2005 according to Google

Zeitgeist 2005 is up.

Silly similes

• Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master
• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer
• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't
• McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup
• Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze
• Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre
• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever
• He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree
• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease
• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph
• The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can
• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met
• The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play
• The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon
• Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut
• Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do
• The plan was simple, like my mate Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work
• The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for while
• "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night
• He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a landmine or something
• Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"
• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up
• The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost
• The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint
• The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium
• It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools
• He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing
• She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword
• She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef
• She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs
• Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened
• It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall

Private smiles

I don't normally do this, figuring that people read the news they're interested in and don't need unwanted stories thrust in their unwilling faces, but this article in the Guardian news feed is too wonderful not to share, particularly the extremely cynical punchline. I guess I found it interesting because I'm a smiler too.

When

I see the hate that sweeps across a mob's cruel face
Or hear an angry shout from someone scared.
When one man kills another's dreams.
Another's wife.
Another's child.
And knows the pain he's caused is justified.
The monkey grimace pasted on the lips of confused children weakened
by the lack of understanding strikes me down
And I weep.

I weep
torrents of pain,
buckets of anguish,
a deluge of "Why?" and "God?" and "Please!"

It's said that
Weeping makes the smiling sweeter.
I say it's a steep price to pay.

Plug

The Pandora project is working incredibly well. Try Toxic Radio, for my blend of nu- and speed metal, or Spineshank Radio for Zara's heavy headbanger mix. Or make your own. It's a hoot!

My slutty weekend

I managed to get my hands on a very high spec laptop this weekend (just for the weekend, mind you) and have been opening my hard drive and playing with any recent game that took my fancy but I've never been able to pull run.

My orgy included

Doom 3

My first and most enthusiastic download. I couldn't quite run it at top spec, but close enough to just about shed my skin when hell breaks loose in the first chapter. I had to stop playing it; it was just creeping me out way too effectively (although never quite as badly as AvP did). I can see why it got such good press. It's nicely atmospheric and the controls handle beautifully. Not a game I'd buy - since it's too scary to play - but one I'd recommend.

Need for Speed Most Wanted

I've never been that keen on the Need for Speed series, which seems to hover somewhere between the purist driving games like Gran Tourismo and the cheeky, ultra-arcade ones like Breakout Burnout, even. Most Wanted seems to move the franchise towards the Burnout end of the scale, and it's instantly more fun to play as a result. Your car never takes damage; in fact, the physics model in general is a joke. The scenarios, however, are a combination of blistering racing and tongue-in-cheek irreverence. I wouldn't buy this one either, but I would definitely hold on to the demo, just for those 5 minutes to kill between Civ4 and bed.

The Indigo Prophecy

This is such a wonderful idea, I had to play it again, and again, and again, and again. And so on. It's a really simple concept; take the bog-standard adventure game and turn it into a multi-pathed cinematic experience. It seems to beg to be done badly. The demo blows that misconception right into next year. You get to dictate the actions of a young man who comes out of a trance in a men's washroom in a diner with a bleeding body on the floor in front of him and blood over his hands and arms. And a cop in the diner just outside the door. It's addictive to try all the different scenarios, see what could have happened if you forget to wash the blood from your hands before leaving, or had brazenly walked up to the police officer and told him you'd killed someone. And it's not predictable, in that neither of those examples gets you caught, but staying behind to move the body into a stall to hide it and mop up the blood might. The interface is novel as well, with possible actions requiring different combinations of mouse movement or key strokes, and the camera control is marvellously apt, giving you right-click switching between different preset camera points, for that movie-set feel. Clever split-screening heightens tension at moments when you're still frantically scrambling to complete a task and you can see someone approaching or calling in backup. Finally, in a nod to Call of Cthulhu's sanity levelling, your character has a mood meter, which starts in the demo at 'depressed' and can be raised or lowered by your actions. The demo didn't show what happens when you top or bottom out, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I'm so going to own this, even if I can't play it until I get a decent PC!

Lego Star Wars

When I first heard of this, and saw the reviews, I instantly downloaded it and tried to play it on my work PC figuring that, being Lego, it wouldn't be too high spec. Wrong! Now I've been able to play it, although I can see why it would be addictive for Star Wars fans, I'm not one of them, and quickly got tired of the novelty of seeing Anakin killed and falling into hundreds of Lego pieces.

Psychonauts

A platformer for PC, you say? With witty visual references and Daliesque landscapes? Cool dialogue and sparkling characters? I agree. I'll definitely be bargain box hunting for this one come the new year.

Serious Sam 2

Lots of Big Fucking Gun silliness. Forgettable. I almost did!

Definition of redundancy

The Treadmill Bike

Morning giggle

Two cows are standing in a field, when one says to the other, "So, this mad cow disease got you worried at all?"
"Why should it?" snorts the other cow. "I'm a duck!"

In a similar vein, a guy standing at a bus shelter is reading a newspaper, and turns to the fellow next to him, indicating the lead article.
"I'm a little concerned about this Asian bird flu," says the reader.
"Not me, mate," comes the reply.
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well, I'm a bloke, ain't I?"

I still want one of those

I mentioned the Voodoo knife block before but it hadn't arrived in the UK for purchase at the time. Now it's here and, although still deeply sexy, way too expensive. *sigh*

Also too expensive is the Projector Keyboard. I'm dying to give it a spin, though.

Greg.
Direct Mail Sucker.

Linky goodness

NSFW; some erotica, some just plain nasty. Midnight browsing, don'tcha know

John Santerineross

gothy sexiness. I'm particularly fond of Porcelain Child, Three Lifetimes Spread (look at the clever inkblot in the back), The Ritual of Nails (it's enough to make you shudder), Conjuration of the Mystery, and the Seal of the Seven. Although the composition leaves me cold, Fruit of the Secret God's face is arresting.

Matt Lombard

You might recognise him as the artist on the CD cover art for Nymphetamine (Cradle of Filth). The Archive galleries are what caught my eye, particularly The Other Heaven in the Row 1, Column 2 gallery. It's my angel taste fiding expression again I guess

Alessandro Bavari

The Sodom and Gomorrah images in Gallery 1 are captivating enough, but there's also this video. Powerfully reminiscent of one of my favourite music videos, and no surprise it's scored by Einsturzende Neubauten once you've seen the imagery.

Return of the Great White Nerd

Men change when their partners are away. It's true! I think we simply revert to type. The Don Juans of yore go out and sleaze up to the dumb young things, old jocks crash out on the sofa with a six pack of Coors and the rugby, and the earnest not-so-young-anymore professionals - well, they never have much of a life outside the office.

I go geek.

Sometimes it's the slightly more socially acceptable side of geekery. I wander around on of London's museums for a while, or chill out at the cinema (all day - that's what makes it geeky).

And sometimes, like this weekend, I go deep geek. With a side of domestic.

My itinerary for the past 48 hours:

• Stay late at work on Friday playing Civilisation IV (which is very good, as you're about to discover). Just make the last tube out of London to get home around 1.30
• Stay up another 2 hours reading a sci-fi novel
• Wake up at 11, get up at 12, clean the house for 4 hours
• Play Civ4 again, with brief pauses to heat a lasagne ready meal and press Record on the VCR to snaffle Heavenly Creatures (my favourite Peter Jackson movie) for posterity
• Go to bed this morning around 11am - yup, I pulled an all-nighter on Civ. First time since university
• Wake up at 3.30 this afternoon, get up at 4 and clean the house some more (it was really messy, okay?). Scratch another 2 hours
• Prepare some books for BookCrossing with the new plates¹ and stamp I bought specifically for the purpose
• And then blog about it all!

I'm not proud of this admission, but not particularly embarrassed either. It just struck me how deeply geeky it all was.

¹pretty, isn't it?

Pre-emptive strike

I've been nagging Zara about her needs/wants/craves for Christmas, and she's realised that others might be turning their thoughts giftwards about now. So, there's a wishlist.

Films to look forward to

I've tarried a while in the Apple foyer, and now I'm excited about

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

18^th November. Easily my favourite of the books

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

8^th December. The first of the Chronicles of Narnia. If it does well, Disney will be making all the others. Here's hoping...

