|
|
|
HAND-MADE BLOG
The Weblog of Christopher Harrod
|
Overview
This blog conforms to standard web log layout rules - the oldest entries at the bottom, newest entries
at the top. The stuff in the middle is liberally sprinkled with embedded links elsewhere. The only
eccentricity for this blog, is that it is created by hand and not via blogging software.
To avoid problems of spam filling the automated comment function of blogs, I have included "comment" links
for every entry - these will forward your comment to me as an email, and I shall edit them into the blog.
By all accounts blogs discussing what you ate for breakfast are uninteresting, and those that
discuss your personal life are embarassing, so I will limit myself to discussing current events and
technology.
By adding entries retroactively, I have turned this into a whole-of-life blog.
Disclaimer
The contents of this blog represent my personal views and not those of the
BBC.
Comment
POSTED:Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:48:03 +1200
G'day Chris,
Not sure if you remember me (we met at Grant Floyd's party in Mount Cook shortly before you left for London Towne).
Regardless, I enjoyed reading youR blog, back through November 2007. Very gratifying to see you living the life of
carpe diem.
all the best,
dave rehmeyer
|
Index
Overview
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
Archive 1
|
September 2008
Damage
As mentioned last month, the former USSR satellite state - Georgia - attempted to recover control of independant province
South Ossetia by force. This was kicked off by Georgia on August 7, 2008 with a large
Multiple Rocket Launcher (MRL) barrage. This weapon, descended from the Soviet
Katyusha of World War Two, is not a precision instrument and the barrage led to
significant civilian casualties. The barrage was followed by the occupation of Tskhinvali (South Ossetia's capital) by Georgian forces. Russia
responded by moving troops into South Ossetia, and nearby Abkhazia. Georgian troops were cleared from both regions, and then Russians advanced
through the Georgian town of Gori towards the Georgian capital of Tblisi. Peace accords were signed, and the Russians agreed to withdraw, their
point made.
Russia's actions were roundly condemned by the western press. However, to understand what happened, a little background is necessary.
The Georgian people have lived in the area since the neolithic. The
Ossetians (north and south) are of
Persian origin. Georgia was a satellite state of the USSR during the cold
war, and re-achieved independance after the break up of the Warsaw Pact. The Caucasus region have extensive gas and oil fields. These were the
target of Germany during their 1941 invasion of Russia. Most of the oil and gas pipelines that move Caspian Sea oil and gas pass through Russia.
To ensure a reliable supply of Caucasus oil and gas that Russia could not cut off, an
oil and gas pipeline was built through Georgia. This pumped its first oil
in 2005. The USA had two programs to re-equip Georgia with western weapons
(Georgia Train and Equip 2002 - 2004,
Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program,
2005 - present). Additionally, Georgia and NATO were on a joint exercise (
Immediate Response, July 2008), and the Georgian 1st infantry brigade was
airlifted back into Georgia from Iraq by the U.S. Air Force.
The Russian troops that were shelled in South Ossetia on the 7th of August were there at the request of the UN - they were UN appointed
peacekeeping troops from the Russian 135th Motorised Rifle Regiment of 58th Army. Russian troops wearing UN blue helmets are pictured at right.
In summary, the war in South Ossetia was initiated by Georgia, in breach of UN rules, against UN troops. South Ossetia, and Georgia itself, are
both pawns in the familiar world struggle for natural resources. Given that Britain and the USA were pinching natural resources from under the
nose of the Russian bear, their reaction to Russia defending its influence in the region (on the Russian border) seems hypocritical.
On the first weekend in September the BBC Ramblers went on a circular walk in the Chess Valley - from Chalfont and Latimer, north to Latimer House,
east to Latimer, south east to Cenies, Chenies Manor House and St Michaels Church, and south east again to the train station.
North of Chalfont & Latimer we passed through a large field of wheat, which looked ready for harvest. This stuff contrasts nicely with
spring wheat photographed the year before north east of Ware.
In the village of Chenies is the Church of St Michael (pictured right), adjacent to the Manor house of Chenies. The manor house is famous as a
site where something was filmed, but I forget what.
Other events in September included drinks at a Brazilian Tapas Bar, a dinner in Clerkenwell, and various movies on television - Dark Knight,
and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I also had a plumber who failed to turn up three times - so I billed British Gas for their broken
appointments. And they paid up.
I also went to an exhibition of Chris Gollon's Stations of the Cross
in the Church of St John on Bethnal Green. The church was musty. The paintings were disturbing.
At the end of the month I went on another BBC ramble, this time to Edenbridge, in Kent. I missed the beginning of the ramble, and ran to the
lunch time stop - the Wheatsheaf in Marsh Green.
On the way I went past a Kentish carboot sale, and the most amazing crop of blackberries.
One of the interesting things about modern laptops - they no longer do what they say on the tin. For example, they are called laptops, but they
come with instructions advising against using them on your lap. The processors now produce so much heat, and use so much electricity the batteries
get hot - so that if you use the laptop on your lap, you will end up frying your private bits.
Likewise laptops are supposed to be portable. In practice though - if you carry round your laptop open, the frame flexes, and the motherboard
cracks. And the end result is shown at right - the screen of my Presario laptop displayed repeating patterns, just before it broke down completely.
And that, as they say, was that.
Comment
Top
August 2008
Bits and Pieces
August was a month of bits and pieces. I bought another two bookcases and a cupboard for videos and a television. On the
13th of August, the Museum of London opened its doors on an exhibition of skeletons, including the green skeleton I got
to handle in January the previous year. About this time
Georgia decided to draw wayward province
South Ossetia back into the national fold. More on this later. A group of New
Zealand friends got together to go to a New Zealand restaurant - the Kiwi Kitchen.
Other than that, I split my time between clearing weeds from the back yard and going to the gym.
Mid-month we finally got to Hendon. I should explain. I live in Finchley, and Hendon is a district next door (ten minutes by bus).
Hendon is also the location of one of the fighter bases that was used to defend London during the
Battle of Britain. It is now the site of an aircraft museum. Highlights
include the Eurofighter, the Messerschmitt
Bf 109, and the
Lancaster.
Shortly thereafter friends and I attended an exhibition by
David Le Fleming and EllieMay Logan.
