egadfly

Chocolate bar assignment

2012-02-02T05:38:04Z

.
To my mild bemusement, I received this two days ago. What would you do?
.
.
.
.
.

O men

2012-01-21T00:48:18Z

So I was catching up on my fwiends page tonight when I saw this post of extemporanea's, which includes the following suggestion:

Pick up the nearest book to you.
Turn to page 45.
The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

My books were in other rooms and I did not know which one would be closest to me but I was determined to take the risk. The nearest book turned out to be one of Iza's. The first sentence on page 45 reads:

"Dusk fell, and in the glow of the strengthening stars I could see the murky shapes of the elephants still holding firm with iron defiance."

Your table will be served eventually. So will you

2012-01-20T09:09:39Z

Hello.

Life is good. Life is busy. Interestingly, I behave much less like a busy person than I used to, yet I am getting more done.

It still takes a long time to do things. There is still a long list of things that I feel ought to be done immediately - but since I only have one "immediately", most of these things are waiting and will continue to wait for some time.

I am much calmer about this than I used to be.

Some of the waiting things involve communication. I probably owe you an email or a reply. These will happen, as soon as possible, which also means eventually. In the meantime, I am enjoying my life with its faster (if still slow) pace of getting things done. I hope you are enjoying being you too.

Homebound

2012-01-02T21:21:49Z

Simon's Town is a villagey area in the southern reaches of Cape Town. My mother and stepfather live there with two extremely angular, well-loved cats. Their house perches high on the windy slopes of the mountain, overlooking the sea.

When I was a teenager, the house was a cottage and my room was tucked underneath it, accessible only by its own direct door to the outside. For a teenager, this was heaven. Now I am older and the house is larger and my old room is the guest room. This is where Iza and I stay when we visit.

It was difficult to leave that place tonight, not only because of old memories, but because it felt like a home for both of us, a sanctuary deeper than a mere holiday venue. It was the ideal place to end our holiday.

Now we are on our way to our London home. We're sitting in the departure lounge at Cape Town International, despite various officials' initial refusal to believe in our temporary passports. (Now they have faith and we are saved, hallelujah.) We fly soon.

We've had a truly wonderful holiday, in the original sense of it being full of wonders. Feels like we've been away for ages. I'm sad to leave, but happy to be going... home.

We had joy, we had fun, we did admin in the sun

2011-12-31T11:45:22Z

After intensive bureaucracy wrangling, we now have the following:

Polish temporary passport, required for Iza to leave SA and enter UK, valid for 3 months without restrictions.

South African temporary passport, required for me to leave SA, valid for 12 months without restrictions.

British temporary passport, required for me to enter UK, usable only for my specific one day journey.

Measured in cost per usable day, the British document was 2,600 times more expensive than the South African one.

The important thing is that we are able to fly home as planned next week.

I haven't had time to reply to all emails yet. Until I do: thank you everyone who sent kind words and offered assistance. The support of family and friends has made it much easier to navigate the challenges of the last week.

We are both doing very well and we have been enjoying the sunshine. Here is a photo ~~AHS~~ Cara took of us lazing near a river in the Cederberg about 10 days ago:

I wish you an enjoyable New Year's Eve and a brilliant start to 2012. Make the most of it; it's less than a year until the world ends :)

A Serious Unfortunate Event

2011-12-25T17:10:51Z

Iza and I recently experienced a nasty little instance of South African crime. The good thing is that we are ok. (That outcome was not guaranteed.) The bad thing is that our valuables, including passports, are gone.

This somewhat distorts the rest of our holiday, which will now be centred around the fun of attempting to secure 3 emergency travel documents, each for a different nationality, in the space of 3 working days. We'll continue to make the best of our time here - the incident was nothing if not a lesson in the impermanence of things and the significance of living the moment - but there will be a knock-on effect on some plans.

Kirstenbosch on Saturday the 31st, as announced here, will not be happening. I will email everyone who responded to ensure they're aware.

I still have my UK phone. I also have the temporary SA phone with the number given at the end of that same post.

If I have made any sort of plans with you, I'll be in touch, hopefully later this evening. Some things will change to "don't know, might contact you at the last minute to see if you're free".

The unwelcome adventure occurred a few days ago. We've spent the time since then dealing with practicalities, and chilling in Knysna with my family. Happily, we had a thoroughly enjoyable xmas, and I do hope you did too.

See you in Cape Town?

2011-12-13T07:13:07Z

Iza and I will be visiting South Africa soon. We leave London on Friday night and return early in the new year.

