Circle, Triangle, Square

The Fun Theory

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:51:24 GMT

So Volkswagen are sponsoring this idea called 'the Fun Theory' which is simply that you can encourage people to do things they probably should but don't want to by making it more fun.

So, for example, who wouldn't want to put litter in the deepest litter bin in the world?

Check out their other projects at The Fun Theory

beam

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:40:19 GMT

I have just managed to sneak a 5 minute talk on medieval heraldry into my morning's training course - customising your presentations with PowerPoint.

I am inordinately proud of this.

It's also a reminder to me of how much (and why) I love training. I was in a crappy mood this morning and frankly would have called in a duvet day if I wasn't so busy. 20 minutes into the training and I'm bouncing happy.

Musings ...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:59:55 GMT

I'd like to encourage you all to watch the new version of The Prisoner.

I'd like to, if only to see how fast Tokyo would burn, and to see if several of you are generous enough people to ever talk to me again after I'd made such an asinine suggestion.

*sigh*

The Prisoner is living proof that nothing is in fact sacred. It's really hard to do surreal and somewhat sinister whimsy; the original series managed largely by dint of being the first series to try to do so, and even then, I'd argued, failed miserably sometimes. But 40 years on, we've been through 2 Summers of Love, hippies, punk, New Romantics and Nu Rave. We're so far into the post modern that even Alanis Morrisette is looking kinda ironic. (In the future, everyone will be ironic for 15 minutes. Then ridiculous for 45.)

We can't look at Number 6 without hearing echoes of the original. But worst than that, we can't look at him without hearing echoes of the inevitable Simpsons and Shrek parodies. So what really made the TV producers think they could bring something new to this oft parodied story?

In short? They can't and don't. The village is in North Africa instead of North Wales; the architecture is Swedish instead of Italian. The village symbol is a vaguely art-deco series of domes instead of a penny farthing. But there's no depth, no heart, no soul.

I think it's notable that they waited until McGoohan was dead before foisting this upon us.

In other news ...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:35:17 GMT

It looks like Global Frequency is getting another chance at being made for TV. For which I raise a loud huzzah!

Unfair, but funny ...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:58:50 GMT

My cat has the hiccups from gulping his food too quickly. I am torn between feeling sympathetic, hoping he doesn't throw up on the carpet and wondering how much skin I'd lose if I put a cold spoon on the back of his neck.

Because you knew it had to be out there ....

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:58:07 GMT

Buffy / Order of the Stick crossover fan-fiction. Now tell me that your life isn't complete.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5310994/1/Strange_Customers

(Safe for work).

The difference between UK and US delivery companies ...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:06:19 GMT

Christmas is coming; a lot more internet ordered parcels are going to be flying around.

I've just received 2 cards through the door.

1 from UPS - a parcel that's made it over from the USA in 2 days (when a parcel I sent to the US took 10 ...).

Their website is helpful as to my options, but when I try to book a re-arrangement, it fails. So I ring them. They offer me a choice of redelivery dates, including a Saturday, and they allow me to specify a business address in the centre of London instead of my home address. I choose this option, and am told that the parcel will be delivered Friday. 3 minutes on the phone. Job done.

1 from Home Delivery - Amazon's preferred network given the instability in the Royal Mail at present.

Their website offers me delivery during the working week, up to 7pm. ie when everyone I know is at work. There are no other options visible. So I ring them, on a 10p/minute number, to battle my way through the same options that the website gave me until I can speak to an operator.

Now, to be fair, the operator is lovely. She tells me that they can only redeliver to a different address in the same depot area (what the fuck?) so that's out, or they can drop it at a neighbours. Unlike many Londoners, I know my neighbours well enough to say "that's fine" except I'm not willing to ask my neighbours to stay in all day because Home Misdelivery Network can't say what time their driver will get there, even to within a 2 hour window.

Finally, she rings the depot and asks if they can do a Saturday delivery. This, apparently, will need the manager of the depot to okay it - in effect, it's a special favour they're doing me, and they'll ring me sometime in the next 24 hours to let me know if that's possible.

*sheesh*

I never thought I'd be singing the praises of Parcelfarce. A parcel from the USA turned up yesterday. The Parcelforce card said "we've left it at the Post Office 5 minutes walk from your house. Pick it up when they're open."

Strangely, that includes Saturday.

With thanks to Amberite for this particular crisis ...

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:25:06 GMT

It's not the police getting younger you have to worry about, it's the Doctors ....

(See amberite's post here for the original inspiration for the above piece of frippery, and the methodology behind it - very minor Dr. Who spoilers on that link.)

The error bars indicate a +/- 5 year range - so when they overlap, I'm within 10 years of Dr. Who's age - in effect, I could call the Doctor a peer. So that's McGann, Eccleston, Tennant. Is that my Golden Age over and done with?

