If you strike me down...

I know that this sort of thing has been done before (and done better), but I fancied a bit of bank holiday fun. Enjoy!


Darth Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.



Obi Wan: Only a master of evil, Darth.



Darth Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.



Obi-Wan: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.



Darth Vader: Bye bye, time to die!



Obi-Wan: Oh bugger.

Tunnel Vision

Since I've mentioned The Tunnel several times in the past (eg here), I thought it wouldn't hurt to stick a picture of it here. Note the bright new lights running along the ceiling. And no, that is not me that you can see in the distance. I am standing behind the camera.
 

Off on the holiday bus with Cliff

I wrote earlier in the month about how I was intending to take a holiday, but didn't know either where to go, or what form the holiday should take. I'd mentioned that, for example, I felt being stuck on a coach with a bunch of strangers would be like a "mobile version of Big Brother". Having now started to watch the new series of BB, and seen the total weirdos on there this year, I have come to the realisation that it couldn't actually be that bad. Might still have a miserable time, but as I was saying yesterday, if you can't have a miserable time on holiday, when can you have one?

So a coach holiday it is. Next question where to? This turned out to be quite easy. Since I have no huge preference for where to go, I'll go to Lots Of Places! So I've put in a booking on an 18-35 tour that will take me to Amsterdam, Munich, Venice, Rome, Florence, Switzerland and Paris, amongst others. None of which I've ever been to except for Paris. Clearly I won't be staying anywhere for too long, but I can always go back another time if I like somewhere. Best thing is, it starts and finishes in London, so it's dead easy to get to, in fact it'll be a lot easier to get to (and possibly quicker too) than any of the UK airports. Bonus!

So I'm actually finding myself quite looking forward to it at the moment. Meet new people, maybe meet some nice new people, see lots of new places, and sample some European night life. Haven't actually had confirmation of the booking yet, mind, so there's always the possibility that it could all still go belly up. Fingers crossed.

At the very least, I have managed to pull my finger out and attempt to do something - I was starting to doubt I'd ever get round to organising anything! I may come back suffering from cabin fever, I may never want to go on holday alone again, but I will have tried it. And maybe I'll have a good time.

I'm The Invisible Man

Well, since I'm still stuck back on the PC, thought I'd try out the new photoblogging software. Sadly, I have almost zero photos on the PC at the moment, this was the most interesting one I could find. It is me, myself, dressed as The Invisible Man last year. 

New, improved.... Tunnel

I have mentioned in the past that there is a pedestrian tunnel on my way into town, which goes under the railways. The tunnel has been shut to pedestrians for a week or so. But now, it has reopened, new and improved. So much excitement in one week! A new bridge and a revamped tunnel. I am so lucky to live in this time of changes.

I did consider trying out the new bridge this morning. In the end I decided against it - figured I may get bored on Bank Holiday Monday and it would be a shame to have alredy used up my only entertainment.

But back to the tunnel. "What have they done to it?", I can almost hear you asking. Well, I will tell you. What they have done is: Install some really bright lights. It bizzarrely now feels like one of the tunnels in the London Underground. Just without the buskers. Or underground trains, ticket barriers, rats and escalators. Actually I'm not sure about the rats. I'm not quite sure why it's taken so long just to install some extra lighting, so I'm drawn to the conclusion that they must have done something else less obvious too. I'll keep my eyes open.

The tunnel does seem taller than before, but I think that must just be an illusion caused by the brighter lighting. I'm absolutely totally sure that they have not somehow raised the ceiling and/or lowered the floor.

So, I am once more safe from the evil pigeon threat.

A New Bridge Opens!

Some exciting news this week: Shortly a new pedestrian bridge is going to open, leading into the back of York Station (starting from the NRM end of the tunnel). I reckon it should cut my journey time to the station down to just over 5 minutes - excellent! And especially good for those times late at night if I've been out somewhere else, get back to York and just want to get into bed as quickly as possible. Or if I need the toilet.