I also started learning the Greek language. Plans were progressing for a trip to Crete, and I wanted to be ready.
Somewhere along the line I was reminded of Eddie Izzard's star turn as "
Lord Sir Darth Vader of Cheem", also known as the Deathstar
Cantina sketch. A quick check around the web revealed that someone had gone to the trouble of doing a leggo animation of the sketch.
Brilliant.
And as a bonus, I was lucky enough to find there were more sketches done in the same way - such as Izzard's take on the Anglican
Church, and how it could never have spawned the Spanish Inquisition - his "
Tea and cake, or death!" sketch.
At least part of the month was spent out drinking with friends. With one pub every two city blocks, London has a phenomenal number of pubs.
Luckily enough.
Of course, my neighbours still get sick.
No month would be complete without a several day complete outage from our internet service providor - Tiscali.
Tiscali, we hate you.
At the end of the month, I got to attend Burningdork 2008. Suitably, this was held in a camp just outside the town of Dorking, in Surrey.
For a weekend a camp full of geeks met the challenge of taking a pile of junk, and creating musical instruments.
Arduinos (small programmable devices) were very much to the fore. Pictured at right is a musical
instrument built by Sarah Angliss, and featuring Clara 2.0 the theramin playing robot
(Clara is the doll sitting on the top).
Clara is, of course, an inhabitant of the
uncanny valley.
Other highlights of the event involved the burning of an effigy (see
Burning Man and the
Wicker Man for cultural references) and playing a Moog theramin myself for the first time ever.
Comment
Top
July 2008
The Digital Age
This morning I was riding the tube in to work while listening to the music of
Jon Hallur on my mp3 player, and reading a good book. Passing in and out
of the tube system I swiped my oyster card that automatically charges me for my journey. At work I switch on my computer, retrieving
a list of things to do that I emailed myself from home. Tonight I will go home and watch TV downloaded onto my laptop. Not only
will I watch today's news from the BBC via iPlayer, but I will be able to browse back over
more than four years of Time Team on Channel Four's "Four On Demand"
(4OD) service.
The digital age is wonderful.
Returning for a moment to Jon Hallur, what makes his music so special is not just that I can carry it with me on a solid state device.
What I like so much about Hallur's work is that it is the sound track of EVE Online, a
Massively Multiplayer Online role Playing Game (MMORG). And presumably Jon's music did not go through a record producer and record
company (with their notoriously sticky hands for anything that resembles money). Instead, Jon is on the staff of EVE, and his music
is released directly to the public through the web. For free, I might add.
The digital age also means anyone with talent and an idea can spread it. For example, assign the four base pairs of DNA a musical
note each, and then you can "play" genes as music. Likewise the sequence of amino acids
in protein can be assigned 20 notes (two and a half octaves) and nature's structure can be rendered as music - the symphony of life.
All of this was the idea of my friend Professor David Deamer.
The release of creativity and ideas facilitated by the dawn of the digital age has been termed the democratising of the web, by Professor
Mark Poster. No more will a handful of people
in charge of a printing press, or a television station, be able to tell people what to
think. With the web, people are
now free to discuss the state of things among themselves.
The digital age is wonderful.
With a sound track provided by Jon Hallur. Thank you Jon.
Comment
Top
June 2008
The victory of style over content
Despite my best attempts, this blog has shifted from discussions of technology to personal impedimentia. In deciding what I will talk
about I often review the month's photographs, and shape the blog around that. Fortunately this month I was invited to the O2, which gives us
an opportunity to talk about someting useful.
In 2000 the O2 Centre was called the Millenium Dome. In effect it is a giant tent. With overpriced yucky food. It was branded by a company here
- O2 - who sell mobile phone plans. In effect, a company that sells thin air. It's a perfect match. Literally a victory of style over no content
at all. The O2 Centre - a big phoney.
Which leads us on to a discussion of marketting in general. One of the rules of promotion is this - if someone is promoting the hell out of
something, you can pretty much guarantee it is worthless. This is obvious in Hollywood, for example, where new movies coming out are hyped
to the sky, and for the most part, people are disappointed with the result. Compare the advertising For New Zealand mass junk sale
shop "The Warehouse" ("The warehouse, the warehouse, where everything is made of plastic..."
- As John Way would say) and Dromorne Linen - google Dromorne, you might be lucky to find a reference to it online, but you certainly won't find a
website, or brochure-ware. Dromorne doesn't advertise or hype at all, and yet their product sells well by word of mouth. Their sheets last for 20
years of hard wear, while it is common to put your foot through a Warehouse sheet after a month or so.
So with the rant out of the way, it is time to note that wandering round the Beeb often brings you face to face with small blue police
boxes (as at right), and the band Coldplay played a live concert at work as well.
I missed this as I was at a friend's gig at Ginglik which is a converted toilet with an unreliable PA
system and expensive beer.
The monotony of three hours commuting a day, plus eight hours at work, was ameliorated by rambles to Chesham and Rickmansworth; clearing land
and putting up bookshelves; dealing with invading cats and rats, and reading.
In addition to reading, I am getting a kick out of listening to podcasts when commuting or exercising at the gym, and listening to BBC radio
adaptions of books played on iPlayer - the latest was Kurt Vonnegut's
Slaughterhouse Five. A brilliant and cutting satire of a novel. Vonnegut is dead
now sadly, but he did leave behind a fantastic interview on the Daily Show. You might have to search round for it - it doesn't appear on the
Official Daily Show website (presumably because he was less than complimentary about Donald Rumsfeld), though I did find a copy of the interview
here.
I also got to hang out with some Massey Univerisity Alumni, and continue to make inroads in befriending the squirrels in the local park. Anyway,
it starts to get light around 4 am at the moment. And the neighbours are mostly well now.
Previously I have mentioned the extraordinarily talented people I work with. Towards the end of June the BBC hosted a computer hacking and
technology festival called Mashed '08. We opened our
content and aspects of our API's for computer hackers to play with. The event was held at Alexandra
Palace, site of the first television broadcasts of the BBC in 1936.
Among the people attending were two engineers from Kingswood Warren (the BBC's equivalent to the Skunk Works) - Ant Miller and Alia Sheikh.