Previous visits have involved rushing from one individual/couple/household to another, trying to fit in as many of the local friend-clans as possible. This time we're spending most of our time travelling outside Cape Town, or with family, or both. We're hoping the clans can be persuaded to come to us. Can you?

Kirstenbosch gathering

On 31 December, probably for the whole afternoon, we plan to be in Kirstenbosch. If you're in Cape Town that day, it would be great to see you.

The idea is for it to be a completely fluid event, with people arriving and leaving whenever suits them during the time we're there. Hopefully we get a combination of a small group gathering and some individual time with everyone.

If you think you might make it and would like to be kept up to date on specific arrangements, weather contingency plans, etc, please email your contact details to me by Friday 16th (see below). Most helpful would be to get your SA cellphone number, because it'll be easiest to use SMS to stay in contact while we're in town.

How to contact us

Now until Fri 16 Dec - my personal email address - [firstname][surname]@yahoo.co.uk without the square brackets of course, and note the absence of a dot between the names

Sat 17 Dec to Thu 22 Dec - no reliable method; in emergency you can try my UK mobile number

Fri 23 Dec to Mon 2 Jan (late pm) - temp SA cellphone number:

Zero 0
Seven 7
Eight 8
Five 5
Nine 9
One 1
One 1
Nine 9
Two 2
Four 4

Flood and food

2011-10-18T14:40:51Z

On Friday night we were sitting down to dinner when I heard a dripping sound.

The sound was made by droplets of water falling to the floor after making their way through the ceiling.

The guy upstairs was not at home. More droplets came a-dripping, some of them through our ceiling spotlights. Electricity off, then. Water was also gushing enthusiastically out of an overflow pipe on the side of the building, a narrow flood curving down into the neighbours' garden. Noah's Arc.

Miraculously, the landlord's agents had been on holiday on Thursday and Friday, which meant that instead of their answering maching saying "call back during office hours", it said "if you have an emergency during office hours, call this mobile number". The man who answered didn't seem happy to be called outside office hours, but he rapidly appreciated the gravity of the situation - gravity that was threatening to collapse our ceiling. He summoned a local plumber.

The plumber appeared short and shortly. He tried to cut off the water to the property, but failed. He then concluded what I had been expecting him to conclude but was happier to let him do the concluding of, and smashed through the lower glass panel of the front door to the upstairs flat. I held a torch for him. The door was now like a confused pessimist: half empty of glass.

The fault was found to be with the float in the toilet cistern. Normally, when a toilet water tank is full, the float ball floats up, the float arm is forced up, and the flow of water is stopped. When the tank is flushed, the water flees, the float assembly falls, and replacement water flows in until the tank is full. But when the float ball breaks away from the float arm, the float arm falls and stays fallen. Water floods in and stays flooding. The people downstairs hear dripping as they sit down to dinner.

On the subject of dinner, last night I cooked! This is a rare event, only slightly more frequent than water coming through the ceiling. I made this sauce but added chestnut mushrooms, baby corn, courgettes and spinach. We had it on conchiglie pasta, accompanied by a pleasant Pinot Grigio.

Meanwhile, apart from a few minor stains, the flat appears to have entirely recovered.

Yes, yes, recovered from the leaks! Not my cooking. We still have to do the washing up.

Repeat Progress

2011-08-19T22:10:50Z

Higher up and higher we spiral

When we get high enough we'll drop the bomb

But the higher we go the smaller the bomb gets

And the higher up we'll have to drop it from

London tonight

2011-08-08T23:54:11Z

This isn't one of the promised updates covering recent months; it's just about tonight. Apparently, since I have started journalling again, I am journalling again.

I'd been planning to swim tonight because: Poland; eating too much; drinking too much; exercise but not enough to compensate for the aforementioned. Instead I was hanging out with the MD and the head of finance because big stuff is happening in my company and I'm better off in that loop than out of it. More about which another time.

It was the end of the day and we were watching the news. Footage of London burning.

On that subject: What. The. Fuck. This isn't political protest, though in the broader sense there's politics under it. It's mostly hopeless angry and savage greedy and pointless tragic. No-one really knows what it is yet. It's a portent of a long-predicted future of gated communities and armed riot police on street corners - maybe. Or, more likely, it's a brief chaotic flash, an explosion born of complexity, momentarily shattering the illusion of control, clear only in hindsight, which won't stop the experts from finding out they knew everything about it all along. It's a sign of the times. Control is an illusion because control means prediction and prediction is on the way out. I so predict it.

London tonight is one face of uncertainty. It's rather ugly. In the near future we'll see many more of uncertainty's faces; thankfully some will be beautiful.

