@bazbt3

Last Post

2019-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

This is my last post here; I’m moving back to WordPress, this time a self-hosted blog at:

blog.bt3.com

RSS

2019-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve changed the blog post feed address my Python script uses to post to a couple of networks - crucially without testing or modifying the history files.

Expect either failure or multiple reposts (i.e. failure.)

AgeID

2019-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

First question of the year: have any of you managed to register with AgeID?

Given the simple fact we’re 2 weeks away from the implementation of this significant part of the UK government’s Digital Economy Act 2017 it seems indicative of a wider ineptitude stifling our country that “Registration is not available in your country yet.”

How very ‘English’.

(Of course it might work if I wasn’t so reliant on doing everything on my phone.)

2019

2018-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Thanks, whatever you did that brightened any of my 2018.

I resolve to do these things:

Build on the successes from this year’s no nail biting and whatever the other one was (not memory-related!),
Lose the weight I didn’t this year (I’m +6lbs on this last day of the year, i.e. with 1-1/2 hours left in it to lose 27lbs),
Exercise (see above) including walking Ruby dog more,
Drink more (I turned into a lightweight again),
Be more assertive with my girls’ schools and the people tasked with looking after their unique needs,
Be less in thrall to my girls; a teeny bit controversial.

See you in 365 days!

Browns

2018-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

Something odd happened today; I got depressed about the result of an American football game. It’s been years since last that happened, and well before my break for marriage and parenting.

Today, in a game expected to be an easy win for the New Orleans Saints, the Cleveland Browns lost late. Missed kicks, as during last week’s tie, were the key. Just as last week I listened to it on the ‘radio’, well actually from within an app on my iPhone. To add an extra frisson of something akin to desperation, the battery pack decided it wouldn’t charge the phone so I was left scrabbling about in desperation for an iPhone charging…

Yeah, football. I’ve subscribed to the Fark.com news aggregator site for a few years now. Every gameday someone posts a discussion thread spanning a few games and all and sundry weigh in with opinions, live scores and occasionally brilliantly insane analysis. It’s a bit like I’d imagine an NFL subreddit would be but without the ridiculous and often weaponised downvoting.

Anyway, this week I decided for the first time to join the fray during the 4th. Bad mistake. Bad, bad, bad. Every, and I do mean every, time I posted the Browns offensive game turned to shiat. An interception and especially those missed kicks killed us.

‘Us’? Yeah, still feeling a bit of Impostor Syndrome here, but it’ll pass. Perhaps in a few years?

Not telling you what I’m wearing, but it might be different next week.

On a high note, one of at least expectation, the next 5 games should be easier than those first 2. Or, applying conventional wisdom, at least one would expect so.

A prediction then. Scoring ties, losses, wins from right to left, I’m expecting the first 3 weeks to go:

0-0-1
0-1-1
1-1-1

Anything correct past that and I’d get burnt at the stake as a witch.

0-0-1
0-1-1
1-1-1
2-1-1
2-2-1
2-2-2

Yeah, statistically there’s almost zero chance of that second tie, but I can’t decide what to pick based on the play I’m seeing from the teams expected to have it easy both this and last weeks.

No, I haven’t a clue what any of this means.

School admin

2018-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Daughter 2 started high school this week, and got a lesson timetable which, well, why not read the email I just sent to the school:

Hi, and sorry to bother you with this,

Is there any chance you could prepare a lesson timetable for us that spells out the lesson names in full, in plain English, and provide an explanation what the remaining ‘7*’ abbreviations mean? Being frank, I find its current presentation almost completely incomprehensible; if we’re going to ensure [daughter 1] (who is autistic) arrives at school with the right equipment daily we too need a bit of help.

Thanks in advance for your consideration, and for reading this, [etc.]

57 jersey

2018-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday evening I risked life and limb, my life and limb, clambering over the remains of DIY projects, half-abandoned bicycles and old computers, and lifting and opening box after box, in the pursuit of a football jersey. Not just any football jersey, but one bought at beginning of my life as a dad and the end of my life as a regular American Football fan.

I have to say it must have shrunk in the box, it no longer fits in quite the same way as it did when I knew why I’d bought that jersey. So yesterday evening I searched here and the Internet at large and the reason became clear.

Finding it, a replica #57 jersey, brought back yet more memories of a road trip at the start of the 2004 season. Starting with the Wauseon Indians HS team (beat Swanton), following up with Bowling Green (beat SE Missouri State), and culminating in an extraordinary day in the company of the Browns (who beat the Ravens!)

The icing on the cake: meeting Kevin Mack (who signed a practice ball for me), Dante Lavelli and his wife, and Sam Rutigliano and his wife. Yes, I was very much over-awed (and rendered part-mute by a miserable ear infection.)

I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan of any of the teams we saw over the week, but it didn’t matter, it’s football!

#57, Clay Matthews Jr., by any measure one of Football’s all-time Linebacker greats, but likely destined never to reach the Pro Football Hall of Fame (I’ve been there too!) He seems to have been in the wrong place (Cleveland) at the wrong time (all sixteen years before he left for the last three of his career); it’s got to hurt.

Right now, I’m looking at Reddit’s r/Browns multiple time’s a day (even on the toilet, but shhh…), professing nothing but attempting in my singularly-inept fashion to absorb, er… stuff. It’s an uphill task even attempting to chat with folks bringing the conversation down to my level! So I tried the #browns IRC channel! It’s friendly, quiet (ok, almost unused right now; and that suits me just fine.) I’ve also looked for podcasts to fall asleep to, thinking I’ll be able to subliminally absorb chat and regurgitate on-demand.

Yeah… no.

The summary, before I overwhelm myself with words: I can feel something stirring again.

redditor

2018-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’m using Reddit again and, in some respects, again regretting it. Not the small number of negative comments my leading question in r/Browns (the Cleveland Browns NFL subreddit) inspired, no; it’s the capriciousness of users’ up- and down-voting, where incomplete answers and sarcastic comments gain more ‘positivity’ than…

Oh, look here:

HELP Its been a while since I used solidworks and I forgot how to read and use the hole callout to create a threaded hole.

Or (shrugs) don’t look there. My answer was genuinely useful and pretty-much complete, the original poster (OP) even thanked me.

Has it put me off in the same way recent unwarranted post deletions at Fark.com actually have?

No, it’s the nature of the beast that is Reddit.

Celebrity Death Pool

2018-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chatting at work, at brew and lunchtime as you do, we got into the subject of celebrity death pools; pick a celeb you believe most likely to die. You know, harmless fun.

I’ve two:

Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Vera Lynn

Something of a contrast there.

Time-limited

2018-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

#QuoteSunday (a tradition on pnut.io):

“It is a little known fact that Professor Stephen Hawking (RIP) invented all of the financial instruments backing the concept popularly known as Quantitative Easing, thereby saving the British economy from ruin during the dark times following the unprecedented and utterly-unforeseeable Great Squeeze.” - Sir Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-1929).

Coty

2018-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

A conversation about dog breeds (one of the family mentioned the noble ‘Leerdammer’) and this morning’s terrorism news (they don’t want their citizenship to be revoked) prompted a search for a once well-known cosmetics brand. Here’s the statement from the Google summary of their web site (my emphasis):

“Coty is a global beauty company making cosmetic, skin, fragrance & hair brands. We positively disrupt to create a radically inclusive world of beauty.”

What the Fark, how bereft of original ideas must their PR team be, swallowing a buzzword dictionary to get to those ridicul

Farkisms

2018-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

I responded to this Fark.com forum post:

“The farkisms page seems somewhat put of date. Can we suggest some updates?” (Link goes to Farkisms, a somewhat stale list of sayings or memes used quite often at Fark.)

It was unfortunately redlit (not accepted for inclusion on the main page) so you probably won’t see it.

My reply:

–

Of our times, a couple or three to spark comment:

D2S / Donnie Two Scoops - the predisent of the Disunited States of America; known for his insistence on two (2) scoops of frozen dessert vs his guests’ one (1). AKA 45, a sequential number assigned to him on not winning the popular vote in the 2016 Presidential Election. Compared unfavourably to even the 43rd holder of one of the numbers.
Snekretary - a serpently figure of fun based on the one-time White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, also a figure of fun due in no small part to his creativity with truthiness in behalf of his boss. Arch-nemesis: the Mongoose. See impaler
Welcome to Fark - a phrase or pictorial meme offered as evidence, an easy rebuttal of sorts, of another poster’s ineptitude in assessing a situation they advanced an opinion on.

–

If you’re not a Farker (or work with me) this is probably as meaningless as my last-but-one post.

Hawking

2018-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

“Remember to look up at the stars.” - Stephen Hawking.

Shush

2018-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

There is apparently a social convention that, when the adult in charge of a group of children in church repeatedly tries but fails to stop them talking, one must not turn round and tell them, other people’s children that is, to shut up.

Well, that’s a bit crap isn’t it.

Usual

2018-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Today I achieved a lifetime’s ambition, the middle finger of a man extended in my specific direction. It happens only after the phrase “Usual message”, uttered (or blurted) in his presence; oddly the context is, unusually, utterly irrelevant.

Here, by the way, that precise combination of words is inextricably linked to the notion the man may, or may not, be most easily described by another word rhyming with ‘crunt’. (But I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever of his ‘cruntiness’.)

Thanks sir; even though mine was accidental, it still makes me feel good to be number one.

If you don’t work with me this’ll make no sense.

Random

2018-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Regarding Donald Trump’s uncanny ability to toss a word salad:

Someone ought to deaf-sign (BSL) what he says, run that through a round of Chinese Whispers, and translate back into English after filtering through a Khoisan language speaker without technical knowledge of, er… pretty much anything. When that’s done, ROT-13 it and run it through a battery of mathematical transformations executed on a sub-120MHz Pentium.

See, nothing random there.

(First posted at Fark.com.)

Fark

2018-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

How I explain Fark.com:

“It’s a news aggregator site with a difference; people submit headlines and go to the forums to excoriate others for the smallest thing, like making a Brussels sprout burrito. Would you try one, just to humour me, please?”

Wiggins

2018-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Bradley Wiggins is the latest target in the establishment’s moral crusade, a bunch of MPs being of the opinion Cycling’s sporting ethics have been breached.

They’re suggesting that drugs deemed to be legal by the sport’s governing body have been used to artificially enhance Team Sky’s performance in general and Wiggins’ in particular. No mention has been made of the possibility that every team at the top of world cycling might be doing exactly the same; that’d be inconvenient, hackers won’t have presented ‘em the evidence on a silver platter.

This sad bunch, by the way, is drawn partly from the MPs awarded a pay rise approaching double that of the public sector workers they’re tasked with awarding pay rises to. There’s the ethics violations, the obvious lack of moral fibre.

TwigPen oops 3

2018-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

After it simply failed to tweet, I rolled the TwigPen code into rssupdatepnut; what follows is a repeat of my previous posts.

-mild bleating follows-

An updated version of my previous post follows. Executive summary: “Doh!”

-original below-

Oops! I forgot to git pull origin master the updated script from the rssupdatepnut GitHub repo.

Here’s the blog post announcing my tweeted notification of new blog posts: http://bazbt3.10centuries.org/2018/03/04/twigpen.

Daft Baz scratched head for a few minutes thinking the script’d failed for some techy reason. No, simply PEBKAC.

Am I feeling lucky?

-original above-

It turns out I messed up here too, with the result below:

$ python3.6 rssupdatepnut.py

File "rssupdatepnut.py", line 81

TwigPen.postsomething(pnut_message)

^

IndentationError: unexpected indent

I’d better fix it then, instead of blogging about it!

TwigPen oops 2

2018-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

An updated version of my previous post follows. Executive summary: “Doh!”

-original below-

Oops! I forgot to git pull origin master the updated script from the rssupdatepnut GitHub repo.

Here’s the blog post announcing my tweeted notification of new blog posts: http://bazbt3.10centuries.org/2018/03/04/twigpen.

Daft Baz scratched head for a few minutes thinking the script’d failed for some techy reason. No, simply PEBKAC.

Am I feeling lucky?

-original above-

It turns out I messed up here too, with the result below:

$ python3.6 rssupdatepnut.py

File "rssupdatepnut.py", line 81

TwigPen.postsomething(pnut_message)

^

IndentationError: unexpected indent

I’d better fix it then, instead of blogging about it!

TwigPen oops

2018-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Oops! I forgot to git pull origin master the updated script from the rssupdatepnut GitHub repo.

Here’s the blog post announcing my tweeted notification of new blog posts: http://bazbt3.10centuries.org/2018/03/04/twigpen.

Daft Baz scratched head for a few minutes thinking the script’d failed for some techy reason. No, simply PEBKAC.

Am I feeling lucky?

TwigPen

2018-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

I’m just about to turn off the IFTTT trigger that tweets notification of my blog posts to Twitter. I’ve written a wrapper for Python’s ‘Twython’ module; one that provides auth and, right now, the ability to post a tweet. Fingers crossed, hoping it seamlessly replaces IFTTT.

It’s called TwigPen, a name borrowed from my pnut.io social network app PigPen. It’s used like this from within a Python script:

import TwigPen

…some code to define tweettext…

TwigPen.postsomething(tweettext)

JD Honey

2018-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

I remember the trials and tribulations attempting to drink Maker’s Mark bourbon before I gave it away; I remember well the aroma from the empty glass the following morning. Amazing.

On a whim, as an entirely unsuitable substitute after my failure to find white squishy bread on the day the shops failed (laid waste in a manner reminiscent of the film ‘28 Days Later’, but people will probably remember it as ‘Friday’), I bought a bottle of Jack Daniels Honey.

The aroma is very reminiscent of my memory of Maker’s Mark, half a day later; it’s also a very effective alcopop.

Wand

2018-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

The girls are really into Harry Potter right now, were really pleased to hear their school will reschedule World Book Day participation. That’s entirely incidental to…

My shouted response to a clattering noise from the bathroom above my comfy chair just now, something probably never said before in any language:

“Take your wand out of the bathroom please!”

I haven’t seen my wife laugh so much for an age now; maybe if I ask if she was imagining if we had boys?

PSA Heat

2018-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

It snowed again, the gritter failed to make an impact (but I’m not sure one came this way.) The school was shut so World Book Day didn’t happen here, my wife was late from her night shift (waiting for staff to arrive), and the boiler stopped working.

What to do when the condensing boiler repeatedly stops working in the winter, it gurgles like a boiling kettle before the error indication appears, and resetting the thing fails:

It’s likely that the condensate drain pipe is frozen outside the home.

Find the condensate drain pipe; it’ll project out of the bottom of the boiler case,
Locate it outside,
Pour hot water over the pipe outside,

If that doesn’t clear the ice:

Turn off the boiler at the mains switch,
Find a bucket or a washing up bowl,

At this point I must stress that you need to be aware if you mess this bit up the very least of your worries will be the size of the repair bill:

Disconnect the pipe from the bottom of the boiler and collect the spurty water on the wall behind and the floor beneath the boiler, anywhere but the bowl or bucket,
Leave the vessel there to collect water,
If you have a hose that you can connect to the drain fitting, fit it and drop the end into the vessel until the outside temperature rises,
Turn the boiler on again; no gurgling!

Beyond

2018-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

I just heard Loki.

For the last few years his voice was the last I heard every night and the first every morning; nights it now seems missing me, mornings definitely wanting his breakfast.

06:45 today, as my wife got back in bed after a pee: it doesn’t pain this 99.9% atheist much to admit I took it to mean he let me know he arrived in Heaven.

Loki cat 2001-2018 RIP

2018-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

April 1st to February 23rd; we’ll even miss your shouting.

Loki

2018-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

No attempt made to be articulate here, a followup to my last post.

I’ve known Loki cat (aka Loki Lou) for pretty-much 17 years; all his life bar the first few weeks of it. I was there after he had his bits done, saw the red crusty… I was there as he made his first attempts to climb stairs. I’ve had to rescue him from a couple of ‘next-doors’ as he decided returning back over the fence was too hard. I’ve fed him every day for the past, what, 13 years bar the cattery visits, picked up his poos and mopped his pees; and when we’ve needed to take him to the vets I’ve been there too, including that time I accidentally threw him down the stairs and sprained his leg. I stole his and his kitty family’s chicken on Christmas Day 2004, he never forgave me; as it should be.

Speaking of the local cattery, taking him there before we went on holiday a few years ago in a cat box in a pram gained me a reputation I don’t think I’ll shake in a hurry. He doesn’t like cars, see.

He’s been an annoyance ever since he turned into an (agile) little old man and started humping soft toys, soft clothing, indeed anything, everything, soft. It’s not so much the act itself but our night-time sleep disturbances from the noises he made…

I haven’t a clue if all cats are as empathic, but he’s just known when a cuddle will help, and he’s helped. Lots. He’s known when to stay out of the way too.

He’s outlasted his (genetic) brother Marble, his sister Gizmo (always the proud princess), the lovely, lovely Mary, and the typically-scaredy-cat Nelson.

He’s always been a handsome chap with, to my untrained eye, a look of the kitten about him. But, since Christmas, he’s got old and infirm very quickly. Today he’s hardly eaten a thing.

So it’s time.

Time.

April the 1st, his birthday, will be…

Ah

2018-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

It’s time.

WednesdayChallenge

2018-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

My first #WednesdayChallenge of 2018:

“Eeeeee!”, said Ozzie Reynolds as he shot headfirst out of control down the new water slide.

Awed by what seemed his sheer terror, Georgie Stokes & Arnie Sommerfeld also shrieked as they fell.

“Again!”

(Theme chosen by @33MHz: “rān

reyn

reɪn”. Objective: write a short story at pnut.io, to a theme, in one post.)

Machine

2018-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

The new washing machine is… it’s got more programmes than the previous one, and more flexibility too! I’m…

/me rubs thighs enthusiastically…

Apologies to those of you on pnut,io who saw the multiple postings when my rssupdatepnut app failed; all I had to do was add code to overwrite the previous post date file with the latest post’s date, if they were different.

Deluge

2018-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

That expression ‘it never rains but it pours’ is very much in effect right here right now.

The washing machine died yesterday, with my work shirts inside, undies and socks, and a couple of irreplaceable t-shirts. The door locked, no water drained. Yes, I did indeed turn it off and back in again!

I also turned off the cold water inlet valve. Yes I did. Yes.

No, not entirely.

It’s surprising how much water can accumulate in a short timeframe on a tiled utility room floor. And how long it takes to mop it up!

Even the guys who replaced it couldn’t get into the machine, even after taking the back off.

This post should have been entitled ‘The Tale of the Lost Undies’.

Unforeseen

2018-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

A mish-mash of themes follows; it’s been a while since my last confes, er… blog post.

Um… Python programming is addictive. If I could use it at work to do engineering I’d be even happier!

Now:

Started last October, m second-ever Python script: PigPen, a social networking app for the https://pnut.io social network, Mainly feature-complete where features exist; apart from those that don’t work. A mentions or messages alert companion application would be a good thing to write, sometime.

Crypto, a cryptocurrency notification and alert application, designed to send regular, timed messages over the Pushover system. Now with added 3-graph goodness of the previous 24 hours’ movements! Currently also sends messages to my dev channel at pnut.io, but it currently seems a little pointless.

rssupdatepnut, periodically checks an RSS feed (currently my blog, but it could be a news feed) for updates, which it should eventually post to pnut.io and other networks. Designed to run periodically. Incidentally, the publication of this post will be its first live test!

The future:

I’ve set myself a few professional goals for this year. Yes, 2018.

My maths skills have atrophied; I’d like to be re-updated to engineering college ONC level by December. A project would be good, to inject a bit of real-world reality into the proceedings.
Organisation and working ‘smart’: I’ve adopted the Bullet Journal logging and diary system. With a bit of luck it’ll help end my indecision and tendency to bury stuff. One of its strengths is the ‘Migration’, where incomplete tasks are pushed forwards during the weekly and monthly reviews.

Personal goals too!

Reliability would be great!
I missed February’s pnut.io #ThemeMonday. Sorry all, it’s been an odd, kind-of crappy start to the year.

Other:

I nearly blogged about my recent longest-ever poo, an epic of 35 minutes I’ll never see again; and the effort in pre-flush preparation, I…

Oh

2017-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

Two rather expensive days, emotionally and financially:

£130 - Loki cat to vet: ` Suspected congestive heart failure£ 30 - Loki cat followup: Heart problem confirmed, not acute£612 - 4 new tyres + tracking: Highlighted by just-about reaching the vet£327 - Ruby overnight vet visit: Who ate 1/4 pack of Smarties and the chocolate off a Crunchie bar? (Chocolate: poisonous to dogs.)`

Pecking order

2017-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

I looked over earlier, spied my wife eating milk chocolate, decided to emulate the dog so knelt down in front of the settee. Getting no satisfaction I shifted position, into a wet patch Ruby dog had created not long previously.

It was cold (it’d been sprayed.)

I… I looked up after a stifled expletive, to find my wife laughing. The chocolate? All gone of course.

Don’t attempt to emulate the dog, you can’t beat millennia of evolution.

I know my place.

RAVPower case review

2017-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

RAVPower Battery Case for iPhone 6 / 6S with Apple MFi Certified Extended Battery Charger with 3000mAh 125 Percent Extra Battery

Toilet proof?!
By Amazon Customer on 29 November 2017

Verified Purchase

Mine survived a trip to the u-bend yesterday. Don’t try this at home; I did so you don’t have to!

Disclaimer thingy: a quiet buzzing and a refusal to charge for hours afterwards might be a reliable indicator the device wasn’t meant for this kind of adventure.

Was this review helpful to you?

[Helpful] [Not Helpful] [Report]

White Helmets (Syria)

2017-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve just partially recovered after watching probably the most harrowing documentary in…

I don’t…

Volunteers.

“THE MOST DANGEROUS PLACE IN THE WORLD

When the bombs rain down, the Syrian Civil Defence rushes in. In a place where public services no longer function these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need - regardless of their religion or politics. Known as the White Helmets these volunteer rescue workers operate in the most dangerous place on earth.”

Yeah, ok, at this time of year, at any time of year, it’s easy to spread oneself too thinly, to try to think about supporting every worthy cause. It’s easier to pick none in the vain hope something great will present itself. Paralysis.

It’s easier still to say we shouldn’t bother, we should look after our own first. That’s true, of course it is. One day, far in the future, we’ll have a government who distributes our world’s-6th-richest-nation’s wealth in an equitable manner. Until then, cue more bitterness and division.

I worked with someone for more years than I care to remember. Nice guy, always had time for me. It turns out that, at least on social sites, he’s racist, xenophobic and a bigot, without a shred of understanding of the realities of modern world; a man who purports to care about ‘people’ yet simultaneously wants to see us spend more money travelling around the world and killing people who aren’t ‘us’.

Sweeping aside the ‘on social media’ thing, the man’s simply a racist, xenophobic bigot. Politicians pandering to people like him simply to get more votes are why barrel bombs continue to be dropped on families in Syria.

Don’t be like him; don’t be a twat.

See this?

http://syriacivildefense.org

See this?

https://peoplesmillion.whitehelmets.org/donate/peoples-million

Read the small print.

Dick

2017-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

In about a month’s time, Dick…

“He’s behind youuu…!”

PigPen

2017-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve spent my spare time during the last few weeks writing another app, this one for the pnut.io social network. It enhances the failures of my first app, for 10centuries.org. Yes, more social networking, surprising for such an antisocial [expletive deleted.]

https://github.com/bazbt3/PigPen

It’s a Python program, application; heck call it an app if you must, I’m old. I began programming in the early 1980s, a time at the beginning of the UK’s home computer boom, and a time when one had to program to make computers work. And then came the Sinclair Spectrum and its awesome games and all was lost for me by the mid-eighties.

Back to the present…

Yes, I’ve gone for feature bloat rather than iterate through the creation of bulletproof functions, but it’s so satisfying when something works, when something clicks into place in my head, and when someone helps me understand something. That’s the very best bit, cooperation!

FAQ (usually means ‘frequently asked questions’):

So what does it look like? Old-fashioned.

How advanced is the graphical user interface? There isn’t one.

Does it have a SnapChat plugin? Er… a say what now?

Does it have the ability to– Wait! It’s written in Python 3.5; in good hands it can do pretty much anything a computer can do–

Ok, can it– No. I’m on but the second rung of the ladder, I can see snakes from here.

Roll 1d6 Oi! You f[CARRIER LOST]

Ok, the main thing I’ve gained from my progress so far is an enhanced understanding of the effort involved in the creation and maintenance of all the apps and services I’m using right now.

Respect.

Remembrance

2017-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

We attended the church Remembrance Day service earlier then walked along to the War Memorial where the village congregated for the open-air service.

In church, the Last Post was followed by ‘Jerusalem’ and the hymns were rounded out by ‘Abide With Me’.

The last time I heard the Last Post was, well, the previous years’ services and at a great Uncle’s funeral service. He’d fought in Burma during WWII, was a member of the Burma Star organisation, had a significant number of compatriots along in his last day.

So yeah, I LOL’d this time as well as that.

No, wait, no; the thing with tears and a swelling of the breast. Yeah, that thing.

Feedback (LibDems)

2017-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Online feedback I provided to the UK Liberal Democrat party after being asked why I’ve not renewed my membership:

“During the General Election and Brexit campaigns the party failed to detail the compromises you found necessary to remain a partner in government with the Tories. When presented with in-your-face opportunities to spell out the goals junked by the LibDems to allow moderation of socially egregious Tory policies, every one of your representatives rolled over and failed to spell it out for the benefit of the casual voter. The public in general are sheep, have binary choices - Labour or Tories - their impression is the LibDems are Tory-lite; you’ll have a long, long time in the wilderness being nice to the nasty party.”

Sweaters

2017-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’m old enough to remember the day sweaters (jumpers if you like) were designed to keep one warm, and not a paper-thin, size-too-large fashion statement.

Soup

2017-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight we visited the local cricket club’s annual bonfire and firework display for the funfair rides, hook-a-duck attractions and food stalls. Always a grand occasion.

I spent time during the firework display casually pointing out to the girls the importance of standing back from fireworks, all the rest, and literally pointing out the respect the technicians had for the explodey-things. We might get some fireworks tomorrow, but no bangs.

Afterwards we returned home and settled down to comfort Ruby dog after all the bangs in her neighbourhood, and I settled down to some Hallow’een-pumpkin soup, the best soup I’d made in my life. Really, we’d tried it earlier and it was, mmmm…

I put the heat under the soup, sorted the girls clothes out, put the recycling in bins, then went upstairs to change and pee, leaving the girls to make warm drinks.

A little while later… I sniffed, “Delicious.”

A first: I’d burnt the soup.

Woodford Reserve

2017-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

Sod it, I’ll add a drink to the food order; the tablets say I can have a drink!

Woodford Reserve rye whiskey.

There is no contraindication so don’t worry, but I doubt the manufacturer would want to encourage irresponsible behaviour. No, in answer to the question I sense forming, the tablets don’t talk to me, that’d be a bit weird.

Home Alone

2017-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Most people faced with a day off, and family away during a school holiday week would, I’d guess, go insane and do all kinds of exciting things.

Today I ran out of Earl Grey tea and burnt last night’s pizza instead of gently reheating it in the oven.

The highlight of my day then has been the successful, if well overdue, defrosting of the freezer. During the mammoth session I discovered that the ice above the top serpentine had built to such a thickness and expanded to such a degree that it’d pulled out one of its supporting bracket screws. The left front one! Danger, mild peril! And the thermocouple is a bit floppy now but seems to work; no signs of an impending ice age yet.

Incidentally, IKEA-Whirlpool didn’t make frost-free fridge-freezers when we put the kitchen in.

Yeah.

Dishwasher: a sequel (Sweary, NSFW words)

2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

We needed a new dishwasher. We have a new dishwasher, bought from a well-known Scandinavian flat-pack furniture and accessories retailer. But this morning I got a call from the well-known UK white goods retailer mentioned in my previous related post.

“Hello Mr Turner, this is Jimbobflibblywibpants [not his real name] calling from GrueGoods.com [not the site] about your delivery today.”

Fuck!

He was ringing about the order the retailer and I jointly cancelled a few days ago because they couldn’t fit the dishwasher today.

Muppets. (Would do better.)

Dishwasher (sweary)

2017-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

We need a new dishwasher. The old one is at the side of the house awaiting collection by one of the rag-tag bunch of folks who collect scrap metal with no fees, no questions asked.

Well-known electrical goods retailer: 10-21 days? Nope.
Well-known online white goods retailer: in stock available for fitting for a very modest fee: 3 days. Great, I ordered it! A few minutes after, they phoned. Nope, computer days no. Actually, the computer says yes even though they can’t meet demand.
Well-known premium department store: Next-day delivery and installation for a fee, great! So I ordered it. Apparently I qualify for free standard delivery even though I’d be paying for next-day? Great! I choose Monday. It turns out choosing Monday on the mobile site means a week on Monday. I cancel on the telephone.

For fuck’s sake, it’s the 21st arsing century, how difficulty can it be to organise delivery efficiently? To spell things out before the customer presses the poxy button to commit to spending hundreds of pounds on…

Twats.

17 minutes ago I cancelled. 15 minutes ago I received notice of cancellation and refund. Just now, just fucking NOW, a text pops up to confirm I’d be getting a dishwasher installed a week on Monday!

Food

2017-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

When ordering food for other people or for myself and others I’m unlucky.

The modern world is set up to make things easy for those who would let others take the strain of food preparation: go out to eat, or pick up the phone or electronic device, speak or blindly stab at buttons until something vaguely resembling a meal is concocted, then sit and wait. And occasionally peer out of the window if within the comfort of home, as if that will speed up the delivery process.

In theory it’s foolproof. But no. For when I get involved it all turns to sh…

It’ll either have not quite what was ordered, or something completely random thrown in, or it’ll be late when visitors need to go home right after the meal we’ve spent seconds preparing.

When we’re out anywhere my wife knows to order for the girls and herself and leave mine to me. It all arrives exactly as ordered, all of it, even mine.

Even some colleagues now know not to trust me, especially since the now slightly-famous ‘non-popped egg yolk down the front of the shirt incident’ of September 2017!

Unlucky Baz?

Weekend

2017-10-16T00:00:00+00:00

It’s late, the weekend is almost completed, and I ache from the successes during it.

We recently found out the dining room carpet was damp. Chastising our lovely female cat is out of the question so last weekend I sliced most of the floorcovering into conveniently-sized rolls and took them to the tip.

Meanwhile my wife had priced up a very fancy lino to replace the previous luxurious pile. Saturday was fitting day, so Friday after work was me shifting 2 bookcases, 2 CD/DVD shelving units and their contents, an overladen sideboard, and the stuff that builds up as one’s loved ones live, all out of the room.

The herringbone-pattern wood block-effect lino is lovely, we won’t have the peeing issue again, and most of the furniture and books and stuff is back where it came from. Did it fit right back again without much effort? No; the back of each of the CD shelving units and one bookcase required inexpertly hacking at to accommodate the change in height between the previous and required notches to clear the skirting board.

Yes, of course I’ve been asked to move one bookcase to replace the living room electric fireplace now donated to charity. No more convenient mug rest for me. (sighs)

I’ve participated in a small way during the pnut.io Hackathon Weekend. But I’m tired, I’ve already written too many words, so I’ll blog about the wiki next time.

Zzzz…

Blogging

2017-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Blogging.

Blogging, blogging, bloggingbloggingblogging … blogging, blogging.

Blogging, blogging.

Blogging.

…

Blogging.

Blogging?

Hmmm…

Blogging.

Uncertain

2017-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been an odd few weeks and months.

I’m looking for a bit of stability here. I’m finding some.

Bizarre performance art?

2017-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

Returning to the recent Sprout Burrito theme, this from Fark; “Hey, at least it’s got beans on it now B-b-burrito? DIT”

The best comment across a couple of hundred posts, the very best, most succinct whilst retaining a flavour of what they must be thinking:

“This is some bizarre performance art or a social experiment. Regardless, there’s no excuse for these ‘burritos’ should they exist. They are an abomination.”

A man puts sprouts into a tortilla wrap and, well, the response is inevitable isn’t it!

Sprout burrito inventor

2017-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

In an attempt to reinvent myself on social networks I’ve been silent for a long while, to let the old stuff out and the void in. That’s not to say I haven’t missed the interactions, I have. But life, as-ever, got in the way.

I’m not back yet, far from it, but I see encouraging signs. One of them was an attempt to engage with people I don’t know on IRC. It’s literally 20 years since the last time I had a go, and there’s no coincidence that was also my first try; it’s synchronous chat, quite a fast-paced, and an unforgiving environment. But once in, it appears a sense of community remains. Nerds, geeks abound. The attempt went reasonably well, but I definitely sensed some insularity, mistrust of outsiders; most unlike the entirely positive experiences on the 3 most-recent small networks it’s been my privilege to be involved with.

So, to the title of this post?

First, it might be, though probably isn’t, a good idea to read this:

“Today, after a lot of procrastination, I will eat my first-ever burrito. I’ll post a picture of the uncooked thing momentarily. Later this year, a visit to Taco Bell UK”

And then this:

“Following up yesterday’s first-ever burrito, I’m making my own from leftovers: Mashed sprouts, sweetcorn, redcurrant jelly, tiny squirt of ketchup. In the oven now, wrapped in foil”

Incidentally, the mobile version of the Fark site works really well on mobile devices.

Getting there, not just socially.

Logotherapy

2017-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

I started to write this post with a point to make and a structure to work around it but part-way through I gave up, the events of last week took away my focus (both in the news and personally.) So yes, I gave up and just typed stuff. Here it is:

We all search for meaning in life, whether or not we know it. Logotherapy provides, when meaning is elusive or nonexistent, an attempt to restore it, to restore an individual’s human spirit.

From the Wikipedia article, a basic description:

“Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones. Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life. We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stance we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering.”

It’s a branch of psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is, I’ll admit, not my forte let alone within my experience. So, again quoting directly from the article, ‘we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways:

By creating a work or doing a deed;
By experiencing something or encountering someone; and
By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering” and that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”’

Pretty straightforward stuff it seems: some find meaning in the job they have, others in the sports teams they support, their friends, the pain of loss, or fundraising for those less-fortunate. Meaning can be found in scenarios from the passive involvement watching a television series, to the total immersion of running a country. Logotherapy provides a mechanism to make sense of life and to restore an individual’s sense of meaning, when all seems otherwise lost.

No, I’m not undergoing any form of externally-sourced therapy, I arrived here during a study of Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism and Inverted totalitarianism this last being, by the way, the most relevant to our times:

“In inverted totalitarianism, every natural resource and every living being is commodified and exploited to collapse as the citizenry is lulled and manipulated into surrendering their liberties and their participation in government through excess consumerism and sensationalism.”

First coined 14 years ago to describe the tendency of United States governments to increasingly ignore the best interests of all that country’s citizens in favour of the few at the top and those who shout the loudest, the description is eerily accurate now. 2016-2017 brought new lows: voter suppression, the rise of the far right, the rise of populism and nativism. The removal of essential healthcare protections in what was previously easily the world’s most expensive healthcare system is particularly disconcerting for those condemned to an uncertain fate by it, and must be utterly terrifying for those condemned to a certain fate.

I’m particularly interested right now in the bit about ‘intolerable suffering,’ especially my observations of the grades of what people imagine the term ‘intolerable’ means to them. We do after all live in times of hyperbole and instant gratification.

I’ve a list. It’s uncomfortable to write, but I’m in the mood:

Syria and Iraq are currently experiencing unimaginable death tolls, Syria currently engaged in a 6-year-old war. A site I’ve linked to elsewhere indicates that 470,000 have been killed in Syria alone since 2011. That’s not just the destruction of essential infrastructure and then the devastation of entire towns and cities, it’s the senseless killing of men and women and children and babies. It’s all because human beings don’t want to talk to other human beings.
The USA, is presided over by a man almost universally seen as unfit for government, unable to understand diplomacy, a bully, and even telling the simple truth seems beyond him. The office he holds was once termed as ‘the leader of the free world.’ And yet he needs a legacy. A US military re-entry into Afghanistan is again on the agenda. The real possibility of a use of nuclear weapons scares me. The US’s approach to foreign policy fills me with dread.
Brexit. Yeah, Brexit is, quite simply, a process that should never have been allowed to happen. Factions within the Conservative Party insisted and the Prime Minister agreed to put the choice to the British people: In or Out of the European Union. The Liberal Democrats have offered another referendum on the deal the government of the day negotiates with Europe, the choice of approval or disapproval: The 3 larger political parties reject this, and the British electorate rejected it in the General Election just gone; “too much politics, we’ve had enough!” How odd; they’re rejecting a chance to influence the future of our economy and world standing. They’re throwing away the chance of a future based on real democracy because scratching an ‘X’ in a box is too hard.
The British Prime Minister is attempting to form a government reliant on the Ulster Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), without any form of agreement between those parties. Ulster, a province profoundly factionalised on fundamentally religious and nationalistic grounds whilst somehow remaining a part of the United Kingdom, is one in which, for instance, abortion is still illegal. The DUP, a party with 10 MPs in theory represents an electorate fundamentally opposed to gay and womens’ rights, and some seem to believe the world is 6,000 years old. It’s a party retaining links to terrorist organisations loyal to the UK, and a profound divide exists between them and those who wish to rejoin the Irish Republic. Presumably a side of the divide acceptable to the Conservatives. Of course loyalty to the UK is somewhat more nuanced now Brexit is imminent. The DUP, with a total vote share of 292,000 holds the balance of power within a nation of 65 million.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable fact from the last two elections - in the USA and UK - is that people will vote for things that disadvantage them if they believe the politician has created talking points simply to gain office. (Of course this is based on both pre-election and exit polls; though an individual’s vote is secret and it’s unlawful for anyone else to reveal them, a voter can freely state who they voted for.)
Older voters in particular seemed inclined to vote to reduce protections designed to look after them once unable to care for themselves. During a pre-Election BBC Question Time broadcast, a third of the panel’s questions were put by obviously angry old men intent on destabilising the lives of future generations. Their universal condemnation of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘terrorist sympathiser’, as someone fundamentally opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, as a decent human being and thus presumably unqualified to lead a government, all of it appalled me.
The very worst of it all is perhaps the most predictable. It’s universally acknowledged that politicians lie, that the businesses lobbying for influence encourage it, that the newspapers and news media organisations shape public opinion to please their financial backers. But ordinary people don’t seem to care, and are simply too lazy to check the facts.
No, I was wrong. The very worst thing to emerge is the words ‘normalisation’ or ‘normalised.’ We’re so accustomed to hearing of hardship elsewhere in the world, so used to hearing of death tolls in far-away places that their significance escapes us until, albeit on a smaller scale, it happens here. And once it’s happened a couple of times and Facebook temporary profile pictures have been pulled down, the root cause is basically ignored. We remain extraordinarily lucky that the reach of xenophobia and all the other things into our modern societies barely touches our comfortable existences, we simply accept that there’ll never be an end to world poverty 32 years after the ‘Live Aid’ concerts.

I could go on, but thinking about things is hard, you see. I’ve enough on my plate just reaching the end of each day right now.

There’s a saying, purportedly Chinese, which is appropriate on so many levels. It’s this:

“May you live in interesting times.”

At first it seems a positive phrase, in this context however ‘interesting’ means unsettled, chaotic, even dangerous. It’s a curse.

We live in interesting times.

Manchester

2017-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

‪We’re watching the #OneLoveManchester concert and, perhaps unconventionally, I contributed a few pounds towards the UNHCR ‬Mosul (Iraq) appeal unhcr.org then signed their #WithRefugees petition unhcr.org/refugeeday.

Worldwide more than 65 million people, greater than the population of the UK, have had their lives put on hold, been forcibly removed from the safety and security of their homes, and less than a third are being cared for by the UN in any manner.

No, this isn’t me giving you a dose of perspective, I haven’t got a bloody clue what’s going on. It does need fixing though, and quickly. Here’s a repost of my words from the week of the Manchester bombing: http://bazbt3.10centuries.org/2017/05/26/ffs-sweary

One final point, simply attempting vengeance, to kill terrorists without any other coherent strategy to stop ordinary people being turned into terrorists, will never work.

Manifesto

2017-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

I read the Liberal Democrat Manifesto for the 2017 General Election: http://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto. More precisely I first read the ‘Easy Read’ variant then skipped through each of the party’s next-Parliament pledges.

One thing I took away from the experience can be summed up by the range of formats available on that page: the Liberal Democrats are a party of inclusiveness, honesty and pragmatism. A bit of a leap maybe but if anyone was to read the Manifesto they’d understand why I feel my personal choices have been vindicated. I saw it when, in government, they moderated the worst excesses of the Conservative party, and I’m seeing it now in opposition.

Labour comes a close second, their Manifesto document alternatives don’t include Braille.

The Conservatives attitude to inclusiveness is ably shown by the single PDF download and oddly-sized inline document viewer.

One final point, none of the three include languages other than English. Maybe I missed something but maybe, just maybe, people that come here from foreign lands are better at integration than native Brits will ever be.

On the eve of the Brexit vote I urged people who’d never done so before to vote, to vote whichever way their consciences told them to. This time around the ones who voted to leave Europe, if not voting Liberal Democrat, can get fu

Documentary

2017-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Like everything else I write what follows is only my opinion, however anyone reading this should know it’s a fact in my mind.

‘Peppa Pig’ is the best fly-on-the-wall documentary series television has ever produced.

Assumptions

2017-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

I often fall into the trap of assuming people know more than they do about the things I’m interested in. I should be paid for it, along with my ignorance I’d make an absolute fortune!

I’ve just recovered from watching the car-crash television interview of Tim Farron, UK Liberal Democrat political party leader. Interviewer Andrew Neil came across as being spectacularly ill-tempered, intolerant and ultimately ill-informed.

Part-way through it devolved into a shouting match, a wholehearted removal of any pretence of mutual respect.

From the brief article accompanying the video clip, this: “In heated exchanges where Andrew Neil told his interviewee not to “heckle” him…”

I haven’t seen his preceding interviews of the other 2 main party leaders, I wasn’t interested. It seems though that modern interview technique mandates that interviewers must show how ‘tough’ they are by constantly interrupting the interviewee then accusing them of not answering the question. Do politicians deserve respect? The reasonable answer fits somewhere within the range from ‘No’ to ‘It depends’, of course it does.

But part-way through Andrew Neil made the same mistake I’ve heard from him before, offering Mr Farron the blunt assertion that “we all already know that.”

Mr Neil might be very surprised indeed how little a lot of people outside his political bubble know about the realities of modern politics, and modern life in general. The failure of British people to engage on anything but a superficial level with politics, and Brexit in particular, ensures people are either spectacularly uninformed or spectacularly ill-informed. What better time than now to give the party leaders a voice?

But no, the terms of the modern interview mean they’ve got to be shouted down and called names before they get the chance, and be judged on those terms.

Tim Farron proved himself to be human this evening.

But we’re not voting for a party leader are we, despite the Conservative party leader’s wish we were. No, we’re voting for a party’s policies and its ability to present a coherent front. A Labour vote is ultimately a wasted vote, it’s a party that’ll fall apart as soon as the temporary, fragile cessation of internal hostilities the election imposes finally breaks.

All of this is why I’ll still be voting Liberal Democrat.

FFS (sweary)

2017-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

I’m not sorry if the language in this post offends. I cannot get past a (probably primitive) need to use it. I know it’s wrong and anti-social, and yet releasing the pressure cooker valve of crude and vulgar language will help me come to terms with it. So, here goes.

An acquaintance turned to me today and, totally out of the blue, said this (I’m paraphrasing a little):

“Today’s a special day for them, they commit atrocities on it.”

There was no preamble, nothing I’d said that would indicate how receptive I’d be to the statement.

“Eh?”, I replied, then headed to Google, partially to block out thoughts of axes and sweeping majestically across the Steppe, laying waste to…

It turns out today marks the beginning of Ramadan. So I told him so. “You mean Ramadan.”

Doubling down is usual, and he didn’t disappoint this time. Well actually he did:

“No, no, sometime soon there’s a special day where they commit atrocities, it’s part of their religion.”

“No it isn’t. No it is not,” I had to reply before shutting the conversation off.

Should I have asked him for proof?

Should I have attempted to educate him?

For fuck’s sake, we’re not living in The Dark Ages; we’re not living in a time during which, if we didn’t understand something, it automatically had to be excluded from the community, or maimed, or killed. Or made the subject of a decades-long feud. Or a bleedin’ Crusade! Now we are living in a time of information overload, of that there can be no doubt, but it’s so bloody easy to use Google to check, that even a child could do it. But I guess the twat who so casually opened the conversation with religious intolerance (he’s also a racist) has lost a child’s ability to wonder about things, and would rather remain ignorant.

For some perspective, a headline on my favourite web site:

“24 Coptic Christians killed in Minya, Egypt in what authorities are calling the largest attack on the community since last month”. It’s now at least 28 deaths and, added to the 44 from just last month, adds a teeny tiny sense of perspective.

But for a real sense of perspective, there’s this site:

http://www.iamsyria.org/death-tolls.html

The word ‘stark’ doesn’t even come close to my thoughts on the disparity between this week’s Manchester death toll and what’s going on in Syria and all the other conflict-torn countries.

We really do not know how lucky we are.

Towel Day tomorrow!

2017-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

There’s a day set aside every year to commemorate the life and works of the late literary great Douglas Adams. It’s May 25th to be precise. It’s tomorrow!

There’s a web site, so I’m posting a link to the towelday.org FAQ.

FYI, I count The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as one of my all-time favourite novel trilogies (I have all five parts of it!), radio series, TV series, computer games, and yes, even the 2005 movie!

Yes, I do know where my towel is, it’s completely awesome. And yes, I will be carrying it around with me all day.

Fiction

2017-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

For the last couple of weeks (it seems longer) I’ve not looked at any of my favourite social networks, and pretty-much ignored the news. I unintentionally missed May 2017’s #ThemeMonday, and multiple #WednesdayChallenge writing opportunities… sorry.

So why? Why so anti-social, why not soak up the UK’s political mood now that it matters?

I wrote a book. It’s science fiction with a length barely-qualifying as a novella. So mine isn’t a big one. It’s not particularly pretty either, I’ve never written anything this substantial before.

It is here though:

https://github.com/bazbt3/the_thorgon_empire/blob/master/words/README.md

(The credits don’t go nearly far-enough.)

Article 50

2017-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Article 50

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

*Article 218(3)**

3. The Commission, or the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy where the agreement envisaged relates exclusively or principally to the common foreign and security policy, shall submit recommendations to the Council, which shall adopt a decision authorising the opening of negotiations and, depending on the subject of the agreement envisaged, nominating the Union negotiator or the head of the Union’s negotiating team.

*Article 238(3)(b)**

(b) By way of derogation from point (a), when the Council does not act on a proposal from the Commission or from the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the qualified majority shall be defined as at least 72% of the members of the Council representing Member States comprising at least 65% of the population of these States.

Article 49

Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union. The European Parliament and national Parliaments shall be notified of this application. The applicant State shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after consulting the Commission and after receiving the assent of the European Parliament, which shall act by an absolute majority of its component members. The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded, which such admission entails, shall be the subject of an agreement between the Member States and the applicant State. This agreement shall be submitted for ratification by all the contracting States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The conditions of eligibility agreed upon by the European Council shall be taken into account.

Article 2

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

That’s it.

Look, this isn’t complex. Anyone who’s been to school and can read, anyone who’s ever read a novel with more than 27 total characters, can take time to gain understanding.

And this is why I’m scared. From childhood I’ve been a voracious reader, though parenthood broke my streak. Yet I know people who are, if not proud, content to say they’ve never read a book since leaving school. Heck though I’m writing a book right now! Yet they too turned out ok, right? Apart from that blind faith the same politicians who are screwing them over can guide them to the future prosperity.

I’ve trotted out this before: if we had the ability to beat the world in making widgets and gadgets and stuff, we’d be doing it already; the European Union has, as far as I know, never stopped us innovating. Thatcher-era Conservatives did that without any external influences! But anyway, this road I’m travelling down leads me to all kinds of thoughts, epiphanies. Here’s one.

It’s all about imagination.

Without imagination, the daily paper’s articles are statements of fact. Without an inquiring mind, the politician’s repetitive soundbite directed against the common man becomes a thing to be savoured, the mere listening bring a sense of involvement. Without a thing to contrast against, those ‘facts’ become facts.

The imagination I’m thinking of isn’t content to believe only a rosy future awaits. It weighs probabilities, examines history, and extrapolates. If the result looks bad it doesn’t hide under a rock, it attempts to find solutions.

Now I’m a big fan of Star Trek, though even I cannot make the leap to a wholly utopian future United Kingdom, let alone a whole Earth. I’m not saying the current incarnation of the European Union is a precursor to a future without want, but it’s a start.

I fully expect the Conservatives to be confirmed as the righteous guardians of Brexit in a few weeks. So I’m again voting Liberal Democrat.

Literary

2017-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

There’s no easy way to say this. I’ve been neglecting my blog, I’ve hardly looked at the four social networks I’ve got accounts with. Heck, I even missed posting in the weekly WednesdayChallenge.

I’m obsessed by something I’ve never done before, something a number of people have done historically, and experienced the darkest times of their lives.

Yes, I’m writing a book.

Not a book, no. It’s a novella. Well ok, I don’t know. Novellas are probably longer than 7,500 words, where novels have more than 17,500 words. It depends who’s setting the rules.

In this case, me! Right now I’ve broken off, at 4,710, to compose this blog post.

Science fiction isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, so I’m not hoping for fame and fortune.

You know how everyone’s supposed to have a niche set aside for their fifteen minutes of fame, and everyone has a novel inside them? Well, if anyone were to read mine, I would appreciate it if they ensured mine remained outside my personal comfort zone.

Yeah, I’ll post a link when the plot is fleshed out a bit more. For now though, there’s this:

https://github.com/bazbt3/the_thorgon_empire/tree/master/words

Different

2017-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

NSFW. Perhaps.

On Sunday evening, late on Sunday evening I took my youngest daughter to the town’s Urgent Care Centre, to help with the onset of a sudden and particularly painful ear infection. We were there for just about 2-3/4 hours, came away with advice and antibiotics.

A few minutes after we got there a young lady and her daughter plonked themselves down in the middle of the room, mother with a phone glued to her ear. Not literally, that’d be a bit odd. Maybe not in a hospital at 10:45pm though?

Anyway, while in the waiting room the phone was in use continuously for 2 hours. Not sporadically no, she was chatting all the time.

But I still haven’t got to the point.

She has a husband. In the early hours of the morning the conversation changed from idle chat (I couldn’t help but hear) to something more ‘adult.’ You know, the sort of stuff of the bedroom. No, not ‘Stop taking the covers you…’ or a long and heated conversation on snoring. No. Emphatically no. But heated? Yes, oh yes, yes, yes, etc.