Ant's project (right) involved mounting a radio transmitter and camera inside a black powder rocket, then collecting the video of the flight at
a ground station. This had mixed results, but the rocket launch itself was very dramatic.
By contrast, Alia's work was spectacularly more successful - an automated system for drawing a visual map of a sound track. In the same way
pseudocolour images allow the eye to pick up more details than an image shown in shades of grey (effectively feeding the data in through the
eye's cones, instead of its rods), by presenting the tones etc of a sound file as bands of colour, the user can tell a lot about a sound file
just by looking at its visual "fingerprint".
Thus at a glance it is possible to differentiate different musical tracks, sections of voice (differentiating between male and female) and
degraded sound (such as telephone interviews). The technique has obvious application in indexing sound files and sound libraries, and aiding
navigation in sound files such as mp3's.
It is a tremendous honour to be able to call such gifted people my friends.
And I'll close with my pick of the book of the month - The Laws
of Simplicity by John Maeda, and plug a friend's website, rachel goodchild wordpress com.
Comment
Top
May 2008
Talent
And then in one of those rapid changes that Britain pulls, it is spring. First all the trees went from dead looking to exploding into flower.
Then all the earth banks - bare soil for the past nine months - erupted into greenery - with weeds covering them over in a matter of days.
Walking to the tube station now is all about wandering amongst houses with gardens dripping in flowers, and the smell of jasmine everywhere.
So the topic of this month's blog entry is talent. First up is an extraordinary art exhibit by Stefanie Posavec (pictured, right). Stefanie has
taken novels like Jack Kerouac's
On the Road and turned it into a mind map. Very pretty. Very interesting. Rather geeky.
Working where I do, I am surrounded by talented people. For example musicians like Kerry McCarthy.
Also working in my building is Ben Smith of Tea With the Queen and until recently Kim Le Pontin
of the Mentalists. I also work alongside Melanie Howard of
Wasp Factory Records. It is nice to be surrounded by clever people. I like it.
With a few quiet minutes to think, I worked out where had travelled to (see right). So far trips to Cornwall (blue), Wales (green), Paris (white
and black) and Amsterdam (yellow). Not very impressive yet. There are plans on the cards for a trip to Crete in October, and friends want to visit
in late May and do some sight seeing. We will see. I have a list of places to see - 276 of them at last count.
So mapping out trips in and around London, and day trips further afield looks a bit better. Most travel is Finchley - White City and back, commuting
to and from work. A series of trips out into the home counties has been the result of Rambling with the BBC club - trips to Sole Street (grey),
Ware (blue), Berkhamstead (purple), Panbourne (orange)...
To this list can be added annual pilgrimages to Reading (black) for the "Warfare" wargaming convention, and Loose (brown) to vist my cousin.
Within the London area itself I have marked a rash of interesting places visited, red in a black circle: Windsor, Kew, Crystal Palace, Dulwich,
Woolwich, Thamesmead, Brixton, Seven Sisters, Hamstead, Swiss Cottage, Barnet, Camden, Watford, Kings Langley, Tottenham Court, Holborn, Leicester
Square, Covent Garden, Kensington, Shepherds Bush, Harlsdon, Holland Park, Vauxhall, Waterloo, Charing Cross, Heathrow, Lancaster Gate, Aldgate,
Moorgate, London Wall, Tower Hill, to name just a few.
During the rambles we spend a lot of time walking though fields strewn with water washed pebbles of flint, and this one caught my attention.
(pictured, right). I often pocket interesting looking rocks and such. After an overdose of
Time Team I thought the stone might have been worked - and made inquiries about
whether or not it might be a paeleolithic tool or something. A common tactic for findind paeleolithic sites in Britain is "field walking" where
archeologists wait for bare earth in the fields (say in September) and walk over the field, looking for objects turned up by modern farming
practice. So it was possible I'd found something. However, and expert glanced at it and said it wasn't stone age at all. The good news was that
It had been worked by man though - somebody had knapped it with a 50 ton tractor...
Even if it had been a neolithic thumb scraper, these sell on eBay for about �5.00. :(
Sticking with Time Team a moment though, one of the really wonderful things I have found is on-demand online downloads and streaming archives of
television. My own set blew up a month or two ago, but it hasn't been a big problem. With Channel 4's "4OD" (Four On Demand) it is possible to
watch a decade of Time Team, without:- waiting til it's on, buying a DVD, or paying a license fee. Likewise, I am getting my Dr Who fix from
iPlayer. At some stage I should sit down and do a listing of some of the amazing stuff that is available free to download - from TED technology
lectures, to BBC radio (Melvyn Bragg and his "In our time" documentaries are a favourite), and lectures from Yale on the writing of the Hebrew
Bible - there is a wealth of material available.
So, several different groups of friends headed off to New York this month. One of them brought me back a biscuit (right), Not much to say
about it really. It was a biscuit. Shaped like the Statue of Liberty. And it tasted satisfyingly biscuity when I ate it. That's about all really...
The house four doors down was put up for rent. A small two storey brick place that boasted five (presumably tiny) bedrooms. And it rented too, for
�1300.00 a week!
So the month was otherwise pretty eventless, if you discount the collapse of the British economy, the collapse of the British housing market
(property values are tipped to fall by as much as a third this year), and the London Mayorality elections. I voted, since I pay council tax, and
to my horror we got Tory Boris Johnson (a reputed half wit) in as mayor.
The next project on the menu is the back yard. This is in a bad state, and it needs trimming. I could do with the exercise and a friend at work
keeps giving me plants. Also I have got sedlings on my window sill that really need transplanting. So it was off to the local "ironmonger" for
some tools. Funny. Four thousand years of iron working in London, and does the ironmonger have sickles, sythes, axes, choppers and clippers? Does
he hell! What he does have though, is a shop full of cheap Chinese manufactured goods made of plastic, and bottles of nice herbacide. Jesus wept!
And that about wraps it up for May. I went with friends up to the Cotswolds for a weekend, taking in Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace),
Broadway Tower (a folly house, a triangular tower built on a hilltop in the Cotswolds), and Castle Combe, a medieval village in Wiltshire.
And yeah, the neighbours still get sick.
