|
Thank you, all of you who entered the “So You Think You Know Rosie” quiz. Not very many of you, but then I sense that fewer and fewer people are reading/writing to Livejournal - they’ve all gone off to the succinctness and sensory overkill of Facebook and Twitter, which is a pity.
But, I’m sure that you are eager to hear the answers, so ( here we go! )
There - wasn’t that fun!Current Mood:  calm |
|
‘Tis the season for all kinds of quizzes, so here’s one that will find out how much you know about me.
It’s up to you whether you treat this as a meme or not, but let me know if you set one up for yourself and I’ll have a go.
( Click here to begin. )
I’ll post answers in the New Year.Current Mood:  pensive |
|
I’ve just posted my first hub (article) on HubPages
Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) satsekhmet for introducing me to this site, which looks like it could give me hours of fun.Current Mood:  creative Current Music: Ten Years After - 50 000 Miles Beneath My Brain |
|
Curses! Caught out again! I went to switch on for The Archers Omnibus and realised too late!
But even if the Daily Mail would send me Helen Damnation for saying it, I still reach for the off-switch (or in today's case the Radio 3 button). The reasons for this are no doubt complex, but they have nothing to do with disrespect for the victims of war.
I'm a Quaker after all, and even if I don't attend meetings these days (preferring to commune with wind and wave rather than getting up in the dark, walking into town to catch an infrequent bus, and not getting home until it's nearly dark again) I stand by my Quakerish principles and give thought to the victims of war (on ALL sides and none) all year round, not just for a week in November. For similar reasons I don't wear a poppy (when I attended Remembrance services as a councillor I wore red and
white poppies intertwined).
We have it dinned into us every year that we are remembering those who gave their lives to save us from fascism, but this isn't quite so simple, is it? I have to recall my father, who was never entirely forgiven for his reserved occupation in the shipyard drawing office when his older brother went off with the Lancashire Fusiliers to be killed in Burma. He desperately wanted to go into the RAF, with whom he had trained, but was not allowed to.
And were those lives freely given? Most of those who died in action (as opposed to being blasted in their homes, trampled underfoot in the Tube, suffocated in a Dresden cellar or vapourised in a Hiroshima nursery) were conscripts, motivated less by love of country than fear of the firing squad.
And the causes? World War 2 is all very well, with an imminent threat of invasion by a brutal dictatorship, but what about what came after?
Korea? (Goddamn commies)
Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus etc? (Colonial subjects getting uppity)
Las Islas Malvinas? (Greasy dagos claiming sovereignty over islands off their own coast)
Afghanistan, Iraq? (Hanging on the coat-tails of American hurt pride)
As for the Great War, where this ritual all began, I've never worked out what that was all about even if I did study it as part of a history O-level course I never completed. Defence of Serb nationalism? Protection of Belgian sovereignty? Or a shameful squandering of young life?Current Mood: thoughtful |
|
Oh boy! Have I got something to report to the pshrink on Thursday!
Today started very well. I was even feeling quite positive about myself. Yesterday I even managed to finish a little computer project - finishing things is one of my weaknesses, and I was in the mood for writing. I just needed a different place to do it, away from the distractions of home.
All I wanted to do was to go to the library, find a quite table and write, in a peaceful space. So I walked along the Channelside in glorious sunshine and a brisk, though not at all unpleasant, wind. When I entered the library I saw quite a few colourful armchairs, which may be fine for casual reading but are useless if you want to make notes. I may perhaps surmise that study, as I understand it, is to be discouraged in today's dumbed-down libraries (they are, after all, the Cinderellas of the local authority budget - see for example what the idiots in Wirral tried to pull off. I did see some small tables (but they all had computers on them so no space to spread out my notebooks) And some larger, multiple-occupancy tables which offered no privacy, and people sat with newspapers spread in front of them.
I'm not easily dismayed, so I followed the sign to the Local Studies Library. And there things started to get tacky. There were indeed tables in there to be sat at, and oodles of space for my notebooks (which I was carrying in one of my cotton shopping bags. Unfortunately there were also two young women jobsworths attempting to bar my way. I couldn't go in there, they told me. Not without permission. Oh? I asked. Why do I need permission to use a table in a public library during opening hours?
I might use a pen, one of the jobsworths told me.