I am not going to do the same thing for the companions; they've generally tended to be younger than the Doctor anyway.

My diamond shoes are too tight and my wallet is too small for my Fiftys.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:59:01 GMT

I was having problems getting a website to load here at work. So, wondering if it was the network speed that was an issue, I had a look at one of the broadband speed testing sites.

89Mb/s download, 90Mb/s upload.

Not that then :-)

US TV

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:17:06 GMT

Just watching the first episode of the re-imagined V.

The first interview with the V leader? She offers a gift to the world:

Universal Health Care.

Subtle.

Great Gnarls Barclay video

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:23:23 GMT

Random thoughts

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:26:12 GMT

I'm in a pub in Notting Hill - not my usual haunt but I was meant to be meeting a friend. Diary-fail on his part has kiboshed that. Still, it's a nice pub, good beer and I have a seat, albeit on the most uncomfortable bench in the world (tm). Seriously, why put a sticking out lip on the top of the bench, just low enough to catch under your shoulder blade?

It's a quite different clientele from the pubs I usually drink in. Very west London.

But the funniest thing? Three Scandanavian women are at the bar. They obviously know each other, don't know anyone else in here. They're all blonde and very well turned out.

And as best I can tell without getting far more intimate with a ruler than I should on first acquaintance, they're all exactly the same height (to within an inch or so).

There was a hole in the fence so I got through ...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:35:49 GMT

There was a hole in the fence around South Park - a place where two of the upright struts had been bent - one forward, one back - to make a hole just big enough for me to slip though.

There was a full moon last night so the park was well lit - well lit enough in fact that I was skulking in the shadows, walking on my toes rather than my heels. Sneaking up on tree stumps and listening to leaves fall.

I'm relatively certain I was the only one in the park.

South Park is small - there's a lake with geese and swans, a small wooded area and a big open playing field with a children's playground at one end and an outdoor gym to one side. During the day the equipment is bright colours; greens, reds and blues. In moonlight, everything is grey and washed out.

On the edge of the woods is a carved chair. Someone has taken a tree-trunk and cut it into the shape of a squirrel, large enough to sit on. In sunlight you can see the graffiti - another thing that the moonlight hides. It's undeniably a red squirrel though, even in the dark.

I was in the park for midnight, old habits of moving quietly slipped on like comfortable shoes. And I made my way to the chair, knowing I could see the trees, the water and the sky from the seat. London being London, the sky was a reddish glow all around me, and any stars that wanted to make themselves known to me would have had to burn out in a carefully timed supernova ten thousand years ago. The noise of traffic was constant, but then it's constant today also - one of the sounds of the city breathing.

And I stood, and I watched the water and the sky and the earth below me, and I opened a hip flask - whisky being the easiest fire to carry, in my experience. A drop for the earth, a drop for the sky and a dram for myself.

I didn't pray. I asked questions of the sky instead.

It feels like new year ...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:34:34 GMT

It's moving towards midnight at Hallow'een and despite the parties I could have attended, I've chosen to spend the night alone. I'm not sure why.

Some of it is laziness - I've been working all day today on projects on the computer which meant that I was under no obligation to get dressed; I only actually put on clothes when I realised that meeting Trick-or-Treaters in my dressing gown at 7pm was a little weird. (Rubbish Trick or Treaters, though - 3 sets turned up and when I said "Sorry, not interested" they all just turned away. No treat equals trick, surely? But no eggs at the window, no flaming bags of dog-shit at the door. What is the world coming to when we import a poorly understood custom from the USA and don't follow through?)

But I have a feeling I need to be outside at midnight.

All the parks around here close at dusk - I found this out a little while ago when quondam , Mr Cook and myself went for a late night walk a few months ago. The only other open spaces are the streets around my house or the graveyard at the end of the road - and I'm not certain that El Día de los Muertos is the time I want to be there.

But I shouldn't be inside.

It's new year. It's more of a new year than January - term started a month ago, which means I started enjoying my job again. There are loads of new people around at College; students and new staff both. My year changes in September / October, not January.

So Happy New Year if you celebrate now - Happy Samhain, Happy Hallow'een.

I wish you joy, light, happiness and peace in the forthcoming year.

Sláinte Mhaith.

More as a reminder to myself ...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:46:19 GMT

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/peter-stanford-after-500-years-has-the-pope-outfoxed-the-archbishop-1808966.html

More and more, I find it impossible to consider myself in communion with the RCC.

The best medicine ...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:27:03 GMT

Ganked from rmmcgrath via divalion - safe for work, contains sound, worth watching just before your commute home tonight / in this morning:

The speed of communication ...