On the same subject but more practically: It's happening near friends (and it kicked off on the weekend very near some friends). But I am lucky. It hasn't come to my neighbourhood yet and almost certainly won't unless absolutely everything goes to shit, which it almost certainly won't. The greatest risk to me in the short term is that my weekend plans might go squiffy, which I suppose is quite low down the list of Britain's worries.

So in the office we talked about the riots before going to the pub to talk about our corporate stuff. On the way the MD mused about the side of London we don't see. We live in a bubble, he said. I didn't tell him how much time I spend outside that bubble. Instead I said, yes, we think of the Goldman Sachs guys as living in a bubble (ha ha, amateur sociologist/economist crossover pun; though I didn't point that out) but we ourselves are so insulated from those who have no prospect of a decent job.

We got to the pub and stood outside sipping beers chatting in our big responsible business bubble when CRASH. A chair had broken because an older suited man had leapt on a younger suited man and pinned him to the ground with his elbow on his throat, murmuring drunken threats into the young man's terrified face. The two City of London police officers who had been standing on the corner ambled over and separated them expertly, diplomatically, gently. The older man went inside to leave his email address so he could be invoiced for the chair. (City of London officers are thorough in their approach to dispute resolution.) Then the two businessmen left, arm in arm, the junior executive supporting the senior partner, who patted his back and grinned fondly at him like a best friend or an abusive but ultimately loving dad. Pop?

London tonight, man.

I hope everyone I know stays safe until this thing blows over. Statistics tells me you will but prediction, you know, isn't what it used to be. Please be careful.

Is me

2011-08-06T19:09:53Z

Greetings, Approximately Fifteen People!

That is: LJ fwiends who still check Livejournal (perhaps about 12) + Individuals who have this blog on their RSS readers (guesstimate 2) + Anyone else who just happens to have checked here in the last couple of days (maybe 1) = Approximately 15. Hi there.

The last sensible stuff I posted was about a trip to Poland in April. I'm in Poland again now; have been for the last week; will be home tomorrow pm.

I haven't been following LJ or Twitter at all and so am properly out of whatever loops may have been looping these past months.

Various things happened between the Poland trips and I'm thinking of doing a series of updates over the next couple of weeks - subjects like Work; Malta; Mosquito Bites; etc. We'll see how far I get. Watch this cyberspace.

How about you: what up, bruvs generic?

Informatically, To Whom It May

2011-08-05T08:15:43Z

For your safety and our protection, we are obliged by law. We would therefore be grateful; kindly do not, failing which carefully consider. Regretfully your enthusiasm is very much appreciated, however we are unable at this time. In more auspicious conditions under no circumstances, subject to regulated procedure. This has or may have been recorded and will not further affect your credit rating except as specified.

For which we thank you,

The Manglement.

How I faced my forgotten phobia in the forest

2011-04-25T11:55:14Z

Until Thursday, I'd entirely forgotten that I have an actual phobia. It's a sort of fear of heights, but more specific. I can stand and look over cliffs with no problem. What I have trouble with is climbing or moving at heights, especially when I start on the ground and get to about my head height. Then I freeze.

I last remember experiencing this when I was about 16 and visiting a friend whose father needed something retrieved from a largeish tree. As I was the tallest I volunteered, or was volunteered, to climb up and get it. I got to about the height of my head and duly froze. I retreated slowly, much to my humiliation and much to the annoyance of my friend's father who thought I was playing the fool.

Since then I have - through luck or unconscious effort - avoided similar situations. It's not too surprising I forgot about it. Phobias are not my style and I've outgrown a lot of weaknesses since I was 16.

Someone did once suggest to me that I join them climbing up to the roof of a three storey building while on ketamine. You will be pleased to hear that I refused; but I don't think that was due to specific awareness of this phobia, rather a general awareness of how nice it is to be alive with unbroken legs.

So. Fast forward to Thursday, when we went to a sort of adventure park in a forest outside Olsztyn. You climb 9 metres up to a platform on a tree, then walk, clamber, swing, precariously balance, etc. from tree to tree across a series of wires, nets, ropes, narrow wobbling logs, hoops and so forth. It takes about an hour to go round.

Iza went up first. I started second, got to about my head height, and froze. I remembered: I can't do this. I tried telling myself all the sensible stuff but it was too late - I was already frozen. I gave up and backed down. At least now I have the confidence to say no to something that doesn't feel right for me without feeling embarrassed.

But as Iza's brother and girlfriend climbed up, I started to reconsider. I have indeed outgrown a lot of weaknesses since I was 16. I have much better control of my mind. Phobias are truly not my style. I was free to walk away; I was also free to prepare myself properly and then do it very slowly, one rung of the ladder at a time.