There was a thud as my jaw hit the floor.
And you can't take that bag in there, said the other jobsworth.
I muttered something about idiotic rules for the sake of rules and walked past them into the room with them in pursuit. This is a labrary, I said, it's supposed to be for the purpose of study. No it's not a library, said a jobsworth, it's a record office.
My jaw bounced off the floor once more.
I sat down at an empty table and took out my notebooks and pen. One of the jobsworths went off somewhere and came back with a pencil, which she thrust at me. You can use a pencil, she said. Now, I don't like writing with a pencil. They go blunt and scratchy too quickly. I like my gel pens. I asked what was wrong with them. She said I might damage their valuable documents. I pointed out that I had none of their documements on the table and that if my pens were inclined to get up, walk about and scribble on other people's work it was behaviour I hadn't previously observed in them. At this point one of the jobsworths threatened to call security. The better part of valour being discretion, I left the area but not before suggesting that they were both bone-headed nincompoops who ought to resign and let somebody who knew what they were doing do their job and do it properly. Which is not an insult because it is demonstrably true in their case.
At the front desk I asked if they had a study area with carrels for private study, like a proper library ought to have. The woman their indicated the tables I had already seen, which were clearly not private study carrels. I suggested that they might get some staff who knew something about libraries to run a proper library, then I sat at one of the small computer tables with my notebooks and pen. But by this time I was angry and agitated and frustrated, and the muse had buggered off down the pub. Out of interest, I checked to see if they had any Kafka on the fiction shelves. They had not.
Let's get this straight. Barrow is a fair-sized town with 70,000 people. It's a long way from any similar-sized town (Lancaster, probably; it's quite a bit smaller but it has a reasonably good central library). Barrow is also a very long way from a proper academic library - Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are probably equidistant and Manchester the easiest to get to. Barrow, then, might be expected to provide the facilities, including academic resources, for a wide area. But Barrow's central library would be a disgrace to a village branch library.
Ah well, there's another writing day wasted.
|
| » Was it all worth it? |
|---|
Before
Hair plastered with caca and head shrouded in clingfilm.
After
A classic French film and a shower later, a redhead once again!
26th Oct, 2009 @ 12:39
|
| » Morning Cuddle |
|---|
The minute I get up I have to sit for a few minutes in my swivelly chair, which for some reason is Tosca's favourite place for her morning cuddle. She is very emphatic about her need for a cuddle the minute I get out of bed.
She can be a handful but the strained look on my face is the result of trying to get a picture while maintaining the cuddle!
26th Oct, 2009 @ 12:03
|
| » Bookcrossing UK Unconvention 2010 |
|---|
Bookcrossers reading this page who are interested in keeping up with news of the 2010 UK Unconvention in the autumn of next year may like to know that they can get a feed of news as it happens by syndicated feed by adding ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) ukuncon2010 to their friends list.
The first job for you to get involved in is to help us to decide where the Unconvention is to be held. The choice is between
- Chester - Roman ruins; mediaeval walls; exotic shops; river trips and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Nottingham - Byron, Lawrence and Sillitoe; funky trams; Robin Hood and Ye Olde Trippe to Jerusalem
- Swindon - Magic roundabouts; railway memorabilia; stone circles; Literary Detectives and a Dog in the Nighttime.
STOP PRESS: Unconvention news also available on Twitter - just follow uncon2010!
19th Oct, 2009 @ 16:18
|
| » Bye bye pension |
|---|
So if the Tories have their way mey pension, which once I could have expected to claim at 60, will now recede by yet another six years (whatever weasel words they may use to attempt to blind us).
And people try to tell me that Tories aren't malignant vermin. Well, did anybody ever join the Tory party because they cared about anybody but themselves?
Scum, the lot of them.
6th Oct, 2009 @ 17:08
|
| » Oops! |
|---|
I discovered late last night that I never did take my venlafaxine on Wednesday. That explains a great deal about Thursday...
3rd Oct, 2009 @ 15:52
|
| » Tosca recumbant |
|---|
We haven't done a Tosca picture for quite a while, have we?
Here she is, being characteristically dynamic*. Well, I think she's there amongst that tangle of paws and tail. Ah yes, you can see she's peeking!
And here she is again, looking just a little livelier this time.
*Actually she had just had a manic ten minutes of tearing around and was now resting.