Telling hubby what she would do to him when she got home, what she wanted him to do to her. Exceedingly graphic. So I attempted to hide, to bury myself in my tiny phone screen. To ignore the waves of words as best I could.

Not good enough. Not by a long way.

Especially when the conversation reached a certain peak and she said she’d have to go to the toilet to…

No. Just no.

Yeah, I did indeed delete some words. Naughty words. Well, naughty words used in a certain context.

Daily Mail

2017-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

As with the Sun I’m not clicking links to Daily Mail articles. Yet the headlines look so ‘juicy!’

Bands seen live

2017-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

There’s a list, varying with each person, going round social media at the moment. It challenges friends, readers, to pick a lie from a list of 10 bands supposedly seen live by the poster.

Here’s mine, though live music’s never been my ‘thing’ for a lot of reasons:

The Cheeky Girls
The Mitchell Brothers
Bob Geldof
Deacon Blue
The Prodigy
Buck’s Fizz (tribute)
Girls Aloud
50 Cent
Speedway
er… I can only think of nine.

So there you go, consider yourself challenged to find the lie!

300 posts?

2017-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

As someone who uses a blog to write to work through issues I must appear to the world to be a seething mess of discontentment, finding Schadenfreude in the news, no solace from the issues confronting our world.

Checking through the nearly-300 posts at the GitHub Pages repository, some of which I’ve deemed unsuitable to resurrect at 10Centuries (actually uninteresting even to me!), I found a couple where I profess to be not a blogger.

I very rarely check my post view/feed access count page, have never thought of monetising it all (for reasons anyone who’s ever read my stuff will know) so why do I write? To get things off my chest in the hopes of achieving a catharsis, inner peace…

Nearly 300 posts, probably a few more if counting the WordPress precursor, predecessor, whatever the word is…

Hmmm…

I should compile a ‘best of’ list, as ageing rock stars do.

80s bands again

2017-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

A headline: “Seven bands from the 80s we wish would reunite” (BBC Entertainment & Arts)

A paragraph: “Children of the 1980s, rejoice - the original Bananarama line-up is back together at last. Which got us thinking - lots of 80s bands have reformed over recent years but which ones are we still wishing would reunite?”

A suggestion: Talking Heads. (Note the article date before exploding.)

I can but hope.

NOW is the time for a protest vote

2017-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

I know several people who voted for the first time last June, in the Brexit referendum, their intention being to send a message they’d had enough. Enough of what I found it difficult to pin down both then and now; not one of them will admit to racist tendencies, well aside from the pensioner my wife encountered outside the polling station: ‘Finally, a chance to get rid of the darkies,’ she said. My wife said nothing. What a wasted opportunity, on any level.

A conventional protest vote has a target, and last year’s was no exception. A conventional election though has an opportunity to change the effects the next time around, by ousting the subsequently-unpopular people who raised the subsequently-unpopular policies. In any event the 2 terms of each government repeats, in general, 2 terms later. But nothing changes apart from the cuts and the discontentment.

The upcoming General Election provides the best opportunity to change UK politics and thus the direction the country takes for the better, for the long term. Conventional wisdom and the tactical voting spreadsheet doing the rounds online dictate that a Labour vote in all-but secure Liberal Democrat areas is the only way to rid ourselves of the troublesome Tories.

No.

Voting Liberal Democrat across the board would elect Liberal Democrats who would implement Liberal Democrat policies. It really is that simple. Why is this concept so opposite from ingrained, monotonous behaviour?

The party’s devastating loss of face after the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was a predictable consequence of the larger party’s ability to dictate terms, to insist on, for instance, the humiliating climb-down on increasing student tuition fees. Ask people to name one issue that would preclude voting for each party and this would be the most popular in the casual observers’ response to the LibDems. Given the choice between, for example, raising the minimum tax threshold with the benefit of taking the nation’s lowest-paid entirely out of tax, or raising those university fees, the choice was plain. I can’t begin to feel the sense of loss most Liberal Democrat politicians must have felt; the inability to explain why the choice had to be made. Appeasement.

So what do the Liberal Democrats actually represent, whose lives will be made better were they to be elected?

The easy bit first, making lives better: how’s about me, how’s about my family, everyone I know? It’s a party that aims to not intrude into people’s lives or business decisions, and to encourage freedom and tolerance. Not in the manner of the Conservatives’ ‘Big Society’ project (removing funding and support), not by any means.

The hard differentiating bit, the biggest in-the-news-today bit: Brexit. In common with the other smaller parties not called UKIP they’re opposed to disturbing the common notion that to derail Brexit would subvert the whole Democratic (big D for definition) process.

People who voted for Brexit don’t, in the main, realise that shouting down those who ‘lost’, calling them ‘losers’ and demanding they stop moaning is not democracy in action, it’s paving the way towards a bleak future. It’s a future in which everyone agrees there’ll be disadvantage for some in the UK. As long as it’s not themselves, but the reality is nobody knows how this’ll all play out.

This brings me on to an interesting point. Interesting to me, so I’m writing about it. Someone I’ve know for a long time, who won’t tell me how they voted last June, has definite ideas on how Brexit will play out. It involves showing our current partners that we can indeed be great again, have lots of things that we can sell that the rest of the non-European world wants, we don’t need Europe at all, and finally that we should cut our ties just to see the looks on their faces. Really, that’s it. The futility of discussing it at all is evident in 2 areas:

As a ‘loser’ any argument I make is automatically diminished, even dismissed, simply because I lost. Unless we’re discussing Turkey’s 51%/49% vote margin, to turn their premier into a de-facto dictator for maybe the next 12 years. That’s not democracy is it!
Any point I raise in response to a politician’s obvious lie or inability to effectively communicate is deemed “just your opinion.” Yeah.

I can imagine what it’ll be like when the to-be-elected politicians decide to impose more cuts, real austerity measures; the inevitable tax rises and service cuts won’t be popular. But I’m rambling again…

The Liberal Democrats are, to me, the obvious choice. Everyone who votes Liberal Democrat is making a choice to move away from the bit of the status quo we have direct control over: a move away from the Conservative Party, a move away from the once Conservative-lite now ostensibly Marxist-lite but still Parliamentary Conservative-lite Labour Party.

So go on then, why, specifically the LibDems?

I read the document linked to in one of my previous blog posts, the document itself is the Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution. My blog post, though almost inconsequential, at least provides some sense of my interest. The document is not, you will note, a Manifesto. I’m not linking to that. Why? Rhetorical question: When was the last time all of a Manifesto’s promises were implemented?

How long have we got to restore sanity to the UK? 6/7 weeks.

Four Roses review part 6

2017-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk neat after Nice’n’Spicy NikNaks, it’s indescribable.

Also, Ruby dog is no longer fazed by me swinging my bits about, barely-contained within a dark grey dressing gown, whilst shouting “sniff my cheeeese!”

To be concluded…

Birthday customs

2017-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

I had a birthday recently. Nothing special, aside from to those colleagues who remembers my ‘special day’ and who didn’t receive the cakes and biscuits it’s customary to provide.

So, a few weeks on, and after occasional good-natured banter designed to motivate me, I finally left a few packs of cakes and a box of biscuits in the office kitchen. Well-received it all was too.

Speaking of late birthday surprises, Theresa May called a UK General Election for June 8th 2017.

Yeah, of course I fear the worst.

Easter Egg 2

2017-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

I was wrong. The 139th White House Easter Egg Roll event went ahead with the Trumps in attendance. I guess I’m simply not in tune with a lifestyle which allows separate taxpayer-funded flights for the President and the First Lady, from Washington DC and New York City, to Florida for a couple of days. And then back again.

Some people will point at this one event, ignore the history and the numbers, and assume the world is returning to normal. Hey, the First Lady might have organised and supervised the planning of the Egg Roll.

Others will watch the following video and groan:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39622126

Or read this article and groan:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/17/trump-jokes-with-easter-egg-roll-attendees-throws-make-america-great-again-hat-back-into-crowd/

You know, I am enjoying reading stuff from The Washington Post. It makes a nice change from, er…

Easter Bunny

2017-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Easter Bunny visited, distributed cunningly-hidden chocolate eggs throughout the Turner residence and left, but not before disposing of the Cadbury Easter Egg Hunt pack cardboard in our card and paper recycling box.

How very responsible; how very practical given what I’d imagine would be the total worldwide visit packaging impact on the Easter Bunny’s home recycling regime and the local authority’s complaints on bin emptying day.

How very odd it felt explaining this to the nearly 10-year-old daughter who found the card despite someone’s* lackadaisical efforts to ‘bury’ it the night before.

*Nameless twerp.

51-49

2017-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

With 99% of the votes counted and the totals being 51.4% for, 48.6% against, the Turks elected to become a dictatorship.

Like other recent close tallies, I’ve the feeling this won’t end well for the average citizen’s belief of what democracy is.

Four Roses review part 5

2017-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk neat is best.

To be concluded…

Easter egg

2017-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

The Trumps flew to Florida on Friday, in separate jets. It’s looking as though they’ll miss the annual Easter Egg Roll, a 138-year-old tradition, will be somewhat curtailed in scope. A shame.

From the second article:

“Since 1878, the Easter Egg Roll has always been coordinated by the first lady. Seeing as how Mrs. Trump not only lives 200 miles away from the White House, but has yet to bother putting together an official staff, this year’s event, like Trump’s numbers in the popular vote, is expected to underperform bigly.”

(The writer’s emphasis.)

Is anyone taking bets it’ll be recorded as the most successful event ever? Forget tradition, tradition is not for those looking to the future! Forget history, history is tor those who would read books. Books, books are for…

No.

I had intended to write about the passing at 117 of the world’s oldest person, Emma Morano, but my attention spa…

Yeah. It’s very unlikely there’s anyone else alive born in the 1800s, the nineteenth century, the end of the Victorian era. Imagine the social, the technological change she’ll have seen living through the entire 20th century. I simply cannot imagine the personal losses she’ll have endured; every family member…

I’m having a profound moment here, not an epiphany as there’s something quite logical about the effect of extreme age on statistics. No, mine is a sense of missing something.

There’s a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings movies which brought to life something I’d never really considered in depth. The specific scene, though powerful, is unimportant here; what is is something seen in old, grand churches: statues side-by-side above stone tombs, once lovers, creators of life, holders of shared dreams, together forever in stone, mourned by fewer and fewer and then none as the passage of time takes those who once knew…

Yeah, sure it’s a privileged few afforded such a luxury in death. The common man gets nothing likely to last even tens of years. The despots, the landowners, the moneyed classes of our history: immortalised.

Will the Trump era be looked back on with anything approaching warmth, a sense of a shared timespan, a belief of having achieved something?

Can I place a bet?

Incidentally, I have a bragging-rights-only wager with @texrat (Twitter), that the White House Press Secretary will last only until late August 2017. Randall thought he’d be gone roughly by the end of March. Not roughly, I think I mean approximately. Perhaps; I’m still suffused by Schadenfreude.

Washington Post

2017-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

I subscribed to the online editions of The Washington Post. Yes it’s a US news company! At USD$19 for an entire year it was an easy decision. I live in the UK but haven’t yet done the same for any other UK news organisation, apart from giving a few pounds to The Guardian (paywall-free.) Incidentally, both ‘newspapers’ are running very similar headlines today, very encouraging.

Yeah, sure I pay an annual Licence Fee to the BBC and read their news, watch their telly, but the reporting is often infuriatingly bland and airs weeks past the time I’ve already seen it elsewhere.

Where was I? Yes, one of the reasons I subscribed to the Washington Post was reporter David Fahrenthold’s tenacious examination of Donald Trump’s assertions that the President-to-be gave away millions to charity. What is certain is the majority of charitable donations were falsely recorded and that the work won Mr Fahrenthold a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. And the reporting of his humanity, non-superhero ordinariness, in connection with that glitter gun.

I’m conscious of drawing from perhaps a greater breadth of sources than most other people when formulating my position on often complex ideas. And often simple ideas. Last year I asked around and gratefully received suggestions for people and media companies from which I could draw a wide range of opinions. With hindsight I bit off more than I could comfortably chew and had to step away from the process.

I can’t say I’m much wiser now but the perspectives I’ve gained have led me to a more balanced approach than you’d know by reading some of last year’s blog posts, e.g. ‘Regrexit’ and ‘Chainsaws’.

In public at least.

The Washington Post subscription includes (from the welcome email):

Unlimited access to washingtonpost.com from any device.
Unlimited access to our entire suite of mobile apps for iOS, Android and Fire Tablet.
The Optimist, a weekly email newsletter highlighting positive stories.
Post Most, a weekday email newsletter with a rundown of popular stories.
Shared digital access for an additional user.

(My emphasis above.)

Do they have any idea how inappropriate ‘Optimist’ will be for me‽

Joking aside I remember Martyn Lewis, a national UK news anchor saying he wanted to insert one ‘feel-good’ story into every bulletin. His rationale being that there’s too much depressing news. At the time I agreed; now though it’s entirely the wrong message to send to ordinary people. Given the magnitude of the worldwide change we’re living through, I believe it’s important to focus on the bad stuff.

There’s one big problem with my current reasoning: if you make reporting so detailed that people don’t want to watch they’ll go to where the grass is greener, airbrushed, astroturfed… Yeah. Fairness, balance.

And finally, here’s a link to a web page with a photo of a squirrel with big nuts:

http://www.fark.com/farq/about/

For the avoidance of doubt as to my motives here at the end, Fark.com is my all-time favourite news-related site; the comment pages there are awesome. Awesome in a mainly US-centric, rounded but occasionally very unbalanced, good way. I pay them to remove ads.

Four Roses review part 4

2017-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

This time the experiment continues with sufficient ice cubes prepared to sink an ocea, er…

Drunk this time with a single, melted, ice cube. Precisely this one, well this half:

Verdict: hmmm… Clean, crisp, with an odd taste just before it starts to tingle my gums, and then it’s back to…

It smells underwhelming still after the Maker’s Mark, but I’m happy with the trade-off; it’s still a warming, drinkable drink.

My view, ‘Buffalo Trace’ is a more rounded experience. Once this is done I’ll of course try the ‘Woodford Reserve’ then the ‘Bulleit’ but thus far the shaggy quadruped gets my vote. A shame, I paid quite a bit more for this Four Roses than I expected I would when all this began. Not a complaint, far from it.

Nevertheless, to be continued…

Links:

Ask Men whiskey article.

Four Roses review part 3

2017-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Aw, FFS, we don’t have any ice cubes!!!2!¡

/Potters about in the kitchen for a while and tries, but ultimately fails to, resist temptation…

Drunk neat again with it and me at room temperature: oh yes. Looking forward to dropping a freshly-frozen ice cube with pre-boiled cold water from the kettle in the next glass, because I know what I like.

Smells underwhelming still, but it’s a warming, drinkable drink.

Has to be said: ‘Buffalo Trace’ is still my favourite whiskey, but this comes ‘real close’.

To be continued…

An aside; maybe I should have swilled the Maker’s Mark around in my glass and before leaving it to evaporate overnight, I miss those rich, extraordinary aromas.

Four Roses review part 2

2017-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk neat with it and me at room temperature: oh yes. Looking forward to dropping an ice cube in the next, because I know what I like.

Smells just ok, but it’s eminently drinkable.

The bottle looks good, its contents are immediately accessible, most unlike the trials and tribulations of fighting my way into the over-designed Maker’s Mark bottle. It both handles and pours well and pulling the cork seems positively luxurious in comparison.

To be continued…

Four Roses whiskey

2017-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Attempting to find a better Bourbon whiskey than ‘Buffalo Trace’ I’ve been asking around, and received what really do sound like good recommendations. For now though I’m bypassing Irish whiskeys (Bushmills Black Bush) in favour of the authentic Kentucky stuff.

Despite my long-winded, ultimately negative review of ‘Maker’s Mark’ I really enjoyed the experience; it’s not often I step outside my comfort zone and have the luxury of being able to analyse it at my leisure.

Ok, I’ve had one from each of the 3 groups in this Ask Men article. The old Turner palate favoured one from the ‘high rye’ group so what’s where I’m heading again. Thanks to whoever suggested the ‘Woodford Reserve’ but it’s unavailable here this evening on Amazon Prime Now.

Somewhere between 10pm and midnight today the doorbell will ring and my delivery of Four Roses Single Barrel whiskey, and cat food, will be handed over. After, that is, I prove that I’m an adult by scrawling my digital signature on the deliverer’s phone.

Ahhh… convenience.

Ordinary Men

2017-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

I know someone who’s better screwed together than I and she’s read, er… (thinks) yeah, I’d best get this back on track before the list of people who are better-screwed-together than I grows beyond my ego’s comfort zone!

Anyway, she’s been reading Christopher Browning’s ‘Ordinary Men’; it’s an examination of the motivations of, in simplistic terms, a WWII Nazi-run extermination squad.

Not an easy read, by her account, not by any means. It got me thinking again of what minimal set of events would precipitate a decline into times in which our society could condone such events. You’ve had only to look casually at the TV in recent years to find programmes about ‘Doomsday Preppers’, disease-created zombies or worse, the shutdown of the electricity grid, aliens intent on extracting all our planet’s resources before moving on to the next mining proposition…

Go on then, what, practically, could sow the seeds of our society’s destruction?

Our reliance on complex but easily-interrupted food distribution chains, the effect of social media on the ability of looters to congregate on and to lay waste to city centres, the notion that terrorists could strike anywhere even with the complete absence of coherent attack strategies, the transmission of disease across international and across species boundaries, the emboldening of xenophobes as government administrations move towards embracing nativism-inspired lawmaking?

Yeah, fragile. So what can we do?

Nothing, apart from conform to normal societal rules and hope that like the winds of change, it’ll all blow over us without too much damage. And that’s the problem, as vested interest has the rules change, the moral compass becomes destabilised. Has anyone from any other previous era, outside of wartime, had the rules change literally overnight?

Maybe.

I’ve read (and watched 2 versions of) Orwell’s 1984, read and listened to Orwell’s Animal Farm, experienced the dread of imagining the speed of onset of a technological catastrophe during The Terminator series, read Asimov’s Foundation series and felt a hope inspired by knowledge there may just be a shadowy organisation skilled in manipulating populations and then crushed as one man with abnormal skills brings it all crashing down… Then there’s the similarities between 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, and Shaun of the Dead; the gulf between the dystopian Star Wars and the utopian Star Trek; the time between the first screening of ‘Metropolis’ through The Twilight Zone’s ‘To Serve Man’, to the present day’s fascination with superhero movies. I’d best not mention ‘The Matrix’. Do you remember Bird Flu, note that colds and flu last forever these days, and at any one time, someone you know could easily be carrying an antibiotic-resistant strain of some superbug that’ll mean a few days off work, or death (whichever is the least benign?) And finally, during a recent bout of flooding in the northwest of England the entire nation’s production of pink sandwich and custard cream biscuits stopped. Ok, really finally: when a major UK retailer decided the post-Brexit-announcement price rises after the consequent fall in the value of the GB Pound could not be passed directly on to the customer so the supplier’s profit margin must take the hit; thus iconic products temporarily disappeared from shelves as people panic-bought - no Marmite!

Having an active imagination at a time like this isn’t helpful.

Sign

2017-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’m thinking of having a sign, a notice, a warning of sorts made up; a notification to those who would disturb my evenings or weekends with unsolicited offers to do work for or sell goods to us. The doorbell rings and… Ok, ok, I wrote about this phenomenon previously and about the telephone equivalent too.

Today I simply walked out of the front room into the kitchen, and ignored the second ring too. This visit would have fit the pattern: ‘Hello, we’ve just finished some work in the area and…’ I recognise the van.

Ah, the sign.

“The man of the house isn’t immediately cheerful to unsolicited callers. Could we pay nothing now, at 0%, balance due by the then-homeowner in 35 years?”

Too wordy?

"Grammer"

2017-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

Today brought two lifetime achievements, three if you include a small amount of good-natured Schadenfreude.

My mother-in-law is stopping over for a couple of nights. That’s not it, no.

My youngest daughter, 7-1/3 years old, just corrected her grandma’s grammar.

Privacy

2017-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Another sign personal responsibility is a thing of the past, this one related to the ubiquity of the mobile phone. It’s an all-purpose privacy invader, child entertainer, burglar inviter, memory enhancer, space invader. In short, it’s contributing to the decline of civilised society.

A post on my favourite medium-traffic low-visibility social network pnut.io reminded me of the number of times the mobile hasn’t been my friend. The easiest way to do this is via the magic of a list.

A rant, actually.

Private meal, photos taken, in all likelihood shared on social media: (not mine this time) Why do they think it’s ok to do this? A host and their home should be respected. In a bar it’s almost ok. Why does no-one ask first anymore‽
The swimming baths changing room: man with phone blocking the aisle between the cubicles didn’t take kindly to being asked to put it away, not even when the obvious sign he was stood next to was pointed out. No mobiles, no photography.
School sports days, Christmas plays: Advance notice of no photography, yet parents insisting it’s their right to do so are sneaky about it.
The cinema: Yeah, looking at your full-brightness phone and taking selfies are simply antisocial; recording the movie would get you thrown out (though likely not prosecuted) if the grumpy old bastard behind is feeling vindictive.
Drivers: Is it too difficult to wait until you can find a safe place to stop before answering or making that call. It’s been illegal to phone on the move for a while now, along with drinking anything, adjusting your stereo, and even picking your nose you dirty scrotum! Heck, being in the phone driving down the residential streets where you live and your children play is idiotic. Getting in your car after picking up your kids from school surely getting home safely is your highest priority. After driving at my wife and children.
Walking along the street, crossing the road: This should be obvious. Cars are hard, very hard indeed. Bouncing off mine might sting for a while, and though my elbow is less-likely to inflict permanent damage as I protect myself, my tongue is likely to be sharper than you realise.
It’s lawful to take public photos of my daughters: I won’t like it much, especially if it looks as-if you’re doing it covertly. But I know it’s your right to do so. Making you feel uncomfortable by staring at you until you leave is my right. One day I might even snap you.

Er…

I think it’s time to have a go at composing part 6 of my Maker’s Mark whiskey review series. (Surprisingly catharsis none while writing the preceding necessarily-incomplete diatribe.)

Maker's Mark review part 6

2017-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk neat at room temperature or with ice: oh, no.

Maker’s Mark Bourbon Whiskey smells amazing whether it’s newly-poured into my favourite glass, or it’s the remains evaporated overnight and sniffed during the tidy-up the following morning. (No, I’ve absolutely no idea why I did it the first time!)

But, after the initial welcome the taste becomes unpleasant to me. No Baz’s seal of approval here I’m afraid.

There’s a tad more to whiskey than a pleasant aroma, even my limited experience tells me that. The 2 preceding brands were pleasant, unchallenging. This, if it’s an American favourite, seems analogous to the way I feel about Hershey’s chocolate: it’s to-me-unfathomably popular, explainable away by a blind obedience to the cult of historic nationhood, but there’s no getting away from its’ smelling, as it does, of sick.

Concluded early.

Maker's Mark review part 5

2017-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk again with 1-1/2 ice cubes with me at room temperature, this time after recently eating strawberries & shaken (not whipped) cream: oh no, that unpleasant taste remains.

Still smells amazing, rich, sherry, butterscotch, etc; this really does bear repeating.

I’d better conclude this at some point…

Maker's Mark review part 4

2017-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk again with a single ice cube with me at room temperature: oh no. There’s a really unpleasant taste, unlike any of the preceding. Not sure what I’d eaten beforehand, but it’s had quite the negative effect.

Smells more amazing than before, there is that.

To be continued…

Maker's Mark review part 119

2017-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

oh my glob ive fallen and cant getup again waillll!!!2!¡

Beauty and the Beast

2017-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

My youngest daughter and I went to the movies again today, to watch Beauty and the Beast, a film my oldest had seen mid-week. In my own inimitable fashion I enjoyed the tale yet again, and ignored the chance that I’d be offended by the peripheral fuss surrounding the movie.

I wouldn’t have been, by the way; it’d pass unnoticed were it not for the fact I was expecting something. What sad lives people must have, picking apart harmless entertainment and ignoring history.

Anyway, afterwards we walked across to McDonald’s and bought 2 chicken nugget Happy Meals, which we ate in the car. Mine came with an orange-roofed Smurf house.

The movie and the meal gain Baz’s seal of approval.

Maker's Mark review part 3

2017-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

I bowed to popular demand* and wrote what follows about the third Bourbon Whiskey I’ve ever tried. Well, the fourth bottle of the stuff. My first experience was 2 consecutive bottles of Buffalo Trace, then one of Wild Turkey 101 and, as the subject line indicates, I’m now trialling Maker’s Mark.

Ahhh, what a day that was…

No, no! It takes over a week per bottle, honestly! Jeez!

First though, my earlier post:

“Drunk with a single ice cube with me at room temperature: oh. Smells amazing. To be continued…”

From the guy who recommended it, the comment that precipitated this, an unprecedented same-day update:

“Enough about the smell. Do you like the taste? That was my favourite favourite.”

Well…

No. Not yet.

It’s rather nice to start with but there’s an aftertaste which comes on quickly that I’ll admit I’m not liking. It spans my first neat test, and today’s single ice cube (just-melted.) Buffalo Trace seems to have a cleaner finish; Wild Turkey 101, though a bit too strongly alcoholic at 50.5% for me, seems to lack this unpleasant fall-off too. All pull back my gums and attack my lips to a greater or lesser extent, which is rather nice, if I let them.

No, I haven’t a bloody clue what I’m talking about, especially if I’m using anything like understandable terminology, but I know what I like. Bear in mind that I’ve been drinking Scotch whisky for over 20 years, off-and-on, culminating in the utterly awesome Laphroaig 15-year-old, a whisky now withdrawn from general sale and thus prohibitively expensive. Incidentally, the 10 year old is a good substitute but don’t make the mistake I did of trying the ‘Select’, it’s completely unrepresentative of the fine brand.

Ok, the hardest bit about this experience so far is not admitting that I’m not too keen on the whiskey someone I trust recommended, nor is it the effort in typing right now not long after reaching the bottom of the second glass. No, it’s getting through the melted plastic covering the Maker’s Mark bottle cap. The pull-tab is utterly unsuitable for its intended purpose, so much so that I almost had to get the Swiss Army Knife out! It looks nice but I get the impression it took quite some time to design it to make it look as though it’s an organic continuation of a product of a bygone age. Heck, it might be but I’m not sufficiently invested in it to find out.

However…

To be continued…

*Yes, you.

Maker's Mark review part 2

2017-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk with a single ice cube with me at room temperature: oh.

Smells amazing.

To be continued…

Maker's Mark review part 1

2017-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Drunk neat at room temperature: oh, no.

Smells amazing.

To be continued…

Empty words

2017-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

There’ll be a better way of summing up what follows than the title I chose, but it’ll do. I’m referring to the monologue Andrew Neil delivered a couple of nights ago, a bunch of words strung together to invoke national pride on our past, and which was subsequently described as, well, read the article here:

“‘Churchillian!’ Viewers hail Andrew Neil’s INCREDIBLE monologue on Westminster attack”. (from The Daily Express newspaper, 2017-03-24.)

Meaningless.

I happen to like Andrew Neil. His no-nonsense approach to interviewing sits well with me. His sarcasm, always it seems tinged with an impish glee upon finding a politician wanting, fits my needs far better than the always-annoyed Jeremy Paxman ever did, he doesn’t needlessly interrupt his guests as they’re answering his questions as does Andrew Marr. But his monologues irritate me. They always go on a bit too long, and always keep me from why I watch his late-night programme: to learn what’s going on in the world of politics.

Before I continue, I haven’t watched this edition of his show, I’m relying on the Daily Telegraph’s editors to show me a full picture of what transpired on the night. Yeah…

The key phrases from Mr Neil are:

“Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? This is the country that stood up alone to the might of the Luftwaffe, air force of the greatest evil mankind has ever known. If you think we’re going to be cowed by some pathetic, Poundland terrorist in an estate car with a knife, then you’re as delusional as you are malevolent.”

Fine words that would have made sense in an era vastly-different from the one in which we live, an era in which it was easy to spot the source of terror, the evil across a tiny stretch of water known as the English Channel.

Fine words which conveniently ignore the fact that this isn’t the 1940’s.

During those times, and in general terms only, the only loose parallel I can make is that of an entire nation aspiring to impose its ideologies upon the rest of the world. That as-opposed to taking over other nations by armed might and controlling them by repressive regimes; something the British would conveniently ignore. When their politics failed to spread much beyond the German border, war became inevitable, at which point other alliances were built, sides taken.

It was a war propelled by the industrial might of nations, their armed forces’ skills honed by regional conflicts outside, initially at least, Germany’s borders. It was a war of technological superiority, of a rapid development of new instruments of war applied effectively against adversaries who didn’t expect another conflict, especially with the smug, humiliating victory of The War To End All Wars.

And then there’s the media. During the Second World War the British were lucky to read or hear about major events within days, even if the British government deemed it acceptable that ordinary citizens knew what was going on. The newspapers were censored; the radio was mostly censored, save for the enemy’s propaganda broadcasts; the newsreels shown in cinemas showed only British propaganda. No satellite-fed coverage, no 24 hour telly, no social media gossip-spreading, no instant messaging.

People all over the world listened to what Mr Churchill said, and believed it. They listened to what Mr Hitler said and believed it. There was nothing else.

‘Intelligence’ is a word often derided nowadays when a terror attack happens. The futility of the security services monitoring everything for that ‘just in case’ scenario was shown up nicely by the events of mid-last week; a man simply not monitored for links to terror plunges a nation into crisis.

But how was it during WWII? Well, the British successfully created fake airfields filled with fake aircraft, and the high-level (or fast low-level) reconnaissance flights provided compelling evidence that the enemy strategists were fooled. Fields of fake tanks and other fake armoured vehicles at other times had the same effect. Surveillance technology was simply ineffective against what might now be termed laughable subterfuge. Maps were often hopelessly out-of-date; even the things we take for granted now: accurate digital mapping, aerial and pseudo-3D street-level walkthroughs were the stuff of next-millennial science fiction.

Nowadays it’s well established that the industrial might of a nation can be trivially assessed by picking up a phone and Googling for statistics. Seventy years ago it was guesswork, all of it. If the enemy had known how close Britain’s Air Force was to running out of aeroplanes and the means of manufacturing more, this world may have been a vastly different place. Intelligence failed. Perhaps it’d be kinder to say the British resolve triumphed, because that’s what we want to believe.

In short what we’re facing now is utterly unlike anything we’ve experienced previously.

I say ‘we’ conveniently ignoring the millions in the Middle East who must deal with this kind of hell on a daily basis.

It’s not the threat of a nation clad impeccably and riding iron steeds, no. It’s the threat of the ordinary man or woman or child radicalised by the unending and implacable hatred of those who simply don’t care about anyone but those with whom with imagined special relationships are key. It’s the threat that each and every one of them needs only a knife and a car to commit unspeakable acts. It’s the knowledge that anyone can kill or maim or destroy using the most basic of tools, the knowledge that just because someone looks different or doesn’t look different they can achieve the same ends.

I intended to close with the sarcastic ‘Aren’t we lucky to live now?’, intending to show that ignorance was indeed bliss 70 years ago. Not knowing how perpetually close to defeat Britain was helped morale immensely. Not knowing that the rationing of basic foodstuffs and household essentials would last far beyond the end of the war, it helped too.

I’ll instead close with this blog post from 2016, ‘Nice’ which refers to my near-identical post from 2015. If I’d started blogging earlier there’d be others pointing out the folly of allowing ignorance to fester, of allowing jingoistic nationalism to grow unchallenged.

As is usual I’ve not proof-read this knee-jerk reaction.

Cold caller

2017-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

The doorbell was rung a few minutes ago: 2 guys, one introduced both as security consultants. I said ‘no thanks, I’m not interested’, and moved to shut the door, and here’s where the depressingly-predictable thing occurred…

Yes, as the pattern usually unfolds, he actually asked me, and condescendingly of course: “Do you know what we’re selling?” His exact words.

Um… I’m no rocket scientist but he had a few brochures fanned out in his hand, he’d introduced his profession, they both had impressive ID cards on lanyards, so I hazarded a guess, a wild stab at “Well, you’re security consultants, is it alarms? It’s alarms.”

He seemed surprised.

Cold callers expect their cheery welcome to be reciprocated. This one didn’t even try.

We’ve had someone purporting to be registered by the local authority asking, after my “yes” to “are you a family man?”, how many children I have and what their ages are, and where they go to school and…. She was surprised, visibly offended that I said “it’s none of your business, if you want the data get the authority to write to me for it.” The best bit, my wife told me she’d called earlier that day, had been rebuffed then too.

Others who introduce themselves by “We’re not selling anything…” are annoyed by my Captain Obvious “Yes you are, what are you selling?”

Double glazing salesmen, given a sniff at a replacement window but told to wait a few months as we couldn’t afford it that close to Christmas, getting their telephone sales department to ring not even 5 minutes after departing. He put the phone down on me as I was explaining how unimpressed I was.

I could go on but what would it achieve?

Catharsis.

Ahhh…

Resolutionary

2017-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

New Year’s Resolutions kept: none, though the subtleties of the choices made leave me a modicum of wriggle room.

Picking at my thumbnails at the traffic lights on the way to work: Fail. I should go a different way.
Reducing sugars in my tea at home: Technically a great success. The fact that I’ve not drunk tea at home during 2017 cheapens this a bit; the fact it’s been all chai since Christmas means I’m floundering, adrift, rudderless here.
Eating more healthily: Yes. More nuts, oats, er… healthy foods and in moderation too; less bread, biscuits/cookies. I take a cholesterol-reducing drink daily. The 16” kebab pizza last weekend was atypical.
Exercising: Fail. I walk a bit, nowhere near enough to qualify as a person who walks.
The thing that shall not be mentioned in polite society: Yup, still doing that.

Talking ADN

2017-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

Talking Heads have had a major influence in my life. Subtle but major nonetheless. I’m now accustomed to the fact I’ll never see them play live; it’s taken me decades…

Prior to App.net’s shut down for good I’d hoped a song could be played during the final #MondayNightDanceParty. Due to an unfortunate typo by yours truly that didn’t happen. No matter, it’s this:

Heaven (YouTube video)

It sums up what I think of ADN. Especially poignant is… oh, listen to it!

Tidying up my emotions after ADN’s termination, here’s a song which looks forward:

This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) (YouTube video)

Obsolete

2017-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

I just finished making dinner for me and the girls and realised something quite profound. My web site has existed in various forms and at various hosts over the 20 years since I arrived online. That’s not the important thing, no. 2017 is the first year that events outside my control rendered the vast majority of its content obsolete.

Yes, this is another post about the collateral damage resulting from App.net’s demise; though this one will thankfully be brief. Being honest, I don’t see much point in writing much about the past now, the future is much more important. It’s actually very easy for me to say that; the majority of people who made App.net special are at 10centuries.org or pnut.io right now. A nicely-distributed ‘ADN2’ (http://adn2.larryanderson.org.)

Back to my Wiki-type site. First the volunteer-driven App.net Wiki I helped edit expired, I stepped away from iOS, and then the network the App.net Wiki documented disappeared. Well, at least its infrastructure did. Ahhh…

My focus changed over the last year-and-a-half to blogging about what I’m thinking about, what I’m doing, and what makes me tick. A typical personal blog.

Maybe I should redirect incoming site requests to my 10C blog. or the more complete but less-social GitHub.com version or, heck, the trial self-hosted blog currently unloved and waiting for me to reconnect the Raspberry Pi 2 B mirroring it from the GitHub repo.

Dunno.

IT support request

2017-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

This user-requested software upgrade exchange didn’t happen. I’ve made it up. Yes.*

The Man:

“[folder name] There is a launcher in here [program name].exe which should install the shizzle.”

Me, feeling cocky:

“We iz installing the shizzle on Jason’s machine. We think. :)”

(time passed…)

Unfortunately due to the way [program name] works, its installer had a lie down instead of exhibiting the outward trappings of a performant conclusion.

Me, somewhat circumspect:

“Could you please start the [program name] upgrade on a few more machines after lunch/1pm? Ben, Zeb, John-Boy and John. Maybe Olivia and Mary-Ellen tomorrow.”

The Man:

‘Please see below for the correct way to submit a request, as one of your colleagues seemed to nail it!

“Oh Great One, Your humble servant requests that you fix [another program name] on my PC what not working (but did last week). Thanks’

Me, acquiescing:

“Dear Sir or Madam of Awesomesauce,

This obsequious underling (initially examining but not limiting said examination to in this regard the relative vertical offsets between uppermost portions of cranial body parts) is desirous of your physical presence around these environs after the commencement and subsequent termination of the half-hour period in which the majority consume their midday repast to effect the increase in [program name]-related CAD and/or design productivity (post-button-fiddling-and-bitwise-cogitation) of a small number of my esteemed colleagues, to be occasioned by a heretofore successful manual implementation of a ‘soft ware upgrade’; those colleagues being namely by name: Ben of Sausage, Zeb of Sausage, John of Sausage, and John-Boy the, er… And, upon successful termination of the afore-to-alluded-to procedural black-box magic incantations, to examine the possibility of repeating the procedures on two further colleagues’ computing devices at a point not limited to a limited time within the limits of the next working day; those personnel being namely Olivia The Great of A-Specific-Sausage-Name-Analogy and Mary-Ellen The Great of Many-Bread-Product-Name-Analogies.

Yours in eager and trembling anticipatory raptures, Mr or Mrs Turner.

p.s. The writer has determined that his or her [another program name] is also what not working (but what did earlier in the year.)”

(time passed…)

Yes, of course he did it, tsk!

The end.

*Er… No, that’s not exactly true. However the names have been changed to protect the identities of the guineapigs involvZzzz…

App.net legends

2017-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Just short of a millennium ago, and handily beating Project Gutenberg, the Chinese invented movable type. Thus began the slow march of the dissemination of things important and unimportant (though perhaps entertaining) through the intervening ten centuries towards this, our almost ephemeral, digital age.

As App.net (ADN) haltingly passes into the realm of myths and fables an 11th-hour equitable stay was granted by the legend that is @berg; time to fix and thus allow the network’s inhabitants to download and unpack their digital memories.

24 more hours, the blink of an eye, and an ending somehow slightly less-memorable than of The Ides Of March; a date I’m sure that was chosen to be symbolic. Symbolic of what though?

How many Orcs though, how many Goblins, Men, Elves, nameless dark forces from the east, how many Trolls were slain during the time ADN shone? How many Adventures were had along the road? How many people met, spoke in hushed (and not-so-hushed) tones, whilst forging lasting alliances over cloudy ale and Elven Lembas bread?

Ok, enough allusions to Tolkien-esque worlds; wasn’t it fun‽

Simply, yes.

Incidentally, if you came to this scroll of mine expecting a list of legendary folk, instead look in at 10Centuries.org and pnut.io and see who’s there.

Do it.

I have invitation codes for both networks, just ask.

Do it, do it now, lest ye be eaten by a grue or (shudders) settle for Twitter!

(time passes…)

Have you done it yet‽

Who knows, before we know it, people could be telling tales of our later legendary exploits.

256

2017-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Quite a few people have written (and spoken) quite a few words on the subject of App.net’s imminent oblivion. I’ve written (and spoken) my fair share too! Right now I’m going to restrict myself to a very narrow definition of what helped make App.net (ADN: short for App Dot Net) special for me. Characters.

Yes, the people inhabiting the social network weren’t your usual crowd, but it’s not the people’s characters I’m thinking of right now, no. It’s the social post length. 256 characters of often lovingly-crafted posts on pretty-much any subject one could care to imagine. A chance to relax into the prose or the poem, the metaphor or the precise, the mundane, the interesting, exciting, the newsworthy (whether global, local or the deeply-personal) or the hyper-focused chats about topics directly-related to ADN.

I’ve never been able to summarise, so having the ability to footnote a social post still brings pleasure to me. 256-character posts allow one to relax knowing the chances of misinterpretation, if not entirely eliminated, are certainly lessened.

So there you have it. Or rather you don’t; it’ll be gone shortly: the plug will be pulled sometime during 2017-03-15 (though if living in a timeline to the east of San Francisco it’s likely it’ll be the 16th when things go dark.)

App.net: in total 2012 Q3 to 2017 Q1 with me from 2013 Q2 to the end; thanks to all you lovely people.

See Baz’s Law.

(An approximately 256 word post.)

Relief

2017-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

After a weekend of comparative misery, earlier this morning I sent a text message to my wife. It read thus:

“Sorry I didn’t finish off putting stuff away earlier, I had to go upstairs and have the mother of all poos in the en-suite. It felt so much better afterwards. How was the trip to school? :)”

How posh is that‽

Stranger

2017-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

I wonder how it feels, when out with your family, if your partner attracts the attention of someone you don’t know but they do, and that person shouts out your name to ask you a trivial question.

I’m imagining a speech/thought bubble:

‘Er… how do they know m…’

Wild Turkey

2017-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

The Wild Turkey brand of straight Bourbon whiskey is well-enough established in the film world that I thought I ought to give it a whirl.

I have to say the first glass was interesting, but of the two Bourbons I’ve tried I do prefer Buffalo Trace.

It’s hard to argue with ‘101 proof’ though.

Oh, my gums, my lips!

Blinkers 2

2017-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday evening, fresh out of the gym and leaving the leisure centre, my attention was diverted, pleasantly I might add, from the single-minded pursuit of getting out and home for dinner. Diverted by someone I’ve known for a few years now, and whose husband used to work for the same company as I.

I apologised for my tunnel-vision, she remarked about my apparent single-minded sense of purpose, and we parted company.

Ok, ok, ok, in a spirit of full disclosure I must confess I wasn’t just at the gym. No. I’d just taken my youngest daughter to her weekly swimming lesson; and we’d, together with her oldest sister, endured the trauma of showering and changing in the men’s, and the far-busier-than-Saturday’s weekday lesson time slot.

What strikes me as comforting, especially against the backdrop of my ‘Blinkers’ post at the weekend: two people I’ve known for a while took the time to say hello. Which was nice.

Blinkers

2017-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

We went to the pictures yesterday, to watch the Lego Batman Movie. I suspended my sense of disbelief as usual and yes, cried near the end. Who knew that hanging a picture could be so moving‽

To get the film review out of the way, it’s fantastic, obviously it is, with an opening sequence that rivals pretty much anything I’ve seen I all my years (old git.) One of the best scenes in it, a precursor of what’s to come, involves heating Lobster Thermidor in a microwave.

Yeah ok, YMMV.

On the way out to the car after spending more money than I intended to (two large Belgian chocolate milkshakes for the girls, from the Costa Coffee) an old, esteemed colleague spotted me, and made his (and his family’s) presence known. Upon him asking how the film was, all I could do was mock-rub my eyes, indicating ‘it’s a tearjerker’, and we parted ways.

Interesting that, I’ve always tended to have tunnel-vision, a single-minded sense of purpose when…

If anyone ever see me walking the streets (or, it’s even worse in the car) and I apparently blank them, it really is my inability to focus on anything but the one thing at the centre of my attention. Yesterday’s thing: safely getting the girls to the car. Thirty years ago? Making sure I completed the jog without stray dogs, cars or pedestrians breaking my rhythm.

So don’t be shy.

I lost the plot (ADN)

2017-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

A slice of history: me reading out loud a blog post I wrote in May 2014, about App.net as I saw things at the time.

Here’s a link to the podcast - hosted at the excellent 10centuries.org.

Incidentally, the show number is a guess.

micro.blog

2017-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

There’s a social network in the works called micro.blog. It aims to bridge the gap between microblogging and longform blogging. Though I as a blogger-of-sorts see promise in the concept I didn’t back it on Kickstarter. Nevertheless it raised over US$80,000 - something like 10x the stated goal? It’ll likely be moderately popular.

But meh. The founder has delayed the first stage reward for the backers, pushing back the assignment of usernames until the roll-out of the first stage of the networking bits

Why didn’t I back it? Simple really, the concept started off as a request for funds to assist in writing a book. Whether supplied by paper or electronic delivery I’m not certain, but it’s a bit of an anachronism in this electronic age. No bother, the blogging/social aspect is intriguing, especially the desire to appoint a manager to stamp on trolls and antisocial behaviour. But I didn’t back it because I already belong to an in-beta social, blogging, podcasting, etc., network: 10Centuries.org. You may already have seen that I like it a lot (and would like to invite you there.)

Oh, please disregard the fact that I’ve bought social/web books before in papery form too, namely Drew Curtis’s about Fark.com and Philip Greenspun’s about web publishing, and…

I’ve also been burned, er… ok singed a little, by a previous a Kickstarter campaign. For a twin-plate wallet.

The guy had iterated through innumerable designs, established materials, coatings, a supplier chain (with detailed discussions about tooling), and published a list of stretch goals for backer rewards, and gained multiple positive YouTube reviews…

And then the money arrived.

The materials changed, the suppliers changed, the coatings and production methods changed, the stretch goals were effectively eliminated as the previous costings were wiped out by all those changes.

And then, when the wallets were made available for sale months before delivery to Kickstarter backers, the recriminations started mounting. Obviously. There’s such a thing as retaining the attention of those who back you, keeping the momentum going.

Accuse me of sour grapes if you wish, but another social network??

A reminder: App.net shuts down in a week-and-a-half.

Mug revisited

2017-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

My wife bleached my mug. Having acquired over 3 years of patina it was perfect!

Was.

7 bits

2017-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Last week, during the school holiday, my wife took our daughters to a National Trust property. My oldest has to prepare a piece on Victorian England, so where better to go than a historic home and mill?

During the tour around the mill both girls made key rings, beads strung in the form of a binary number representation of the initials of their first and last names.

The next day I got together with my youngest to decode the beads, adopting a methodical approach:

Explain what binary numbers are used for these days,
Explain what they were used for in the olden-days,
Sketch out a table of 7-bit binary, and extend it to 8 bits,
Note down the first set of beads, being careful to establish a datum from which to start, in case we chose the wrong end first,
Add up the filled 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 positions, explaining why,
Find an ASCII character table from the Internet to decide which character the number represents,
Repeat for the second letter, which proved we’d chosen the wrong end from which to start, but it didn’t matter for the first,
Success!

Ok, you get the idea. A surprisingly fun thing to do on a miserably mild English winter afternoon.

Nine

2017-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Today marks the ninth anniversary of the sale of our first home together, my wife, my first daughter, and me. A precarious few months preceded the joy of signing that piece of paper and terminating the first of our two mortgages together.

Two concurrent mortgages, though in no way unique, stretched us nonetheless. The simple fact is that we picked a budget for our new home and exceeded that by a generous two-digit percentage.

And we’re still paying for that decision.

Still, it is good that I’ve not been shot at, for at least nine years and three months.

Sinclair C5

2017-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Can modern incarnation of C5 succeed? (BBC)

I’m easily old enough to remember the original 3-wheeled washing-machine-motor-powered death-trap, the only safety aid a flag flapping above on a flexible whip shaft, but didn’t see one for real until years later, in a museum.

I view the name Sinclair with fondness. I owned a ZX81 (with 16K wobbly RAM Pack, a Spectrum 48K and thermal printer, and an almost-totally-impractical in-ear radio. I still want a red-LED RPN calculator, bug-ridden as I know it to be.

Though modern cars are far safer than during the 1980s, the roads are fuller and the drivers less-attentive than ever. So I confidently predict that Betteridge’s Law of Headlines applies here.

The answer to the question the headline poses: No, no more-so than ever.

Poo bag

2017-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

No, not an insult. Why, when it’s absolutely necessary to have a bag for collecting poo, there isn’t one? Why, when it doesn’t matter, is one’s pocket full of the things, often bags sliding languidly to the floor when rummaging for keys, cards, cash…?

No social faux-pas here though whatever the circumstances, it’s never particularly awkward; there are many dog owners out there with a similar sense of responsibility.

To avoid the embarrassment, the angst of returning to the scene of an ‘incident’ there has to be a better way of remembering allied to a better, more discreet method of poo bag concealed carry.

Pinboard fail

2017-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Well, 3 weeks after paying for a Pinboard.in bookmark tagging and page archiving account, I’m no closer to having the site owner fix the issues I’ve mentioned.

It’s the first time tagging made sense to me, thus disappointing that the failures are increasing in scope, tested across a range of operating systems, browsers and apps.

Archiving hasn’t started yet despite multiple promises, full-text search is thus impossible, new tags require multiple refreshes to show up and so bundling is problematic, simple searches fail to find bookmarks visible on the same page! I could go on, but the bottom line is when the site owner repeatedly fails to respond and fails to fix the issues I highlight, I complain about, why should I invest more time in the service?

Pinboard.in thus easily fails to gain Baz’s seal of approval.

I might have to make my own, though it won’t reach the promise of Pinboard’s feature set. Here’s something I put together some time ago; it’s generated from a CSV file, no databases to introduce complexity.

http://bazbt3.github.io/readinglist/

Telnet

2017-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Today, a day of nerdy firsts: I had my first-ever Telnet session, and very tentatively started to play in my first-ever MUD. Bear in mind I’ve been on the Internet since March 1997; that’s twenty years! It’s interesting to note that both Telnet and the MUD precede my arrival in the slow lane of the Information Superhighway.

But first, these snippets from Wikipedia:

“Telnet is a protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection.”

…and:

“A MUD (originally Multi-User Dungeon, with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain), is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat.”

Telnet, first mentioned in RFC#15 in 1969, is almost as old as I, predating the World Wide Web by an easy twenty years! The Colossal Cave Adventure first appeared in 1975, is itself no spring chicken!

Me: I played a few text-only adventure games starting in the early 1980s, but all were stand-alone single-user relying purely on the imagination of the programmer(s) and the user (me!) My all-time favourites: The Hobbit, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and Zork (a game I never finished.)

You may have seen the game I ran with @mlv in an App.net thread, a flavour of which is available through the transcript here. A very enjoyable, diverting few months.

So there it is. Thanks very much indeed to @papierzeit on the pnut.io network for posting your server details and allowing me to have a go! I’ll be back.

Sharing imaginations, it’s amazing!

Unsolicited

2017-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Some of our work numbers are regularly targeted, plagued by unsolicited callers wanting to talk about a recent motor vehicle accident. I’ve been spared, luckily. Until today.

A colleague politely hung up on one… and then my phone rang.

It:

“Hello, this is [unintelligible name, company name] calling about your accident.”

Me:

“What’s the name of the company?”

It:

“Hello, this is [unintelligible name, company name] calling about your accident.”

Me, rather louder than I intended to:

“Listen: go fuck yourself.”

And then I replaced the handset, carefully, aware of an unaccountable increase in the hubbub, the level of mirth around me.

As a spectacle, not much, I’m mindful of being in work. I’ve done better…

Some time ago (I may already have written about this) I was unlucky enough to pick up at home; someone telling me my router has a virus. Yeah.