Memoirs of a Geisha

13^th January. Only because I read and enjoyed the book

Zathura

3^rd February. I should be embarrassed, I know, but somehow I'm not

Aeon Flux

17^th February. Based on the animated series

Slither

31^st March. Creature feature a la Eight Legged Freaks. I'm already keen for this one!

Ice Age 2

14^th April

Mirrormask

No UK release date yet that I can find, but it's already come out in the US and it showed at the London Film Festival last week (if only I'd known that before now!)

Generation chasm

It's difficult to share an epiphany. The burst of insight that flashes through your thoughts just stalls when you try to capture it in the plodding medium of print. Perhaps all you need is the core revelation:

We have no more to fear from AI than from our biological offspring

Then again, perhaps you need an explanation.

Imagine you create an agent and set it free inside a small, carefully regulated environment, governed by rules that constrain and mould its behaviour. Over time, as the agent's sophistication increases, you enlarge and complicate the environment and modify the rules to allow greater freedom and self-determination. Then suddenly, the agent reaches a threshhold and begins transgressing your rules and determining its own behaviour. In short order, it surpasses your ability to maintain control and strikes out on its own, eventually replacing you.

That description is equally valid whether applied to a human child or a notional software agent complex enough to be called an AI. Why, then, would we (most of us, anyway) be quite comfortable with the child's usurpation of our place but fear that of an AI? Both have their progeniture in us, are shaped by our influence and inevitably become something quite different to us.

We should welcome them both. Or fear them equally.

Manga me

Manga you?

Get your geek on

Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Day November 5

Inappropriately, I'll be attending a murder mystery dinner on Saturday that has nothing to do with D&D and will not fill the Wizards of the Coast coffers in any way, but I'm sure I can find the time to roll a D20 or two as a token gesture.

No more code mining

Having tried BlogRolling, and finding it way too annoying to use, I've taken on the task of transferring my favourite URLs to a database and linking it to the necessary code to display on my blogs. And it works! It's a deep change rather than a cosmetic one, so you won't notice a difference to my sidebar, but it means no more digging through lines of HTML to add or amend a link. I've even managed to get it to produce multiple varieties of output for different layouts. Go me!

I had a dream

In my dream, books weren't shackled to shelves by jealous owners, their pages rarely seeing light. Instead, they roamed free, disseminating their contents amongst readers everywhere, treating the world as their library and all in it as their readers.

I called my dream 'readcycling', and began to create a site to promote the idea and record the movements of member books.

I did not know that the idea had already found a receptive mind and borne fruit as early as 2001.

I got a call from a very excited Zara on Saturday. She, of course, knew about my plans and called me immediately when she found a novel with a panel on the inside front cover proclaiming it a 'roaming book' and exhorting the discoverer to log the find on BookCrossing.

As satisfying as it was to be told that the books had already been freed, and to see how well BookCrossing is doing it, it was also deflating. I'd had a novel idea that excited me and looked to be an interesting challenge. Now it's back to the mundane warp and weft of life until the next mind seed germinates.

Good advice is worth sharing

Some techniques for turning petty irritations into vengeful satisfactions:

Telemarketing calls

Three little words that work: "Hold on please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

Machine calls

Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end ? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. (untested)

Junk mail

When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 24p postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 29p before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in their postage-paid return envelopes. For example; send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 24p. The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it - twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again.

I'm not normally in the habit of spamming my own blog with this sort of meme, but these happen to be three things that make my brain curdle, and I quite like the responses advocated. I'm not particularly fussed whether they cause a paradigm shift in marketing or not; I just want petty revenge!

Chalk one up for the animals

Prison for spin wash cat killer

Darn skippy!

The daddy of protection rackets

We're tuned to Heartfm in the office today, so I had the privilege of hearing our government pursue their extortion policies with an unusually ham-handed approach. An information advert encouraging payment of fines issued the warning, "If you do not pay your fine, a civilian officer, or even the police, will come knocking, and you won't like what happens next." I thought statements like that were the sole domain of Mafia maulers and similar neighbourhood nasties. It seems the effectiveness of loaded threats is a lesson learned from the biggest racketeers of them all - Government. The only difference, until now, has been the prudence with which the g-men have followed their brief but, in a world gone mad¹, the kid gloves have been lost in the stampede. Not even the elderly are immune, as the recent spate of pensioners imprisoned for dissent over their extortionate council taxes will show, so heavens help the rest of us.

¹and a thousand elephants

Admin note

Sorry to do this, but I've been plagued with bot spam in my comments, and the only way to prevent it in Blogger is to have word verification on the comments. It's an unwieldy solution, I know, but the only one I have available to me.

What would Jesus draw?

So, it's been discovered that mischievous engineers have been etching their own additions on microchips. Hardly surprising, though, considering the de facto assumption of easter eggs and back doors in almost every piece of software floating around out there. Graffiti does seem to be a hardwired human response. It makes me wonder what we're going to find scrawled on our DNA once we can resolve it in sufficient detail. After all, if we were made in a god's image *cough* chances are the same impulses will have been at work during creation. My money's on "Evolution negates warranty." What's your bet?

If you go down to the woods today

These teddy bear spies manage to be simultaneously creepy and perverse. Somehow I still find myself wanting one. Ah, yes, that would be the 'perverse' kicking in.

Next stop: Tai-Pei

I had the most disorientating experience this morning. As I arrived at Bayswater station, and was climbing the stairs to the exit hall, the tannoy come on with a general announcement. Not too unusual, you might think, except that the announcement was in Chinese or Japanese! It stopped me in my tracks as a cold shiver went through me. I actually felt the hairs on my arms fluff out as my brain insisted that I accidently disembarked in Kyoto. The short circuit only cut out when another announcement followed, this time in Spanish, and my common sense kicked in just enough to rationalise the presence of a foreign language¹ on MY station. Weird moment, though.

¹heavy foreign presence on Queensway due to plethora of youth hostels in the area

Kitty goodness

(snaffled from Kitty, for the amusement and merriment of all)

The End of the Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe's Cat

Hallmarks of Felinity

How do you spell "political correctness"?

Everyone has to cross the river

The River IQ game is a nice implementation of a fiendish logic puzzle. As the text is in Japanese, here are the rules:

1. Everyone has to cross the river
2. Only 2 people are allowed on the raft at any one time
3. Only the Mother, Father and Policeman know how to operate the raft
4. The Father can not stay with any of the Daughters without their Mother's presence (damn dysfunctional Japanese families)
5. The Mother can not stay with any of the Sons without their Father's presence
6. The Thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member if the Policeman is not there

Seems simple, I know, but you'll find it's more complex than appears at first.

Mechanics of the game:

• Click on the big blue circle bottom right to start the game
• Click on the people to move them on and off the raft
• Click on either red-topped pole to move the raft to the opposite side of the river

It is soluble, I promise! Let me know how many steps there are in your solution if you attempt it, please, as we're keen to see if there is a more efficient (or even just any other) solution than ours.

Too tight, darling?

Anyone in the BDSM community interested in this? The possibilities!

Rare quiz entry

Now this test gave an interesting result:

Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people. You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together. Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly. People crave your praise and complements.

What makes it so interesting is that it's the closest match to my personality out of the choices available.

Same thing happened with this test:

Structured and organized, you have a knack for thinking clearly. You are very logical - and you don't let your thoughts get polluted with emotions. And while your thoughts are pretty serious, they're anything from boring. It's minds like yours that have built the great cities of the world!

Now, obviously, all the results are complimentary, so I'd have been flattered regardless of which image I'd chosen, but it does make me ponder when my favourite image in each test elicits the best match to the way I see myself. I'd be intrigued to know if anyone else has the same experience...

Distractions

My blogging has been horribly sparse of late. I blame BlogLines. Having so much information delivered for my convenient consumption wreaks havoc on my free time. Oh, and FreeCycle. Mmm, free goo.

But I do have another reason. I have been playing with a new pet project, Readcycle. It's in its utter infancy at the moment, but I hope to rear it to at least toddler status this weekend, and seed my first handful of books in the new week. Advice and assistance eagerly welcome.

Quote of the Day

I find it fucking sad that a cartoon squirrel has more sympathy for the humans beings affected here than the actual people reporting it!
Foamy, Neurotically Yours, Hurricane Katrina Special Report

no No NO!

