Day 75, Battersea power station and pig

Major civil engineering projects are not usually carried out in your own home.  However in this case it was necessary.  A flat pack and metal version of Battersea Power Station had arrived over the Christmas period and due to demand for electricity in and around my desk area it needed to be constructed hastily.

First requirement was a robust surface.  The desk was just about large and strong enough to contain the sheet metal.

Removal of the individual components could then commence.  Significant manual dexterity and finger strength was required to release the prefabricated sections from their supporting superstructure.

Fabrication was now under way.  Superior strength was required to manually bend what was quite possibly a high tensile material.

After a period of many minutes much time the building was constructed.  Concealed from view are the control room, the boiler houses and the turbine hall.  These were the most difficult and time consuming elements to construct - due to the fine tolerances needed a team of ants were trained to the highest power-plant certification and they assembled the internal live operations equipment.

Here is the building in the full glory of a daylight wavelength, low-energy lamp.

Within minutes a popular beat combo pitched up and insisted on flying a pig over the power station. 

Tsk.  I ask you.

Day 74, Listers, blisters

Some years ago I read that book by that chap about Arsenal, there were a lot of lists.  Or was that his other book that had lists.  But then again most of his books had lists.  I read two, or maybe three of his books. So that's an assumption that most had lists. They were ok.

This has nothing to do with that chap and his reminiscence about Arsenal.

It's not about a list.

It's about lists.

Lists.

Listing things is pretty dull.

Or has it just become dull.

Empirical research suggests that lists become dull after you've been exposed to two in a 60 minute period(1).

TV at this time of year is full of lists.

Newspapers at this time of year are full of lists.

The internet.  That’s full of lists.  Shedloads of ‘em. All year round.

Dull.  Dull.  Dull.

Pretty sure the internet didn’t used to be like that(2).

There used to be stuff on the internet.  Not just:

“13 sets of teeth you wouldn’t believe”

“27 tattoos that will make your ears blush”

“41 pop stars favourite falafels”

“9 celebrity divorce settlements that will shock and curl your teeth”

“17 world leaders sock drawers that will give you a glandular infection”

etc.

Do you see what I did there.

Sigh.

1. This is almost certainly made up.

2. Genuinely, it didn't, believe me.

Day 73, comfort zone

Here's a view from the bottom of a steep road.  Sheffield is full of such delights.  Fortunately they go down as well as up, and that doesn't need to appear in small print.

Assuming you have functioning legs getting up the hill shouldn't present too much difficulty.  When the hill is covered in snow and ice it might be a little more tricky, today for example.  Yet it is possible, it has been done many times.

I'll flag up my glib comparison now.

Here it is.

When presented with new challenges, or even old challenges from a slightly different approach, there is often going to be a steep hill to climb before you're comfortable.

After a period of struggle, which might involve some flailing about, shouting, and teeth gnashing, it will be possible to ascend.  When you get there it will become apparent that you know your onions.  After you've done this a few times you'll have more, and bigger onions, to rely on.  That's that metaphor stretched too far.

The thing I've bee struggling with - and it is quite mundane - is trying to work out resistor values.  Quite challenging when it's not possible to tell the difference between most of the colour bands.  Fortunately it's easy to take a sideways step by using a multimeter to work out the values.  But still this is the bottom of a hill of sorts, building small electronic projects. 

At some point I'll become comfortable with fiddling with these things.  Or alternatively, bored.  And then it will be time to do something else.

Being comfortable is over-rated.

Day 72, sparks

Stuffed with food.

Over saturated with alcohol.

Brimming with dry roast nuts, mini Twiglets, Pringles and dips.

The Rennie and liver salts stocks rapidly diminishing.

Wobbling midriff.

Torper in both mind and body.

Exactly the head-space that leads to making assumptions, jumping to erroneous conclusions, and generally being a bit slow.

Time to get reinvigorated, breath some cold air, walk up those steep hills and start generating sparks.

I'll be doing that as soon as I've finished this chocolate orange.

Only need four other items to round up to the five a day.

Day 71, another band fragment

Another cassette sleeve insert.

