Day 440, By this squareness so shall you know me

Nightmare of a universe composed entirely of bricks.

Infinitely, in every direction.

Human bricks locked in a rigid system.

Claustrophobic.

No escape.

The system fractured, overthrown

Can this be overthrown.

Sweet dreams little one.


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Day 439, Found tech label

Look, look!

An over excited person shouts as they discover this marvellous artefact in the street.

Look it says IT on it, that stands for Information Technology.*

Apt.

How jaded has this IT employee become that finding a piece of metal in the street on a rainy day walk can have this effect.

Or perhaps more a sign of how easily amused this person is.

* A fragment of the word 'Electricity' in this case.


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Day 438, Pick locking

Was going to put this 5-pin lock on the shed, but then couldn't find the key.

So I took a picture of it instead.

Having never picked a lock before I decided to pick* it.

It took about a minute of 'raking' and 'zipping'** and then it just opened.

What a piece of tat.


* Come on, everybody has lock picks these days, it's on-trend.
** The YouTube is just littered with a million blokes in 'Metal' T-shirts showing you how to do it.


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Day 437, H2G2 shirting

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy live show T-shirt, here adorned with what are probably fragments of mini Twiglets, dry roast nuts, or possibly shards of Pringles.

Christmas indulgence in essence.

What a come down, crumpled from the wearer loafing about, for this artefact of the short-lived live theatre show.

A terrible shame, particularly as the live show was absolutely excellent entertainment. 

This blog has been on the subject of 'What's about to go in the wash basket?'



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Day 436, Retiring to a wind farm, ranty, ranty, where's my planet?

As we're all doomed the best decision right now is to retire to a wind farm.

You don't have to get up early to milk 'em, feed 'em or muck 'em out.  What could be simpler.

Ok, retiring is probably a bit of a way off for me, and as the pension pot has a hole in it retirement is getting further away by the minute.

So what's been happing in the world of environmental fuck-up denial.

Well there's been the recent climate change conference in Paris, where it was agreed that everyone would have a good old think about trying to improve on climate pledges by April 2017.  No commitment to do anything substantial right now but let's see if we can make our pledges closer to that recommended by science, and we have almost eighteen months to sort that out.

No commitment to actively do anything positive right now, it can wait, we've had billions of years and we have about a billion left.

So fracking is to go ahead, without consultation.  Known to be environmentally damaging.  And with the shrill argument that "well we need to get the energy from somewhere."

Well how about this.  Use less energy you fuckers.  Or if you really need to use loads of energy then get it from sustainable sources that don't create even more problems.

Maybe don't remove subsidies from wind and solar power.

"Yeah but subsidising those areas is like communism, hell we don't like that shit, they need to be able to stand on their own, to support themselves."  Bloody hicks.

Of course they do, so let's apply that to the nuclear industry, which is subsidised up to its eyeballs, even before the cost of cleaning up the bits of the mess it makes that can be cleaned up have to be accounted for.  None of that will be paid for from the private companies fleecing us all for our power costs, it'll all land right back on the public purse.  Remind me, what is the point of these utilities being privatised.

Ok, let's all get in our cars and burn more fuel.  Let's all look forward to the day when we can sit in a traffic jam in our driverless cars while we play angry birds or pacman, yes that's as up to date and hip as this rant is going to get.  Never mind the endless ethical dilemma, the trolley problem*, whatever, we're missing the point.  There should be fewer cars clogging up our towns and cities, killing people with pollution or direct physical impact, and draining our resources in innumerable ways.

The environmental cost of travelling by car can be ten times that of travelling by train, almost as high as the environmental cost of travel by plane.  Are we all mad?  I've got a car outside as well, what an idiot I am.

Where are my sources for this finger in the air and rather vague information?  The internet, there's loads of stuff on there - just make sure you understand how impartial the author is, there are plenty of peer reviewed papers available if you can access that type of resource.  And anyway, this isn't meant to be a fully researched piece of work, it's a quick hand job tossed off in between staring at cats and cooking.

So what are we going to do?

Well, people are trying to make a difference, they are out there, you might even be one of them.  So don't get depressed and downhearted.  Even though we are governed by fools whose only concern is that this shit doesn't blow up in their face during their term in parliament, and before they can cash in on all the conflicts of interest they are up to their ears in, some of them that is.  There are people that are concerned, and we can all do something, consume less, recycle your socks - I don't know why are you asking me for goodness sake just get on the internet - do research, find answers.