I've been pretty blasé about the slow erosion of our civil liberties in the UK over the last few months. When I heard that the government had granted itself the right to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without charging them with anything concrete (dreadfully inconvenient to have your charges successfully contested, don't you know), I was a little disturbed, but shrugged it off as paranoia. After the transport network attack on 7^th July just past, the right to search individuals without warrant or probable suspicion was granted to the Metropolitan Police operating on the network. I read this as a short-lived attempt at heightened visibility to avert accusations of indifference, and kept moving. Except when being stopped to have my bags searched, of course.

And now an innocent suggestion by ACPOS comes to my attention. Its appeal to the common-sense notion of justice - the same common-sense that dictates the removal of dissidents from the country irrespective of their right to free speech - makes it likely that it'll slip under the radar of the civil rights groups and result in a toehold on the plinth of totalitarianism - establishment of guilt without trial. It's a lovely notion that, if Simon Harris had been on the offenders list (assuming he is, in fact, responsible for Rory Blackhall's death), he would, by some miracle of temporal displacement, have been apprehended before he was due in court and therefore before Rory was killed, but it's pure fantasy.

Whether Simon Harris is guilty of any of these charges or not, putting in motion events that can reasonably only take place after guilt is established beyond doubt would have made no difference in this instance and would be unlikely to make a difference in any conceivable instance. What it would be, however, is a clear transgression of one of the central tenets of the modern justice system - that one is innocent until one is proven guilty. Charging someone with a crime is not enough.

Quod erat demonstrandum

The Metro (a free daily circulation available in UK metro centres, hence the name) has been running a series of letters and responses on the GCSE grades (achieved by end-of-secondary students), culminating - for me - in this wonderful submission today:

Am I Illiterate and Inumerate because of my A grades, in maths and english? Stop slagging off people who have worked hard at getting their results and support those who will, wether you like it or not be the future of this country? (sic)

Mwaaaahahahahaha!

Vibrators go interactive

I recently tripped across this internet rabbit (NWS!) while innocently browsing, and made a sweaty mental note for future gifting. Now, someone's gone one better and done exactly what we were discussing last weekend. The best thing is, we can all play. Orgasms for everyone!

PS. It's effectively Nokia-locked, proving Nokia's superiority (to me) once again.

DIY blues

I was raised in an androcentric culture that espoused quiet competence in all matters DIY, at least among the (ruling) male gender. Imagine the stress and anxiety this causes in those of us, like me, who are born with 5 thumbs on each hand and the practical sense of a suicidal lemming. A constant sense of disappointment in my profound lack of manual ability has conditioned my dislike to a Pavlovian degree; the mere mention of a picture to be mounted or a crack to be plastered over is enough to engender a cold sweat, weak knees and blurry vision as the terror rises.

Needless to say, repairs around the house tend to get postponed until we can absolutely endure no longer and, even then, I don't so much tackle them as approach them obliquely and try to take them by surprise (mine, not theirs). In a sneak DIY blitz yesterday, I

• spent an hour in B&Q gathering equipment,
• mounted Zara's sword on its display pedestal,
• mounted the display pedetsal on our living room wall,
• replaced the broken bracket for Zara's cupboard rail and replaced the rail,
• prepared the curtain rail socket in our living room with a cunning admixture of rawl plug and No More Nails for remounting of the rail,
• and attempted to disassemble the toilet seat to replace the fittings, which have rusted badly (so badly, in fact, that I stripped the threads trying to unscrew them - will need to replace the entire seat now)

I feel I have fulfilled my 'manliness' quota for another 6 months, giving me time to quell the shaking before my next episode.

Retort

I do so love Nemi.

How stunning is this?

Cthulhy

Just got back from seeing the Chihuly installation at Kew Gardens and, as the title of this post suggests, the resemblance to various Shoggoths and Mi-Go was unmistakable to those of us of an eldritch bent. There was a tangible sense of alien infestation in the Temperate House, heightened by the deepening dusk and somber weather (not to mention the glasses of wine and a dearth of promised canapés). Green maggots, yellow lilies and multicoloured orbs from space were tucked in amongst fern fronds and palms. Large orange tentacular masses hung ominously over entrances and archways, and I'm sure I even spotted a Triffid or two in their early developmental stages.

Most everyone else seemed to see pretty glass flowers. Fools!

More eerie animation

Whilst on the topic, I'd like to proudly present:

Salad Fingers

Christ Kitsch

Home of Lock n' Load Jesus, Trick Tracts and Fuzzy Dayglo Velvet Jesus. Turn or Burn!

Danger: Humour

Wonder Showzen has come to MTV.UK, in a very late night slot, but you can find some of the choicer segments here, if you've missed the surreality of it all so far. Just don't be tripping when you view.

While on the subject of new animateds, Drawn Together is worth a peek as well. Take every Big Brother show you've ever avoided watching, bend reality 90° to the fnurl, and then add a dash of lime, and you'd still not be close to the madness of their antics.

Mood music

If you're horny, that is. Now I know why Zara loves her iPod so.

Know this

Understand me.

Dalek Llama?

The Dalek Song, in the noble tradition of the Llama and Sawyer songs. So says the subscript, anyway.

Mobile madness

excerpt from the Returns Reduction Handbook provided as standard issue to Carphone Warehouse staff during training

...

Upgrades

• Occasionally, a mark¹ will go temporarily insane and suffer the delusion that another carrier can offer a better rate. The mark will call to request that their con² be cancelled.
  • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you do this simply on request.
  • Obtain details of the illusionary better offer, and point out that Carphone Warehouse has a con that is almost as good. Never match the offer; it's not necessary. The effort of switching to a service provider³ is worth at least 25% of the difference in cost.
  • Offer newer, shinier bait⁴ than the mark is imagining (at a higher con rate, of course. It is newer and shinier). Our cons are designed to recoup the cost of any bait included with the con.
  • If neither of these tactics obtains immediate acquiescence, remind the mark of the many irritations concomitant with switching carrier; change of number, down time between cons, endless paperwork. Then refer back to the points above.
• Less common still is the mark who, having been presented the hook⁵, continues to entertain the delusion that there is a better offer, and calls back to cancel.
  • First call: Ask whether the mark has swallowed the bait⁶.
    • If so, refuse to acknowledge any possibility of cancellation. Insist that swallowing the bait constitutes automatic, incontrovertible acceptance of the con, irrespective of who signed for the delivery. Should the mark ask to speak to someone else, inform them that there is no-one else available at present and that they will need to call back.
    • If not, inform the mark that, until they have swallowed the bait, the hook will not be in place, and you will be unable to start processing a cancellation order. When they call back having swallowed the bait, refer to the point above.
  • Second call: If the mark is undeterred, they will be calling back to dispute the first call.
    • Sweetly agree with the mark that, of course, they are entitled to change their mind and have the hook removed. It is company policy.
    • Express confusion and regret that any employee of Carphone Warehouse would have indicated otherwise.
    • Alert the mark to their sole responsibility for ensuring that the bait is returned to Carphone Warehouse in order to remove the hook. Any cost incurred so doing is completely the mark's concern.
    • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you to volunteer the following information: Should the mark ask about returning the bait to a branch of Carphone Warehouse, you may grudgingly concede that such a thing has been known to occur.
    • Make it very clear that cancellation of the con has to be requested in writing. Should the mark query this, given that the hook was cast on verbal instruction alone, you should cite Ol' Reliable⁷
• The truly determined mark will not balk at this latest requirement and will return the bait by mail or, in some exceedingly rare instances, even present the bait in person at a Carphone Warhouse branch:
  • Returns by mail...
    ...
  • Returns in person:
    • First visit: After listening attentively to the mark and ascertaining the reason for the return as being a change of mind, tap randomly on the keyboard for a few minutes, and then inform the mark that the hook is not showing as having been cast on the system yet but a request to have it removed has been placed. Request that the mark return to any branch later in the day or on a following day to return the bait and receive a receipt
    • Second visit: If a mark arrives at a branch with bait and insists that the above has already occurred, tap randomly on the keyboard for a few minutes AND pretend to make a 15 minute call to some nebulous 'Authorisation Centre'. Then inform the mark that the returns procedures have changed since they last attempted to return the bait (no matter how recently they claim to have tried) and that an email needs to be sent from the branch to the Authorisation Centre. The hook can only be removed on receipt of an authorisation email in reponse. The mark has to be present for the entire process. No estimated duration need be supplied.
    • Third visit: If a mark arrives at a branch with bait and recounts both events above, repeat exactly the Second Visit scenario, but allow the mark to leave while the emails are being exchanged if they leave the bait at the branch. Reassure them that it will be completed by the end of that day and that they will receive a call once the bait has been logged as returned and the hook has been removed.
    • Fourth visit: If a mark arrives at a branch without bait, and recounts the visits above, check if the mark can identify the staff member who took receipt of the bait
      1. If not, ask for their receipt for the phone. As they will not have one yet, pursuant to Visit 3 above, you can insist that the mark still has their bait and the hook remains in place.
      2. If so, claim that the person responsible for processing authorisation on returned bait has been in a meeting all day and has been unable to process any such cancellations. Assure the mark that it will be done, and that they will receive a call once the bait has been logged as returned and the hook has been removed.
    • Fifth visit: If the mark makes it back for a fifth try, let it go.