Comment
Top
April 2008
Annic Nova
OK, so April has been basically more of the same. Days are warmer and longer. I took the geeky step of setting up a
paintlog. I am told this is an uber-geek thing to do, but what the hell... It was sparked by
David Billinghurst's Paintlog. David has also started
writing up his Traveller Campaign -
Rimworlds which compares very favourably with my early
efforts META-TRAVELLER, which is only a stub at the time of
writing - a title page. One of the early Traveller adventures penned by Marc W Miller and Loren K Wiseman was the
Annic Nova, and from which this month's blog entry derives its name. The
Annic Nova ws a classic "Lost in Space" style adventure with gamers finding and exploring an abandoned space ship, all scrawled over with alien
writing. So it was inevitable the Barbican exhibition posters (pictured, right) would catch my eye - alien script in Ariel Bold Italic and
coloured in pastel green - I guess I am not the only graphic artisty person in London with a fondness for Miller's creation.
So, other than this geek stuff, London has been its usual friendly self - Avis rent-a-car billed me twice for the same thing, and it took several
phone calls to a series of vacuous phone trolls to get them to reverse the charges. The "gas cooker" broke down, and I was without cooking
facilities for about three weeks, in a comedy situation very similar to the Monty Python
sketch. I've taken to feeding the squirrels in Manor Park, and recycling plastic. What with the the Tottenham Court Road mice and the squirrels,
it seems most of my friends are rodents.
Reading that line over makes me realise just how dull my life has become. Next I'll be talking about coal shovels. God forbid!
The London tube is still full of drinkers - this is to be banned from 1 JUne - as it makes the place look untidy I suppose.
The one thing I do like about English drinkers though, is they make me look sober by comparison. I should mention that one of the radiators
(wall mounted metal things that heat the room by running hot water though them) wouldn't work. The bloke from the gas company turned up, whacked
it with a hammer, and left. It works now. Except it won't switch off... I just love london
The neighbours are still sick... Whoever would have thought...
Comment
Top
March 2008
Letting Go
March was not as dramatic or busy as February. However it was more of a philosophical month for me. There were plenty of learning
opportunities, and a lot to think about. The month started out with finally writing up
Alison Bickmore's October art exhibition (Bickmore's
"Residue of Substance" is pictured). It took a long time to get this review out. As discussed elsewhere, I am a bit of
an organisational and planning monster, and I tend to run ten projects at once. This becomes a bit unwieldy. Fortunately, everything does
finally get done, even if some projects run a bit late.
In the second quarter of the month, I went on another ramble with the BBC Rambling Club. This was to Sole Street, in Kent. I have not yet got
to the bottom of it, but Sole Street seems an odd name for a piece of countryside, and it is just south of the famous
Watling Street, and Henley Street is also nearby. So perhaps Street has some special
old meaning to the Celts. The ramble was in a cloverleaf pattern across farmland and chalk bluffs, pausing at the
Cock Inn (in the aformentioned Henley Street) for lunch, then
on to the Darnley Mausoleum (pictured), before returning past
Cobham Hall Girls School, and through Cobham itself back to the train station in Sole street.
In the middle of the month I was invited up to Bristol to attend a fact sharing seminar between the BBC and an arts group, at the
Watershed venue. Highlights involved catching up with friends for a
drink, and learning about Bristol's history - downtown Bristol is situated at the confluence of the Avon and Frome Rivers, with paeleolithic
and iron age remains, and the current Bristol Bridge being at the site of the original
Roman Bridge. Dark age excavation of canals in this area led to an easily defensible site overlooking the bridge. This attracted a
Norman Castle, and later a medieval castle. This huge castle was completely dismantled
under the orders of Oliver Cromwell during the
English Civil War. Those canals also meant that Bristol was the starting point of
many British sailing expeditions - despite the fact that there is a huge tidal fall at this port - the phrase "ship shape and Bristol fashion" -
refers to the need for all items on a ship docked at Bristol to be correctly lashed down, so things didn't slide about as the ship settled on the
mud flats at low tide. It was from Bristol that John Cabot set out to discover North America.
Other items of interest include the Empire Museum, the parish church of St Mary Redcliffe
(pictured) and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first commission - the
Clifton Suspension Bridge, over the
Avon Gorge.
On the 19th of the month Arthur C Clarke died. Two days later I took up playing
Go on Facebook. Erm... These
two things are in the same paragraph, but aren't connected. Arthur's death didn't drive me to Go. In fact I've been sneaking a bit of Go
now and then for years.
Easter was early this year - three quarters through March, and on Easter Friday (the 21st) it hailed (pictured). On Saturday the 22nd I went
to visit an old friend, only to learn she had died a few days before. On the way home it snowed. Appropriate.
Successes included laying in a stock of Guilin Chilli Sauce (my favourite), and solving the problem of discarding personal papers without
providing identity thieves with a bonanza - I bought a crosscut shredder (which I have nicknamed Rover, for its savage appetite for paper).
My friend died in Hadley Lawns Residential and Nursing Home, a few yards away from Hadley High Stone (pictured). This stone marks the site
where, in fog during the Battle of Barnet, it is believed that Richard
Neville the 16th Earl of Warwick (nicknamed "The Kingmaker") was slain during the War of the Roses.
Having lost a friend and also one of my idols, I also started coming to terms with my past - in the form of 21 cubic metres of useless but
very precious paper. Armed with a paper shredder and a rubbish bag, I have finally started laying ghosts, and discarding material that is no
longer useful to me.
With less stuff, and more time, I am now being able to concentrate on things that are more relevant to me - for example, mastering the use of
my iRiver, and loading it full of technical podcasts, such as Security Now.
I even took time to create a painting log, which at the time of writing is a bit sad looking, but I am sure it will
fill up later. The month wound up with the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, which caught me unawares, and left me sleeping in, when I was
supposed to be on a Ramble in Epping.
Theoretically I was sick for a day this month, but I simply refused to succumb and everybody else remains only slightly sick. In fact things
are looking up. It must be the sunlight.
Comment
Top
February 2008
Welsh Castles
February was a pretty dramatic month. It started with the delivery of my possessions from New Zealand.
The same evening I finally got to the Inferno - a monthly punk dance held at the Electric Ballroom, in Camden (pictured).
Another big deal this month was Torchwood - the second series of the Dr
Who spinoff. This is a slightly camp, somewhat risque science fiction action series set in Cardiff, Wales. It is the British
answer to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Later in the month I attended a Christening in Monkton Farleigh, which also involved a walk through Biddeston.