The demo referred to was recorded in a studio that had just been vacated by a member of a well known 80s band.  The singer had left his suitcase full of porn behind, our engineer wasn't forthcoming on what happened to the suitcase next.  The singer did quite well in a reality TV show.

There are probably a variety of these things floating about.  Possibly there are also more anecdotes about well known 'pop artistes', though they will remain nameless.

Day 70, filler

Pockmarked, crumbling veneer, stroll through decay.  Now made smooth, renewed by resurfacing.

Grass.  Snow golf.  Dog bins.  

Wilful destruction, the remains of things that could have been incongruent.  Just things.

Like shouting at the full moon, their moment will pass beyond memory.

Pockmarks dulled by micro-abrasion.  Erased by the impact of time travel.

Day 69, out of phase

It's one of those days where I don't appear to be able to get anything at all in proportion.

Which is generally pretty normal for Christmas day.

Drink too much, eat too much, and don't dance around anywhere near enough.

  

Day 68, 1096 days ago, a tower within a tower

On December 23 2011, that's one thousand and ninety six days ago, I took this photograph.

1096 Days ago.

Three years and one day ago.

It is a picture of a cardboard tower.  A model of The University of Sheffield Arts Tower.

The cardboard tower was on the 18th floor of the actual Arts Tower.

I didn't look in through the window of the eighteenth floor for fear I would see myself inside leaning over looking into a cardboard tower.

On the higher floors, fifteenth or so, when there is a decent wind, it feels like you are on a boat.  Everyone loves that sensation.

This tower was in no way modelled on the Eiffel Tower.  Other than having novel mechanisms for travelling within the building, and them being towers, there is little similarity.  The Arts Tower has the paternoster, a lift mechanism that defies the modern tenets of health and safety.  The Eiffel Tower has a lift that disconcertingly makes the passenger feel as though it is going to pop out of the top as the tower appears to narrow impossibly.

The paternoster is brilliant, long may it continuously travel.  Ditto for the Eiffel Tower lift, albeit in the interrupted manner of a traditional lift.

Merry Christmas

Day 67, no, not the trees, don't take the trees

Tapton halls of residence are being demolished to make way for a housing development.

Some mature trees have been felled.  I hope they don’t remove any more mature trees.

I like trees, I could live in one.

Momentary lapse into wishy-washy dribble coming up - they are the elemental life force underpinning the connection between the earth and the sky, unifying and connecting our mutual life forces, like the tantric nerve of the planet with renewing energy flowing from the core of the planet up and through us all, refreshing our kundalini, all as one.

Anyway, I like trees. They break up the harshness of our urban environment and provide a place for birds to sit.

Maybe I am some sort of bird.

Day 66, no no baguette

Random words on a baguette and visual status update.

Entropy

Stabilisation

Rendering down to consistent state

Microbial activity

Enzymatic reactions

Artifice

Reflect wider existence

Decomposition

Separation into component parts

Eating it: doughy texture, brittle, bitter, sharp, musty, chewy, rubbery, nausea inducing, soggy, gritty, sharpness/sweetness moulds

I have not eaten any of it, I will not be eating any of it.

Day 65, Kelvin Flats

Cue lots of stuff about 'streets in the sky', etc.

Here is a view from our balcony on Kelvin Flats.  This was 168 Edith Walk, the top floor.  As you can see the flats were still under construction at the far end.  I recall that the landing that continued on the other side of the lift and stair area was blocked by a hardboard wall with a door in it.  This must have been around 1970.

We were the first to live in our flat.  It had two floors, a kitchen, a sitting room, a hallway with stairs, and on the upper floor were three whole bedrooms, a bathroom, and a lavatory.  Those last two were luxuries that we didn't have before, the bath had hung on the back wall, and the loo was at the back of the yard previously.  It was in the last century so that was pretty normal back then.  We probably had rickets too, which due to current government health policy we appear to have again (fact check that please - ed).  

The nearest lifts and stairs to us were a reasonable sized open space.  Us kids used to have a kick about there.  One of my mates only had one leg, sometimes when he kicked the ball his leg would fly off.  His false leg was made of pretty hefty amount of metal and plastic, if it had flown off in the right direction it could have wiped out a family of four alighting from the bus stop just outside.

