quiet, I was very loud and the call died after about 15 seconds. However, the Chat side of things (and this is for Skype, MSN, GChat, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ...) is very simple and works as you would hope. So I wandered home 'chatting' to her, pausing only to take the occasional photo of the ice (see above).

Today continued to be remarkably cold. I met up with Stephen and Ollie at Favorit, had some nachos and then went back to Stephen's to play with food. I had slipped into a weird, uncommunicative mood and wasn't feeling particularly FUN but there was a plan to have people round to watch Grindhouse later. So I played Overlord, Joe fell asleep and Stephen did some homework. Ollie came back from the library and then went to Tesco with Stephen to get supplies. I made preparations for cooking... Dinner consisted of: Home-made beefburgers (beef mince, onions, spices, stuffing mix, egg), mashed potato and some broccoli, sugarsnap peas and courgette fried together in a pot, all topped with a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce and soy sauce. Yum. But by the time I was halfway through making the food everyone had arrived and wanted films! So I ordered them to start it and settled down to sit quietly in the kitchen...... By the end of Death Proof lots of people had left and I gave in to peer pressure and joined the room for Planet Terror. Which is very silly. Odd things I have noticed recently:

1. Great bit number 90 up on the first floor above Ripping Records on North Bridge. The numerals are tatty and old so I must have been not noticing them for a looong time. 2. Middle Meadow Walk. The litter bins are ALL on the opposite side as the pedestrian lane. WHY??

"It's all forehead!"

2008-01-11T21:16:00.000Z

Quoth Helen Sivey.

Made dinner for Ollie and Aaron. I think I may try to keep track of culinary, er, things here, so... I got some big German sausages and cooked then with lots of fried onion, salad, potato croquettes and some pasta sauce adapted to be a little bit more scrumptious than it was to start with. This was a special Chris Creation which should have been disgusting and may have been but I enjoyed it.

Then we went to see Helen Sivey and there was much hilarity. And the Macarena. Nuff said.

(Cough cough) Ohayō!

2008-01-10T23:36:00.000Z

I'm so ridiculously hooked on Ugly Betty. I don't quite understand why, the first five episodes or so were kinda dull and slow but suddenly I can't stop! This may be Clever Writing at work. Yesterday I started to develop a tickle in the back of my throat. By the time we'd had our New Year Choir Meeting (don't even ask. Because I will not rehash that.) it was becoming a Tickly Cough. This morning I woke up and cried out in pain. Silently. Swollen oh YES and rather painful too. Since I had school this afternoon I called in sick to work for the morning, to allow me to shop for drugs. Cafe Nero - Latte mmmmmm Chemist. Glucose tablets and Pholcodeine Linctus YUM. Off to school. OOPS I mis-entered my timetable into Google Calendar and there's no Study Skills this week. So off to IALS to register for Japanese Beginners course and then to Black Medicine for a quick coffee before Maths! So far, I don't see what the fuss is about. Why do people dread STATISTICS so? Perhaps it's because they have to do it, whereas I'm keeping the basic Maths course on because I quite enjoy it... BTW, why do you think Barr make "Ginger Beer Flavoured Soft Drink" (I'm sure it used to be just Ginger Beer they made, but anyway...) and then add Saccharin and Aspartame? It's not like it's the Diet option or anything! I noticed this because I was thinking it tasted a bit odd. Turns out, IT DOES taste a bit odd! Aaaanyway. Went to work for about an hour, mostly to keep warm but it had the added bonus of getting sympathy because I was ill but at work. By the time I had my jacket off people were asking me questions about Word etc. as if I hadn't just arrived. People, eh? Then off to Japanese. Much could be said about learning Japanese in a beginners' class which needs to be suitable for all comers. The building used to have some exciting mural(s) over the stairs. I remember it vaguely from doing some Italian there when I was about 10, but there has been a lot of restructuring in the intervening years and I couldn't see ANY interesting wall decorations. sadface.

Ha!

2008-01-09T19:40:00.000Z

Gym? Forget it! If I had strayed too far from the path I would surely have been lost in a wilderness of RAIN and WIND. I got as far as su before falling asleep at work. Braved the apocalyptic precipitation and went to Ollie's to hide. Of course, he wasn't there, he was having dinner made for him by D.

Nigella - I mean D, with profiteroles.