Biddeston is a nice old stone village, typical of Wiltshire which features a village green, village pond, and local Manor
House (pictured).
Much of the month was spent unpacking boxes - 117 items, 21 cubic metres of the stuff. I should really chuck most of it out.
However I find it hard to do this. :(
After Wiltshire I spent five days in Wales exploring the Castles of Edward the First. Edward (known as the Hammer of the
Scots) got peeved with the warlike Welsh, and threw a ring of huge castles round the Welsh coastline (known as the Ring of
Iron) in the hope of suppressing them. In the south east of Wales is Chepstow, a castle built by the Normans, and expanded
in the time of Edward (pictured).
During the month I engaged in a vigorous online debate on the whole evolution versus creation discussion. Richard Dawkins
is a famous proponent of evolution. One of his books is called "The Blind Watchmaker" - a reference to the beautiful
behaviour of nature - and evolution operating by natural selection - randomly assembling components in the hope of building
working watches. During the debate, someone pointed me to an excellent piece of work released to Youtube - where someone
performed Dawkin's experiment - set up a computer program to randomly try and grow working watchs. The result is:
Evolution is a blind watchmaker. I think it's brilliant.
And everybody else is still sick.
Comment
Top
January 2008
The Dana Centre
So as January draws to a close, it is now light by eight am, and it isn't as cold. This month has seen my possessions finally arrived from
New Zealand. During this month I spent an evening with friends at the Dana Centre and Launchpad - an interactive science museum for children.
One of the displays was 'Social Light' by Scott Snibbe - a camera, projector and motion sensor records people interracting with projected
images, then plays the result back on a computer screen, where the movie can be emailed to a home email address. The image at right is a still
from one of our film clips.
London can be pretty big and lonely and so I have been feeding the squirrels in Manor House Park. I have also been following the fortunes of
a family of mice (at right) who live at Tottenham Court Road tube station, the north end of the north bound platform of the Northern Line.
Work sent me on a script editors course, and I got to met people from
East Enders,
Primeval,
Waking the Dead, and the script writer on
City of Vice,
- a series about the Bow Street Runners. The series nicely portrayed the old London that Peter Ackroyd discussed in
"London: The Biography".
Two of the merchant vessels I bought at Warfare 2007 are finally being painted - a
Firefly and an
Empress Marava Class Far Trader.
I was also sick for nearly two weeks. But fortunately I got better. Now everybody else is sick.
Comment
Top
December 2007
iPLAYER
So it is 23rd December. It has been foggy and dark all day. It got dark around 3:30 pm I think. I've been sick in bed for two days with a bad
cold. I have just finished "
Mr Strange and Mr Norell
" by Susanna Clarke - a Hugo award winning book about two magicians in Napoleonic Britain,
and am currently devouring "
London: The Biography" by Peter Ackroyd. According to Ackroyd,
London has always had a huge appetite for people, who it chews up, and it has always been noisy, damp and pestilant. Nothing, it seems, has changed.
Ackroyd brings particular focus onto the plight of the poor of what is overall a city for the rich. Ironically, last week after a rather drink
laden work do, I found myself on a street corner chatting to a couple of London's indegents. Ritch and Chris, who were supporting themselves by
selling
The Big Issue
, and between times lubricating themselves from a bottle of something that tasted like Baily's Irish Cream. It seems that
anybody can fall on hard times in London ("there but for the grace of god, go I" etc), these two decent blokes were stuck in the streets
living from hand to mouth. A sobering thought.
Even the Christmas lights in Bond and Regent Street (pictured) made up as huge molecules that change colour in synchrony down the street couldn't
make the evening any more warm.
Fortunately it was warmer in the
Tate Britain
, where I got to see some of the
Turner Prize
, including
Damien Hirst's
infamous bisected cow and calf ("
Mother and Child, Divided
"). Perhaps more pleasing (and certainly a lot less disturbing) was a display of William Blake's Paintings.
Big news in December, of course, is the formal launch of
iPlayer
This is the BBC on demand video replay service (pictured at right - with a
Dr Who episode "Gridlock" playing). I have been playing with this service for many months, and it's great.
Other news of the month included seeing MGM's first movie - A black and white silent movie called "
He Who Gets Slapped
" starring Lon Chaney.
Music was provided by the BBC Orchestra, a Jazz saxophonist and members of the band Portishead. The MGM lion (the one that usually sits in the
rosette and roars) actually got an acting part in the movie.
And finally, ages ago I bought two friends a
Battlefront
1:100 scale Tiger I tank. One of the pair threatened to assemble it and paint it pink.
Which she has in fact done. I think it looks geat! I don't suppose Flames of War players would approve, but clearly a camoflaged pink Pzkw VI
Tiger I is the ideal tool to have on hand when you are menaced by a plastic Mastadon.
Oh, and did I mention the fact it gets dark at 3:30 pm at the moment?
Comment
Top
November 2007
Norman Castles
November - Cold, windy, draughty. The trees are losing their leaves, which blow around the streets in small clouds.
Fine mornings, cool and crisp. Autumn is here.
In the first part of the month I went Rambling round Berkhamstead, and got to see the best preserved Norman
Motte (artificial earth hill) in Europe (pictured).
Berkhamstead Castle belonged originally to Robert of Mortain, brother of
William the Conqueror, and had a varied and exciting history.
I also wandered round nearby Kings Langley to do a bit of house hunting. Kings Langley is 30 minutes by train from Euston, about 50
yards outside the M25 motorway (and hence "outside London") and is home to the
Ovaltine Factory. It is also surrounded by open fields and you can smell cow shit
on the main street. It's lovely.
I also got to Warfare 2007, where the Feathered Serpent Project produced a truly awesome battle - Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) in 1520,
when the Conquistador Cortez conquered the city and put the inhabitants to the sword (pictured).
I also got to a
Tuxedomoon Concert, which was brilliant.
And I finally went on the
Jack the Ripper Walk - a must see thing for people in London.
A nice person he wasn't.
Oh, and did I say London is often dim and overcast, and it is completely dark by 4:30 pm?