...

Now apply these rules to my attempt at undoing Zara's contract upgrade, including a free Samsung D500, and you have an account of my free time since last Thursday.

Glossary of Terms
¹mark: customer
²con: contract
³service provider: fictional, gross misnomer when used to refer to mobile call carriers
⁴bait: mobile phone
⁵hook: upgrade
⁶swallowed the bait: by extension, accepting/receiving/signing for a mobile phone
⁷Ol' Reliable: "I don't know why. It's just procedure."


Disclaimer: This entry is intended as a parody. I have no proof that there is an Advanced Returns Reduction Handbook or that the instructions above are part of Carphone Warehouse staff training. It sure as hell seems that way, though, doesn't it?

You call that scary?!

This is just too perfect not to share:



Thereby proving that John Kovalic could easily be British, with that wry humour

Techo bunny alert

Never thought I'd hear a dance track I'd actually like. Then I heard Poor Leno by Röyksopp, at their Glastonbury performance. Now I'm eating my words.

Stoked!

There are times, though they are rare, that I really love my job. I've just finished the reconciliation of 3 bank accounts against 4 sets of ledgers over 2 months including some tricky cross-posting and numerous errors on the part of our bankers. To the penny. The adrenalin is pumping. The music does help (Hard industrial and EBM, compliments of Biodustrial.com).

I'm fine too

Useful things, these bulletin boards. I am not exploded, burned, shrapnelled, smoked or trampled. I am at work. Don't know how I'm going to get home, mind you, but with the estimated death toll at 20 at the moment, I'm not going to complain (loudly).

Star War 3: Backstroke of the West

(snaffled from technomom)

What happens when DVD pirates are infected by the Babelfish meme¹.

¹BabelFish meme

Take the first verse, or the chorus, of a song in English (or some other base language), plug it into the Babel Fish translation engine, and translate it back to English (or your base language) via one or more other languages. Then post it for people to guess the song

e.g. Hotel California via Greek and French

with an obscure fresh air of deserted trunk roads to my hot odor trj' has colitas which increases above via the air above in front of at the distance evle' I da a light of lampyrj' smatos my head became heavy, and my sight became obscure me was necessary that it stops because the night there was held with the door heard the bell of sending and I thought of with this one it could be sky or this one it could be the hell then it lit above a candle and it opened the road to me it was there voices under corridor I thought I heard them I say

London 2012

It's official. We've been burdened with the circus.

To be fair, I don't have a specific problem with the Olympic Games. It's having them on my doorstep that's annoying me. More accurately, paying to endure the inconvenience. It's been postulated that each household in London can expect to pay an additional £20 in local taxes each year for the next 10 years to raise the necessary funds. Only £20, you might say, but in truth it's another £20 on top of an already crippling level of taxation¹. What's more, as with every 'interim' measure of this nature, it's hardly likely that the bureaucrats in charge in a decade's time are going to reduce the taxes by £20 again because the term has come to an end, is it? Also, local taxes are increased each year as a function of the average rate of inflation. I'd place very high odds against some functionary excluding the £20 surtax from their calculations when they come to winding the press a little tighter at each year's budget review.

So here's to the £234.63² the 2012 Olympics will cost me personally, and the cost heritage in perpetuity to every London resident. Hip hip...

¹ 22% Pay As You Earn, 11% National Insurance, for a whopping third of your income going to the government if you don't earn more than £30000p.a., that is. Oh, and let's not forget local taxes of at least £1200p.a. Weee!
² estimating average inflation at 3.5%p.a.

Cinema picnic

In order for you to fully understand the importance of this little tale, some back story first. In my childhood in South Africa, cinemas were fiercely protective of their right to fleece their customers by charging them extortionate prices for essential movie-viewing snacks. Patrons were forbidden to carry any food or drink into the cinema, and I remember many a time when we'd decide to watch a film after having been shopping, and having to have our bags locked away in the manager's office before being handed our ticket stubs and escorted into the Ster Kinekor premises. As a result, there was a piercing illicit thrill to smuggling cheaply-bought munchies in with us whenever possible, concommitant with the risk of being ushered out without refund should we be caught.

The British, I'm increasingly reminded, are more relaxed about such things. You wish to have a glass of wine in the park with your friends? No problem, just don't cause a disturbance. You want to cool off by jumping into this public fountain? Okay, make it quick, as long as you don't offend anyone. So, when a friend and I decided to watch Kung Fu Hustle last night immediately after work, I thought I'd pick up a decent dinner-sized, picnic-style meal for us to enjoy while we were entertained by the zany goings-on on-screen. Some rolls and a selection of cold meats, a bag of tortilla crisps, some marked-down custard tarts and a 4-pack of Heineken seemed a reasonable spread, and I arrived at the theatre, left a seat between us as a table, and laid out our meal. Glenn's growing amazement as I unpacked was ample evidence that he had not truly understood what I meant by 'dinner snacks' and has not yet come to terms with the less oppresive London culture.

Neither have I, it must be said. Not fully, anyway. That old rebellious thrill is still there, the perfect condiment to our dinner-in-the-dark.

Client service

or, Why We Hate Stupid Calls

Ring!

Me: Hi, you're through to Accounts. You're speaking to Greg. How may I help you?

Her: Can I speak to Greg, please?

Me: (sigh) Speaking. How may I help you?

Her: I don't understand this amount on our account. Can you explain it to me please?

Me: Please hold one moment while I bring up your account... Okay. I can see 3 outstanding amounts on your account. Which amount are you calling about?

Her: Well, call me stupid, but I don't understand any of this.

The temptation to take her up on her offer is almost overwhelming but I bite down on my tongue hard enough to leave bruises before taking a deep breath and continuing

Me: Let's make sure we're looking at the same figures. The statement you're holding, does it show a total outstanding of Z?

Her: Yes.

Me: Great. And there are 3 items showing on the statement, totalling Z?

Her: Yes.

Me: Looking at these items, I'm guessing that your confusion stems from the balance due on the first item, as the other two are recent and straightforward, so...

Her: Slow down! Not so fast. So, you're looking at the first item?

Me: (teeth clenched) Yes. An amount of Y.

Her: Um. Okay. With you now.

Me: We originally invoiced you for an amount of X but we only received payment for part of the invoice, so the amount of Y remains to be paid.

Her: I don't understand why the invoice was underpaid.

She said in the aggrieved tone of someone expecting me to tell her why her company paid us less than we billed them. *slaps head*

Me: We did query the short payment at the time, and were told that the balance would be settled, but no subsequent payment has been sent. I sent you a copy of the original invoice, showing the amount of X billed, as well as a copy of your payment advice to us, showing the amount you paid and the reference to our invoice number, so that you'd have everything you need to conclude the transaction on your end and settle the balance of Y on the invoice.

Her: Yes, I saw all that but, call me stupid, but I didn't understand any of it.

Please stop asking. I won't be able to hold it back forever!

Me: I hope it's clearer now.

Her: Um. So we should have paid you X, and we've paid Y instead?