I began by insulting him, calling him a parasite, the usual insults I usually keep to myself when my family is with me. Interestingly, it went a bit downhill towards the end as he traded insults with me.

Here goes.

Me:

“Listen, your name really isn’t ‘Mike’ is it.”

It:

“No, you couldn’t pronounce my name.”

Me:

“Go on then, I’ve a few Asian friends who aren’t bottom-feeding parasites like you, go on, give me a try.”

It:

“[Utterly fucking unintelligible name.]”

Me:

“Ok, ‘Mike, you got me th”

And then I replaced the handset, carefully, aware of an evening of the score, a stalemate.

Yeah.

Improbable

2017-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

I have a theory: that Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was close when wondering that, if the secret of the universe was ever found, it would be replaced by something even more improbable.

It happened, someone found it, or at least the secret of the bit over which humanity believes they have a loose measure of control. Why else would our world be changed daily beyond our understanding upon awakening‽

Douglas Adams:

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.”

Prompted by @der_jeff:

“Has the world come to an end yet?”

Hungry

2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

In the hurry to leave the house for this morning’s school run and journey to work I forgot my lunch, I forgot cash (the cash my wife got for me yesterday evening) and…

Having nothing edible in my desk drawer for the first time in weeks I’m sat here now looking at a vending machine ‘Hot chicken soup’, and wondering if its calorific value will be adequate to sustain me for the next 5 hours.

Hey, a bonus, this time it’s actually not heated water with bits of green stuff floating on the surface layer of micro-froth.

(sips slowly, smacks lips, mmmm…)

Bourbon

2017-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Ah… I remember the days when getting home and having one meant chomping on a nice, brown biscuit sandwiching a buttercream filling: the Bourbon Cream.

Nowadays I see and hear an amber-coloured liquid sloshed carefully into a thistle-shaped glass, with an ice cube lovingly plopped on top. Things are very different now.

Pinboard

2017-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been messing about with computers since 1981, on the internet since 1997 (yes, even that is 20 years!) and so it was a surprise to find, by chance, a bookmarking service that made sense to me. Tags: I know what they are, but the things never clicked until a week-and-a-half-ago. I’ve used GTD (Getting Things Done) in various forms in a personal and to a lesser degree work capacity, but this is different.

Pinboard.in has been around since, I think, 2009. It has a mature, sensible interface; maybe one that takes a time to master, but it works well. Apart from when it doesn’t.

I signed up for an Archive account, one that costs a yearly fee of USD$25 and entitles the user to practically- unlimited, searchable, taggable bookmark storage. The Archive account is an extension of the Basic and gives full text search within the pages the Pinboard system crawls then archives. Sounds impressive.

I say ‘sounds’ as I’ve not yet had the opportunity to test the full-text bit. It simply didn’t work for me and another new signup. After a week of no response to my 2 emails, several tweets, it emerged that Pinboard’s hard drive was full. Oops, what bad timing!

Ok, the support could easily have been better, but the site owner has generously offered a small extension for the trouble I’ve had.

The good news, I spent time checking that the bookmarks could be exported in non-proprietary formats and, crucially, reimported. And I’ve spent time tagging like crazy.

And here are the fruits of my labours, a bit of a mess for now, but eminently usable:

https://pinboard.in/u:bazbt3

Frailty

2017-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m no longer the invincible fourteen year old my sense of self has identified with for the past few decades. I had the first inkling over 11 years ago, simply waking then walking downstairs. This latest indication that I must re-evaluate ‘me’ though, it simply shouldn’t have happened.

Crushing plastic bottles to fit more into the recycling bin is something I have an unnatural pride in. Start from the neck, flatten going down the sides, fold over the base, throw into the IKEA ‘Sortera’ box. Yesterday evening though, I felt a twinge in my left thumb, but carried on regardless. Perhaps being fortified by a glass of ‘Buffalo Trace’ Kentucky whiskey emboldened me to simply work through the mild discomfort?

This morning though, in the cold light of day (well dark, it’s not even dawn here yet) I find myself needing a painkiller or two.

Getting old(er) Baz.

Stop Making Sense

2017-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Aw crap, the cat’s looking at me in that way again. Not sure where my uncontrollable giggling came from there, but he’s right to look askance.

Or am I not sure‽

Ok, ok. Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with a single ice cube in a thistle-shaped glass bought for me by my wife-to-be on March 26th 2005, accompanied very loudly indeed by The Pump Panel remix of New Order’s ‘Confusion’ and then Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense album, they might be something to do with it. The latter songs take me back, what…

Forty.

Years.

To the time I first heard ‘em.

1977 seems a bit early though, being honest. 35 years ago is maybe getting there, around the time of the best music documentary film ever. That seems a bit short though, I’m sure I heard ‘em first before they became popular in the UK. Maybe. Dunno.

Shut up Barrie.

#beendrinking

Slapstick

2017-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

My oldest daughter has just been watching a YouTube video of children falling over or off things, and some are obviously hurting themselves. The thing I find most disturbing is the parents continuing to film and laughing. It mirrors the response of a mother to her son falling up the steps at the cinema earlier today: uproarious laughter.

I’m a fan of some variants/practitioners of slapstick, and all in favour of my two finding out the hard way, but don’t like the notion there’s comedy to be gleaned from a child’s misfortune.

Maybe I’m living in the wrong age, doing parenting wrong.

Or…

Cinema

2017-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Ordinary visits to the cinema of course provoke my tears, but not today’s. The frankly inconsiderate, moronic behaviour of the phone users around me provoked me into doing something I’m not proud of, something terrible.

The woman in the row in front of us, when she wasn’t talking with her children, surreptitiously turning on her phone, nearly-but-not hiding it with her hair and…

A teenager down the aisle was, I’m certain, recording large sections of the film, but the three selfies with flash were the last straw. So I got up, walked down the few a steps separating us, and told her to stop doing it and to turn the phone off.

The woman in front of us obviously saw it as a challenge so upped her game. Got up, stood in front of me asking her daughter…

We’d been lucky so far in our visits; I relish the chance to take the girls out, but I can see how, antisocial as it is, why subscription movies services and channels have flourished. Heck, my girls don’t mind if I sit there in my underpants!

Well, ok, that last is a lie, sitting in my dressing gown is as bad as it gets.

Oh yes, the terrible thing.

I let my family down when, without retaining a sense of perspective, I swore at the teenager whilst ordering her about.

For what it’s worth, I saw the majority of the film, and give it an easy 10/10 for the first 90 minutes before the distractions peaked. The soundtrack is amazing! and almost certainly one to buy. Baz’s seal of approval.

Baz though? Baz does not, emphatically not, get the same courtesy.

iOS

2017-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

So here I am again, iOS!

Yes.

Constipated

2017-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Conversations often bring up what seem to be the weirdest things. And then I think for a bit.

I’ve posted recently of the information overload I’ve experienced since the middle of 2016; it’s had a lot of positives and fair share of negatives, but I’ve learnt about, well, me.

Constipation is a term I first came across courtesy of @schmidt_fu on either 10Centuries.org or pnut.io and it got me thinking. I said I’d think about it, so did.

Constipation:

“irregular and infrequent or difficult evacuation of the bowels; can be a symptom of intestinal obstruction or diverticulitis” (Definition from iOS Terminology app.)

Humans have evolved to consume various edible items (and, for pleasure, some plainly inedible or noxious), to process them and convert into nutrients, and finally to expel the resultant waste. Ok, not just humans, pretty-much everything alive on the planet operates in a similar fashion. What differs between us at the top, and those below us on the food chain, is our insatiable desire to consume, process, and to, er… talk about stuff.

Yeah, a bit short of suitable metaphors here; ‘constipation’ isn’t a bad pinnacle, right?

But there’s only so far that balancing act between consumption and dissemination can take the average sane person. I gave up where someone with more confidence, more psychopathic tendencies would, has and will, advance further. I saw the effect on myself of the constant osmosis of facts and figures, and simply didn’t like where it would take me.

That’s not to say I removed myself entirely from the stimuli, that’s impossible. Avoiding Brexit and Trump though, it’s tantamount to acceptance, and I simply cannot roll over and submit to the propaganda machines rolling over pretty-much everything I’ve assumed would provide stability for me, my wife and, the reason large numbers of folks believe we’re on this planet in the first place: my 2 lovely daughters.

Though we’re not in the midst of an actual wartime, it’d be fair to say we live in times of unprecedented upheaval. And it’s all stoppable in an instant if people simply come to their senses.

Chances of it happening? I think zero.

So, constipation, a recap:

“irregular and infrequent or difficult purging of the symptoms of stress brought on by an information overload; can be a symptom of the obstruction of regular thought processes or a response to stimuli outside an individual’s sphere of influence”.

My sphere of influence?

Around 1680mm diameter.

Bananas

2017-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

I know I shouldn’t but I did; I watched the BBC politics Q&A programme ‘Question Time’. Brexit was discussed of course, and one particular commenter stood out.

Now I know I shouldn’t categorise an entire voting side by the actions of one woman, but it’s a telling thing she said; I’m paraphrasing here:

“I was going to vote Remain but changed my mind and voted to Leave. The day before I went into the supermarket and the bananas were all straight.”

Now I know she’s referring to an EU regulation stating that the fruit must be straight, a certain minimum size, probably to ensure commonality of packaging and to cut the cost of imports and…

It’s all bollocks when viewed from any perspective, and has been since the worldwide ridicule dumped on the EU after it temporarily appeared on the statute books, before being withdrawn in 2008. So how the heck can she claim all the bananas were straight during June 2016‽ I’ve never, ever, seen a straight banana, but I’m not going to pretend I’m the ultimate arbiter of truth here.

She should be more concerned about the ridiculous waste imposed by our supermarkets’ insistence that they pay the farmers peanuts whilst mandating perfect produce to meet a requirement they say consumers demand but which, when challenged, they can provide zero evidence of.

Nothing at all to do with the hated European Union’s oppressive regulation.

So, are we living back in the nineteen-fifties yet?

Unfollowed

2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

And then, in one smooth operation, I unfollowed all my Twitter political accounts… Which was nice.

Really, I know there’s no avoiding politics now, but I have my limits.

So, a prelude to stepping away from Twitter and eventually Facebook, and spending more time at 10Centuries (with some coding on the cards.)

And yes, dabbling in pnut.io too.

Slag

2017-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

My wife just called me a slag. I honestly cannot believe she meant it in connection with my unconventional delivery of ginger nut biscuits to Ruby dog; mouth-to-mouth. Surely not.

A period of self-analysis is thus required. So here I am, cogitating; ginger nuts in one hand, dog restraining the other.

Cancelled

2017-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

After a rubbish day, a tale of woe: posts detailing a short journey from pleasure to disappointment, spanning around 3 hours:

@bazbt3:

OK, it looks as though my dream to rock up in a few days with an iPhone Plus, and start messing about with Workflows is at an end.

Financially it makes no sense, we’d like a holiday this year, and other things. So I went for a OnePlus 2: an older model, running on a Cyanogen variant with the potential to not get the Nougat upgrade; but the price, for a high-spec. phone with the big screen I crave, is very attractive.

£250 (around US$315) for this:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/oneplus-2-1300253/review

Yes, I know you don’t have time to read it. :)

(time passed…)

@bazbt3:

Well, that sucks. Scheduled to be delivered between 10pm & midnight, Amazon cancelled the order at 11:14pm, without giving me a reason. The twa

@bazbt3:

… I might as well go to bed. :(

So I did.

Screen (song)

2017-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

My wife and daughters (when they’re older!) might appreciate this song:

Screen: twenty one pilots.

They don’t read my blog.

Literally

2017-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/01/28/thiel-trump

Christians

2017-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

It’s time to refer to people who are obviously not Christians as something else. Something from the Old Testament maybe; not Puritanical…?

I can think of a number of other descriptions that would be unacceptable to all but rabid activists. Now if you say alt-Christians I’d accuse you of jumping on a bandwagon, but it’d be a start.

alt-, disregarding the computer keyboard usage, used to refer to an alternative, was never used to mask true meaning and thus legitimise an unacceptable stance. Now, the alt-Right, far from being an alternative to it, is about as far right politically as it can be.

Neo- is the same. At their core the redefinitions are intended to hide… OK, when all is said and done it matters not what prefix is used; a Fascist is a Fascist, a Nazis a Nazi, a racist a racist, and a Cheeto-faced short-fingered vulgarian shitgibbon is, well…

Language usually evolves slowly; nuanced changes are the norm, but adoption of slang, buzzwords is driven considerably faster by technological development, wars.

Politics though?

…

Oh, that precedent!

We must look back only to the first third of the twentieth century, a time within living memory, to find widespread adoption of new social norms of the type that negatively impacted large swathes of the world’s population.

Yes, the rise of National Socialism, the Nazis. They had a movement too! It too stirred up the population against those it deemed subhuman.

I’m not about to compare and/or contrast the Nazis with the grossly perverted and repressive practises enacted in the name of Communism. Suffice it to say the acts of subjugation, abductions, torture, deaths, all, all of them were carried out perfectly legally too. Laws made by executive decree and which wiped out any semblance of regard to the human dimension when lawmaking. Laws enacted in single countries without regard to the impact on their own citizens and the world at large. All enacted in the guise of making (country) great again.

The 1930s brought a number of organisations out in support of the Nazis. OK, maybe that’s unfair, at least to the one I’m picking on to flesh this out: the ‘America First Committee’ . Setup after the start of World War 2 their core beliefs centred around building defences to keep the world from inflicting the war upon America. In simple analysis a noble ideal: look after your own first. The world had changed irrevocably since.

What hasn’t though, simple ignorance. If I was being charitable I’d say it was a desire to hold on to traditional values. But I’m not being charitable.

I read a series of tweets earlier today from an American, an ex-military man, an egg injured in the line of duty whilst stationed in Iraq. Gross in their extreme as the tweets were, he seemed to truly believe his Christianity, his military service and especially his injury, all qualified him to ignore the humanity of those born in other countries. He detailed precisely how and where he’d kill them, which munitions he’d use. His statements on the Koran’s commandment to kill everyone not of the faith were genuinely held. But ‘genuine’ cannot be conflated with well-informed.

Finally, he believed his government would look after him personally, owed him a debt of gratitude. Now I read only his side of the many conversations, and came to two conclusions. He was either:

Trolling or
Genuine.

In the latter case its probably appropriate to consider the impact of his protest vote personally. He may need healthcare, may as an ex-serviceman rely on a small income, may be reliant on food stamps… But the bit that I cannot help thinking of, the simple fact that he was wounded. His president is on record as stating his utter absence of respect for someone who allowed themselves to be captured and faced years of brutal torture whilst on duty. So to think oneself special after carelessly allowing the enemy to draw blood? No, sorry, not worthy. Here we go, back again to Schadenfreude.

Back for a moment to the notion that Muslims must kill all nonbelievers: Within the Bible, and the Torah the book of Deuteronomy is easy to find, which implies wilful ignorance on the part of pretty much everyone who calls the entire Muslim world terroristic.

They have my scorn, the time for acceptance in the name of expediency is over. That’s not to say I will not take the time to understand different viewpoints, far from it. But some causes are hopeless.

Ignorance, it’s the cornerstone of whatever the hell is happening in this world right now. A desire to ignore the realities of injustice, of social and economic change, a desire to return to the past, a past in which life was fundamentally simpler.

So yes, it’s time we chose a different word for those who call themselves Christians but hold none of the core beliefs. A term that encompasses their fire-and-brimstone approach to those worshipping at different altars, their ignoring of the broken stranger in the road, the repulsion towards the refugee fleeing crises unimaginable even in times of previous conflict. It’s time those holding pre-Christian beliefs were given personal responsibility for, shown the consequences of, their actions.

No, I really do not know what term I’d apply. I’m a simple man, see. It says so in my bio.

Disclosure: You should know that, whilst I call myself an atheist, I’m not singling out Christianity here, simply hypocrisy. I visit the local church a few times a year with my girls and often feel slightly awkward that these people welcome me without an inquisition. That said I hold many Christian values because it seems right to do so. And, I must say, I have a yearning to know more about the tenets, the core, of basic Buddhism.

Retweet

2017-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

Inspired by a tweet:

@PhoneBoy: “If I wanted to read the tweets of people y’all are retweeting, I’d be following them instead of you. Speak for yourself.”

Interesting. Whilst I try to speak for myself I know I am one of those ‘deplorables.’ I say ‘interesting’ without a shade of criticism as it’s something I’ve spent quite some time thinking about recently as my tweet rate shot up and my stream became a tad more serious.

So here goes; not a justification, more my rationale. It’d probably work better as a tweet storm. I’m a fan of tweet storms by the way, they’re more accessible, more immediate than blog posts, but hey…

My retweets are mainly a response to things I don’t understand or can’t rationalise or internalise. Yes, I am including kitten pics in the big list of things that puzzle me! They’re an attempt to indicate my thought processes before people reach my blog (if they ever do.) They’re a cheap attempt to express my solidarity both with those less fortunate than I and those who feel their opportunities to change things are limited.

I chose retweets not quotes, as quotes occasionally bring the kind of attention I used to find unwelcome. Now though, if my blog is the public journal of the workings of my inner self, why not change my RT behaviour to reflect it‽

I can see how a constant stream of tiny variations on a theme could be very off-putting, depressing even, especially to those who follow a bunch of folks. In a nutshell then, I can change, and likely will, though it’ll be a challenge.

Thanks @phoneboy, it’s good to have one’s routine upset once in a while.

Alexa

2017-01-28T00:00:00+00:00

I used the app to change our Echo Dot’s name from Alexa to Computer.

Me:

“Computer, what is your name?”

Computer:

“My name is Alexa.”

TrumpTon

2017-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

The TrumpTon:

n: Statements which whilst devoid of substantial content are designed to instil confidence in the speaker’s abilities but which, when analysed even trivially, indicate an intent to deprive the listener of previous hard-fought gains.

example usage:

‘“I think Brexit is going to be a wonderful thing for your country,” he said. “I think when it irons out, you’re going to have your own identity, and you are going to have the people that you want in your country and be able to make free trade deals without having somebody watching you and what you are doing.”’

example detriment to listener: Extended periods of austerity and employment losses. Racism. Bigotry. Xenophobia. Large corporations assuming a foothold in foreign health markets previously out-of-bounds by statute, thus extracting obscenely opportunistic profits from business opportunities to the detriment of large swathes of the population. Zero independent oversight.

Ascetic

2017-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

As the year unfolds I am for the most part now leaning towards shunning social media. At least my involvement isn’t quite as conspicuous as it once was. Part conscious decision, part response to external stimuli (e.g. Brexit, Trump), the result is somewhat confusing.

Returning to App.net for the last few weeks of that network’s life, well, I’m not particularly enthusiastic; I’d stepped away last year as my life intruded, and all that’s left to do is ensure I don’t lose touch with those that matter to me. And that one final #ThemeMonday!

Social networks I’m still interested in:

10Centuries.org (confused,)
Twitter (changed philosophy.)

Even Facebook is becoming annoying with its notifications of messages and friends’s posts, all of which are simply non-existent when I open the app.

Hardly major grievances to direct at something that’s become a network I use less for social, more for traders, but still annoying.

Ok, so where do I stand on the social graph? The low end of the bell curve, looking up. Forwards, backwards at it, who knows?

Looking at 10Centuries.org, the lack of apps is nowhere near as profound as I’d imagined. There’s one usable, though early iOS app, and others on the way. I don’t know if my Python thing will still talk to the API, but I’m developing an itch to try again.

Eventually I’ll work it out. In the meantime, I’m likely to be even less conversational than usual, more biased towards ‘witty’ one-liners.’

Sorry.

Message: yes.

Server

2017-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

It screwed up, big-time. The Softaculous installer is so-ooooo not my friend.

Cognitive dissonance

2017-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

Right now, in an attempt to work through some interesting conundrums, I am mainly reading about cognitive dissonance.

Gaslighting

2017-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation through persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying in an attempt to destabilize and delegitimize a target. Its intent is to sow seeds of doubt in the targets, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.

Turn the TV on. Every news broadcast serves up a slice of the truth, hand-crafted by well-meaning folks desperate to inject fairness in reporting into their organisation’s output. If you’re lucky. Unless you have a range of disparate sources from which to draw, your views will be shaped by what you hear and read. And your friends will help you too.

Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, Dēmokratía literally “rule of the commoners”), in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament.

We in this modern age, we’ve never had it, it’s all an illusion. The closest we have is adding an ‘X’ in a box or writing to our local representatives, all of whom have agendas different to yours. Sure we can write emails or tweets, sign petitions and the like, but really? A popular vote couldn’t even persuade the British establishment name a ship according to the majority, and yet…

Attempts by powerful people to erode democracy are working everywhere I look outside the comfort of my chosen circle. It’s why I’ve scaled back use of Twitter already, and I’ve never really got back into Facebook…

To those who would say we must accept it, that protest is futile, or that a march for women or for minorities is essentially against white men: no, we must not! There is better to be had from those we elect; just rolling over and accepting this as being the best there is, is just wrong.

We are living in a time during which the norms of modern society, worked for by those who would protect humanity as a whole rather than a narrow strip running through it, will be wiped out by the stroke of a pen, both here in the UK and, more quickly, in the ‘United’ States of America.

Of course it’s easy for me to say all this, safely nestled in my comfy chair.

Wikipedia and fact-checking organisations like snopes.com are your friend.

The Day After Tomorrow

2017-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

We just watched The Day After Tomorrow again, a fine film and one of my favourites.

Perhaps the events of the last few months have sharpened, enhanced my senses, but I’ve moved away from appreciation of the film for its obvious climate change slant alone, and towards the now obvious message that ‘cooperation’ is the key to our future, not isolation and complacency.

An extended quote (Wikiquote) from the film:

“These past few weeks have left us all with a profound sense of humility in the face of nature’s destructive power. For years, we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet’s natural resources, without consequence. We were wrong. I was wrong. The fact that my first address to you comes from a consulate on foreign soil is a testament to our changed reality. Not only Americans, but people all around the globe have become guests in the nations we once called ‘the third world’. In our time of need they have taken us in and sheltered us, and I am deeply grateful for their hospitality.”

Oh, if only there was some substitution I could make for climate change here…

Yes, of course I cried at the end!

10C App list

2017-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

I created a list of apps and integrations currently available for the 10Centuries social network.

@tomas(10C) did it better, and more suitably for collaboration and growth.

Most projects are in the early stages of development but progress is encouraging.

Twitter diminishes

2017-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

I’m scaling back my involvement on Twitter (in addition to a recent step away from Facebook.) It’ll mean a more casual attitude to my timeline: no more devotion to reading all the tweets, no more politically-charged retweets, no desire to keep up with and research the background behind the very latest news. In short I need a break, a chance to examine what I want.

So what will I do with the time usually filled waiting for the relief I’m currently finding when there are no more posts remaining to read?

Read books,
Write better blog posts,
Create more stuff at GitHub,
Watch films,
Make my girls do their homework on time,
Er…

Oh yes, this:

I am @bazbt3 at 10Centuries.org, Jason Irwin’s bootstrapped/subscription/free social, blogging & podcasting network. Hey, I have invite codes, just ask!

App.net #ThemeMonday

2017-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

The App.net community was small-enough and its people got on with each other well-enough that little sociable initiatives blossomed. It was very much a fun, slightly-nerdy, place to be.

Anyone who spent time there might have come across the #ThemeMonday hashtag (link goes to my site.) People changed their avatars on or around the second Monday of every month, to a theme chosen by popular vote.

Now App.net will close on March 14th or 15th 2017 (official App.net blog) so at that time all of those digital memories will be forever lost (unless a volunteer-driven archive initiative, er… archives them first.)

I’ve been toying with the idea of running one final #ThemeMonday, to run over the week before the service shuts down. Votes will be first taken for themes, a poll created, and finally the theme list voted on. It’s simpler than it sounds.

One tiny problem, polls.abrah.am no longer works. I won’t be worried though if no-one really wants to participate; enough have left for greener social pastures, enough will simply not see this, and enough would rather rely on the glow of great memories than revisit the past in the present.

Here’s the thing, discounting Facebook for now I’m on 3 public social networks:

10Centuries.org,
App.net,
and though I’ve scaled back my usage, I’m on Twitter.

I’m willing to take votes from all three provided I’m mentioned, and I don’t see a bar to changing avatars on any network. Solidarity, or something…?

Ok, here goes, I propose a theme:

Sunset.

The link to my page: http://bazbt3.github.io/thememonday/

Drunkard

2017-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Today, for lots of reasons, I felt the need for a little alcoholic refreshment, and so it happened that I had half a glass of coffee liqueur; from a small, thistle-shaped whisky glass bought for me in March 26 2005 by the lovely vibrant lady who was destined to be my poor, downtrodden wife and the mother of my 2 girls, 2 cats and a dog.

I’ve been practically teetotal for a few years now even by my standards; I’ve always been a lightweight, never needed alcohol, never had the bladder or ambulatory capacity to soak up the stuff. A few stubby bottles, maybe once or twice a day until they’re gone; a bottle of whisky that lasts weeks; and all with extended periods between simply because I’ve not needed booze.

I manfully resisted the allure, the convenience of and ‘Amazon Prime Now’ shop earlier, knowing that I don’t need it today. I never have done.

But today, today it was indeed appropriate; I had the half glass, washed it out and left it to drain. In a few minutes I shall have another, and then call it quits.

If I can still understand the voice in my head telling me I don’t need it, that is.

Brexit insanity (sweary)

2017-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

I voted to Remain at the ‘Europe Referendum’ last year, hoping that the political system would take heed of the will of the British people, essentially reinforcing our desire to retain the benefits of being within Europe and substantially outvoting the hopes of a return to the dark times of jingoistic nationalism and a belief that the inhabitants of England are better than anyone in the rest of the world.

Yeah, that went well didn’t it! Whilst not exactly wearing the ‘Remoaner’ badge with pride, I sense my services will be called upon at some time. I’m ready. Ready to moan that is, the incompetence of politics to make our world a better place currently disgusts me.

Ok, I use ‘England’ to describe the United Kingdom because, let’s face facts, the rest of the UK is seen as utterly irrelevant when it comes to any decision making process. That saddens me. And that’s an understatement. It’s utterly appalling that the wishes of millions of people living both within and outside the tiny geographic area, England, and Parliament, are ignored.

So much for ‘us’ being the cradle of democracy. That’s all gone now, being replaced by, if not a dictatorship, then something very, very close to it. It’s more subtle than most, especially the recent Turkish crackdowns, but it’s nevertheless deeply troubling me.

Yesterday the British Prime Minister stated that our negotiating position, the great plan, the very best our nation can come up with, amounts to this:

We don’t want the financial burden of being a member of Europe, nor do we want any of the benefits; we’re not going to be a part of the Single Market nor the Customs Union. We are instead going to find new markets elsewhere using products and services that our great nation will invent, stuff that cannot be done better or cheaper anywhere in the world and shipped to us whilst still undercutting our best rates.* We’re going to eschew the benefits of shared human rights and business standards, fiscal systems, support structures across all parts of life. No, instead we’re going it alone.

I…

I’m not over-simplifying by much, it really is that stark. It’s saying to Europeans that they’re beneath us, not worthy of continued support or cooperation. Yes, of course we’re entitled to play hardball for the best interests of all of us Brits, but I’m sensing the juggernaut rolling towards a humiliating pyhrric victory here. Legacies. Membership of Europe, though imperfect for us, has to be better than the idiotic alternative offered without debate to the British people. Reform usually comes from within rather than without.

And our main English opposition party, Labour, just aren’t fighting this. ‘Democracy’ again, see. Mind you, a party so splintered, fractured, simply cannot mount an effective opposition. Only the Liberal Democrats seem to have a clue how grave this situation really is; a credit to them, to us.

Some might say it’s us, recognising our lofty position in the world, the world’s fifth-biggest economy, premier financial services centre for an entire economic region, playing hardball.

Lofty. Yeah. We can’t even ensure there are enough staff to efficient run our hospitals when winter pressures, something entirely predictable, occur. And when the people quite rightly complain, we hide, we lie, we quote heavily-obfuscated statistics from partisan-friendly sources. Lofty, world-leading…

In terms simple-enough that our Prime Minister can understand, here’s how it should have gone:

We want all the benefits of cooperation with Europe but without the worst of the attendant costs or restrictions. Let’s chat Europe, what can you do for us?

Negotiation rather than dictating terms. Heck, it doesn’t have to be subtle, but come on!!

Is there any way, short of the slow, horrible deaths of all of the people lobbying to achieve, tasked with implementing or tacitly supporting in the name of ‘Democracy’ this unprecedented, irresponsible, xenophobic, and fiscally-destructive path… is there any way that we can remove these politicians and their supporters and restore sanity, fairness, and some measure of equality to the people of the United Kindgom?

I’m, of course, including the billionaires who run our media and hold the power to mobilise popular opinion to merge with their agendas, whatever the heck they are. The lies we all know about are easy to deal with; anything demonstrably untrue has already been roundly debunked as impossible to implement, but all remain unimportant trivialities by those casual racists ignorant of world finance and our diminishing place in a world whose power is shifting east, those whose only sources of news are run by…

You’ve got to ask, why would powerful people wish to destabilise an entire region, let alone one sovereign nation? Surely it’s not all about money, it’s not all about saving (or creating) reputations, legacies? Is it?

It probably is.

If you came for the swearies, I thought better of it; I’m keeping them to myself, sorry.

(time passes…)

(time passed…)

*Ah, fuck it, go on, go on, a late footnote. I’ve just seen a spot on local news that a major British ‘defence’ and flying thing company is looking into developing a high-powered laser system to shoot at fast-moving things far far away. And a deflector shield to protect far-distant speedy things that would otherwise be shot at and destroyed by yes, high-powered laser systems. The very best bit, the spokesman intimated it’s a perfectly-reasonable 10 to 20 years in the future. For fuck’s sake, more bleeding killing machines‽ Bet, bet that, it, like all the crazy hairbrained schemes to come, dreamed up by companies desperate to get into the news and acquire funding from equally-unscrupulous backers, it, it’ll be touted as a fine example of Great British innovation, something to be proud of, a driver towards economic and social greatness. Dyson for instance, Dyson make really good vacuum cleaners, we have one, it’s been repaired a couple of times but keeps going on, but it’s not a £300 vacuum nor is it a £2000 washing machine nor a hairdryer or fan reinvented to pander to rampant consumerism but I am tempted to mention that I think their business policies such as relocating manufacturing overseas, ‘suck’. Ahhh, where was I? Yeah. And then, when we have a world-beating thing, like the jet engine, trains, power generation, our gold reserves, computer chip design and licensing, it’ll be sold off to the highest bidder (or announced early so sold at the lowest price in the case of the gold or industries with national penetration) like Every. Fucking. Thing. this once-great nation has ever produced. Fuck off with your ‘make Britain great’ again you disingenuous twats! But singling out any one company is futile, we need the right environment to prosper. If we had the ability to conquers the world without killing large numbers of indigenous folks, we already would have.

Not proof-read.

Chatty

2017-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

This might sound a little odd. Quite a lot of my prose is indeed odd to the uninitiated, but this is a post about communication, specifically integrations. I know I’m not the first to write about this but I’m on a bit of a journey right now.

You’ll probably have visited web sites integrating a chat thing into their pages. Often it’s an intrusive popup asking cheerfully if you’d like help with something anything. The only time I ever used one I was deeply unimpressed with the abilities of the person at the opposite end of the chat. It seemed to be a copy and paste session, the likes of which is these days run by ‘bots. To be honest I much prefer reading FAQs, and if my query is sufficiently complex I prefer email to a web form.

Today I installed a tiny code snippet on my GitHub Pages site. It creates an anchored button which links to a chat room I created at the GitHub.com-related third-party service, Gitter. The service offers public and private chat rooms, and logins are required, via either GitHub or Twitter. Logins make sense.

I honestly don’t expect my use of it will amount to much, and thus fully anticipate removing the code if no-one really uses it. But why?

I blog at GitHub Pages, to a blog I adapted from a prebuilt solution, composing posts on my phone in Markdown before staging, committing and pushing the post to my repository. Other people may call this ‘publishing.’

I then copy the raw Markdown and paste into a new blog post at 10Centuries.org. Being a not particularly cumbersome workflow it works well for me.

Now, notifications of posting go to 10Centuries chat, to Twitter and to Facebook, and I get occasional feedback at all three.

In a nutshell I see my social networking future at 10Centuries (10C.) It’s a peaceful haven away from the in-your-face occasional nastiness and immediacy that intrudes into Twitter and the insulated, walled garden of Facebook. There’s a web app (linked to above), and Android and iOS apps are being developed right now. Yes I know I’m being awkward here, but it is after all my prerogative!

Ok, back to the point. I’d love to be able to integrate a link to Cappuccino (10C chat) at both my GitHub Pages site and my 10C site but don’t have the skills (or, currently the vision) to implement it elegantly. So right now I’m making do with a thing that only nerds are likely to want to login to use.

I could, I suppose, create a link in the GitHub Pages site header to a page which links to 10C chat, and that might be enough.

But it won’t be. I’ve used message boxes which posted into either Disqus.com and, until recently, App.net (2 months away from closure.) I recall extremely limited use providing me with comments. It’s perfectly reasonable; Disqus is a comments-focused service and App.net is/was a limited-appeal network.

It’d be nice to have all my eggs in the one basket. But, when all is said and done, I do write for myself.

I am @bazbt3 on 10Centuries.org (Jason Irwin’s social/blogging/podcasting network.) If you want a change from the misery of the mainstream I have invite codes! Oh, I’m also on Twitter.

App.net to close

2017-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

During the springtime of 2013 I decided to join a new online community at App.net (Wikipedia entry). Heck, as it’d recently changed to a’ Freemium’ funding model I even paid for social networking! Today (Friday the thirteenth in year 1 PostCelebPocalypse) I found that the service will close in the middle of March 2017.

Its major strengths: no ads, 256 character posts, awesome apps, and a willingness by all to engage with and welcome newcomers. It simply wasn’t too big. Though on the surface an oasis of calm amidst the chaos of the wider Internet there were indeed flaws, the business model wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t matter to me, I ‘belonged’.

The apps that stood out for me in a network originally setup to encourage and to fund app and service development:

Felix by @billkunz (I bought a t-shirt),
Riposte and Whisper by @jaredsinclair & @jaminguy (I bought the t-shirt),
Chimp by @ludolphus (is there a shirt‽),
Kirby by @griff (no shirt).

So Baz haz a sad that the inevitable end is near. But why, seeing as I’ve not been an active participant since before the middle of 2016?

Signing up to App.net (ADN) resulted in the some of the best things, the most stimulating things (even including btinternet.chatter!) I’ve ever done online. Rather than simply participate I joined in.

My big but short, exhaustive but necessarily incomplete, list of stuff:

As-of right now I’ve posted way more than 28,260 things there, including reposts. That alone should tell you something.
I badly ran #ThemeMonday for a while after @berklee bowed out. Though it doesn’t sound much we changed our avatars every month, created individually to a theme chosen by popular vote. It was fun!
I took over #QuoteSunday from @zephyr. (We posted quotations from famous, infamous, and not-so-famous people; all to suit our mood on the day.)
I created a rudimentary Linux shell script to interact with App.net on the command line. Baz the programmer! (I called it ayadn_shell partly in homage to @ericd’s awesome Ayadn rubygem but mainly because, without that application onto which mine piggybacked, mine simply would not work let alone be possible!)
After a happening by chance onto a conversation started by someone tired of being tired I collaborated on an MMTPORPAG (minutely-massive-two-player-online-role-playing-adventure-game.) An Adventure of epic proportions; at least it would have been if my life hadn’t got in the way. Thanks @mlv. (Incidentally, I can’t get the specific Treeview.us thread to load, I’d love to archive the whole thread. Help please!)
I became a Wiki Editor for a while at the now defunct App.net Wiki, a volunteer-run repository for the minutiae of a social network. I tested new ideas at my personal site. Thanks @kdfrawg, for letting me fiddle for a while.
I took over #WednesdayChallenge (#WedC) from @nitinkhanna and ran that too for a while. A short story, to a theme again chosen by popular vote and in fewer than 256 characters; oh, how those creative juices flowed!
I helped out with @isaacjw’s #TuesdayChallenge too, a weekly way for like-minded folks to showcase their artistic skills. (Me? I used a child’s magnetic board.)
Oh, and footnotes.*

It’s not a big list, and though I may have forgotten something big it’s representative of the network’s scope.

But, without all those lovely people, none of my activities mentioned above would have been remotely possible . I’m conscious of the fact others may have been involved prior to my arrival, but I’m speaking from my personal experience. And that’s the key to ADN, a very personal experience, not shaped by the knowledge someone’s looking over your shoulder with a view to monetising your post content.

Best-of-all I relaxed. I met some wonderful, chatty, clever, insightful, downright amazing people there.

Thankyou all, I’ll never forget.

But, to perhaps understand what I’m thinking right now, you had to be there. I was, it was great.

I am @bazbt3 both on 10Centuries.org (Jason Irwin’s burgeoning social/blogging/podcasting network, for which I have invite codes) and on Twitter.

*Let’s just say I popularised them, albeit in a limited manner.

Cabbage (band)

2017-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

I recently came across a retweet mentioning a news article about a Mossley (NW England) discordant neo post-punk band named Cabbage. The ironies within the article, well, I’ve already determined 2017 will be one led and thus eventually characterised by Schadenfreude. Now the band’s genre isn’t my usual cup of tea, but the introduction alone was definitely something helping to drag me out from the depths of my post-New-Year funk.

Here’s why…

The publicity wasn’t because of their music, at least not directly. No, it was their frank, gloriously frank, response to the British national tabloid newspaper* attempting to champion them as one of their sounds of 2017. To see what I suspect is merely the iceberg-tip of the band’s response, here’s a Manchester Evening News article - sanitised only by redacting the entirely-appropriate sweary language.

I asked the band on Twitter for their recommendation; which of their albums should I buy? The response was, in hindsight, entirely predictable.

@ahcabbage: @bazbt3 @antmeals anything by @TheBlindersBand

I simply ignored their response, hoping for something more, a ‘Best Of’. Heh, Baz playing the long game‽

A few days later they released a compilation album, ‘Young Dumb And Full Of…’! Yes, the ellipsis is a part of the album title; and though the dystopian days of ‘Bollocks’ aren’t over yet, not for me at least, there’s enough of an implication there to satisfy this listener.

Or maybe it’s a shorter word, one that rhymes with, er… Yeah, I think I’ll step away from that one!

I bought and listened to the album all the way through, turned up loud enough to enjoy it as I’m imagining the band intended (and then turned down a bit for this old man’s ears.) I was struck first by how the passage of time hasn’t dulled my inability to discern the actual lyrics of a song; but it’s not a criticism, there’s enough there to keep me interested.

The second thing that struck me relates to some of the melodies; I’m sure there’s some Talking Heads (I’m a fan) and a bit of Kosheen too. Perhaps if I listen some more I’ll find more, but is that perhaps missing the point? Naah, is it bollocks: Music is Music!

Suffice it to say that, whilst I’m drawn to the obvious parallels with the Sex Pistols (yes, I’m that old but wasn’t a fan at the time) this isn’t a rehash, doesn’t seen like an homage. It’s shiny and new. Ok not shiny, it’s spiky stuff this.

I’m emphatically no music reviewer, but I do know what I like. ‘Young Dumb And Full Of…’ by Cabbage thus gains Baz’s seal of approval, is rated 10/10 for the timely (and in some respects timeless) music and for dragging me out of my 1977-to-early-nineties musical comfort zone.

Ta Cabbage.

*Why yes, it is in fact the hated Sun misjudging our cultural history.

ADN free

2017-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

With weeks to go before a billing cycle I’ve downgraded my App.net (ADN) account to the ‘free’ tier. Having not been there for a while the decision was, heartless as it sounds, easy.

I’m not closing the account, I’m thankful for the memories.

Lardy

2017-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

@Schwarzenegger:

“Some people say Sunday is a day of rest. I say if you eat, sleep, and breathe on Sunday, why not train? What are you doing today?”

@bazbt3:

“@Schwarzenegger I’m sitting on my lardy British arse & considering which diet programme will fit my tiny attention span. Thanks for asking!”

History

2017-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

I’m going to start reposting some entries from previous incarnations of my blog. (I already posted about this.)

The only way most of the old stuff can be identified is by the page URL.

[Medium posts end.]

Maybe I can resume reading now?

Cake culture

2017-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

After reading this, I’ve a question for anyone arriving here accidentally…

Dentists call to end cake culture - BBC News.

Go on then, instead of Krispy-Kremes who’s up for kumquats or kiwifruits‽

It might have been BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, it was certainly decades ago. I recall a TV spot devoted to dental health, specifically the question; which is best for your teeth, an apple a day (doctors can’t be wrong) or a nice piece of cheese?

Unsurprisingly, most opted for the apple-a-day, disregarding the deleterious effects of the acids present in most fruit.

But at least the article above got me thinking. Which was nice.

On the occasion of my next birthday I’m of the mind to subject my colleagues to a mouthful of abuse!

Bye Medium

2017-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been copying my blog posts, first manually then more recently automatically, to Medium.com (a site for writers or anyone with a message.) The return on my investment has not been great, indeed the most views and feedback I’ve had has been from a one-line comment I posted in response to someone else’s political post.

I say investment but it’s no biggie; I’d written the posts anyway, it costs nothing to post at Medium, and I write to please myself anyway. But almost zero feedback troubled me.

Why? Well, everywhere else I post I’ve been careful to avoid statistics. Indeed I’ve never looked at any stats related to my Github.com Pages, and have no intention of doing. Simply put, I have a tendency to obsess over the irrelevant things when the simple things are key.

I’m thinking of terminating postings to Medium, and soon. A related and more positive issue, I still have a plan to release posts from previous incarnations of my blog, and that’d kill the structure, the flow, at Medium (I prefer consecutive posts, sorted by date. Obviously by date.)

The bonus: the meanderings of my less-recent mind will soon be available to reminisce over. It’s not all bad.

Imperial

2017-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

For years I looked at Cussons Imperial Leather soap as being nothing special. Through my childhood I had little exposure to it (not soap!) and always wondered why it appealed to so many. I thought ‘how could so many be taken in by the ads or its long history or…

During December my wife brought some home, a six-pack on special offer (of course) and when my previous, moisturising, bar became too small to handle comfortably whilst attempting to wake up, and to avoid the newly-present danger of it escaping my grasp and exiting via the washbasin plughole, I opened the pack.

What a revelation! It has a distinctive aroma, of course it has, but unlike anything else I’d experienced when my parents and I shared bars, or visiting someone else’s home.

So I sat and pondered for a while. Insularity, navel-gazing, easily bests following the news any day, and especially the latter days of the year just ended. But I digress…

Now I understand this soap’s appeal! It’s mine, untainted (too strong?) by other peoples’ lack of handwashing skills, disparate fragrances, and of course inability to empty the water and soap scum from their soap dishes. In short, no-one washes with it but I.

And, while the fragrance remains on me, I smell almost human. Yes!

But how? Well, here’s the thing. No-one else’s sweat, sebaceous oil, flakes of dead skin, faeces, earwax, nasal mucus, none of it touches my precious bar of soap.

Its a rubbish moisturiser for faces though, my newly-scaly forehead is testament to that! Perhaps it’s as well one of my Christmas presents is a moisturising cream. Now I’m definitely on the lookout for an Imperial Leather face soap.

Cussons Original Imperial Leather hand soap thus gets Baz’s seal of approval and, new for 2017, a rating of 9/10 for its intended purpose.

End

2016-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Here we are at the end of another year. I’ve seen a lot. More than some, fewer than others. It qualifies me to say this: to the mountains it’s utterly meaningless, to the trees and the squirrels it’s irrelevant, and to humans though arbitrary it can be a time for regrouping.

I see people saying it’s silly that dates chosen by another age to signify year-end and year-beginning have such significance. But this regrouping I mentioned is important; maybe even necessary. Sanity helps.

Everything we do is governed by our impressions of the world around us; family, friends, acquaintances, social media buddies, and the rest of the world. Though nothing we experience is totally random, chaos is a necessary component of life, provided we can guess what’s coming up next.

And then 2016 arrived. I’m not going to meander through a year-end list of stuff that’s been important to me, no. Looking back through my previous posts, I’m confident another reader will get some inkling of what it is to be me.

It’s not one I’ll look back on fondly, not by a long way. Usually I’m close to trembling with optimism at this point, resolutions tripping over themselves but not voiced lest I break them in humiliating fashion. But today, though I’m no longer scared of the year ahead, I’m resigned to the fact I’m not going to enjoy it.

It’s not that I’m fully immersed in the depressing, doom-laden frame of mind I anticipated six months ago; surprisingly I’m simply resigned to the fact that circumstances outside my control will have an impact on me.

The need to know what’s going on remains as strong as it did a year ago, and though I know I won’t be prepared for it, I’ll be ready for it.

This may make sense to no-one but me: I used to the word ‘cathartic’ in a question yesterday. Blogging is that for me, gives me a perspective that talking about stuff with others can’t bring.

Talking helps. A lot.

Ah… peculiar paradoxes.

So, what will we be talking about throughout 2017? How 2016 was comparatively benign‽

Alexa

2016-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

We have an Amazon Echo Dot. It’s touted as a voice-controlled electronic assistant. It’s more than that: can stream music, create todo and shopping lists, play rudimentary games, control heating, lights - and all at the sound of one’s voice. It’s, and I hesitated to use the word but shall anyway, a neat gadget, and one that works really really well.

I’ve already posted the following to Twitter and Facebook: with a parental advisory to not trust a small child with an Amazon Echo/Dot. Ever! Such is the ephemeral nature of social networks though that I thought it best to commit this particular memory to my blog. For posterity.

Here is the video. You’ll need the sound on. Funny, definitely and gloriously NSFW*:

https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=qDMbXT8c6Q8

*Not Safe For Work. Trust me.

Profit

2016-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

If I were to die tomorrow I’m reasonably sure I’d be mourned, and remembered for being a reasonable facsimile of the best human being I can be.

But there’s no profit in that for the type of individual whose life depends, having no other publicly visible skills, on being a professional shit-stirrer. Paid obscene amounts of money for deliberately constructing antagonistic opinions of someone else’s misery, hurt, sorrow; opinions designed to inflame, incite and, most insidiously of all, to desensitise the reader to the kind of stimuli that would ordinarily bring to the fore empathy, understanding, and tolerance.

Employed and encouraged by a deeply broken media intent on retaining their services because readers equally bereft of common decency lap up this kind of commentary, and snapped up by the highest bidder because another company run by amoral businessmen would think it appropriate to make money using identical tactics…

Not exactly a golden age this, is it.

So, to all who feed the Hopkins woman and those like it, and to the nasty creature itself, this:

One day you too will die. You’ll be lucky if your family retains any respect for you by then for simply putting the bread on the table by any means necessary. Attempting to make it acceptable to publicly express hate in the world my children will grow up into by the constant drip-drip-drip of bitterness isn’t how I’d like to be remembered.

Rationalise it how you will, but headstone or not, your obituary won’t be kind to you.

Blocked

2016-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

I made and uploaded a second video to YouTube! 20 seconds long, I guarantee it will not change your life.

A scroll down memory lane, it’s all the Twitter accounts I’ve blocked in the nearly 6 years I’ve had the account. I started to delete a few of the first, hit the Twitter rate limit, and then simply gave up.

There never was a plan to gain followers, prestige, influence. To anyone who knows me that should be obvious.

Here is the evidence, my video.

Incidentally, at first playback it started off as low-resolution (144p) on my phone. It goes all the way to 11 (720p) for the more curious.

Is it over yet?

2016-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

No.

Merry Christmas

2016-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

To everyone I know, and to everyone who sees this:

Take care.

Baz.

#rant 2

2016-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Testing Medium integration after my first IFTTT recipe simply failed.

Nothing* to see here, move along please.

Nothing *much.

#rant

2016-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Intended primarily as a test, this day unifies ‘broadcasting’ my blog posts created and hosted at my GitHub.com account via IFTTT.com to Twitter, to Facebook and new today, to Medium.

At least that is the intention. If it doesn’t work, I can revert to copy and paste into Medium.

The addition benefit of automatic conversion of the Markdown to html will be the key here; it’ll likely change the formatting from my prior Medium posts.

If the default settings applied by the IFTTT recipe work I’ll be happy; it feels awkward adding tags to my posts, something I’ve eschewed after restarting my blogging process last year with Jason Irwin’s 10Centuries social network.

By the way, the ‘rant’ hashtag automatically creates an issue at my ‘ranty’ GitHub.com repo. This may mean nothing to you.

And, if I’ve misunderstood what the IFTTT recipe will do [incidental: italics around ‘do’] then the ‘rant’ post title becomes appropriate.

Thanks for reading!

Normalised

2016-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

2016 has been a year of downs, and the potential for more of the same for the foreseeable future. 2017 isn’t likely to bring much in the way of relief, and I’ve already pretty-much written off the entire remaining noughtie-tens.

In no particular order:

The divide between rich and poor will increase as both Brexit’s and Trump’s insular influences affect the world’s economies, and that’s just 2 issues,
Melting polar ice caps will have a major impact on climate, climate control being something reduced in importance as governments prioritise other programmes,
Peace across the world isn’t here YET, and looks increasingly unlikely to be achieved for at least my lifetime,
A cure for cancer REMAINS 10-20 years away,
Famine, the eradication of poverty: both are still with us and, though arenas with a glimmer of hope, both aren’t under control,
Nuclear arms are set to increase as Trump’s insistence that his brand of populist nationalism is best for the USA. It’s only a matter of time before nuclear terrorism is a thing,
The golden age of computers, a future that I’d imagined ever since I got my first has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. I’d imagined that the instant availability of information would be a thing to advance ‘society’. It turns out people don’t NEED facts, believe anyone who voices what they THINK should happen,
Racism is acceptable already, not simply casual racism, but the overt ‘I’ll get away with this, what are you going to do about it?’ variety…

(breathes…)

‘Big’ Sam Allardyce has been employed as a football manager AGAIN, despite his prior and very recent and embarrassing history of corruption allegations,
Carrie Fisher suffered a major heart attack yesterday and was hospitalised in critical comdition, the most recent figure I know of to be affected by thr curse of 2016. Take care Princess Leia, get well,
Though inevitable, the death of popular figures has been a fixture of the year. I’m not sure I want to know if it’s a statistical aberration or just normal.

(sighs…)

That’ll do.

I’d like to imagine my family and I have a secure existence, to enable me to revel in Schadenfreude. But no, it’s never going to happen, I’ve one-too-many spare brain cells. Just the one. Give it four more years and check back in with me?