Comment
Top
October 2007
Planning
I have an addiction to planning. I plan so much, I rarely actually do anything. I have some spectacular "to
do" lists (over 300 items long), and a daily task list based loosely on Steven Covey's Four Quadrants. Over the years I have tried products
such as the Macintosh based
Do It All and invariably stuff remains undone. A friend recommended David Allen's
Get Things Done. I will let you know how this works out. At the current
moment I am documenting Agile Software Development processes such as
Scrum,
Extreme Programming, and
Dynamic Systems Development Method, all methods advocated by the
Agile Alliance. A number of people are now applying these software development processes to their
own personal planning.
So a recent weekend saw me writing user stories, creating a life backlog, and a sprint backlog. Those of you familiar with software
development will already be shaking their heads. For those who don't know what I am talking about, I recommend you look at some of these
links to get an idea about this stuff. The tragic fact about project managers is that eventually they attempt to apply their skills to
their home life. Over the years I have fallen badly behind schedule on about 37 life projects. This wouldn't really matter, except I just
had my 45th birthday, and realise I have one looming deadline I cannot avoid.
Every second Monday, friends go to the BBC Television Centre (TVC) to play board games. I am pleased to say, that even though organisations like
the IRA occasionally plant car bombs outside our premises, I feel completely safe. Why? Well look to the right - we now have these puppies
working security at the TVC. Since there are no stairs between the TVC foyer and the street, my money is on the Daleks.
On the subject of gaming, the greatest recent buy has been the card game: "
Cannibal Pygmies in the Jungle of Doom."
Elsewhere I have discussed the incredible number of contrails visible in the sky above London. It is normal to see seven aircraft in the air at
any one time. I have pictured at right a particularly good sky full of contrails (photographed on 18 October) and a bit of background reading
has shown me that the weather in London is actually affected by the number of contrails in the sky. Apparently during the days after 9/11
when aircraft were grounded, skies were clear over London and the weather was warmer.
Among other things I got along to was Alison Bickmore's art
exhibition at
Acme Studios. Using the Chine Colle technique, Alison's paintings are often subtle
with delicate veinous reds peering faintly through white washes... I was vaguely reminded of Michael Shea's novella
'Fishing in the Demon-Sea', where a thief visits a version of hell
where aquatic demons punish people who are submerged - their nerves released from their bodies to wave in the sea like sea fans.
Comment
Top
September 2007
Tea
Well, I've been here in London for eleven months now. That is eleven months of riding the tube, queuing, postal strikes,
off-hand service and more paperwork, forms and bureaucracy than I would have believed possible. Kiwi ex-pats in London often shake
their heads and wonder how this nation ever conquered the world's largest empire. We have decided it is because of tea. After
Britain imported tea from Ceylon, it seems to have proved their undoing. This is because whenever you ask an English worker
to do something, the universal response is "Can't. It is tea break. See you in half an hour." This behaviour has completely paralyzed
the entire British Isles. This would also explain the Boston Tea Party (canny revolutionaries tossing the evil stuff overboard).
Additionally, the U.S. habit of drinking coffee instead - producing wired individuals keen to invade other countries at the drop of a hat
- may well explain why the USA has inherited what used to be the British Empire.
Other events of the month included a visit by my brother, touristy stuff in London, trips to Camden (pictured) and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Comment
Top
August 2007
Bookshelves
Problems with umbrellas, train tickets, uneven paving stones etc notwithstanding, I took a punt and tried to buy bookshelves.
Bearing in mind I had already made several abortive attempts to get some cheap and nasty MDF bookshelves from
IKEA
. Silly me. Shelfstore is a wonderful Swedish company that makes wooden modular furniture. Wonderful product. And they compete against
IKEA who make cheap and nasty stuff and back their rubbish products up with really lousy service. (Not to mention being a scary business
legally speaking. See this article in the
Economist
on their dodgy financial practices). Shelfstore turned out to be staffed with really enthusuastic people, but even so, London had to
have its revenge and it took three goes before I finally got my bookshelf home, with the correct components, and assembled. Looks
great, and it is the first time in four years my books are in a proper bookcase!
I also got to hear William Gibson do a reading from his new book
Spook Country
. During the reading with Gibson, he discussed "the cloud" - all of the worlds interconnected telecommunications devices.
Well, lots of minor stuff happened in August, but perhaps the most fun was another trip to Paris. I had been reading Emile Zola's book
"The Kill" (La Curee), so I will close this months blog with a couple of fitting Zola quotes:
"Aristide wanted to have his hands free: a wife and a child already seemed to him a crushing burden for a man decided to surmount
every obstacle, not caring whether he got rolled in the mud or broke his back in the attempt."
And:
"On the very night of his arrival, while Angele was unpacking the trunks, he felt a keen desire to explore Paris, to tread with
his clodhopping shoes the burning stones from which he hoped to extract millions of money. He simply took possession of the city."
Comment
Top
July 2007
Red Door
The month of July was a busy one. Not just for me, but for the world at large. On July 4th BBC reporter Alan Johnston was released
after having been kidnapped for 114 days. There was a great feeling of excitement and relief throuhgout the Beeb.
I spent quite a bit of time house hunting, but to seems that all I could afford in Finchley was a rathole.
Later in the month I learned to drink apple martinis - 1 part sour apple schnapps, 1 part Absolut vodka, 1 part apple juice, garnished
with a fresh cherry. I had a few problems with people grafitting my rubbish bin, but this was quickly fixed by painting it back to
original colours - graffitti artists quickly give up if their art is immediately painted over.
A friend left the BBC, and to celebrate their new job in Berlin, we all had dinner on the
The President
- an old iron-clad moored in the Thames, now used as a floating cocktail bar.
Up til now I had been watching TV for free - via the BBC seven day catch up service (no live TV - only programmes at least a day old) the
iPlayer project
- due to an interesting wrinkle in the law, any Briton watching iPlayer, but without a TV, Radio or TV tuner in their house do not need to
pay a licensing fee. Then a generous soul gave me a TV, and I had to cough up my 120 pound licensing fee. :(
In the middle of the month, Red Door, another Amanda Tomasoa painting, arrived in London and went up on my wall (pictured).
