Day 684, Whaddya know Henry?

We don't expect people to have the answer all of the time.

Not convinced some have any answer at all.

What exactly did they want?

A volunteer bounced up, but then just repeated some meaningless catchphrases about sovereignty and taking control.

With a rubber head full of air it's no surprise.

Well Henry, what do you know?*

I guess you don't know much of anything.**

No facts were troubled in the making of this mess.

* Henry here is a cipher for the government Brexit department - "Brexit means Brexit", so that's clear then.
** Random Eraserhead quotes, purely as a tool to represent the Govt Brexit department.


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Day 683, Star & Garter

A postcard from a tinned-up pub.

Having a great time here at the Star & Garter, would be better if they had some beer.

Or if they had some crisps.

Or had some nuts.

And some lighting.

But never mind, it could be worse.

Wish you were here.*

 * A typical 'is that what they meant?' last two sentences.

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Day 682, Pole to Pole

These escapees from the battery farm, refugee, electro-tadpoles, have just turned up.

Safe, not knocked out of a bucket by a large dog and trodden into the carpet, and out of harm's way.

Ever ready for a new life, looking forward to a current with a future.

Ready to contribute and increase our power.

Etc.

Incomers likely to make Farage's hair stand on end.*

And perhaps that of his wife - now there's polarity.**

No book or picture based puns today.***

* And moustache, the daft racist.
** What with her being German and him being anti and all that.
*** Obfuscation, as used by Farage and chums in their campaign.

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Day 681, Go Green

A box of sharp things.

Carbon steel scalpel blades, sold in Sheffield.

It isn't clear where they were made.

These are type '10' with a curved end.

Sterile but not suitable for surgical use.

My foot will get over it.

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Day 680, Reading Rock

Friday 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 August 1983.

33 years ago this weekend this bunch of people performed in this order of appearance:

Friday
Auto da fé

Pendragon

Solstice

Pallas

Hanoi Rocks

Man

Steel Pulse - they left early.

Big Country

The Stranglers

Saturday

Crazy Angel

Fortune

Lee Aaron

Heavy Pettin'

Mama's Boys

Magnum

Anvil

Suzi Quatro

Stevie Ray Vaughan with Double Trouble

Marillion

Black Sabbath - Ian Gillan on vocal, Bev Bevan on drums, all very bizarre.

Sunday

The Opposition

Twelfth Night
One The Juggler
Sad Cafe
The Enid
Climax Blues Band
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - inexplicably with beach umbrellas.
Ten Years After - fourteen years after their Woodstock performance.
Little Steven & The Disciples Of Soul
Thin Lizzy - their last ever UK concert with Phil Lynott.



The economy of the day meant it was just under £16 for the three days including parking and camping.  More expensive than Glastonbury (£12 that year), but you could get out and into Reading, which was a bonus obviously.

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Day 679, Nymph

The birth of the wood pig nymph.  Rarely seen after the 19th Century but caught here, somewhat fortuitously, while on a wander around the mystic areas outside the city boundary.

Distracted by a flame-moss-spectacle, and needing to tie a bootlace, the activity coalesced from my peripheral vision.  Usually hallucinogenic mushrooms are needed to distract the mind enough to catch a glimpse of the side-world, but on this occasion it was by pure chance.

Knowing I had only moments to capture what was thought to be an extinct species I pulled out my Nokia Talkman and snapped this image.

Thank goodness for my trusty old mobile.

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Day 678, Up the Junction

Not quite as upbeat as Cool for Cats.

Not quite as miserable as Labelled with Love.

And including the unusual prenatal medical procedure of putting the mother in an incubator.

It's that delightful Squeeze song, Up the Junction.

I got a job with Stanley

He said I'd come in handy.

Telly.

Smelly.

Kissing.

Missing.

Hours.

Flowers.

Yes, every line a terse one with simple language and obvious rhymes.

It's all deliberate.

What, even the incubator?

Here's Stanley, literally being handy, in the role of a box of screwdrivers.*

* Ed - But, but, but, Stanley wasn't the one being handy. - Yes I know, it's deliberate.

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Day 677, Duck out of leafy suburbs

Let's leave this place, go fly a kite, knit clouds, become a goatherd.

There are shortages in some jobs in New Zealand, perhaps Capra aegagrus hircus wrangling is among them.

Or alternatively, duck herding, although this may not be an actual thing.

If it wasn't an actual thing before well it is now.

I'm off to start a pop-up duck herding emporium.

Laters.

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Day 676, It's like The Leadmill

Another spurious link to a photograph.

It's not exactly like The Leadmill.  The venue where you would get sticky arms from the beer covered stone bar, where you could actually buy real beer, and where one of those real beers was the ridiculous Theakston's Old Peculiar.

So really it isn't at all like The Leadmill.

