paulskin's blog

Blah For Today

2011-10-28T08:14:00.002+01:00

The post office van in front of me through Cambridge this morning was sporting a sticker that said: `I go no more than 70mph`. I thought that was supposed to be the same for the rest of us too.

The other entities that infest my workplace are freaking out today because there's a single caravan of `gypsies` parked on the undeveloped land next to our unit. All I can think of is The sky is falling and I want my mommy!

Dream (embellished)

2011-09-28T08:12:00.002+01:00

It was a curious dream, once again I was chatting with my mate Dicky, now dead these last five or six years, and during the course of our meeting somebody, who I can't quite recall, gave me a piece of paper with some possibly important writing on.
Obviously half self aware despite dreaming, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to take a photograph of this note so that I could recall it when I woke up.

The curious thing is that when I did wake up properly I remembered that my smartphone automagically uploads all photos to Google+, so I checked.
There in my gallery was a photo apparently uploaded in the middle of the night, a blank piece of paper...

Crash, Bang, Wallop

2011-09-16T11:15:00.007+01:00

Some old boy hit my (or rather my firm's) van up the arse on the way to work this morning, wrote the van off but nobody hurt so no problem.

I did however have a nice time waiting for the AA truck, standing on a fenland sluice gate looking at the admittedly flat scenery with nothing to do, whilst the rat race trundled past me on the A10.
Now I know what it'll feel like leaning on my garden gate in my dotage. Relaxed.

Readers Digest

2011-09-13T11:46:00.005+01:00

I'm liking the programme on Radio 4 about the rise and fall of The Readers Digest, I've vague recollections of 'Life's Like That' but the main thing I remember from my Dad's 60's editions is the Badedas adverts....

I've tried Badedas several times on my rare cleansing excursions, but nothing ever happens.

Judgement Morning

2011-09-07T08:18:00.004+01:00

This morning on the 45 minute drive to the pit of endless boredom I've been trying to be less judgemental, at least with regard to character judgements, of my fellow travellers. (...)

By this I mean that of course I've been judging their behaviour as usual: lack of indicating, aggressive and incorrect lane discipline and so on, but attempting to do so only in a factual and utilitarian sort of way, in other words without resorting to calling them all the c***s under the sun. As is usually the case.
Is there any benefit to this, I hear just me ask? Well possibly it may prolong my life providing I judge their behaviour correctly and keep enough of my attention on the road, but as for any personal growth benefits I'm not quite so sure.

However it's more entertaining than listening to the crap on the radio.

This, as with a few other curious behaviour swings over the last few days is due to the thought: "what would the Gunslinger do?". Thanks Stephen King.

Buddhism Lite

2011-09-01T08:26:00.004+01:00

I watched Bettany Hughes, who seems by the way to have eaten all the pies, attempting to explain Buddhism last night and making an awful hash of it.

Seven wonders of the Buddhist world and no trip to Japan? Seems like she just likes shiny and gaudy, a decent Japanese Zen temple would have been too workmanlike I suppose. Plus she probably wouldn't have been able to speculate so wildly.
On reflection, and after actually reading the Wikipedia page, that speculation comment (not to mention the pies one, may have been a bit hasty...)

Dreaming

2011-04-21T08:38:00.003+01:00

So last night I'm in the middle of a film trailer, or several film trailers, you know the sort of thing; lots of flying rooftop shots and a fair bit of swooping and soaring, when I think to myself, at the top of a particularly high building, looking down on the little people/ants below: If I were to just jump off, would I hit the ground, or wake up?

I decided that I would (obviously) wake up, but stranger to my way of thinking this line of thought still didn't jog my mind into realising that the whole thing was a dream.

Life perhaps....

Electrickery Adjunct

2011-04-20T11:42:00.002+01:00

I'd like to write up, briefly, my weekend in Berlin next month but without taking a laptop, which would be too much hassle, I've pretty much decided that the best way to take notes would be the old fashioned way; in a small notebook using a pen.

This seems a little retrograde bearing in mind the post below, but I think that using my HTC Desire would be too slow and awkward, unless anyone else has any other opinions or ideas on the subject.....

Electrickery Life

2011-04-20T08:21:00.004+01:00

This blog entry has encouraged me to digitise my life, the cleanliness and purity of the idea is attractive to me, and I see only a few problems:

I still like books dammit, but reducing my collection to just a few books that I really love wouldn't be too difficult, some old copies, some from my past and some that are just excellent.

At the moment my (what I loosely refer to as) DJing is still mostly done from CDs, but I suppose that with a little thought I could sort out more modern alternatives, not sure it would feel the same though. Although that's what the cylinder with spiky pins crowd think....

As for films, when Google finally get their finger out and release ChromeOS netbooks then this trusty Thinkpad can be used to stream all that stuff to the TV, saving me the effort of burning DVDs or spending ages converting stuff between formats to please Sony et al...

Tits!

2010-10-01T10:32:00.006+01:00

"Du hast Kohlmeisen"
Put that in Google Translate, German to English, said my German friend (eine Freundin von mir) Änni the other day. Amusingly enough it is translated into the Queen's (although possibly not in this case) English as "you have great tits", something which Änni understandably thought was some sort of mistake, the German Meise just being a sort of wingéd beast with no relation to ladies' chests.