Me: (Aaaaarg!) No, there is an amount of Y still to be paid. If you deduct the amount you paid us, which is on the payment advice I've included for you, from the amount X we billed you, which is on the copy invoice I've included for you, you will arrive at the balance Y showing on the account statement I sent you.

Her: I'll have to look at this and call you back.

Because I only put in half my brain before I left home this morning and I'll need my other brain cell to grasp X - (less than X) is not zero

And people wonder why "Customer Services" is an oxymoron.

2000 words

Hubris, n.

Destiny Engineering

Work insanity + social life = no posts

It's been a crazy 3 weeks, and I don't really have the time even now to put any kind of comprehensive detail down, but if I don't do at least a bare minimum now, I'm going to start forgetting how to blog!

A weekend spent driving a total of 450miles over 16 hours to visit Kitty and her Wolfie in Bradford (near Leeds) taking in Blackpool as well kicks off the fun. A tennis-obsessed 2 weeks later, and I miss the finals of Wimbledon in another weekend of fun and frolic, with a pit-stop at the cinema en route to catch War of the Worlds (which was quite good) and Batman Begins (which was also quite good).

Capped it all off with a truly amazing time yesterday. BBQ and Black Russians and bad Kitties. Mmmmmmm.

Digest

to be fleshed out when work insanity ceases

• Some 're-structuring' of our company during a staff shortage has led to 12- and 14-hour days by yours truly in an effort to stay on top of the work. 60 hours last week, 21 hours so far this week with 3 days still to survive. Hence the digest format.
• My 30^th has passed, with little fanfair and much fun. Had a small cheese-and-wine do at home on Saturday evening to test 3 white zinfandels - the Blossom Hill beat the Ernst & J.Gallo and Sainsbury's El-Cheapo hands-down. Went to the Download Ozzfest on Sunday to see one of my favourite bands - Mudvayne - and miss the other one - System of a Down - due to a severe hayfever attack brought on by the dusty conditions and high winds. Still had fun!
• Managed to do 9hrs at work yesterday in spite of having had 3 hours sleep getting home from the festival at 4am. I rock!
• Zara took me out to dinner last night to make up for the lost hours on my birthday. She rocks!
• Spray-on mud for urban 4x4s, Metro 14 June. *shakes head in belief*
• Rigoletto will be relayed live to a big screen in Covent Garden Piazza on Tuesday June 21. Sounds like a hoot, and it's on the solstice, so a good night to stay out late. Anyone else?

And now I really need to set out for home...

So tired

This is a ridiculous time to still be at work. One night was bad enough, but two in a row is pretty horrible, and it's beginning to look like tomorrow will be a repeat occurrence.

A conscience can be a terrible thing.

London through fresh eyes

I keep forgetting how much I love randomly rambling through a city. While showing my newly arrived sister around London, I took a short cut from Picadilly Circus to Oxford Circus, and was rewarded by tripping across Playlounge, which stocks the most wonderfully bizarre and dark toys. In spite of a slightly annoyed Lynette tugging at my sleeves to leave, I stayed long enough to buy a set of figures from Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: And Other Stories for Zara, who loved the book. I simply must wander the streets more often, when treasures like this are just begging to be discovered.

Extract

'I feel I should thank you, ' said Oats, when they reached the spiral staircase.
'For helping you across the mountains, you mean?'
'The world is... different.' Oats' gaze went out across the haze, and the forests, and the purple mountains. 'Everywhere I look I see something holy.'
For the first time since he'd met her he saw Granny Weatherwax smile properly. Normally her mouth went up at the corners just before something unpleasant was going to happen to someone who deserved it, but this time she appeared to be pleased with what she'd heard.
'That's a start, then, ' she said.
Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Resonance. Exchange 'beautiful' for 'holy', and you have my basic mindset in a nutshell.

My Eurovision 2005 highlights

Forget the winners - Greece - as you probably already have done. Forget all but a few - notably the energetic Zdob [shi] Zdub from Moldava, who got my vote - of the 24 other finalists. Forget even Terry Wogan, whose normally achingly sarcastic voiceovers seemed to lack something of their customary bite, except for the truly memorable Ant and Shriek epithet he coined for the Ukrainian presenters and his genuine concern for the Granny drummer. The most memorable aspects of my first Eurovision were all about the intermission show and the technology!

When the body artist began his routine while Europe waited for the votes to be tallied, my initial response was, "Oh, god, interpretive dance." I was about to put the break to good use and hop up to pluck my eyebrows or something when he lifted himself into a handstand from splits and then folded himself over into something resembling an angular Viking rune while still on his hands. My jaw hit the floor and held me in place for the rest of the routine, long enough for it to lock open and my tongue to dry out against my bottom lip. He was paragonal! See! I needed to invent a wholly fictitious word to describe the awesome feats of strength and balance on display. Extreme handstands, countoured body spins on a single hand, even the simple handless stand from splits that he enacted effortlessly and that - I know, I've tried - takes immense power and control. Throughout, he made it seem bonelessly graceful and puppet-simple, one of those moments that turns kids into gymnasts and dancers. "I want to be just like that man, mommy."

For once, Google has let me down, or I've just not tripped across the right search string. I was too stunned to take note of his name during the show, and so this artist has been reduced to a mere third person pronoun, and I'd like to fix that.

Two things struck me about the infrastructure behind the show. Firstly, that wondrous raised-glass stage, underlit by hundreds of glowing rods, presented a real conundrum during the first performance (Nox, from Hungary). The men were doing this fantastically hypnotic dance, reminiscent to Anglophiles of the Lord of the Dance shows, and seemed to be doing it between raised lightrods. Only when they clearly passed over the staves did my brain finally parse the image and, for the rest of the show, this phenomenon kept stealing my attention from the admittedly lacklustre artists. Good stage. The other appealing spectacle was the live scoreboard they used to keep track of the cumulative points. All that exciting swapping of places and scrabbling for the top was riveting.

The only comment I have about the contest itself boils down to a simple observation. The War never ended. The battleground has merely been moved. With partisan bloc voting rife (as, we are informed by the lackadaisical Terry, it always is), the entrants from Greece, the United Kingdom and Israel - virtually indistinguishable - received wildly different scores, with nothing more than their geographical location and political status to set them apart. More fool I for thinking it was about fostering burgeoning talent. Then again, as the winner's song effectively becomes the theme tune to Europe for the next year, I suppose In my empty life you'll be the only reason is more apposite than Burn all your troubles say goodbye to yesterday or I am spiraling down with you. I suppose it depends on whether you're Barroso, Blair or Chirac. [/political]

Other random spewings:

• Vanilla Ninja (Switzerland). How apt. Pretty 80's soft rock in white.
• No Name (Serbia & Montenegro). Reminds me of the group in Soul Music trying to be musicians, eventually known as And Supporting Bandes so they could get on the playlist
• Feminnem (Bosnia & Herzegovina). Bucks Fizz Lesbianism (thanks to kitty for the quote)
• Natalia Podolskaya (Russia). I don't know why it is that producers have gone for their female artists showing just about, but not, all of their lovely breasts, but I do hope it continues. Can't remember the song, though!
• Luminata & Sistem (Romania). Deserve a special mention for their fascinating use of props.

If only!

Why has no-one told me that Terry Gilliam was trying for a film version of Good Omens, starring Johnny Depp, no less? A quick Google shows that the planning for the movie dates back to late 1999, but got shelved in 2002. Now it looks like it may very well go ahead after all. I'll paste my forefingers together if crossing them long enough will make it so.

Cosplay, queues and cake

This weekend marks the first time I spent longer in the queue for an event than in the event itself. And had more fun in the queue! Attending the MCM show at Excel seemed like a brilliant idea when it was raised just last Thursday. A friend of a friend was a show artist, the entry was only £6 each and it was round the corner from home. Opening was slated for 11pm so, with the kind of cool logic that, in hindsight, is fundamentally flawed, we determined that arriving after midday would have us missing the long lines of slavering fanfolk and walking straight in. Hah! As we walked into the main hall of the centre, a tinny Tannoy voice apologised for waits of up to 2 hours for Hall 3. We laughed, and pitied the poor visitors waiting to get into Hall 3, and did so all the more when we realised that Hall 3 was our destination.