Askham-Richard (v)

We all worry too much. But how often do you worry that there aren't enough names for all the different types of worry we experience on a day to day basis?

Example. Today I went downstairs to the vending machine. I was at work. I can't go downstairs at home as I live on the ground floor and even if I lived on the next floor up there wouldn't be a vending machine downstairs because that would be on the floor I actually live on and there isn't one there.

So anyway, I inserted 50p into the slot to buy a Snickers bar. The little metal coil started to turn and I started to worry that the chocolate would not fall, that it would end up stuck on the shelf, or maybe wedged between the shelf and the glass. I didn't want this to happen. If if did happen, I'd either have to expend physical effort to nudge the machine, or buy the next chocolate bar too in the hope of dislodging the first. A risky enterprise, and I only really wanted one bar. Not two bars. It strikes me this must be nearly the opposite worry you have when you are trying to use your phone in a low reception area and you worry you may not have enough bars to indicate a passable call may be made.

Anyway, the coil spun and after an interminably long moment, the chocolate fell safely to the base receptacle. The moment of worry passed. I retrieved the chocolate, returned to my desk and ate it all up.

But the fleeting worry, the "arrggh I'm very mildly concerned that my vended item may not reach me" thought, it doesn't have a name that I'm a aware of. It needs a name: now that I'm aware of it, it feels like not having a name for "clouds", "cannibalism" or "hippocampus". So in the tradition of "The Meaning of Liff" and "The Deeper Meaning of Liff", I hereby name it after an English Village. I choose Askham-Richard, a small village just outside York.

So next time you're at the checkout and you hear the beep.... no that's not right, try again. So next time you're at the vending machine and you experience weak fear of non-droppage, what you are actually feeling is Askham-Richard. I hope this helps you all.

Title of the year... so far

Mclusky have just released an album with my favourite title of the year so far:

"The difference between me and you is that I'm not on fire"

Decent album too. If anyone has any better titles of albums released this year, I'd like to hear.

I'm thinking... "Bonnie Langford"

A lot can happen in a week.

For example, I had not even considered last Tuesday that Billie Piper would be named as the new assistant to play opposite Christopher Ecclestone in the new series of Dr Who. It just doesn't sound right. Mind, I bet she's a good screamer. Here's how I imagine it might go:

The Dr: Billie, why do you play your music so loud?
Billie: Because I want to! Because I want to!
The Dr: Well can you turn it down a bit? It's really upsetting my concentration. If you want me to finish fixing your hair rollers, I suggest you quieten down somewhat. Now, have you seen my sonic screwdriver?
Billie: So shake it, move it, use it, groove it!
The Dr: I will, once you tell me where it is. Why can't you ever be helpful?
Billie: Don't criticize me 'cause I'm running the show!
The Dr: No, Billie, you're not. I've had enough. I'm going to drop you off at Earth next time we pass by.
Billie: I throw a party for the world and my friends?
The Dr: Well you can try, but I'm not sure they'll be glad to see you...Maybe I'll just take you to Skaro and leave you to the mercy of the Daleks instead.
Billie: We can do anything, Free to be who we want to be?
The Dr: No Billie. You'll be enslaved or killed. Or possibly both. Now where is that screwdriver...

This is not a comfortable place to be in

A few observations I have observed over the past few days. Some are blog related others are not:

1. Lots of blogs seem to look much worse on a PC than a Mac. Maybe it's just my PC, or the fonts or something - It's hard to put my finger on it as I can't compare the two directly.
2. I think I need to pull back and regroup before I get hurt.
3. I really don't enjoy using a keyboard whilst sitting cross legged on the floor. It is uncomfy and really discourages the writing of long posts. Some of you may not feel this is a bad thing.
4. Bloody insects! My hands have been in itchy pain all day and at times they have resembled the hands of a leper. Or at least what I imagine a leper's hands to look like. Thinking about it, mine are potentially much less flaky.
5. It's so uncomfy here on the floor that I can't even think of a proper no 5! Oh just got one: That cute little robot from Short Circuit. I wish he was my friend.