I told myself all the sensible stuff and started up again. Very slowly. It was the most difficult thing I have done in quite a long time but I made it to the platform.

The first obstacle was the hardest (though not nearly as hard as the ladder up). After that it was mostly fun. And a while later it was all fun.

Nine metres is high. That's Iza reaching the starting platform:

Me in midair, walking on wires:

The small black figure suspended next to the red punchbag things is Iza, completing the last challenge of the course:

Me whizzing along on one of the shorter zip wires (aka foefie slides):

Sticking out my tongue at you:

One has to wonder how much of the intense grin is from joy (I'm having fun!), how much is relief (I'm still alive!) and how much is residual terror (Terror!)...

At the end of the course we had an opportunity to climb to a higher platform - perhaps 15 metres - then fly down a 120 metre zip wire slide to thwack into some padding in another tree. I had a few butterflies about the climb but did it with reasonable confidence.

Oddly I was pretty relaxed about flinging myself into the air 15 metres above the ground suspended only from a wire to hurtle 120 metres forwards, while everyone else was much more reluctant. It's a bit like flying in an aircraft: it's all down to the equipment and statistics. Once you're in the air, there's not much you can do to screw it up.

From a working holiday to the life we'd be living if we lived in Poland

2011-04-24T16:49:05Z

This has been in part a working holiday for me. When Iza suggested going to Poland for 8 days rather than a long weekend, I said ok, but only if I can have unfettered access to a decent internet connection. This turned out to be entirely necessary. Despite having finished the main Thing I needed to deliver for my project, I ended the week with several urgent tasks outstanding. That's how every week ends, of course, but when you go on holiday you can't just pick up again on Monday.

Except this time I could. On Sunday I wrote emails for most of the car journey; on Monday I worked almost a full day via Citrix remote login; and I've done little bits and pieces since then, including some personal business that had been dismally neglected. I feel great. I'm relaxing and having fun and getting things done, all nicely mixed up together. So to the people who knee-jerk parrot-phrase generic garbage like "ooh, you need a proper break" I say: fuck you, you know nothing.

I detest it when generic advice is given to a specific person in a specific situation. Especially if that person is me.

My, how did we get onto that? I was telling you about my holiday. Which included spending a night with our friends Andrzej and Kamila and their four year old son Mateusz. They're about our age, lovely people but in many ways very unlike us: they're a wholesome, decent family living the respectable middle class dream in a nice house they built in the suburbs.

Now you can be as cynical as you like about family life, but there's also something undeniably wholesome about it, especially when the kids are younger. It's a good energy to be exposed to from time to time. Also, children are wonderful.

Before I could start relaxing with our hosts, I had a bit of work to finish. Damn middle-aged hooligans - they sit in your garden wearing their business school hoodies, tapping away on their BlackBerries, emailing instructions back to their gangs in the office:

Iza found the trampoline:

Then so did I:

This is a new game called Whisky Football. You need a four-year-old child (not pictured), his father, a football, and a generous glass of single malt whisky for each of the adults (in this case I'd brought Talisker; yum). The game was invigorating and surprisingly casualty-free:

Andrzej's contribution to the afternoon's fine spirits was a bottle of Sobieski Vodka (aka Bruce Willis vodka):

Despite preceding photographic evidence, our visit really was more about time with the family than high quality binge boozing. In support of which, a wholesome picture of Kamila (pregnant with their second son) and Mateusz:

A close-up of me emailing in the garden. My face was in shadow so Andrzej increased the exposure time, turning my sunlit grey hood bright white. I just like the overall effect:

Andrzej recently bought a digital SLR and threw himself into learning photography, attending a reputable course. He was able to pass on some tips, especially helpful since Iza brought my old SLR (Canon EOS 350D) along on this trip.

One unpleasant bit of personal business I've taken care of on this holiday was a long-overdue email to our landlord, accepting a whopping 15% rent increase. This means we pay £130 more per month, which hurts, but we were getting a good deal before and sadly the new rent is reasonable. Bugger.

The Knights Who Say...

2011-04-22T12:12:43Z

Usually when we visit Poland, we travel straight to Iza's parents' house. The journey from our place to Luton or Stansted, the flight to Gdańsk and the hours-long drive to their house outside Olsztyn are all rather tiring and rather boring. You end up eight or so hours later, feeling you've expended a lot of effort to get from sitting at home to... sitting at a slightly different home.

So this time, Iza's sister Agata picked us up from the airport and we drove down via Malbork, where we explored the castle. I'd had no idea what an important site it was. I was told there was some castle there which had probably been held by the Templars at some point. But no. This was Ordensburg Marienburg, built by the Teutonic Knights in the late 13th century, shortly afterwards occupied as the capital of their Prussian state. At the time it was possibly the largest castle anywhere - certainly the largest Gothic castle in Europe - and it would have been one of the centres of the late mediaeval world.