With the heat, the flies, the incessant drumming.*

But it is sort of like the toilets of The Leadmill circa 1986.  Men and women using the same facilities, and the occasional unisex vomit fountain.**

As civilised as it gets.***

* I may have imagined the drumming.
** Except without the unisex toilets.
*** I said it was spurious.

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Day 675, If I read this will u marry me?

It’s my day off and I’ve been reading the book pictured below.  Distinction, by Pierre Bourdieu.

Why am I reading a sociology text on a day like today?

Well for a start it’s raining, and that means the plan to tidy the garden is on hold, and as I’ve long since left puberty the availability of spots to squeeze is somewhat reduced, so in the absence of other distractor habits I’m browsing a book that’s sitting on my desk glowing like an overly attended pimple.

The book is about culture, and the difference that having availability to (and experience of) non-financial social assets make to (a person’s ability to determine) what is considered tasteful or acceptable in society, and how this is a distinctive separator between social classes.  How those ‘with’ are able to determine and define cultural standards and acceptance while those ‘without’ have to define themselves from the perspective of the dominant social aesthetic.

I am not a sociologist.  This is my thumbnail sketch interpretation which is obviously, given my lack of educational asset in that area, not the last word on the subject, or the most definitive or accurate review (as I won’t pretend I’m going to read the entire book it can’t be), and it almost certainly isn’t the perspective of someone further up the hierarchy of knowledge in this field.  That’s my mealy mouthed and evasive description to allay fears arising from lack of confidence in the topic.

The subject appears particularly pertinent after yesterday reading a Guardian article which reminded me of the background to the Park Hill rendering in neon of the “I love you will u marry me” graffiti.  And I now feel ranty, in a first draft kind of way.

That this simple graffiti phrase became symbolic of the regeneration of the flats, with the hope that it implied, is ironic given the backstory.  With some hindsight (and a long-present feeling of discomfort about it) the creation of the meme includes an unspoken and patronising nod to the idea that those who lived here before the regeneration could have such inadvertently uplifting thoughts.  That those worthy, but culturally illiterate residents, could have such lofty and romantic ideals, based on something more abstract than their physical height above the ground, is laughable it seems to suggest.  This makes me somewhat angry - and yes, this sounds like I have set up a straw-man, it won't be there in the soon-to-be non-existent second draft.

The existence of the people who lived here is rarely heard or seen first-hand except through the transformative lens of the tourist, where it is always filtered, never made visible.  And when the voice of one person is heard via the medium of the spray-can it is translated, appropriated into cultural capital for those with the social assets to interpret it.  This change added cultural credibility allowing it to be monetised, while the original creation had no intrinsic value other than the public declaration from one person to another.

The originator of the graffiti has been ignored by the property developers - locating the writer was always likely to undermine their creation and they never tried.  Once the writer was found the developers unsurprisingly showed little interest.  His efforts, for all their benefit to the developers, received not so much as a bottle of branded beer or a t-shirt with his words on.

The words had no intrinsic value before they were highlighted in neon, and through lack of recognition by the developers the originator of the words has by extension been revealed to also be seen as valueless.

The developers believe that they are the ones who create value, it is part of their ethos of regenerating empty buildings for "post punk kids looking for cool spaces to live in", being from the dominant class they are therefore positioned to be the arbiters of taste and essentially in this case they are right.  Although generally the aristocracy of culture doesn’t always show itself to be so shallow.

It has now stopped raining, I am going outside to take out my ranting on the slugs.

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Day 674, Scrap Book

For newspaper cuttings, jottings, postcards, memorabilia, photographs and for journaling.

This book contains a small number of photographs taken with a Kodak 128 Instamatic which appears to have a creature living in the tiny lens.*

The label on the scrap book says "Arnold & Graham 20P".  Arnold & Graham still have a stall in Sheffield Market, but they no longer appear to sell scrap books.**

A short walk up The Moor, less than a minute away from the market stall, it is possible to buy a scrapbook from The Works for almost as little now.  Although the front cover won't have quite the same groovy 1970's nature vibe.

* The images turn out almost as if the creature projected an alternate reality onto the photographic film.
** Here they are.

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Day 673, Closer look

Have now decided to go for the super-close-view of the aphid population on the plants.  These really make a difference, I can see even smaller ones now.

No, I am not becoming obsessed.

No, not at all.

What makes you think that?

The thing about these high magnification specs though are that I have to put my head almost completely inside the plant.  I expect the odd passenger to climb aboard.  Maybe I am the infection vector.

A Typhoid Mary for the spread of aphiditus.

Bugger, maybe a telescope would be a better bet.

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Day 672, Road's up

Another in a sequence of Tarmac related images.

This image showing the counterpoint of a semi off-horizontal juxtaposed against a receding ascent, with dampness.

Imagine this in a completely white, rectilinear space, with strong but diffuse lighting.