A nice soak

Due to being both a bit tired, and a lot dirty after being out paintballing earlier, I decided to have a bath when I got home. I've not had an actual bath for a long time, and it was certainly the first time I've used the one in this flat, but it was kinda relaxing. Had to use shower gel instead of bubble bath, but it worked fine.

It is a lot more effort to have a bath compared to a shower though. It needs planning and forethought. And you have to move the radio into a different room and remember to also bring a towel (which is as good advice today as it ever was). Best not to use the laptop in the bath, but it wouldn't make much difference in its current state.

So now I am clean again. And pretty tired, so I think I may head off to bed shortly (or before eight o'clock in any case).

More computer woes.

I spent an hour on the phone to Apple this morning before heading out to work. And after trying lots of things, the bloke on the phone came to the same conclusion as me: the hard drive is broken. Probably could have saved both of us a lot of time if he'd just let me tell him that in the first place. So now the laptop is going to be picked up and taken away from me early next week, and will hopefully come back all fixed.

Things aren't quite as bad as they looked yesterday though. A friend gave me a Linux boot-up disk, and weirdly I managed to get this to temporarily fix the machine - I was able to boot it up and access the hard drive fine! First thing I did was back-up all the important stuff. Thankfully I was able to do this. So I should no longer be suffering any major data loss, though there are bound to be some things I forgot to move.

So I thought for a while that it was fixed. Sadly that wasn't the case, and it is now back in it's useless state. And the trick with the Linux disk didn't work a second time. So I shall stick to plan A and let the trained people sort it out. Hopefully they won't need to swap the hard disk for a new one...

Bad computer

I am not a happy bunny. And it's not the usual girl rubbish.

My lovely laptop has entered a comatose state. It won't start up and let me do things, and the limited diagnostics I have been able to perform gives me the impression that it may be the hard drive that has gone. If so, that would be the second one in 2 years. Last time it was an utter pain in the ass as I had only a total minimum of stuff backed up. This time, clearly I have learnt my lesson and so will have performed regular backups? Don't be daft. I nearly bought a second hard drive earlier this year, but ended up buying the laptop instead. And then because networking the mac to the PC proved very fiddly and intermittent, I never really bothered backing stuff up to the PC.

So potentially I may have lost a load of irreplaceable stuff. Again. Photos, writings, tunes, spreadsheets, and things that I won't realise I've lost for a while. At least I should be able to rip the tunes back off the iPod once I'm up and running again. But most of the other stuff will be gone.

So until I manage to get things fixed, I'm stuck back on the PC. Maybe I'll be lucky and it won't be the hard drive after all.

I am going to go and flagellate myself for being an idiot.

Take it back. Please, it's a horrid hat.

I am going to head into town shortly and attempt to hand back two of the items I "stole" off my friends at the weekend. If he's turned up... The item will be "the Hat and Pen". I've already returned the sunglasses, so it'll just be the frisbee left.

Cakes

Sometimes you feel like having some cake, but there isn't any cake. And then after a while you get a little taste, perhaps a slice, and it's great. Good cake. With fruity bits. And then someone takes the cake away and you're hungry again. Possibly it has been locked in a cupboard, or maybe just taken away. Or maybe it's gone stale and has to be thrown away, or fed to the birds (sparrows). It's hard to tell with cakes.

Another note to self...

It's a really bad idea to put a six inch chocolate medallion in your pocket and forget about it. This morning I woke with a chocolate coated wallet.

Suedehat

This is the first time I can remember that what is essentially the same song has been at both no 1 and no 2 in the singles chart. Yes, Frankee is on top, with Eamon just below. I will personally eat my hat if she actually is his ex-girlfriend. The worst thing is that if they were both somewhere else (or dead or non-existent), Lord Morrissey would have been Top Of The Pops, potentially for the first time ever. I could look it up and be sure, but I think I'll rely on my instincts here.