Dark? Of COURSE it’s dark! Don’t expect ignoring what’s ahead will remove it from your life; as-ever, understanding a situation is the key to dealing with it.

So, my word of the year is ‘Normalised’. It, along with the 366 days of 2016, most emphatically does NOT get Baz’s seal of approval.

Whimper

2016-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

It’s fair to say that 2016 started badly, reached a crescendo of awfulness during the early-middle part of the year, and peaked in misery again towards the back end.

With only a few days from the 366 remaining it’s anyone’s guess whether the fates will throw anything else at us.

Now I use the term ‘us’ to indicate that I belong to and share the wishes of the class of beings we refer to as humanity.

In reality though I’m a part of the privileged class of folks who are comfortable but nevertheless find things about which to be appalled and disgusted, especially with respect to the impact on my life. And my family’s.

But unlike so many people I’m not thinking of the impact NOW, no. It’s what’s coming up.

Before marriage and starting the family I led a life of mindless optimism. That eventually changed to Hopeful Pessimism them Realism.*

Some months ago though, prior to the final phase of the somewhat calamitous US Presidential elections and prior to that small percentage of the UK voting to leave Europe, I wrote that I was scared of the future.

Guess what.

*Thanks Tyson, very useful.

Insignificant fail

2016-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

At the beginning of February 2016 I decided to use a goal tracker app to create and to keep in touch with blogging and other streaks. I was pretty conservative with my targets, not wishing to place undue pressure on myself.

Five posts a week? It SEEMED easy.

I checked just now; such is my lackadaisical approach to the discipline, as of today I must create 22 blog posts a week to hit my target.

Can I fix it?

Pornstar

2016-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

I posted an image yesterday, to Twitter and to Facebook: ironic, sarcastic, call it what you will - a take on the trend to post words designed to both highlight injustice and put it right at the same time. Or expressing one’s individuality by choosing something funny from a preprepared list of names. And all without needing to exercise one’s scrolling digit. Instant gratification.

The words from MY image:

“Get your porn name by changing your name to that of your favourite porn star.”

And later, on Twitter, I was asked a simple question:

“What would yours be?”

Thanks Neil! A very good question, very good indeed. A question to expose one’s interests, proclivities, inadequacies, you know, those private things one simply doesn’t talk about except with close friends. Very close friends.

So, a dilemma. Do I write any further?

Of course I do!

At this point I could be forgiven for writing about:

gadget porn,
house porn,
car porn,
gardening porn,
gun porn,
etc.

Innocuous stuff, you’d think, but nonetheless addictive if one allows it. But no, I’m not going to write about those.

I’m about to launch into an in-depth treatise at times exploring the deepest darkest reaches of the human psyche. Those of a nervous disposition, please look away now.

…

Are you ready?

…

Just kidding. I’ve got my reputation as an intellectual lightweight to uphold. Besides, the UK government probably already knows what I’m into; give it a few years and I’ll be leaking all OVER the place!

A question: How patient are you?

Frustration

2016-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Sex Pistols accompanied me to work this morning; MOST unusual, as I usually rely on the calming sounds of the car’s ventilation fan to insulate me from the dullards queuing around me or indulging their moronic desires to occupy the bit of road my sensible car wishes to continue to exist unscathed in.

Oh yes, dullards.

Stuck behind drivers without the knowledge of how tiny their insignificantly-wide city car happens to be as they sit immobile before a gap through which my leviathan of a sensible family car fits with ease, I often ponder the meaning of life. Or wish carnage on the individuals around me. And their families.

So in my next life I should like to be a Time Lord; omnipotent, free of the petty restrictions polite society imposes, and with the ability to rearrange, er… things. (I’m assuming I’d work out the detail at the time.)

Every time someone intrudes, does something that bends, or breaks, the laws of British roads, I lose something.

Reasonable-ness? Benevolence? After this morning’s commute am I the same as I was yesterday? I don’t effing think so!

(sighs…) It wasn’t BAD per se, but the stupid WAS strong today. Maybe The Sex Pistols helped me make sense of it. Not bad for a near-forty-year-old band.

#message

14 again

2016-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

If you’re a certain age, grew up and entered your teens in a pre-Internet era, you’ll have had a limited choice of music. Ok, I don’t mean a limited choice, I mean it wasn’t instantaneously there, at your fingertips.

Take your favourite streaming service, look at the breadth and depth of music; from classical to the latest ephemeral nonsense. Er… no, let’s not let prejudice intrude here eh. Simply put, aren’t we lucky? If there’s nothing on a self-produced play list, pick a ‘station’ thrown together by someone else, find inspiration from RANDOMNESS - something not available even at the height of the anarchically-sited radio stations of the golden age of radio!

Yes, lucky.

Right now I’m not listening to my old stuff (late-seventies to early nineties), no. I’m instead listening to twenty one pilots’ Blurryface album. Over and over again. Played loud on my rather nice Bluetooth headphones.*

A journey of discovery. So yeah, I’m 14 again and, do you know, it’s not all bad.

*Bluedio R+ Legend. Look them up. They’re comfortable, well-suited to my ears, maybe they have a bit of a heavy low end, and leak a bit around the edges… but heck, so do I these days!

2016

2016-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Heading into the festive season most people would assume the worst of 2016 would be over by now.

It just got worse.*

It’s been getting worse for some time, but…

There’s one thing** that would lead me to believe there is hope for a brighter future: that the US President would attend Fidel Castro’s funeral. Officially. Sure it’d upset a metric shedload of closed-minded morons, but for the rest of us…

I’m not talking here about an indicator or a signal, I’m not inclined to use the weasel words politicians use when they cannot bring themselves to explicitly state a POSITION. I’d like Barack Obama simply to state he’s going to pay respects to another head of state.

We’ve been given only hope that lots of things will be brighter soon, we’ll be more prosperous soon, enjoy greater safety in SO many areas… soon. Or eventually. And yet the political classes simply cannot state HOW.

So let’s have the classy, though outgoing, President of the greatest country on the planet*** send an actual message to the future. No, he’d be better sending it to the present.

The message is a simple one: it’s not about them and us, it’s about us.

I for one want something rational, easily-explained, to be included in a process (even if it’s to be spoon-fed an outline of the plans affecting my future) and something that can’t be taken back, something that isn’t vague promises or populist soundbites.

It seems though that 2017 isn’t going to bring us stability, to benefit ‘normal’ people.

So, @POTUS, how’s about a trip to Cuba?

What other indicators do we have that this modern age of enlightenment is NOT about to end?

*And, do you know, the year is not over yet, not by a long way.

**If you’re interested I do have more than one thing.

***Hmmm… even self-proclaimed isn’t right any more, the current message is about making it great AGAIN, implying it isn’t now. What a sad admission.

Balance

2016-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

It’s fair to say that 2016 has been a bit of a shocker for most, both in celebrity deaths and in the confounding of many’s preconceived ideas of normality.

In the main I follow like-minded social media accounts. Ok, like-minded people. But there’s a downside: my views are confirmed in by those from whom I take my barometric measurements.

I’ve decided that, to ensure I’m better-prepared for the nasty surprises (and those nasties I’m EXPECTING!) during 2017, I shall look outside my comfort zone. Proven psychic ability, especially in the arena of celebrity death precondition, I’ve an open mind about.

If you understand and you’ve any recommendations I’m all ears.

Equilibrium, please.

XVIII

2016-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve already established that I cry when we go to the movies. I cry when we watch movies at home. My personal record is the afternoon we watched ‘Up’ and ‘Toy Story 3’ back-to-back.

I LIVE the film, the novel, the rolling saga, the trilogy in seven parts, I live ALL of it; it’s the only way I know to approach storytelling.

Well, it seems that there’s a second medium to add to my waterworks-provoking repertoire: the novel, spoken out loud.

I’ve been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ to my daughters for a while now; this evening we reached the chapter of this blog post’s title.

Boy, is this good stuff! I’m there within the cosseting gloom of bedtime, doing all the voices and then… I simply could not continue. The emotions of the tragic scene unfolding before us, after LIVING the preceding tale spilled over and…

After a few false starts, and Just as I’d managed to compose myself, my youngest daughter, oh-so-nearly 7, wondered aloud if maybe I didn’t know how to pronounce the words on the page, and offered to read on my behalf.

And yes, that kindness again stopped the story reading in its tracks; I had to excuse myself, promising to restart the chapter following evening.

And so I shall.

Patch: a sequel

2016-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Earlier this year I wrote about my favourite film, ‘Armageddon’. If you scroll back through the archive of my posts ‘Patch’ is easy to find. Now might be a good time to scroll; I think it is about time I explained why that ragged, singed, bit of cloth - the patch - means so much to me. And why I cried at the end of the film.

Vanishingly-small numbers of people have ventured into space, more have helped make their passage safe by testing, retesting, and doing it over and over again so the chance of failure is reduced.

One thing to remember though, the ability to send stuff off our planet isn’t easy. In fact, though essentially we’re still relying on explosives developed from Chinese firecrackers, to propel the aforementioned stuff out there is extraordinarily difficult!

Let’s face facts; whether or not you believe the somewhat facetious comment made about a typical US spacecraft - amongst the most complex mechanical devices ever assembled and machines in which generations of astronauts have trusted their very lives - is built by the lowest bidder, the word ‘difficult’ doesn’t even come close to how, er… difficult, remote, intransigent, space is.

Unless one sits and thinks about the unforgiving nature of the vacuum, cold, radiation, and sheer unpredictability of space, it’s all a bit esoteric, remote, almost-science-fictionish isn’t it. White-coared experts and gung-ho spacemen, right?

The thing is, I’ve been very lucky to travel to the USA, to both the Houston Space Center* and The New Mexico Museum of Space History. The Houston site is awesome, but an exhibit at the NM museum - one past which most will walk without paying much heed - grabbed my attention immediately. Mission patches.

I don’t have a thing for patches, no.

One in particular stood out. Or didn’t. The Challenger patch, there symbolising a small part from the rich history of human endeavour, but nevertheless an extraordinarily poignant moment within it. Failure doesn’t come easily to those in space programmes the world over, and especially not from an overlooked, almost-insignificant part of a much larger whole. The tragedy of loss of life is deeply felt, especially when the hopes of mankind rest on the success of the many facets of space exploration and utilisation.

Now, the bottom line here is this: without the constant evolution** of the spacecraft, the dedication of those designing the hardware and systems, and those preserving the history of the… Ok, ok, there’s something both symbolic and very real about the struggle to not kill people in space.

A typical space programme is at the pinnacle of human achievement. It’s the culmination of hundreds of years of experimentation and research, layers of improvement built on top of each other and of records faithfully retained against the day someone should attempt the actually-impossible.

Remembering what others have tried though should be no bar to trying to make a better space widget. As the saying goes, the impossible sometimes takes a little longer.

You might have expected at this point that I’d inject something political here, referring to 2016’s apparent forgetfulness in the area of human evolution… Yeah, down the snake towards the worst excesses of human against human we go. And to think I cry at mere films.

*Intentional spelling.

**This.

Toblerone

2016-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

A Toblerone bar has the enviable position of being a luxury product for a lot of people; velvety-smooth with chewy sweetness on the tongue, idiosyncratic in design, and with a long, long history.

There’s the expectation that, once one figures out how to open the box, breaking off a piece of nougat-speckled chocolate will be difficult. The ever-present fear of broken teeth, the danger inherent in inexpertly wielded knives whilst attempting block separation; it’s all part of a process distinct from eating any other chocolate.

But tradition is a powerful thing.

As the cost of production and ingredients inevitably increases, and the pack size reduction is touted, spurious, as bringing health benefits, companies invent ways to cut corners, mainly by decreasing pack size whilst maintaining the amount the customer pays. In reducing the manufacturing costs the logical choice would have been to reduce the length of the bars. Competing ‘staple’ bars have already set a precedent.

But no. The company looks to have removed every other peak from the bars. The result is frankly ridiculous.

Its obvious whoever signed off on it had no idea of the repercussions. Premium products surely mandate price increases?

If, for instance, the Coca-Cola company decided to alter the recipe there’d be uproar. Ok, that’s a bad example; whilst the Toblerone recipe may not have been touched, generations of gift-givers and receivers have expectations of CONTINUITY.

Tradition, continuity, expectation; killed at a stroke.

I’m not impressed. I’ll be interested to see whether there’s an embarrassed climb-down in the near future, or whether the brand’ll simply disappear - rationalised out of existence by the parent company as a product of a bygone age.

Toblerone: 1908-?

Halloween

2016-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

On Monday evening I participated in my first Trick-Or-Treat outing. Important: that’s Trick-Or-Treat, not Hallowe’en.

I’m over forty-ten years old and have a young family, so it might be appropriate to mention I’m English, living in a country that borrows the very best from the cultures of the world. Well, it makes a change from attempting to take stuff by force, right?

So I took the girls and Ruby dog and we walked the streets, the girls knocking on doors or ringing doorbells in the hope of getting sweeties. ok, candy! They did really well; I’m proud of the way they conducted themselves.

Knock/ring once, wait a respectable length of time, leave the eggs at home in the fridge, you know?

Our neighbourhood did the modern tradition proud. Loads of homes decorated with pumpkins, ghoulish apparitions swaying at doors, even a smoke machine to add, yes, authenticity to the proceedings. There were people of all ages dressed in suitably scary attire and make-up (though my costume and features on the night would win competitions anywhere!)

This year (hopefully the foundation for next) my girls got dressed, applied make-up to appear even scarier than normal, and we went out in what turned out to be the perfect evening, spending that very enjoyable hour-and-a-half going from door to door.

I’m sure my two brought genuine pleasure to at least 2 households others had passed by, it was really great to see.

And to think this curmudgeon didn’t want to go out, to be sociable. Indeed I’d been dreading it all day.

Eeeee, when I were a lad we never had owt worth mentioning. We got wood once a year and…

… we collected bonfire wood for weeks before Bonfire Night and secreted it away, hopefully out of sight of our rivals. We’d ask for a “Penny for the guy” - a vaguely-humanoid shape supposedly representing Guy Fawkes, but in reality a pile of rags and stuffing to be tossed on top of the woodpile and burnt with as much ceremony as young lads could.

To be honest though, I can’t remember if we ever burnt a guy. I recall us burning wood but the predominant memory is the disappointment of having our stash robbed from under outer noses.

Happy days!

The post title is necessarily apostrophe-short, I can’t remember how to add one in the post header.

Trolls

2016-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

After breakfast today the girls and I again went to the cinema; we watched ‘Trolls’ and, for a refreshing change, I didn’t cry at the end.

I cried NEAR to the end.

As with most, ok ALL films we go to, I got involved with the characters, had my sense of disbelief well-and-truly suspended, so yes, of course I cried. I cry at every children’s movie we go to see.

Thus, the movie ‘Trolls’ easily gains Baz’s Seal of Approval.

There’s just one thing, and I HAVE to SAY this. One thing, aside, that is, from letting you know how eerily similar most of this post is to ‘Storks’…

I have a problem with ‘Trolls’. Sure they live underground. Or in a tree. Or a forest, well away from things that would disturb their way of life. And yes, they come out into the sunlight too. Yeah, emphatically NOT my view of a classical Troll, not the stuff of myths and legends, not the dull-witted lumpen beings that eat Dwarves and Hobbitses…

(We’re currently over 69% of the way through Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’, me reading to my girls at bedtime, so this sort of stuff resonates deeply at the moment. Or is at odds with the stuff in my hindbrain?)

But anyway, this film, it’s a delightful story of hope and redemption and therefore earns…

Ah, but I did that bit.

Check please

2016-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Last weekend I acquiesced to the medical profession’s demand that I acknowledge my age and attend a non-mandatory health check.

Non-mandatory in that I risked being removed from the surgery’s register by dint of not attending it for over 5 years. Not at all to do with money, budgets, etc. No.

Yes.

I attended and had my lifestyle (sniggers, wishing I could afford one) dissected, my height and weight and blood pressure checked, and a sample of blood taken. As I left I was informed that if the blood sample yielded nothing untoward I could look forward to a reminder to visit again in five years.

Today I received a letter asking me to ring the surgery as there’s a ‘routine message on their screen’. That’s it. Now I’m guessing my cholesterol is a bit high, as it was the last time it was checked, and high in common with most with my activity levels and dietary intake. But why not tell me in the letter, instead of wasting my time again?

Sure I’m being ungrateful for the chance to improve my quality of life, or maybe increase the life expectancy itself. It just seems such a waste having me ring and speak to someone, i.e. not a doctor, but someone who I don’t really want to know anything about my health. It’s private matter between me and a doctor, right?

And anyone who reads this.

Anyway, one good thing to come out of this, the bathroom scales are indeed accurate, damnit; and I’ve lost a little weight in the months prior to #Movember 2016 - in which I’m not participating, at least not in the, blokish, laddish, growing face fuzz manner.

No, I’m starting in earnest the process of looking after myself.

Just like last year. Last year I lost a few pounds, from a weight at which I felt a little uncomfortable. A weight from which I’m only a few pounds down again now.

Ah well, onwards and upw, er… downwards!

Audi

2016-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

A recent study concluded you’re more likely to meet your premature end run over by a driver of an expensive car than despatched by someone driving a shed.*

The driver of a posh car will have reached a station in life at which they’ve forgotten simple things like not roaring through red lights, not blocking pavements, not emerging from behind parked vehicles and forcing others to take evasive measures.

In short the average Audi driver is a selfish arse, believing themselves entitled by their financial outlay or company lease arrangement to impose their presence on other road and pavement/sidewalk users.

This of course applies to owners of other posh marques, but it’s Audi’s turn in the actinic glare from the spotlight of my disapproval right now.

I’m not going to catalogue every incident, let’s just say that I’m confirming Audi have taken over from BMW in my little black Book of Bastards.

This morning the very best incident though was a car in queuing, inching, traffic; its driver obviously not paying attention as the car weaved over the line I was attempting to avoid crossing. I thought ‘phone’ but I was wrong. By the time I drew level with the blonde airhead I could see her rummaging in her make-up bag, presumably looking for just the right grade of brush. The temptation to wind my window down, to ask that she get up 20 minutes earlier to complete her task as she obviously needed the extra time… well, the urge subsided quickly.

Driving a black Vauxhall executive thing though. Ah, perhaps I need to start another book?

*A British term for a motor vehicle which has seen better days.

Storks

2016-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

After breakfast today the girls and I went to the cinema; we watched ‘Storks’ and I cried at the end.

I got involved with the characters, had my sense of disbelief well-and-truly suspended, so yes, of course I cried. I cry at every children’s movie we go to see. Whilst I can’t remember crying at ‘Cars’ there’s every possibility I did.

Thus, the movie ‘Storks’ easily gains Baz’s Seal of Approval.

Skipping

2016-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

My oldest daughter skipped into Brownies this evening. Most encouraging, if you know her.

Chatting briefly with one of the mothers I came to the realisation something is missing from my life. Now, I can ride a bike; I can, I’d presume, fall off a log (and sleep like one.)

Skipping. I tried to, briefly, but it wasn’t pretty… I have completely forgotten how to skip.

I need to practise. At work during lunchtime, perhaps? Along the road I live on? No.

Taking the girls into school, across the playground? At my age?

Mass debate

2016-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

The Internet is aghast at the news that during the US Presidential debates the moderator will not be allowed to fact-check the candidates in real time.

Given the power, scope, breadth, whatever, of the resources available to today’s media, surely its not beyond the programme makers to create some flashy graphics to indicate the truthfulness of each speaker’s assertions? In real time.

Facing facts, if they know it’s going to happen, it’ll keep the speakers honest, that’s honest in a very real sense.

But would it be POPULAR television; will viewers tune in expecting a gladiatorial contest of epic proportions - or a showman muzzled by a need to stick to just the facts?

What would YOU rather watch?

There’s a more important issue at stake here than flashy, exciting TV: if the debates are to be held at all, allowing the participants to say whatever they like, without any form of independent scrutiny, I have to ask what’s the point?

Yes I do believe Donald Trump is an arse, a serial repeater of things so ridiculous that would ordinarily be laughed down, but which in this instance will be allowed to stand.

History will judge these things, but it’s a shame they’ll be allowed to shape it.

Boobies

2016-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

We’ve all done it; had that momentary lapse of judgment with the inherent possibility of instant doom.

Mine, yesterday, was easy.

Presented, I was, with a chance conversation, within it a single word, and well, sat in front of a computer connected to the Internet the opportunity seemed too good to be true.

So I typed a word into the search engine. The only picture I SAW in the initial results page was a rather odd-looking bird. It’s what I EXPECTED to see, see?

Clicking ‘Images’ brought home to me the inherently unpredictable nature of The Internet. Or maybe my naivete. Not a single feathered bird photo appeared. Not one.

A page of boobies. Luckily my work PC has only a 24 inch monitor. I can’t imagine the effect were it to be splashed across, oh, say a 34 inch wide-screen curved thing of beauty. Thankfully no-one who saw it was offended. And it was off my screen in a flash, and the browser history manually edited. Maybe insufficient for my psychological well-being but it’s done. In my past.

But now I know there’s a log file somewhere with the search result. Maybe 3 ‘somewheres’; maybe Google, maybe my company’s ISP, maybe my company’s data centre. Maybe the NSA, GCHQ too are interested in a part-time idiot’s browsing habits.

Don’t Panic BAZ!

Redshift

2016-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve not had anything to say for weeks now, nothing at least that isn’t either political or ultimately objectionable, so I’ve kept quiet awaiting the reawakening of my muse. And here we are…

After the discreditation (too strong?) of the Steady State Theory it is now is generally accepted that our universe is in a state of expansion following The Big Bang. No matter where scientists look in space things are moving away from us; everything in space is moving away from everything else. This bit I understand.

The bit I do not understand is simply voiced: there is no point within our universe that can be identified as a centre. Look, I understand how everything can be moving away from everything else, but there’s something fundamental I’m missing out on.

Space is big. No, bigger than that. Bigger by orders of magnitude too vast for my simple brain to comprehend. I’m used to thinking about the journey to work, to the shops, even the distances between my home and the seaside. The size of space though, it defeats me. And I have no problem with that, none whatsoever; some things are indeed meant to just be.

Despite the size of space, knowing that space is expanding and everything is moving away from everything else, my personal grasp of basic physics infers that somewhere in our sky there must be bodies adopting a course approximately parallel to our planet or solar system. No, our galaxy.

Our galaxy is massive and we are an almost-insignificant almost-nothingness at a near-meaningless point within it, of that I’ve absolutely no doubt. But science must be able to find an edge, a boundary, beyond which other large conglomerations of stars, dust, black holes and star stuff are moving en-masse, in a direction measurable relative to ours.

I find it unreasonable to suppose, yet at the same time completely plausible to think, that our tiny mote of a world is indeed at the centre of our universe. Leaving aside broad philosophical arguments centred around the nature of self and being, if there’s nothing keeping pace with us it flies in the face of everything I know about probabilities, chance, randomness.

But no, that last bit is wrong. Flip a coin. It is either the side you chose or it isn’t; I’m being capricious to prove a point.

If everything on the Internet was subject to review, to critique and ultimately approval after ‘publication’ we might advance towards a multitude of enlightenments as a collection of individual groups but generally as global society. But who can we trust to review the myriad of words written daily, even in our mother tongues? Partisanship, religion, simple spite, an inability to differentiate between humour, satire, sarcastic commentary - the need to preserve the intent of those who would make our lives more interesting - all count against what would quickly become censorship.

To make the assertion that something is a fact but without any supporting evidence is as easy as breathing. To provide the foundation on which a statement rests? Yeah, somewhat more complex. Ultimately the assertion will be received by the uncritical without incident, by the remainder with a sceptical eye. But even this fails to take into account all the nuances of humanity’s approach to our interactions when faced with external stimuli at or beyond our limits of comprehension, or past the point of our willingness to engage.

When I started composing this (a few weeks ago!) I’d just eaten my first quesadillas, bought from a supermarket. I’d asked The Internet with what I should eat them, and a man who knows about such things responded with a suggestion of beans or rice, dipping them in salsa. Sounds good. I ultimately chose my own path: an unseasoned (at least not additionally) beef ravioli accompanied my Mexican food. Tasty! I’ll be getting more, and definitely taking the advice given. And modifying it; a character flaw.

On the Saturday evening just gone I stayed home and watched a film from my ‘list’, a film with almost universally bad reviews, a film that makes more sense if one’s read and enjoyed the book. As I have, twice. AND some of the followup series!

IT’S a film older than both my daughters’ ages added together, so why HAVE I not watched it before the weekend past? But first, what is it?

‘Battlefield Earth’!

I reckon it’s L. Ron Hubbard’s master work (ignoring, that is, the other stuff he’s a little more famous for.) The book is.

The film? The film’s hero isn’t cast well, the acting is over the top in places, wooden as a spoon hewn from an immobile wooden thing rooted to an immobile earth in others, but as a hopeful, swords-and-sorcery epic it’ll do for me. Not that I, a dyed-in-the-wool sci-fi enthusiast, can get into the genre easily. Unless Arnie’s in it. Conan The Barbarian, oh yes.

But Arnie’s not in THIS one. John (occasional massive hits) Travolta is though, as is Forest (solid body of work) Whitaker. Not Mr Whitaker’s finest work, it must be said, nor is it Mr Travolta’s. It’s no Armageddon (Bruce Willis), that’s for sure.

But it’s mindless fun, everything’s nicely telegraphed well in advance. Undemanding.

But; yes, a but. I didn’t cry. I cry at everything I watch these days, especially kids movies at the cinema. It’s probably not a coincidence that I choose films designed to evoke something primal in kids and their slaves.

But does it get Baz’s Seal of Approval?

Yeah, why not‽

Does this mean I’ll watch ANYTHING with a Rottentomatoes.com score of 3% with a preceding book?

Hell no, and neither should you.

A question: I read the book of another film years ago and loved it, absolutely loved it. So should I watch ‘Hawk The Slayer’?

And will I take your advice if you give it? If there’s only me reading will I take even my own?

What’s the worst that’ll happen? Mass extinctions, the end of humanity? Heh, no! Time wasting? Not that either.

Mind expanding? Yeah, why not.

Incidentally, I still haven’t bought that bloody diet and exercise book either, another recommendation I’m, er… working on!

Bhagavad Gita

2016-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Robert Oppenheimer, widely known as ‘the father of the atomic bomb’ said these words around 20 years after the 2 nuclear weapons detonated over Japan.

Ah, it’s a powerful, evocative phrase alright, but one holding within a small mistranslation of a small section of the Bhagavad Gita. Nevertheless I’m allowing it; the man did translate it himself. From the Sanskrit.*

This evening I feel bad, something of a pale shadow of the man. Clearing some long grass in the Turner Estate’s Lower Field (despite knowing it’ll adversely affect the drainage) I disturbed a small frog.

Now it must be said, I carried on clearing the growth and disturbed another small frog. Then another. Three unique frogs, with one thing in common…

Today a human, the same human who’d previously allowed their lives to flourish undisturbed, arrived with a big chopper and casually destroyed their habitat.

*The word is ‘shatterer’.

Cock

2016-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

Behold! You know when a dog listens to you, listens so intently and with total focus that there is no doubt it understands you? And it cocks its head on one side as-if to underscore the extent of its devotion? Marvellous! Ruby dog often evokes that feeling of omnipotence, yes.

Oh I wish there was a drug I could have produced in large-enough quantities, and then have delivered to the human (and near-human) population of this island nation by a fleet of autonomous drones. A drug to at least mimic that response in others. Wouldn’t that be great‽

Yes, obviously. And then, the world!

Let’s face it though, I’m more likely to get that sort of response if I become a boy band or enter politics.

Everyone knows where those two paths lead, so I’d best not.

Meaning

2016-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

Words used to have meaning, used not to be mere scribbles on paper or sounds made to satisfy popular demand.

Take ‘hero’. A hero to me is someone who battles near-impossible odds to save a life, or works for a lifetime against near-impossible odds to change lives. A hero is emphatically NOT someone who kicks a ball for a few minutes each week or runs/swims/cavorts quite fast/energetically - or does both - whilst being paid an entertainer’s wage. Real heroes do it because it’s there, because it must be done, not for the rewards.

For some the distinction between the modern and classical versions of the term is unimportant. And that’s a shame.

‘Truth’ used to be something incontrovertible, sustained by peer or objective review, unassailable. Nowadays it’s whatever some politician says - or believes they can get away with saying. And they do. Get away with it. No amount of fact-checking can overcome a recognisable face on the TV or in a favourite newspaper.

Wholesale use of hyperbole is peaking, we can see it all around. There will come a time when even the most hardened Sun or New York Post journalist at least considers giving up.

At least I hope so. I really don’t like this erosion of meaning. What’s next though?

To be sure, languages must evolve, take at least that for granted. In a lot of cases it’s necessary as technology or social change mandates the reduction of complex phrases in favour of a jargon adopted by the general public. In some cases it’s the adoption of trivial, inconsequential, transient words emerging from social media. In others it’s borrowing of foreign words used regularly by a sizeable proportion of those who speak whatever language is evolving. It seems to me though that dictionary committees are spending more time courting the press than accurately following trends.

Trust and tradition, both are being eroded at rates faster than previously seen. ‘Trust’ in an age during which words lose their meaning is a bit of a misnomer. There are a very very small number of people and organisations I can trust without thought. And the list diminishes with time.

Yes of course all ‘traditions’ aren’t necessarily good. Hunting foxes, chasing cheese down hills, Morris Dancing, you know…

Well there’s a phrase: ‘Less is more.’ What a load of crap! Someone influential should redo it to be a true reflection of our times: ‘More is less’.

Hah! There’s a gap in the market; I should apply for a part-time job as a writer, opining from the perspective of a grumpy old bast…

As traditions, trust, language all degenerate where can we find solace in these uncertain times?

Reverting back to one of the biggest comforts of the modern age, at least the sporting world provides some useful distractions: for instance the Olympics (hashtags) and football (obscene spending.)

Reading the news earlier I came across a couple of rage-inducing sentences:

Grabbing a couple of sentences from the article: “Manchester United are on the brink of re-signing Paul Pogba from Juventus in a world record £89m deal. United will pay 105m euros for Pogba and performance-related bonuses and other costs could see that figure rise.”

And that’s a lot of money - some would say ‘obscene’ - for an as-yet unproven talent. It’s a fifth of a hospital, and amounts to a lot of shirt sales.

‘Rage’ though? That may be overstating things a bit; I’ve broken nothing, lashed out at no-one, kicked no dogs, swung no cats…

Best to calm down a bit and look at the…

…

…let’s not, it’s altogether too depressing.

Self-destruct

2016-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

For a man wanting to become one of the few this world has ever seen to attain the status of a nuclear’ button’ pusher, Donald Trump has a lot of personal buttons he just does not want pressed.

Unusually for me I’m not going to spend time listing what I think they are, it’s pretty evident that every attack on his statements (to begin with) is a trigger for the man.

Keeping the world safe would now seem to be appropriate for all political ‘sides’ - in the USA and the rest of the sane world - there can’t be much more ramp left up which Trump’s increasingly adversarial tone can ascend.

‘Change’ seems to be the driving force behind the man’s support. Not the same kind of positivity shown 8 years ago prior to Persistent Obama’s success, no. This change is as dark as things get in the so-called civilised world…

I have a theory. Soon ‘The Donald’ will do something so ridiculous and… no, abhorrent, that the Republican Party - and US voters with at least half a brain - will be FORCED to shun the man. Nothing he’s done thus far has worked, but I can imagine his growing despair as each initiative fails.

To be fair though, I thought that about the run-up to Brexit; surely no-one would be daft-enough to vote ‘Leave’ knowing how ill-prepared we were, how ill-prepared we remain. Look how wrong I was there!

Huffington

2016-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

Because there’s nothing else in this world worth commenting on, not yesterday’s family trip to Blackpool, not Brexit, not terrorism or the perceived threats from people we don’t know to our way of life, not climate change, not all the other things, I shall post a link to an article about Donald Trump.

Its nothing major, merely relating to yet another of his insensitive statements. It’s nothing particularly inflammatory, especially compared to some of the insane opinions he’s voiced, no.

The article itself is, to be fair, almost incidental to the gradual expansion of the footnote accompanying every Trump-related article on the HuffPost site.

Please visit and scroll and click the links within the Editor’s Note:

Trump Responds To Father Of Killed American Soldier, Can’t Name A Single Sacrifice

Thanks.

Patch

2016-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Inspired by a Tweet:

“@rabryst: Tell me an example of an uncommon reason for crying, in a particular film. That warm bristly feeling just before the tears counts. And go.”

Well, I though about it. Here goes:

My all-time favourite movie is Armageddon. It’s a roller-coaster ride of epic proportions, a film during which I can suspend my sense of disbelief, ignore my engineer’s-innate sense that the physics isn’t exactly Newtonian, and simply relax into the story.

Not-quite a ritual but I’ve watched it at least once a year since the film came out on DVD. I’ll never tire of it.

I cry. I cry every time I watch it. I cry safe in the knowledge that my emotions are being manipulated by industry-proven methods not limited to…

No Baz, let’s not spoil this.

I laugh too, I cringe, I empathise, I literally sit on the edge of my seat. Literally, not figuratively; I LIVE the movie. Sure the characters aren’t as fully-fleshed-out as I’d like, but I really don’t care.

Here’s a typical quote:

Colonel William Sharp: “Get off… the nuclear… warhead.”

Awesome. In the very best sense.

There are indeed a couple of low points: the short cuts between the world’s celebrations of the unlikely teams of drillers and bona-fide astronauts seem calculated to tug at the heartstrings. My disbelief returns. And there’s something else not-quite-believable, but I’m not here to fact-check or find bloopers, no.

The very best bit in the whole film, it’s tiny, it’s understated amongst the joy and the sheer gung-ho spectacle around it. ‘Poignant’ is a good word to use at this point.

Dan Truman leads a team of NASA scientists tasked with the destruction of the terrifyingly-big lump of rock swinging round from the depths of space towards the destruction of Planet Earth; something at which I’m sure it would excel without breaking a figurative sweat. Now, a childhood disability robbed the man of the chance to become an astronaut; nonetheless he followed his dream and made a massive contribution to our salvation. He believed in the team he was putting together.

Amidst the cheesiness of the concluding scenes after the heroes return to earth he approaches the recently-deceased Harry Stamper’s daughter Grace, just reunited with A.J., her love - their marriage finally approved by her dad “I wish I could have been there to walk you down the aisle…”…

A.J. breaks his embrace with Grace, turns to Dan and hands him a piece of cloth, a tattered and charred Misson patch, testament to the trials the team endured: “Harry wanted you to have this”. Dan takes it: “He did huh.”

Understated, powerful as anything else out there. Perfect. I can feel it now.

And the music starts to swell, a military plane formation arrives, one peeling away as they reach the landing site; it’s called The Missing Man Formation.

And then Aerosmith, ‘I don’t want to miss a thing’.

And then I cry.

No hidden messages here, sorry dear reader.

BFG

2016-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Pizza is on its way.

Late yesterday one of the girls asked to go see ‘The BFG’: the film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s excellent book. My wife has read it to my daughters, and I remain part-way through a similar reading.

Everyone should read the heartwarming tale of a…

Ahhh, but I don’t do spoilers.

Suffice it to say we enjoyed the film, I saw enough of the story in my head from the book to be pleased and entertained…

Under normal circumstances the suspension of my disbelief isn’t a problem; I’m not massively critical of films I pick or take the girls to.

Rewinding to a point halfway through The BFG though, the insistent pressure on my bladder became utterly intolerable; we had to leave our seats and visit the gents. Awkward with 2 girls in tow. Not that I cared! (We didn’t miss much.)

Every time the go out I counsel my two to make sure they’ve been for a pee. We’ve done well so far. This time I’d actually taken my own advice and had one just before we left for the pictures.

(sighs) Getting old?

Damned

2016-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. State, categorically, that something bad is unacceptable, clamp down on it when evidence of rule breaking is found - and STILL get castigated for being perceived as ineffective? Politics is a funny old game, especially the current Labour Party’s version - of finger pointing and flinging poo.

Until last year when Jeremy Corbyn was elected, things seemed safe, predictable, boring even. Now the parliamentary Labour Party’s raison d’etre is a piecemeal, unfocused, but point-by-point dissection of a man’s political evolution. We live in an age of easy access to things that the ignorant would consider to be facts, things which do not require explanation or interpretation but which, without context, are completely meaningless. Eager people lap it up; misery loves company.

Many people are thinking that one event in particular shaped this year and all successive years: the untimely death of one man. A singer, composer, actor, style and lifestyle icon…

Bowie, David Bowie.

Apocalyptic! Some say he’s the Fourth Horseman, though that’s twisting things a tiny bit.

Now, there’s such a thing as responsibility, endeavouring to understand a situation and all its players. Unfortunately the Labour party’s voluntary fracturing exhibits no evidence of this.

Deserting one’s posts then blaming the leader of one’s party for a failure to vote against, or at least to defend, one’s party’s principles? I’ve only one word for it.

Despicable. Ok, thinking about it, two words: despicable and classless.

Under normal circumstances a shadow minister tasked with overseeing opposition to the government would do their very best to mobilise against the full range of harebrained schemes the Tories, er… incumbents cobbled together from whatever pot of idiocy these things are stirred in. Opposition depends on team players.

Much like Monty Python’s ‘fearless’ knights though they ran away. Not in a comedic style but in a tragic ‘let us run away then blame it on our leader’ manner. Responsibility requires sacrifices, demands that respect is earned. The Labour party’s response: restricting supporters from voting, demanding a frankly ridiculous sum of money (lots of £25 sign ups totalling >£4.5 million), and suspending all branch meeting until the election - it’s classless.

Blaming Flappy Bird’s WallyWorld* constituency office attack on their leader, then suspending the entire branch (at a time when all meetings are outlawed anyway): classless.

Expecting that their leader should shoulder the blame for the alleged, or real, subsequent intimidation and death threats: it’s utterly classless.

Revisiting a utopian ideal, anyone who considers themselves ‘normal’ would say it’s a noble thing to aim for a classless society. Well, we got one.

*Some names have been changed to protect the challenged.

Flush

2016-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

Thursday, today, is the first day since Tuesday during which I’ve been able to sit down on the gents toilet at work* without first carefully examining the contents of the bowl.

I must explain…

Tuesday, I lifted the lid to be greeted by a mass of toilet paper. Not excessive, not potentially a blocker or an overflower, no.

So I flushed. Big mistake. BIG mistake. The water rose, it rose, it continued to rise, then thankfully subsided. Then continued to subside, almost as the precursor to something awful seen only in the movies or the darkest corners of a fertile imagination.

And then, then a gurgle as the paper passing through the pipe relinquished its grip on the partial vacuum behind.

Now, physics.

Drawn, my gaze was, to the spectacle of a rushing back, then a parting of the waters as a great thing, a positive (albeit brown) Leviathan, rose from the depths and lurched out of the water at me. And then splashed back to an equilibrium of sorts.

Well of COURSE I let out an involuntary, nervous giggle! Things popping out; not the kind of thing I’m comfortable with in the gents at work.

I… yeah, there was someone in the cubicle one-removed from from my very real predicament. They remained quiet throughout.

Lo! The turd sat, becalmed, looking almost accusingly at me. ‘Turd’ has become a pejorative in recent years. This one though, this one commanded respect.

Lets face it, if I couldn’t be flushed after at least two attempts I too would be a bit miffed. A dismissive ‘Only human, it is.’ was all I heard.

I folded a few sheets of toilet paper and had another go.

Er… stubborn, this one was!

Sod it, I know when I’m beaten! I didn’t sit, instead backed out of the cubicle, washed my hands and left.

*We have more than one toilet of course, but I’m not identifying which for reasons of retaining confidentiality in the workplace.

Kebab

2016-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

I went online and ordered a kebab and a few other things earlier. ‘Twas delicious, but bloody hell that sauce was a bit spicy!

A riddle:

My first is in ‘Internet’,

My second is in ‘lounge’,

My third is in ‘eating’,

My fourth is in ‘full’,

My fifth is in ‘gurgle’,

My last is in, er… I’ll be right back!

Phew!

So what am I… ?

Yeah, ok, I’m sat on the toilet for a bit.

Will use again. Why? Life: a series of paradoxes linked together by uncertainty. Its good to be grounded every once in a while.

Meaning

2016-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

We’re all searching for some kind of meaning in life, right?

Here’s a dialogue extract taken from my all-time-favourite movie ‘Armageddon’. It’s during a scene the night before the team blast off to attempt to save mankind from an approaching killer asteroid. It’s a love scene of sorts:

Grace Stamper: “Baby, do you think its possible that there’s someone doing this very same thing at this very same time?”

A.J.: “I hope so, otherwise, what the hell are we trying to save?”

If you haven’t seen the film yet, or dismissed it out-of-hand based on its frankly unrepresentative Rotten Tomatoes score, please, have a go; it will change your life. Really.

Heh! Perhaps not, but it’s great entertainment. And if you find it resonates with your take on what’s happening with this world of ours right now, so much the better.

Godot

2016-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

As-intended I just watched the second act of the 2001 film adaptation of the Samuel Beckett classic absurdist play ‘Waiting For Godot’.

Now the first act, watched on my phone via YouTube on Friday evening, impressed me immensely. Nothing really happens in the play it’s true, but it’s the WAY it happens that makes the play so compelling to watch.

Unfortunately, much as it has been for most of 2016 thus far, world events took over my evening as the news of Turkey’s ill-fated coup attempt filtered through.

No-one seemed to have predicted the military actions, just-as no-one predicted the Nice terrorist’s appalling act. Nice inspires us to say that ‘something must be done’; Turkey though, Turkey is a puzzler.

First it’s a good idea to examine Turkey’s recent but gradual swing of power away from democracy to executive order. The country is in a unique position, strategic in terms of regional defence and in terms of being crucial to European expansion.

Over time Turkey’s importance has only grown; there’s too much at stake for too many partners for the inevitable crackdowns, reprisals, there to elicit more than an odd ‘tut’ from other governments.

Right away, before the implications had time to settle in the minds of foreign governments (all of whom had condemned the coup) the Turkish President dismissed just shy of 2,750 judges and placed the blame for the coup squarely on the shoulders of an exiled religious leader.

To be fair this exile has been deeply critical of the current government. However he’s stated his lack of involvement in the coup and condemned its use of violence. The Turkish President still wants his return though.

US interest in the region requires the use of an air base and Turkish airspace. The Turks, to put pressure on the US to extradite the exiled critic have restricted access to this base. The USA has responded ‘of course you can have him, but show us some evidence of his involvement.’

Not a pleasant time for anyone concerned.

A surprising thing occurred on Friday. Not the numbers of citizen journalists broadcasting via Twitter, not the clumsy takeover of national broadcast networks by the military, nor was it the swift shutting down of most Internet services for ordinary people, nor even the President’s and local leader calls for the citizens to go out into the streets and stare down the army, no. The most surprising turn of events was the President turning to the Internet to appeal for assistance from the people.

Taking into account his distaste of it and his recent desire to restrict it at home, does it perhaps seem a bit two-faced to use it to achieve his own ends?

Everyone has a right to change their position over time. For a government to shift ideologies when it suits them simply seems unjust.

To be honest pretty much everything surprises me these days. Not the coup attempt, that at least followed a pattern established during the twentieth century.

Unsurprisingly, Turkey’s inherent volatility, placed as it is at the meshing point of physical, ideological and religious boundaries, makes it an interesting choice for inclusion in Europe.

Repression of the Kurdish minority, of freedom of expression at home, of the secular in favour of the religious, making laws banning foreign subjects from criticism of the President (laws apparently enforceable by dint of treaty obligation outside of Turkey!), his own security detail assaulting protesters in a recent US visit - all these things are antithetical to the ideals of EU membership, the ideal of democracy.

Nevertheless Turkey remains a necessary bridge between The West and the Middle East and The East.

Oh how I wish it was a bridge a Troll didn’t live beneath. The price to cross is almost too great. But at least there’s some good news: Russia sided with the incumbent government. Yeah, good news…

For much of the year thus far, the news has not been ‘good’, not been kind to us ordinary people.

Every celebrity, musician, playwright, actor, novelist, politician, every one will eventually pass away. It seems that the first half of this year brought us an almost-unbearable number of ‘em actually doing just that.

Viewing this and the changes on the US and UK political maps one could assume that someone discovered the secret of life, the universe and everything, and that consequently our universe has been replaced by something for even more improbable.

Everyone should read Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - a trilogy in five parts, just as everyone should watch Waiting For Godot.

Now I have a theory. These things can only make sense at either a specific time in one’s life or after a required number of life experiences have passed. Has to be said: I’m really looking forward to getting the remaining 97% of experience points, or however these things are measured!

Two men, waiting by the side of a road, waiting for a man to come, the purpose of his visit unclear. Two men with opinions on and an understanding of everything and, at the same time, nothing. No, right now I can’t think of a direct link from the play to what’s going on in the world right now. In general terms though; their attempts to make sense of even the limited stimuli present in the almost barren, desolate landscape around them parallel my clumsy attempts to understand politics, the strife we see all around. And life. Mixing a couple of metaphors here, maybe the drip feed prior to the advent of the late twentieth century news firehose would have suited me better; the genie’s out of the bottle though, and our wishes are almost spent.

Stage plays, where were we? My last 3, with the most recent first: Waiting For Godot (YouTube), ‘The Scottish Play’, and a farce during which a man got his knob out on stage. Well yeah, at least my exposure to CULTURE is going the right way!

Nice

2016-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

What follows is simply a repost of my 2015 ‘Paris’ post, but with the city and date changed:

Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it’s over.

There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety.

And then there’s freedom.

Those of us who have it are incredibly lucky. Yet still we moan about the overreaching of the states we live in. Surveillance everywhere, taxes for female sanitary items, too many traffic wardens…

Imagine being invaded by a foreign power, your independence taken away, large men with brutal attitudes and frightening weapons always in your face for reasons you cannot understand. Imagine your school, your playground, hospital, workplace, all rendered unusable by decades of conflict. Imagine your home bulldozed one day just because someone wants the plot of land it sits on. Imagine a peaceful day broken by a knock on the roof, followed only minutes later by the destruction of your home, your neighbourhood.

Imagine all of this for every day of your life, no hiding place, no security, no hope of ever influencing the people who so callously disregard you. No hope of ever getting them to change their attitudes, so in thrall are they to the bigots who elect them and pay for their advanced weapons systems.

I cannot.

I cannot begin to imagine my life being shaped by the influences that cause someone to become a terrorist. But what I can do is attempt to at least understand why.

I’m not about to start down that road right now, not in a blog post. Mine isn’t a knee-jerk reaction shaped by the latest news, the cause forgotten about in a desire to have someone else do something about it. Something quick. Retribution.

Even in my comfortable existence I’ve not forgotten one fact, apparently beyond the wit of a sizeable proportion of the people commenting on the Nice killings of Thursday 14th July 2016… And all the other atrocities carried out in the past in the name of our freedoms to give us our comfortable lives.

It’s a statement that covers a multitude of ‘sins.’

Religions don’t kill people, people kill people.

Pokemon Go!

2016-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

Install.

Bang!

I…

Delete.

In reality, I can’t register here in the UK. Lunchtime is perhaps not the best time; the demand must be overwhelming. Maybe later then.

A brief history of…

2016-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

I once tried to read Stephen Hawking’s book ‘A Brief History Of Time’. I made the conscious decision to fail to complete it right about the time I attempted to balance an apple and orange on a ruler - a ruler suspended on nothing.

Failure: not specifically mine; the book is impenetrable to most readers without numbers, mathematics.

I’m deeply enmeshed in this post-Brexit English political realignment. Peripherally of course; an interested observer.

Realising that an email to my MP and a tweet asking a direct question aren’t going to get me anywhere, I’ll find it easy when the time comes to admit defeat and go back to my days of blissful ignorance.

Unless…

Looking over the shambles that English politics has become I’m better off not bothering to understand; just as a final state of apparent idiocy is attained - a plateau - someone comes along and ramps it up a notch!

Excellent for political commentators, pundits, sales of newspapers and, of course, building on a sense of outrage.

Dust settled after the vote for the Labour leadership ballot admissions? Why not change the expectations of a new generation of Labour supporters keen to have a say in the election of the ‘next’ leader - by excluding the last 6 months of signups?

To be honest, after the Brexit lies I’m surprised if anyone will take politicians seriously again - let alone vote next time they’re eligible to!

Happy days.

Eh‽

Well, here goes!

Ordinary people haven’t voted until this referendum. Protest votes aplenty skewed the result away from everyone’s expectations to a nightmare scenario no-one had envisaged.

‘Remain’ were expected to win, ‘Leave’ were expected to have fought a valiantly English fight and to then go on to better things, safe in the knowledge they had respect from those on their side.

Lovely. Everyone’s happy see?

Damnit if this carefully-thought-out plan didn’t go titsup - causing this unholy meltdown we’ll be suffering with for years to come.

If only…

Theresa May was asked today if she’d like to be Prime Minister today - once David Cameron formally resigned of course. The incoming rookie will be the 13th Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, appointed on this 13th day of July.

Definitely an indicator of SOMETHING this 13 thing, especially if you’re interested in coincidences, fate, and you’re looking askance at the future like I am.

Back in the real world: Emperor Akihito of Japan wants to retire; Strictly Come Dancing’s Len Goodman will retire after the next series; the US Presidential election is heating up nicely - the Republican candidate having promised to pick a VP/running mate by the end of the week…

Extraordinary circumstances all.

Some more positive mews, er… news: Larry the cat keeps his No.10 job despite the rumours the outgoing Prime Minister wasn’t a cat lover.

Here’s hoping the incoming PM is a cat lover - a redeeming quality, something for ordinary people to relate to.

I just heard the government’s House of Commons majority is only 12.

Time for a coalition of like-minded political bodies? Naah, it’s more likely time for that centre-left party to be formed. You know, just like the Liberal Democrats but made up of cast-off from Labour and UKIP, and… (shudders.)

13

2016-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Today the thirteenth:

Day of July 2016,
Prime Minister during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign,
Stone was added to my collection of weights.

Not yours

2016-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Oh dear. I wrote to my MP 2 weeks ago, hopeful of a quick response (even a brush-off) to my Brexit-related question.

Zero reply subsequent to the automatic acknowledgment. So much for democracy.

Yes, yes I did expect something in return. After all, “We aim to beable [sic] to do so within 5 working days.” is pretty clear.

Maybe she’s not made her mind up about quashing Brexit? Maybe my expectations, low as they are, are still too high? Maybe I expect that when someone makes a statement that that they’ll follow through. Nobody’s perfect though.

Ahhh… but my MP first voted for her leader, then when (and this is an assumption) external pressure was applied, she stepped away from both her leader and shadow cabinet duties. But still…

Now I know I’m being unfair. The workload imposed by her constituency duties must be immense. As a constituent with a very real fear of the unknown situation into which we’ve been tossed, I’m sure a response will come eventually; just not to be directly.