I also came to the conclusion that Transport For London (
TFL
) are running a racket. Several times I have bought tickets and been directed to the wrong platform, and so never got to my destination
(on one occasion, already an hour late, and having arrived in the wrong part of the city, I caught a cab - which cost 40 pounds!).
I have also experienced buying a ticket from an automatic machine, only to find the last train had already left - and no trains until
7:00 am the next morning.
But it is with umbrellas that TFL really cleans up. So far I have left three umbrellas on the tube. They get gathered up into the
lost property office in Baker Street. The office is only open during the day, on weekdays (pity if you have to work). You have to
fill out a form ExACTLY decribing your umbrella and when and where EXACTLY you lost it. And get this - they charge you three pounds
for the service. And this is for an umbrella that typically costs three to six pounds. I just BET they have a MOUNTAIN of lost
umbrellas in that office. And I bet they make a killing selling them on too.
I have been spending a lot of time in taxis (see earlier comments about London's train system). It seems all the taxi drivers here speak
Farsi (Persian) and come from Afghanistan. Interesting. I also went to Harrods for the first time, and that was kinda an eye opener.
Getting a package delivered by the Royal Mail is a bit of a challenge - see above discussions about umbrellas and train tickets.
It is almost as if London is set up to upset people.
I live in
Church End, Finchley
. The main road from Bond Street to Finchley is here called Regent's Park Road, and where it crosses the
A406 ring road there is a park, called Henley's Corner. Henley's Corner is where
La Delivrance
resides - A statue known locally as "The Naked Lady". Apparently she was first erected in Verdun, to comemorate the winning of the
First Battle of the Marne
- where a French army famously drove out of Paris in taxicabs, to stop the Bosche in their tracks. Surprisingly, her naked appearance shocked
the French citizens of Verdun and they demanded she be removed. So Lord Rothermere (more correctly - Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount
Rothermere) promptly bought it and had it put up in Finchley, so he could see it whenever he motored to see his mother. This just reinforces
a theme I have mentioned elsewhere - the history of Britain and France seems to be full of objects the British nicked from the French. I
suppose in this case at least, the Viscount paid for her. Anyway, she's a lovely lady, and while the model of the statue is no doubt long gone,
her youthful curves still grace the route of my daily commute.
Comment
Top
June 2007
Bovington
The month of June started with an attempt to be honest. I enjoy writing at work while listening to music - so I bought
copies of Lacuna Coil's album "Karma Code" and Within Temptation's album "The Heart of Everything." Where I work I cannot
use MP3s (due to copyright issues). Imagine my irritation when I loaded these up to computer. Karma Code loads up with an
infuriating Flash interface. After looking for an hour or so I could find interviews and a music video, but there was no
sign of the actual music. OK, so 14 year olds like funky interfaces that you have to puzzle out. The rest of us just want
to listen to music. Similarly when "The Heart of Everything is loaded", it immediately wants to install something called
"Open Disk." The choice is to install or to cancel. Where I work our computer environment is controlled and there is not
acceptable to install software on work machines willy nilly. A scan of both the disks reveals the music is buried in two
large flash music files. So what now? I can't LEGALLY play music on my work computers. I had no choice. I returned the
music for a refund, and have black listed the manufacturers (Century Media and AT Productions B.V.) and the retail outlet
concerned (HMV).
Next up was a tramping trip north of the town of Ware. In Britain tramping is called "rambling" and the only equipment
required are stout boots, sunblock, and enough money to buy beer and food from a pub at lunch time. Ware was a town full
of pubs, but apparently it is nicer (less drunken) now. We walked up to Tonwell, had lunch and then came back.
I also bought my first painting -
Amanda Tomasoa
's Butterfly Girl (pictured). Other events of the month included a shooting in Melbourne - across the road from the
Rialto
(where I stayed in October).
However the highlight of June would have to be the trip to Bovington Tank Museum. The weekend featured a mock battle
between American GI's and German Fallschimjager, complete with gunfire and artillery explosions. The climax of the battle
came when the world's only operating Tiger I tank came rolling into the display area. With one of the most distinctive
sillouettes of any armoured vehicle in history the Tiger I is a sight to behold. Only a handful of people alive today
have heard a Tiger I running - this vehicle at rest has a slow gutteral sounding engine, which sounds more like an animal
panting
instead of a tank. Apparently this is the first mock battle with this reconditioned Tiger, making us the first people
to see a Tiger I in "combat" since 1945.
The outcome of the mock battle was not in doubt - with one Sherman, one Honey, a pair of M3 Halftracks and some GIs against
crack Fallschimjager backed by a Tiger I and a Stug III - of course the GI's won (the audience all being patriotic Brits).
In the midst of the battle I got a lot of action shots of the reinactors - a strange feeling, like being a photojournalist
in a long ago war. The photos included a nice shot of a GI and a hill covered in poppies (pictured).
The rest of the day involved looking at Bovington Muesum - with tanks from WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East Conflicts
and Cold War vehicles too. Highlights were seeing a Hetzer, Royal Tiger, Sherman DD Tank, Soviet KV I and Swedish Over Snow
Vehicles. They even had an example of the doomed Swedish
S-Tank
as well as Leopard I and Leopard II tanks.
Comment
Top
May 2007
Alba
I spent a week painting figures, having rigged a rack to allow 400 figures to be painted at one time.
And then there was the game, finally. Six blokes gathered round a gaming table,
Hurling threats and moving counters. The valiant Picts manfully tried to defend Pictland against the depredations
of the Strathclyde Britons and the Dal Riadans. Sadly we were crushed underfoot, and became vassels.
During the month I went to Salisbury Plain again and then down the valley of the Avon in behind the town of Amesbury.
Wandering round the public right of ways in the fields opposite Great Durnford was interesting. The whole area is full of
river washed flint - in fields this interesting stone is scattered about, rounded cream coloured stones split open by the
plow. Another look at Amesbury reveals most of the town is made of flint, giving me another perspective on "The Tower of
Flints" from the
Ghormanghast
novels of Mervyn Peake.
The Amesbury trip also saw a visit to
Windsor Castle
. Among other things there is a room called the Waterloo Chamber. This is a large dining room lines with Van Dyke paintings
of the large number of leaders who combined their efforts to stop Napoleon. Among others there is the Duke of Wellington
and the Pope. It makes sense that Windsor would honour these people - because if they had failed to stop Napoleon, the fate
of Louis the Sixteenth and Mary Antoinette awaited the British Throne.