In other news this morning, I have been doing a good job of stealing my friends things over the weekend. I have: 1 hat, 1 pair of sunglasses, 1 pen and 1 frisbee. If you want them back guys, click here.

Catch that frisbee, now

Two things I have learnt today:
1. There is a big field five minutes away from the flat where it is fun to throw frisbees when it's hot.
2. I have a pocket which if you put a pen in it, the pocket is capable of completely dismantling and breaking the pen without my knowledge.

Also, the pub near the field smells of sick a little bit. After a while, you don't notice it any more.

Post-shower Addendum: After seeing myself without the t-shirt I was wearing earlier, I have also learnt that I am now very red around the neck and face region.

Three for two

The bookshop has a three for two offer. I made some use of it today, by purchasing three copies of the same book. One of these I intend to keep and read myself, the others are for other people who also wanted a copy. I was mildly disappointed by the reaction of the bookseller - he just sold them to me like he would have sold me three books that weren't the same. Far too professional. I had hoped to have the opportunity to use some comedy lines. Something along the lines of:

"You do realise these three books are all the same, sir?"
"They are? How stupid of me!"

That kind of thing (booksellers are very polite in my head). Or maybe "Oh! I thought the offer meant that if you bought two of the same book then I got a third copy free. I hadn't realised I could have three different ones! I am so blonde."

But I was not offered the chance to say these things. I paid my money and left.

Wake up, it's a beautiful morning

It's a strange feeling to wake up in the morning and not want to stay in bed. I haven't pressed the snooze button once this week, and the I've had the alarm set half an hour earlier than normal.

At least I know where my passport is

In a moment of madness at work today, I booked two weeks off work in July with the full intention of using them to take a proper holiday. Something involving planes and suitcases and queues and resting and beer. Holidays are good, everyone loves going on holiday. So for a normal person, the next steps in the process are easy. Book a return flight to your chosen destination(s), sort out hotels, buy some paperbacks and wait a few weeks/months with excitement slowly building until the day of departure comes and you can finally leave England behind for pastures new. Just for a week or two.

There's a problem though (isn't there always?). I'm having real trouble thinking of anywhere that I want to go to. Or indeed deciding what kind of holiday I want. The choice is slightly too wide. I need ideas, I need inspiration, I need to actually make a decision. There must be somewhere I'd enjoy?

Part of the problem is that I've never been on holiday on my own before and don't really know how it works. Something where you get put on a coach with a bunch of losers, sorry, I meant strangers, and get taken all over someplace could be good. Not so much for the company, I imagine it to be something like a mobile version of Big Brother - spending too much time with a bunch of people with which you have nothing in common except a desire to be on TV, sorry I meant a desire to go on holiday. No it would be good because it would save me having to worry about what to do each day. I'd have an itinery! I'd be told what to do and where to go. Maybe I should just join the army for that...

Or I could just fly off somewhere and wander round on my own doing touristy things. Art galleries, museums, castles, more museums, oh Christ that sounds dull.

How about a beach holiday then... Get up, go to the beach, read a book, go back to the hotel, repeat ad infinitum (or for several days at least). Then realise that your skin has become the colour of tandouri chicken and in places you've burnt until you blister. And you've run out of books with 2 days to go and you can't buy any more because you're in Spain and you don't read Spanish too well.

Or my personal favourite kind of holiday, one I've used several times in the last couple of years, take two weeks off and stay in your flat. Stay in bed until lunchtime because there's nothing to get up for. Maybe pop out to get a sandwich because you are too badly organised to actually have bread and fillings available in your kitchen. A beer in the evening with the same people you see day in, day out that you'd normally take a holiday to get away from (no offence guys). And after two weeks you realise you've achieved nothing except to age fourteen days. Actually that's not always true - there was that one time I painted two bedrooms - needed doing, but not much fun.