Damnit though, it seems I gave away my name, home and email addresses for nothing.

I… What was I thinking‽

At the end of the day no leader nor system lasts forever. Everything is replaced by something better…

Sure it is.

Lendl

2016-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

All I can think of right now is Ivan Lendl’s sex face.

I’m sorry to bring this up.

I should go and cook hotdogs for the girls, perhaps that’ll take my mind off it?

Certainty

2016-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Why is everyone who’s anyone (and a lot of those who aren’t) dealing in certainties, in absolutes, these days?

How has it got to a point at which an insubstantial, purely emotional case can trump any number of facts, and be accepted as reality?

It pains me to see the moral high ground taken by winners at the expense of losers, and unachievable objectives put forward as eminently possible by authority figures then lapped up by people desperate for change.

Perhaps the only certainty remaining is that death and taxes will catch us up eventually.

Perhaps.

Engineering is my trade, that’s something to which I’ve referred in the past. Engineers don’t deal in absolutes, in certainties. Engineers reduce the possibility that edge cases can ruin a successful outcome. Engineers take facts and… It’s very rare indeed that 100% certainty intrudes into our world.

Discovering that vast numbers of people cannot begin to take on board and process even simple facts, cannot search out alternative sources and make choices independent of those handed to them on a gold platter (platter retained by those dispensing the advice) - it’s now just a part of this journey towards political awareness I started in May this year.

Criticism?

Regrettably, yes.

Everyone has the right to offer an opinion, especially after a vote that’s gone against them.

Anyone want to point at a worrying development: that two candidates for very high office (leading a country!) have seemingly exaggerated their competencies to lead, based their campaigns on the understanding that pandering to raw emotions will triumph over cold hard facts, and say it’ll be alright?

Meanwhile, in the real world, it was the school Summer Fair today. Stalls selling stuff, stalls offering games of skill and chance, face painting, glitter tattoos, a (non-traditional but fun) dance part-way through the afternoon, a stall selling bags for the children to decorate, and food and drink and, well, lots of fun!

From a purely personal perspective, the very best thing about today was the greatest of male achievememts: me tossing two out of the three hoops over a thing, and thus winning prizes for my girls. Tossing. Testosterone restored!

Unusually for me, I took something odd away from the decision by the PTA and school to setup indoors to beat the wet weather. Was it the soft toy as big as daughter 2? No. It’s adaptability, something that defines how successful an enterprise can be; a willingness to make plans to get the very best from a situation. Our political classes have failed to do so; preferring a Monty Python approach to responsibility: “Run Away!!”

Next up, a PTA takeover of British government. Don’t discount it.

HTTP 451

2016-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

Censorship is something we’re likely to see more of as time passes, as the illusion of democracy intensifies. Paradoxically we’ll know about it due to the limited ‘sense’ inherent in our laws.

Ok, ‘sense’ might be overstating things a bit.

We live in an age of Super-Injunctions denying even the reporting of a legal action, DMCA takedown notices requiring immediate content removal without the luxury of rebuttal, and censorship by weight of numbers of uninformed and excessively antagonistic comments (don’t read the comments on web sites!)

An initiative coming from the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) - the organisation documenting and influencing the standards upon which the Internet relies to work smoothly - looks quite interesting.

Brand new status code HTTP 451 (in honour of Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ novel) should serve a notification indicating that the requested page is unavailable due to a block imposed as a result of a legal demand.

Unfortunately only time will tell how useful this will be. Actually no, scratch that dismissive response; it will be at least an indicator of the ‘freeness’ of ‘our’ ‘society’.

Now, tinfoil hats arent required here, just common sense.

Grab a friendly politician and…

Ah, a flaw.

Scams

2016-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Formulating government policy or a political manifesto is very much like making up a typical Facebook scam. Create a convincing document, pass it about a bit, and word-of-mouth accelerates its uptake.

The problem is simple: there’s nothing substantial about the thing. Attractive photos? Check! Lots of testimony from interested parties? Check! But try to get in touch with anyone concerned - to attempt to delve deeper, and there’s nothing there.

The political stuff has at least the illusion one can contact someone, whereas the Facebook stuff has zero contact details, at most 3 posts to establish provenance.

Where policy and FB scams differ: any company giving stuff away has the competition as a loss-leader. They have adverts for their products liberally interspersed with the competition details. They take a conservative approach to the giveaways; independently add their physical address, telephone number, email address, Facebook and Twitter usernames, and web site details. They’d have to be absolute loonies to miss out on the chance of a sale.

National and international advertising campaigns reliant on word-of-mouth do well, with minimal outlay.

A question: which has the biggest impact on identity?

Is it giving away one’s Facebook details to a faceless entity which won’t be around for longer has it takes the site administrators to catch on?

Or is it the voluntary subscription to an ideology which one has and almost-zero hope of influencing, and which alters dependent on the whim of that most capricious breed, the politician?

Which of them brings the most real disappointment?

It’s obvious.

Yet how can people’s hopes and dreams, and the constant let-downs be stopped? Conventional wisdom says that voters don’t care to vote because votes are wasted.

Well,THAT one’s been well-understood truly debunked, HASN’T it!

So wherever we go from here?

Fact-checking.

Its easy, requires only seconds (or minutes) and a very limited knowledge of how to formulate an Internet search.

Don’t believe the hype.

(Nothing to see here.)

Chilcot

2016-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

tl;dr

Words

2016-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Have you read the preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution?

Everyone should, especially those new to politics. And that’s a LOT of people.

Look, it doesn’t take long. It contains a lot of things other parties SAY they’ll do but never QUITE getting around to doing. Think ‘Big Society’, ‘Northern Powerhouse’ for starters. Where’s the balance in politics?

Look, it’s not some kind of cult, setup to make you feel better about yourself.

Ok, I rejoined the party today. It was easy.

“We need a change,” the people said a couple of weeks ago. The people spoke.

Onerous as the RESULTS OF the ‘choice’ the people made still remain to me, the people spoke.

Roll back a few months, to when the Libdems, in coalition, curbed the worst excesses of a Conservative government hell-bent on ignoring the great unwashed masses and pandering to big business and vested interests. A bit like the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanting to reduce corporation tax from 20% to 15% to attract businesses - or maybe to retain them.

Let’s examine the universal revulsion heaped upon the Liberal Democrat party as a direct result of the compromises they HAD to make, and the perceived crippling of its electability - seen as collaborators thus tarred with the same brush as the Conservatives. Or let’s not think about it, it sounds hard.

Damnit, I wish people would wake up and switch their minds on. Heck, I don’t even care if it hurts for a while as long as those brain cells fire a BIT more frequently.

++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<]<-]>>.>---.+++++++..+++.>>.<-.<.+++.------.--------.>>+.>++.

Indie

2016-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Politics; it’s all a load of old bollocks really, isn’t it.

A man spends his entire political career campaigning against a thing, and ‘wins’; decides to retire from campaigning against the thing, having no plan, no alternatives to it; ultimately though decides to carry on being paid by the political thing against which he fought for his entire political career.

No consequences? Well, the man now has a place in history - what every politician craves.

Jam tomorrow, WE were promised. Most people would like it sooner. On toast.*

Ahhh… I thought I could stop writing about important (important!) things, but no. Focus. It gives me focus on what is ultimately important.

No longer a monologue about self and family, this blog, thank goodness. Should I get back to writing about the small things though? Is THIS a healthy pursuit?

[Damnit, I originally missed ‘D’ from the post, too distracted watching the telly!] <- An edit.

Rhetorical question; my mind doesn’t work thus… Yes, of course it’s healthy. We humans, we’re inquisitive, insatiable, incompetent at times, but otherwise indefatigable.* Is it enough?

Under this spell, this compulsion to learn about this phenomenon, I believe a week and a half isn’t enough to explore deeply-enough.

Man learns about stuff; man fills head with stuff; man’s belief system ultimately remains unaffected.

*Yes, I probably AM trying too hard now.

Blinkers

2016-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve spent far too long this last week attempting to make sense of the post-Brexit vote. I’ve looked at both sides of the argument and concluded that, though my vote is on the ‘losing’ side, I did the right thing.

Pointless me going over that again, I’m not a prolific blogger, my recent post history speaks for itself.

Reading lots of informed, ill-informed and decidedly un-informed and thus blinkered commentary on this unique situation in which we find ourselves brought home a number of facts.

Everyone who voted did so to attempt to make a very real difference in the way this country works. Regardless whether this was the time to protest or not, from what I’ve seen, most think it’s enough.

Do you know, I’m inclined to agree. But only upto a point.

I can’t see everyone who voted ‘Leave’ OR ‘Remain’ voting in the next election. I say next election because, obviously, this vote wasn’t one. An election. It would be wonderful if the UK could grow the level of support for our newly-discovered sense of democracy. My fear is simple, that turnout will be in the 30%-40% range at the very next opportunity. It’s a real possibility unless a General Election is called.

Challengers to Brexit have appeared today in the shape of the well-known law firm Mishcon de Reya. Operating on behalf of a number of companies opposed not to the vote result itself but to the insistence that the government and Parliament simply HAS to accept it, the firm has already been in touch with the government’s lawyers.

To me this at least pauses the steamrollering of common sense. Whether the challenge is accepted and allowed to progress remains to be seen.

A number of challengers for the Tory Party leadership battle appeared quickly. I’ve heard a fair amount from The Backstabber, from I’ve Real-world Experience (in the finance industry), little from the Home Secretary, zero from the Man Who Thinks Homosexuality Can Be Cured, and zero from the Disgraced Former Minister.

Repairing the bridges between Leave and Remain won’t be easy, and may prove impossible dependent on future government policies. Repairing the balance between the regions, or maybe CREATING a balance between the regions must be a priority, whoever wins whatever trivial leadership battles we see unfolding before us.

In the grand scheme of things, who wins these contests proves irrelevant. Policy changes little whichever party is nominally in control of our money. Er… whichever party has our best interests uppermost, sorry about that slip.

Over the last few days I’ve thought carefully about joining the Labour Party. Yes, simply so I could vote in its leadership election - for that principled man Jeremy Corbyn. Not some fly-by-night politician changing his ideals dependent on which way the wind blows or from which direction the money comes (though the Labour Party, like any other, does indeed have some pretty influential groups throwing loadsamoney at it), he seems genuinely committed to making things better for us.

The bottom line though, in this uncertain climate I just can’t expose my wallet to the current fees. At £3 it would have been a no-brainer. At a one-off £20, yeah, why not. At just shy of £50 though it merits serious thought.

Kaiser Wilhelm, the last German Emperor, believed that Germany’s place was at the top of the pile.

A sentiment I’m sure echoed by the British (English!) throughout all the years the empire expanded. Who could argue with any country’s desire to influence, to control others?

I found a particularly appropriate quotation; the Kaiser’s letter to The Telegraph: “You English are like mad bulls - you see red everywhere! What on earth has come over you, that you would heap on us such suspicion as is unworthy of a great nation… I regard this missaprehension as a personal insult… You make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly to England.”

Sure I’ve picked that out of many available at WikiQuote. Heck, I don’t even know to what situation he is referring let alone when it was penned! But if you bring that across to our current situation it’s what Europe is saying about us and, eventually, what we will be saying of them.

Er… Yeah, this’ll end well!

Rubbish as I am at picking winning Lottery numbers and resisting the temptation to bet just that little bit more ‘next time’, I see unwelcome changes ahead. Some might be tempted to say gathering storm clouds. Me, I’m not good at melodrama so…

Children, run for your lives, it’s spitting!

Hopefully we won’t awake tomorrow to World War III; to a collapse of our, Europe’s, the world’s financial markets; to a devaluation of the Pound that throws the FTSE100 into a slide, to a… No, these things take time to brew, need lots of careful stirring, tender manipulation, a gradual increase of the heat…

I still can’t believe that some think it’s all over; that there are no necessary trade-offs to be made when we’re negotiating for a free-trade deal; and that we’ve no-one with experience of what’s to come.

Essentially no-one’s been through this before. We STILL don’t know what to do to get the best out of this.

For once we need to admit we’re not in the driving seat. We need to treat the negotiations like a job interview; first researching the situation into which we wish to inject ourselves, stressing what we can offer, what we’re GOOD at, and then, then, to compromise on pay. Ah, crap analogy.

Sure other nations’ leaders want the best for THEIR people, it’s common sense. We must go into this respecting their wishes, sovereignty. Saying that only someone who voted to leave Europe is capable of getting the best deal is complete madness! Look at Brexit’s Chief Architect’s utterly reprehensible behaviour last week in the European Parliament - this is not how we must be seen.

Central to any further advancement out of Europe is putting the very best we have to offer into positions capable of influencing which way we head.

Luckily we have a civil service the rest of the world looks upom enviously. Don’t we. Right?

Ahhh…

Screwed.

Hmmm…

“London calling, here are our votes… Europe: null points.”

East

2016-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Stepping backwards in time around 35 years, to another period of desperate uncertainty, the time of strikes and industrial discord, I’m reminded of a computer game I played a lot. ‘The Hobbit’.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be looking back to such events but these aren’t normal times, not by a long way.

Now, the point about adventures is not everyone is cut out for adventures. Just like the Hobbits, some of us British thought it’d be a great idea to venture out into the world beyond the safety of The Shire. It sounds a noble thing to do, to assemble a band of like-minded travellers, none particularly well-suited to the unknown but all SURE it will go well.

Deep down, they know the reality is likely to disappoint, to scare, but their friends carry them along. Friends won’t let friends down, there’s nothing more certain than that.

East. East was a direction one had to take to progress, but a direction leading one deeper into darker situations. Trolls, Goblins and Wargs - wolf-like creatures, a giant spider, a dragon, and even scarier creatures, yeah, the stuff of legend.

Rest easy though, there’s a happy ending - there were enough allies available during the journey to make a difference to the eventual outcome. Read the book, read it to your children. Read it before the books are burned.* We British went east, east into Europe, our tale doesn’t look likely to end well…

Lemmings. I’ve seen more than enough references to lemmings in cartoons and popular media, but the cartoonists got it wrong. Understandable, lemmings are more in tune with the British psyche, being at least identifiably European. They’re not but that’s a minor detail.

Actually, lemmings running off a cliff was a clever stunt by Disney, a stunt to perpetuate a legend rather than to put one to rest. Disney chucked hundreds of lemmings over a cliff. And filmed it. Yay, Disney.

Now, we aren’t lemmings, lemmings aren’t us. We’re buffalo.

“Deep blood kettle”: a loose translation of the Blackfoot tribe’s word for a buffalo jump cliff. Not so much a cliff for buffalo to jump off but one off which a herd was forced to fall, either killing the animals outright or incapacitating them until they could be killed by the native Americans. The principle was simple: panic a few at the back, drive them in the right direction, those at the front won’t stand a chance, pushed along by the sheer weight of numbers behind.

Sustainability though was, I believe, the key here. It’d be utterly pointless for the tribe to kill off an entire herd. What happens next year? And the next? Starvation or the necessity to become nomadic? A stark choice.

“United Europe has been a curse.” “We’ve become complacent, reliant upon other people to make decisions for us.” “Those decisions were never in our best interests, especially the laws to enhance personal wellbeing and safety.” “Europe will decline and drag all with it.” “Those nasty European bureaucrats!” Yeah…

Common complaints by people who who haven’t studied Europe as deeply as I have. For the last 6 weeks. Off-and-on. Makes me an expert. Yeah. Ok, so I’ve spent a little more than that, but…

Knowing that no-one likes experts or facts anymore fills me with dread. I’ve noticed my attention span diminished over the years as my recreational use of the Internet increased; more precisely my ability to place events in a time-related context. Expecting others to look back to a time before they became self-aware is very selfish of me.

Deep down I know that it’s pointless to attempt to educate people that the worst is NOT over; that though the pound has indeed rebounded against the Dollar (and the Euro), and though the FTSE 100 has indeed stabilised, and though…

Oh, what’s the use? Farage and Boris and Gove jointly pulled the sword out of the stone already.

Now what? Now the sword is out, what can we do with it? Is it shiny and radiant and pure and does it sing of greatness and…

King-making is out. Our society doesn’t work like that any more.

Eye-for-eye justice systems, etc. all gone, consigned to a time in history when things were just simpler, more predictable.

Yes, the Black Death focused the nation’s collective mind, likely brought along social and economic change in a way nothing previously had. And the industrial revolution, forever changing society from self-sufficiency to a reliance on others… but conflict remained.

Battles with other belligerent, territorial, nations - predictable, understandable. Let’s see those fingers lads!

Ahhh… maybe I should let things take their natural course and stop worrying. I am but one man. Writing to my MP brought zero hope.

Let’s see what we have. Take stock.

Long ago in a land far-away lived a middle-aged man. He gambled with his country’s future. He lost. Not the end of the tale, nor much of an auspicious beginning.

#spellcheckaracist: Is it worth it?

*Yes, melodrama!

Boris

2016-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘Everyone knew Boris’: a quotation (paraphrased here) from someone who knew Boris at university. Not everyone knew David Cameron, 2 years behind Boris. Boris, he’s unique that one.

Xmas hasn’t come early for Boris though. I genuinely feel sorry for him. Less-than a week after the vote, Michael Gove’s abandonment of both any semblance of friendship with Boris and his own statement that he himself wasn’t Prime Ministerial material are telling of the measure of the man. The measure of Mr Gove, that is. Boris Johnson is in no way Prime Ministerial material either, and I’m struggling to come up with a government department suitable to be run by a man with his unique talents.

Er… I can’t think of anything but an arts or media-related department. Sport. None of those Departments are ‘nothing’ jobs, but… Not Chancellor, not Justice, not Foreign or Home Offices, not…

Commentators, political, financial, history , must be rubbing their hands with glee; unprecedented events, a dream team of limitless political talent on both sides of the House Of Commons, what could be better‽

Right here, right now, political journalists have to be where everyone is looking. We need answers, answers the politicians aren’t providing. Unless they’re Scottish, in which case they’ve suffered the angst already, are actually prepared for this.

Almost everyone who voted should be asked to formulate a plan; either to lead the country out of this mess in the most efficient manner possible, or to provide the best possible framework to survive our post-EU era. I have mine. Its simple, but relies on the British not gaining a very British pyrrhic victory, not letting a very British hubris drive our future, and not being uniquely and stubbornly British in outlook. English then, ok.

Bemusingly, my MP failed to provide a rational response to the Labour Party’s fragmentation, by first standing alongside her leader and then, when the tide against him started to lap at his toes, resigning in the name of, er… unity and doing her job: which is apparently holding the Conservative Party to account.’ So where does that leave us? Where does that leave me?

Looking at currency movements, comparing the GBP to the US Dollar (ignoring the Euro for now) and against gold. Standing back from Nigel Farage (never one of us) a man rubbing Europe’s nose in his poo; likely believing he single-handedly started the terminal decline of an imperfect organisation responsible for the welfare of 500 million people. I’m learning a bit about the psychology of decision making, herd mentality, and politics. And I’m examining history. I’m not examining my conscience.

Everyone; a rhetorical question: To what extent would you allow untruths to propagate unchecked, who would you abandon along the way, how far would YOU go to change our world?

Yes, more words, blah.

Accepted challenge

2016-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Coming from a non-political society as I do I’m often confused by people’s response to politicians.

Ordinary people just don’t seem particularly well-attuned to, well, figuring out that they’re being outright lied to.

Challenging what they’re told is wrong, especially of their friends believe too!

Killing popular misconceptions of a politician’s role is easy.

Well, here goes!

Once upon a time I admired Ann Widdecombe from afar. Her forthrightness when asked silly questions was endearing, captivating. Fwoarrrrr! And then I discovered she didn’t vote in any manner aligned to her constituents’ wishes. She voted to align with what she thought were their best interests.

Mmmm…

Brexit focused my mind on the bleeding obvious. When I discovered Ms Widdecombe’s behaviour I was initially aghast, self-righteously indignant that the concept of democracy had been cruelly stomped over.

Last week I discovered her basic philosophy is correct.

Every step along this post-Brexit road is challenging my belief systems. I still think what happened is wrong. Now shouldn’t be the time for me to be doing this. But it is.

As with my last, this post isn’t necessarily about the words.

Challenge accepted

2016-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Surreal situation, isn’t it. Led into something that’s obviously not good for us by people still refusing to admit they should perhaps have taken more time to look at facts rather than wishlists.

Psychologically, it’s a well-documented phenomenon; point a person at two choices: one utterly unpalatable, one ludicrously unachievable but appealing to base instincts - and presented as scary thing vs the truth - the choice is easily made.

Under normal circumstances, an election for a position, change after a fixed term is possible.

Not now, not now this once-in-a-lifetime, unstoppable, irreversible machine has gained the momentum of populism.

Kicking out, taking sides is inevitable. At politicians especially so for allowing this to happen.

Monday morning last, after a pleasant weekend including a visit to the cinema, I simply didn’t want to get out of bed. Turmoil, angst, fear of the unknown…

Ok, some of it is irrational, but I have to admit I’m not as full of hope as those who voted FOR Brexit. Indeed I remain angry, and scared.

Now, I’m an engineer, a man used to analysing situations, for taking my time and not making leaps of faith without an examination of at least a few alternative scenarios.

Killing time while waiting for the British summer lumpy sunshine to abate gave me the opportunity to work things out for myself.

Everyone who voted last week should have been made to do the same. Simply asking their name and/or address on polling day now just doesn’t seem ENOUGH. We haven’t witnessed democracy, not by a long, long way.

Yes, I’m advocating for a change in voter eligibility/registration/rights. Even the US system looks, with its buffer between the voter and the ultimate outcome, better right now.

Earlier today I was challenged to write something special. I think I have.

(Hint: it’s not always about the words.)

Chainsaws

2016-06-26T00:00:00+00:00

Naah, that won’t work, juggling chainsaws isn’t an an appropriate analogy to use here. Perhaps sword-swallowing is a more British thing?

The British/UK electorate were presented with a choice recently: to swallow a sword or to not swallow a sword. The responsible thing would have been for both sides to put forward appropriate arguments; the For and the Against camps.

The Against camp could have stated that, without adequate training, unsupervised sword swallowing is dangerous; that the sword has to have a dulled edge and rounded ‘point’, the sword must be introduced at the appropriate angle, the abdomen aligned appropriately, and that it’d be best to think about the implications were it to go a bit wrong - to have a backup plan involving the Emergency Services. Have a few, shallow, practice swallows before going all the way. It’d take the fun out of it, the unpredictability, the element of connection with our past, but it’s safe.

The For camp could have said ah, fuck it, have a few pints beforehand, a couple of whiskies, and selfie-film it whilst your mates encourage you. Look back at our great history; we’ve a noble tradition of sword swallowing, embrace it! And if it goes wrong, well, those Against folks can sort it out.

And that’s the basics of what happened before our European Referendum.

The right to throw a sword down your throat doesn’t mean to say you don’t deserve protection from the consequences of your actions. Prevention is always better than the cure.

Stark, isn’t it.

Regrexit

2016-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday evening I watched a video, a young woman interviewed on national television, already regretting that she and her sisters and parents had voted to leave Europe, and wishing for another try at voting to put it right.

To say that, the day after the historic vote, smacks of an extreme level of naivete, a complete ignorance of both the issues and the consequences of one’s own actions…

But hey, she got on the telly!

I’ve not much more to say on the European Referendum - not until we get some indication of likely trends, political decisions. Not until the dust settles. What there is for now, it’s here.

It goes on for a bit.

Thursday was not the day for registering a protest vote, not the day for ‘sending a message to Europe’, not the day for ‘sending a message to the British Parliament’, no. Neither was Thursday the day to vote as one’s friends, family and/or colleagues voted - to vote that way because your peers were.

Thursday perhaps wasn’t the best day for a first-ever vote, and not the best day for that protest vote after a lifetime of assuming that votes don’t matter, assuming that votes are meaningless…

At the last local election I decided to not vote. Not ‘couldn’t be bothered to’, not a decision based on apathy but a decision based on an inability of the candidates and their parties to engage with me when it mattered.

I remain, despite my decades of votes, in general terms politically naive. I also believe that my vote could one day be the decider in a closely-fought election; a single vote to break a stalemate of indecision.

I believe that my 2 NON-Liberal/Liberal Democrat votes changed politics subtly - first the Green vote when ‘everybody’ voted Green that time, and then the UKIP vote when everybody voted UKIP that time.

Both votes felt good. GOOD. Yeah.

The time for a protest vote had passed before Thursday, it’s just those voting for the first time ever, those contributing o the record turnout, didn’t know it.

Now, I’ve seen individuals and political parties asking us to not demonise those who voted to leave Europe, to instead embrace them and work together to shape this nation towards a positive future.

Nope. I have the right to look disdainful at them, the right to shake my head and tut disapprovingly.

On Facebook and Twitter yesterday, and for the first time ever I used the term ‘fucktards’. I honestly cannot see past the sadness and yes anger, that I felt on seeing the result. The politicians handed the future of our nation over to the people and assumed we’d know what to do. I say ‘we’ yeah, about that…

Nope. Not me. My half a brain’s just big-enough to realise an attempt to re-assert our unique identity in the face of Euro-creep is ill-timed.

The British brand is very, very well-established worldwide. Though the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish (sorry Northern Ireland) identify must often be explained to foreigners, we’re not anonymous even within Europe.

Perceptions though; the Blitz, British Bulldog, stiff-upper lip, two-fingers-up-at-the-world, don’t panic image remains strong at home.

Resilience under duress. The British Empire. Yeah.

How can we use the gift handed to us by the political machine to our advantage? What choices do we have now?

‘We’re all in this together.’

‘We need our Big Society to pull us through.’

‘We’ve taken back control!’

Miles, pounds and ounces, pints, feet and inches, curved bananas, our own armed forces, immigration, £350 million, yeah!

Yeah.

‘Fucktards’ though? Where do they come in?

Well, aside from the simple fact they’ve always been here, yesterday, and against the backdrop of my previous blog posts, I posted this on Facebook:

‘Hmmm…

Leave voters*: “We got our country back!’

Rest of the world, washing hands as 10% is wiped off the value of the Pound in overnight currency trading: ‘Yeah.’

*Can I SAY ‘Fucktards’ here?”

And, a little later, this:

“One final thought, please treat as rhetorical:

Who are ‘we’ going to blame THIS one on?”

Thursday was a day to vote armed (if you like) with knowledge gained after months of campaigning, at worst a basic understanding of the likely and immediate outcomes of a vote to leave, a day to think of the future.

Thursday was a day to vote knowing that foreigners would ‘respect the wishes of the British’, knowing that the financial markets would react predictably (badly for us and the rest of the world!), and knowing that the fallout from the vote would…

One can’t argue against Democracy: at its best giving everyone an equal voice in the decision-shaping process, and at its worst giving everyone an equal voice in the decision-shaping process. We live in good times - when an ordinary person has as much influence as a wealthy, influential, fingers-in-all-the-pies, er… person.

But we are not all equal. Not everyone cared enough to research the issues and voted based in probabilities, based on a broad grasp of historical trends, based on an objective view of the realities of the modern business world.

The good news, such as it is, is this: the vote was close, and crucially is not binding on Parliament.

Close-enough that it’s not too big a stretch to see that regrets might play a factor in future voter behaviour.

Our MPs and, I’m guessing here, the Lords, don’t HAVE to vote to leave, don’t HAVE to follow the will of 52% of the people.

The Prime Minister has already resigned, the Labour Party leader is facing a vote of no confidence ALREADY.

Uncertainty.

I’m guessing that a percentage Remain vote similar to Gibraltar’s 96% to Remain would have made the decision easy for the majority of our political representatives. The overall 52%/48% split though makes things, er… difficult. Not impossible.

Would YOU want to be the politician who voted to remain despite your constituents’ clear message? Would YOU deny their wishes even though your (hopefully!) deeper understanding of the issues gives you an insight the voters denied themselves?

It’s all we have to put this right, all there is standing between us and years of austerity, misery and regret.

Assume I’m wrong.

Assume the politicians vote with their constituents. Out!

Then what? What must we do to ensure our economy establishes a firm footing? What is there, what are we not doing already, that will establish us as an economic entity trading from outside Europe?

I was probably wrong in thinking we must invent new industries post-Brexit. I was probably wrong on thinking that we need to dramatically shift the way we think about trade to make us more attractive to the rest of the world.

New industries: if it were that easy we’d have done it by now. There’s nothing from Europe stopping us.

Trading differently: I don’t know. Tariffs imposed by the rest of the world’s trading blocs are likely to be the decider here; we must trade at a rate advantageous to both sides. ‘Great’ British pride must not stand in the way of hacking out a deal.

I don’t know how long negotiations will take. Our best bet is simply to roll over and accept the terms allowed to Norway, Switzerland and soon Canada.

So why money, why am I not looking at immigration? I’ve heard, so many times, that ‘we’re full!’

No we’re not, not by a long way. When was the last time you were unable to leave your home because the street was packed full of people? When did you fail to get your shopping due to mile-long, er… kilometre-long checkout queues?

Not full, see. Poorly-distributed.

Theres no doubt that areas across the nation see an influx of immigrants and naturally resent the erosion of their way of life.

We’re struggling to maintain access to essential services for everyone, but that’s not the fault of immigrants. Yeah, sure if there weren’t any we’d have full employment, no need for a minimum wage and zero-hours contracts, the NHS would be fully-staffed and open 7 days a week, we wouldn’t be shutting hospital accident and emergency units and merging maternity units, no.

It’s about the distribution of money. The north fares badly. HS2 won’t benefit us for decades, if ever, if it’s ever built. The Northern Powerhouse is a Big Society bedfellow - a thing that removes government from decision-making and pushed it onto local government and businesses.

Inequality.

But still, what money do we have? Can we spend the £350,000,000 per week allocated to Europe?

Allocated to, not sent.

Last year the government took in £533,373,000,000 in tax.

Divide that by the Europe money multiplied by 52 weeks per year, divide 1 by it, and multiply the result by 100. What do you get?

3.41 - the percentage of our tax receipts allocated to Europe.

Wow. Allocated to not sent, but still A Big Number.

What do we get back, what’s the net total we give to Europe?

Already the Welsh and Cornish are asking that the government matches the grants received from Europe - grants used to preserve their food, language and customs for future generations. The farmers and fishermen will follow, and the engineers, artists, broadcasters, tourism organisations…

The £350,000,000 allocated to build one hospital per week looks in danger of being eroded a bit already! Oh dear. Maybe we should settle for building 50,having 2 weeks off for Christmas, and using the leftover money to staff the hospitals instead!

It won’t work but it’s a start.

£350,000,000 multiplied by 52 is itself a quite large number.

£18,200,000,000. Wow.

Cornwall most recently took 0.33% of that.

So, let’s ignore what we get back from Europe and concentrate on what we SEND there.

Well, from fullfact.org:

“In 2015 the UK government paid£13 billion to the EU budget, and EU spending on the UK was £4.5 billion. So the UK’s ‘net contribution’ was estimated at about £8.5 billion.”

But wait, £350M per week is £18.2B - what’s happening there? An instant rebate, albeit negotiated, that’s what, but still considerably less than the £350M figure per week quoted ad nauseam by the Brecon camp.

A net contribution of £8.2B. What’s that per week?

£157.7M per week. Wow. Maybe we should just cut back our hospital building programme, to perhaps 21 per year? Not looking as good now, is it? That’s still preserving a Christmas break; important to note, that.

There are all kinds of savings to be made though:

Members of the European Parliament,
Bureaucrats employed on European stuff,
Er… that’s it, right?

As time passes my certainty diminishes that I’ll not see anarchy in my lifetime. My wish erodes to see a bright future for my girls. The belief that as a major player in a major co-operative movement we can shape history and nations for the better is eliminated in favour of observations of narrow-mindedness.

Songs/song titles of our times:

Anarchy in the UK: The Sex Pistols.
Road To Nowhere: Talking Heads.
Love Will Tear Us Apart: Joy Divison - and some lyrics for you:

“When routine bites hard, And ambitions are low, And resentment rides high, But emotions won’t grow, And we’re changing our ways, Taking different roads.

Then love, love will tear us apart again. Love, love will tear us apart again.”

I hope mine is an overreaction.

Yes, I AM still scared.

Voter

2016-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

To all those registered to vote in the UK’s Europe Referendum: Go and vote; your country needs you.

Take your dog, young children along. They can’t vote but it’ll help.

My handy guide to where to make your mark - either:

LEAVE [ ]X (thinking outside the box; it’s the future)

or:

REMAIN [X] (predictable, safe)

(Borrowed from a Facebook post.)

Space

2016-06-18T00:00:00+00:00

Space. Mankind still hasn’t conquered it. That’s fine. There’s still an element of danger inherent in the process, but it’s a risk acceptable to everyone who participates in each and every mission.

Mankind has been visiting space for decades now, the protocols, the terminology, all of it well-understood: the countdown, lift-off, orbits, de-orbit burn, re-entry, touchdown - all should be commonplace in the viewer and broadcaster vocabulary.

The human aspect of space is also pretty obvious; people go up, experience zero-gravity, and come back to earth with decreased muscle mass. And then there’s hope; that, one day, the schoolboy and schoolgirl watching wide-eyed could, perhaps, maybe, go up there too.

So why is space and man’s achievements there viewed so negatively or at least by adopting a blasé approach?

Commonplace. Meh. Pretty pictures of our planet.

BBC One switched from a news broadcast, a good proportion of which concentrated on Tim’s mission, to a cooking programme.

What‽

Not 15 minutes before the Soyuz capsule carrying Tim Peake was due to land, the BBC turns it off. An historic event worthy of a very real national pride, and the BBC can’t be arsed.

Yeah, sure I could have watched elsewhere, even to Auntie Beeb’s News channel. I’d naively expected the news programme to carry on for a bit and reschedule later stuff accordingly. So I switched channels.

The BBC does not get Baz’s seal of approval.

Ah well.

It got me thinking.

Where, these days, is the sense of wonder, of hope, of looking forward rather than back, of aspiration, of…

Where are we going?

Ian

2016-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

I work for a company with a larger-than-average number of gentlemen named Ian* concentrated into a small area. It’s small-enough that three of the four could reach out and touch the others if they so desired…

Er…

Pretty-much every working day at 10am and 3pm (excluding Fridays) I’ve been telling Steve* that it’s time for his drink: “Steve, brew time!”

Since 2002 that is, with breaks for good (and bad) behaviour. Steve gets a bit grumpy if brew time is delayed.

I’m kept on my toes by the rest of the office; if I forget the alert I’m reminded (or bypassed entirely!) It’s a good thing, a dry engineer isn’t a happy engineer!

And then we got a new guy and another new guy: 2 of our 4 Ians.*

They wanted in. Obviously, we engineers take brew times seriously. I modified the alert, which caught on in high circles, often invoked with third-party modifications; performance tuning!

A popular variant: “Brew Time Nuclear Ian, brew time no-nukes Ian!”*

Awesome.

We got a new starter 2 weeks ago, Dave.* Now Dave has been away this week - the 6-day SolidWorks course. A course to be completed in 5 days. Illogical maybe but hey, ‘tis one of the most intense things I’ve ever done…

Anyway, I practised a tiny update to the brew time alert today, a tweak designed to establish a new office order:

“Brew time Steve, brew time Dave (a pause, and dismissive wave) brew time the Ians.”

I think it’ll work well. Quite what Dave will think of it I can’t really guess at this stage. Based on what I’ve seen so far though, I think she’ll fit in nicely.

*The names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved. Yes. As have their engineering specialities. We have other Ians throughout the building too; not quite an embarrassment of Ians though.

Clinton

2016-06-13T00:00:00+00:00

Do you, like I, recall a time a decade or two ago; a time when Mr Clinton was accused of being a bit of a thicky, driven to succeed by the efforts of his much cleverer wife - Mrs Clinton - who most commentators of the day positioned as the brains of the outfit?

Isn’t it strange how men and women are now disowning her, with the simple accusation that she would NEVER have reached ‘here’ by herself.

How odd.

I shouldn’t dabble in political commentary, I can’t seem to understand the basics.

50p

2016-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

One of my colleagues bought a drink from the drinks machine earlier today. Unremarkable. Another guy’s chance remark got me thinking about money. Literally.

(Odd units follow - 100 pence per Great British Pound throughout.)

He’d put a 50 pence coin into the coin slot. A 2011 coin with boxing gloves on the reverse. Not related to some outlandish English masturbatory competition, no; ‘twas a reference to the 2012 London Olympics. London England.

Another colleague wondered if the thing might be worth ‘something’ - something more than face value.

It was. Probably still is.

I took a moment to look at eBay for current starting prices and bids.

Used examples of similar coins start at 99 pence - nearly twice face value - and head northwards, topping out at around 8 times face value. Add 100 to 250 pence postage and packing and we’re at 4 to 13 times face value. OK there’ll be eBay fees and the actual cost of postage to deduct, but sellers are still ahead.

Hmmm…

Digging a bit deeper, there’s some with bids over 400 pence; and for mint, collectors items, there are some over 2000 pence, with equally outlandish postage charges.

Wow.

My youngest daughter has a money tin/can. It’s cylindrical, has a slot in the top and a pretty design running around it and, and… a rather unfortunate design flaw. I can’t check what’s inside without a tin/can opener.

Destructive.

The thing I took away from this is simple: the guy had ANOTHER 50p in his pocket. It’s a different world in our lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous bendy wire department!

Registration

2016-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday, and prior to midnight, was the deadline to register to vote in the upcoming UK Referendum. Unprecedented numbers of people (according to the government) attempted to register to vote on the day - over half a million.

And then, at 10:15pm, it all went titsup as the servers broke under the demand of, I think, 25 (or was it 50) thousand simultaneous users.

And that’s how the day ended, tens of thousands of disappointed would-be voters.

The government has advised that anyone not registered should keep trying today; votes are important, see?

Er…

No.

If you’re one of those unlucky enough to fail to complete registration less than 2 hours before the deadline, it’s tough luck. Its been all over the news, social media - and almost inescapable too!

Unlucky?

No.

Inept?

Heck yes!

Servers break all the time; Black Friday, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, when Justin Bieber walks out with a dummy/pacifier partially obscuring his vacuous visage…

It’s the way the modern world works; things we literally* need to keep us alive and sane break all the time.

Don’t let the fact you didn’t plan well-enough in advance, and that the Prime Minister thinks it’s OK to extend the deadline thus arbitrarily imposing a bigger workload on the election apparatus get in the way of personal responsibility.

Git.

…

(breathes)

…

Ahhh… a rant’s better out than in.

Or, in my case, I’m voting to remain; people need protecting from themselves.

*Figuratively.

Ramadan Mubarak

2016-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

Ramadan Mubarak to anyone observing it or supporting those who are! If you’re fasting, take it easy, be sensible,

A guy I know reckons he’ll have a six-pack by Eid-Al-Fitr. I think not, not if what I understand about the limited time available to eat is correct.

I rashly accepted his ‘challenge’ though. Yeah, I know it sounds frivolous, trivialising the month. No.

Yes. I’m a clockwork idiot; my waistline is heading in ENTIRELY the wrong direction.

Boxes

2016-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

A roundup of things I’ve done, observed, experienced, liked, loathed and tolerated during the last week. Some may be reproducible. Feel free to tick/check the vacant boxes I’ve helpfully left next to those events that fit into YOUR life, dear reader.

[ ] Cherry-picked the reports, surveys, etc., that conform to my view of what’s likely to happen before, during and after the UK European Referendum is decided.

[ ] Figured out its pointless arguing the toss with those who would leave Europe on the promise of jam the day after the day after the vote is counted and publicised. (For the day after the referendum it’s obvious; we ALL get jam, cream and scones. And tea. 3 sugars please!)

[ ] Observed the Transatlantic derp grow stronger as Trump’s statements grow yet wilder. We’ve STILL not yet reached Peak Trump, have we.

[ ] Decided that talking Heads are indeed my favourite band after all.

[ ] Failed to persuade the girls to climb the big hill to the northwest of Rochdale.

[ ] Started transforming the back garden into a bona-fide garden. Quite how we’ll manage the drainage on clay soil is anyone’s guess!

[ ] Picked an NFL team to follow. The San Diego Chargers. Sorry Chiefs fans!

[ ] Made lists.

[ ] Ticked/checked boxes.

[ ] Unticked/unchecked boxes.

[ ] Argued the toss with Brexiters.

[ ] Thought about reminding people about the last day to register to vote in the Europe Referendum. June 7. Tomorrow. I think.

[ ] Been unable to find our National Trust Joint membership cards, and figured out we should have Family membership now. Tsk!

[ ] Mmmm… National Trust Apple Crumble Cookies…

Hotdogs

2016-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Dinner today will be easy: hotdogs, buns to encase them, tomato ketchup. That’s me and the girls accounted for.

I read the cooking instructions on the label. Bad move. Not the act of reading, no, it’s what I read of the ingredients.

Mechanically-separated chicken.

I’m hoping against hope it means something like free-range does for eggs, but that the chickens wear inflatable ‘skirts’ to protect them against farmyard collisions.

Trump

2016-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Not a post about ‘politics’, no. It’s bodily functions; one in particular. And physics. Acoustics.

Earlier today I discovered one of the resonant frequencies of the gents toilets in work. I say ‘discovered’ as though I know what it is and can replicate the test conditions.

No.

It won’t stop me from trying, though it may be some time before all the variables align as they did earlier…

Stood in cubicle 1 having a pee, and I trumped. Not a crafty squeak, not a planned silent but deadly, no. Though the room didn’t shake, the sound emitted from my bottom took on a 3-dimensional ‘presence’ unlike anything I’ve ever heard before…

And no-one else was there to share the moment.

Perhaps it’s for the best.

Next up, Mussorgsky’s ‘Night On The Bare Mountain’!

Brexitcize

2016-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

I was going to post a thing I had in my head, a lyrical outline for an exercise routine of our times. At least the times upto June 23 2016 - the date of the UK’s Remain-or-Exit European Referendum.

Delicious rhyming and umami-suffused references to massaging statistics, squeezing national identity into too-tight sweatpants, lifting the weights of lies, feeling the burn of misinformation and, of course, rowing machine comedy, bench-pressed pathos and repetitious ill-fitting hats?

Yeah.

No.

A kind of politically-motivated and spin-laden dancercize, aerobicize, pilatescize, er… thing? Set to music?

Maybe.

Yes, of COURSE it was crap; it translated extraordinarily badly to the page - a lyricist I am not! So I’m not going to post it, ever, using just the title. Instead I’ll, hopefully without penalty, post a part of ‘Psycho Killer’, a song by Talking Heads, my all-time favourite band.

But first I must say I’d thought of using ‘Road To Nowhere’, ‘Burning Down The House’, the really rather good ‘(Nothing But) Flowers’ - this last has all in its lyrics. ‘Making Flippy Floppy’ was so close to appearing here.

I bought nearly all their studio stuff, Talking Heads that is, at least once, on cassette tape, CD, digital downloads (iTunes); and the Stop Making Sense DVD - a tour-de-force of concert filmmaking.

Favourite song? None.

‘Once In A Lifetime’ comes close, especially now, especially given the likelihood we’ll get another chance at shaping our country’s future.

Heck, the songs (let alone the name of the band as a metaphor for all the celebrities popping up to take sides, voice opinions) could easily form the basis of a post-apocalypse documentary film soundtrack. It’s worth remembering though that, within reason, any lyric can be shaped to fit any theme, should you wish it.

And so, finally, to ‘Psycho Killer’:

“I can’t seem to face up to the facts, I’m tense and nervous and I can’t relax, I can’t sleep ‘cause my bed’s on fire, Don’t touch me I’m a real live wire.

…

You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it. You’re talkin’ a lot, but you’re not sayin’ anything. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed. Say something once, why say it again?”

(time passes…)

Awesome.

If this resonates because you live in the USA and cannot quite believe it’s still months until Super Tuesday rolls around, you may find it applies to your (coughs) Trump (coughs) epoch-making situation too!

At least here in Europe we do things on the cheap. Hundreds of millions of pounds/dollars raised from well-meaning folks and spent on ads rubbishing the opposition? Barefaced lies? Deeply entrenched views based on arguments utterly devoid of logic? No.

Er… Maybe.

Nevertheless, our politicians also share with us the promise of jam tomorrow. Oh yes.

I’m betting it’ll be rhubarb.

Would you care to bet against me?

Next up, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ by Joy Division.

Chargers

2016-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

I’m closer to making an American Football team decision. Yes, I’m ignoring advice, previous deliberations, random chance, all of it.

But that’s today; who knows what ‘tomorrow’ will drop into my lap‽

So.

Who?

And why?

The San Diego Chargers!

We-eeelll…

I first visited the USA in 1992. We landed first at JFK, swapped ‘planes then flew in to San Diego - our coach tour’s starting point. I actually saw Jack Murphy Stadium; amongst many other attractions the city had to offer.

Now as far as my desire to pick a crap team, one with a promising future but a recently abysmal past… I might settle for mediocrity in the short term.

The Chargers are as near as dammit a lifetime 8-8 team. Not a bad feat for a team founded in 1960; and the embodiment of the League’s desire for parity across the League.

Yeah.

No.

Maybe.

And rivalries, always back to rivalries. One in particular against a certain city’s team, a team of which I know a small number of fans.

Chiefs fans, they are.

It’ll be great!

Or car-crash.

Europe

2016-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve read a lot of pro- and anti-Europe opinion pieces. I’ve read all the literature that’s come through our letterbox. There’s an inescapable conclusion to be made after a period of reflection. And here it is.

It’s all guesswork.

No-one knows what will happen if we Brits leave the European Union. That’s no-one knows.

I don’t mind the scaremongering: highlighting the inevitable lack of border controls, loss of political and policy control, a likely increase in our contributions as less-well-off countries join Europe, the deals allowing foreign companies to sue to establish privately-run footholds in currently state-owned services… Scaremongering is, after all, what we pay our politicians for. What I do mind is the sunny picture being painted, of the benefits greatly outweighing the negatives were we to leave. Guesswork, all of it, based on our past.

It’s utterly pointless looking backwards to a time when Britain was actually great, to a time when we ran the known world - at least the world that other European nations didn’t control.

It’s pointless looking back at a time Great Britain made stuff that was exported all over the world; essential items that no-one else in the world could make, or at least make well. Our very real contribution to the Industrial Revolution is indeed something of which we can be justly proud.

We gave it all away. Processes, designs, specific inventions that grease the wheels of world industry; we relinquished a very real control at a time we had sway over vast numbers of far-flung nations, an authority over those ‘backward’ folks. Sure it was the authority of the gun, club and bayonet, but hey, we punched way above our weight, and we can do it again right! But, as the rights of the ‘indigenous’ people correctly became more important than our colonialism, we lost that control. It must have been utterly humiliating for the politicians of the day.

The Twentieth Century was perhaps the era of biggest change, at least as far as benefiting the average Briton. Healthcare improved beyond recognition thus life expectancy rose, personal wealth rose, the welfare state protected those unable to look after themselves, the rights of the common man were improved immeasurably - a template for the rest of the world to build upon. We rebuilt after the deprivation of the Second World War, suffered greatly through rationing until we emerged, victorious again!

Ok, our contributions to world peace and stability were obviously misguided, a side-effect of both being on the winning side in those 2 World Wars and those prominent rose-tinted spectacles. We probably meant well.

We don’t have to look backwards too far to figure out when things started to go wrong with the British economy. British politicians decided it was pointless trying to improve the lives of other British people by ensuring a stable working environment and making things the rest of the world wanted. So we simply gave up.

Making things better than the rest of the world is hard. Why bother? Far better to invite bankers to do business here, to concentrate on making things attractive for service industries, filmmakers, motor racing car designers, makers of killing machines…

Killing machines; we’ve a proud history of making those at least. And jet engines, hovercraft, vacuum cleaners. Er… ok, bad examples, those 3. How about textile machines, motors, ships, trains, cars, aeroplanes, computers, televisions, tyres, er… Oops!

I’ve seen videos ‘explaining’ how things will be better once we can negotiate our own trade agreements, free from the shackles of European regulation. Good luck with that, if we’re trading with firms in European countries that are bound (emotive word?) by European regulations. Or ISO standards.

Good luck trying to negotiate a trade deal with next US political administration; either the mercurial (I’m being kind) or the known. The USA, rightly in my view, isn’t known for its generosity towards other nations when so much is wrong at home. Major industries shuttered or mothballed as cheaper foreign competition bites. It’s going to be the same here, us versus our European neighbours. And vs China. And vs the rest of the world. All of it. Back-of-the-queue-Britain.

Really, what have we to offer that can’t be done cheaper elsewhere? Take a long hard look at numbers, probabilities. Ignore those who promise it will simply be ‘better’, that we can return to the nation of Saint George, Boudicca, King Arthur, that guy who was the nominal boss before the Normans took over, Chamberlain, Churchill, and all the others who made a difference when it comes to an understanding of what it is to be British.

English actually. That’s what all this is about. Nationalism.

It’s easy to invoke a pride in one’s nationality, to remind the great unwashed masses that we’ve always been a nation capable of triumphing against insurmountable odds. Easy.

Insurmountable odds like The Charge of The Light Brigade, Dunkirk, The Battle of The Somme… Yeah, you know where this is going. The point is this; those were much, much simpler times. There was a defined objective, not many variables, the path the opposition would take could be predicted, to a degree. You’ll have heard of, or know a little about both Chaos Theory and Game Theory already so I won’t bother explaining here.

Ah, but the competition were still learning their trades.

Everyone’s guessing what will happen if we exit Europe. Guessing; there’s no other way of dressing this up. Those pro-exit are either amped up on nationalistic fervour and hope their persuasiveness will carry us through, or sufficiently well-off to be insulated from it.

Me, yeah, I know where I stand. I haven’t a clue!

What I have is a cautious approach. I’ve 2 young daughters so I’ve a father’s concern that my actions now will have a direct result on their futures. Its entirely silly to think like that; their future is out of my hands. Its everyone else with definite opinions, those with an unshakable belief that their exit vote will make us great again, that will guide us in a month’s time.

If it goes wrong, it’s probable that most already past retirement age won’t see the worst of the fallout. Heck, if things play out like I’m imagining it won’t be a pleasant world as the various trade blocs realign in a external market tariff-laden but ‘buy local’ fashion. It natural. Besides, no matter how much we don’t want it to happen, the Far East is indeed emerging as the world’s economic powerhouse. Er… It’s emerged.

Incidentally, I read something yesterday, a rebuttal of one part of the exit camp’s trade arguments. Our re-taking of our World Trade Organisation seat once we’re out of Europe. We’ve been WTO members since 1995, have that and another swat due to our European position. If only people fact-checked before jumping to conclusions. It takes seconds, minutes at most to; yet why research, why study when faith works just as well and is quicker to boot!