So I sat and distracted Helen for a while, dropped popcorn into Aaron's port (well, MY port which he's been sipping away at) and eventually He Returned about 2315. About time for me to leave, really! Today saw the return to Learning. Two and a half hours every Wednesday for 16 weeks studying Literature. This could be my nightmare.

Today's goals are:

2008-01-08T17:47:00.000Z

1. Learn Hiragana. Or at least a lot of it. 2. GO TO THE GYM. It's a miserable evening so exuhcise (with some House to keep me sane) and a brief trip to Ollie for final gifting should be eminently feasible. We shall see...

Oh god it never ends

2008-01-08T01:00:00.000Z

Today the last of the internet X-mas gifts arrived. About time. Classes start back on Wednesday. Then Thursday. And the beginner's Japanese course I'm supposed to be doing starts Thursday later, which fits in nicely. Now I just need to get enrolled and afford it. I managed to source three of the five texts for English Lit on Amazon for under twelve quid, which is nice. Othello, Miss Jean Brodie and a whole bunch of W H Auden will be winging their ways to me imminently. Now I just need Jane Eyre and Streetcar. Oh, and also find any and all film/TV adaptations of aforementioned Classics. Especially the Simpsons episode :) The new Goldfrapp album, Seventh Tree, seems to be a bit of a return to Felt Mountain form. I'm glad. Supernature was fun, but my favourite is still their debut.

Tragically...

2008-01-07T09:43:00.000Z

This is what Edinburgh snow is more often like these days. The inevitable result of heavy rain becoming, at some point during the night, a half-hearted snowfall: miserable slush.

It's depressing.

Strange lights

2008-01-07T01:38:00.000Z

While making a cup of coffee I noticed a mysterious flashing outside. So I went to investigate. Five soggy minutes later I am none the wiser. Somewhere in a garden across the block was a source of light, bright enough to light up the whole of the building. It flashed erratically for a while, then flickered with such regularity that it became almost constant and eventually died. I couldn't get a good enough vantage point to see what it was but it was definitely outside and there was no sound other than the rain. It's just one of Those Mysteries.

Of pigs and thongs

2008-01-06T23:59:00.000Z

I can't help but recommend everyone to read this perfect summary of the current internet music situation. And anyone who knows children should probably have access to this wonderful book. I am impressed by Teller Speaks. Clearly he should spend more time communicating with words. Today featured the gift of a fabulous very long scarf and the gift of some posh bubbly. I am greatly pleased by the scarf and its malleability; the bubbly may pose some problems as I'm not generally a fan (many brands of champers taste like nothing more than over-fizzed cat wee, I find) so I think cocktails may be in order, just to be safe. After all, I appreciate the gift and want to enjoy it too! There was also the excitement of getting some David Bowie LPs to play on an antiquated hi-fi and a pair of comedy Christmas pants - well, a thong - modelled by someone of the wrong gender:

There may be a giant chocolate Santa stuffed in there somewhere, but it's really best NOT to ask. Ben gave me a Christmas Hamper a few days ago. This contained, rather than the traditional hamper fare, a range of Gluten-Free Things: Jaffa Cakes, pasta, pizza bases, stuffing mix, mock-oatcakes, chocolate cake... YUM! I proceeded to make full use of the pizza bases today. Sauce mix comprised: Tomato Puree; Tomato Sauce; Lemon Juice; Finely Chopped Olives; Finely Chopped Jalapeños; Black Pepper; Garlic Granules; Paprika; Bisto Best Roast Onion Gravy Granules; Soy Sauce; Water. I also made some toast-pizza things for the glutenophiles, but they didn't get a scrumptious topping of cheap tinned tuna. In other news, black is the new black,the world's still going to hell in a handbasket (which makes no sense but sounds frightful!), I suspect vinegar may be to blame for my occasional skin oversensitivity (not necessarily gluten-vinegar, either) and taking cold clothes out of a cold tumble drier is just as bad as taking warm clothes out of a warm tumble drier is good.

Jumping for Minbar

2008-01-06T12:53:00.000Z

Once upon a time I was involved in Parkour. Please don't laugh. This video seems just a little too deliberate. The dirt cheap Babylon 5 series 1 set I ordered around christmas arrived yesterday. I had forgotten both how good and bad it is. I can't wait to get to the exciting plot developments! I've been trying to figure out how to reliably transfer data between Finale and Sibelius. And short of buying the Doliet softwares to export/import the MusicXML formats I think I may stick with using .mid and doing a lot of tidying up. Which is a terrible pity. Rather reminiscent of when Jenny sent round a document from Works and nobody could read it until I found a Microsoft plugin for Word to allow it to read Works files. How backwards is that? The same software company and the two word processing packages are incompatible!