30th Sep, 2009 @ 22:29
|
| » Damson gin |
|---|
Right, there's some of the damsons pricked and packed into a 1-litre preserving jar with most of a bottle of Morrisons 43% gin.
Christmas, here we come!
Meanwhile there's jam to be dealt with.
21st Sep, 2009 @ 15:45
|
| » Wasted Space |
|---|
A database file fell into my hands this week.
Let's just say that it emanated from an agency of the state; that it contains information which is not in the least confidential, nor a threat to anybody's privacy; that each individual record contains information that is easily obtainable in itself, but that there is a very large number of such records: every one in the country in fact. And that this information in bulk is very useful to me in my work, and to the small businesses who are my clients, but the prices charged for the bulk information by the said state agency put it beyond the means of most such businesses.
It struck me that, not very many years ago, I would not have been able to handle this file on my home computer. It is a simple text file of comma-delimited records with its non-numeric records enclosed in quotes. In its compressed form it takes up 19 Megabytes of space - that's almost twice the total disk capacity of the first hard-disk-equipped computer I had at home and would have almost filled the disk of the shiny IBM PC-AT that arrived on my desk in 1985, the first such prestigious PC in the whole of a major international bank's London operation. It's also 600 times the core capacity of the first mainframe computer I ever worked with professionally: an NCR Century 100 that had a whole air-conditioned building to itself on an industrial estate in Hull.
Uncompressed, in a format that can be worked with, it takes up a whopping 240 Megabytes. The computer I happily worked with up to 10 years ago would have struggled to hold that much data along with the operating system and associated applications.
Oddly enough, by removing all the quote characters, which are redundant, and incidentally substituting all the comma delimiters with tab characters, I have shaved a whole 55 MB from the size of the raw file without degrading any of the data. That's an awful lot of data space wasted. Even compressed, the modified file is now only 11 MB, a saving of 8 MB (nearly a whole original IBM PC-XT's worth. And a number of Sinclair Spectrums I don't even care to think about.
This might all seem geet-talk to many, but it contains much food for thought about how we are all profligate with abundance in whatever form it takes, and forgetting to appreciate how our wastage is the loss of others not so fortunate as to live amongst abundance.
18th Sep, 2009 @ 13:00
|
| » Up for t'Cup |
|---|
This is the Barrow Bridge Club's Anniversary Trophy, contested each September by players who have not previously won three club trophies (so you can, in theory, win it three times if you don't win anything else in the meantime.)
It's been in my possession since the club AGM in March this year, on account of I and partner Stan Baker, who had never played together before and have never played together since, won it in 2008. Tonight Stan can take it home for his six months, if he so wishes, otherwise I may put it in the club trophy cabinet to be kept shiny by somebody else (buying silver polish is a bad deal for me, given the infrequency of me winning anything!)
And as it happens, tonight is also the night when it is contested again. I will be defending it, and so will Stan, but each of us with different partners tonight. This should be interesting!
Look closely and you may see somebody else trying to muscle in on the photo!
17th Sep, 2009 @ 18:05
|
| » End of the season |
|---|
This evening the twice-postponed Night League match against Kirkby finally took place at Barrow Island Bowling Club. In perfect conditions and on a green that was really running for the first time all season, we started at 5 pm without the customary roll-up and it still took us up to 7.45 in gathering gloom. Funny how, only four weeks ago, we were finishing at 9 with the sun still above the horizon.
It took me a few ends to get used to the speed of the green, by which time my opponent had raced to a 7-0 lead. But then I got my eye in, and played as well as I ever have done all summer. It was good to finish with a win, 21-18, even if the team lost the match. Without my main antagonists present it was a happy and relaxed evening. I may even change my mind and stay with the Islanders next year.
But for now, it's time to put my woods away until the spring.
15th Sep, 2009 @ 23:32
|
| » Our Day Out |
|---|
Yesterday I went to the meeting of Furness Camra.
I don’t normally get to the meetings as they are held on weekday evenings when I have other things on, but once in a while they have their meeting on a Saturday, when a minibus is arranged and a meeting is held in one of the many excellent pubs in the remoter parts of the branch’s catchment area, which covers that area traditionally part of Lancashire north of Morecambe Bay, plus a stretch of the Cumberland coast from Millom to Ravenglass.