This more recent image should put the above photograph into some context.

Digital Image copyright © Sheffield City Council.


While Kelvin Flats were being demolished me and a another person got under the surrounding fence and clambered about on the building.  As the flats were being demolished in sections along the side where the houses/flats were it was possible to walk along the landings.  In some of the flats the hallway lead to empty space or you could get as far as the kitchen door before a huge drop to certain death.  We were ok though as the other person I was with was a trainee doctor, I'm pretty sure anything could have been fixed with on-the-spot medical help.

Hyde Park Flats and Park Hill seem to have more national notoriety than Kelvin.  While parts of the other two estates remain Kelvin was completely demolished, among reasons cited are the amount of trouble that there was on the Flats in later years.  I used to visit friends and family on Kelvin occasionally and I'd say the place was no more hazardous than Hyde Park or Park Hill - make of that what you will.

My own experience of it is that it was a decent place to live, although perhaps not an ideal environment for kids, one of my friends fell to his death from his bedroom window.  After that happened workmen visited every flat and drilled the aluminium window frames and inserted a screw in each so that they could be opened no wider than a fist.  Too fucking late.  I remember walking by the sand they put down to soak up what they couldn't remove.

During my last visit to the flats, via the 'under the fence' method, I made a point of visiting 168 Edith Walk.  I was the last person in there as well as one of the first.

Day 64, Aldi, marketing guff

Nipped in Aldi on the way back from the football.  I'd bought some Mozzarella from the local supermarket earlier, but it wasn't quite enough, and I spotted some in Aldi while generally perusing the shelves.  It was a third of the price, and better than the stuff I'd bought earlier.  Slightly vexing that I'd paid too much for something not as good.

This is not an advert, it is a less than enthralling anecdote while I try and work up some fury about the capitalist system.  

Also in Aldi was the fruit and veg section.  This had all manner of items, including something called "fun size apples". These apples were slightly smaller than a typical apple.  This tiny thing, the odd label, is an indicator that something else is at work here.  Why would anyone call them that, it's just weird isn't it?  But then again it is the language of sales, it is the language of advertising, it is saying this product fits a different market than your typical apple.  It fits the style of a type of marketing aimed at parents inducing them to buy this product for their kids.  Vast sums are spent by supermarkets on consumer psychologists and sales strategists so there's obviously something at work underneath this.

In this instance you might think 'so what is the problem with trying to get kids to eat more fruit?'  And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  The aim is to sell an additional set of product but on the face of it it isn't a bad thing - assuming that the kids actually get around to eating the fruit and it doesn't end up in the bin/compost.  However when this type of marketing appears in other products, let's say Lego and the recent range of figures that contained a number of gender stereotypes, then it can have a negative impact.  It reinforces the acceptability of saying that you should only aspire to particular behaviours, it makes it appear acceptable to put people in boxes, it suggests that there is nowhere for anyone to go beyond the assumptions that have been made about them.

By trying to categorise to separate and target marketing, to sell the same product multiple times under different guises to different 'demographics', then the flexibility and possibility of human achievement is ignored.  I'm pretty sure most people aren't affected by this and don't wear this type of labelling like a straightjacket, but it does have an effect on how people think, it does filter through in some way.

I know what I'm trying to say.  If only I could sell it.

Day 63, BitScope Micro 05

Need a USB oscilloscope?

Need a USB protocol analyser?

Need a USB spectrum analyser?

Need to spend 89 quid?

Don't think you need any of the above but would like to mess around with electronics?

The BitScope Micro is a small and relatively inexpensive device (in comparison to a traditional oscilloscope it is dirt cheap) which works with Raspberry Pi, Linux, Mac, and PC.

I've prodded a few things with it.  It will be useful for circuit testing, component testing, signal generating, waveform generating, and for all purpose playing around.



This is a trace of me (my finger) connected to channel A.

Here's a trace of it generating a signal.

This is the device itself.

The full information on it is available here.

Hours of amusement.  Even my tea went cold.

Day 62, Monsieur Eiffel? Non.

A long since forgotten daredevil stunt.

My mate hangs precariously over the wrong side of the walkway.  With a drop of possibly as much as 3 or 3.5 metres below.  And not even on to a bean bag.