It must have been quite a rush being a Teutonic Knight. They were a monastic order; they were knights; they were the wealthy rulers of an independent state. They were the warriors of God, at the pinnacle of pretty much everything that officially mattered in their world. It made me think of the phrase "masters of the universe" as applied to modern investment bankers. Perhaps if you were a member of an elite unit of Special Forces Goldman Sachs partners you would feel similar.

The Teutonic Knights were utter bastards, of course, especially if you were a pagan in Prussia when they were crusading there. The same, adjusted for history, might be said of a Goldman Sachs SAS unit.

We found this odd set of enormous, dangling metal balls, employed here in a futile attempt to crush some sense into me. I leave it as a test of the filthiness of your imagination as to what they might be:

A clue as to their likely real purpose: they are hanging on the inside wall of the main gate into the central keep (or "High Castle" as my guidebook calls it).

A view of the Outer Bailey and Middle Castle from the west, across the Nogat River. The elaborate building behind the two towers is the Palace of the Grand Masters:

Yes, that is my tongue. Lunacy aside, I rather like the shadows and grey light on me:

Iza and Agata - a much prettier photo in the same window overlooking the central courtyard of the High Castle:

It was an overcast day and I worried about the light being poor for photography. But I got some great shots of looming castle + tree silhouettes + interesting light and clouds. (To be published later, time permitting.) I swear they planted the trees for that very purpose.

I was also reminded of how much I love my little Canon Ixus 860 IS. Bought in 2008 iirc; fits into the palm of my hand; operates acceptably in a fairly wide range of conditions; and when the light is good, the colours are fantastic (yay Canon). Still the ideal travelling camera.

Flight

2011-04-17T06:52:24Z

Hello personages. I've not been here for a while.

You may have noticed that the LJ site was down rather a lot in recent weeks. This was due to DDoS attacks which may have been orchestrated by the Russian government's cyberwarriors to silence an anti-corruption blogger - if so, eloquently making his point for him.

I was going to link the term "DDoS" to an explanation for the tech-illiterate. But even the tech-illiterate know how to look things up on the internet now. Frankly, if there's any general knowledge question you don't have the answer to, it's because you don't want the answer. Which is a wonderful state of affairs, not least because it makes explanatory linking redundant (if not downright insulting).

As for Livejournal's reliability problems, they had nothing whatsoever to do with my lack of presence here. The reason I've not been blogging is that from after Iza's birthday, until Thursday, every single moment - where "moment" is defined as "potentially productive block of 10 minutes or more" - has been devoted to mission-critical activities. The mission was the successful conclusion of the project I've been working on since October. The mission was accomplished.

I feel very good about this, not only because I triumphed over considerable challenges to create something new and useful and powerful. The self-inflicted pressure has also been tremendously helpful to me personally. It has changed me in some small ways in which I wanted to be changed. Old bits of coal are now diamonds. Which is useful if you want to cut hard substances or impress chicks; less so if you want to burn fossil fuels. And I wore out this metaphor several thoughts ago.

Anyhooo... Now it's holiday time, and we're flying to Poland in half an hour. A ~~Templar~~ Teutonic castle, a spa resort, an obstacle course, the much-loved lake and forest, egg painting, whisky drinking, a long-missed sister and a water pistol war are all promising to feature in my near future. Back on Monday (25th) night. You have a good week too.

The unbearable cuteness of being... a polar bear

2011-03-29T07:48:51Z

Many young children like bears. This may be because of teddy bears. As far as I remember, my second-oldest fluffy toy was a brown teddy bear. (The oldest was a monkey that I now remember as rather threadbare.) But my particular thing about bears wasn't teddy-based. And it wasn't just about any bears: it was polar bears that fascinated me. Baby polar bears.

This is the book that did it:

I was given it when very young. As you can tell from the fact that I scanned the cover a few days ago, I still have it. It contains no fewer than 35 chapters, each one a poem, article, fable, comic, story, etc. - about bears. One of them was a real-life story about Pipaluk, a baby polar bear born at the London Zoo.

Look at him:

Now I don't know what effect that photo has on you. Probably you think it's cute. But you can't have the faintest idea how profoundly it affected a very young me. It wasn't just cute; it was the Platonic ideal of cute. I imprinted on that picture.

