waiting for the vampire bus?

Halloween is one of those occasions that seems to have grown in commercial status in England over the last few years.

It was always a distant second to the higher profile Guy Fawke's Night, where we take an effigy of the chap that tried to blow up Parliament and burn it on top of a big fire.

Perversely, I still think of Halloween as an American custom that has migrated based upon movies and sitcoms and has now entrenched itself in the supermarkets of the country.

Of course, there will be those that point out its ancient and somewhat pagan roots, and that it originally migrated to the U.S. from Europe.

I suppose the point is that the English didn't make so much of it because Bonfire Night gives a perfectly good adjacent excuse to set fire to things, make explosions and drink.

So this evening, I may be looking out for souls seeking revenge, but it will be at the cinema, watching James Bond.

leaves, colours and bags

A side-effect of my calendar getting reshuffled today was that I could make a slightly later start. With the effect of the clock change it felt doubly late. I pay it back tomorrow with a first meeting at 8am.

The clock change reminds me that this year Autumn seems to have arrived very suddenly. A few days ago everything was still green, but now it's all gone golden and chilly as the weather turns.

And in some parts of London the colours go from the trees to the pavement and into bags in a matter of days.

feet held to flames to put mudguards on winter bike

The classic procrastination situation faced me today. I'd been getting the orange bike ready for the cooler months and was well ahead of the plan until time to fit the mudguards.

I did order a set - all £9.99 worth - and they've now arrived.

As has yesterday's tiny amount of snow.

And today's white roof frost.

To the extent that I'm sitting in front of the fire warming my toes. A small confession that yesterday I walked past that builders' supply place near Borough Market and they had those 'keep toasty' type leggings and arm warmers in the window. I nearly bought some.

Instead I will be doing that biking activity known as 'faffing' later today as I finish the winterisation (?) of the orange bike.

Must.Get.Away.From.Fire.

@LondonNaNo at Mad Hatter

I've pinched today's pictures from the @LondonNaNo twitterfeed, and I can almost be spotted in the back row from today's session at the Mad Hatter.

And yep - I've decided to have another go at this National Novel Writing Month lark.

I think it will be my fifth attempt, and I've generally managed to hit the requisite 50,000 words in the month of November. Actually, I can only account for three of the stories though, so one has already received a suitably embarrassed consignment to a messy drawer.

The picture shows part of the assembled gang, which became 'standing room only' a little later. Today's launch was the second session, with a prior weekday evening one to catch 'commuting novelists'.

We also had the mix of Londoners and those from further afield including New York and Vancouver in my table's gathering.

There's something reassuring about meeting a diverse group of people about to set out on this craziness. It was also interesting to note that many had already successfully completed prior years. Most didn't know one another at this kick-off session, but it is already clear they we will all encourage one another along. The NaNoLondon web site is here and the London Regional forum is here.

Of course we won't start writing until the 1st of November. Some already have plots, diagrams and characters but I still have nothing.

Which reminds me, I must start banking sleep.

(p.s. that was about 230 words)

scary television for the Halloween weekend

I know it's not quite Halloween yet, although there seems to be pumpkins and cobwebs in abundance in some areas.

I've decided to watch something scary and am working my way through the old Twin Peaks TV-series.

It's one of those situations where someone else I know was watching it, then I noticed it was listed as one of the 'top boxed sets' in a weekend newspaper then serendipitously I found the DVDs lurking at the back of a cupboard.

I used to work occasionally around the Seattle area and managed to visit the mystical setting for the movie as part of a trip. We'd somehow got one of those stretched limos and a few hours to spare before a flight.

We headed off towards the wonderful Snoqualmie Falls, which was the main setting used for the Great Northern Hotel in the series. We also took a trail towards the bottom of the falls, right to the part of the path where it said something like "Danger - do not pass".

Anyway, as well as the humour of the reassuring cherry pie, donuts and 'cup o Joe' there's still parts of the series to make me jump right out of the chair.

why is a raven like a writing desk?

Oh dear. I received the email for NaNoWriMo yesterday. National Novel Writing Month. It turns out that there's a meeting in London at the Mad Hatter. On Saturday. I'm already doing something just around the corner near Lavington Street, so it's about a five minute walk away.