Youngsters today can't even jump off a kerb without supervision.  So I've heard.  It'll be the traffic.

We were tough.  Etc.

This photograph was taken in Manchester, the reinforced concrete tower in the background is in Salford.  A truly cosmopolitan tower image.

I have stood on the roof of that Salford tower.

The Salford tower still exists, unlike much of the rest of the Manchester estate.

Day 61, band fragments

Unused cassette tape inserts from one of my old bands.  A demo recorded at Avalon Studios sometime in the early/mid 1990s.

Head, or Green as I seem to think of it.

And this is Jenny B.

We played Worksop quite a lot.

I used my fists, random objects, and a flash gun to produce a variety of guitar noises.

On one occasion a guitarist in the band we were supporting did the 'not worthy' stuff in front of me while I was playing.  I then stood on my guitar lead and it pulled out of the guitar immediately silencing me.  The other guitarist helpfully plugged it back in.

That showed me.

Playing Worksop is the only place I've had a bottle thrown at me while in a pub.

By another band.

While they were playing.

A3 poster from a Worksop gig.

Day 60, and still not the Eiffel Tower

No towers.  Towers are off.

But in lieu of that here's a flyer that refers to a well known tower.  The tower that was based on the design of the world's largest tower, which as we know is in Blackpool.

This tower was the Monttessuy Tower.  Named after the diplomat that did so much to liberate a variety of towers from the various countries he served in.  He smuggled back these towers piecemeal in his diplomatic bag.  They were briefly reassembled as one medium tower built to our west coast resort design.

Due to an administrative oversight this tower was not laid on firm foundations and it very soon collapsed taking with it both the life of Monttessuy and a large number of poodles.



There appears to be a bottomless pit of stuff here that isn't the stuff I am looking for.  That's not a Star Wars reference.

I'll find another tower at some point.

Day 59, loose baguette update

We don't usually get a golden opportunity like this to see decrepitude setting in.  Other than in humans around us that is.

The gentle decline and loss of definition.

The absorption in to the surrounding environment.

The way it appears as thought there are finger poking out of the innards (I suspect foul play, they might be pebbles).

Day 58, still not the Eiffel Tower

Here is a concrete tower.  Of all the concrete towers in the world, this one in Manchester is surely the tallest one.  If there is a taller one then it has not been brought to my attention.  This tower visible from what was my bedroom in Cheetham Hill circa 1980 is the tower at Strangeways Prison.

What I didn’t know at the time was that the prison was designed somewhat in the style of the Panopticon.  The central watchtower being akin to the ‘inspection house’ in the proposed idea by Jeremy Bentham.  Bentham’s idea being that the prisoners could all be seen by the watchman but not be aware of whether or not they were being watched.  This was designed with the intention that it would “grind … rogues honest.”  He believed the Panopticon to be rational and enlightened.

Bentham stated in his will that he wished his body to be preserved after his death.  Parts of it are preserved and visible at University College London.  His remains are occasionally wheeled out for public inspection.

Interesting to think that in death Bentham now can be viewed by many, while he himself is completely unaware that he is being viewed.

Day 57, school report

In the midst of tidying up, reorganising, and throwing stuff out, I found many documents that I'd inherited.  The one below is my school report.  There are a few interesting features.

"By far the brightest boy in the class."  Well if they hadn't put me in the 'c' stream that might not have been the case.  When I'd arrived a couple of years previously they dropped me down a level shortly after I started and the next year refused to move me back up.

The teacher in the lower stream had an unusual method for trying to get me to improve my 'joined up' handwriting.  For each time I connected a 'w' by the wrong part he said he would punch me on the arm, which he did.  My Mum turned up and suggested that if he was going to do that then she'd ask my very much larger than him, ex-steelworker, Dad to come over from Sheffield and give him the same treatment.  He didn't do it again.  Not sure if the chap bore a grudge but perhaps the refusal to move me up at the end of the previous year was related to that.

Apparently my spelling was worthy of an 'A', which is not so convincing when you see how the teacher spells 'absent' in the comment.

"No mark.  Abscent for tests."

My effort appears to have been consistent throughout, although the judgement of these people is open to question.