And if we make it through the potentially humanity ending period of climate change we only have to make it for another billion years before the sun gets so hot the surface of the planet will be stripped of life and an atmosphere.

No problemo!

*Just put "the trolley problem" into Google, in fact I just did it for you there.


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Day 435, Seen the light

More cheap-tack, crappy tabloid style, meaningless punning titles.

LED lights are very good aren't they, low power consumption, quite illuminating, and small.

My bulb is going dim.

Time for a cuppa, some leftovers, and a lie down to recharge.



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Day 434, Ghost of Guinness Christmas 1988

It's a real tree, top to bottom, root to tip, shedding joy all over the psychedelic carpet.

Who would choose a carpet like that?

The last remnant in the shop, beloved of cheapskate private rental accommodation.

A landlord, basically, that's who chooses carpets like that.

And those print-outs on the door are computing history.  From a BBC micro and printer, courtesy of my former employer, a day-care centre.  When I say 'courtesy of' that only extends to bringing home the prints.

Three of us shared this rather ropey house, a former nurse, a former care worker, and another still employed in that role.

This was probably the year of the Guinness quiz offer in The Cremorne where you could win a free pint of Guinness if you got all of the three questions correct on the voucher that was handed to you over the bar.

Just rub with a coin what you thought was the correct answer and a cross or tick was revealed beneath.

Unfortunately for the Guinness empire they hadn't noticed that incorrect answers could be easily erased with a pencil rubber, leaving the correct answer behind.

No one should ever be forced to drink that much Guinness.

I only chucked out the remaining fifty or so vouchers a couple of years ago.

Poor but pissed happy.

No, definitely pissed, which made the carpet much much worse.





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Day 433, Back to the Future, Aliens, wonderwall melange

Look, a whole bunch of posters and sleeve inserts for films that had made it to video by 1988.

Some of them probably went straight to video, Grace Jones in Vamp doesn't ring any bells - anyone?

Every Christmas Eve The Guardian prints the year's King William's College Quiz.  It is quite difficult, and getting more than half a dozen without having to look any answers up is pretty good going.

So with that in mind there are points on offer for naming as many items as possible in this picture.*

Unlike The Guardian with King William's College Quiz I will not be publishing answers in January.

Many of the items in the picture were a mystery to me in 1988, never mind now.*




*No there aren't.
**Postcards, prints and album inserts are all mine so I do know what they are.


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Day 432, A shroom with a view, vitamin D supplement

Apparently if you put mushrooms outside in sunlight the amount of vitamin D they contain increases.

This can only occur at the right time of year.

Mushrooms respond to UVB ultraviolet light in a way similar to that of 7-dehydrocholesterol in our skin.  7-dehydrocholesterol is converted to vitamin D₃ by the action of UVB on the skin.  This can only occur when the right wavelength of ultraviolet light can penetrate our atmosphere, which happens to be when whichever bit of the planet you are on is more directly facing the sun.  For us here in the UK that is the summer months.

Here are some mushrooms which have not created any vitamin D from solar UVB as they were grown this week, even though they had a good view out of the kitchen window.

Even so, they don't need vitamin D to grow and it took only 4 days for them to get to this size.

After trimming that left 250g of oyster mushrooms, enough for a stir fry for two.

Here they are 3 days after first appearing.

And here after 2 days.

And here from the day before that.

Like an alien invasion of freakish predatory tentacles emerging from coffee bean waste.

They were very pleasant to eat.

But keep taking the vitamin D supplements.



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Day 431, Spark up

You're never alone with a Strand.  That was the advertising campaign that finished off the short-lived cigarette brand, Strand.

Parodied and ridiculed by other cigarette manufacturers and icons of popular culture such as Tony Hancock, the 'Lonely Man' advert has stood as a warning to advertising agencies of what the impact of a badly judged campaign can be.

It wasn't all bad news for the purveyors of cancer sticks though, they re-branded Strand as Embassy, and presumably never looked back.

Above are some images of fag packets from long ago.

Some of these are still in production.

Even without advertising.

"Two's up mate."

Cough.

Wheeze.

Die.



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Day 430, Away at Wigan

The last league meeting between Sheffield United and Wigan was the final game of the 2006-2007 Premier League season.

Losing to Wigan that day lead to relegation from the Premier League.