Aside from failed projects, I've got a couple of drafts at a 75% and 50% complete status, so I'm wondering if I really need another partial project at the moment.

It would be so much more sensible to finish the ones that are already underway.

But I have a few new ideas that I could make into something.

I even logged into the NaNoWriMo site today and updated my info. It said I've been a member for 7 years now. And that I've finished 4 times.

I feel that the tractor beam has somehow been switched on again and I am being sucked towards the door of the Mad Hatter.

It's only 1667 words a day to reach 50,000 words in November.

There. That was about 250 words. And I didn't even mention the weather.

Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter

emergency lollypop

What started as a tipple with a friend yesterday later moved on to a conversation like a Black Books sketch. It was the one about the children's story. But I think I was the only one of our group that knew the scene - which has two main characters a bit the worse for wear whilst writing a children's story.

The elephant and the balloon.

Of course, their earlier consumption of alcohol may have made it difficult to remember the story the next morning.

The episode is available on 4OD, but not embeddable for copyright reasons, so the little clip from another episode will have to suffice.

I think I've mentioned before that I keep Black Books on my iPhone as emergency entertainment.

screme eggs, anyone?

Wrong on so many levels.

shiny shiny (again)

I've just seen the Apple show of all the various shiny shiny new items which will be hitting the stores in time for the end of year festivities.

I paid attention, because I'm in the market for a new iMac. A short time ago I even prepared but then cancelled an order on the basis that the new box was just around the corner.

It raises an interesting point though, because pretty much all of the Macs I've ever owned are still quite usable and have been pressed into service as secondary devices or hand-me-downs.

Not so with the old PCs, which have usually managed to develop some kind of unrecoverable fault or collapsed under the burden of operating system updates. There's still a variety of boxes and bits in the garage from various unsuccessful resuscitation attempts.

With the Macs, the main failure has been disk drives which eventually either get full or have needed replacement - oh and occasional new batteries. My relatively ancient 15inch Powerbook still works but has had a disk upgrade. It is still used for mainly music related projects but runs a very recognisable version of the Mac system.

And similar updates to a few of the other boxes right up to my current shape 'early 2008' iMac. It just won't handle the new very fast external disk for video editing.

It's still quite interesting seeing the rest of the new stuff announced. The iPad refresh was inevitable, based upon the predictable introduction of the new Lightning connector across the range. The old Apple connector - like the two I have in my car for iPod and iPhone - is now becoming a legacy connection.

The new iPad mini has been talked about for months and notwithstanding the price differential, there should be quite a tablet market share scramble leading to the end of the year.

It raises some questions though...

• Is the new refresh cycle now as low as six months for this technology? The iPad 3 only lasted 6 months before the iPad 4 appeared.
• Will the thinning down of all the devices mean that there really are no user replaceable parts? Check out the new case on the iMac and the circa 1mm thick battery in the new iPad mini.
• Presumably the new designs have considered heat? I've had a couple of timecapsules die from what seems to be heat related component fatigue.
• Will the iPad mini game-change smaller tablets - I've preferred a Kindle for reading because the iPad was too heavy, not very readable in sunlight and a bit expensive to get sand in.
• And will the iPad mini be more or less a 'consumption' device rather than one for 'creation'?

It's an interesting period for all of this stuff, because there's quite a few new possibilities and options around - including the Android and Windows 8 + Surface stuff. I'm a great fan of what I call 'quiet technology' - it just works - and where this pushes the market. It looks alike an interesting six months/few days(?) until the next tranche arrives.

lazy hazy grey sunday

A lazy Sunday, although this evening I will have some work prep ready for tomorrow. At least I'm not packing bags and driving somewhere on Sunday evening, although I have a feeling I may need to next weekend.

So today has been a gentle day, with a few home chores, a visit to the supermarket because we forgot to hit enter on the Ocado list, and a bike ride.