These trips are always well worthwhile. Yesterday’s meeting was held at the Sun Hotel in Coniston, Lancashire’s northernmost town under Lancashire’s highest mountain and overlooking Lancashire’s largest lake (if you don’t count the half of Windermere that is in Lancashire). The weather was as perfect as it could be, with warm autumn sun and little breeze, and the meeting was held in as delightful a pub garden as you could wish to find.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Camra meeting without frequent beer breaks, carefully-timed to avoid gaggles of ramblers hitting the bar, and it wouldn’t be a Camra awayday without a couple of stops on the way home to evaluate licenced premises (and arrange the branch Christmas dinner). So we returned by way of the Church House at Torver, and the quite exquisite White Hart in the tiny, out-of-the-way village of Bouth (which was packed out even in the early evening). And not a Sky Sports big screen or a juke box or a pool table in sight. There is hope yet for civilisation, maybe!
I even got a small reward for my pint-pulling exertions last weekend!
More pictures here.
13th Sep, 2009 @ 13:36
|
| » Behind the Bar |
|---|
Last night and the night before I spent pulling pints at the Ulverston Beer Festival. It was very busy indeed, and on both nights I started at five and finished at eleven. I’m still feeling knackered, my right thumb aches strangely, I’ve discovered that I pull left-handed, and I had a whale of a time.
The Coronation Hall in Ulverston was packed all the time I was there. Nobody cut up rough. Nobody got drunk. There were, allegedly, seventy-three beers to be sampled, along with a dozen or so ciders (proper ones, not the fizzy crap purveyed by Mr Magner and others, and certainly none to put ice in) and four perries (THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PEAR CIDER!) I can only take this on trust, my staff glass only got to sample a fraction of them. The range of beers available was quite astonishing: this country is now rivalling Belgium for variety and scope, and this is no thanks to the big drinks megacorporates. Only two breweries mention in the first Good Beer Guide in 1974 were represented - Holdens of Dudley and Robinsons of Stockport, whose Old Tom strong (8.5% ABV) ale was sold out not long after opening on Friday. Even that lasted longer than the excellent and unusual raspberry beer from the Coach House Brewery in Warrington. There were light beers, dark beers, red beers, stouts, porters, strong beers, small beers, bitter beers, mild beers, beers flavoured with lemongrass, beers with a zing of ginger. Each and every one of them utterly distinctive and a world away from the homogenised pisswater pumped out by the conglomerates and identical in bars and pubs all over the place. Each is the product of a small enterprise run by enthusiasts.
The conglomerates and pubcos say there is no market for this sort of thing. What a laugh!
Here I am in action:
This is the best name on offer. We didn’t sell as much of it as of some others, for some reason...
Afterwards, I hung out with a couple of mates in the street outside the Coronation Hall
Oh, and my favourite of all the beers I sampled has to be Red Rocks, a rich red beer from the Betwixt Brewery in Birkenhead.
5th Sep, 2009 @ 20:14
|
| » A soggy end to the season |
|---|
Bowls versus Hawcoat Park (still commonly known as Vickers Sports Club) is off tonight, on account of the waterlogged Barrow Island green complete with large puddle in the south-west corner.
I can't say I'm exactly dismayed. I have things to do and, although I really enjoy playing bowls, I'm pissed off with some of my teammates. Maybe it's a horrible thing to say but Barrow Island is a very working-class district and I have to say that I get given a hard time sometimes by these people, who seem to have me marked out as "not one of us". Even this afternoon, our vice-captain managed to get in the kind of sly insolence that I have to put up with now and then. (Years ago when living in Bristol I was given a much harder time in working-class St Werburghs than I was in more well-heeled Redland.)
Don't get me wrong; I'm not feeling angry or upset, just disappointed. I think this season, my first playing for Barrow Island, will also be the last. Next year I plan to play my bowls with West Mount, the club where I began. Even if it is a bus ride (or a walk up a very long hill) away. Apart from anything else, fuchsia and white suits my colouring much better than bottle-green and beige!
1st Sep, 2009 @ 17:25
|
| » Of Remakes and Re-edits |
|---|
I posted the attached thoughts in Another Place. What do you think?
( Now read on )
30th Aug, 2009 @ 13:57
|
|
|