Speaking of studying stuff, students (young people) - in theory the most likely to vote to remain - are up against it. Polling day is outside term time, see. The advice is to register to vote in 2 locations (family home and halls/digs) if undecided where you’ll be on the day. A recent poll indicated most students don’t seem to know when Polling day is though! Surely not someone’s cunning plan. Surely not. No.

One final thing, ok, set of things. I keep seeing people’s worst-case scenarios. You know, those where we take a few years to establish even better trade links with the world, where the British economy carries on at the same level as now then improves and we become great again, free from the shackles of oppressive regulation and crippling financial contributions. Some expert sits in front of a Parliamentary committee and says it’s it’s going to be great, guarantees it.

Why people still trust people who stand behind a teleprompter and pretend they can see into the future; still trust people who’ve spent a lifetime convincing others that their philosophy is best, better than that other party’s or their own party’s factions; still trust those who’ve presided over or been a party to scandal after scandal, and who either express mock outrage or seem immune from retribution - it saddens me.

I’m not advocating a revolution, a British Spring. Far from it. I’m simply wondering why objectivity doesn’t matter any more.

I’m scared.

What are we actually good at, better than anyone else by a sufficient margin to guarantee sustainability?

I really don’t KNOW.

That’s why I’m scared.

nfl team chooser

2016-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

This week, at work, I started the process of choosing an NFL team to follow. I’ve been here before. Not too many times in recent years, thankfully, but I have more motivation this time around.

It’s 12 years since I was last serious about the sport of American Football. Lives intervened.

Besides, such is the active lifespan of a profession sportsman - especially an American Football player - I’m guessing that everyone I knew of at that time will have retired.

Messy thought processes follow immediately:

Rather than begin the search this time by grappling with rivalries between the teams of people I know, I decided to apply a bit of lateral thinking; I asked Google for advice!

“nfl team chooser” is the search criterion I employed. A sensible starting point. I’d hoped to be guided by question and answer sessions and I was not disappointed.

Now, the first 3 pages of results provided me with 15 usable sites, or at least choices.

The company’s IT infrastructure firewalled the tenth hit as ‘tasteless’, and the 2 random selection processes picked the Giants (discounted immediately, because reasons.)

I answered a good number of questions on the sites; some general ‘what’s your favourite colour’ through questions assuming trivial general Football knowledge, to team balance and squad selection. Some I’ll freely admit I had to guess at - especially those needing current squad knowledge; I get only 1/2 hour for lunch, and the season’s approaching fast!

I got a list. A list of 12 teams.

Rather than list ‘em here I’ll simply mention I applied a simple statistical analysis: tallying by Conference and Division. Simple. None in NFC South; one each in AFC East and North, NFC North; two each in AFC South, West, NFC East; three in the NFC West.

Interesting, that last one. I’d been mulling over choosing the all-new LA Rams - the only team in that division not picked by my scientific* approach. I was a fan of the 49ers not long after I started watching the sport. I looked forward to seeing their Super Bowl ‘Threepeat’. When they failed me I needed another team.

An underdog!

The Cowboys’ preceding 1-15 season made my choice easy. I watched the Jerrys’ team go all the way. Satisfying, that.

I did other things too, about which I’ve previously blogged.

Ok, this is where things get complicated!

Here.

We had visitors at work all this week. From Topeka. Kansas. USA.

Yeah. They were united in their recommendation:

The. Kansas. City. Chiefs!

I’ll be honest, I’d never really considered supporting AFC teams. The pre-champion Bills and Broncos both came closest.

Underdogs both, see.

So, a toss-up between 2 teams: The Los Angeles (recently ex-St Louis Missouri) Rams, or the Kansas City (Missouri again!) Chiefs?

The Rams are currently rubbish though their move might, in time, fix that. The Chiefs are currently quite good, thus might automatically disqualify themselves.

I need a set of playoff rules. Would a whole season be appropriate? A period of observation, hoping I can choose at the end.

September to January. 32 games, though my choice will likely be made much earlier - a performance-related bonus. Playoffs would be pleasing but hey, I’ll be happy enough if I last the course.

One big thing; the Topeka guys mentioned sending me a Chiefs Jersey. A great gesture, one I definitely appreciate even if it doesn’t happen. Why? They started a train of thought, and that’s better than any outsize sporting garment!

As, potentially, the newest fan they know I’m already aware that chaos theory will inevitably make an unwelcome appearance. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily object being the group scapegoat (I am, after all, thousands of miles away) a ‘No pressure’ existence suits me better.

At least for season 1. I’ll need time to acclimatise.

But indecision is easy. A tiebreaker might be needed.

So now, finally, to bitter rivalries. Which team’s fans harbour the strongest, burningest, most long-standingest hatred for the Chiefs‽

A rhetorical question? Nope.

Tomita

2016-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Isao Tomita bought an early Moog synthesiser in the early-nineteen-seventies; created the delightful album ‘Snowflakes Are Dancing’ - of Debussy’s music - and released it in 1974. It was done the hard way - recording one-note-at-a-time.

Seminal, groundbreaking, etc. Look it up. Really.

My uncle bought the album; I listened to it over and over, played on a Radiogram. A lovely, mellifluous sound. We inherited the vinyl collection when my uncle and auntie passed away.

Unfortunately we sold it all as the digital age intervened, the lack of convenience made the bulky collection quickly obsolete. Or so we thought. It’d be worth a fortune now. We thought the same about audio cassettes too. The CD, DVD and its derivatives will go the same way, of that I’ve no doubt.

Last year I repurchased Snowflakes Are Dancing. Or, more accurately, bought it for the first time. My first time.

Headphones on, volume elevated; it’s, if not pure joy, at least an unmeasurable pleasure. I can’t think of suitably superlative adjectives. There’s something missing though.

Digital perfection? Pah, it’s overrated!

Tomita, RIP and thanks.

Incidental: yes, I am that old.

3 Wolves Shirt

2016-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Last week I ordered a shirt. Not just any shirt, but a shirt of power, a shirt of mystical significance, a shirt to spark and fulfil dreams. It arrived last Thursday, the shirt I blogged about last week did. Yes.

So far:

Even before it arrived, we got new neighbours,
The shirt arrived,
Thursday’s takeaway dinner arrived 1/2 hour early,
Paid for by my wife,
It was lovely,
My wife’s been looking sideways at me every time I wear it,
And sniggering.

(As I start this post I am wearing the shirt; this sniggering, it’s not a normal day here!)

Um…

Not much else to report really.

The shirt size, it runs a little large. This ‘Large’ is a bit baggy, feels a bit like I’m wearing a dress. A large, purple, tie-dyed dress with a front bearing an artistic design depicting 3 Wolves howling at the moon.

Um…

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. I’d promised to wear it the shirt at work last Friday; it’s dress-down on Fridays.

I could not.

It’s not large, purple, tie-dyed with a front bearing 3 Wolves howling at the moon dress-down Friday.

I’ve an open mind, no-one would comment unfavourably, would they.

I’ve an open mind.

Ohhh no I haven’t!

Maybe I should wash the thing, maybe its magic is activated somehow by the action of water, washing powder and agitation.

Hmmm…

And if it shrinks in the wash, hey…

3 Wolves and Moon

2016-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

My boss wore a work-commemorative T-shirt all day today; as these things do it got me thinking about life-changing events.

I made the first step today towards changing mine.

Not acknowledging a suppressed mid-life crisis, not starting a life of crime or male modelling (despite the incessant demands to), not even thinking of dressing on the other side, no.

So, whilst at work I ordered a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt from Amazon, yes.

It arrives sometime tomorrow and, though I may not have time to wash and dry it prior to dress-down Friday, I nevertheless intend to wear it.

Now, if anything I’ve read about the power inherent in the shirts is true, however minuscule its effects are for me… it’s fair to say I’m expecting great things.

After a reasonably productive day I arrived home.

Heck, we have new neighbours!

It’s started.

Loony

2016-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve not decided which way, or if, I’ll vote in the UK’s local elections this week. A long standing Liberal Democrat I can’t really see past the local candidate’s pledge (if it is that) to provide the town with a theatre.

Er…

My upper school had a well-used theatre in the nineteen seventies, it’s still used today. There are more important things to spend money on.

To be fair to him, he’s not a local resident; previously a councillor in another district, he’s probably unaware of much outside his area, and - and I’m guessing here - would rather have the theatre in the being-regenerated town centre.

Guessing.

No, with 2 days before the poll no day we’ve yet again had no leaflets spelling out LibDem hopes and dreams. Again to be fair my recent post slagging ‘em off for a lack of info. at the local news site was addressed; all the candidates have’ pitches’ up. It’s a start.

So, a post entitled ‘Loony’?

I’d better see who else is up for election this time; you never know, someone might prove themselves worthy of…

…

Toilets

2016-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Last weekend we went to Edinburgh, stopped 2 nights, had a really good time. I counted over 29,000 steps for the trip, feel better for it; a successful weekend all round.

Incidentally, allowing for her growth since our last city excursion, daughter 2 will have walked around 37,000 steps. We bowed to her request this time, caught a bus for at least a part of our look around the city!

On the way home…

We stop at a motorway services. I need a pee so visit the gents. Washing hands afterwards (fastidious, me) I get a handful of the fluffy soap and place my hand under the automatic tap.

Nothing.

Wave it about, touch the spot I imagine the sensor should be… Nothing. Ok, let’s try the one to my left…

Same again.

Man to my left looks over, amused. “Is it me,” I say, “I can see my reflection in the mirror; not a vampire.” He laughs and leaves, thank goodness. I move left yet again, place my hand carefully. Success!

This morning at work I washed my hands after a, er… (sadly a warm seat this time.) I used the drier. Nice and warm. Lovely and warm in fact. “Oh yes…” I said, out loud, just as the dryer stopped.

I’d thought I had the gents to myself.

Wrong.

Snuffles wrong!

“Oh no,” I said to myself and exited sharply, hoping I’d not been heard.

Liberal

2016-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Cake. Pies. Pizza. Good wishes… Every time we have a birthday at work we colleagues get the benefit of the celebrant’s largesse; it’s great.

Yesterday’s and today’s celebrations put my recent kilogramme of biscuits to shame: yesterday 3 large pre-sliced cakes; today pies, pizza, chicken nuggets, other foodstuffs, and the remains of yesterday’s cakes!

At the 10am daily brew time I chanced an arm - being Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday it seemed appropriate to alert the birthday boy thus: “Brew time ma’am!” I curtseyed too. Badly though, I’m out of practice.

It was received well.

I found a personal limit yesterday; 9 pieces of cake, sized small as they were, is indeed too much.

Perhaps I should have used the title ‘plentiful’, a good couple of days.

Conservative

2016-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

I hold a healthy amount of respect for our local Conservative councillors: approachable, local people; all with local interests at heart. All turn out to community-organised events. If not pillars of our community then friends of it, with a deep understanding of what makes it tick.

At a national level though, Conservatives seem completely, irredeemably, incompetent. If not morally-bankrupt, they’re providing us with a useful template, a solid foundation for future generations to build misery on.

Speaking of foolish people, my life tends to run along a series of streaks. ‘Cold Toilet Seat’ and ‘Blogging’ are just 2 I could mention. Here’s a good one though:

Days I haven’t made a complete arse of myself: 0.

It reset today.

(Not telling.)

Labour

2016-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday afternoon the Labour Party’s local local election candidate called round. Not specifically to my home of course…

Ruby dog barks at pretty-much everyone who calls now. I ask her to “Wait”, close the living room door, and answer the front door - safe in the knowledge Ruby can observe from the relative comfort of the front window.

Yesterday though, yesterday unfolded a little differently.

I got up, asked Ruby to “Wait”, closed the door, answered the front door and no sooner had I said “Hello. Sorry to say I’m not voting for you but I wish you every success, especially at the national level…” than Ruby shot past me, out of the door!

She wouldn’t come back, ran next door, into the road, up the street and then waited. I followed, no shoes. As I closed in, all the while telling her to “come here”, she sat, until something made her decision and she ran across the road and along the path we usually start the walk at.

3/4 of the way along she nosed about in the grass, all the while keeping what she must have thought a safe distance from me.

Eventually though as I waited and calmed down she came to me, I let her pause a moment to reestablish something-or-other, trust maybe, and picked her up.

I took 3 things away from this situation:

Shouting at a newly-escaped dog fails,
It’s surprisingly hard to walk on the pavements (US: sidewalks) around here shod only in socks, even the thick ones I wore yesterday,
People who call unannounced at your door will walk away when presented with a situation it’s easier to pass on to someone else.

I’m not inclined to test the next candidates out in a similar fashion. But it did cross my mind to.

Facebook links

2016-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

My youngest daughter simply doesn’t understand the concept of a surprise. When asked to keep a secret something seems to build inside her, a something which simply cannot be contained, a something which must be voiced - albeit in a manner a 6 year old thinks is obtuse, elliptical, not-at-all likely to let the recipient know there’s a thing awaiting…

She: “Daddy, we have a surprise…” and I rudely cut her off, explaining why she must STFU.

She’s unstoppable though, learns nothing from recent history. It’s easily forgivable at 6.

Facebook is the same. I post a link to something, Facebook simply cannot contain itself and produces a helpful preview of the page header, YouTube movie title, whatever… I’m not sure I can forgive Facebook as a 12-year-old though.

I suppose I could obscure the content behind a custom URL added at either my web site or via an URL shortening service (presuming Facebook doesn’t automatically expand those.)

But why should I have to‽

I ‘get’ that security is an issue these days so having some indication of what’s about to happen is ‘safety-conscious’; I know, as the average attention span diminishes towards zero, that people like to see a preview of what they’re about see (especially previews.)

But from where are our future Rickrolls likely to come - if Facebook first shapes then reinforces our habits?

I left Medium

2016-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

I probably quit Medium in 2011; I’ve not been back there since. Being totally frank about the entire process it became hard work keeping engaged, maintaining the daily routine, sustaining the decision-making, the triaging process…

It wasn’t a conscious decision to quit Medium; far from it in fact. The positive benefits of maintaining oversight demonstrably outweigh the later feelings of ‘what-if I’d…’

I occasionally tell people an amusing-to-me anecdote associated with a wedding reception invite. It ably illustrates if not why I left Medium then what happened afterwards.

We got a wedding invite late in 2015; used it as an excuse to leave the girls at home and relax.

Well, the process started off calmly-enough but descended into farce - thankfully before we left home.

I had nothing to wear, not shirts anyway. Call me lazy, but I’d simply not bothered to buy new smart clothes for a few years. My wife promised to shop for me, she’d pick something suitable; my fashion sense isn’t the best, see?

All she needed: my collar size. So I told her and the next day an SMS indicated a shirt awaited my arrival home from work…

A very nice shirt too.

I went upstairs to try it on. And there my comfortable existence fell apart…

I believed, Believed, BELIEVED I was still a size 14-1/2” collar.

No.

16” neck. 40” chest. Still short-of-leg though; that and the waist measurement remain mine.

I’m thankful no fly-on-the-wall documentary team was shadowing me that day; to see me first manfully then not-quite so manfully struggling with that obviously too-small-for-me shirt, first to fail to pull the sleeves up my arms, then to fail to fasten any buttons… And then to spend the longest 2 minutes of my life attempting (and finally succeeding right at the point my sense of reason was screaming at me to shout downstairs) to inch first one then the other sleeve down…

No longer Medium.

Cheap, clickbait post? Yeah, why not? Fashionable, isn’t it. I probably deserve your scorn simply for staying Large.

If you don’t understand this, don’t worry.

Chatbot

2016-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

User: “Hi chatbot ,whats the weather like today ?lol”

bazbt3chatbot: “Go outside, meet people, hug a tree; stop wasting your life on your phone!”

User: “Hi chatbot ,lolwut !!1! whats a tree whats a hug ?”

bazbt3chatbot: “!” (self-terminates)

Apparently, apps are a thing of the past; ‘bots are our future. (A vaguely-related article.)

Las Vegas

2016-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

A colleague and his partner are there right now, starting their first full day. I was there 24 years ago, didn’t enjoy the daytimes much; it’s a city that’s best viewed in the dark, both literally and of the mindset.

My recollection is of air-conditioned, windowless rooms, filled with people dully feeding slot machines and shouting nonsense at the gaming tables. The nightlife is a different matter though. Loud, brash, spectacular.

From a quick look at Google Earth the area around my memories seems to have been extensively redeveloped. I’m no longer sure I’d like to revisit; memories, you know?

I’m pleased to see the volcano opposite Harrah’s remains, just up The Strip from the down-a-gap-between-2-buildings Travelodge we stopped in; no longer a Travelodge, I’m not even sure if the building exists.

Thanks for provoking the memories nameless-for-blogging-purposes man. Take it easy though, your 4 hours’ sleep may not be quite enough to tackle Death Valley. Mind you, if you’re man-enough to wake up her indoors to send her my best wishes for a great holiday at that hour you’ll probably do just fine.

Water!

Autism

2016-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

As a parent of a lovely girl diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, and being pretty sure I’m somewhere on it myself I’ve yet another moan coming up.

If you read my blog regularly enough you’ll understand a little about me. It’s not all bad, right?

National (insert something here) day, week or month usually means the USA have picked a day and ascribed special meaning to it.

Fantastic. Really. We need more awareness of (insert something here)!

Sarcasm has no place here, and you’ll be glad to know I’m being deadly sincere. Or at least ‘ordinary’ sincere.

Sincere.

National Autism Awareness Week just ended here in the UK. Its UK organisers, the National Autistic Society organised, or suggested lots of fun things for individuals, groups of people and especially schools to do during the week.

Schools.

Ah.

My 2 girls, including the one whose classmates would benefit from a better understanding of her condition (supportive as they already are) have been on Easter holiday for the past 2 weeks. I know for a fact that a local authority on the other side of Manchester is starting it’s second week off tomorrow.

Oops!

If we can organise Mothers Day and Fathers Day to a differing schedule to that in the USA, surely we can do the same to help raise awareness in our young.

Onesie Wednesday would have been nice to participate in, if we’d known about it.

I’ve got past the feelings of guilt by the way, for letting down my girls, the oldest in particular; I can’t be expected to know everything, right?

Medium

2016-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

A new place at which I’m posting drivel;

I have a Medium.com account.

Testing; there’s no Markdown support in the native Android app. Oddly, it’s a deal breaker.

Undies: A Sequel

2016-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

The girls and mummy are having a slumber party this evening; pyjamas, sleeping bags, popcorn and, of course an age-appropriate scary movie.

I was invited; an honourary girl for the evening. One snag though, I don’t possess pyjamas. No-one ever bought me a onesie, despite multiple threats to…

For laughs and giggles, mummy suggested I should come downstairs dressed only in my gaudy boxer shorts - hey I’ve more than the one pair dontchaknow!

So I did.

Not a one of them, not even Ruby dog (also an invitee) expected how I’d present myself…

A giggle from daughter 1 (nearly 9), a look of shock from daughter 2 (6-1/3) and no tut my wife… a success, I think.

In other news; I really didn’t anticipate my waist-to-cranial ratio had changed so much over the years!

Undies

2016-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

In a hurry to leave the house this morning, head befuddled by sleep, I failed in one important detail. Important.

The orientation of my new, gaudily-coloured boxer shorts unfortunately precludes my ability to pee stood up. I’m also imagining the wind blowing unfettered where it ought not to…

The good news: my work toilet seat streak remains cold; unblemished by recent prior other-arse occupancy.

It’s the small things in life…

Dorveille

2016-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

A metric shed-load, nay airship-hangar-load of people suffer from a life-shortening condition. It’s talked about, occasionally examined in detail, but doesn’t get as big a press as, say, diabetes, cancer, dementia or, the recent fashionable killer, motor neurone disease (ALS.)*

From a Guardian article:

“Do you get enough sleep? Of course you don’t. Very few people with busy jobs, young children or smartphones do.”

I don’t. I don’t need a sleep app to tell me I don’t. I don’t have the will to do anything about it.

But wait!

The article shows me that I’m a throwback, an artifact of a time long-past when scientists, pseudo-statisticians and armchair statisticians (politicians!) didn’t rule our lives. Wine is good for you one month and bad for you the next. Chocolate. Beef. Chicken. MSG. Sugar. Salt. Fast food. Life after 30 will be next…

Moderation is the key, understanding when you’ve had enough, knowing when it’s OK to conform… and when it isn’t.

Sleep 8 hours? It’d be nice. Sleep a continuous 8? Pressure!

No longer.

A question I must ask myself:

“How do I now regulate my 2 periods of sleep to get the best out of them?”

*The Ice Bucket Challenge made a short-term impact. ‘Twas tempered only by my certain knowledge that most used the thing as a social event, and that it made enemies of other, more-established charities. Envy.

Biscuits

2016-04-04T00:00:00+00:00

We have an office custom; on or around one’s birthday one brings along cakes, pastries, biscuits or even better (depending on the significance of the number) and shares with immediate colleagues & all-and-sundry. I’m no different; this year I bought 1kg of shortbread biscuits and placed then at the allotted, er… place.

3 hours after arrival they’ve nearly all gone. I got it right. It feels good.

Thanks to those who wished me a happy birthday, even though my rationale for not bringing stuff in on the day sounded a bit lame. At least the Amazon Prime Now explanation went down well (see yesterday’s ‘Order’ post) - as did the biscuits.

Now, those who just take and walk off are bad enough. There’s nothing worse though than someone inquiring whose birthday it is, then walking either away or past one’s desk. Eating a biscuit!

Ungrateful, ignorant, self-entitled bast[CARRIER LOST]

Order

2016-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

There are a lot of things in this life that a good Getting Things Done (GTD) or reminder app will help with when attempting to sustain (or create) a sense or order in one’s life.

Order is important.

Quite why I used the Amazon Prime Now delivery service - instead of going to the shop - to order the following escapes me. Necessary, yet…

In order of ordering:

A 1kg box of shortbread biscuits,
A box of Thorntons chocolates (445g or thereabouts),
A squeezy bottle of tomato ketchup (unfortunately Heinz, it’s all they have).

Local politics

2016-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

The local elections roll around again in a month. I’m hoping that the prospective candidates from the party I’ve voted for all my life will make some form of appearance.

It doesn’t need to be physical; I’d settle for each candidate going to the towns’s independent local news site and briefly stating a few words; why they’re standing for election.

I’d settle for a leaflet hurriedly pushed through the door by ninjas, stealth-delivered at silly o’clock; a document briefly outlining who they are, where they’re from, why they consider themselves successful, and why I should vote for them.

Twitter worked for me a few years ago as the campaigning wound down towards its… what’s the opposite of climax‽ I simply asked a thus-far silent candidate why, especially when there’s the easy publicity from that local news site… and she added her pitch to the electorate.

Simple.

And, as the number of votes declined each subsequent election, I asked again. And, faced with the inevitable, I gave up asking. They’re not worth it. Really.

This year I’m looking at two important opportunities to exercise my right to vote (or to abstain):

Local elections,
The European Union Referendum: Do we stay or do we leave the EU?

Both are important. Important.

The first gives a small voice to us ordinary people at a local level; an opportunity to address concerns like poorly-phased traffic lights, repeated illegal parking on the estate, why we shouldn’t have speed humps; important stuff.

Now, these are the sort of issues any party’s elected representative should be addressing; it’s irrelevant which party I vote for in these instances, as ‘my’ councillor it matters not how I voted.

The bigger picture is what really matters, but past local level we have no say in political matters. None. So it’s pointless voting in National elections.

So, that established…

The second upcoming poll, a referendum, will eventually determine how successful Britain (England at least if everyone else removes themselves) can be when dealing with the rest of the world in trade. And stuff.

Europe seems to be a diminishing force in pretty much everything. Internal political idiocy and a resistance to reason dictates that nothing good will ever appear from the parliaments however many levels of beaurocracy are removed… but to be outside of it, unable to exert even the slightest of pressures to change the system, it’s folly. Madness. ‘Out’ gets us a reduction in dues, a nationalistic feeling of pride (a ‘we did it!’ hubris) and nothing else - a phyrric victory for those who would…

Ok, I know which way I’m voting in the second poll, but in the first apathy is the order of the day. No not apathy, but it’s not anger either…

Why should I vote for someone I don’t know? I don’t really know any of the people I’ve voted for in the past so it’s an odd one, this. I vote for people who I don’t know because they at least make an effort to tell me who they are and what they stand for. Merely belonging to a party I express an allegiance to just does not qualify them to gain my support.

No-one understands the referendum’s issues, no-one. Everyone’s guessing, dressing it up in hope or doom, analysts adding game theory to it in the hope something good will drop. So what will happen in or out? Everyone’s got their own ideas, it’ll keep the media busy for months. And we’ll all be wrong in the detail.

The good thing about the second: were not voting for a person. It’s for a system or an ideal, dependent on your views. It should be easy to choose a box to add my cross in. But thought, a process of reasoning, an inability to simply vote as my parents did. Hard, groundbreaking stuff, this.

(sighs)

One thing at a time then…

Dear local election candidates: I’m again ready for disappointment. Make me wrong.

In Betweeners

2016-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Elaborating on (or maybe not, it’s not my place to say) my ‘Between’ post yesterday, @matigo provided some nicely written (as-ever) insights into a modern curse..

‘Curse’ is my cruel trick; a word, a hook to drag you in. Oops!

Social burnout.

Most here will have a social networking networking history, may even identify personally with Jason’s words… For me it’s a case of ‘the wrong time of year’.

For you…?

Choice. While I had only IRC and MS Chat, that’s all I used. IRC was a one-day thing for me; i can’t recall any actual interactions at all. Literally one day. I got online and, within the first month explored every protocol and service available to me as a new Microsoft Network (MSN) customer.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention ICQ in my blog post; a service I used mainly to connect to people I already knew online. In real time. Mine was, probably still is, a 6-digit user ID.

Nowadays though we’ve dozens of places we can go to express ourselves. There are social networks, forums, niche services… There we can chat about our desires, hopes, dreams… with other like-minded people, hopefully without troublemakers intervening. Most of us want a quiet life when we want a quiet life.

Yes, that.

So, App.net (ADN); it’s a place with lots of good memories, good people, but it’s been let down by its founders and those in search of a bigger audience.

Now mine’s not a massive criticism. I’m hardly there at all, my feeling’s more one of a remembrance of the emotional baggage stemming from the SOTN post, the frankly-ridiculous antagonism (I’ll never understand why people don’t simply block) and the network’s inevitable subsequent decline.

And guilt.

I’m not doing #QuoteSunday (always a low-engagement thing) in part due to IFTTT’s ADN support shutting down, nor am I running #ThemeMonday (once an entirely different proposition.)

That reminds me, I should really move the #ThemeMonday page at my site and replace it with… Sometime.

I must examine my other social network profiles linking to ADN, to see whether I must move them to where I’m most comfortable calling my social hub.

Or must I?

A perhaps-telling FYI; Last year, despite others not doing, I upgraded my ADN account to ‘Developer’. More of a statement of intent, a gesture, an attempt to pay back in… I developed nothing of course but got a vague sense of wellbeing, and a hammer to add to my bio. THIS year I downgraded. To an ‘ordinary’ paid user account. Not all the way to ‘40’.

Hollow.

But here I am at 10C, with a Premium account paid-up until 2017 (over the top of Jason’s invite) developing an ‘app’ for 10C. How odd.

So, back to the blog post. Burnout maybe, but I’m happy to call 10centuries.org (10C) home.

One thing to bear in mind; I’m crap at publicising stuff; hence the one successful invite. Kinda successful, I’m hoping the guy I invited will spend a bit more time at 10C…

And that others will follow. There’s nothing to lose. No ads, no spam. Really.

And here be (more) Adventures! Maybe.

</waffling>

Insurance

2016-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Car insurance: I got home today, opened the insurance company letter, and sat. Quickly.

They think I’ll be paying more than £130 per year extra to them.

Ah, no.

A quick price comparison site search shows that, if I’m careful choosing the cover, I could get a policy £500 cheaper than I’d be paying if I allowed inertia to dictate terms.

RAC Insurance: yourselves you can go and fu[CARRIER LOST]

Between

2016-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

It would be fair to say that I’m between social networks. I don’t mean I’m not participating, no. I mean that I’m inhabiting the void between those I used to be active in. Ok, ok, I’m bouncing about in either the Venn diagram voids or the overlaps between services. Or both.

It’s an odd sensation.

So, my past:

MSN Chat, from early 1997 until autumn 1998 was my entry point into online chat. It was easy. I fell into the What’s Cooking Online (WCOL) room entirely by accident and stayed there for a while,
Facebook appeared in my life around 2008. It’s still there, though you wouldn’t know I’d been around since then were you to look at my ‘Friends’ list. They’re pretty-much all people I know, see?
btinternet.chatter grabbed me in 1998 as a BT phone customer with the related btinternet ISP, once I’d spread my wings away from the cosy MSN. Though it was shut down some time ago, I occasionally attempt to keep in touch with the lovely people who inhabited it. Closure notwithstanding it’s been around 11 years since I was last active there anyway,
Twitter, we all know about Twitter; it was my home from 2010 until…
I discovered App.net, early in April 2013. A great community, lovely people, an ad-free and owner-meddling-free environment; I can’t quite figure out why I’m not there right now…
10Centuries.org is where I ‘am’ right now though, more of a dipper than prolific. Great people (a number* from ADN) and a comfortable, spam and ad-free environment. The network, as I’m sure you’ve heard me say, is in an invite-only phase right now. I have some.

Well ok, I do know why I’m not active. I’ve spent more time programming/developing/attempting to fix and evolve my 10C client - and avoiding talking about it online - than being ‘social’. Weird.

*100%.

SIM

2016-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

Last year, amidst a mood of indecision, I decided to move my expired phone contract to the UK’s budget MVNO ‘Giffgaff’. It’s cheap, user-friendly, 4G, and cheap.

Then, eventually, I started to compare my data speeds with others on different 4G networks, and the rot set in. ‘Slow’ is the order of the day.

The company I work for grabbed a very tempting mobile discount scheme from their new provider, but I looked around for a more customer-(wallet)-friendly alternative.

My deliberations bear fruit tomorrow; my new contract SIM arrived at the weekend, my current number will be ported between networks sometime during Wednesday.

I had a test of course. The uploads are 3 times my current network’s, the downloads 10 times faster.

And I’m getting 3 times the data for the same price.

Which is nice.

Bugs

2016-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

“Developing an application is not easy.”

So I said earlier today, at a time I really couldn’t see an end to the failures cascading through my application. It’s the weirdest feeling, knowing there’s nothing wrong with code; code that resolutely fails to work. And when it does work despite a total absence of things that should make it work, it’s the weirdest feeling.

It feels like that scene in ‘Men In Black’, the one where we’re shown to be an utterly-insignificant part of a hopefully more-advanced-than-us civilisation…

For providing the opportunity to exercise my brain, thanks must go to Jason Irwin - creator of the 10Centuries social network! My life would be a lot simpler right now without 10C. Incidentally, I have invites available if you want to have a social change!

Links:

My application.

10Centuries.org

I am @bazbt3.

Stripper

2016-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yes, it’s that time of year again; we’re decorating!

Paint, paper (the big bedroom), mild peril.

Invisible

2016-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

During winter the darker hours bring out the worst in people. I’m not talking about death, mayhem, increased criminality; it’s a simple as a disregard for child and personal safety.

Every morning I’ve been seeing see cyclists ride along busy roads, black clothing, black bags, black bikes. Even on the wrong side of the road. Lights? None. Adults don’t seem to care, and children… Well, surely parents and schoolteachers should be monitoring departures and arrivals?

There’s a phrase. Most don’t seem to know what it means, don’t seem to care:

“Personal resonsibility”
noun,
modern, ambitious, ambiguous:
1. An overwhelming reliance on state initiatives to promote a sense of wellbeing in self.

Yesterday evening around 5pm, as I was driving home, I spotted a young man walking past a high hedge above a low wall. That is I eventually spotted him; his clothing (not camo) hid him very effectively. Though visibility was reduced by that time of day, by no means everyone had side- or headlights on…

And don’t get me started on drivers of black cars - overwhelmingly the most common group to avoid side- and headlights entirely, Is it a part of the mindset involved in the purchasing decision?

Modern LED car sidelights are annoying too. Daytime running lights at the front, but absent entirely from the rear, bypass common sense entirely. Drivers get in the car safe in the knowledge that people in front can see them…

A stealth, Darwin-Awards-winning society, that’s what we have.

Steps

2016-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

A week and a half ago the Sony Lifelog app on my phone announced that I’d passed a milestone: 500,000 recorded steps.

Its not a massive total for the around 5-1/4 months I’ve been allowing the app to record my comings & goings. It averages less than 3,200 a day. But it means I’m on track for over a million in a year.

A step millionaire.

I’m wondering now what it would have been without the 2 days in London (>33,000) and without Ruby dog…

Thanks; to both bustling metropolis & our chomper.

Stand

2016-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Assembling a new, glass-shelved TV stand is very much like making love to, er…

The hardest bit isn’t assembling the stand, a thing with pictogram instructions only - which suggests 2 people would be better at it than you.

The hardest bit isn’t manoeuvring the TV on top of it from the old, plainly-incompatible stand rescued when the previous, mammoth, CRT TV eventually met its maker (figuratively!)

The hardest part isn’t assembling the anti-tip safety strap behind the telly - which has been moved into a temporary but awkward-for-this-stage location.

No, the hardest part is figuring out which cable should be where to minimise the clutter from the myriad of modern device connections - clutter now painfully-obvious through clear glass.

I’d prepared, obviously, by disconnecting everything and laying it out around the room…

Useless.

So, in the time-honoured tradition of the British male when face-to-face with a certain defeat, I resorted to an anagram:

“Oh duck it, it’s goof enough!”

Rubus cockburnianus

2016-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

My wife was watching TV earlier; Monty Don, the gardening programme host, mentioned a flower variety and I’m assuming a caption appeared onscreen.

A quote from her email:

“As soon as Monty Don said it I weed my pants laughing. And then I though of you x”

So…

Rubus cockburnianus.

Really.

It’s a bramble.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus_cockburnianus

Do your own research. It’s real, not a ‘funny’ Wikipedia plant.

Sperm

2016-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

As my youngest daughter started to read one of her homework reading assignment books, ‘Amazing Whales’, I have to admit I struggled mightily attempting descriptions before she got the book’s true facts.

It’s something we attempt every reading session; try to guess, then read, then debrief.

This time though one word in particular made me pause…

…and, silently, admit defeat.

Easy to describe: Dolphin; Killer, Blue, Grey…
Intermediate: Baleen, Beluga…
Hard: Sperm…

Luckily my wife was out walking Ruby dog, otherwise it could have got rather messy.

In other news, Bob The Builder seems to have had a makeover for 2016.

Sacrilege!

Jetwash

2016-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

My girls and wife went out to the craft shop earlier, getting stuff to decorate their Easter bonnets. I jetwashed the patio - this time with the lance rather than the usual brush with rotating jets.

Not the best idea I’ve ever had; there was mud everywhere; along the path down the side of the house, on the walls, sheds, plastic wendy-house, in my shoes, socks, jeans and undies; there still is some along the side of the house.

And…

I flooded the utility room; the hose/tap adaptor is rubbish.

Thank goodness for fluffy towels!

Stony ground

2016-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

A variation on a theme; a joke told to my daughters a few minutes ago:

“What did the Italian man say when asked why he was leading Bambi, who was wearing 2 eye patches?

‘I’ve-a no i-dea!’“

I’m imagining your response, dear reader, is the same my girls gave me.

My wife didn’t tut. Progress.

Slumber

2016-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

There’s a modern disease I share with a good proportion of the world. There’s not a massive social stigma attached to it these days yet all kinds of crackpot remedies are supposed to help…

So what is this thing?

I have trouble getting to sleep, sleeping, and waking at a reasonable hour.

The central foundation - part 1 of my journey to nighttime joy - comes from a potentially surprising source.

Last year I wanted a Windows tablet; HP had just brought one out under £100 (US$99) and I’d decided a planned hobby could benefit from its price and convenience. So I searched for reviews.

The first YouTube review I came across was very informative, as the numbers of views attests. Watching it at bedtime though I noticed a curious phenomenon: I’d consistently fall asleep before it ended.

It still works.

Here it is:

https://youtu.be/dby5yqbP7IA

Let me know what you th

Paralympics

2016-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Posting something about the upcoming Rio Olympics yesterday, I asked a question:

“Who are we supporting this time?”

It should have been obvious really. But it wasn’t. In case it’s not for you, watch this YouTube video…

Turn the sound up…

Its only 1-1/2 minutes long.

Martin, thanks.

Olympics

2016-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

It’s nearly 4 years since the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. 4 years. Wow!

Rio De Janeiro!

Er…

Where’s the advance publicity here in the UK? Look, I know a country hosting an event is bound to have a crazy run-up to the main event; local interest in the shape of homegrown heroes* and the possibility of winning a ticket lottery to view a niche sport on a weekday evening are things everyone can grasp hold of…

Who are we supporting this time?

*No, not heroes. Emphatically-not heroes. Role models of course (until the wheels fall off) but a single-minded dedication to accuracy or speed does not a hero make.

Legacy (apps…)

2016-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

I made a conscious choice to develop my 10Centuries.org app (10cbazbt3.py) in Python 3.x. Python 3.x was introduced in 2008, 2.x updates ended in 2010; 3.x seemed a logical choice.

If only I’d read a little deeper.

Even developing a trivial Python app to run on Google’s Android OS requires Python 2.7. That’s requires. I don’t have a Mac or a daily driver iPhone so cannot develop for OS X or iOS. An interesting recent development though (thanks for the tip @jmreekes) is that the iOS Pythonista app is being updated (parallel app development) to support Python 3.x.

Why do I care? Mine is a personal project, right? The very earliest stages of development, right?

Yeah, about that…

It’s good when someone shows an interest in a thing one’s created. But to be unable to use it because their workflow is based entirely around a deprecated version of the language one’s working with…

It’s understandable; when even Google continues to use it because to not would introduce massive compatibility/update issues, why rock the boat?

But there are further obstacles to overcome before my thing is anything other than a post-only 10C client:

Making sense of the API JSON so that a user can interact without the needing to read through pages of ‘gibberish’,
Cross-platform compatibility,
And other stuff…

Aaah… Dunno.

Drink

2016-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Right now I feel as if I’ve melted. I’ve been drinking wine; half a bottle of a rather nice Merlot. It’s a ‘Turner Road’ or ‘Turner’s Road’ or something, my vision’s a bit blurry now too. I must also apologise in advance if this post makes more sense than the usual…

I say it’s a ‘rather nice’ wine but, to be honest, it’s not an objective statement based on what other people think, it’s simply one I like. Don’t get me wrong, I read reviews of red wines, Scottish single malt whiskies, preground coffees for my AeroPress, cars, computers, USB drives, NASs, dog and cat toys, TV stands… and occasionally even buy stuff rather than indulging myself with procrastination.

Other folks’ opinions are of course important to me, but I’m my own man. I was my own man even as a boy. Family life is attempting to beat that out of me; resistance is futile…

I spent quite some time choosing mt prefect whisky: a Laphroaig 15-year-old; first tasted on a cruise down the River Nile, now available only as a special edition, far beyond my budget. If I had a big birthday coming up I could perhaps flutter my eyelashes in the hope someone’d buy me one. But even I shudder at that prospect despite my innate sense that’ I’d be worth it.

So, this Merlot has achieved something a few hours of productive coding this weekend failed to. A sense of achievement.

No, I don’t understand either.

Haircut

2016-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

The mobile hairdresser paid a visit today. She tidied the girls’ fringes and hair at the back, did something with my wife’s and, rather odd this; dropped a load of greying hair on our kitchen floor after she’d cut mine.

I feel a lot less scruffy now. Maybe I should shave; back to a goatee?

Documenting

2016-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

I decided early to add comments to the code I’m putting together for my early-alpha application for the 10Centuries.org social network.

I’ve now also begun to document the install and first run, the basic usage of the application, and spent more time cataloguing and resolving security, usability and efficiency issues.

In addition to a sense of directed purpose it’s surprisingly absorbing.

Take a look here:

https://github.com/bazbt3/10cbazbt3

I still have 10Centuries invites available, if you’re interested in clearing out your social networking cobwebs. The site’s web interface kills my thing, easily!

Conversations tbere are heading healthily away from discussing the network and towards real-life stuff.

Does anyone like coffee?

Plumbers

2016-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

3 plumbers were asked to quote for work - to replace 2 radiators. Here’s a mercifully shortened tale of woe…

Dear Plumbers, how difficult can it be to:

Visit when someone asks for a quotation?
When a potential customer is visited, to prepare a quotation, estimate, something, in a reasonable time, i.e. not simply disappear?
Do a good job when you get the work? And that’s the key here; we got a crap ‘un…

He changed the radiators, that much is true. The rest though, naah,’ twas a bit crap.

Rescheduled twice, from times that suited us to times that emphatically did not,
Flexible plastic piping to join up to the rigid copper stuff,
The cut ends from the copper pipes left by the side of the bed for me to stand on,
He obviously hadn’t doors at home; Ruby dog got out, he’d left the front door open as far as it could possibly go. Twice,
Left the packaging materials for us to clear away,
The hall carpet is soaked,
Black gunk left in the bedroom carpet and outside, he mustn’t have put a sheet down - or used the packaging materials,
Didn’t bleed the air out of the system before he left,
When he returned to get heat into our home he spent more time telling me we had a crap system, that our new boiler wasn’t working, that…

The worst bit though, when he told me he was on a course in London today & tomorrow. My wife mentioned afterwards that he’d spoken on his phone (loudspeaker of course) with a woman just around the corner about a job he was doing there today.

During his followup call later, after I’d got rid of him, he let me know that I could ring him today and if we were having problems he could look on Thursday. The thing is, consistency is all in attempting to spread positive feedback about a business. To tell me “I’m not being evasive” when telling me why he couldn’t make it today; sorry mate, I’ll be looking for tradesman review sites now.

So I spent time bleeding the system until it just worked.

2am.

Today for lunch I went around to the café and bought a spam & egg butty and blueberry muffin, and sat at my desk to eat them.

Feeling much better now.

Mothering Sunday

2016-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

This Mothering Sunday (aka Mothers Day) we went to church - it was the Brownies’ and Ladybirds’ Flag parades too.

I thought about my dear departed mum and the sacrifices she and dad made to keep us comfortable and to support me until I started to work…

During the service the choir sang Psalm 127, and the temporary vicar asked us, with a smile, to follow along too - if we could.

Yeah, it’s impossible without choral training and a safety net, so I simply traced the words with my index finger. I was lucky that I could read the words; I’d taken my reading glasses along this time!

So, here it is, Psalm 127, from the King James Version:

1 Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

I occasionally have dark thoughts about the results of my quivering arrows, but overall, in a non-spiritual sense, I’ve been blessed by my 2 girls.

The thing is, I don’t really care if I’ve misinterpreted the Psalm; I took something good away from it.

Snow

2016-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

It snowed in Rochdale today, and Rochdale ground to a near-halt. My drive to work, a journey that normally takes around 20 minutes, took 2 hours!

It happens every winter, every time it snows.

The utterly clueless idiots-behind-their-wheels appear to make my desire for a 4-wheel-drive car a near-irrelevance.

‘Near’ isn’t total; that’ll do for me.

Hello World

2016-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

print ("Hello World")

What’s the next step into my journey towards learning some Python programming language?

Creating an application to authorise, authenticate and then post to the 10Centuries social network.

Baby steps.

Yeah.

(I gave up on bash shell scripting early.)

Spacetime

2016-02-29T00:00:00+00:00

I got married late in the third quarter of 2006, but this isn’t about anniversaries, family, lazing about in a tropical paradise, no; it’s about technology. Again.

I gave away a phone; I don’t recall whether it was before or after my wedding, I just know when I got married I no longer had it as a daily driver, and I know what I replaced the phone with.

The chronology of all this isn’t particularly important.

What is, is the fact that around 9 or 10 years after I stopped using the device, the lucky recipient sent his first SMS. Not first on that phone, but first ever.

Last week.

I’m someone who believes it’s an absolute necessity to be always connected to the Internet, or at least a mobile network. Always able to communicate with family, friends, people who can do jobs for me, my girls’ school, etc.; so it’s not an overstatement mentioning it was quite the revelation.

A life without convenience.

I don’t intend to change the way I approach my current state-of-the-art portable computing device on the strength of this new understanding of our modern life, but it’s an interesting concept. A life without alerts, without beeps and blurps and bloops; it sounds relaxing.

But could I cope?

I’ll probably never find out, not unless the power and phone grid fails.

Technology

2016-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

The mists of time have of course dulled the memory, but it was the early nineteen seventies, was probably a very early, very basic, very Casio pocket calculator (replacing a slide rule) that started me off down the road to…

I’m pretty certain my dad bought the thing whilst we were on our annual 2-week holiday, somewhere on the south coast of England. It was awesome, it was perfect with its green LED display. It just worked. Little did I know at the time where it would lead me…

To live in an age of such rapid technological advancement is a constant source of wonder for me. Though the transistor predates me by a significant number of years, the miniaturisation it enabled brought possibilities unimaginable a few years earlier.

My dad was an electronics hobbyist; his life spanned the time after the creation of the first thermionic valve devices, through the transistor revolution, through amateur radio enthusiasm, right up to the home and business computer boom.

He might have viewed younger generations’ disdain for learning about the technology which makes things ‘just work’ and their ‘need’ for the newest, fastest, best devices their parents (or disposable income) can buy. He wasn’t, as far as I can recall, an old curmudgeon, he simply liked to get his hands dirty.

So do I, to a point; but I’m as guilty as the next child in wanting ‘improvements.’

I did my bit in the nineteen-eighties though. Computer hobbyist! My third computer had a rich collection of programming languages available, and so I used most. It had analogue/digital interfaces, and those briefly opened up a whole new world to me.

I typed magazine program listings ‘in’, fixed the typos introduced by the technologically-illiterate publishers, and adapted the knowledge I gained to create even better routines.

Heck, I even flowcharted my programs!

I designed and built a digital joystick (microswitches) and, from rotary potentiometers and microswitches, an analogue joystick and a baseboard-mounted 2-arm graphics tablet. I wrote software to control what happened onscreen, taking inputs from the…

I messed about with a few variants of BASIC, played with Forth, Pascal, steered around anything to do (with (Lisp’s braces)), and even dabbled with 6502 Aasmbly language (a text character Space Invaders clone that ran way too fast to play.)

And then life got in the way, though I did play games during the interludes between life and work. Programming was largely forgotten, consigned to history.

We don’t need to create stuff nowadays though; talented developers, designers, creators - they can do it all for us. Pick up a modern computing device - computer, network, tablet, phablet, phone - and stuff is but a quick download away. Life is easy.

Things indeed just work. There’s the expectation that they just work, but a very basic lack of understanding of the ‘how.’ It’s fine, I recognise that not everyone had the desire to spend time, is capable of, designing a program to do even the simplest of tasks. Life is easy for a reason - we’re standing in the shoulders of giants every time we breathe, it seems.

Ive been blogging - stream-of-consciousness style - of my Raspberry Pi Linux playtime. I started with the intention of creating a niche blogging aid, yet the ‘something’ that’s followed me from the early nineteen-seventies persists still.

I could blog on any number of host platforms, yet I choose to restrict my words to four:

I self-host. This option brings by far the most enjoyment, but it’s fraught with unforeseen technical difficulties and the need to slide a learning curve.
I use GitHub Pages. Slightly less complex, though I used the framework the service provided as the base for my self-hosted site.
I use 10Centuries v2. A personal project by Jason Irwin, it saw a fair amount of traction with App.net users, me included, for its simplicity. It’s in the process if being superseded.
I recently started to use 10Centuries v4, v2’s successor; and would very much like to migrate all my v2 posts there eventually.

10Centuries isn’t simply a blogging platform though, there’s:

Blogging (of course),
Podcasting - almost painless,
A burgeoning social network (posts are Blurbs, not Tweets.) Until this weekend the network was a limited private beta, everyone followed everyone else, but now it’s about to expand - with a limited number of user invites available,
Developer access to the 10Cv4 API (application program interface!)

I’ve already had a brief play with the API; created an app authorisation token, and then an access token to interact with the API before my first ‘hello world’ post - at which point my head asploded!

It’s not every day I’m programming on a computer controlled by the computer on my lap. (SSH is magic, pure and simple.)

I’m not alone attempting to develop stuff. Fortunately everyone else has relevant skills!

For its freshness, newness, openness and all-round friendliness I can easily recommend 10Cv4. It’s a place that both promises and delivers on the promise that App.net emerged with and, to a degree, still retains.

Owning your data, no ads, no sophisticated algorithms to re-order posts in what often seems like a totally random manner elsewhere - all powerful draws. It worked for me.

The ‘paint is still drying’ on a few features, some are in a state of rapid development and heck, some aren’t even implemented yet! But there’ll be nothing obvious getting in your way.

If you’re like me and simply want to chat about ‘stuff’, have no message to spread, no desire to attract legions of followers just for the sake of numbers, then 10Cv4 is for you.

If you’re dissatisfied with the state of your social network (or ‘social’ in general) and want a change, a fresh start perhaps, and would welcome my invite, let me know!

Don’t expect me to be there all the time, or be a social network evangelist though, I’m spreading myself too thinly as it is! Neglecting you on more than one network is weighing heavily.

But I’m having fun and that, for me, just works.

Maths

2016-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Not maths as such, more precisely pseudomaths:

endhour == 23
starthour == 7
uploadpayload == 24
dayspermonth == 30

bandwidthused == (( endhour - starthour ) - 1 ) * uploadpayload * dayspermonth

bandwidthused = Oopsie!

Miscalculating the amount of data I was uploading to my web host would have totalled 6 times my monthly bandwidth allowance. As it happens it was lucky I caught it early; the 24MB included an early version of the entire folder contents I expected to upload - off by three times my expectation!

Felling silly.

Fixed? Well, I temporarily stopped the uploads prior to changing the routine to run every 3 hours - which may still exceed the allocation but I’m betting on…

I hope I can figure out how to transfer only changes to my site repo. I’ll really need to closely monitor my sh*t.

Shi(f)t

2016-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

During November 2015 I decided to start a daily journal - an activity which soon changed into an almost-daily series of blog posts. During the time since I’ve noticed a shift in the way I approach social media. I’m not sure I like it.

The blogging exercise quickly morphed into a need to create a test site, added to GitHub.com in parallel to my main 10Centuries blog account. I’ve also been experimenting with rudimentary self-hosting.

As this has happened I’ve been neglecting both my blog and those people who comment on the posts. I’ve not even been keeping up with the shiny new 10Centuries.org after my initial flurry of (hopefully constructive) fault reporting during the early private beta stage.