Why are they called tits though? Why are there so many tits about? would be another question, and I'm not necessarily referring to the small but perfectly formed ones sported enthusiastically by those young East European ladies on the internet the other day, or the ones caused by too much beer.

I for one would appear to be surrounded by them...

Flying Bastards!

2010-09-03T14:59:00.003+01:00

Bloody flies, not necessarily the same ones, be patient, have been buzzing around my office for a couple of weeks now. Hopefully it's not me they're flocking round or, God forbid, issuing from, but they are driving me fucking mad.

Now I've taken to shooting them with GPO (or whatever they're called now) rubber bands, which whilst highly enjoyable makes me feel more than a little guilty, especially the stage before the 'stamping them into the carpet' stage, which I'll refer to as the 'rolling around on the desk wiggling their ankles' stage.

I even open the window for them to piss off out of, but I think that just lets more of the bastards in.

Opaque Deficit

2010-04-29T08:29:00.003+01:00

Tons of the usual dubiously motivated financial pundits and their uninquisitive media friends on radio and TV at the moment, all telling us how the next government needs to be more transparent about how to close the massive budget deficit. Obviously by cutting our public services, pensions etc.

However reducing this to a personal finance level, as the experts and their intellectual vassals like to do, then I'd like to see some transparency about the deficit itself. Surely if it was your own money then you'd like to know who you owe what to before going onto a diet of bread and water in order to pay it back?

Let's have a proper breakdown of exactly who we owe the money to, what interest we're actually paying on it, and especially if Fractional Reserve Banking may be involved, where did the lenders get it from?

Election Strategy

2010-04-23T08:21:00.002+01:00

My election strategy is changing all the time, but currently it looks like I'll vote for the LibDems as usual.
In Cambridge City we actually have a Trade Union & Socialist Coalition candidate, who would certainly get my vote in the real world.
But this being politics I'm thinking that it may be better to attempt to ensure a LibDem victory so that they can make some headway towards PR before the bond markets up the interest rates and bring them crashing down.
Then at the next election votes for the TUSC are likely to count for more and maybe we can start to get the country run for the people rather than for international finance.

Language Aquisition

2010-04-15T10:05:00.002+01:00

I was intrigued recently by the story about the Croatian girl who awoke from a coma speaking fluent German.
For those too lazy to read it, she was learning German but far from fluent, then ended up in a coma, how we aren't told. When she awoke however, she couldn't speak her native Croatian at all, but spoke only fluent German.

For me this is both intriguing and annoying, because it would appear that all the German that I've seen and heard is most likely in my head somewhere, I just can't get it out. Unless I'm drunk and talking to a taxi driver anyway.
Inducing a coma seems a bit of a drastic solution though, perhaps I should get my Suzuki GSX 750 back on the road....

Barry from the Clarry

2010-03-19T09:32:00.002Z

No more apparently, seems like Barry has left the Clarendon Arms.
A shame, at least for a segment of the drinking classes, it was a good pub with a good crowd, despite being Greene King. I've personally quite happily lost a few Sunday afternoons there.
It'll be interesting to see what it's like when it re-opens, interesting but most likely disappointing.

It's strange how pubs are small communities, seemingly permanent but in reality constantly changing; people leaving, dying, joining and at times places changing hands or closing completely. Schweben und schwinden as Herder would say.
There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

Tattoo

2010-03-17T08:27:00.000Z

Yesterday I finally got Alec to cover up the couple of old tattoos on my left wrist that have been bothering me for a while.
The Imperial Eagle just seemed like a good design at the time, and technically the 'Totenkopf' text just meant 'skull' in German, although it would me misleading of me to deny that I knew it was also the name of a Waffen SS division.
But I was only 17 at the time...

Recently though I've caught myself consciously hiding that arm, especially when in Germany, so time to cover it up. I would have been happy with just blocking it in with black, but I think Alec's idea of the bats works better.

I think it'll turn out fine, but whatever happens it's one less reason for people to mistakenly take me for a Nazi, although jeans and boots will still do that for your average Sun reader.

Sod's Law

2010-03-12T10:42:00.001Z

This morning I had a contact lens fitting, but after sitting at home with my eyes streaming because of the bloody cold I've had for a day or two I cancelled it.
Now I feel much better, surely there's a Murphy's style law for that?

At least I'll be OK now for DJing for the Peacocks at the weekend.

Dead Soldiers

2010-03-02T20:36:00.000Z

Why when reporting on the deaths of Servicemen do the news reports always say: "Their families have been informed"?

Surely it´s obvious that the families have been informed, otherwise they wouldn´t be reporting the names, and if they weren´t informed beforehand then it´s a bit late now.

2010-02-25T16:03:00.000Z

Here we go, looks like Unkei was the main man, I think that one of the six patriarch figures might have been the one that I saw all those years ago.

I've a feeling that these examples may be a little ambitious for a beginner.

2010-02-25T08:25:00.000Z

This is the sort of carving that I'd like to be able to do, the ascetic Buddha (or Shakyamuni correctly I suppose, it being pre-enlightenment) is a wonderful subject too.

I've always liked woodcarving, especially since reading Hermann Hesse's 'Narziss & Goldmund', but for now we can just add it to the list of things that I want to do but have yet to apply myself to.

There's a Japanese carving of a tea master I was really impressed by, in either the British Museum or the V & A, it was a while ago. I'll try and find it and post again on this subject.