If you've read this far, I can guess what you're thinking: "Rich, you're pathetic!" must sum it up. Well, maybe that is true, but I am going to go on holiday. I have made up my mind, and I'm quite stubborn once I get going (but to where!).

So it just leaves one last thing to do... Make that f***ing decision! If anyone has any ideas of a good holiday I could have, or somewhere interesting to go to, then please let me know! Maybe if I get three or four good suggestions I could put it to a public ballot and then head off to the place with most votes. I'm not going to Iraq though, so don't suggest it.

I wish my ears were full of wax

First, I need to say that I'm watching it because I'm in, I'm not in so that I can watch it. That would be sick.

On Saturday, Turkey hosts the 49th Eurovision Song Contest. Live from Istanbul (not Constantinople). This is an annual contest where most of the countries in Europe, plus a few hangers on (Israel, some of the old USSR places and others) all sing a lovely little ditty in the hope that they'll win votes from all the other countries, win and be able to host the contest in their own dirty little country next year. And possibly bankrupt themselves in the process.

This is a popular contest. So popular that the number of entrants has been growing each year. This year there are 36 in total. That is 36 solo singing freaks, groups of singing freaks, odd rapping men and James Fox, the UK entrant. Obviously he is great, no bias here, no siree. 36 is a lot of songs, so much so that now for the first time ever, they are holding a semi-final. Tonight. 22 of the lesser countries will be whittled down to just 10, leaving 24 (?) finalists for Saturday night.

Now the standard of Eurovision songs is generally not high. In fact often the only things worse are the costumes, the freaks who perform the songs and the presenters. So given that today's program features acts worse than the normal dross in the main event, I simply cannot find words here to describe some of the things I'm seeing and hearing.

Let me try with whichever the next song up is. It's Monaco. A song called "Our Planet", sung by Maryon. She's wearing a purple cape with little lights on it. That has now been removed. Euro dance beat kicks in. She's dressed oddly like Meg White - white top, red trousers. No idea what she's singing about, it's in foreign. And slightly out of tune. Some dancers are doing those jumps like the kids from Fame. Now she's prancing around the stage, leading into a chorus. Not it's not a chorus, it's a slow bit. "ohhh ohhhh ohhhh" she caterwauls. Give her some credit though, apparently she's only 16 and a half. This moment will scar her for the rest of her life.

And that happens 23 other times tonight. And oh Lord, it's getting worse. And the next even worse. Looks like it's being performed by Xena, Warrior Process. Sounds like a small child stuck in a washing machine with several metal pans.

The worst thing is that I'm going to have to hear ten of these uber-bad compositions on Saturday when I host the annual Eurovision party for the second year running. What's the word.... Oh yes, masochism.

If I don't write anything here tomorrow night it is probably because my brain has imploded in pure horror and disbelief. Wish me luck. Oh, and good luck to James Fox as well.

Going under a bus

I have a new staff member. Sadly he is staff at work rather than staff at home. It would be nice to have a butler... Anyway, later this week I intend to get him to update and improve much of our process documentation at work. The reason for this is that it will be needed if I get "run over by a bus". The number of times you hear people worry about dying in this messy way, you might thing it was a particularly common way to end your days on this Earth.

As an actuary, death rates and causes are something of a specialty of mine. I have tables which tell me how many people out of a large group will die in a given period of time. I have access to tables which detail the percentages of deaths which are due to different diseases or methods of passing on.

So I looked up the "Going Under A Bus Rate", or GUABR as the more senior actuaries call it (generally seems that the more senior you are, the more you tend to use impenetrable acronyms). I was surprised at what I found. I thought that I'd start by looking up the GUABR rate for 28 year old males. I myself am a 28 year old male so this would be a pertinent statistic. I could use it to bolster my case for documentation improvement.