I'm into the last 200 miles of my revised target for 2012 now. I originally set it at 1,800. Then 3,000 (which constitutes my 'silver medal') and finally 4,000 miles, which I'll call a gold. I'm planning to use a chocolate wagon wheel to get that Olympic size.

I've realised that using targets is quite important to the process and acts as a bit of a spur. I originally set my targets back in January and have been keeping an eye on them as the year unfolds. The fancy telemetry on the bike also helps by offloading the numbers to various software. There were some dips like when I was in the USA and when I was trekking around Europe. Also the great bathroom project in March impacted progress. The so-called music room project looms and may also create a further blip.

Despite it all, I somehow managed around 800 miles back in September, which was a combination of hitting the 3k and then getting moving towards the 4k.

Of course it would be madness to attempt 5k by the end of the year. I still need to get the mudguards for the orange bike.

no snooze buttons involved

Not one of my finest photographs, but representative of the last few mornings. Those first few moments staggering towards the kettle for an early cup of tea. Awake before the dawn and leaving the house in the barely light.

The days this week I've used trains I've also returned in the dark.

This morning was different. I somehow slept well past sunrise - and it's still another week before the clocks change.

fix mac mail speed with mountain lion

A slightly technical post today because I have been experiencing some hiccups with Mac mail and Mountain Lion.

It worked fine when I first upgraded to Mountain Lion some time ago, but a two-week ago mini update to Mountain Lion seems to have created a few problems.

I noticed that the mail system wanted to rebuild its database on the iMac and the Macbook Air and I just hit yes.

I should probably come clean that I have multiple email accounts across iCloud, POP, IMAP and Exchange as well the related contacts folders and calendars. Oh and 10s of thousands of emails that I haven't archived. And quite a few smart folders. Let's say its a quite large email environment.

Anyway, that spinning beachball re-appeared - something I hadn't seen for ages. I also noticed that the Address Book was behaving suspiciously and wondered if the two were linked.

I had to go into the kind of problem solving that I'm rather familiar with on my PC, but is rather a novelty to me in the Apple world.

I will cut the long story short.

How I fixed it.

The usual caveat applies to not try this unless you know what you are doing, but simply put, it was a case of rebuilding the Address Book, which has regained the normal speed for everything.

Because I use iCloud and Exchange, all the address entries were stored elsewhere, so I had a safe copy of everything before I started. I quit mail and address book.

I then used the Finder 'Go' command to access the '~/Library' directory (which lets you see the hidden Mac folders).

I navigated to the Application Support folder and deleted the Address Book sub-folder - if you don't use the '~/Library' way to access this area you won't see the folder. A warning from me that deleting this folder will delete all of the address book entries - hence the need to be sure you have them stored somewhere else.

I then restarted Address Book - which had just one entry in it - me.

I then added the iCloud directory back in via Preferences. It took about 10 minutes to repopulate a few thousand entries and to rebuild some lists.

Then same again (in my case) for the Exchange directory. Another 10 minutes.

Restart mail - it was still slow because (presumably) it was rebuilding something.

A hardly ever done reboot (for good measure) and the whole thing was then running back at its proper speed. Fast email, fast address book. Yay.

So I've posted this for anyone else with a similar problem - I had to fix both the iMac and the Air, so I am fairly sure this is a general situation

Dear Apple - I think this needs some attention before the next Mountain Lion update.

black cab music for when the bandages come off

It's on my list of things to do. Getting the recent Amanda Palmer album.

I heard it a couple of weeks ago. I've held the album, but not my own copy yet. This is one of the ones where I'd buy a physical copy, rather than just a download.

So my surprise to be in a black cab when the cabby switched on the radio and there was a new track from the album being performed live.

Not the typical cab soundtrack, but one that lasted for more or less the whole journey.

And in my mind a whole lot longer.

Here's the vid from the album launch party - it gives an impression of an evening with Amanda.

Amanda's set with the Grand Theft Orchestra starts at about 15:00. For a quick look try around 33:12 where the band all swap around during "Missed Me". Or better still watch the full 2h35.

plumbing the shallows

Late evening and I was absently listening to the BBC World Service when the US Presidential debate (round 2?) came on.