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:11:08 GMT

I'm sat in my front room, with my laptop on my lap. I'd usually use my main computer if I'm in here, but I've just been chatting with dreamfire by Skype and the laptop has the webcam and microphone on it - I've not bothered getting a similar setup for my desktop.

Anyway - I'd just disconnected (to save me from distracting Kat and causing her to slice off her fingers whilst chopping mushrooms) when my laptop dinged to announce an incoming mail.

Seconds later, my desktop dinged to announce the same mail coming in, and a few seconds after that my phone buzzed to let me know that the mail had finally made it there.

I know the actual reason - they're all on slightly different 'download from server' schedules, but it tickled me to imagine a very small postman (not yet on strike) moving from one to the next of the computers in this room, hand delivering my emails.

Carrier Pigeons

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:18:10 GMT

During the ongoing postal dispute, the Royal Mail have fallen back on the time honoured carrier pigeon to get its mail across to the United States.

This is the only plausible explanation that I can offer for the fact that I've just been told that a parcel travelling in air-mail is going to take between 10 - 14 days to make it across the Atlantic.

Kaddish

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:42:25 GMT

There's something about Prague which has a hold on my heart - something few other places have managed in 40 years. Perhaps the Dominion, in Lourdes comes close. Not the whole of Lourdes though - it's far too manipulative; far too focussed on removing the cash from your pocket with the smallest amount of fuss.

Prague can be like that, of course. The sheer number of souvenir shops as you wander around the Old Town rivals Lourdes, and the fact that they all generally sell the same things can be overwhelming at times, but apart from the Dominion, Prague has a beauty and a calm that Lourdes most definitely does not. It's a walker's city - again, like the Dominion - there's so little traffic in the city centre that everything moves at a slow, slow pace.

It's my third time in the city - a different companion each time. It means I have three overlapping but different sets of memories, like taking a photograph of the same scene but with a different camera, and in a different season. The shape of the city changes depending who you encounter it with. The things you remember and which make an impact differ.

The strongest memory of this trip, besides quondam 's excellent company, will be without doubt the Pinkas Synagogue.

The Jewish Ghetto in Prague is well known - Rabbi Loew's Golem was created to defend it, and Jews have been in Prague for coming on for a thousand years. An attempt to clean up the Ghetto from 1893 left the area with only six synagogues. The Nazi occupation of Prague almost finished it off. Some 70,000 Jews who were registered in Prague in 1939 failed to return or to emigrate to Israel in 1945.

As an act of remembrance, the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue bear the names of those who were killed.

It's a stark place. The walls are clean white, the stonework unadorned. The names of the dead are painted by hand in black and red ink, each about half an inch high - about 36pt if it were type. The panels stretch up to 10 feet above the floor. You can still see the pencil marks on the wall where the artists have drawn lines to help themselves keep things neat.

The dead are grouped by region, then by surname, alphabetically, red and in capitals. The names are black with a red capital letter, the head of each household marked with an ochre star. After each name, their date of birth and then either their date of death, or, in so many cases, the date of the last sighting of them.

The dates of birth range from the 1870s to the 1930s.

The dates of death or disappearance are between 1941 and 1944.

It's too hard to look at the lists of names. Take a step forward and you can pick out the individuals - each name and pair of dates a story in itself. Take a couple of steps back and the names become difficult to read, blurring together into one larger, more horrific story.

Take a few steps away from any one of the walls and the red, black and yellow start forming patterns amongst the white space; almost like one of those magic eye portraits where you think if you un-focus your eyes enough, a three dimensional shape will jump out.

I'm not sure I'd want to see the shape that would appear from those walls.

Upstairs, more names and a recording; sometimes it's a male Cantor singing. Other times it's a male and a female voice alternating. And I listened and wondered how long it will take for two people to read out the names of 77,297 people.

Pinkas hadn't quite finished with me, though. The final room in the Synagogue is lined with children's paintings; some of the 4,000 hidden from the Nazis in two suitcases found at Terazín Concentration Camp.

Terazín served two purposes. It was a transit camp - of the 144,000 Jews who went through its gates, 80,000+ were sent on to Auschwitz or other death camps. Another 30,000 died in the camp due to overcrowding and poor food and sanitation.

Terazín's second purpose was to serve as a propaganda piece; they used the camp to show the Red Cross that Jews were being resettled and treated well. The Red Cross were shown people living three to a room, false shops and even fake money that the Jews of Terazín ostensibly used to buy goods from the shops. And they were shown an opera, performed by some of the 15,000 children who passed through Terazín.

The children of Terazín were encouraged to draw, as part of their education - an education that the Nazis wished to deny them. They were encouraged to draw their hopes, their fears, their dreams. They were encouraged to draw the future.