Here's the shocking part. If you took a large group of say, 1000 28 year old males, 46% of them will die from being run over by a bus (or related injury) before they reach 30. 46%. That is 460 young men with everything to live for. Some of them may have wives. Some may even have children. Some who hail from Barnsley may even have grandchildren. I can't even begin to estimate the mega-tonnes of sadness that all this death would cause.

But it gets worse... The chance of a 35 year old male dying by bus before his 40th birthday is 92%! Almost unbelievable. It's a wonder you don't see middle aged men piled haphazardly by the side of the road in bloody heaps, carrion crows picking languidly at their toupees.

Now I understand why bus journeys can be so bumpy sometimes.

So I am now quite worried about my own future. Almost an evens chance of me being splatted within the next two years. Bugger. I guess there are two things that need to be done now. Somebody (not me, I'm too lazy) needs to start a campaign to reduce bus-related deaths. And secondly, you should all update your process documentation asap. Your colleagues will thank you for it when you're gone.

Face Lift

So whilst I'm messing around with things, let's try a new look too. Still pink though. Let me know how you like it. Not that I'll listen :-)

Admin

Well, Blogger has relaunched with lots of "Exciting" new features. I've decided to try out the new commenting facility - the old external one was always intermittently broken and temperamental, so let me know what you think. It does however mean that y'all can no longer see any of the old comments on old posts. You'll get over it.

Not sure if people not registered with Blogger can leave a comment as anything other than "Anonymous". If this applies to you, why not put your name in the comment too! Genius!

I'll leave it for a couple of weeks and then if I/we decide it's rubbish I can always bring back the old comment system nothing has actually been deleted.

I'll write something more interesting later maybe. Or maybe not. Take a guess...

A Shopping List

I went to Sainsbury's the supermarket this morning. There were several interesting things relating to my shopping. I shall relate them here in the obvious form - a shopping list:

1. Twinings Orange, Mango and Cinnamon teabags
I didn't actually need any of these, as the previous box is still full. However, the ones on sale at the moment come with a free gift - a plastic teabag holder. Designed so that you can carry up to five teabags around with you in relative safety, anywhere you go! I had to have one. They come in a range of lurid colours, and you don't find out until you open the box. As soon as I got home, I opened the box to find that mine matches this blog. Teabag-tastic!

2. Sainsbury's Meat Feast pizza.
See my post from April 04, 2004 for more details of this product. The pizza box now has a label on the front saying something like "Now with extra toppings". This is clearly a good thing, or at least it is until you realise: The damn supermarket has been ripping me off for the last month, holding toppings back from me! They should have had this much on to start with! I've a mind to write to them and demand they send me the extra toppings in the post immediately. I expect they've put them on a shelf in head office somewhere, labeled "the pizza toppings withheld from Lint". They've maybe got a shelf with your toppings on too. Why not write to them as well? Topping-tastic!

3. KP Hula Hoops 7 pack multibag.
Crisps are great. These should have contained: 3 packs of ready salted, 2 packs of barbecue beef and 2 packs of salt and vinegar. What it actually contained was: 3 packs of ready salted, 2 packs of barbecue beef and 4 packs of salt and vinegar!! Yes, you read correctly - the multibag contained two whole bonus packs of S&V for no reason whatsoever! I will not be writing to complain about that one! Crisp-tastic!

4. Powerade, "Citrus Charge" flavour, 500ml
Now this is just vaguely unpleasant.

I will add that I don't normally put this much detail on any shopping lists that I make. It would clearly take forever. Consider this to be a special one that I wrote just for you.*

*Not you

Mornings

I saw Saturday morning for the first time in quite a while today. It's alright, I suppose. Might try a Sunday morning tomorrow.

Dose me up, once is not enough

Somebody said something to me earlier me this week. Yes, I was having a "conversation". And the thought that it made me think was: How do you know that you have got over somebody? (And what does that even mean?)