Vodka smoothies and a pair of interesting signature hunters in the queue with us made the time fly remarkably pleasantly. As did the large number of people asking Zara for pictures of her outfit. Having heard there was a cosplay event in the programme, Zara had decided to dress up, not strictly for the event, you understand. Large numbers of less astute visitors were sure she was the winning entrant and wanted photos to memorialise the encounter. It only took one quick glance from a real cosplayer to puncture Zara's bubble, however. "You dress like that all the time, don't you. It's too generic to be cosplay." Watch this space for more news about Zara's future outfits, though. She's been bitten by a new bug i.e. she has a new reason to shop.

A brief wander through the expo, and we were on our way to the truly pleasant part of the day. The late afternoon consisted of (un)comfy cushions, padded arches and gorgeous cake with naked men and women in various degrees of discomfort and arousal around us. This is the delightful basement of Coffee Cake and Kink, an inspired idea well-executed and wonderfully run by the friendliest staff EVAH^tm! Going back there, oh yes we are. The birthday party started off a little slow and relaxed, which was nice, and then kicked into high gear when we reached Auberge, our restaurant for dinner. I think they must have been extremely happy to be rid of us by the time we left. We were just the teensiest bit noisy. Hey, we were having fun!

So, an excellent Saturday, on an excellent friend's birthday. It's, like, fate, man.

Advertising

A colleague raised an interesting question regarding a radio ad we both heard and, by extension, all advertising. He felt that the tone of the ad (his interpretation of the tone, that is) was not in keeping with its content and that, if it were changed to agree with his take on the content, it would have a broader appeal and garner more listeners. It must be pointed out that the ad was for something in which he has no interest at all, but he felt that the changes he proposed might make him more likely to pass the information on to others who might be interested.

I was a little perplexed. I am interested in the topic covered by the ad, and had a totally different take on the tone used to convey the content. Where he found dissonance between the two, I found them to be perfectly suited and consider myself among the target audience of the ad, being interested in the topic and having chosen the station because of its specific music genre. I pointed out that, since he didn't have the same take on the ad as me, he probably wasn't targeted by the ad and it would be senseless to change it to appeal to him, thereby possibly gaining a 2^nd hand audience by sacrificing the primary target group.

I was accused of being unable to be objective about the ad because of my interest in the topic, a statement which I can't, in all fairness, reject. If I am biased, how will I know how much that bias informs my opinion? So I put it to you; if an ad doesn't appeal to a member of its audience, should it be changed to include that person in its target group, or can it be assumed that the ad has already been tailored to its target audience and that the unwitting exposee who doesn't like it is irrelevant to the purpose of the ad? My stance should be clear.

For specific context (should it really be necessary), I refer you to the ad in question: the BlueCrashKit radio promo on Catnip Radio

The (main)stream widens

I was delighted to see yaoi featured in today's Metro. Definitely a putative sign of an increasingly tolerant inquisitive zeitgeist. Next step: yiff.

My metier is running

Big up to the Scrivener for pointing me this way. Someone's taken the scribbly nastiness out of stripping and I've not been able to stop:

• World's Funniest Joke (popular in kindergarten and football crowds)
• Organ Grinder (just when you were sure of your supply/demand cycle)
• Robot Heaven (guess it's about to find out!)
• Figure of Speech (which one, exactly?)
• more to come as inspiration strikes

There's a lot of real rubbish, if you're going to browse through other attempts, but a few gems are to be found among the rubble too.

Wants to live forever?

Apparently, according to Dr Aubrey de Grey, scientists are within a generation of an immortality breakthrough. Great news, if he's to be believed. That's not the funny bit though. It's people's response to the prospect that had me in hysterics while reading the Metro this morning.

If you start making changes there, where do you stop? Why not add new things like wings and completely change humans?

This reported in a tone of disgust and outrage. Taken out of context, however, it seems to me a fabulous idea. Let's tailor humans to live underwater. Or in space. Certainly, wings and immortality would be the least of the changes I'd like to see take place.

People don't mind growing old.

Um. Which people are these? The most people hope to achieve is a kind of wise acceptance of their mortality by the time their end becomes an incipient possibility. Give people the chance to live as long as they want, though, and they'd all be vying for the chance to be the first bicentegenarian triple-jump champions. Or the desired equivalent in 200 years.

My personal favourite was this offering from the University of Belfast:

people with high IQ results from 1937 were much more likely to be alive 60 years later than people with low ones.

No, really? And being equipped to deal with the consequences of a 2^nd World War, the concomitant technological explosion and the various vagaries of modern capitalist economics requires a 60-year study to be deemed beneficial to longevity?

Scientists! Gotta love 'em. Bless.

Thought for the day

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

What a very clever man.

Wanna filk?

No, I'm not being rude (well, maybe a little rudeness, if you insist). I tripped across this on another journal, and I don't understand, given the circles I travel in, how it is I haven't come across it before. It's fantastic! We do this for laughs, and here there's an entire community of people with their own collective term for what we're doing! Weeeee!

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl!

People have secrets. This site has left me totally wrung out. Be warned.

The shame

Barking is a BNP stronghold.

There. I said it. It's true. In the final count, Barking has the highest proportion of votes for this practically neo-Nazi party of any constituency in the UK. In fact, they came very close to being the 2nd party after Labour in the count, losing it to the Tories by around 100 votes. Eeep!

It does make one stop and think. What the hell am I doing here? I belong in one of the constituencies that swung LibDemwards, goddamnit! That's it. I'm moving to Richmond like all my friends.

Seriously, it's quite a bizarre result, if I simply look around at my neighbours. The old fussbudget across the way has been voting Tory since her parents were born. My terrace neighbour is an Indian primary teacher. My street neighbours are a household of Nigerian immigrants. Who the hell is voting for British Nationalism here?

Dreams are not real

I tripped across a comment while browsing, and it reminded me of a current pet peeve.

I don't know if you've seen the recent spate of ad's from Honda? Their slogan (Yume No Chikara) translates to something like "Making Dreams Happen", which is all very well, but the ads themselves go on to say, "What's the point of a dream if you can't make it happen?" Grrrrrr! What a stupid thing to say!

Web comic

New goodness, especially for cat people. Go look and, for heaven's sake, make sure you've got your giggle-girdle on.

Mind dump

Life the last few weeks has been a strange mixture of frenetic and withdrawn. There's the usual Spring fever of increased physicality (squash, skating, etc) and sudden thunderous depressions of apathy and disinterest. I missed most of the May bank holiday weekend through a debilitating malaise of unknown origin and nature, but managed a grassy knoll comeback on the Monday to compensate. Although I haven't managed to finish a Wednesday night Londonskate yet, due to Winter Atrophy, I'm increasing my endurance each week, and can see completion on the not-too-distant horizon.

Tomorrow's the general election and, for the first time, I get to vote. So I'm voting. The same arguments apply to an abstention now as did during my Uni days, but now it seems churlish to throw away the opportunity to "play my part". I wonder if the politicians saying that realise they're asking their constituents to amuse themselves with the process, rather than "work their part", but I doubt it, somehow.

Extract

And there were others, not as vivid, but they all had the same unshakable belief that they were doomed. And she had it, too. A terrible hard-bitten pessimism, an absolute gloom. She never foresaw a future in which she was included.
A psychiatrist he met over the years confessed one night at a private moment that he wrestled with the impulse to commit suicide each day. He got up every morning and it was a task as certain as shaving and going to the office: he must not kill himself.
Scott Turow, The Burden of Proof

That last sentence, it was a task as certain as shaving...he must not kill himself, is desperately poignant. It's a place I - and I'm sure most of us - have been, and describes the dread routine of despair better than I have ever read, or heard.

Hi. My name is Greg, and I wrestle with the impulse to commit suicide each day.

*wry grin*

Random act of kindness

Four pints of milk. That's what we found at our door this morning as we were leaving for work. Since we don't normally have milk delivered, either someone mistook the address, or we're one of the most recent recipients of a RAK. I prefer the second explanation but, just in case, we're keeping the bottles unopened for now.