Each drawing in the upstairs room at the Pinkas Synagogue bears three dates.

The child's date of birth.
The child's date of internment.
The child's date of death.

Few of the artists made it past their fifteenth birthday.

A couple of links ...

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:36:05 GMT

Having been in Prague this weekend, there's a couple of posts to be written about that. However, one needs digesting before writing, and the other will come slightly after that.

So, in lieu of content, links:

A friend of mine turns 30 on Saturday - however rather than just holding a party and inviting her mates, she's organising a Swing (as in dance :-)) Night with all profits going to WaterAid. I think this is pretty phenominal, and will be there. If it's the sort of thing you think might be fun to do on a Saturday night (and it's in a great cause) then you can find out more here: http://www.beckysswingnight.co.uk/

Tickets are £15 each.

Other than that, the inestimable

ed_fortune posted a link to a petition on the Number 10 website to make the Press Complaints Commission a public body rather than being "the mafia in charge of the local police station".

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/makePCCPublic/

Feel free to investigate and sign it if you think it's a worthwhile thing to do.

Oh - and from boglin - Lush cosmetics are supporting the Hunt Saboteurs Association - all of a sudden their stores are being attacked by vandals - which the Countryside Alliance 'deeply deplores'.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/vandals-target-antihunting-lush-1805234.html

Well - there's an easy source of Christmas presents then.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is ...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:09:30 GMT

I've never managed to read Slaughterhouse 5. I've tried a couple of times, but it just doesn't seem to be a book that I can grok. And while I'm sure I've read some Kurt Vonnegut short stories, they haven't stuck in my mind.

And that is a crying shame, because of something a friend pointed me towards. Rather than paraphrase, I'm going to quote:

"And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Today has been a good day. I gave a lecture on presentation techniques to about 70 students, which was very well received. And then I got to teach Powerpoint to about 15 students, and got complimented on the fact that I obviously cared about the topic, and a couple of people came up afterwards to say how much they'd appreciated the session. I made my way home smiling at the world in general and no-one in particular.

And then I got home, and my neighbour knocked on the door.

Since I've lived here, the Singhs have been my neighbours. My first real interaction with them was when I was having a birthday BBQ in my very small back garden, with about 30 people there. As it grew darker and my friends grew more raucous, he came outside into his garden. Knowing that he had kids, and that it was getting late, I was all ready to apologise for the noise, and to quiet my friends down.

He asked if I would like him to turn on his outside lights, so my friends would have more light to see with.

They've taken in parcels for me; offered to help with moving furniture around - they've been good neighbours.

So today, when he knocked on the door, I wasn't sure what to expect. I certainly didn't expect him to ask me if I'd be able to show him how to attach photographs to an email, but I went next door, and showed him and his wife, so he could send some photos of a building project he's working on to someone else.

It's a little thing, and they were so lovely about it - I was plied with food and drink while I was there.

But actually?

I'm really grateful that I've had the chance to give a little back. To be a good neighbour, doing something that I can do.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

Apropos of nothing ....

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:57:59 GMT

For alethia_juturna

Mwa hah haaaaaa :-)

It's a good tired ...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 05:38:28 GMT

On my way home from Planet Angel. Not our busiest night, but one that worked on a lot of levels. I had a new assistant who was deeply capable and will be largely unflappable under more pressure. I've been very lucky with the people I've worked closely with at PA.

What I'm most impressed with was the derig. There have been times on the past where I've finished work at close to 8am, and usually it's around 7. Today we were done at 6.01am which is pretty sharp given that the club closes at 6. If I'd wanted to make a point I'd have been out and on my way home before some of our party people.

I didn't though. There are goodbyes to be said, hugs to give. But I'm still on a bus 45 minutes earlier than I normally am. Which is good, because I'm dog tired and need to be in the centre of London for noon.

It's a good tired though. Dull feelings in my legs that aren't quite aches. Sandpaper eyes, but fine grain rather than rough. I'll sleep when I get home - something that doesn't always happen. And I get to watch my city go by in the dark. The last time I dis this journey dawn was breaking. Now, darkness and electric light surround me. The year moves on, autumn is here.

Tim Minchin

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:44:24 GMT

If you haven't heard of Tim Minchin, I highly recommend that you go to YouTube and search for either 'Storm' or 'If I didn't have you' - he's a beat poet / musician / singer with a wicked sense of humour.

But while surfing around YouTube I found this - a version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah he performed at Edinburgh a few years ago.

Conflating two roles ...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:17:33 GMT

To be imagined in a the Sean Connery accent.

You wanna know how to get him? They pull a verse, you pull a chapter. He sends one of yours to the seminary, you send one of his to the Inquisition. *That's* the *Franciscan* way!