Grumpy Kitchen Troll

2008-01-05T22:07:00.000Z

There are always days when socialising is not on the menu. A Twelfth Night party, featuring a lot of people in a lot of very different interpretations of crowns, would usually be my idea of a Great Time. But not tonight. Here's a nice chair in the kitchen. Here's me upon the chair. Here's everyone else in the other room. Except when they come in looking like a Roman Emperor:

There's some mulled cider. In Gloria by Abbie Betinis, which we sang at Christmas, there's a line "Cider burns your tongue," which we altered to whisky, for local relevance. Cider. Burns your tongue? How odd! Apparently not - here we have hot cider with oranges, cloves and cinnamon in. Smells very mulled. Pity i don't like spices...

I think I've got the Januaries

2008-01-05T18:51:00.000Z

You know that post-new year ennui? The sudden comedown from a shopping and eating bonanza? The feeling that everything ahead is DULL and DEPRESSING? That's the Januaries. And I've got it hard. On the bright side, the Wall-E trailer looks just as cute as it should be. I'm far more excited by this than the anticipation of Cars or Ratatouille.

I hate banks.

2008-01-04T23:50:00.000Z

They destroy my sense of inner balance.

Days like this make blogging seem worthwhile

2008-01-03T23:58:00.000Z

Wake up. Snow. Work. Ollie was meeting Stephen for Coffee. I had to see if Fat Face could help with the missing button on my lovely new jacket, and find out if Ben was indeed going to be available for some sort of excitement this evening. Stephen suggested we all go to see St. Trinian's. On meeting Ben I passed on the St. Trinian's proposal and he was positive, as was Robert; Ben was to finish work around 19:00. Then came the inevitable debate about which cinema to go to. Cineworld is on the right side of town for four of us BUT it's wet and slushy and requires lots of walking. Film at 21:15. Vue at Omni is similarly close to Ben and Robert although it's quite far from the rest of us BUT it is within very easy reach of buses which would actually mean less walking in the sog. Film at 21:00. Vue at Ocean Terminal is far from everyone BUT the bus thing again AND it has lots of nice shops. Also, Stephen has never been there! Film at 20:15. In the end, Ollie, Joe, Stephen and Robert all dropped out of the Film plan, leaving me with time to kill before Ben was to finish work after which we would go to Ocean Terminal (there's a GAP scarf I've been trying to get hold of). Coffee. Fat Face (no more jackets. Refund on return or if I get it fixed they'll pay. Too much hassle.) Visit Graeme (discuss Battlestar Galactica. Woo-hoo!). Back for Ben. So we wander round some shops.

Ocean Terminal has some very interesting and LARGE decorations up. I'm glad I got to see them, they're not the usual Edinburgh Festive fare. We dashed into Starbucks as they were closing and suddenly there was a queue of people behind us and some very cross-looking staff.

...and off to Enchanted. Yes, we decided it was more guaranteeably fun than a remake. The film was a good bit of Disney cheese. Especially the chipmunk trying to do charades. And the impromptu musical number in Central Park. On leaving we decide to get on the waiting 22 bus rather than hanging around in the cold until the 11 arrived - which would have meant me not having to change at Princes St. Ben got on the bus and I nipped over to the bin to drop the leftover cinema juice in the bin, only to find when I turned around that the doors had closed and the bus was leaving - Ben stood in the middle of the floor looking scared and very very alone. The next stop was far away; Ben called me and said EEK and byeeee. So I waited for the next 22. And got on it. SMS from Ben saying he feels like he's been somewhat kidnapped and did I feel like being his Prince Charming. Hardly. People on the bus indulging in what was hopefully hyperbolic boasting about a super-powerful green laser one of them was going to buy. Oops! There's my stop just passed - better press the bell and get off at the next one which has suddenly passed the next one's miles away! I get off behind Cineworld, in what seemed a blunder sent from the Fates. Wander up to the main road and get on a 1. A few minutes later I decide to pre-empt myself and ding the dinger so that I don't end up back in Leith. Oops! There's actually a stop right here, which wasn;t quite where I wanted to get off and now the driver is glaring at me for pressing the bell so late. And then a meander over to Lothian Road where I get the 11 I originally decided not to wait for, and get home. And there's still thick snow in the front garden, which is nice after the city centre was mostly just wet now.