Edit: Tuesday passed without incident. Wednesday morning we open the door to find another 4 pints of semi-skinned. So we take these in and hide them in the fridge, along with the previous 4 (2½ by now). Zara was home on sick leave to hear a knock at the door around 11. It was the milkman. He'd had a complaint from a new customer that their milk wasn't arriving; transpires he'd been given the wrong address, and Zara was able to give him the 4 Wednesday pints back. She claimed we'd left the Monday pints at the door, and they were gone when we returned home from work. So no more free moo juice for us.

Technical assistance

I stopped using Internet Explorer quite a while back, having switched to FireFox. Last night I was at Paul's and, while checking up on my journal on his PC, noticed that IE6 was shoving my handy links menus all the way to the bottom of my blog. Firefox doesn't do this, leaving them instead at the top right where they're accessible on load. Could everyone who reads this entry please let me know which browser they're using and whether it shows the menus at the top or bottom right of the page or, in fact, somewhere else entirely? It wouldn't do for the rest of the world (all 2 of you) to think my layout was appalling or anything.

Update: I've had to contact Blogger tech support on this one. I've now tried the same page at work on IE6, where it does the same thing it did at Paul's, as well as on Netscape and Opera, and the only one that screws with the layout is IE6, surprise. Apologies to anyone who is stuck with it as a browser. My sidebar looks really spiffy in everything else, I swear!

Edit the last: Fixed. I hope. Tell me if it's not, please. It needs a re-think on the menus though, because they look dreadfully untidy now, but won't work the other way in IE6.

Friday fun.. on Wednesday!

Some silliness, requiring a short download and shorter attention span (and Microsoft PowerPoint. Sorry). Beat my Bobbing Bobcat.

More silliness, requiring a steady hand and vacant mind.

Even more silliness. Wait for the punchline...

Chemistry 101

The atom is like a chocolate Whisper with little bowling pins stuck in it, the nucleus being the biscuity goodness in the middle, full of protons and nuetrons, the chocolate layer representing the s-orbital space of highest likelihood of finding up to the first 2 electrons, and the pins showing the best chance p-orbital space of up to the next 6 electrons.

I think Zara may need a professional tutor. I was astounded to discover that, with 1^st year Chemistry on the horizon, Zara did not know even the simplest physical chemistry, like the structure of the atom or the arrangement of the Periodic Table of Elements. We went through some simple aspects in bed on Saturday morning, and the above analogy was the conclusion of a half hour of casual discussion. It works, but it's taking too long to even get the foundations laid to look at GCSE Chemistry, never mind the A-level work normally required for entry to university. Eep!

Webcomic

Better Days

Hot hot hot!

New music

My next music purchase, for sure: Pornorphans. Wow!

All thanks to Catnip Radio. Get addicted! Ahem.

General election help

I'm a fairly apolitical beastie, but since it's been confirmed I can vote in the forthcoming election, I thought I'd do some research first. After all, you wouldn't buy a car without checking the alternatives, weighing up the costs and going for a test drive, would you?

Subsequently, I now understand how parliament is elected, what part my vote plays in this process, and how to do the deed itself. Now all I need to do is decide where my small but significant (isn't that what they all say) contribution should go. To that purpose, I have trawled the interwebnet (thank you, Max) and tripped across this handy comparison, which will be making the hard work of penetrating party promises just a fraction less tedious. Give it a spin; it's more fun than a barrel of coconuts.

Spot the difference

Before

After

Now I'm off to the cinema...

South Bank seductress

In other news, Zara has received confirmation of her acceptance to university for forensic science for this year's intake, so she'll be finished with her school as a full-time teacher as of the end of July to start studying in September. She's hoping to stay on part-time at her school to help with finances, but she needs to hand in her resignation now and discuss her options with the head. We're both quite excited about it. A student Zara let loose on the unsuspecting campus population of South Bank University. Prepare for the headlines...

Four years

It's our 4^th wedding anniversary today. Our 1^st 4^th, anyway, with the next coming up in a week's time. Yay us! We pre-empted things a little by having our anniversary meal last night, since Zara will be home late this evening from school. In truth, we didn't know it was going to be our anniversary meal until I got to Dean's before going out (yes, her boyfriend was at our anniversary meal. Figures, don't it). I had her anniversary gift with me, having intended to smuggle it into the house after hiding at at work the last few weeks, and she asked me what was in the bag, and could she look. When I, naturally, refused, she wanted to know if it was for her and when she'd be allowed to see. I blithely replied, "Tomorrow, of course." She looked at me blankly, and then asked, "Why tomorrow, specifically?" Yes, ladies and gentlefolk, my wife had forgotten our anniversary entirely. Furthermore, when she began thinking of something to do tonight to make it up to me, she realised she has a parents' evening tonight. So we had an early anniversary dinner. With Dean.

I may need to get our anniversary date inscribed on her gift so she might remember it next year.

On cancer and carpentry

It'll be clear from the extended absence that we did, in fact, manage to triumph over the missed flight débâcle. It cost Zara dearly, and we're still wondering how she's going to recoup the loss, but it's done, and we've been, so everything else is maggots in the cake. If anyone's interested, I'm posting the details as an edit in the March 17^th entry.

It's good to be back. We've had trauma, we've had tears, we've had booze up to our ears, but the fun that we had has been solace for the bad. All together now...

Looking back, we managed to pack a sizable amount into a very brief 2 weeks. Even the flight down somehow become a fun-fest. Between Zara's ipod and our baby Toshiba, the entertainment was non-stop and decidedly personal. We also started laying in on the alcohol mere minutes after take-off, and never stopped really. Given the stress of the prior 36 hours, we felt a little chemical enhancement was overdue. The cabin crew seemed less convinced, however, and after the 6^th drink, a solicitous caution came our way; "Just thought we'd let you know that we've noticed how much you're drinking, and we're monitoring any further consumption." Thank you, Nanny Air-Stewardess. We set her mind at ease with a grand display of eloquence and sobriety, and continued to drink until we passed out. That showed her!

None the worse for wear, we disembarked in Cape Town to be driven up to Montagu by my sister. She's in the throes of applying for an ancestral visa so she can follow the rest of the emigration out here, and I had some crucial documentation to hand across, viz. my mother's and grandfather's birth certificates. Yes, boys and girls, British citizenship is patrilineal. It makes perfect sense when you consider that it's the woman who gives birth. Oh, wait, it doesn't make sense after all. *sigh*

We arrived in Montagu in one piece, in spite of Lynette's driving. Montagu is a tiny community about 2 hours drive from Cape Town that grew up around a hot spring and stayed there. People used to go there to die in comfort (as Zara would say) but since it was voted South Africa's Best Little Town in 2002, moneyed types have started showing an interest, and have been scooping up property for use as holiday accommodation, and you can see why.


This is then where we spent the next week, doing nothing much except keeping Zara's mom and dad - Wena and Ian - company (and getting drafted to do odd jobs around the house that Wena can't quite manage any more). It was excruciatingly hot that first week, climbing to 37°C on the Tuesday, and much of the noon period was spent panting in the coolest spot we could find. It was Ian's birthday on the Thursday (the 24^th) so we decided to make a full day of it. Breakfast was held at a lovely restaurant on the main drag in Montagu. They have a gorgeous garden section with family-sized trestle tables, one of which we co-opted for the cool morning hours. Following the vast portions of food (and my 2 glasses of dessert wine), we loaded Ian into the car (something Wena can no longer do) and took a drive (and a bottle of pink champagne) over the Tradouw Pass to a gorgeous mountain picnic spot next to a waterfall, a location we tripped across last year and vowed we'd return to. It was already inhabited by a shipping crate's worth of old folk, but we refused to be deterred and garnered ourselves a cool stretch overlooking the stream to polish off the bubbly and piss off the retirees with smutty talk. We headed home afterwards, to be pleasantly surprised that evening by the neighbours dropping by to celebrate Ian's birthday with him. A really good day, come to think of it.


All in all, the parentals are doing as well as can be expected, considering Ian's condition, and we managed to keep the mood light and enjoyable, but there's a clear sense of Ian's deterioration over the last year. This weighed really heavily on Zara, and by the end of the week, she was desperate for a break, so we fuelled up the parentals' truck on the Friday and scooted down the N1 to Cape Town. In spite of an intended 6am departure, Zara managed to get absolutely motherless the night before, and it was a very hung-over spousal unit that eventually retrieved her wallet and headed out of the Montagu time-gate just after 9.