So it’s time for a rethink.

Sure it may be the time of year at fault; I’m not alone in noticing a realignment of priorities away from social media. But this time around I’m analysing in a bit more depth.

So…

Rather than concentrate on ‘self’ I think it’s time I looked at others’ blogs. It’s only fair.

I’ve quite a backlog of posts in my RSS feed reader. Time to read, folks.

If you have a blog of your own please let me know, if I have or if I haven’t already got it queued up I’ll take a look!

Thanks!

Twentynine

2016-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

February 29 (Wikipedia) is a date that appears only during years divisible by 4 (with an integer remainder!) - apart from those divisible by 100 (but not 400) no, don’t stop reading…

There are a lot of interesting notable dates, people and legal facts mentioned on the Wikipedia page, so it’s quite a scroll to get to…

In this modern age Bachelor’s Day doesn’t retain the same importance it once had. But if you’re on the edge of popping the question to the subject of your undying love, it’s a heck of a day to do it.

Gloves on standby!

Testy2

2016-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Finally, we have liftoff! A week-and-a-half in, and I’ve managed to configure a £30 computer and create a functional pair of shell scripts to post blithering idiocy to my test site/blog.

Streamlining it all to improve security, to post only changed files within the site, and to have the computer run connected only to power & the local network are my next goals.

Achievable.

Testy

2016-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

I’m annoyed that it’s still not working. My blog post build thing.

This is indeed a test post; thanks for your patience at this time.

Insomnia

2016-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been asleep, honest! Knowing there would be a solution to my Raspberry Pi automation woes I started to search around 2am.

Google and Stackoverflow.com are pretty handy at this time of night; ‘rvm installation not working: “RVM is not a function”.

It turns out that all I needed to obviate my need to run the scripts in a login shell was to copy the second line of code from ~/.bash_profile to ~/.bashrc.

Thankyou Haris Krajina!

No, I’m not going to wait up.

Engineer

2016-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

A small number of us wear similar sweaters for work - similar in that they’re self-coloured and pleasantly form-fitting. Ok, in my case it’s because they’ve shrunk in the wash… (but that’s the subject of a previous, uncomfortable-for-me, blog entry here.)

Yesterday a slightly awkward exchange occurred at the coffee machine, one which I felt an urge to follow up by email. I’d had a brilliant idea - a Eureka moment (but without the nudity and attendant spillages.) Here’s the brief exchange:

“As an engineer I’m bound by a code of professional conduct to suggest a solution to the jumper hue issue; a daily palette based on the colours of the rainbow. In ascending frequency order, and by day.

Unfortunately though, my purple one today falls outside the rigid boundaries of the, it must be said, unfortunately limited scheme. Your flagrant Thursday jumper today merits a red card I’m afraid, though I’m sure you could carry the visible spectrum off better than I were you to try harder.

I’d better start work on version 2.0.

Baz.”

The reply came a little later. I’d honestly not expected one.

“Hi Barrie,

Thank you so much for your email. Well, what can I say? I’m disappointed with myself that I have got off to a bad start on the first day of the week, but I do feel that I need to correct you on something. Your jumper hue is not purple. I do believe it’s a wine/beetroot shade, but definitely not purple.

Whilst I appreciate and do accept the card, I can’t accept a red one. Red is just not my colour. I don’t do red and that’s that. Red is not good for us gingers, I’m afraid and as I am too bound by a professional code of conduct as a ginger, you will simply have to come up with another colour.

I eagerly await your palette…

Have a nice day,”

Me, speechless, though not apoplectically-so:

”*Baz stills sense of outrage, ~~stands~~ sits corrected, starts work on v2.0.1*”

The conciliatory response came an agonising-for-me 50 minutes later:

“I must say that the beetroot/wine colour does suit you though. A warm colour for these Wintery times. I would even go as far to say that it’s perhaps a burgundy. There’s not many who can carry such a shade off.”

Awesome. And, with that, order in my universe was restored.

Which was nice.

Anticipation

2016-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Apologies for my absence from everywhere social for the last week. I haz bean programin stuf!!!2!¡

The 2 shell scripts to take my GitHub blog repo and throw it up at my Web host now work. Automagically. I’m amazed!

Next step: think of something to write, post it at GitHub, and see if I’m full of hot air or not.

Currently the most recent post at git.bt3.com is ‘Engineer’, which is preceded by ‘Nerdity’.

Midnight UK time should prove something - this post should be up round about that time.

Nerdity

2016-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

Another short one today; it’s been a ‘nothing’ weekend outside my ongoing Raspberry Pi playtime.

Here’s a repeat link to what I wanted to do with it, what I’ve done, and what I’ve actually accomplished so far - which is actually now 2/3 of the total.

My Raspberry Pi Setup - at GitHub.com.

So, what else have I accomplished?

Walked Ruby dog,
Helped with the girls’ homework,
Bought a pair of walking shoes to replace those that Ruby chomped,
Washed, dried, put away clothes,
Changed the cat litter,
Been shown a paint colour chart; my wife’s chosen a new colour for the hallway…

In-short, underperformed.

Git

2016-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

A short one today. My nearly-week-old Raspberry Pi is now behaving, more-or-less.* Here’s a link to what I wanted to do, what I’ve done, and what I’ve actually accomplished so far.

My Raspberry Pi Setup - at GitHub.com.

It’s not overly-technical, nor is it particularly helpful or comprehensive. The plan is to expand a bit, make it more readable.

There are spelling errors sprinkled throughout, and it’s an early draft.

*After 4 complete resets to factory settings I’d be silly to admit I’ve not learned a darn thing about Linux.

Meh

2016-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Summary: Meh.

Detail: Feeling crap, like death warmed up.

I was going to write a long piece about how my recent blog posts weren’t necessarily a true reflection of self. The only stuff I’ve mentioned recently is negative, judgmental or at least ambivalent towards ‘things.’

I lead a charmed life though, I’m lucky I’m in a position to be able to moan about first-world problems.

Anyone reading will tire of me mentioning the Raspberry Pi computer. Yesterday’s enforced break from playing with it brought with it a welcome pause; the first day since I bought the thing that I haven’t felt the need to reset it due to my misplaced enthusiasm for moving forward.

We’ll see.

Sideways seems a fair direction to head in, for now.

I had a bit of a play this afteroon, between sitting on [redacted] and made progress; as can build and serve to my computer, can FTP to my web server and have it served from there.

I found a bug in the Jekyll static site generator though; or at least the one on my system. The most recent post ‘No’ fails to display its title when rendered locally. Renaming it to ‘Nope’ works but I’d like to Zzzz…

Uniform

2016-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

What idiot would design a nurses uniform to make it more stylish, form-fitting, and ignore the fact that 2 separate machine temperature cycles are required to wash it effectively‽

Honestly, the rank stupidity of those in charge of big organisations never fails to surprise me.

How difficult can it be to choose one material that’s hard-wearing, washes in one load? Like the scrubs my wife used to get.

Maybe there’s a metaphor screaming to be let out here.

Ruby

2016-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Ruby, I could tear my hair out!!

It’s probably not what you think; Ruby dog’s fine, it’s the computer Ruby I’m just about to rant about.

When I last used Linux the main stumbling block was Ruby - or the version manager incompatibilities with what I needed to do. It’s no different this time around with the Raspberry Pi.

The credit-card-sized computer comes with Ruby 1.8. The stuff I want to use requires at least 1.9.3 (I think), so I opted to install 2.0.0. No matter what I did, when I’ve set it all up and it reports 2.0.0 and I try to install Jekyll, Jekyll reports that listen requires at least 1.9.3.

But, but…

So I reset the bloody thing for a second consecutive night and I’m off to bed!

Maybe the Raspbian Debian thing isn’t up to the task and I need something with a little more ‘oomph!’

At this point I’ll take suggestions from anyone!

Next steps:

Get rid of Ruby 1.8 completely,
Reinstall RVM and Ruby 2.0.0.
Install Jekyll!!
Install sqlite3 prior to
Gogs - a Git repo manager.

Not a big list is it.

Nope

2016-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Another summary post, this of a wasted day:

Personal

The lady who was supposed to visit my oldest daughter today didn’t show up on time. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I rang 1-1/4 hours after the scheduled start time.

“Oh, she’s been off sick for a week-and-a-half, can you give me your daughter’s name please?”

I did so.

“I’m just looking at her diary, it seems we missed you.”

I then launched into a rant: ‘I took the day off, my wife’s stayed awake after her night shift, you’ve got a disappointed little girl here; tell the manager we’re yet again dissatisfied by your lack of organisation…’

Home

A local tradesman tasked with a simple home visit ‘around teatime’, to fit his schedule, to quote us for 2 new radiators failed to show or call or text.

Ruby

(The dog this time!)

She’s chewed her second pair of my Gore-Tex walking shoes. The girls leave the shoe cupboard door open, have no concept of…

My wife seems to think the total destruction of one side of the heel padding is fixable. I’ll hover a finger over the Amazon ‘buy again’ button.

Ruby

(Yeah, computer stuff.)

Another day, another Raspberry Pi reset; the fourth in 4 days. Rather than do what I wanted to with the computer, it’s perhaps a good time to re-evaluate my single purpose; blogging support.

It would gave been sustainable, there’s enough scope in setting up a web site to fiddle with, fine-tune, break and fix. But problems with Ruby (computer program dependencies) are getting tiresome. Next step though: check out @mlv’s ‘strings (1)’ comment.

Luckily the Raspberry Pi community has a huge amount of imagination and skill, for example Jonathan Duerig’s (@duerig’s) book scanner.

Stuff

I went shopping on my own while my wife slept and the girls watched streaming films. I didn’t miss much either. The best thing to happen all day.

Raspberry Pi!

2016-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

Raspberry Pi update. Firstly, and finally, I bought one! The day before Valentine’s Day; the trembling anticipation of using ‘Amazon Prime Now’ proved too strong to resist. The delivery arrived 1-1/2 hours after my finger left the ‘Buy Now’ button!

Dont worry, my wife got the card and a single red rose!

Back to techy stuff:

Yesterday I:

Installed the GitLab* software. Badly.
Installed Ruby & support for Ruby gems.
Installed the Jekyll static website & blog generator.
Installed Glynn, a Ruby gem that copies the site to a remote ftp location.

I say I installed GitLab badly; I failed to setup the program’s ability to email activation links to new users. The next step was going to be fix that and progress to setting up the authorisation keys necessary to clone my online git repositories…

I let enthusiasm cloud my judgment.

I, again badly, uninstalled GitLab, and tried every other GUI git program installer.

Ruby, the key to everything I need, wasn’t playing along with the new stuff I wanted to install. I’d started with RVM but got rid of that and threw RBENV on instead (remembering the hardship I faced trying to get ayadn_shell to run.)

(time passed…)

To cut a long story short, it’s a good thing I’m running the Raspbian Debian Linux installed by something called NOOBS; it has a quick & easy reset to factory settings option on reboot. So I used it.

Wiped, restarted, re-entered new password and computer name; compy386 - to replace my previous laptop, a machine named lappy486. (It’s pointless going with a strict chronology at a time like this!)

Misc

2016-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve not blogged for a couple of days, hence this ragtag collection of unconnected thoughts. Incidentally, I’ve set a target of a minimum of 5 a week. Easy. Really, it is.

Personal

Valentine’s Day tomorrow. My attempt at subterfuge failed utterly; my wife spotted the single red rose as I arrived back home. It’s on the fireplace now, but at least she doesn’t know what I wrote inside the card.

I must add an X on the envelope, it’s been 11 years since her first flower, not 10.

Doh!

Tech

I’m finally on the verge of getting the the Raspberry Pi. My first task after connecting it all up, setting identities and updating and installing whatever I think I need: blogging infrastructure.

Of course I’m not going to be doing it the easy way.

Install the GitLab* software and clone my repos locally, bring sure to clone the upstream repo hourly,
Install Ruby & support for Ruby gems - if it’s not already there,
Install the Jekyll static website & blog generator,
Install Glynn, a Ruby gem that copies the site to a remote ftp location - my web host’s server,
Setup a cron job to build & upload my local site every couple of hours,
Test it all,
Turn it all off, make it headless, turn it on again and wait and see what happens next,
Realise I’ve forgotten to set up SSH on my phone, piss about for a bit longer…

Tip of the iceberg.

*I chose Gitlab in preference to GitHub - where most of my stuff still resides - because of the free private repos which will allow me to test Glynn with ftp passwords in plain text. Until I’ve figured it all out Gitlab is it, but I’m not averse to paying GitHub and taking advantage of its community and brand-awareness.

Decisions…

Tech

Dash app (Android) for App.net has been misbehaving for a while. I finally decided to uninstall it and use Robin (Drift no longer works at all well.) No notifications support means I’ve had to setup an IFTTT recipe to alert me via Pushover.

It’d be nice to have Dash’s more stable timeline position.

I’ll probably go back to Dash quickly, muscle memory and all that…

Family

Tuesday will bring the first home visit by the behavioural specialist assigned to my oldest, autistic, daughter. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, I already feel under the microscope as it is.

Personal

Carlo sausage! You know.

NOW!

2016-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

It’s 8:10pm.*

A couple of days ago I installed an application program on this thing in my hand. A thing, if not of beauty, then a 4.6 inches (diagonal) thing of awesomeness.

I opened the application program and searched across the wired and wire-less networks until… I found what I was searching for.

And then, then it got a little complicated.

‘Amazon Prime Now’ could deliver a thing I want between 10pm and midnight.

To my home.

Today.

A thing I want at a price I can afford, a price which is reasonable given market forces; but yet a price I simply cannot justify before (or after) payday.

It’s a thing I’ve been waiting for all my adult life: on-demand music, movies, TV, cat litter, towels, chocolates, ski accessories, and something we already have; yes, food.

(sighs)

Got it all and yet I must still find something to complain about.

*It was.

Tosser

2016-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Daughter 2:

“Mummy, daddy’s good at tossing!”

My wife, deadpan:

“Yes, he’s a born tosser.”

It is of course Shrove - AKA Pancake - Tuesday.

I haven’t lost my touch.

Apart from the last, the one poured too thickly, the one I burned.

Super

2016-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Another Super Bowl (50, not ‘L’) over, the serious business of me choosing a team begins.

I was a fan of the San Francisco 49ers when they won it all a couple of times (plus the talk of a ‘threepeat’), followed the rebirth and ascendancy of the Jones’ Dallas Cowboys, and then, then… went off the boil a bit.

I still watched the games with friends, went to see the Scottish Claymores in the NFL Europe league, even participated in a peripheral manner in helping out an amateur youth team. And helped out with a fanzine.

2004 brought a trip to Ohio, to see the Wauseon high school team, the Bowling Green college team, and the Cleveland Browns play. An amazing weekend. And the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And then bang; I got married, we had children, and my hobby time evaporated somehow.

So, which team?

Should I:

Invent a sophisticated analytical technique to determine which now utterly crap team stands the highest likelihood of rising fastest?
Work within the confines of my history?
Pick the newest (and at the same time one of the oldest) franchise - the Los Angeles Rams?

Maybe I should throw all the team names into a hat. One that Ruby dog hasn’t chomped yet.

Sweaters

2016-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

I have 3 sweaters I wear at work; rotated in an unconscious pattern, washed to an irregular schedule.

Since I wore them regularly, last winter, all three have shrunk in the wash. In a drawer.

Next week, socks!

Depleted

2016-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Not exactly a perfect storm of events, not by any means; nevertheless, we ran out of:

Cat litter,
Dog food,
Dog treats,
Cat treats,
Carpet urine absorber powder,
Dog toys even vaguely resembling their initial, as-purchased, state.

It’s Ruby Dog’s first birthday on Wednesday; a visit to the pet superstore is perhaps in order.

This, though I might refer to it in the store, is not a shopping list.

Deliveries

2016-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

I’m sat on the toilet, right now.

Expecting a delivery from Amazon, needing a poo, I’d asked my mother-in-law if she’d keep an eye out for the delivery, mentioned that I’d left the key in the door, and finished by saying “I’m tempting fate here.”

The doorbell rang the very instant I sat.

Is telepathy a part of the delivery driver training regime‽

Refill

2016-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

My Fisher Space Pen leaked; the brand’s legendary status is in jeopardy! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

(Think calming thoughts Baz…)

On Tuesday I dropped my pen, thought nothing of it.

On Wednesday I noticed excessive smudging (I’m left-handed.)

Today I got my magnifying glass out after a particularly nasty blob of ink appeared on my planner. And transferred to my finger. And highlighter pens. A blob of ink that even after half a day resisted all attempts to cover by careful applications of white paper from an on-a-roll dispenser.

Now the magnifier is ordinarily almost useless, having a too-small, rectangular, lowish powered main glass and a tiny ancillary, but insanely-powerful inset magnifier. It’s with this second, a lens having an extraordinarily shallow focus depth, that I found the end of the pen refill had split.

When it dropped, all-of 73cm onto industrial-strength office carpet, it must have impacted something hard-enough to break one side of the ball retaining sleeve.

Unprecedented.

Yes, I have got a spare refill.

Phew!

It - a fine point replaced by the new-year medium black - is about to run out.

Living on borrowed time now; it’s probably the most excitement I’ll have all week.

Let’s face it, at work on an otherwise-unremarkable day, I managed to defeat the very best American engineering - a pen designed to write in zero-G, upside-down, underwater, in extraordinarily hostile environments - by dropping it on the floor.

Danger, it follows me everywhere.

Addendum:

It’s a myth that the Americans spent squillions of dollars developing the pen whilst the Russians used a pencil. Snopes.com link.

Backups

2016-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

I have a NAS - a network-attached-storage device. Bought to serve photos and video and music to the family and cut our reliance on cloud storage, it has of course failed to live up to its potential.

There are a few photos and songs and videos and a few documents and, well, not much else. The usable Internet speeds we have now, our Amazon Prime video subscription, and the ready availability of girl-friendly entertainment on YouTube, they all conspire against my original vision of an all-encompassing media server.

It’s appropriate to note that most of our irreplaceable files are also stored at a couple of cloud storage providers.

“…most of…”?

Yeah.

So, regular backups of our important stuff? Every now and then I make backups from our laptops. But, thus far, not automatically.

What I’m looking for is a program that’ll run silently on our Windows laptops*; a program that’ll take whatever exists in a user’s folders and put it somewhere safe.

Now I know this bit sounds obvious, but I don’t want to have to leave devices on and wait for a timed schedule to start the backup process. This has to happen seamlessly, in real time as the files are manipulated.

Moreover, whatever I get must not lose files deleted from a users computer from backups after 30 days. That knocks both saving stuff into Dropbox folders and making Backblaze backups from my list.

My frontrunners so far are Arq and CrashPlan. Both are probably overkill for our needs, but have solid reputations.

I’d appreciate any advice from existing users, along the lines of:

Which service/program is the most unobtrusive and reliable for you?
Which cloud storage services are easy to setup with the program, and have the ‘best’ uptime? Amazon Glacier might be cost-effective but I’m really not keen on waiting hours to get our stuff.

Of course my shortlist candidates have, or will soon have, the attraction of their own storage. 250GB right now seems right, whereas ‘unlimited’ is far, far beyond our likely needs.

Oh yes, I want to utilise the NAS too for automatic backups.

This is but the start of a journey.

*We’re not made of money; only one laptop was bought new, the rest were acquired as a result of family generosity. The new one? Sale price.

Anthropomorphised

2016-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

If you’ve ever watched a Disney or Pixar film you’ll know that cute little animals, hulking great animals, otherwise-inanimate objects such as teapots and desk lamps, and vehicles, all can occasionally spring to life possessed (I chose the word carefully) with human characteristics.

Characteristics such as speech, gait, actions, and faces.

There’s something endearing about a nonhuman thing doing human things, and the film industry knows this. They don’t always get it right, as has been discussed endlessly on the Internet.

A prime example in film is Cars. And Planes. Everyone knows the defining feature of a car’s face is its eyes - the headlamps. Yet in Cars, and in Planes, the eyes are the windscreens. It’s just wrong.

Earlier, anticipating only to extend my toilet seat streak, I walked into the gents here. After one slightly awkward conversation with a colleague entering behind - a chat about clenching and kids films - I sat.

Cold toilet seat streak preserved, yay!

But could I ‘go’? The hell I could. Stage-fright?

The imagined ranks of too-big-and-unnaturally-positioned-eyed vehicles passing my minds eye entirely put me off. The forklift trucks especially, scurrying about, never remaining still…

I don’t appear to have a poo-with-eyes emoji in my phone keyboard. Perhaps it’s just as well.

Lunchtime.

Not a packet of potato crisps, for obvious reasons.

Valentine

2016-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

In a couple of weeks time it’ll be Valentine’s Day. I’ll be buying a card and some flowers for my wife, and maybe even a small gift?

I really don’t know what to buy; maybe the two things’ll suffice? Heck, I’ll be second-guessing myself with that one until the day. And afterwards.

The problem is simple: I peaked in 2006.

We found a bona-fide Scottish castle* to spend a couple of nights of romantic whatever-we-used-to-do-before-the-girls-arrived at. A typical utilitarian design externally, set in extensive grounds, with its own lake.

The Honeymoon Suite. You know?

I rang, booked, sat back looking at my wallet. Easy. Girlfriend-as-was was happy.

Then the phone rang.

“Hello Mr Turner, we made a terrible mistake with your booking…”

Me: “?”

“Well, we completely forgot you booked for a stay including Valentine’s Day and, unfortunately, the room rate is double for that one night.”

Me, hand over phone, looking over at my girlfriend after a brief summary which ended: “Do you still want to go?”

Her: (big doe eyes, soppy smile)

Me, back on the phone: “Are you ready to take my credit card details again?”

“Yes, and can we say how sorry we are for…“

Me: (sighs)

It was worth it.

*Culcreuch Castle, Fintry, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

Bins

2016-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

My wife had gone to work, I’d sent the girls upstairs to get ready for bed and clean their teeth, the cats and dog were fed. At a temporary loose end, the desire to create another podcast had simply grown too strong; I had to…

But what to talk about? Only some uninteresting minor domestic duties left to perform before settling down to, er… not very much apart from thinking about plans for the weekend.

The answer, the inspiration, came from an unexpected source. Have a listen.

Ah. Your browser does not support my rubbish code, please see below.

Here it is, presented in a cheaper and more cheerful manner. The link, that is.

Why?

Because I can. It’s not a podcast, for I am still not a podcaster.

Mortality

2016-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

“Simple life good.”*

Er… I shall stop talking like the village idiot now.

‘Life’ is now too complex for me, has been for quite some time, and it frustrates all my efforts to simplify situations.

Borrowing from a previous blog post, ‘Paris’:

“Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it’s over.

There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety…”

I wrote on for a bit in a similar vein. Heck, there may even have been a point to it at the time, but all that’s forgotten already - and by pretty much everyone who ‘lived’ the events of the day the post refers to.

Luckily for me we live in an age where life-expectancy is great enough that, for quite some time to come, I will be yearning for an age that might have existed before even I entered this world. I’m in my forty-eleventh year in this planet dontcha know!

It’s an age of simplicity, this thing in my head, but one in which even the now-simplest-to-treat ailment (scurvy, for instance) could have propelled me in particular headlong into the cart on the way to that pauper’s grave.

One small positive here; we have the choice where we end up nowadays. Ok, we’ve the illusion of choice; the family’s wishes will surely trump mine. Whether it happens or not I’ve at least asked to be burnt when it’s my time.

No cart for me!

*A conversation with myself, sparked in part by @tomas on 10Cv4.

Hawaiian

2016-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Newsflash!!

Dateline: Right now!

We have a simply great work custom: anyone having a birthday brings in food and shares it with all. Today, 4rthur* (thanks 4nne* for cooking & laying it all out) brought a particularly rich spread, pizzas, cake, pork pies, some, er… tasty things…

I just ate a couple of slices of a Hawaiian pizza.

(pause for effect…)

And again I liked it.

To recap; if you read my recent ‘Pineapple’ post, you’ll see I introduced a foodstuff (pineapple) positioned diametrically opposite to my views on the addition of fruit to savoury meals.

I’m not averse to foodstuffs prepared in challenging ways but pineapple is one of those polarising fruits; tolerable in isolation, downright wrong on a pizza. Or with gammon.**

Or so I thought.

My palate must be changing with age; after all I eschewed the pepperoni pizza, picking up the Hawaiian in preference.

It would appear that 2016 is indeed a year of experimentation, compromise… If only my attitudes to other deeply entrenched beliefs could be moderated in a similar fashion.

Perhaps I need to go around licking stuff - you know, to test if my attitudes can be modified according to taste?

*Names have been changed to protect even the generosity of those wonderful individuals here.

**Gammon with egg FTW!

Rule 34

2016-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday I created and posted (if that’s the correct term) my first podcast. (It at least looks and sounds like one.)

Today, whilst I was sat at my desk, a colleague approached and… “48 seconds” he said.

Despite the fact he’d earlier mentioned listening to the audio, and alluded to the (unfortunately fictional) Chorley FM slogan “Coming in your ears”, my expression must have conveyed my abject lack of understanding.

He proceeded to explain, “[REDACTED]”

“Ah,” I replied. Take a look at this.

But it’s not really appropriate to search too deeply for a definition of Internet Rule 34* on a work PC, is it.

*Potentially NSFW link; be careful what you click, children.

Audio file

2016-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

No, not a clever play on words, I’m simply linking an audio file to this post. And hoping it works.

Ah. Your browser does not support my rubbish code, please see below.

Here it is, presented in a cheap and cheerful manner. The link, that is.

Why?

Because I can. It’s not a podcast, for I am not a podcaster.

Developing

2016-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

I may have mentioned my programming days are >30 years in the past? Well they are. It’s not to say I haven’t dabbled in the last few years. Because I have.

My GitHub Pages site is a prime example; personal, trivial, offering not much mass-appeal; yet requiring a fair degree of time and patience to create.

And I’ve learned new skills too!

My pages are hosted at GitHub.com; the design (the technical aspects, not necessarily how pretty it looks) is based on a forked version of the poole/hyde repository (repo.) This is where the more in-depth instructions are located. Essentially it’s a Web site in a box, free from the shackles of self-hosting and server security concerns.

Getting it personalised in the first instance was surprisingly easy. Take a look at http://github.com/bazbt3/bazbt3.github.io for my site’s files.

I’m assuming here that you want to create a new site and want to do it the easy way, as did I. There’s a learning curve of course, but there’s no compelling reason to step outside the GitHub.com site along the way.

The executive summary:

Login to your GitHub.com account. You may need to create one for this step to work best!
Find and fork the ‘poole/hyde’ repo, calling your fork [your GitHub username].github.io -
Remove the entry (all the text) in the CNAME file and save it back to your repo. This forms one half of a redirect from a domain external to GitHub Pages.
Customise the fields within the _config.yml file and save it. This effectively personalises the new site.
Edit the post within the _data folder. This is to test whether the basics are working.
Browse to [your GitHub username].github.io - and you should see something superficially like poole/hyde and my sites, but with your content.
Fix anything that doesn’t quite work.
Success!

If you don’t see what you like, it’s not a massive amount of work for anyone with any previous programming (at any level) or HTML background to work stuff out. Knowing a bit of Markdown - to edit and format your posts - will help.

I’ve changed stuff and added a few things to the basic ‘framework’, such as:

Changed the site name font (I know a tiny amount of CSS, not enough to break stuff, but I always do and have to revert.)
An ‘Archive’ page, basically a copy and paste from the jekyllrb.com site, but formatted to add post excerpts.
A ‘Reading list’ page, a simple loop reading data from a .csv file.
Other stuff.

Once you get into this, the ideas flow quickly.

But, despite all this enthusiasm, faffing about… my primary blog still resides at Jason Irwin’s 10Centuries - here.

Why?

Because there’s more to blogging than fiddling with site nuts and bolts, SEO, testing, etc. - it’s all about the writing for me.

Besides, [10Centuries v4] (http://10centuries.org/) is due soon (currently in invite-only beta) and that’s an entirely different ballgame!

Despite my what it states in my App.net bio I am #NotADeveloper.

But it helps to have a basic understanding of what it takes to be one.

A clear mind.

Ruby dog

2016-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

If you’re not following me on App.net you’re missing out on the occasional post about Ruby - our dog.

Ruby’s lovely. Approaching her first birthday, as she’s grown she’s lost none of her puppy enthusiasm; as she’s become more accustomed to our commands, we’ve tempered none of that quivering anticipation of awesome things about to happen.

Here’s a flavour of her impact on our lives, just my posts:

Planning required:

“@pme Aren’t the little buggers great? A good thing it’s nothing like Ruby ‘Chomp-all’ Dog. The rest of my family hadn’t quite understood the importance of putting things away. But there is an expectation that adults can put stuff in a safe place, right?”

Not quite according to plan:

“@indigo @rabryst I made sure that, if my wife was going to get a dog, said dog would be hypoallergenic, smart, and would not shed fur. Ruby has not let us down once, she’s awesome. A mutant compared to all the others round here, but awesome. :)”

Conflict:

“@matigo The cat woke me, I went downstairs to feed him and his sister - and Ruby dog - only to find she’d emptied out the contents of a box all over the living room floor. Hairbrushes, broken crayons, spectacles, pencils, paper, card, sticky tape, lipgloss…

… a plastic troll too! All chewed, damp. :/
My wife can sort it out when she comes home from work; she’s the one who leaves stuff out, allows the girls to, then complains when the dog chews.
Yeah, I just threw it all back in & stomped upstairs. :/”

Striving for an uncomplicated existence:

“@hazardwarning @hutattedonmyarm I didn’t go looking deeper, Ruby dog wanted me to play with her ball. Simple things… :)”

And, this self-referential #QuoteSunday post:

‘“Ruby dog, GET OFF MY PENIS!!!”*

@bazbt3

Slightly* disconcerting #QuoteSunday quote.

*I mentioned my hedonistic lifestyle earlier in the evening, never thinking it’d come to this!’

True joy arrives unbidden in life, often unexpectedly, and in many different forms. Whilst bent over cleaning the cats’ litter tray, wearing a gaping dressing gown with the dog nuzzling one’s man-bits, trying to not startle Ruby ‘Chomp-all’ Turner though‽

Yeah, why not.

FYI: I am @bazbt3 on App.net.

Sock monster

2016-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

My youngest daughter is a Ladybird (a member of the local Rainbows - pre-Brownies.) Every week her mummy takes her down to the church hall, she participates, and then I collect her at the end of the session.

Just like did with her sister, now a Brownie.

She’s usually made something, like a hat or a hanging thing, or a paper plate with paper poppies stuck around its periphery - for Remembrance Sunday.

This evening the things on the table at the end of the room defied my attempts to categorise. Unusual.

The leaders explained, for the benefit of the more dim-witted parents, what they were.

Sock monsters!

Not one alike, each the product of a child’s imagination, all amazing.

Ah, but glittery glue. Lots of it.

It gets everywhere, no matter how carefully it’s applied. I hate slimy sticky viscous things. But the inevitable beckoned so I picked the thing up, and immediately an antenna dropped.

Oops! I never was the most graceful individual. Clumsy, though age is improving me.

I was more circumspect when we left for the car park, not trusting my littlest offspring with the task of moving the monster from hall to car.

Me: “Er… can you please reach into my trouser pocket and get my car keys?”

We chose a safe spot on the back seat for the glue and sock, and waited for her big sister to finish Brownies.

All the while I gave a running commentary, ostensibly for my daughter’s benefit but a safety blanket for me. The pressure inherent in such situations is probably beyond the understanding of a non-parent. I’m sure it would have amused any adult within earshot.

We always chat about stuff during lulls between life and life, my daughter’s and I. Stars & planets, cars, condensation, school lunches and their friends and creations. Today not much chat, aside from a few words about her new thing. It’s got rice and lavender inside it and smells lovely. We’d best not let Ruby dog anywhere near lest…

Daughter 1 emerged a few minutes later, we buckled up and drove home.

Home, tea, change, ready for bed, tidy, teeth, night-night…

Though I know she wants to take it to school tomorrow, I’d forgotten if she’d told me the most important thing, so I just woke daughter 2 to ask her what the sock monster is called.

A frown, obviously. “I haven’t named it.”

And that was that.

Todo list

2016-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

Where do I start?

Perhaps I need a list for that.

I’ve had list managers, todo managers, GTD task managers and have even flirted with full-blown project management software. In all-but-one case I’ve eventually and habitually snoozed, or edited-to-postpone, tasks.

That one piece of software: Omnifocus for iOS.

I slated its developers for a bug-ridden update after the transition from iOS 6 to iOS 7. Every piece of useful software eventually breaks, but…

On Android now after a sidestep to Windows Phone, I must say I miss Omnifocus with its rich feature set and calendar integration.

Thats my personal productivity mentioned, there’s something important to note…

I use no productivity software at work.

I have a yellow Sigel Conceptum A5 squared notepad in which I write important things using a Fisher Space Pen. But the writing thing and the thing on which I write aren’t that important; what I write is.

I have a system.

From the top:

The year,
Week number, month, date,
Date entry with date.

Entry, left to right:

Priority: only a ‘!’ - used sparingly.
An arrow-of-sorts indicating moved from a previous day.
A checkbox, triangle or ‘clock’ indicating respectively: todo, done; a required change; or a time function such as late for work, a vacation/holiday.
A descriptive line indicating what I must do, who asked me, and job/task reference numbers.

I recently started allowing entries to span lines. It took 5 months; I was afraid of compromises, dilution of effect.

2016
2 January 18th
 ↪[ ] Tidy desk
  [✔] SolidWorks Vault deletions
  [ ] Catch up with previous tasks
!  🔺  Change (size on component)
   🕒  Sick: 11:35-

I’ve been using this system since June 2015; it’s a keeper!

Status

2016-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

A recent all-too-brief conversation prompted me to think about what defines the success of a social network.

In my world it’s not about the numbers of users, nor is it the number of followers, nor is it measured by the number of visits, replies, mentions or comments on linked posts.

Here’s my list:

Engagement,
Quality,
Fun.

And here, better than I could ever put into words in any coherent way and manner approaching brevity, is a diagram of the inner workings of my mind.

Pineapple

2016-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Newsflash!!

Dateline: Right now!

I just ate a couple of slices of a Hawaiian pizza I bought for my girls.

(pause for effect…)

And I liked it.

Yes, I introduced a foodstuff (pineapple) positioned diametrically opposite to my views on the addition of fruit to savoury meals. One I’d purchased outwith the normal weekly shop…

Heck, I even carried the thing up the icy path from the village!

I’m not averse to foodstuffs prepared in challenging ways but pineapple is one of those polarising fruits; tolerable in isolation, downright wrong on a pizza. Or with gammon.*

It would appear that 2016 is shaping up to be a year of experimentation, even compromise.

*Gammon with egg FTW!

Beans

2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The story of Jack and the Beanstalk encompasses a great many moral lessons, chief of which is planting magic beans isn’t always the easiest path to riches.

I’ve lost count of the number of magic beans I planted over the years, but there the similarity to the fairy (or is it folk?) story’s eponymous protagonist ends; I’m not a thief or murderer.

I’ve felt like turning to the dark side a good few times when my plans have come to naught, but this sense of morality always intrudes.

Maybe it’s a good thing.

I’m occasionally advised to play the long game; to be patient and realise ‘these things [actually do] take time.’

I’m reminded of Isaac Asimov’s ‘Nightfall’ - and what might happen were I to see the fruits of my labours spread out before me, their collective greatness too awful for mortal man to behold unfiltered.

So-ooo…

What will the UK retirement age be for a man of my years?

Holidays

2016-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

“I don’t want to holiday in the sun
I want to go to the new Belsen
I want to see some history
‘Cause now I got a reasonable economy”

So sang the Sex Pistols, on a record released during my 13th year on this planet. I’ll be honest though, I just wasn’t old enough to ‘get’ Punk Rock. That said, ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ became one of my most favourite, most played albums…

I inherited a desire to explore from my parents. Not the ‘grand’ pith-helmet type of exploration, not the canoe up the Amazon type nor the temples and ancient artifacts variant of open-seas pirates, no.

A desire to not go on holiday, laze about all day, get a lobster tan and return home after a conventional 2 weeks, extolling the virtues of the local beers and stinky sausages, and appearing from the holiday snaps to have enjoyed every minute.

My only pool/seaside holiday was my honeymoon; but that’s a tale for another time.

Until 1992 we as a family had never left the United Kingdom, not even the mainland - apart from the flight to The Isle of Man for an, er… regulation 2 week annual holiday. We always found something to do. Always.

My dad passed away first, sadly (from my perspective at least) without a repeat flight. By the time mum left us we’d still been abroad only twice; coach tours to first West coast USA then, the following year, East coast USA & Canada. Fan-with-a-capital-effing-an-tastic!

Friends asked if I’d like to go on an Egyptian your; you know, THE Pyramids, cruise down THE River Nile, Karnak, balloon flight… Egypt is an amazing country - and one I hope to return to one day with my family.

One day, one day…

That same year, a USA tour from Washington DC through the South and departing from Dallas TX. The year after that another USA tour, this starting in Denver CO, south through the American Rockies into New Mexico then West, departing from Phoenix AZ.

A couple of years later, with a mate and feeling a little more confident, a week’s American Football tour around Ohio; my first, and so-far only fly-drive holiday. Football, beer, noise and driving on the wrong side of the road just because we could. Bloody great!

A year later, with my wife-to-be, a very special Egyptian tour. This time I did not escape the Pharoahs’ curse; the Siwa oasis hotel’s on-entry-room-smells-of-poo experience simply has to be experienced. And I did. For the next week-and-a-half.

Then we took three cheap mini-cruises; overnight ferry, day in a European city, ferry overnight back home.

Tours hand it, whatever it is, to the tourist on a plate. All the lazy traveller must do in return is not antagonise one’s fellow travellers.

Easy.

After all that, to mention I’d never visited my own country’s capital city (2 hours by train) until October last year might appear a little odd.

Broken

2016-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

A-aaand, just like that, both my blogging and cold toilet seat streaks (see my other blog) are broken.

It’s ok.

Bowie

2016-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

David Bowie is no longer with us.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield posted a fitting tweet, and here’s his quote from the BBC’s reaction page:

“I was so sad to wake up this morning to the news … The whole span of my adult life I’ve been listening to David Bowie so it is an irretrievable loss. It saddens me. I’m just delighted I got to play a little part in everything he’s done.”

I felt the same way, though it’s easy to say it now. I will admit to owning only a small part of his catalogue, and playing even that infrequently; but…

Thanks for the music, the memories.

Here’s Chris’s Space Oddity video, and David’s.

Workflow

2016-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s a screenshot of a mind map of my current blog posting workflow:

It’s in need of a little automation and, to that end, I’m investigating what I can do on my Android phone.

Oh how I miss iOS’s Editorial and Launch Center Pro and URL schemes and…

Post inspired by @manton’s App.net posting.

Reverie

2016-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

I’m simply not going to list the deaths of well-known individuals during 2015/early 2016. Each has a place in my past, however small that place is. I have no doubt that all have enriched my life by some variable, though small, amount…

I led a happy childhood; not the rose-tinted view of a time ripe to be torn asunder upon discovering a dark secret much later in life, but a genuinely carefree time.

Allowed to play out; free rein to go as far as my and my childhood friends’ imaginations would allow us, we had it all. My parents, both working class (not that it matters), made sure I always had enough to occupy me and that I was safe…

There’s no doubt it was a different age.

The television then wasn’t by any means new, but I remember our black-and-white set and the occasional moiré pattern leading me to think colour was, impossible as it sounds, just about to break through!

It never did.

The number of TV channels wouldn’t have retained a modern consumer’s attention for more than a few minutes. Throughout the entirety of my childhood we had three (3) channels to choose from! My parents picked our programming wisely, using the Radio Times & radio guide extensively.

There are too many things to list, but a brief conversation earlier reminded me of the magic of 1970s TV. Of particular significance, though I wouldn’t expect many to understand why-for-me the unmasking of professional wrestler ‘Kendo Nagasaki’; an amazing bit of television unlikely to be repeated today.

To fill the entertainment void between TV programmes and living our lives we listened to the radio; music, lots of it, and BBC Radio 4 for talk, news and of course drama.

We had a record player with a storage capacity of, er… ok, capable of playing 78s, 45s and 33-1/3 vinyl records. Amazing sounds from a black plastic disc, and especially the rich, unsurpassable bass and frequency range when played on my Auntie & Uncle’s ‘Radiogram’; from-memory almost identical to the one at the top of this ‘Radiogram Days’ page.

Incidentally, rather than me telling you what my parents and I listened to, just take a look at that page. It sums up the era perfectly.

Ok, to give you a clue, my parents had me later in life than the average. I listened to a vast range of music, first theirs and gradually as my tastes developed…

A range spanning my Dad’s jazz to songs from the shows, rock & roll, classical to avant-garde, through the big band sounds to American easy-listening to…

Ok, given a huge range of influences I chose as my first single…

Elvis Presley’s ‘Suspicion’ - I suspect because, faced by the unaccustomed freedom and the choice in the shop, I simply couldn’t decide.

But then my teenage years arrived and with them the train-wreck of inevitability. Of course I stepped away from the earlier path set up by my mum and dad. Had to; to establish my sense of ‘self’, or something.

Music became an important part of my life. Unfortunately the path I chose through its many genres, styles, influences, wasn’t the same as my mates, colleagues, family. No matter, it helped my sense of identity grow.

Yes, I was a bargain hunter, regularly rummaging in Woolworths’ wire baskets to find the stuff no-one else wanted.

Earlier this evening, a little while before my Bluetooth headphones’ charge finally ran out, I was at a loose end and searching for something ‘different’ to listen to.

Looking through the albums I’d queued up on Amazon Prime Music, Isao Tomita’s Snowflakes Are Dancing stood out as something I’d grabbed to stream eventually, but at the right time. It’s an album of Claude Debussy’s music, Tomita’s being a 1974 electronic variant - and one I remember listening to as a child, bought by my uncle when still brand-new.

It’s one that captivates me still.

So why now?

As I mentioned earlier, it’s the right season to reminisce; and though year-ends usually bring out the strongest emotions, this music has opened up a good-few links back to my dim-and-distant past.

Its all good; it made me who, and what, I am.

To everyone who contributed to the making of this blog post: thanks!

Ego

2016-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

I have a new redirect from my vanity domain. The general structure, as of today, is:

(www.)bt3.com - a Mediawiki site, ‘self-hosted’ on a server provided by @rabryst (App.net.) Currently stagnant, I’m unable to take it down without a tortuous examination of the action’s impact on the rest of the Web,*
blog.bt3.com - a subdomain redirecting to bazbt3.re-app.net, my blog hosted at 10centuries.com by @matigo (App.net),
ego.bt3.com - the new subdomain redirecting to bazbt3.github.io, my test blog hosted by Github.com.

Why ‘ego’?

My first choice, ‘id’, would have misrepresented the blog a little; there’s nothing visceral allowed to intrude, though my aim is to introduce its reader to the writer.

I’d toyed with the idea of something ‘clever’ but difficult to verbally pass on, for example ‘httpcolonslashdot’, ‘http’, or simply ‘dot’; but the likelihood that my site will be disseminated by literal word-of-mouth is remote indeed.

So, because I have one, ‘ego’ it is.

Don’t bookmark it.

*There’s not much of value to anyone, not really.

Twitter10k

2016-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Twitter seems likely to announce an increase in its post character count, upwards from 140, sometime in the next few months. For many it’ll be a welcome move, especially given that 140 characters is artificially restrictive - a holdover from the time Twitter ran on the back of SMS messaging.

140’s all very well, encourages people to be concise, and gives just enough space for a status update or headline and link; but the fact that alternative services exist to increase the character count (after a quick redirect outside Twitter) means the time has come to grow the posts.

10,000 characters is of course a rumour, based on the same limit already existing within direct messages (I’ve not tried it.) Whilst it seems to me to be ridiculously excessive (I struggle to fill a 2048-character App.net personal message) is seems (Internet speculation) that only the first 140 characters of a Tweet will be shown in the standard timeline…

Phew, I’m glad they seem to be thinking of retaining the same level of scrolling I’d need to reach the top!

So, post length and the timeline out of the way, what’s next to like?

Editing!*

Dropping an edit button into the laps of the majority of users is playing with fire. Most will admit the ability to edit a post must be included for 10k posts. I’m inclined to agree, but only because I can trust myself not to change the context of my posts after a ‘negative’ reply or one from a user I simply don’t like.

An edit, by the way, is not the same as a delete and retweet; an edit preserves the flow of a conversation, a delete leaves a telltale gap.

Most users are content to post, to chat, to look at kitten pics. Most simply won’t spot, nor care about, the ‘Edited’ indicator. Outrage is bound to follow.

My summary of a 10k limit: meh.

What I’d like to see is a Facebook Groups-like feature. No, not lists with every tweet public, but a community builder. Reduce the character count to a reasonable 4096 (a more sociable level) drop a shed load of metadata in each post, make me happy. Heck, I’d pay to remove the ads and user tracking across the rest of the web, but I can’t see Twitter or especially Facebook relinquishing their monetisers.

Can you?

*I reserve the right to edit this post.

Cat

2016-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

We have a dog. Ruby is lovely. Smelly, eats poo, she’s as mad as a box of…

We have a cat. Mollie is lovely. Very ladylike, and even when she’s shouting at me for being too slow getting her meals ready, delightful.

We have another cat. Loki is a right royal pain in the arse! He’s coming up to 15 years old and, though showing signs of slowing down, is getting better at one thing…

Shouting, caterwauling, making frankly disturbing noises when he finds his soft toy and engages in very focused, er… ‘behaviour’ with it.

Ok, lots of annoying things. He’s the last thing I hear at night and the first in the morning. It’s got to the stage I want to launch him somewhere very, very far-away…

But no.

He’s family.

ADNHackDay

2016-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

App.net’s @lukasros asked a couple of days ago:

“Hello people of App.net! What do you think about having another #ADNHackDay / #CommunityHackDay?
Pinging @matigo @33mhz @duerig @ryantharp @flashblu @adnfuture @pamdavis @jvimedia @cgiffard @blumenkraft and everyone else.”

The weekend of January 30/31 has been proposed. And I’m vaguely excited!

“Vaguely” because, as you’re probably already aware, I’m not a developer not even a hobbyist coder. It didn’t stop me creating a thing that came to its ultimate* fruition only after the weekend I participated. But it was good to watch the evolution of stuff and, though I’d imagine there’s no substitute for being in the same room as people working feverishly to complete a hack, it was good enough for me.

No, I don’t know what I’m going to do, or what I’m capable of. And that’s what the inspiration of a community of like-minded, though far better than me at their fields, people will imbue in me. Confidence. Or fear, too early to say.

Or… I’ll just read the recap. Dunno yet!

*It’s really not that good. And it has the niche-cubed appeal factor.

ThemeMonday 2016 January 11

2016-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

In a new departure, I’m experimenting with a blog post to call ADN to choose our #ThemeMonday theme for January 2016.

For more information, see the ThemeMonday page.

So here we go, please think what you’d like to see this month and tell us all. Seasonal themes, silly , sexy or serious themes; it’s your ADN to shape as you will. Make the most of this opportunity!

Please reply to ADN post thread when you see it.

Thanks!

Layouts

2016-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

I have a Github Pages test blog, adapted from a repo I found on Github.com. It’s there simply to allow me to figure out how Git & Github work, to refamiliarise myself with basic HTML (and with Jekyll/yaml code), and to extend my very rudimentary knowledge of CSS.

The theme I chose for the site purports to be responsive to screen orientation and size: landscape with a sidebar, portrait a top bar.

But no.

When viewed on my 4.6 inch phone in portrait orientation it looks quite nice. When viewed in my 7 inch tablet in landscape orientation it also looks quite nice.

App.net’s @hazardwarning was kind enough to alert me to a worrying thing:

When viewed on her tablet in portrait orientation, the sidebar obscures half of the content; an effect I can replicate it on my tablet. When I view the site on my phone in landscape, the same behaviour is very much in evidence.

Ahhh… a challenge!*

I’m pretty sure I can fix it if I restore the original ‘hyde.css’ file in \public\css; a file I edited (inexpertly, it has to be said!) in a successful attempt to reduce both sidebar impact and vertical white space.

*Damnit, I very nearly inserted a smiley face then!

Blogging

2016-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Blogging is simultaneously simple and complex. The simple bit is writing something interesting. Or simply writing. The complex bit is, er… a bit complicated, obviously.

I write for myself, my most critical audience. I attempt to let the stream of consciousness flow from my brain to my fingers without much impediment. Choosing the topic helps immensely here; I made the decision years ago not to stray too far into religion, politics, world affairs, security, race, sports, and things I obviously know nothing about.

I have failed, and will fail, at my attempts at self-censorship. ‘Contentious’ is not my middle name.

Given those apparently insurmountable obstacles to popularity it’s a wonder anyone reads my blog. Really.

In the place of writing for wider appeal I write about myself, family, experiences likely to be shared with a not-me reader, and stuff.

I write and post at a time that suits me; catering to my closest readership. I pick titles that serve to remind me of the content behind. Or is it below?

In late November 2015 I started to blog daily, responding to the installation and early use of a daily journal app on my phone. My daily streak lasted a whole and previously unprecedented month; which was nice. After that miss I’ve done well; another streak is ongoing.

It’s not about streaks; it’s about enjoyment, a process, a journey. Getting there, wherever there is, is almost incidental.

Focus on the minutiae of blogging for a moment - the technical aspects of the sport - is something I’ve mastered in the past, a couple of times with WordPress and, more recently, with Jason Irwin’s 10Centuries (10C) blogging platform. Ok, so there’s not much to fiddle with using Jason’s service; so I fiddled with CSS anyway.

Right now, prior to the 4th generation of 10C going live, I’m messing about with Github Pages - it’s a surprisingly rewarding process getting things to work.

Blogging and administering via Git (even with help from the Github.com web interface) isn’t for everyone, though with suitable Git apps it’s really quite easy after a while, especially using a good Markdown editor.

I’ve refrained from asking Jason to add a Git repo posting method into his already complex mix. The ability to post via an ADN private message, or via the 10C Web interface or using Evernote or, in v4, Microsoft’s OneNote, probably gives existing and potential users enough options to gain wider appeal.

(Other services exist, YMMV.)

I am Baz. I am still not a blogger.

Hitler

2016-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday I posted this on App.net:

“Copyright of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf expires.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35209185

Here’s a quote from the article:

“…annotated version, with thousands of academic notes, will aim… to show that Mein Kampf is incoherent and badly written, rather than powerful or seductive.”

I laughed out loud.

App.net’s (ADN’s) @blumenkraft, being German and with that country’s unique perspective, opined “it’s a peace of crap! i love they did the afford to set it into a historical context.”