Now I really must get back to watching Victor/Victoria. It's therapy for my weird day.

But since we've no place to go...

2008-01-03T13:46:00.001Z

LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW LET IT SNOW

Come on in, the water's lovely

2008-01-03T10:01:00.000Z

The water is also frozen into huge, fluffy plaques which, due to their large surface area, fall more slowly than their mundane cousins. That is to say, IT'S SNOWING.

Beware of Live Traffic and of sales

2008-01-03T01:32:00.001Z

A day of repeatedly bumping into Stephen and Joe, even when we were meant to not be in the same place. I think they're stalking me or something.

I don't know what LIVE TRAFFIC is. Is it unusual? Does Edinburgh have a problem with DEAD TRAFFIC usually? or UNDEAD TRAFFIC perhaps? H&M provided some cheap pants. Pants, incidentally, I use to mean underwear rather than trousers. Because us Scots are funny that way. Or rather, because other people are weird and can't use one word to mean only one thing. I discovered a few years ago that Ollie an His Kin(d) use pants to mean either underwear or trousers, which is just TOO CONFUSING. If only it had stopped at pants. Schuh had some nice CAT shoes which, since shoes were my goal of the day, I purchased. TICK! Fat Face is where it all went wrong. I was in there about ten days ago and saw a lovely grey winter jacket for £STUPID. I pawed at it and then left; my current winter coat has been with me since C&A were not yet closed (never mind demolished, rebuilt and opened as H&M/Maxx) and it really needed replacing but not that much. I'm a skinflint! Oh, but today they had removed £50 from the total of £STUPID and so I was dilemma-ed. And there was a really nice top that hung on me like a baggy top rather than a top which is hanging because it's large, reduced to £8.00! Alas, this t-shirt should not have been reduced. They offered to give it to me for half price, £13.75, but it seemed less of a bargain. The problem was that, as it wasn't on the Reduced list and the tag had fallen off then they couldn't charge me what it was labelled. Even when I grabbed another one with the same price. Eventually we found another in the same size and raised an eyebrow before they gave in. Hurrah! Why is it that the jacket is size L and, other than the sleeves being a touch short for my Mr Tickle arms, it fits perfectly BUT the t-shirt from the same shop which fits similarly is an XXL? Who knows?

We then had coffee with the boys and Stephen's family. Lewis appears to be inexorably drawn to me, presumably because I loathe attention-seeking children and attempt to injure them whenever possible. N.B. Blogger does not allow an ampersand in the tags. WHY?

Paper Power and the anticipation of a slow day

2008-01-02T13:49:00.000Z

I finally got around to watching the Read or Die OVA this morning. It's quite simple but surprisingly enjoyable. I think I'll have to hunt down the series now. Ollie has become obsessed with Carnivàle, and is now much further through it than I am. This is probably because I never get through programmes I have to actually watch, rather than having on in the background. And so I never manage to see anything with subtitles, or shows which are heavy on visuals and low on dialogue. Today I'm going to look for a new pair of shoes. I fully expect this will lead to Ollie finding hundreds of bargains in the sales and me buying nothing more than lots of coffee throughout the day. Watch this space for tales of sales woe.

Happy New oh why bother?

2008-01-01T21:13:00.000Z

Oh what a lot of fireworks we had. All across Edinburgh there were bang, big bangs and VERY BIG BANGS. I swear it was actually the apocalypse. There was wine, there was beer and there was a lot of odd foodstuffs that I threw together to pass the time. Eventually there was Trivial Pursuits, of a sort, and then there was collapsing on the floor and falling asleep about 6am. Ollie had passed out, slightly snotty and feeling sorry for himself, about 1am having watched some Star Trek: TNG. Stephen flagged somewhere around 3am. It was left to Joe and myself to be reckless late-night mumblers. I don't know, the youth of today grumble grumble... After a rude awakening between 10.30 and 11.30 this morning, courtesy of a well-rested and mischievous Ollie I eventually stole the Xbox 360 controller from a slightly-the-worse-for-wear Joe and settled down to play Overlord for most of the day. Ahhh. Start the new year as you mean to go on. Late nights, long lies and endless gaming. I am a student, after all! There is now an odd stew in front of me which is lovely, even though I had to leave the potatoes in the pot because we didn't think to parboil them. Sigh. At least we've got Weeds to watch now. I think I may try to indulge in traditional January 2nd activities tomorrow. Nobody would let me watch Hairspray today :(

Irvine Welsh, that well-known English author...

