Good week, considering

February 2, 2025 20:32
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Kimmel Center ceilingDespite having been quite miserable for the majority of the last few months, I thought it probably better to record something positive rather than try to let out a long, anguished, scream in blog form. Everyone already knows about the global march backwards through the Enlightenment and into a new era of Feudal-Fascism so, instead of talking about that, here is a list of good things that happened this week, for future me to relish when looking back on the cadaver scattered wasteland of 2025.

  • Quiet drink at Blondie’s and C turns up after spotting me through the window.
  • My cousin wrote a little song about Il Douche. To the tune of “Delta Dawn” by “Tanya Tucker”:
    Diaper Don Diaper Don What’s the nappy you have on?
    Could it be a life on burgers and french fries?
    And did we hear you say you would rule the world your way”Delta Dawn” by “Tanya Tucker”:
    With Elon Musk to help you spread your lies.
    When he was a boy his daddy called him Dopey Don
    The dumbest kid he’d ever set eyes upon
    But now he sits in the White House pretending he’s a king
    Expecting all the world to come and kiss his ring
    Diaper Don, Diaper Don you sure are smelling strong
    And the all pervasive pong is hard to bear
    Your presence in the White House makes it stink just like a shitehouse
    But one fine day you’ll be no longer there
  • The monthly tradition of going to the Oyster house, followed by a quiet drink at Spice Finch with C, some Pinot Grigio, and a free brownie from the lovely server.
  • MQIO lives! — I can’t explain this, but it was a work achievement.
  • Javastation Lives! — this is a personal project that will get its own blog post because I’m surprisingly excited.
  • At last, after wanting one for 48 years, I can now teleport off this planet.
    Me wearing my new Blake's 7 teleport bracelet
  • Severance! I mean…Severance!
  • Nice domestic cosiness with the flock – and it seems Pepper sometimes practices talking in secret.
  • A nice Happy Friday at Milkboy with J (also Ax with her new London tattoo and experience of Spittalfields market).
  • Been listening to some great music ranging from classic Jungle, Angel Olsen, Charlotte Gainsbourg, ambient stuff, Bob Vylan and Amy Taylor.
  • Wordle, and Globle, and Connections discussions.
  • Altoids arctic mints – peerless.
  • Posh lunches: Vernick fish and Dandelion.
  • New Come Dine and Apprentice (UK obv).
  • The Philadelphia Orchestra at Kimmel – amazing all round. Ravel and Holst.

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2023

January 3, 2023 00:21
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It’s almost a year since I last posted. A great deal has happened since that last post, most notably the death of my father. Trying to put the experience into words is beyond me, which is probably why there has been no posts. There are four draft posts in the dashboard, but I couldn’t finish them. So, in a fit of new-year optimism, I’m trying to write things again. Keeping a long way away from personal stuff is this new blog about RISC-V, and this review for Lowes which was in response to an experience that really got on my tits.

On the plus-side of 2022, I managed to start working at a new job that is stimulating, enjoyable, and doesn’t involve dealing with odious-bastard clients. I have learned from experience that when working closely with other people, it’s healthy to be able to have a level of frankness that can iron over disagreements and promote harmony – even if it initially causes upset. Far worse is to let bad feeling brew under the covers and get infected with pent-up frustration; eventually someone will explode and, by then, the damage to the project and the relationships could already be done. Unfortunately, when one of your close work-mates is a representative of the client, you can’t have that level of frankness. So, I’m glad to be out of a couple of messy situations and back to a healthy environment. It’s quite disturbing to discover how tightly my mental health seems to be entwined with the details of my day job.

To kick off the new year, here is a list of media I’ve enjoyed recently:

Happy new year.

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Feb 22 Thonks

February 19, 2022 04:05
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Recent events have been messy. The general thrust is that I’ve resigned from a rather awesome company to rejoin another company that feels like a strange kind of home. Some other thonks from this week:

  • When you walk a cute dog, people tend to be much nicer to you; it’s much easier to get a “good morning” from someone when they’re appreciating your mutt.
  • Getting out of the house every day, even just to help a dumb animal move its bowels so that you can pick it up, adds a surprising amount of positivity to the day.
  • In his book “Bullshit Jobs“, David Graeber describes work as a sort of involuntary S&M relationship with your boss; the difference being that there is no safeword beyond “I quit”. Over the years I’ve noticed that there is an addictive quality to this safeword: be warned.
  • The Cardiacs were one of the most extraordinary and wonderful bands that ever existed. RIP Tim.
  • Amazon parrots are extremely good companions, and seem to share a great sense of humour.
  • The cold is better than the heat, especially if you can snuggle up in a warm bed at night.
  • The Internet has proven that access to information doesn’t guarantee global enlightenment.
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Zoom Feature Request

February 5, 2022 18:03
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The 40 minute cutoff for Zoom meetings should be the feature you pay for. The human concentration limit in a meeting/lecture scenario is around 40 minutes, so when you get booted out, it really is for everyone’s benefit. Another feature I’d like to see is a time limit based on how much of a twat you are. It could use AI to work, out on a scale, how irritating and worthless everyone is, and then boot them out one by one in order.

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Millennials, Gen-Z and Door Knockers

August 31, 2021 13:22
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In case you weren’t aware, Millennials and Generation-Z (hereinafter referred to as “da yut”), on the whole, do not feel comfortable using doorbells, door knockers, and telephones. And before you feel the urge to point out that getting one of them to let go of their mobile for a split second is like prizing a thing out of a very tight thing, the fact that we still call them “mobile phones” is an anachronism; da yut do not make telephone calls with them.

To da yut, the smartphone is the gateway to their real lives. I’m not going to try to go on about the whole nature of reality and virtual reality because there are entire university departments dedicated to that stuff, and I haven’t got a clue. But one thing I have noticed is that their attitude to phone calls and doorbells is based on a simple and logical difference between them and us: they prefer asynchronous communication. We never had the choice.

To da yut, a phone call is rude and annoying. Someone has the audacity to interrupt whatever you are doing and demand attention, right there and then, because it’s convenient for them! And I tend to agree – why would you interrupt someone, unless it was an absolutely dire emergency? If it’s not critical, why would you not just send a message instead? That way, when they have time and are less distracted, they can deal with it.

So, why do we put up with it? Well, because it’s all we had, and we grew up thinking it was normal. It’s the same reason we feel like music should come on plastic discs and that people phoning radio stations to make requests is a reasonable thing to do. We’re just set in our ways.

Confronted with a the closed front-door of a friend, da yut are far more likely to text the occupant than do something aggressive like ring a bell. Why alert the entire house to your presence when it’s just your friend you want to see?

Yesterday, I spied through the window someone standing by my front door. I realised my phone was on silent and that this must be the Go-Puff delivery driver, so I opened the door and there was a young lad, furiously texting me on his phone.

“I still don’t feel comfortable just going up and knocking on people’s doors.” he said. “I’d be like ‘why are you hitting my house?'”

And he surely has a point.

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Summer Days

June 29, 2021 02:18
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Before the extraordinary heat, currently affecting the North West, makes its way to the Best Coast, it’s worth describing how nice things have been here. Last week revived all of the “joie de vivre” that we imagined we had before the pandemic: two lovely summer evenings in pub gardens, followed by a family meal in an impossibly picturesque country house, impossibly in Langhorne. Drinking in beautiful summer weather, in lovely surroundings, with lovely friends, has been a distanct memory, but last week it all came true. Thanks to the PHS popup beer-garden, and the wonderful Union Tap House, both in Manayunk.

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