I wasn't intending to listen but kind of got sucked into the vortex. Careful citizen questions and bland answers. I was genuinely surprised that even compared with the UK's foray into similar formats, this took the biscuit for not saying anything.

Or rather, what crumbs it did provide were so non-specific that it was actually quite difficult to get a taste of anything tangible. Romney, in particular, just described revisionist views of his past and tokenist views of how things could be.

Kind of: "I'll make sure the sky is blue and the sun shines, except when we need the rain. It'll all be fine."

It was keyword politics. Find a keyword in the question and play back the nearest mp3 response. Not the whole track, just the requisite verse.

An exhibition of the classic three Ms of media, money and marketing driving outcome, playing to candidate like-ability with a mere hint of domestic (let alone international) agenda.

In fairness, I thought Obama unloaded a little more content, but maybe they should just introduce some judges and an X-factor style red X over the candidates to guide them toward more (excuse the deliberate X-factor word) "relevance".

Aside from the presumed electorate fatigue after 18 months of television, I can't understand how this superficial debate determines leadership of a world power.

gunpowder in the supermarket

Simple enough, I was leaving the supermarket, having just bought some milk. The doors to the colder outside were open when I caught a tangy chemical smell.

Not damp, more sharp and something that pinged back to childhood. A mix of cold air and something else. Black powder nitrates. The smell from the inside of a sparkler packet.

Strontium, barium maybe copper. Flashback to scarves and improvised displays.

Different nowadays, with most fireworks organised.

Then I spotted the locked freezer-like box in the entrance to the supermarket. Almost stealthily, November 5th is approaching.

the music in that guinness cloud advert is

My supply of emergency posts has pretty much run out.

Blog trade secrets, I know, but I usually keep a few posts that could fill in a gap when I'm particularly busy and occasionally I pre-schedule them if I'm on the road or something that would otherwise create a long gap.

The usual problem is that they go out of date or get superseded by something else.

I'll make an exception with this post-dated post, which is about the recent Guinness advert on telly. I enjoy an occasional pint of the black stuff and recognise that they have some good adverts.

The advery above uses a Danny Elfman music track, which I think is called Ice Dance but most people would recognise as from the Edward Scissorhands movie soundtrack.

A good excuse to post an excerpt from one of Tim Burton's finest as well...

wombled without mudguards

I awoke today to what looked almost like frost on the grass. It was certainly a very dense dew. My original plan had been to join a cycling event but from quite early it started to unpick.

The phone rang and I received a plaintive request to make a special trip to Wimbledon to hand-deliver some forgotten tickets. It was one of those comedy sketch things where I drove to Wimbledon (as instructed), only to be told it was actually Wimbledon Common where I was expected.

They are only a mile or two apart, but it was enough in busy traffic to create a time penalty. And then more comedy as I tried to find the spot on the vast common without an address or road name or anything. Just a vague description that it's opposite 'the tent'.

Several phone calls later the tickets were delivered and I could head back for home through the now busy traffic of south-west London. Not a Womble in sight, although I have just heard that they may have been singing in the tent.

I think the round trip took the suspicious part of two hours scuppering my original plans.

Instead I took out the bike I'm preparing for winter use. All the main bits are working and I clocked around 20 miles. I think the orange colour will be suitably autumnal. A useful spin and it's helped me remember that I still need some mudguards. That'll be a small project during the week.

preparing the stochastic Dirichlet Chinese restaurant method randomiser

The phenomenon of that dancing competition programme affected us all at the end of last week. I'm trying to remember if we were eating a Chinese takeaway when it was on. I'm pretty sure we were drinking some red wine.

The thing is, I somehow got roped into generating a sweepstake linked to whoever will win the competition, which is on BBC television for the next few weeks.

It's probably the last of the not blatantly commercialised shows and seems to be more about positive re-inforcement rather than the negativity inspired concoctions of the Svengali shows.

We had the usual problem of too many people wanting to enter compared with the number of competitor names available, but a simple randomised draw soon fixed the problem.

It was one of those occasions where we could have used a fancy algorithm ensure the sequence had a uniform bound on the compressibility of its initial segments. Instead we used a few strips of paper cut up and placed in a sparkly hat which seemed to do just as well.