Is the point at which you are "over" somebody when:
- You stop crying?
- You stop thinking about them constantly?
- You stop dreaming about them every night?
- You can think about them without crying?
- You look to the future not the past?
- You forget their birthday?
- You forget their name?
- You stand over their corpse with a bloody knife in your hand, humming songs by The Smiths?

I think perhaps none of the above (though the last one is certainly quite final). You know when you're over them, when you're ready to move on.
Or maybe before.
Or even after.
Or you just know.

And there is generally not even a particular time that can be pinpointed. Show me someone who says "I got over X at twenty past three on Tuesday the 27th November" and I'll show you a liar. A liar that owns a watch, true, but one of the "people who've not drank truth serum" nonetheless.

And maybe sometimes you never really are over someone, but there comes a point where it doesn't matter anymore. Sometimes love dies, sometimes it was never really there. Sometimes it fades exponentially. And it's possible that someone can come along and rewrite your mental pathways, make you spanky new, joyed up and ready to rock.

The past is by definition, "over". Gone. It ain't coming back. If it did, you probably wouldn't like it anymore anyway. The metaphorical tomorrow is gonna be great, and you're all invited*

*Not you

It's a bit... tart

And whilst I'm on the subject of sweets... I think they have reduced the sourness of Sour Skittles. They used to make me go "thrrrrrrr" but now the effect is less pronounced. I liked them better the old way - they weren't very pleasant, but sometimes I just want something a bit nasty-sour.

And did you know that adding salt to tonic water reduces the bitterness? Go on try it. Add enough and it starts to taste like lemonade!

Sweet Hell

Liquorice Allsorts. Great sweets, I love them. Yes, I love them.

But Bassetts, the esteemed sweetmakers, seem to have decided that there are some freaks out there who do not like Liquorice Allsorts. Inconceivable! So to fill this perceived gap in the market, they have released "Fruit Allsorts" (crap name). They look like the originals, but the black liquorice has been replaced by.... Red Rotten Tasting Stuff (RRTS). I've no idea what the RRTS is, but it tastes like I'd imagine decaying animals taste like.

I don't imagine I'm the only person revolted by this new development? I'd be tempted to boycott the originals. But they are too nice...

How to be happy

How to be happier... I'll seek advice from the ineffable beyond instead: I'll listen to the next 10 songs that iTunes randomly plays, take the first word sung in each and lay them in the order they were played. Then marvel at the resulting sentence - truly it's bound to be a message of amazing advice from the infinite, one that I can live my life by.

I baby there tell please alright there's drown lose quiet.

Um. Hmmm not sure that worked properly. I'll try books from my shelf instead - hold on.

Far the this my do Kate during the according Sam.

Don't think that was better.

Who knows what goes on in her pretty little head?

I've not felt this down since Christmas Eve. It's that moment when all the optimism is shattered and the future rearranges itself again into a new and less appealing shape. And the new shape has less room for more optimism. It may improve, no, it will improve, but without knowing where all the future good is going to come from, it's hard to blindly hope.

So instead, I just get slightly older, slightly lonelier and incrementally less likely to do all the things I want to do.

And I'm not sure why I tend to feel so lonely anyway. It's not like I don't have lots of good friends. Maybe it's that I don't have that certain someone - a centre, soulmate, whatever - and I think I need that. Just someone to hold on to.

Someone cheer me up...

Bye bye not-so-Hotmail

I have now acquired a gmail account for use from this blog. I've been using a private account for a week or so, and have generally found it quite pleasant (though strange at first). So please don't send any more emails to the old Hotmail address - chances are I'll never see them. Unless you get strange perverse satisfaction from sending people messages they'll never see... I mean I'm not going to stop you doing things that make you happy, so go, send emails to whichever addresses you like! (clearly I am not condoning spam here). I was going to write about something else today but got distracted by Britt Ekland and have now forgotten what it was. Ho hum.