And perhaps while walking around that space wearing spats and smoking a, tobaccoless, pipe.

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Day 671, Double Zee

Spot the deliberate mistake.

Got it?

Correct, well done.*

* Now change your password.


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Day 670, Apple 1 Replica 1

It's time to start assembling the Replica 1 Plus.

The Replica 1 Plus is a functional replica of the original Apple 1.  There are some differences, components have been consolidated so there are fewer IC's, and there is a USB interface in place of the serial interface.

Having a USB interface rather than an on-board serial interface means the often flaky USB to Serial cable doesn't have to be used.  I've looked everywhere, on top of cupboards, under plant pots, but I just can't find a PC or laptop with a serial port, meaning the only option is USB-Serial, which adds the complication of varying chipsets used in the converters which lead to compatibility problems, which lead to scowling, muttering and things being thrown about.

Compatibility has already proved to be a pain when trying to use the serial port on the KIM-1 - it would be preferable to go serial-to-serial rather than through a converter, the addition of a USB interface on the Replica 1 neatly sidesteps that.  Purists may not prefer it, and I've done lots of time getting diverse machines to talk using pairs of damp string myself, but the point of this isn't to spend time troubleshooting comms issues.

Other interfaces on the Replica 1 are for a PS2 keyboard and a connector for an Apple ][ keyboard.

There are two ROM's, the original Apple 1 version with BASIC and also the Woz Monitor and Applesoft Lite, giving you the option of fiddling with memory locations using the tools Steve Wozniak wrote and used.  There is a jumper on-board to select between the ROM versions.

Once the components are soldered to the board, and it passes the power-on tests then authentic 1970s Apple software and games will be run on it.

Microchess, NIM, Star Trek, and all your favourites.

Not that I can remember that far back.*

* I've never used an Apple 1 but did briefly use an Apple ][, which was much later.


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Day 669, Wait Until Tomorrow

Good Evening Ladies and Gentleman

Welcome to radio station EXP

Tonight we are featuring an interview with a very peculiar looking gentleman who goes by the name of Mr. Paul Carusoe on the dodgy subject of are there, or are there not flying saucers or UFOs?

Please Mr. Carusoe, please could you give us your regarded opinion on this nonsense about spaceships and even space people?

Thank you. As you well know, you just can't believe everything you see and hear, can you?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way

Ehh... but, but, but... huh... I don't believe it

Spaceship noises.*

Silence.

Think I'd better wait until tomorrow.

* EXP.

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Day 668, More of the same

There is no situation that can't be improved by a hot and fruity chilli.

Other than the obvious ones that is.

There is almost no situation that can't be improved by a hot and fruity chilli.

Food related situations that is.

None of these chillies are suitable for poking in your eye.

Unless you really dislike yourself.

And it would be better to address the issue of self loathing rather than poking yourself in the eye with a hot chilli.

Sometimes the obvious does have to be stated.

Although stating that might be an error - if you're looking for self help you can often end up inducing the opposite effect.

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Day 667, Chilli landing

A pretty accurate touchdown by these capsicums, just off target by a few cm, impressive.  And perhaps more so as chillies don't have limbs to control direction of flight or eyes to help guide them in the right direction.

Let's have a brief word with our plucky skydivers.

Congratulations, for you four this is the end of the journey, and as a special surprise there's a bunch of tortillas waiting just for me you which I'm sure you're really going enjoy.

Not much in the way of a response, but that should be no surprise as along with a lack of limbs and eyes they also don't have vocal chords or mouths.

Right, on to the tortillas.

That should hit the spot.

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Day 666, The number of the yeast

Which is somewhere in the region of 100g.

Enough to make "up to 14 loaves."

"up to 14" clearly includes the number nought, which is as many loaves as I'm likely to make this month.

You may not consider yeast the most interesting thing, but it can grow on you.

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Day 665, Beard of bees

The ideal accompaniment to any face.  A beard of bees.

A non-gender or age specific facial accoutrement, everybody wins.

Just find your bees.

Now where did I put the bees.

Where are the bees.

Where have they gone?

Oh.

We're doomed.

The last bee

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Day 664, Yellow tie

Stuck for entry into a swanky joint due to the lack of correct attire?

Just fashion yourself a stylish bootlace cable tie tie.

And in yellow too, you will never be outshone.

What do you mean you don't carry a bag of cable ties everywhere with you, you must start immediately.

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Day 663, Das Schloss

I am apparently looking at the castle through an internal window.  The appearance is deceptive for I have not gained access, the building is formidable and the entrance closely guarded.

                                                                                           -  -  -

My paperwork was submitted many months ago, and the wait...

Well, the wait is the wait it has been said, and there is a fight to get to the top, especially when the start is from the bottom.

Who says these things?  You?  Why do you say that?