I gather the first knockout from the competition is tomorrow. I have - er - Lisa Riley from Emmerdale Farm as my entrant. Go Lisa.

drinking machu picchu coffee can't fully explain the speed of this week

This week has been zinging by. I've only had local travel and even had some reschedules, so I'm not quite sure why its going by so fast.

I'm wondering if its the coffee I've been drinking. I chanced upon a stash of Peruvian Machu Picchu a few days ago - on unexplained special offer in a local supermarket.

The real deal, French-style roasted beans waiting to be ground. Mysteriously on special offer, so I gave them a try.

One of those moments when you know they are going to be brilliant. Like Pacific oysters bursting with wild sea from Elliott's in Seattle, or vintage Champagne from Castellane in Epernay, you just know it's going to be great.

A handful of the beans gives an aroma of high mountain slopes, mist and rain. You can just sense the terrain of the Incas.

Then as it's ground there's a further aroma like chocolate, but still underpinned with a kind of wild damp mountainside.

Of course, you have to actually make it into coffee and drink it.

A fabulous simple pleasure.

Maybe that's why my week has been spinning past so quickly?

mycurtainsareclosedbecauseistartedworksoearly

I'm back in London this week, after my travels of the last week and a half. Actually, I only arrived back on Sunday afternoon and then spent time unpacking bags and sorting out laundry.

This morning I was up before the lark and started working without even opening the curtains or blinds.

But I gather that not opening the blinds is now frowned upon, according to our Chancellor on talk radio this morning.

In fact, the subsequent #mycurtainsareclosedbecause hashtag on twitter could have been stopped me from working if I'd been following the aftermath.

Update: Kate has storified a few of the tweets from various people here

Michelle Shocked at the Cluny

Baltic gallery in the morning, followed by a bit of a pub crawl yesterday afternoon, then along to the Cluny to see the original skate-board-punk-rocker Michelle Shocked.

Michelle was on fine form and played a selection of well-know songs as well as some brand new ones. A brilliant performer and it was great to see the engagement of the audience throughout.

Michelle takes such a positive approach to life and adapts the set and storytelling to the location. We had bits of 'Blaydon Races' at the start of the set, with Michelle and Peter O'Toole jamming the chords whilst the audience self-selected the song.

Michelle explained she is still on her five year tour (this is year three).

Politics and freedoms mixed with the songs, some receiving quite broad adaptations to keep them current. Already looking forward to whenever the next time we see her.

We had a blast.

Keep on rockin' girl.

a casual vacancy

As well as some further work today on my difficult second novel, I've encountered a couple of other fresh books.

The first one is so new it hasn't been published yet. It's at that "A4 sized sheets that are freshly bound" stage. It looks neat but is waiting for the first few reviewer readers. I can safely say it has a great first sentence.

The other one is That Book, the one that everyone is buying at the moment and having opinions about. I got my copy from a proper bookshop and paid an almost full retail price for it. Fifteen minutes later I saw the same title on sale in Tescos for £9, which is less than half price.

I've only just started it. There's an okay but not great first sentence but actually the dust jacket gives away that the subject of the opening isn't going to make it alive to the end of the first chapter. An. Aneurysm.

I used that 'don't pass go' device in The Triangle, where in my case I think of it as the James Bond beginning (i.e. something lively that doesn't have a lot to do with the main story).

In the red covered novel's case it is used to set the motivation for what happens in the next few chapters.

I haven't really read enough to have fully formed views yet, but I can see already that JK Rowling writes a good line in teenagers and it is quite interesting to see how she develops inhabitants of varied housing estates in a manner similar to the Muggle parts of the early Harry Potters.

I can understand the title of the novel based upon the thoughtfully added definition in the front of the book, but I suppose it is also about that way of living - a kind of casual vacancy of mind that people have in many situations. I'm assuming that will be a theme of some kind as I get further into it.