It was the beginning of years of obsession. In my mind I created a polar bear cult. I knew for sure that the cutest thing possible in all existence was a baby polar bear. Or "pewwa bear" as I referred to them long after I had any developmental excuse to do so. (I also decided that pewwa bears said "Maa". I have no idea why. This syllable started their national song, which was loosely based on a christmas carol and the trumpet part from Handel's Messiah. Really. But I digress.)

My mental cult didn't maintain a separate category for adult polar bears, which is why people sometimes found it strange that what they thought was a lethal half-ton stealth predator, I knew was the cutest manifestation of cuteness that ever there was. Maa, maa, maa!

Anyway, this may explain why, in early 2007, when someone suggested mercy-killing a baby polar bear called Knut who'd recently been born in a German zoo, I wasn't much affected by the collective "aaahhhh" that ran around the world. I had done "aaahhhh" over baby polar bears with a depth, duration and intensity that these part-time bunny huggers couldn't begin to comprehend. I regarded global Knut-fever with a kindly, paternalistic little smile.

I did genuinely wish the cub well but that didn't stop me giggling at the following song by Mitch Benn, which I heard on The Now Show back when trippingowl, crackityg and I used to listen to it at home. It's 2 minutes long. Spoken intro first, then singing. I recommend you don't bother watching the pointless youtube visuals. This is meant to be radio.

Of course Knut did die, but only 4 years later, after a sadly troubled life. That was a week ago on Saturday, and that's what got me thinking about all this.

As for Pipaluk, he lived happily enough in the London Zoo; moved to Poland in 1985 (as one does); and eventually died there in 1990.

I leave you with a non-polar bear story - because my horizons have broadened, honest. By way of balance, this bear was Polish (in nationality though not in origins) and later moved to the UK after fighting the Nazis. Seriously. I give you Private Wojtek of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.

Dinnertime conversation

2011-03-27T20:44:13Z

"That's a lot of food."

"Yes, but it's not much currency."

"Um... you mean it didn't cost much?"

"No, I mean if you took it to a bank, there wouldn't be much you could exchange it for. There really isn't a lot of currency in that wok. Hm... Not much concrete there, either."

"Ok, now you need to shut up."

The relationship continues to be wonderful. She keeps promising to kill me, but never actually does.

Dodgeful arter

2011-03-21T20:01:45Z

I have a confession to make. I don't like art galleries. I don't like putting a box around some things and calling them art. "Art" (or indeed "stuff") is more delightful when it's encountered by surprise. Provided, of course, that you notice it. Maybe galleries are so that people don't have to pay attention all the time in case they encounter something artistic. I prefer to imagine a world in which all the treasures are hidden in plain sight and only visible if you look at them right.

"Right", and indeed "art", being pretty relative terms here.

Last week's Beware the Ides of March post was one of these pretty relatives. Due to my brainstyle, further infected by some academic training in psychology and literature, I enjoy playing with patterns of meaning. I say playing because, ironically, most of the time I don't think meaning is particularly meaningful. Just fun. But fun in the same way as playfully rearranging molecular structures with your mind would be fun.

So I produced an incremental word-inversion thingy, because... I don't know why. It just fell out of my head. Then I illustrated it by linking each of the transformed words to an image on the internet. That started as an afterthought, yet I had more fun with the pictures than with the words. Most of the images were just funny illustrations but a few were a bit clever. Such as "match"... match = bout and match = firestarter... so I posted a pic of an inferno match (look it up). Or "excise"... excise = tax and excise = cut out... so I posted a pic of a piratical skull-and-cross-scimitars banner urging the purchase of cigarettes abroad to avoid UK tax... so there's your tax link and there's scimitars for cutting... and, hell, many people want to "cut out" smoking (ok, that last one's dreadful, but as a subsidiary pun we can let it pass).

It's not the things themselves, it's how they're arranged. It's the links, and I don't just mean the html. That's reality, after all: Reality is mostly nothing, arranged very cleverly.

Some of you spotted everything I've mentioned and more. Some played along. Some saw only a nonsense word game. (Quite rightly.) Would you have looked differently if it was labelled as "art"? If I'd thought I was doing art, I wouldn't have done it at all, because (a) I'd have felt I had to do it properly and I'd never have had the time; and (b) I know I'm no good at visual art. Labels, huh.

Instead I roughed it together spontaneously in an hour and a half in the middle of the night when I was short of sleep and had loads of urgent work to do but somehow knew that its sheer triviality made it important, and that doing it would be alright. (It was. I had a very good week at work. And I bet this is partly why.)

There were two words I couldn't find adequate images for, so I made some.

Id... Freud's ID card...

Ides... the day the Roman dictator was assassinated... the 15th... XV as a vote and a revolution... with quite a lot of that in the world right now...