Excuse me, I have been discourteous.  Let me attempt to enlighten, although my understanding is scant and there may be less than the clarity you desire.  People speak of things where they have little understanding, yet it is only because of their stupidity that they can be so sure.  You have seen, through the ovular window?

Ovular, but there is no such word!

Your reproduction adds no clarity, what you have seen gives the answer, don't duck it.  We are done.

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Day 662, Road Closed

The rat-run being out of action meant the 20mph speed limit was observed for the first time since the signs were put up.

Some day all roads will look this way.

Devoid of cars.

That's not a threat.

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Day 661, Decision Table

Get to the meeting early.

Consider hanging a coat up on the outsized mug tree.

Get the drinks in.

Water or coffee.

No, can't decide.

It's not a big decision, maybe the table doesn't need to be invoked.

Just use that decision tree outside.

The tree suggests IPA.

A good choice but not appropriate.

I'll just abstain.

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Day 660, Height of skill

He was only five foot nine but was a goalkeeper of tremendous ability.  He played for England a few times as well as club football for Sheffield United.  In the opinion of my Dad Hodgkinson didn't get the recognition he deserved but he was one of the best keepers he'd ever watched play.  This lack of recognition may have been partly due to his height.

Before Hodgkinson started it there was no specialist coaching for goalkeepers.  He went on to produce the first goalkeeping training courses for UEFA and coached players for many clubs, including international.

There's no sentiment about 'the old days', his view was always forward thinking and one of embracing change.  He appears pretty sanguine about many events, such as when his testimonial money of £7000 'disappears' he effectively shrugs his shoulders and doesn't complain.

It's a book.  It's about football.  It contains anecdotes and humorous stories, and he comes across as someone that put a great deal of thought and consideration into things.

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Day 659, Widescreen Dalien Spring

Where you choose to land your spacecraft is very important.  Uneven ground and a leg in a hole could mean the end of voyage, a wounded ship unable to leave, and certain demise.  That's something that Neil Armstrong, who would have been 86 yesterday, had first hand experience of.

Here we see our aliens have terminated their journey on a reasonably level surface, like Armstrong and Aldrin their decision took some considerable time before they chose a touchdown location.  And like Armstrong and Aldrin we now we wait for them to disembark.  Although on this occasion we don't watch in black and white at three in the morning while the BBC plays an abstract composition by Pink Floyd - but you can't have everything.*

While waiting, let's consider the idea that the ITV coverage includes AJP Taylor and Sammy Davis Jr discussing the ethics of space exploration.**

And we wait.

...

Klaatu barada nikto.***

* That happened.
** That happened.
*** Alien polari.


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Day 658, Supertwin

Vroom vroom.

No, that's not right, it isn't a motorbike but a Vox Super Twin.

Also known as the Rose Morris Vox Super Twin due to the company having just been bought by Rose Morris at the end of the 1970's.

It was the next generation the Vox Escort and was built in Shoeburyness on the Thames Estuary in the Dallas Industries factory.

This one doesn't work.

Yet.

If I get round to it I'll definitely make it produce a "vroom vroom" noise.

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Day 657, Cable conversion on standby

If I'd been organised I would have converted this cable by now.

The intention is to convert the S-Video output of a BBC Micro model B so that it feeds a SCART lead and connect to a modernish television.  By a series of leaps, bounds, and a single SCART to HDMI converter, the output can then feed a PC monitor or an even more modern television.

That was the intention before I mislaid the 270 ohm resistor.  That ought not to be a problem, I have thousands of resistors, surely there are loads of 270 ohm ones among them.

Tumbleweed.

Nope, this was the only one I could find, and now I can't even find that one.  There are probably more but I have to manually check the resistance of each to determine whether it is correct, which takes ages, even when they are grouped into similar batches.

That's Ohm's law for you, the intention is proportional to the resistance to carrying out a task and inversely proportional to the speed at which the task is completed.*

* That is genuinely Ohm's law, look it up. (No it isn't but it makes sense.)


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Day 656, Is Lord Chaos here?

No, he's out, who should I say called?

Halk The Barbarian.

Ok, yes I think I've heard of you.

And with me are Zed Duke of Banville, Chani Sayyadina Sihaya, Iaido Ruyito Chiburi, and quite a few others with very long names. 

Ok.

Tell Lord Chaos we have the upgraded Firestaff and are prepared to cast Fuse to trap Chaos in a Fluxcage.

Is that a threat?

Yes.

Then begone you pests - try not to wake the Dragon up on your way out.

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Day 655, Mana low

You don't need a dungeon door repeatedly bashing you on your head to reduce your health.

And insufficient skill in the magical arts to lower your mana.*

Or lack of sleep to have a deleterious effect on your stamina.

Carrying a cursed object can have a similar outcome.**

* Just ask Barry - Barry mana low?  Poor...
** Brought to you by Dungeon Master Java, a recreation of the classic.


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