Earlier in the season, away at Wigan on 16 December 2006, United didn't lose.  Rob Hulse scored the winner on that occasion in a single goal victory.  But for the injury to Hulse later in the season United may have escaped relegation - never mind the variety of well documented insults to add to that injury which also could have meant escape.*

So moving on to the next match for United this season, away at Wigan on Boxing Day.

Both United and Wigan are now in the old third division.

Oh dear.

Unfortunately most cash strapped clubs stand little chance in the very one-sided battle of wealth that is the Premier League, there may occasionally be exceptions but they are exactly that, very brief exceptions.

Better to look to the future rather than the past, even if there's quite a lot of good stuff amongst the dross of history.**

But before we do that let's have a look at the squad.

The McAlpine Stadium as I think it was, or the DW Stadium, who knows

Players for Sheffield United that day.

Scorer
Rob Hulse 45

Team:
Paddy Kenny
Claude Davis
Chris Morgan
Derek Geary
Phil Jagielka
Rob Kozluk
Keith Gillespie
Michael Tonge
Stephen Quinn
Rob Hulse
Danny Webber

Substitutions:
Chris Armstrong for Stephen Quinn 70
Nick Montgomery for Michael Tonge 70
Leigh Bromby for Danny Webber 88

Cards:
Chris Morgan 68 Y
Claude Davis 73 Y

Subs bench:
Leigh Bromby
Chris Armstrong
Nick Montgomery
Christian Nade
Colin Kazim-Richards




*Fans of opposing teams are likely to make a fuss about this - a lot of people that follow football are partisan, and will go on about pointless stuff at great length not realising how stupid it makes them appear.
**This only applies to nonsense like football, for example it would be ridiculous in politics to ignore the lessons of history.


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Day 429, Let's off road

Wandering round Edale burning shoe-leather you might find this item of mix and match motoring memorabilia.

Given that it is the top of one thing and the bottom of another it doesn't qualify as 'cut and shut'.

Needs must I expect if you want to keep moving, so get that knackered Morris Minor out of the shed.

Let's weave some hillbilly magic by getting the chassis from the completely rusted away Nissan Patrol SWD out of the other shed and gluing it to the Moggy.

It's a marriage made in heaven - Let's off-road!

Now have we forgotten something, ah yes, we need some bricks to stop it rolling away.

It's very nearly a classic.

Here are the vehicle details for the bottom section:

Vehicle details

• Vehicle make NISSAN
• Date of first registration 03 October 1985
• Year of manufacture 1985
• Cylinder capacity (cc) 2753cc
• CO₂Emissions Not available
• Fuel type PETROL
• Vehicle status SORN in place
• Vehicle colour WHITE
• Vehicle type approval Not available
• Wheelplan 2 AXLE RIGID BODY
• Revenue weight Not available

That's the value of recycling, remember never to throw anything away as it might come in useful later.

I've got about 58 pairs of worn out shoes that I'm sure will eventually be a valuable resource, I just need to build another shed to store them.




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Day 428, Franchise cinema reviews

There's a new film out which is being described as part of a franchise.

I'm pretty sure that that means if we have a whip round and collect a bit of cash we can approach Disney and buy into the franchise and start producing our own films.  Or is this a misleading modern usage of franchise that is just used to identify a long running sequence of things, like a series perhaps.

The last time I saw one of the 'franchise' was the first film in the series, now apparently renamed the fourth in the series.

Fourth in the series, is that some sort of joke?

No, the owners of the intellectual property (IP) take themselves far too seriously and it isn't a joke.

Are the owners of the IP taking the piss?

Probably, it is very lucrative.

The last time I saw one of these films was in 1977.

That's discounting the time I was at a mates and he played a bit of a DVD of the one that was apparently now the first in the series - the one from 1999 - I was pissed and there appeared to be some terrible CGI thing happening.

Sorry, distracted by some weird psychedelic memory.

The last time I saw one of these films all the way through was here at Temple Twins cinema on Cheetham Hill Road in Manchester.  The cinema originally had a single screen but was split into two and 'twinned'.

Temple Cinema in its 1959 heyday, picture courtesy of Manchester Libraries

Me and mates saw all sorts of films here as well as Star Wars.  Around the same time was Superman* and Monty Python's Holy Grail**.  Later there was Friday the Thirteenth***, a bunch of other tedious teen-horror flicks, a double bill of McVicar**** and Midnight Express***** and no doubt others.