2007-12-31T12:59:00.000Z

I'm sure everyone has heard about this: the US Library of Congress (whose catalogue is used, for example, by the Edinburgh City Library system) has decided that Scottish literature is, now, little more than a minority group under English literature - removing more than 40 subject headings from the catalogue. There's a good explanation of the bizarre decision here. If nothing else, there's sure to be some confusion when little US housewives try to make sense of the more dialect-based work that will now be marked as being definitively English...

This is really clever

2007-12-31T09:22:00.000Z

...apparently. Whatever 'This' is.

I love a good puzzle in the morning.

Trees!

2007-12-30T19:05:00.001Z

This poor tree on Marchmont Road has become irrevocably entwined with the fence. It's strangely beautiful, seeing nature conforming to humanity's creations. Perhaps one day all natural things will arrange themselves so that we leave them be rather than needing to alter them.

And then I noticed that the trees along Coronation Walk on the Meadows were all tilting towards the centre of town. Presumably the wind is more often than not coming across the Meadows from the South West.

Ollie's HIV Is Legend

2007-12-30T01:26:00.000Z

Today saw the return of Young Mister Oliver. So I went to his house, did some tidying and then filled him with tea and nachos before giving him the HIV.

Isn't it the cutest darned HIV you ever did see? Alas, just being in possession of a plush retrovirus does not guarantee a fun-filled evening. And so we decided to go take in a film. I pushed for Enchanted and was shot down. I suggested St Trinian's and was similarly denied. Ollie wanted to see I Am Legend, and Stephen's brood (still with a visiting Michael and temporarily with Blair as well) were keen on that too, so off to Cineworld for the eight o'clock show. I like having a student card. If you pay less for a film you feel less cheated when the film, almost inevitably of late, disappoints. Stephen and Michael turned up halfway through the trailers; Blair had been taken back to Fife (the poor dear) and Joe... well, Joe wasn't leaving the house. The film started with Emma Thompson and failed to show her again, which I think was their first error. She's far more interesting than Will Smith. Blah blah... virus... 90% dead... less than 1% immune... remainder behave like dodgy photophobic zombies... I have to say, the most entertaining thing was Ollie's rapid descent into I don't like this film it's far too scary AAAARGH what's about to happen I can't watch!! Needless to say, I spent an equal amount of time reminding him that I wanted cutesy Disney and that the scary film was his choice. Mwahaha.

I'm losing track of the Killer Virus films of recent years. 12 Monkeys; 28 Days Later (and the sequel); Resident Evil (and its sequels); I Am Legend; there are sure to be more that I've either not seen or forgotten. Is this the new Aliens? Instead of using Extra-Terrestrial Life as a metaphor for those terrifying creatures across the Iron Curtain, we now have invisible, unfightable, contagious terror which can strike anytime. So are apocalyptic diseases Hollywood's way of dealing with Terrorism? If so, can they please get some better writers because I'm sick of waiting for the new Mars Attacks!

UPDATE: According to Joe, who has just read the 1954 book which inspired the film (along with two others, not to mention giving birth to the idea of explaining vampirism rather than just having it happen), this Hollywood farce bears almost no resemblance to the original story. The book apparently reads like a screenplay, being mostly plot-driven, but they've ditched all but the most basic concepts in order to make a Will Smith Film. Which kinda sucks. Clearly Peter Jackson's miraculous adaptation of LotR has led to every Tom, Dick and Harry (or in this case, Mark, Akiva and Francis) thinking they can play fast and loose with novels and make a killing.

I also spent more time playing with my phone camera (click on the photo to see what it's supposed to do):

Nagging already!