Seafood Cover

I've just been very pleasantly surprised. The final track on the new Seafood album is a cover version of "Willow's Song". For those of you with less culture, it has nothing to do with Willow from BTVS, but is in fact a song from classic horror/musical, The Wicker Man.

If you've seen the film, you may not remember the song very well, as it's the one sung by Britt Ekland as she dances naked around her bedroom whilst banging on the walls. And the poor policeman in the room next door is just trying to get some sleep. The nakedness is quite distracting, but all the same it's a brilliantly haunting piece of music, and the Seafood version is pretty damn good too. Sadly however it did not lead to any naked girls dancing round the flat (though I didn't actually check all the rooms - maybe she was in the back bedroom?). Think I might go and watch the original version on DVD. Just for research and comparison purposes you understand...

Inicidentally, not only did Britt not actually sing the song in the film, it was not even her naked body the whole time - the actual girl used for the longer shots was called Lorraine Peters. Apparently Britt was slightly pregnant at the time and they decided to use someone else's bottom. Never trust anything you see on screen!

Waiting

"Limbo" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that springs to mind.

Selwyn comes to York

So last night was the first annual North of England alumni event of Selwyn College Cambridge. Designed to improve relationships with those of us in the North who are too lazy to attend events in Cambridge itself. I should add here that Selwyn is the place where 10 years ago I commenced my study of mathematics. I was expecting to be one of the youngest people there, as these things tend to traditionally attract old people, but what I hadn't twigged was that because Selwyn used to be a heavily theological college, a lot of the old people are vicars. What a fun way to spend an evening!

First up was Evensong at York Minster. I haven't been to church since my sister's wedding over a year ago, and have never been to an Evensong before. It's interesting to see what the mad catholics get up to for fun. The choir was the controversial girls choir - controversial as all the songs and prayers were originally written for boys voices, and some people still maintain that they should only be sung only by boys. I think the girls one has only been in existence for a couple of years. They sounded fine to me anyway. Not sure I'd recommend Evensong as a fun thing to do at 5pm on a Friday night, but it was interesting.

Then on to a guided tour of the Minster (the only non-free part of the evening). I've walked round the Minster several times in the past, but never with a guide before. It's good to hear the stories and history that they can tell you. The main part of the building is around 800 years old. It occurred to me that most Americans, Australians, Canadians and who-not will never have been in a building anywhere near as old as that - whilst I do it quite regularly. I even know people from back in College who have lived in really old buildings. The tour lasted for around an hour, so I was getting a bit bored towards the end... ready for some wine. Which was handy, as afterwards it was over the road to St William's College for...

...A drinks reception. On entry, we were all given a name badge with our names, year of matriculation and subject on it. Also, they handed out a sheet of paper with a list of all the people attending. I quickly scanned down to see if there was anyone I knew (or wanted to avoid). Just one person from my year, but it was somebody who I had used to get on with ok. There were around 6 of us who were under 30, so we all kind of hung around together and chatted. It turns out that T, the guy from my year, has been stalking me since we left college. One of the first things he said to me (after hello) was "I shop in the same supermarket as you do". Oh! That's... nice. In addition he lived in Norwich for most of the time I did, and now cycles past my flat on a regular basis (though to be fair, he didn't know that until yesterday). Hopefully I'll see him again for a drink at some point in the future, if he can get away from his two kids!

After a bit it was time for dinner. A very pleasant Moroccan spiced lamb dish with cous-cous. No seating plan, so we were free to sit wherever we wanted. My table contained two vicars - one old and one young, both very affable. Wine of both colours was free-flowing and seemed to be available in as much quantities as we desired. Then after dinner us youngsters managed to persuade the Master to take us back to the hotel where him and some of the Fellows were staying, for some late-night drinks. On the condition that we carried the display equipment for them... Gets a bit hazy then and I've no idea what time I left the hotel.

So overall, it was a pretty good evening, and I'll try and go again next year, wherever it may be. Hello to everyone I talked to, and a big thank you to The Master for having the event.