Many of the later ones were X rated but 14-15 year olds could happily get in without bother - there was nothing in any of those films that living in Cheetham Hill wouldn't have prepared you for.

Temple Twins Cinema was apparently demolished in 1983, a few years after we last visited.





*Superman was way better than Star Wars, no it definitely was, Star Wars was pulp space opera.
**First saw Holy Grail at the Odeon on Deansgate but had to see it again, nearly died laughing, twice.
***Another one described as a 'franchise', honestly what is up with people.
****Dull, dull, dull, and dull.
*****Pretty good, although put me off visiting Turkey.


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Day 427, Repeated title, & yet more repeats

Red sky in the morning - pants are on fire.

We all love these old sayings, their meaning buried in the mists of time.

Apples and pears, thieving east end urchins, oi oi come 'ere, give 'em back.  etc.  That one more commonly heard around market stalls in That London.

This morning we were treated to the red sky referred to above, apparently - I couldn't tell, and indeed this picture might not contain any red either.

That's mystic vision for you, can't always see what's in front of your nose.

The internet was awash with great pictures of the sky, and the exclamations of early risers.

That's unintentional innuendo.

Time for a beer - that picture above, it looks nothing like it did this morning, after all where are the dragons and the mithral volcanic rain?




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Day 426, String theory

Back again like a cheap tabloid headline.

On this occasion however there will be some practical advice.

After being unable to play properly for a while due to a finger injury sustained while dicking about - actually it was while doing some improvised comedy - the time has come to build up super finger power again.

How is this done?

It is achieved by using a combination of a warm-up technique from an old blues guitarist in a jazz book*, workouts from the book Basic Guitar Workout, and playing scales.

Of course you'll need to gently wiggle your fingers and waggle your hands first for about a minute or so to warm them up.

The blues guitarist warmup is very simple and uses all four fingers each one fret apart on a string and moving across the strings.  The first index finger is 1 and the little finger is 4, and play this sequence slowly:

6th string  - 1, 2, 3, 4
5th string - 1, 2, 4, 3
4th string - 1, 3, 2, 4
3rd string - 1, 3, 4, 2
2nd string - 1, 4, 2, 3
1st string - 1, 4, 3, 2

And then play the same sequence but now going back down from the 6th string to the 1st string.  Slowly.

This can be varied by putting stretches across frets in between different fingers and moving up and down the neck.  Put a fret gap between 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd etc.

In no time at all you'll have carpal tunnel syndrome and RSI from over doing it.

Good luck.

*Stop sniggering, I said jazz book.


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Day 425, Matchless

The t-shirt is red and black, the colours of the anarcho-syndicalist flag.

There was no sign of any of that at the motorcycle factory in Plumstead, oh no.

Push rods, manually timed ignition, the smell of hot oil, that's what these bikes had, no political affiliation as far as it is possible to tell.

However they were machines for the masses, not like your luxury vehicles such as Vincent, the Norton, and to a lesser extent Triumph.

These were motorcycles for workers, not for the greasers zipping up and down the North Circular and stopping off in the Ace Cafe.

Steady, reliable, made out of industrial grade dull metal stuff.

That's not to say that the greasers wouldn't have been workers, no.

But fashion is a costly affair, and fashion was not what these machines were about.

Hence the t-shirt ...

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Day 424, Snake wrestling for professionals, as seen on LinkedIn

In the midst of a pea-souper we see our brave heroes.

Stalwarts of the snake wrestling scene they have become blasé with the thrill-less repetition of ground based grappling.

And so here they are, up a couple of rickety ladders in treacherous conditions, wrestling 'The Beast'.

To add spice to the encounter not only do they have to subdue the silver-backed sea snake but also 'encourage' it down a Georgian chimney.

This task was completed with aplomb and neither participant needed the services of the mist-shrouded Royal Hallamshire Hospital just visible in the background.

Although there was a moment when I thought the TV aerial would cause them to come a cropper.

Well done to all involved for organising such splendid lunchtime entertainment.



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Day 423, A quick dip

Swimming the entire coastline of Britain is some feat.

If this T-shirt was the only reward then that would be a let down.

But as far as I'm aware I haven't at any point swum the coastline, it is the sort of thing a person might notice.

It's likely that the total lifetime distance swimming isn't that of the coastline, but I've not worked it out.