Turns out the brief hiatus was exactly what we needed. We spent the afternoon at Ratanga Junction - the very pretty and desperately bankrupt theme park just outside Cape Town - just being young and irresponsible for a while. Lynette was excellent company for this, as she has an irrepressibly youthful approach to everything, which makes her entertaining and energising to be around. We rode the roller-coasters and whooped and yelled, and rode the water rides and got soaked, and rode the gears and got nauseous, and made damn sure we were the very last people to leave the park.



After a rather horrendous dinner at Cattle Baron in Camps Bay, from which we learned that beef ribs are not to our liking at all, we bid our adieu's to Toby and his Coke and headed back to Lynette's to crash. She has a lovely place on Mouille Point, overlooking the bay from her flat window, and with a clear view of Table Mountain from the corridor balcony out back. Almost a pity she's going to be leaving it, really, but she's dead keen on coming out here, enough to trade the view for a healthy income.

Saturday it was back to Montagu for the 2^nd week of family fun. One of the things that makes Ian's cancer so debilitating is the paralysis from the waist down. He's confined to a wheelchair and, as such, cannot get around to do all he used to. We were very excited, therefore, to have the chance to go on a pontoon trip on the Breede River on the Sunday, as I have the strength to manoeuvre the chair through the most unlikely places. It wasn't the most pleasant or warm day, but it was just immense fun to sit for once with the folks and drink and chat in beautiful surroundings with no chance of distraction.

As I mentioned earlier in the post, Wena had earmarked my time for some handy-work, and the next 2 days, between chilling and BBQing, we put up a shelf for Ian's model passenger liner and re-fitted their bedroom headboard for the smaller mattress. I'm hardly the world's most handy person, but I'm very proud of my efforts. Not that I thought to take any photographic evidence of my accomplishments. Damn!

Happily, we were able to co-ordinate with Jo and Steve to have them swing past Montagu on their way down to Cape Town to spend a few nights and ferry us to our flight on the Friday. We had spice - who had each other - and meat and fire and, on the Thursday, some Route 62 wine-tasting. The cellars in the Robertson area have a remarkably casual attitude to wine-tasters, and will happily keep pouring without charging a cent, on the desperate hope that you'll get so drunk after a while that you'll find yourself with a case of their best Chardonnay in your car and a worn-out credit card in your wallet. The Van Loveren estate went so far as to provide a lovely garden in which to sit and have bottles brought out to you and left at the table for your enjoyment. Needless to say, we enjoyed it immensely.

After farewells on Friday morning, we headed back to the airport via Stellenbosch and a lovely lunch compliments of our gorgeous house-guests. An interminable wait, and even more interminable flight, later, and we're back. Let the sweet mundanity begin. I'm knackered.

PS. We've discovered the secret of photography: it takes 100 snaps to get one good picture. I think we took more snaps in the last 2 weeks than in any other similar period. Ever. So, in the interests of sharing the fruits of this discovery, the remaining worthy contenders:

May you rot in hell

*chases away crickets* can't see the keyboard, you damned pests

Ahem.

It's uncharitable of me to say this, but I hope somebody died. It's the only thing that would make the accident that held us in traffic through Chiswick for 2 hours and caused us to miss our flight worthwhile.

(4^th April edit)
I'd love to say that the last 2 weeks has given me some perspective on this, but I'm afraid the rotting in hell persists. We left our end of London just after 3pm and were assured by our cabbie that it would take no more than 2 hours to cut through London to get to Heathrow well before the 6.15 cut-off for check-in. Well, we were making excellent time when we reached Embankment just after 4, only to see a seemingly endless queue of cars heading into Chelsea before us. Some panicked phone calls later, and a 500m advancement in distance, and we knew that there was no way we'd make the airport in time. We finally eased our way clear of the congestion just after 6.30, and arrived at the airport around 7.20pm. I'm pretty sure we saw our plane fly over us as we approached too.

We'd been assured by the check-in staff when we called that they would make a plan of some sort on our arrival. The reality was somewhat different. A rather dismissive staff member tried to fob us off with the central office number (which would be available from 9am the next day) and even when we pointed out the compassionate nature of our trip, made noises of condolence but was grudging in her quick scan for availability on the other airlines. In the end, we had to make our way back home again, resulting in a £1250 7½ hour round trip to Heathrow.

Friday morning was a frenzy of phone calls. First call was to our travel agents, DialaFlight, to ask them to organise a replacement flight with Kenya Airlines. We then established with the insurance company that, on presentation of the police reference number for the traffic accident and a written statement from the driver, we would have a fairly straightforward claim for the lost air fare. When DialaFlight hadn't called us back, we got in touch with Kenya Air ourselves, and were told that they were fully booked until the end of April, so they couldn't simply put us on a replacement flight. We could go on standby until a seat became available, but they had no way of knowing how long this might be. They were adamant that a cross-airline arrangement was impossible.

Later still, having had no reply from DialaFlight, we called back, and were told that our agent had been waiting for a call from Kenya Air, never mind we'd expressed the urgency and cause of our situation. Knowing that we could get a refund on the KA tickets, we decided to book new seats on another flight. I left the agent with our details, as he seemed incapable of finding something immediately, and called FlightCentre, who have been reliable in the past. They managed to book us on a BA flight for that evening within 10 minutes, but for £900 each instead of the £600 we'd spent on Kenya Air. Nonetheless, we had to get to SA, so we knew we'd need to swallow the cost and move on.

This is the bit that galls me. I called DialaFlight one last time to see if they'd had any better fortune. The agent assured me the only seats he could get for us started at £1500. When I told him that we'd already booked seats for less than that through another agent, he 'checked again' and astoundingly found the same availability. When he offered me the amazing discount of £1 off our previously quoted price, I was outraged. Knowing our situation, he'd blatantly tried to sell us the most expensive tickets he could find, trying to capitalise on our urgency and distress. The fucking shit-eating bastard. I frostily told him that his attitude was appalling and that I had no intention of using his agency when he had clearly lied about availability to glean a higher commission, and hung up.

That gave us just over 2 hours to make our check-in, and we had to find a fax machine before then to send off a signed credit card authorisation to the FlightCentre agent - who was amazing at every step, by the way. We tubed our way, fully laden, to Barking and thence to Heathrow, arriving right on the 3-hour-prior mark and checking-in without fault.

And the drinking began. And didn't stop until today.

___ No-one here but us crickets ___

If I should die in the air over Nairobi

I should be ecstatic. Today is the first day of the longest holidayperiod-of-leave-from-work that I have had since my wedding. Four years ago. We're flying to a distant land, to bask in Autumnal warmth and parental indulgence. And yet.

There are glaring signs of our inability to come to terms with this trip. Packing has been postponed to the last minute. I literally have yet to do so, and prefer to blog about it, or even clean the house, than take that final irrevocable step. We've paid very little attention to any advance purchasing, and dread informs our every comment to friends and colleagues. Even the house-sitter was only elected last night (by Zara decree. Poor Dean).

Worse still is that we know why we feel this way. Although South Africa fills most people with thoughts of exotic wildlife and magnificent landscapes, it holds nothing but distaste for us. In addition, one of the parentals is ill. Still. The very reason for the trip, in truth. Although it will no doubt be wonderful to see them both, it's also going to be tough dealing with it.

There are a few redeeming elements, though. The parentals are wonderful people, the weather will be a welcome change of sky colour, some very important people are back in the country and may even be visited, and I will be incommunicado from work for the entire period.

So we'll go and give it the old boy scout try, shall we?

Obviously, I will be absent from my adoring communities in the interim. I ask that you keep the keening to a low whine; I will return with 2 weeks of holiday news and may even find time (and, more pertinently, facilities) to touch base before my return.

Link-y goodness

There's probably a metaphor for human existence hidden here somewhere, but it's just as enjoyable without.

Gasp! That's no moon...

How to destroy the Earth

Read it now before They declare it a terrorist manual ;)

*tip of the hat to A - you know who you are*