The end of the month saw me visiting my cousin in the village of Loose, just outside Maidstone in Kent.
Loose is an old mill village - with mill ponds, mill races and mill houses (the water wheels have gone, however). Loose (an
unfortunate name - is it pronounced Loose? or Lose? or even Loos? or Lews?) was once where Britain made all its paper. Built
on seven springs, the water is very pure. Running over the top of the village is a bridge, built during Napoleonic Times to
allow rapid transport of troops to the Napoleonic Wars.
Comment
Top
April 2007
Nothing Happened
April was a curious month. I worked. Hard. Friends had organised a gaming event in May. Thus when I wasn't
working, I was painting. I purchased something like 400 Picts and painted about 180 of them. We attended a wargaming convention
(Salute 2007) where we purchased more figures. Other than that, pretty much nothing happened.
At the end of the month I went to Amsterdam, and went on to see the Keukenhof - the Kitchen Gardens.
I enjoyed the beautiful tulips in the Keukenhof, and then the crowds of Queen's Day in Amsterdam. Which is a very
interesting city. They also serve very good beer there. One interesting thing I saw was the city crest - a shield
bearing three bold white "x"'s. XXX. And of course Amsterdam is famed for its red light district (which is
actually a little disturbing). So is this the origin of the XXX symbol? And the XXX domain on the internet?
Comment
Top
March 2007
Spring
March marked the beginning of Spring. Friends, concerned at the fact I hadn't left London since I got to Britain
handed me a ticket to Paris. So what could I do? I went to Paris. I found myself at 1 AM in the morning standing
in Paris, city of love, near the Eiffel tower, alone and watching a lunar eclipse. Nobody else noticed. They were
all too busy riding their Vespas and kissing their girlfriends. Frenchmen. Typical.
The next day I walked all over central Paris until I had blisters. I liked the Seine-side book stalls, and the
exterior of the Louve. There was a small plaque on the Louve that read:
"La mise en lumiere de la cour Carree et de la cour a Napoleon a ete concue et realisee par Electricite de France"
"The lighting of the Carre Court and the Court of Napoleon was performed by the French Electicity Department"
Below which someone had added in felt tip pen:
"Cause Desthetique"
"for the purpose of a discoteque"
By this stage I had the travel bug good and proper. Consequently, after a couple of weeks I headed down to south west
Britain. So it was off to Stonehenge, Avebury, Tintagel, Glasonbury, Lacock, Exeter,
Kent's Cavern
in Torquay (and the Gleneagles Hotel - the inspiration for Fawlty Towers). Then north to Bath (the Roman baths
of Aquae Sulis were impressive, the modern Spa considerably less so).
Stayed overnight in a lovely Japanese Bed and Breakfast(
Koryu
). The next day I went on to stay with friend's in the Brecon Beacons. This involved a trip to Hay on Wye -
A Welsh village made entirely of second hand book stores.
After this it was reluctantly back to work.
Comment
Top
February 2007
British Museum
The highlight of February was visiting the British Museum. Here in the reading room, Karl Marx wrote his Communist
Manifesto. Overhead is the amazing roof designed by the architect
Norman Foster
. A few yards away from the library lie the
Rosetta Stone
, giant winged lions pillaged from Ancient Assyria (all covered in cuneiform - the world's first known written language),
and the Elgin Marbles. Everybody knows that Lord Elgin nicked them from the Parthenon in Greece, with permisison from
the Ottomans (funnily enough, the Greeks weren't consulted), and plonked there in London. But what nobody told me was the
subject material - all these amazing marble carvings of a war between men and centaurs.
Speaking of theft, it is a standing joke that the amazing collections in places like the British Museum involved Britain
covering the globe, finding the best stuff and then swiping it. Admittedly they have preserved these amazing things,
and made the stuff available for viewing for free.
Across the road from the museum are shops that sell antiquities
(Egyptian figurines looted from the corpse of a mummy, anybody?) and an excellent cafe called the Forum (Vini vidi eati
"I came, I saw, I ate").
In addition to all these museums, I saw
Mitsoura
in concert, and also
Evon Brennan
. And just to cap off all this glory,
for the first time in 23 years of gaming, I beat my friend Steven in a wargame.
Comment
Top
January 2007
Snow
We had a mild winter (I'm told), but at the end of the month it snowed. Pictured is the view out my front window.
In the garden below there was a set of cat prints - the paw marks impossibly far apart (I don't think cats like
to linger when running in snow!). I also attended the BBC induction program (and made a short movie).
I like fresh coffee, and have owned several
Moka
pots - these sit on the element of the stove and make expresso.
Unfortunately it is easy to melt them (the coffee collects in an upper chamber leaving the lower resovoir to
overheat. So I bought an electric one! When the coffee is made, the electric element switches off. No more
house fires! :-)
I made a trip to the bone lab of the
Museum of London
(amazing), saw the movie
Perfume
(disturbing), rode the
London Eye
(overrated), saw
Madam Tussauds
(pretty cool), and saw the Imperial War Museum. I even got (a little) sleep.
Speaking of the
Imperial War Museum
(IWM), this is the place that holds huge photo archives from WWII. I was looking
forward to seeing this place, and was amazed how compact it was. Inside in a limited space they display Fw190 aircraft,
a WWI British tank and most fascinatingly, a German Jagdpanther. In fact, after about 4 hours I reeled out of the
building, about 10% still unseen, with my head stuffed full of images. Incredible place. I'm looking forward to going back.
Comment
Top
Archive 1
|
|
"Im Loh Ani-le Me-le?"
(If not me, then who?)
- Hebrew saying
| Intro |
Bio |
Biblio |
Blog |
Photo |
Word |
Smith |
Art |
100 |
Gaea |
Paint |
Links |
Map |
Creds |
All images and designs on this page copyright © 1993, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 by Waikato
University Photographers, Christopher Harrod, Michael Harrod, Diana Popov/Sean Macey, Peter, Colin Monk,
Bruce Flyger, Google Earth, Ada MacCallig, Amanda Tomasoa, Ada MaCallig and Lazarus Software.
All rights reserved.
Page last modified on 25 March 2009
|
|