To which I replied “My wife read it a few years ago, during a philosophy phase. At the time she told me pretty much what you and the article say. #NotOnMyBucketListForAReason”

ADN’s @jeremycherfas also responded: “The Economist’s article was a very good one.” So I did a quick search and came up with:

What the Führer means for Germans today: Seventy years after Adolf Hitler’s death, how Germans see him is changing. - a very interesting read.

Within that article, a reference to a novel:

“The latest bestseller is “Look Who’s Back” by Timur Vermes, translated into English this year. Hitler wakes up in today’s Berlin near his old bunker. Disoriented at first, he so amuses everybody he meets, including his Turkish dry-cleaner, that he is launched on a meteoric career as a comedian. His hip colleagues are convinced that he is a consummate “messed ekta” (Berlinish-English for method actor) offering a subtle critique of modern media culture.”

Me to Jeremy: “Thanks. On the strength of it I just grabbed a trial of ‘Look Who’s Back’ from the Kindle store.” I also added a screenshot of its cover.

I read the introduction, laughed out loud again, read chapter 1 and settled nicely into chapter 2, at which point the preview ended. So I bought it.

Jeremy had asked me to report back what I made of the trial, and upon my few disorganised words said “Good recommendation. I might even add it to my own list. In fact, I will. I take it you’ve read Robert Harris’ Fatherland?”

At this point I shall step out of conversation mode and into…

Ah, no, I hadn’t read it, but I give thanks for his recommendation, but with reservations…

My focus for the last 30-something years had been predominantly sci-fi/satire/humour. ‘History’ tends to be restricted to the facts; I’m really not a fan of historical dramatisations (TV/film, whatever, Blackadder excepted.)

Prior to puberty I’d read children’s books, then gravitated through some of the English Classics, especially the more accessible Dickens, that sort of thing; and all the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. All of ‘em. I was then a voracious reader (as is my oldest daughter today.)

And then I read my first Isaac Asimov; The Early Asimov - a boxed 3-volume set, acquired second-hand from a stall on Rochdale Market. The best bit of their transactions, aside from saving money over new; a return-for-half-purchase-price when buying more. Awesome! But financial transactions aren’t as important as the power of the written word when welded to a willing mind. Mine.

That led me to a long exploration of sci-fi. Bear, E.E. (Doc) Smith, Niven/Pournelle/Barnes, more Asimov, Brin, L.Ron Hubbard (his Battlefield Earth is a great book) and, well, suffice it to say it’s a big list. All gone now apart from a selection of Niven et al, and of course my Asimovs.

I read other genres, e.g. Tolkien, e.g. shed-loads of nonfiction, but nothing compared to the impact sci-fi had on me over time - for allowing me to escape.

It takes me three passes to fully explore a novel: a first quick skim, a later slower read, and months later a final deep exploration pf what subtleties remain. No, I utterly failed to on the one book: The Lord of the Rings. I’ve ‘only’ read it twice, though I attempted a third. (I’m no Christopher Lee!)

And then, when I least expected it, my wife-to-be arrived; with cats, responsibilities, children, and a consequent loss of free time and focus.

Back to the Hitler related novel; “Quite a departure for me, this…” I said to Jeremy, “…but this is still well within my comfort zone. Just opened my wife’s copy of Mein Kampf, compared it with my Churchill’s The Second World War. Actually there’s no comparison, but I might just flick through the former after the novel.”

Honesty time: I really didn’t get far into Churchill’s tome. But I’ve dipped in on the odd occasion as documentaries have appeared on the telly. Incidentally, when I can get a visually un-truncated version of The World at War, I probably will.

2016 sounds like it’ll be the year I make the time to read my queue. No more excuses.

New

2016-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Well here we are; at the time of writing another year has, for a large percentage of the world’s population, already expired. For the rest, the next is only a few weeks away.

Now, like Christmas is simply an arbitrary date (with variations) thrown at a calendar put together by westerners, the year end/year beginning are both just another day.

Days for reflection, sure, and planning, reminiscing, dreaming; days of intense significance for many.

In mid-October 2015 I made a Bucket List. That was, to be fair, my reflection and reminiscing piece. During 2016 I really don’t expect to fulfil any of those dreams, check off those items on my list; I’ve other things to set my sights on.

I’ve connections and reconnections to make, days away to plan alongside my family, to become if not more successful at work at least more organised. I’m confident of a measure of success in all; picking the items on this deceptively short list gives me at least that confidence, but how will this list of future things go?

I’ll be sure to let you know.

Semicolon

2015-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

2015 was a year with a lot of downs, and I’ll be glad to see its end. Really. There were of course positives, but overall zero sense of balance.

2014 was equally odd in that regard; my wife nearly died in the July and, restricting myself to social networking, I’d:

Messed about with Linux doing some, what I’d call, rudimentary shell script coding based on top of Ayadn - a command line client for the App.net social network,
Inexplicably tailed off from my initial enthusiasm with the App.net Wiki, and have struggled to retain that,
Told everyone I wasn’t going to be using Facebook again,
Or Twitter.

2015, a year in review:

This year I continued my idiosyncratic approach:

Increasing my use of footnotes* in social media posts,
Adopting the [Oxford Comma] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma) more widely, occasionally even abbreviating the following “and” to “&”! And, even though I know it’s not its only use case, preceding only “and” gives me room to grow,
Starting to use the Semicolon more frequently.

This last one puzzles me. Until late this year I’d almost never used it, succumbing as I did to peer pressure during my final couple of years at school by intentionally not caring about ‘English’ lessons. So why now?

A desire for self-improvement perhaps?

2015 also brought:

A late-year increase in the frequency of my blog posts, partially in response to installing the Journey (daily) journal app on my Android phone,
My slow-but-sure takeover of the #ThemeMonday hashtag on App.net (page needs updating.) I make the call to choose a shortlist of themes, collate, remind, and then post a poll to get votes to pick each. It’s not hard work, not really.

So, this blog post ends as the year ends, on a low note:

2015 does not get Baz’s Seal of Approval; really, it’s had very, very few highlights.

The only standout was a weekend trip to London with my family, my first. (Family and trip to England’s capital.)

[Edit:] Ruby puppy arrived in April. Now that changes my perspective a tiny bit towards favouring ‘balance.’

*I can’t honestly recall when I started using footnotes, it could have been 2014.

I reserve the right to edit this post as events unfold on this, the last day of the year. Naturally I reserve the right to edit all the posts but rarely do, aside from typos.

Knife

2015-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

During 2000 I visited the USA on an escorted coach tour. Part-way through we stopped at a tax-free shopping outlet; not a mall but one of those unpreposessing, drab buildings, the exteriors of which belie their contents.

I looked around for a while and, almost in desperation, bought a grey SwissCard - this newer variant on the Victorinox site is almost identical, save for the case material.

It has just enough tools to be useful whilst being thin enough to fit in my wallet:

nail file,
screwdriver,
toothpick,
tweezers,
pen,
pin,
blade,
scissors,
measuring scale along the side.

Though the knife is around 15 years old and though I’ve looked after it, it’s never been sharpened since new. Which makes all the more remarkable the fact that today I stripped the wires in an extension reel cable, to repair it after our otherwise-delightful Ruby dog chewed right through the insulation.*

If only everything lasted as long.

*She’s fine, it wasn’t live!

Git

2015-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

I have absolutely no desire to learn command-line Git; the available GUI-based tools are more than sufficient for me, and especially that installed on my Android phone.

I’ll let that sink in…

I use the really rather good Pocket Git, allied with its companion text editor DroidEdit. The only thing it seems to be missing, for this novice at least, is ‘Issues’ support.

Besides, github.com has, in theory, that and everything else I need. (But I have the ForkHub app anyway.)

Having a Git app on my phone, and working with a tiny amount of text visible above the virtual keyboard, might seem silly. But, I need no Internet connection to work on my stuff - not, that is, until it gets to a push.

Incidentally, DroidEdit isn’t a text editor. It’s a source code and text editor with syntax highlighting, and has support for “Dropbox, Drive, Box, (S)FTP servers and Git.”

I haven’t given anything Baz’s Seal of approval recently. Pocket Git and DroidEdit both get awards.

SVG

2015-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

I attempted to create an SVG file suitable for my test blog at bazbt3.github.io (or here if you’re reading it as a test!)

I’ve had partial success, but only in producing an image in the footer that links to my App.net (ADN) profile. (It’s why I started this.)

Rather than attempting a search I asked a question:

Bit of a longshot, this. Do any of you have an SVG version of the ADN icon, pastable into an (s)CSS file? Here’s an example of what I see for an RSS icon in a test I’ve been fiddling with, a text screenshot first:

An answer came quickly (thanks Barbara!):

@logista: @bazbt3 I don’t have one, but I found this one [simpleicons.org]

Looks great!

Unfortunately, it’s not in the same format as the rest in the file. No matter, I’ll search, an online converter won’t be hard to find, all I need is to get a smallish file, a file with a header looking a bit like…

  &.dribbble      { background-image: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2Zy…

In not-quite-desperation I eventually settled on one that produces a base64 jpeg instead of the SVG. One which obviously overfills the container it’s supposed to fit in.

Looks a bit crap.

But hey, it’s a test, right?

Wrapping

2015-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

To be absolutely fair to her, my wife shouldered the burden of wrapping the presents prior to Christmas. Most at least.

Today she’s taking the girls to see her friend; they’re off to visit a soft play place for a few hours, and I’m left in peace.

Ahhh…

But, as-ever, a last-minute rush to wrap those gifts, and an ‘emergency’ trip by my wife to the toy shop for the youngest recipient, left me wrapping the few allocated to those lovely people.

I didn’t moan or sulk or internalise, no. I just got on with it and wrapped.

It seems my New Year’s Resolutions have just been implemented. Early, too!

I’d best make some for 2016.

Sales

2015-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

The seasonal sales have already started. In fact, some have been going on, on-and-off, since the week before Black Friday.

What have we bought?

I got a shoulder bag for my wife, a vibrant red thing of the same design as her black one. A genuine half price.

The laptop she bought before the sales commenced has been reduced by the same retailer in their Boxing Day sale by a whopping £200! To exactly what she paid for it.

The Xbox One with Kinect, the thing I wanted in the Black Friday sales - the one that the day before was £350, on the day £370, and the day after dropped to £340 - is now £335. Cheaper with 3 games than without.

Crazy!

So, what do we need?

A TV stand.
Wireless printer & scanner (Canon.)
Coke Zero.
Dog food.

Not believing the hype: Easy.

Pudding

2015-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

I just now had my Christmas Pudding. It was delicious, laced with brandy and, I think, rum, and covered with single cream - and ‘twas an individual-sized portion.

Why individual?

My wife doesn’t like it and my daughters (8 & 6) don’t have alcohol for obvious reasons (and don’t like rich fruit cakes anyway.)

Ruby puppy* sat and waited for a while, ever hopeful, but my resolve never weakened.

*She’s a lady now, our Ruby; perhaps I should start being consistent and calling her a dog.

Fat

2015-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve eaten too much over the last few days. For most in the western, developed world it’s an obvious thing to do at this time of year. Eat to excess, buy to excess, etc.

Me though; I haven’t put weight on for years. I’ve tended to lose it instead. In that respect too I’m atypical.

2015 was a year of a small but consistent weight loss for me - started during #Movember 2014 and helped along by more fruit & veg, fewer slices of bread.

There’s a week to go until I go back to work. Hopefully in that time normality will be restored.

Jekyll-Now

2015-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

My first blog post using jekyll-now repo. Yes, this is indeed a test.

The date of the first post is simply a holdover from the repo from which I cloned mine.

For more instructions on how I did this, head over to the Jekyll Now repository on GitHub.

Hello World!

2015-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

My second (test) blog post using jekyll-now repo. This may work! Simply deleting the original file and expecting the blog to catch up did not.

Floods

2015-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Not much to say today apart from to mention the local flooding (thankfully not hyperlocal, i.e. not right here.)

The power was off for 1-1/2 hours this morning, the centre of Rochdale flooded as the River Roch burst its banks, and at the sewage works. Bury had a gas explosion, and a pub collapsed not far north…

My wife, working tonight, left her phone here. She had a couple of diversions en-route, so I’m hopeful it’s an easy drive home in the morning.

It’s still bloody raining!

Adventure

2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Adventure!

For the past few months, on and off, I’ve been running an adventure game - me as the Game Master* and @mlv (App.net) as the lone player.

It started, innocuously-enough, here.

Here’s a recent map.

It’s been fun making it as we go. Some stuff is planned, some off-the-cuff in response to Michael’s responses, some totally spontaneous, and nothing whatsoever that could be termed capricious behaviour on my part.

You know what, it remains fun! Therapeutic, though from/against what I do not know. And I don’t care.

Hah! If I knew what one was I… Ok, it’s my first time.

Charitable

2015-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

How do you explain to someone, without actually explaining, that you will not buy their raffle tickets (all proceeds to local charities, prizes donated by local businesses) because you already gave more than your allocation for the month?

Not an easy few words.

So I kept my few words to an absolute minimum, and yet still experienced a sense of guilt. It probably doesn’t matter that I already gave to one of the beneficiary charities a few weeks ago…

Are we programmed to donate socially, judged unfairly when we don’t?

Probably. And probably.

I always have picked ‘my’ charities to suit my history, circumstances and mood. And occasionally because my friends or acquaintances believe passionately-enough to mention them. Or in response to media-led frenzies. It’s a perfect storm when all three influences coincide.

Yeah, because I’m only human.

Paris

2015-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Life is complicated. Living it is easy. Put one foot in front of another, breathe in, breathe out, drink, blink, eat, pee, poo, sleep, work, play, laugh, cry. And then it’s over.

There is more, of course. Aspiration. The latest smartphone, TV, games console, car, a house, family, friends, safety.

And then there’s freedom.

Those of us who have it are incredibly lucky. Yet still we moan about the overreaching of the states we live in. Surveillance everywhere, taxes for female sanitary items, too many traffic wardens…

I cannot.

I cannot begin to imagine my life being shaped by the influences that cause someone to become a terrorist. But what I can do is attempt to at least understand why.

I’m not about to start down that road right now, not in a blog post. Mine isn’t a knee-jerk reaction shaped by the latest news, the cause forgotten about in a desire to have someone else do something about it. Something quick. Retribution.

Even in my comfortable existence I’ve not forgotten one fact, apparently beyond the wit of a sizeable proportion of the people commenting on the Paris killings of Friday 13th November 2015… And all the other atrocities carried out in the past in the name of our freedoms to give us our comfortable lives.

It’s a statement that covers a multitude of ‘sins.’

Religions don’t kill people, people kill people.

Baz's Law

2015-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

The probability that footnotes could be added to a social media post* whilst retaining meaningful content in at least 2 component parts is proportional to the number of available characters per new post but tends towards zero below 256.

Barrie Turner. (@bazbt3)

Version 1.0, 2015-03-09.

*The separation between email, social media posts and instant messages is not as rigid as in the Internet’s infancy. The word ‘post’ is used here both for brevity’s sake and to limit this document’s terms of reference.

Flasher

2015-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

I can only now bring myself to talk about it - such is the impact on my family.

On Sunday evening, wearing my trusty grey dressing gown, I flashed Mollie, our female cat.

Swinging dangly bits, hip sways, whatever real flashers do, I did, my wife looking on aghast. Mollie’s normally inscrutable gaze faltered a little before she rolled onto her back, hands clasped cutely at her chest, legs ‘akimbo.’ Cute.

To me it felt liberating.

Giving an added sense of perspective, Mollie is coming up to her 4th birthday - all-but 7 months spent in our home (assuming the dates we were given are appropriate.)

And then it happened.

“You do know you just flashed your daughter,” my wife said.

Ah.

Lubricant

2014-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

We have a new liquid handwash. It’s supposed to be scientifically formulated to minimise odours but doesn’t quite get there. Now is not the time to mention the smells I’m…

The stuff inside the pump dispenser has an odd aroma - not fresh, not citrus-y or forest-y, not sensual or traditional, not exotically fruity, nor any combination of the preceding - just odd.

Around 40 years ago, before my family temporarily moved out during our home’s refurbishment, my dad owned a lathe. It was fascinating and dangerous and, as a 0-10 year old, I wasn’t allowed anywhere near it of course. Of course that didn’t stop me from fiddling and, though I never turned a thing on it, it generated an obsession that…

Even without power, turning the chuck by hand, adjusting the gear train ratios to alter the shaft speeds and to sense the changed torque necessary to… heck even opening the main inspection panel was…

Its lubricating oil had a unique smell that fixed itself to my consciousness and remains with me to this day. Once it got on my fingers it was nigh-on impossible to shift that smell. I was extraordinarily careful to never get it on my sleeves - and of course failed.

Oh the irony of a thing supposed to shift smells evoking a memory of one so difficult to shift. Anyway, when we moved out, the lathe was sold.

This handwash alone hasn’t just resurrected one memory, oh no. If I had a suitable metaphor to describe the oddness of what I’m feeling right now I’d use it. One after another, recollections are cascading towards me and, for the most part, they’re good.

Just one thing stands out though - looking back it appears my dad really didn’t understand my left-handedness.

Challenging

2014-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

No. I’m not participating in a public fundraiser. I’m not challenging anyone else to do it, nor am I demanding they forfeit large sums of money if they fail.

A lot of people won’t bother to ask what the Ice Bucket Challenge is for, concentrating merely on the social dimension. A lot will do it and donate to their favourite charity. Most, I hope, will donate to the MND/ALS charity in their region - and have fun doing so.

There’s no sugar-coating this, so here goes.

Me? I’ve painful memories of my dad’s last days to battle with. It’s enough. Ok, so I donated £25 this time round. No fanfare, no fuss, just went online and pressed buttons.

There’s no escaping the simple fact that Motor Neurone Disease is a fatal disease. The odd exception stays around for longer than most but it’s not much of a life.

Nearly twenty eight years after his death in hospital some memories remain undimmed. Not the kind that return on seeing a nearly-forgotten photo. Not those based solely on the photo with no memory of the actual event, no. Powerful stuff.

After the diagnosis my dad knew. And knowing, he gave up, or at least that’s how I remember it. There’s no shame in that, no recriminations from the people he left behind. None.

When your wife and son have to wipe, wash, dry and dress you, when eating becomes difficult, when breathing becomes a strain, the very very worst thing remains - the mind is…

My dad did crossword puzzles when other pastimes became impossible. He did them in his head. Let’s face it, no longer being able to hold a pen can’t be much fun. He’d struggle to make himself understood when we filled the words in but upon completing the grid together the sense of achievement, the triumph, the bright eyes - if only for a moment - gave me an inkling of how important this achievement was.

I also remember the good times - that’s the important thing to remember here.

£25 seems a pitifully small sum of money to give, especially if the current massive outpouring of goodwill advances the understanding of MND/ALS and eases the suffering of those whose lives it destroys.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking you can have a bucket emptied over your head and then give your money to just any charity - the biggest do not need your money right now. Cancer affects much greater numbers. Fighting cancer is important. Everyone I know has someone in their lives who’s survived, or succumbed to The Big C. Yet…

The effects of natural or man-made disasters are, nowadays, there for all to see - often within a scant few hours of the events happening. Such things are often forgotten a scant few hours or days later - there’s no personal connection thus the average human simply can’t grasp the impact.

More fleeting events such as, oh I don’t know, the continuation of famine and poverty worldwide caused by the diversion of funds away from those who need them most, cause me to stop and think.

Just after the shock of 9/11 I donated money, like many, to the American Red Cross’s appeal. My donation was misplaced. Blood donations had to be destroyed as the existing infrastructure was unable to cope. A vanishingly small percentage of the blood got through to 9/11 victims. Sure it swelled their coffers but…

I failed to donate after Hurricane Katrina wiped out much of e.g. New Orleans. If the richest country in the world cannot look after its own why should I, a man of moderate means living in the UK, even think of doing so?

There’s nothing wrong with donating time or money. There’s nothing wrong with feeling better that you’ve helped by giving money. I’m not going to get into ‘Liking’ or retweeting though - suffice it to say I know people who think pressing a button HELPS!

Right now it’s great that MMD/ALS is, even tenuously, high in the public’s consciousness. Don’t be an arse and say they’re ‘stealing’ from more established causes. Don’t try to justify your charity’s position by saying ‘no-one OWNS #icebucketchallenge.’ Some little person somewhere managed to do something innovative without the benefit of advertising departments and focus groups - and it worked. Just accept it.

There’s nothing wrong with a spur-of-the-moment donation either. On this 9/11 (ok, 11 September 2014) a Manchester, UK dogs home was the victim of a nasty, cowardly arson attack which killed around 60 and caused a massive surge in donations. By lunchtime the day after £622,000 (a cool million US$) had been raised. It easily doubled in the few days following - something that no-one could have predicted.

“Think first, donate later.” It’s how I operate now. I happen to believe it’s the responsible way to approach the thorny issue of wanting to do something good whilst staying within the confines of an ever-shrinking pot after all the bills have been paid.

This post originally aired 20 September 2014.

School report

2014-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

I like ‘The Internet.’ I like it a lot. I interact with an at-glacial-pace-decreasing-number of the myriad of services available ‘on’ it as I understand more about what I need from it. It wasn’t always thus but since Q1 1997 I’ve found it to be indispensable.

Google is my friend. I resisted the temptation to sell my soul to it for the longest time. And then I signed up to everything. I resisted the call of Facebook for years and, though I’m yet again deactivated there, when I fell I found it useful.

Twitter and App.net (ADN) - different services, different uses. In the same way that I found Twitter to be at first exciting and for the moment and then restrictive because of the post character limit, I find ADN to be a place I can contemplate my timeline and relax into the higher character count. No-one would ever describe my posting style as abrupt, terse, or concise. Certainly not inflammatory.

Nearly everyone on ADN behaves like adults, even those not legally entitled to be called such by dint of their age. Nearly everyone has silly moments. Nearly everyone, even when arguing about deeply-held beliefs, is courteous and, I believe, most attempt to allow discourse instead or riding roughshod over what they believe to be opposing factions’ opinions.

There are of course, an odd number who fail to hold to the high standards I set*, but I recognise that if an individual holds a particular viewpoint strongly-enough it’s pointless to try and change it.

I even like it when things go wrong and apologies are made and attempts made to fill the cracks instead of papering over them.

I emphatically do NOT like being told to shut up and compared to a naughty schoolboy for engaging in a discussion about a subject that pains me. I’m an adult and can behave as I choose, when I choose, and where I choose.

In my entire adult life no-one apart from my wife has told me to shut up and escaped my undivided attention. In my 17 years online, no-one has ever told me to shut up - apart from a Russian youth on Twitter who misunderstood my attempts to help solve a problem because I misunderstood his poorly-phrased question. The stream of unnecessary invective thrown at me led me to the inescapable conclusion he’d recently discovered English sweary stuff and I was in the right place at the right time - for him.

One attempt at conciliation over, blocking was easy. These days though, well, I have less time to piss about around hopeless causes.

I care deeply about maintaining a positive and so-far-lifelong approach to fairness and tolerance, the same towards race and gender issues - and, trivially, not taking sides in Apple vs Android and other similar silly stuff - an approach that my parents instilled in me from an early age. Not beat into me with a big stick but showed to me with their love and kindness. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky that my life hasn’t been blighted by nastiness, apart from the torment inflicted by one particularly difficult managing director. By the same token I’ve not yet achieved president-of-the-world status - but happiness means different things to different people.

It’s not an exciting approach.

Anyone who knows me understands something of who I am, and may even understand most of what I mean here. Anyone who doesn’t could take the time to learn. But not everyone gives a damn. And, do you know, that’s fine - the Internet is, after all, big enough for everyone. I have no objection to people saying what they like, when they like, where they like. Where views repeatedly and negatively impact others and the torment caused could be avoided by a moment’s reflection, then there comes a point at which engagement should cease.

I have another philosophy. It’s closely linked to something I wrote above. I complain. I complain about lots of things. I complain about the weather, the speed of the internet, poor web design, my iPhone 5’s excellent battery life [edit may be required!], the traffic, the weather again, food, the abysmal choice of television despite the eleventy trillion available channels, Eastenders (UK), the decline of Dr Who post-Jon Pertwee and again after David Tennant, the crap £35 tablet we got as a first for our youngest daughter and which I recently inherited as we upgraded her to first class, envelopes that don’t seal with my saliva, the new picture frames we must buy special hooks for, the speed at which my unattended cups of tea cool, motorists driving past past the speed limit with their phones clamped firmly to their ears prior to parking on the pavement on the yellow lines, the weather yet again, the price of bread, my stupidity in not retaining the entirety of my Asimov novel collection, hospital food and signage, the…

Ok, I complain.

You may have heard of the Psion Series 5, a brilliant but inherently unreliable portable pocket computer, way ahead of its time and genuinely useful. I’d owned it’s precursors, the also unreliable but brilliant Series 3 and 3a. When the 5 arrived I saved and saved for and then and spent loads of money on it. The next logical step, I needed some home banking software to get my finances in order. I tried a few and eventually came across Nigel Bamber’s Home Bank. It fitted me well, but not perfectly. I outlined the possible improvements to Nigel and, do you know, he agreed. He changed the program and I fell into his cunningly-laid trap (not true, I volunteered) and spent time designing icons for the bloody thing. I think my name may be in the credits somewhere if anyone still has a working example. Though not a complaint, I attempted to help, and found the process very satisfying.

It’s pointless listing the number of times my subsequent and little ideas have subtly changed stuff, even usually for the better. I’m no improvement machine when all’s said and done.

I also shout. I shout at the cats, I shout at the girls, at my wife, at aeroplanes, idiot boy racers with stereo systems more powerful than their car engines. If the moon annoys me one day…

Shouting is a waste of time, energy and opportunity. I never, ever, rubbish genuine attempts to improve. My daughters (4 & 7) often struggle against what they see as insurmountable odds. They share a silly dance, running around the room, hands waving high, shrieking “It’s impossible!” It should be endearing but…

Spelling was a problem for the oldest. Maths still is. Obviously, we all start from zero knowledge and get better, all at our own pace and often despite the best efforts of professionals an an incompetent parent (e.g. me!) She’s become a voracious, and I really do mean voracious, reader. Her stories are really good too. Short due to her age, her lack of concentration, but good. They show imagination possibly beyond her years. Her expression and grasp of words when reading out loud - it’s a joy to me. To us.

We got her end-of-year school report today. She’s not perfect but I was so, so proud reading it. ‘A’ grades for effort all the way down. Imagine me sat there with a big, silly, grin and tears rolling down my face. With her at 7 years old being exposed to an idiotically-extensive and advanced-compared-to-my-40-year-old-studies, you know what? I don’t care about the occasional ‘average’ grade for attainment. She TRIES! Proud.

This unwarranted emotion may have something to do with my wife being in hospital. But looking across and, for today, having no-one to share this with right there and then…

Before bedtime this evening the same oldest daughter rushed out of the room and cried. She wouldn’t tell me why. Stood there with tears pooling in her eyes, and then sobbed. So I applied the hot poker and forced it out of her. The non-trivial cause of the angst: a picture she’d been working on using a dark blue felt-tip pen had gone wrong.

A quick Google Image search and some well-chosen Leonardo Da Vinci sketches to the rescue, a chat about the evolution of a painting from outline (say pencil) sketch through shaded image to… I now have a sketchy portrait (pot belly, beard, moustache, reading glasses, interesting hair) waiting to be completed tomorrow and then coloured in.

(Unfortunately the spreadeagled man complete with anatomically-correct thingy appeared not far from the Mona Lisa whilst scrolling through Google Images, but nudity’s not a big thing here. And thankfully the appendage doesn’t yet appear on my portrait.)

I’m a rubbish parent though. Occasionally a complete, total, and intransigent arse. I can catalogue every flaw in my personality and the way each impacts both of my lovely daughters. Do I improve, can I improve with age?

Well, you can bet I try my very, very best to get it as close to right, as close to fair and as close to consistent as I can. So yes.

But, when all’s said and done, an arse remains an arse. Me - I’m a good wiper.

*Reverse-self-deprecation gambit.

Glasses

2014-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

My eyesight is deteriorating as I age. In the early nineties (last century!) I was short-sighted and experienced headaches whilst driving. Now it’s the long-sightedness of my advancing years.

We get regular eye tests at work but my urge to remedy the sight issue has fallen between the cycles. No problem, I bought my own - these. They have spring-loaded sides which, it has to be said, gave me some initial discomfort. Running boiling water over the sides and gently re-shaping to fit my unique head profile proved a permanent solution.

Now, I think they add an air of sophistication to my otherwise-morose appearance, and the design fits my needs very well. I can read comfortably and, if needs be, look up at my family or the telly without too much re-focus disorientation.

The best bit - their aspect ratio means I can look over the top of the frame without touching the glasses!

Look, I know I should have visited a qualified optometrist/optician but…

For the reasons outlined above, and for the freedom-from-magnifying-glasses this product brings me, I award Baz’s seal of approval

Voted yesterday

2014-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday, before work, I voted. In the greatest of British traditions I was able to make small talk with one of the sitting councillors (not up for re-election) and wished his candidate every success in the polls. Not that I was voting for the party. That was the easy bit - the area demographic made the result a foregone conclusion.

The hardest bit was getting into the building - the Entrance arrow confusingly pointing to a glass panel next to the door. I asked, a few other people had already commented on it, but none had actually suggested that it be moved! See, politics and the processes around politics aren’t always boring!

More small talk later, my attempts at ingratiating myself with everyone there complete, I left for work.

In the early hours of Friday morning the local result was announced. I care nothing for the national or European picture, for this year mine was a protest vote - see the day before yesterday’s post for more on this.

The area’s Conservative (incumbent party) candidate won handsomely. UKIP came second, Labour third, the Liberal Democrats a far-away fourth.

Oddly given the 2012 election result, a new low for the party, the Liberal Democrats actually managed to increase the number of votes cast. By 3! This despite their candidate’s failure to electioneer, the total lack of leaflets distributed on his behalf and despite me giving my vote to someone else. People are, it seems, creatures of habit.

Why am I writing about this if it’s not that important?

Dunno.

Voting tomorrow

2014-05-21T00:00:00+00:00

We’ve got the local councillor and the European Parliament elections here tomorrow. I’ll be honest and say I’m thinking of voting UKIP. Taking their stated aims at face value and remembering all politicians lie is the key to my decision-making process. I’m all for saving the money currently used to prop up the economies of new entrants to Europe and helping Britain first.

Incidentally… No, not incidentally, call me a racist and we’ll have an argument.

Mine this time will be a protest vote. It doesn’t matter if you consider UKIP to be a bunch of racist, sexist, lying, self-serving scumbags, the alternatives here are just not palatable - and all parties have their rebels. A few elections ago, when seemingly every voter and their dog catapulted green issues into the spotlight, I was one of those idealistic box crossers. It seemed to make a difference then, so why not now?

Aside from that aberration I’ve been a lifelong Liberal/Liberal Democrat party voter, even member for a couple of years. Disillusion is now the order of the day, centred on their inability to organise any presence at all in this voting district despite my previous attempts at engagement - my time utterly wasted.

After this year’s count and another failure, I WAS considering sending an email to the local LibDems party leader, to twist the ‘I told you so’ knife… but that just wouldn’t be fair. Blogging and talking about it at my ADN account are.

After the debacle of the last Labour governments’ repeated waste and stealthy destruction of our safe financial future; the Conservatives’ unholy alliance with the LibDems and their accelerated destruction of our safe financial future, and the futility of voting Green this time around, what’s left?

To be fair the 2 local Conservative councillors are nice guys, approachable, and they regularly turn out for local events. A part of our community. But voting for ‘em? No.

Oh, and my perception of the Green Party is that they’re trying to save the planet. An admirable thing to do even in the face of vested interest, but… We’ve already had 3 identical leaflets of theirs delivered. My emailed observations that they were wasting our precious resources but were at least doing better than the LibDems was returned to me as undeliverable.

So, back on track, to where this started, a UKIP protest vote?

What the hell am I protesting ABOUT - why this stream-of-consciousness claptrap?!

Something. Dunno.

Hand of shame

2014-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

I have, like the vast majority of humans and humanoid creatures on this planet, a right hand. I’m naturally left-handed but the right is used frequently. Doors, steering wheel, scissors, shaking others’ hands… though the list is not endless, ‘versatile’ is a fair description

My right hand has a special purpose, a now-open secret going back nearly 10 years…

My wife hasn’t picked the phrase ‘Hand of Shame’ randomly, nor was it chosen by accident. Not really.

The first time was on holiday/vacation - a cruise down the River Nile. The second on our Honeymoon, at the Blue Waters Resort, Antigua. When our first daughter arrived we had a brief period of respite, which ended a couple of years after a very successful and mercifully-brief potty training period.

It’s a small hand, almost unnaturally small for a man. It’s matched very well indeed to its companion. It’s called upon to go to places a man’s hand ought not to fit - in short, it’s likely more versatile than yours. Unless, that is, you can play the piano or do impressive prestidigitation. In which case mine’s floundering in your right-man-hand’s wake.

Now, do you recall I mentioned it’s used for shaking hands? At this point you should engage your imagination…

A few minutes ago, with a tiny amount of assistance from the writer, and with no safety net, it unblocked our toilet.

I Haz Laphroaig

2014-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

This morning I badly needed a decongestant, so the timing of the gift could not have been more appropriate. Purists (and those who abhor the practise, however infrequent, of drinking alcohol before 10am) look away now…

I had it with hot water, maple syrup (the squeezy bottle of honey had solidified due to lack of recent usage,) sugar and a few drops of lemon juice (yup, Jif, from a bright yellow squeezy plastic bottle.)

And it was lovely. Please disregard the fact that I’m currently sat here with Earex drops in both ears to hopefully clear the temporary deafness, and both ears are plugged with toilet paper (there’s no cotton wool in the house.)

Laphroaig is a fantastic drink. It takes time. It’s best approached along a long and winding path. I confess I worked my way up through a lot of the blended Scotches, through the easy-on-the-palate single malts, and thought Talisker was the pinnacle of Scots’ liquid refreshment achievement, until I found Laphroaig. I’m not a drinker, it took a serious amount of time.

Incidentally, my previous Scottish pinnacle, ‘Irn Bru’ has now, though marginally, been beaten into third place.

The best summary I’ve heard of Laphroaig so far from a drinker of blended whiskies: “Ugh, it tastes like medicine!” Medicine? That works for me, and has in the past been an often-used excuse^H^H^H^H^H^Hreason for getting the glass out. Forget Cask Strength and other marketing ploys designed to extract the unwary buyer’s money… The best Laphroaig by a long distance was the 15-year-old, now sadly not marketed.

I was introduced to it (thanks ‘Bob’ the builder) on a cruise down the Nile. Transported in so many ways to a more relaxed world (for society’s elite of course) and broad as the following statement is, I really cannot think of any combination of 2 things that, when combined, are more redolent of the luxury I imagine existed in the bygone age visitors to Egypt expect to encounter.

Catharty-ism

2014-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

My children’s discipline is a constant source of frustration to me. I’ve spent the last few years being consistent in my approach to it, even with the obvious discord it engenders. I’ve honestly thought I’ve being doing the right thing. Apparently not.

Today though, something remarkable happened…

For a long time I’ve been threatening (yes!) to throw toys away. My wife hates the idea and, even when I’ve implemented the threat in the past it’s ultimately failed for a number of reasons - not limited to rescuing whatever’s in the bin or forcing (yes!) me to do it. I’ve apparently been unreasonable.

Perspective may be a worthwhile thing to introduce at this point?

We’re overrun with toys of all shapes and sizes, spent paper & card, paint pots & brushes, pens & pencils. Every room in the house apart from the ‘master’ bedroom, toilets and bathroom has mess wherever the girls (nearly 7 & 4) finish what they’re doing. Bedrooms are occasionally, in a very real sense, impassable - bedclothes, dressing-up clothes, toys strewn across the floor, beads and sharp pointy things underfoot to cause maximum discomfort to unwary adults.

One of the very worst things to deal with is the horrendous number of stickers that appear on every surface in the house. They stick to furniture, floors, are run through the washing machine, clog the vacuum cleaner, stick to work clothes, to bare feet and cats…

It’s been going on, as I mentioned above, for a few years now and despite my best efforts the lessons I’ve been trying to teach simply haven’t sunk in. It would be fair to say that my wife and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on matters of child discipline. You could say I’ve gone way past the point of being reasonable about it, but without any visible improvement using other methods (naughty step included) I thought it would eventually pay off.

Today though I’d just had enough. I’d asked the girls to get all of their art stuff together and make a pile of it, and put everything else in another pile. We’d then figure out between us what to keep and what to throw out. It worked until I figured out I’d got in the way - at which point I’d made the mistake of believing both girls’ suggestions they’d have it done soon.

An hour later, and 2-1/2 hours in to the exercise, and after frequent reminders I gave up. No, I hadn’t expected concentration for that amount of time, there’d been breakfast, juice, a bit of telly as a temporary reward…

So, all of the stuff not already sorted into the ‘art stuff’ pile went in bin bags, ditto all of the other toys. All this while the girls watched and asked awkward questions.

Then, the remarkable thing: my wife didn’t stop me, nor did she suggest the toys shouldn’t be binned. You could have slapped me down with a small wet fish! Amazing!

To spare my oldest daughter the pain of seeing her toys going into bags my wife decided to take her shopping - there’s a rather important milestone-y family birthday party next weekend, and we’d also nearly run out of ketchup! My youngest daughter can still be bribed with TV, so that’s what happened whilst I ‘tidied up’ in the back of the kitchen.

The back of our kitchen has in the past been called ‘The Morning Room’ (previous owners) and by us ‘The Breakfast Room’ (though we’ve never really used it as such), and now it’s ‘The Area’ (christened thus by the girls) for art and general messing around. It’s been allowed to fill up with colouring books, sticker rolls, beads, aprons, discarded paint pots, brushes, and especially completed works of art…

So all the paper and card and felt and plastic went in bin bags, and with it anything I deemed unusable. Anyone more sentimental than I would have baulked at destroying their children’s precious memories, but not man-of-steel here, no. I thought about the implications, of course.

My wife and oldest daughter returned home from the shop some time after I’d finished. I helped with the unpacking, feeling good about something for the first time in a week-and-a-half.

We had another brief chat about what I’d done, she suggested sorting through the toys later - a not unreasonable thing to do given the circumstances - and I put the last bits of shopping away.

You could say that the morning had occasioned a cathartic response in me, the result of which is the 4 (yes four) bin bags (items taken only from the front & dining rooms and ‘The Area’) waiting next to the outer door in the utility room for my wife to sort out later. And, more-importantly for my sense of well-being, a sense of a job well-done and a feeling of an achieved consensus.

Success!

The very last item out of the very last shopping bag - another pack of stickers.

Computer book required

2014-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

I don’t read enough. I bought 3 novels a few months ago with the intention of making time. Of course it didn’t work! To help speed things along I’m thinking of narrowing my focus somewhat - to something I’m certain can start this process off. At the dawn of the UK’s home computer revolution I bought a book about computers.

A key phrase from it still resonates: something like “computers are fast rule following idiots”, then the obligatory “garbage in equals garbage out.” It seems that those words are both truer than ever and at the same time subject to disproval based on what we see every day. But that’s a topic for another time…

I’d like to re-acquire a copy of the book.

A quick trawl through the histories of various computers and computer companies from that era indicates a publishing date after 1977, and before 1982. It’s a fairly big window given the massive progress being made at that time, so how can I be sure?

Well, 1977 as I’m certain the Tandy TRS-80 was mentioned in the book, as was the Apple ][. 1982 because when my first computer (a 1K RAM Sinclair ZX81) arrived my focus narrowed from the previous theoretical ‘what if’ to the more practical ‘eeek, what now?!’

I wonder, can you help me find it?

Some help:

It’s heavily slanted towards the U.S., relating to both that country’s computing history and its then-contemporary devices. That’s not surprising.
It has a picture or a photo of a computer on the front.
The colour beige or orange features predominantly on the cover.
it’s the same size as a thick novel.
Er… I know it’s not much help!

So, how about it? Have you got what this quest needs?

Not a blogger

2014-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

I’m not a blogger, not really. Why? I have a blog, I post stuff to it, I have extended periods of time without activity (in the blog and real life.) So, why do I consider myself not a blogger?

I arrived on the Internet in 1997 - at a time when the term ‘Information Super Highway’ was still in common use, and before it was referred to humorously (but accurately) as a series of tubes. I’d spent around the previous 15 years messing about with computers but electronically-isolated from the rest of the world. BBS’ were for Californians and graduates of MIT, obviously. The UK, as far as I was concerned, was isolated and that was fine with me.

People for whom the Internet has always been a part of their life, and who may have been the merest of glints in their parent’s eyes when I stepped out into the slow lane of Information Super Highway, may grasp what I’m trying to say but not actually relate to it. That’s fine. Anyone of my generation or older (cringe) may share the same perspective. This one:

I don’t write for an audience.

Though this statement is demonstrably not true given the fact that my new posts automatically notify a couple of social networks and I’ve an RSS feed, the only clarification I can give is this: I don’t write for a big audience.

Hello.

A sense of humour

2014-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

My oldest daughter is often challenged by her homework - there’s way too much for a 6-year-old, but the school gets good results and we don’t want to rock the boat, at least not just yet. The latest batch has what I presume is an exercise related to imagination.

The brief being to create a monster, describe its likes and attributes, and draw a picture. The most important bit, the one daughter 1 was most challenged by, giving said monster a name.

It should be easy, it’s only a name. Right? But we’d only recently finished with the weights and measures homework, moving together throughout the house finding objects for me to illustrate what things weigh. Brain full.

5kg was easy for her - 5 bags of sugar.
100g less easy given perfectionist daddy’s insistence in diving into the miscellaneous food items drawer. But we got there.
63kg is what a mummy weighs. Not this mummy here you understand, as I noted at the bottom of the page to the teacher, in a pitiful attempt at humour and face-saving.
30g is a packet of crips (chips if you’re the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean.)

So, a name for the monster? She didn’t know. So I explained what it must be like being one. “Just imagine what life must be like as a monster,” I said. “Everyone’s out to get you simply because you’re going round the countryside eating small children and sheep. And, do you know, that’s wrong.” She looked at me for a moment. And then looked again.

I continued “Imagine all you want is a quiet life, to just go down to the shops and buy some nice food, go home at the end of the day and sit down with a cup of steaming hot chocolate. And you can’t because the villagers are out to get you, stab you and set you on fire.” At this point daughter 1 opened her mouth and said something very appropriate: “?”

Ok, non-verbal communication is indeed very powerful, but let’s move on…

“So,” I said “let’s pick a name now. Please.”

“Flib-blob-floo-boo,” or something very close, was her reply. I’m still not sure if as an answer or because I’d melted her brain. But I pushed for an answer - it was past her bedtime.

“How about Buttercup?” I asked. “Just because it’s a monster doesn’t mean it has to have a horrible name like Raaarg or Snaarlf.”

“No.” came the emphatic response.

“Snowdrop?” was met with a giggle. On our way now, I hoped, but I’ll spare you the despair I felt when each subsequent pick was rebuffed. Close to giving up or getting her mother to help I gave it my best shot: “Jim-Bob?” (her name) “or Ag-Ack-Ack?” (her younger sister’s name.) Incidentally I’m not in the habit of divulging my family’s names publicly. Apart from the cats.

Simply “No.”

My patience wearing thin, inspiration arrived: I asked her to pick a letter of the alphabet to start the name off.

“F” she smiled.

Imagine my thought bubble: “Uh-oh.”

“i” arrived quickly, much to my relief.

”s, h, l, e, g ,s, !”

Done, at last!

And here she is:

I have what’s been called a well-developed sense of humour. Ok, I’m putting a positive spin on it. Being frank, a lot of people think I’m a bit weird. And some think I’m a lot weird. And, do you know, I have no problem with that.

I do have a problem with the dangly bulbous-ended thing between Fishlegs’ legs. I dare not ask, especially as I made the assumption a girl would pick a female monster.

…

“A tail?” you say.

Naah, she’s seen my willy.

Ketchup

2014-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

A potentially contentious post follows.

If you’ve been buying (or have been bought) Heinz Tomato Ketchup all your life, then let me tell you, you’re doing life wrong.

Try Tesco Tomato Ketchup instead. It tastes more tomato-ey, less vinegary, it’s got a better texture than its frankly artificial-tasting competitor and, the best bit, it’s approaching half the price!

Which? Magazine’s blind taste tests (login required to read the full article) and my discerning palate can’t be wrong.

Go on, give it a try, what’s the worst that could happen?

Dads Army mug

2014-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s one of my favourite Christmas presents from 2013. On the face of it just an enamelled mug, but to me it’s much, much more than that. There’s a massive amount of symbolism going on here. Drinking from it in the comfort of my comfy armchair and surrounded by the comfort of our modern age I can nevertheless imagine myself transported back it time to…

(insert wavy transition sequence here)

I’m a young recruit to the WWII Home Guard, green around the gills, no clue what’s going on, my ability to take orders my only saving grace… and someone gives me a mug of tea.

Ok, ok, I’m ordered to make the tea but that’s a trifling detail - isn’t this my story‽

Tinny pressed mug; flimsy pressed spoon; muddy water on a rolling boil in a patterned, enamelled container of origin best-not elaborated on. The milk’s a bit lumpy but that’s ok, it goes in, the tea’s good; any refuge from this biting cold is welcome…

(a-aaaand back to the future)

It makes a satisfying tinny sound when stirring tea (with bags, 3-1/2 sugars, thanks!) - it’s reassuringly light, it harks back to a bygone era when a man used what he was given - and liked it.

And it’s already taken on a manly patina. Oh, yes.

Computer assistance required

2014-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Why do people ask for assistance with computer problems they haven’t solutions for? That’s an easy one to answer: so they can show off their superior ability.

An example using you as the twit: there’s something wrong on your screen, a dialogue box appears and you can progress no further. What do you do? You ask your shining white knight to assist! Easy.

Said knight (me) arrives, asks you to do nothing more, not even move the mouse, then asks a series of questions. My first word though is “STOP!”

You:

Dismiss any and all dialogue boxes remaining on the screen, Pan and scroll the screen so that the area causing problems is no longer visible, let alone in focus,

Answer “What were you doing prior to the event?” with “Nothing!”

Answer “What were the contents of the dialogue box, even approximately?” with “I don’t know, something technical, how am I supposed to know?”

Answer “What do you need to do to progress?” with “I don’t understand.”

Eventually a dialogue is established, an approximate timeline leading up to the error is ascertained, and other big words…

A plan coalesces!

“Right,” I say “I think I know what’s causing the problem and I’ve a solution* I think will work. Should we try it?”

“Yes.” you say.

I start to patiently explain the background, the reason for the error, and steps necessary to avoid the ‘thing’ happening in the future. And this is where it falls apart.

You click, pan, scroll, press buttons, dismiss dialogue boxes, and then, as if it wasn’t enough, offer an alternative solution. You do it before I finish. Every time. “I know mine will work,” I say. You ignore this with “Yeah, but…” so I walk away.

Until the next time…

A few minutes later I observe a thought bubble above your head: “Er… that didn’t work, crap idea, I’ll go and ask X…”

A quarter of an hour later I observe X walking away a little flustered, and Google search appears on their screen. Eventually a solution appears and it’s implemented. X of course gets due credit. It is indeed only fair.

And there’s a smile on your face, you did well fixing that.

Until the next time…

Cake as a currency

2014-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

This post was inspired by a comment from @neilco on the App.net social network:

“I’m pondering a world where cake is the currency. My dad had this to say about both money and cake: once it’s gone it’s gone.

Just imagine a delicious, frosted, edible currency.”

My daughters have an uneasy relationship with cake. The lure, allure, whatever you wish to call the experience, of cake is strong and yet its execution in my household is weak. Before you think this is going nowhere, let me explain.

Cakes are bought, put on plates, cut into manageable portions, put on smaller plates and distributed according to the size of the family member to receive them. Number 2 daughter gets the smallest portion, number 1 the next larger, my wife gets the next-up in size and I, being head of the household and biggest, get the biggest. However, the distribution of sizes isn’t at all as straightforward as this outline implies.

Daughter 2 is still relatively clumsy so the floor gets some, she eats some, she sees something interesting on the TV, all is lost. Daughter 1 is also relatively clumsy, the TV plays a big part in her life too. So, the unconsumed cake, where still edible, usually goes to the head of the household. Me. (My wife is health- and weight-conscious.)

Now, Daughter 2 loves to share. It’s at the very core of her being. A slight issue is the concept of sharing is somewhat unconventionally applied in her world. I get my slice of cake, it’s lovely and moist and identical in all-but size to Daughter 2′s. She looks over want WANTS mine. There’s nothing in-your-face confrontational about the process of her taking over, it’s seamless. One minute it’s all mine, the next I’m feeding her bite-sized portions…

You’d think that would be the end of it. Nope, not by a long way. Because I try to be the best dad I can (let’s not go there) I feel the need to reciprocate the largesse dispensed by my 2 daughters. Ice cream or a trip to ‘The Cupboard’ is allowed. It’s only fair. And when it’s all over, am I owed a debt of gratitude? Maybe, but I’m unlikely to ever collect.

‘The Cupboard’, by the way, is where we keep the snacks, not some instrument of discipline similar to a mediaeval iron maiden. No, ‘The Cupboard’ is a simple cupboard with shelves, situated at ground level with deliciously-edible contents available to all-comers, incidentally a strategy being re-examined as this very post is written.

Eventually I finish my cake, dreaming of simpler times – a single example being once when our 5 cats sat in a perfect semi-circle whilst I fed them the meat from an otherwise excellent triple pack of supermarket sandwiches.

In summary, quantitative easing seems a clumsy instrument compared to the arrival of even a single cake at Turner Towers.

Follow

2014-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

I don’t follow everyone who follows me on App.net (or previously Twitter) for a number of reasons, all selfish. Here are a few:

On the date I’m writing this I follow 73 people on App.net. Sure it’s not a massive number, but it’s enough for now. Some are more prolific than others.

Important to note: I read my timeline daily. All of it. Sometimes it takes more than one day to get through it all.

I skip over some posts of course, but the key thing to remember is I have directed posts (the one side of conversations of people I follow) turned on. It’s a lot of posts.

I used to cite my now-practically-inactive Twitter account as evidence that I’m over-committed on social networks. That’s no longer the case but my reading strategy is unfortunately still based on that network.

So, if a user’s average post count is low I’ll follow.

One day I’ll figure this out but I’m such a nosy sod I reckon it’ll take a while. I hope this helps you understand why I may or may not follow you.

Thankyou for feigning patience!

Killed

2014-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

All, ok, most old content is gone. I wasn’t really interested in keeping it. A late spring clean?

Alternatively: Oops!