It's not the things themselves. I stole the components. It's not the skill of arranging them: technically, these are poorly done. It's the concepts. It's the interpenetration of potential meanings. It's the invitation for you to make the links.

Next time I won't tell you what I'm doing. Just like the time before last.

And yes, I know there are good practical reasons to have art galleries.

Today beware...

2011-03-15T01:42:32Z

(aka If You Let A Monkey Type Shakespeare For Long Enough)

Beware the Ides of March!
Beware the Ids of March!
Beware the Ickes of March!
Beware the Oods of March!
Beware the Ergs of March!
Beware the Eggs of March!
Beware the Ex of March!
Beware the Itch of March!
Beware the H of March!
Beware the Arch of March!
Beware the March of March!
Beware the March of Marchand!
Beware the March of Marshals!
Beware the March of Matches!
Beware the March of Etches!
Beware the March of Execs!
Beware the March of Excess!
Beware the March of Excise!
Beware the March of Insides!
Beware the March of Signs!
Beware the March of Eyes!
Beware the March of Ides!

Be where there's idling in your march.
Beware the march of your ideas.

Vibrant/absent

2011-03-08T17:56:59Z

This is the current lifecycle of my LJ activity:

Something happens (or I think of something) that I really want to tell you about.

There's no time to write a post now but I'm pretty sure I'll have time tomorrow.

It's tomorrow. No time. Day after?

Something else happens (or I think of something else) that I'd rather tell you about first. No time now though.

Ok, I'll make time to write that tomorrow, then do the other one later.

It's tomorrow again. No time again. Day after?

Repeat several times from 4. There's now a long list (mostly in my head; I'm hardly bothering to keep a written list any more).

Leave an idea for too long and it goes stale. The appeal of writing about the earlier subjects starts to decay. Items fall off the mental list with a faint sigh. The ghosts of unborn ideas. Etheric concept-leaves decaying into the mud of forgetfulness, at best to be recycled as inspirational sludge to feed the tree of intention. The tree is vibrant but bears no fruit.

Give up. Decide to start small. Catch up on my friends' blogs. Aim to comment on one of the interesting/provoking posts they've written.

No time today of course. Tomorrow?

Repeat from 1.

It's lovely to be busy. It's lovely to have lots happening. It's lovely to be buzzing with ideas and feelings and stories and complaints and connections and challenges and responses.

And it's frustrating not to be telling you about any of it. I miss sharing with you. Maybe tomorrow, then? Day after at the latest.

Remember I love you or you'll get the lettuce again

2011-02-15T14:48:51Z

Last week John at work asked me what kind of things, if anything, I normally do for Valentine's Day. I couldn't answer him. (Because I honestly couldn't remember whether and if so what; not because what I do is so grotesque that it must be kept secret.) Generally I abhor impersonal "special days"; and incidentally, I'm very fortunate to have a mother who feels the same, which means we both eschew nonsense like Mother's Day with equal disdain. If you care about someone you don't need a commercial festival to show them that. On the other hand, there's no point obsessing about this and there's no harm in doing something nice on Valentine's Day.

Iza and I were awake just after midnight on Sunday night when I realised it was the 14th. I rushed off to the kitchen to track down something flower-like and selected the most interesting scrap of lettuce in the fridge. Even though I had it behind my back when I approached, somehow she more or less knew what I was up to and welcomed me with a warm "Don't you fucking dare!" So I only made a half-hearted effort to present it to her.

Hypothetically, I can suggest this as a tactic for insecure lovers. Offer the lettuce, then have sex. The wilted leafling will be such a disappointment that by comparison almost anything non-lettuce-based you try in bed will be welcome. (On reflection, this might not be such a good idea.)

During the day yesterday I decided I would cook dinner and I went to Sainsbury's on the way home to see what I could find. I wandered around the supermarket for more than half an hour muttering intensely to myself (yes, I'm that guy), until I had invented some basic recipes and gathered the ingredients.

We got through two courses: a starter of baked mushrooms with garlic butter, fresh thyme and goat's cheese; and a main of butternut squash stuffed with onion, rice, cheddar, sunflower seeds and crushed cashews, with a side of broccoli and grated stilton. The dessert ingredients await us tonight.

I even made Iza a card, of sorts - well, it was a note I left on the floor in the morning in case she got home first, asking her not to try to change the light bulb in the toilet. That light fitting is an abomination. It does not, as I first suspected, require two people to open it; but it does need a sharp object, a brief rage, very rude words, and a disregard for the state of the ceiling.

And here I am writing about mundane domestic things again. "Dull" things. So, in context of Sunday's post, and in case it is necessary to say so - though I dearly hope it is not:

Clearly I don't object to talking about mundane things, since I post about them and engage in the subsequent discussions.