2007-12-28T16:10:00.000Z

After less than a week I'm already being pestered to Do This Thing on a daily basis. I think perhaps some people are missing the point. I was very gratified to find that my surprise gift of HIV had been received and not taken the wrong way. As the giftee said, it's the gift that keeps on giving! I recently force-upgraded my Nokia N95's firmware to 20 point something in the hopes that it would sort out some odd little problems it's been experiencing. As a result, everything seems to be faster and better. I spent some time this evening fiddling with it rather than talk to the people I was with in a pub I didn't want to be in. It's very exciting having things happen when you tell them to, rather than waiting for the tiny machine to think long and hard, only to perform the task in its own sweet time. As you can see, young Michael was unimpressed by my phone's new improved willingness to take photos efficiently. Note the Cheers-era Harrelson-esque look of disgruntled bafflement. And the menthol cigarette through the ear (flesh tunnels may actually have a use!). Delightful. I'm trying to get my drives sorted and install Ubuntu. This should be easy as a Linda McCartney imitation chicken pie. However, I had a trial version of Vista installed a while ago and have had to do some major data management to clear that drive and reformat it. And now I have to put everything back before I can tidy up and make a niche for the new OS. Vista, BTW, is frightfully pretty but until it's been around for a year or so longer I'm not touching it. Too messy, too many bugs, not enough security and overmuch DRM! Ubuntu, on the other hand, has improved enormously since I last tried it about 18 months ago, and I have high hopes that I may be able to shift about 75% of my PC usage away from Microsoft. What a dream! I'm terribly keen to see how Linux might take advantage of my hardware. I know XP doesn't care very much about it. I occasionally get little messages from my hardware along the lines of "I feel used", and "Why doesn't Windows appreciate my simple joy and efficiency?" So we'll see.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

2007-12-27T22:06:00.000Z

... is very odd. And that's about all I can say about it, other than recommending it to anyone who likes non-conventional anime that doesn't rely on any clichés except to mess with them. Of course it also has an insanely bouncy theme tune. It seems to be a rule that all the most enjoyable anime must also have addictive music associated with it. Neon Genesis Evangelion, RE: Cutie Honey, Eureka 7 (with these four sets of themes you are spoiling us, Ambassador), Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Series 1 - I didn't fall for the second theme nearly as much), Janguru wa Itsumo Hare nochi Gū (three for the price of one), Furi Curi (with three whole CDs of original music, thank you The Pillows), Diebuster, Lucky Star (ok that's not actually enjoyable but it is relentlessly jolly)... I'm concerned by how many of that list are Gainax productions. That is, I think, more than enough anime nerdery for today. I'm going back to Hairspray. Really.

Quote of the day

2007-12-27T12:58:00.000Z

"He had two Christmases. His mum's German."

I love the simplicity of that explanation.

“Did you have a merry Christmas?”

2007-12-27T11:32:00.000Z

There are only so many ways you can defuse that question safely. It’s worse than the pointless “So… you got anything nice planned this weekend?” and its coda, “So… did you do anything nice this weekend?” I do rather suspect that if the conversation has become banal enough for these to be worthwhile gambits then it’s probably time to get back to work. What do people expect when they ask such questions? Platitudes. I’m no good at this level of small talk, it’s dangerously likely that I’ll tell the truth: “Welllll... since you ask, this weekend was really little more than a couple of empty, lonely days spent hunched over a keyboard destroying my eyes and wasting my life away, pausing only for brief sustenance”, which I don’t think would go down well. That’s not really what I did at the weekend, BTW. There have been weekends like that, but not recently. Honest! I’m now immersing myself in the Hairspray OST. Still fabulous. Still dancing in my chair, only at work now which causes a few askance glances. Who cares? Welcome to the Sixties!!

Momma, I'm a big girl now!

2007-12-26T19:05:00.000Z

Hairspray. A gift from John Waters in 1988 which kept on giving, giving us Rikki Lake. And like so many John Waters films it was simultaneously a triumph and a WTF? When I first saw posters advertising the remake I despaired. Not being a fan of the original does not prevent me from bemoaning a remake less than 20 years after the original. Soon we'll be seeing remakes of, I don't know, The Matrix? How long can a film/TV Show be kept sacrosanct before they decide to modernise it? But. Having said that, I spent most of Hairspray 2007 giggling, cheering and dancing in my chair. It's astonishingly fabulous and I'm going to watch it again later. And again. And I may put it on my phone so that I can watch it at work tomorrow. I really should trust people more when they rave about something. Now. Where can I find more spectacular musicals with over-the-top dance routines? Other than Once More, With Feeling?