Thinks ...

The coastline of Britain is around 31,368,000 metres, having checked I now feel it is even less likely.

At best, when going regularly, my swimming has amounted to about 3000 metres a week so that's 10,456 weeks of swimming.

10,456 weeks is just under four times the number of weeks I've been alive.

If you swim 3km a week since birth that would mean living until the age of 201 to achieve the coastline figure.

Another ambition quashed.

Unless the swim rate is upped massively or living to around 1000 years is achievable.

None of this is going to happen.

But hold on, 20 years of swimming at 30,161 metres per week is achievable.

4km a day is definitely possible, assuming there is time, energy and will available.

My best pace has been 22 minutes for one kilometre, not flat out but steady.

So that's equates to about 11 hours of swimming per week, for the next 20 years.

This is making me feel tired.

I'm not even sure I'm awake for 11 hours a week.

Front crawl would be quicker but it would necessitate remembering how to do it.

Loses will.

Something, something, insert joke about being a wet blanket closely followed by a wet T-shirt, something, something.

Splash.


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Day 422, Cats rule

That's all there is to say, cats rule.

Even if they crap in your headphones.

Which none of mine ever have.

Although there was one that peed in an extension lead.

Which I only discovered when I had to change the fuse and found all the sockets were rusty and wet.

Rusty implies prolonged and repeated application of feline micturation.

Cats rule.

But their awareness of simple health and safety procedures leaves something to be desired.



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Day 421, Cold conference call pile-up

A thousand conference calls.

1. Please join my meeting

2. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended.  Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +44 (0) 12 3456 7890
Access Code: 987-654-321
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting


Let's dial in and get on.

Female robot voice -  “Waiting for the organiser”

Person A - (drums fingers)

Person B - "Is there an agenda?"

Person D - "Just shared it with you"

Female robot voice - “The organiser has arrived”

voice a - "ok, anyone here"

voice b - "yes I’m here"

voice c - "here too"

voice d - "ye***" (vrooom parp), "yes, just on the M1, listening in" (vrooom)

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, yeah, cough, here, hack"

voice f - "yes, here"

voice g - "here as well, looking for a parking space"

Person A-D - "We're all here"

voice a - "good, ok then, hope you've all had a chance to look at the agenda.  I'll go through it."

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

Person C - "Just one thing before we start"

voice a - "item 1. I think that's all in order" ... 

Person C - "Just one thing"

voice a - "there shouldn't be any fall out from that as it's standard procedure" ...

Person C - "Just one thing"

voice a - "and any variation will be a result of natural pressures"

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

voice d - (vrooom parp)

Person C - "JUST ONE THING"

voice a - "Ok"

Person C - "We're seeing some anomalies with the rates, has that been recognised?"

voice a - "yes, we've picked up on that and expect that variation should now diminish."

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

voice g - (police siren)

Person C - "And how about" ...

voice a - "Item 2.  The refresh rate of the Milton-Repton cycle is now within bounds"

Person C - "And" ...

Person A - "oh ffs"

voice a - "and we should consider this element to no longer be a problem."

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

voice b - (sound of wood being sawn)

voice a - "is someone doing woodwork?"

voice b - "yeah, sorry, there's a joiner fixing my stairs, I'll move to the other room."

voice c - (sound of an alarm clock going off) "apologies, it's 5am here, partner is getting up."

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

voice a - "moving on, item 3. The helve-prism has been refactored and the lomax-finklestein parameter is within tolerance, there's a slight blemish on the grove-schism but nothing that a refresh of the cardio-dial shouldn't resolve, there's no outstanding spikiness in the culture logs or the philistine folder, and" ...

Person A - "this voice doesn't have lungs it has a cocking blow hole, take a breath, let someone speak."

voice a - ... "the smolensk valve needs some refreshment and the griddle hole has had the requisite lubrication so I think that's about it, thanks everyone."

Person C - "We've got a further" ...

Female robot voice -  “The organiser has left the meeting.”

voice e - "hack, cough, cough, hack, cough, hack"

voice d - (vroom parp)

Female robot voice -  "voice d has left the meeting."

Female robot voice -  "voice b has left the meeting."

Female robot voice -  "voice c has left the meeting."

voice e - "hack, cough"

Female robot voice -  "voice e has left the meeting."

Person C - "Hang up, this is pointless."

Some boats in conference

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