Just because something is dull doesn't mean it isn't important. Practical advice is useful.

It is possible to have interesting conversations about essentially boring topics.

I enjoy being in contact with my friends, pretty much regardless of the subject of conversation.

Many readers will wonder why on earth I am spelling this out. These points are not aimed at them.

Chattering classes

2011-02-13T14:21:53Z

If it were my aim to generate as many LJ comments as possible, my previous post would have provided useful confirmation of how to go about it. (At the time of writing this, it has 38 comments, of which 22 are by people other than me. I think that's a record.)

Typically, those posts of mine that I find more interesting tend to get fewer comments than the ones I find more banal. This used to puzzle me. But actually it makes sense that banal (and universal) stuff is much easier to comment on.

Abstract ideas are difficult to talk about within the limited time and space that most people's blog-engagement allows.

Opinions are boring and/or risky to comment on. The effort:satisfaction ratio of discussing opinions about serious stuff (politics, whatever) is high. Even higher is the ratio of effort:impact on anything meaningful. And anyone who's interested in current affairs is already saturated with media opinion.

Events and little stories can be interesting but they don't leave much space for comment. "Oh." "That's nice." "My cat did that once too." Generally you have no idea whether deafening silence means anything from "Wow you lucky bastard I wish I could do that but I won't give you the satisfaction of my saying so" to "Why are you wasting my time with this conceited garbage" to "Thank god I'm not you."

If you want to provoke response and discussion, you need to give people something they can easily relate to, that is also incomplete in a way they feel they can add to. So for some time my theory has been: write about your dissatisfaction with everyday things. Clothes shopping, commuting, whether your shoes hurt you, how you fit everything into your day - these are all, comparatively speaking, incredibly dull topics. But even with a generally thoughtful readership, these are the ones that will start the biggest conversations. It used to depress me, but actually it seems perfectly reasonable.

Although I find this concept interesting, I don't use it to determine what I write about. No, really - number of comments is a convenient measure of blog success, but it's also a very poor measure. I just try to take the irrational little happy-buzz when it happens and then carry on as I was before.

However there are ways in which I have been striving to improve my blog writing. For example, I used to believe communication was successful if you packed in as much as possible. Now I think simplicity is important because otherwise people switch off. In writing this post, I have twice deleted huge chunks that seemed deeply relevant until I realised they were actually topics of their own. I tell you, I could stop living now and not run out of blog entries for years to come. Sadly, that doesn't mean you're getting the cream of all those potentials here; just what I feel like writing at the time, including semi-intentional little games like the way this entire paragraph is a negation of the point of this paragraph.

Now I have to go to Ikea and buy a new standing lamp. Because my old lamp died and the bedroom is very dark. Don't you hate it when that happens?

"Frustrated enough to gouge out my eyeballs" is such an understatement

2011-02-10T12:53:56Z

I've cut down the things I want to do in the week to a very basic four (not in order of importance):
1. Work enough
2. Sleep enough
3. Exercise enough
4. See enough of Iza

I can go about one day a week without getting enough of a particular one of those four before it becomes a problem. Therefore I need to do each of those on at least four days in a five day week.

Unfortunately this turns out to be impossible. It's the exercise that screws it up.

For exercise I swim. I swim at my own variable pace. I lose my flow if I have to dodge others in the pool. I need a half-lane to myself, otherwise I may as well not be there. Therefore I need to be in the pool with five or fewer other people. Therefore I need to be there at a non-peak time.

That rules out before work; lunchtime; and after work. That leaves mid-morning; mid-afternoon; and late evening.

Mid-morning is my most productive time at work. Mid-afternoon is sometimes possible but usually I'm in the middle of firefighting and I can't just leave it. Which means swimming in the evening. But if I go in the evening, I get home around 11, which is too late to see enough of Iza.

If I don't work enough, I get stressed and problems pile up for the future. If I don't sleep enough, I get too tired to work, exercise or see Iza. If I don't exercise enough, I have too little energy to work enough and my health suffers. If I don't see Iza enough, I lose perspective on everything else, and a relationship that normally energises me so much becomes a net drain on my energy.

It's not as though I'm trying to do anything ambitious - just live a normal, rather minimalist life. I don't even have kids or pets or a pot plant. How does anyone cope?

The sweet taste of freedom and grapes

2011-02-02T14:23:26Z

I found these on Monday but haven't had time to post them until now.

Egpyt - This moved me: We are not less than South Africa.

Islam - This amused me: Grapes not virgins.

Not that the situation in Egypt and Islamic theology are particularly related, apart from both originating in the Arab world.