Others have said the story telling is kind of standard, but I suppose JK Rowling has been a plot-meister in the other series of books. It will be interesting to see whether this one branches into new territory and how much Rowling-esque back story will feature.

technique for use of megastructures to inform the creative process

The background threat of my continued work on the second novel continues. In between bits of work this week I decided to review the progress and try to unscramble to plot line.

I'll admit that the rush of words from NaNoWriMo can be good but also created a few spurious scenes which I'm in the process of deleting. The scene set outside a football ground in Reading is a case in point. I think I was stuck in a nearby traffic jam when I visualised that particular and superfluous moment.

And a few characters can be combined. It's obvious to me that there's too many, possibly a factor of the storyline being put together in bursts.

So I wandered outdoors with the laptop, found a nearby beautiful mega-structure where I could sit in relative peace with a cup of coffee and started the editing process.

It's working surprisingly well and I think the change of scene is good for inspiration. Today at the performance space and maybe tomorrow at the adjacent gallery.

Suggestion for caption: Windowcleaners or spacemen?

inside the butterfly cabinet

Tonight we were at the wonderful Butterfly Cabinet for some blues. We needed a table this evening so timed the arrival for just after the neon 'OPEN' sign was switched on.

Well, not quite, actually. We arrived early enough to have some starters in the nearby sky apple cafe, ahead of the switching of the neon.

The venue was hosting the Monkey Junk Blues Club and in the short period from 7.45 until 8 filled from the front room, through the corridor bit to the back room with animated folk ready of an evening of the blues.

A foot stompin' and hot smokin' evening. A short video extract below.

down the empty streets we'll disappear until the dawn

Sometimes an evening sat around a table just chatting is the best way to go.

We'd talked about watching a television show but instead our little group assembled around a circular table (the best kind) with a few glasses of jazz-backed wine and a fine home-made supper.

We pretty much talked from before a rainy sun had set until beyond the witching hour.

Sometimes it needs the time to let conversation develop like a stream becomes a river.

The bridge across the misty waters outside our door surely helped create the atmosphere.

looper

After the Dabba Wal Street Food Kitchen, we headed to the cinema to see the new Bruce Willis movie called Looper.

We even sat near the front.

I won't say too much about the plot line for fear of spoilers, but the general idea is about near future assassins who deal with time travelled mobster hits.

There's the expected twists - er - loops in the story and also a chance to start to invent some along the way.

Bruce also gets some great one liners - along the lines "we could spend the rest of the morning describing time travel and use all the drinking straws in this diner making models, or we could just accept it" and another part where the map just has an 'X' to explain a location. The script tips its hat to the audience who have already seen all this stuff and don't need the fancy GPS explanations.

The storyline also does some things you don't see so often. I won't say what but it's not the stuff of many action-sci-fi-noir movies.

The near future Kansas is also a fairly dusty and run down looking city, with beaten up cars adapted for solar charging and a plethora of cardboard cities. There's a few seconds also in a manga-like Singapore all high tech and gleaming.

And it's not giving anything away to say that the time machine really looks as if it was invented by H.G. Wells, complete with its almost steam-punk dials and valves.

Our post-viewing consensus - it was definitely worth seeing. Was it as good as the adverts on the buses said - 'The next Matrix/Bladerunner' ? - I think the jury would remain out on that one.

Perhaps stuck in a loop.

And take it from me - China is going to be big.

trouble in't village

They said there'd be trouble today. First news was of 'railway trouble' but later the tram conductor said I should watch out for protests in the village.

Sure enough, the railway station was all but deserted, although the buses were still running. Then I heard the sound of raised voices.

It sounded like a rally and I could see placards being waved at the band-stand.

I crossed the cobbled street just as the leading protestors from the NUWSS turned the corner.

Yes, I'd travelled a mere eight miles distance but back in time just over a hundred years, to the small village of Beamish. It still runs on pounds, shillings and pence and proudly portrays the turn from the nineteenth and into the very early twentieth century.

sitting on a beach, or is it art?

Things might be a bit out of sequence at the moment.

The last few days have tumbled by with all manner of things from rats in the alleyways of Chinatown to divine burlesque, mixed with American brunches and even an all-day business workshop for good measure.

Right now I'm sitting on a beach watching a small piece of the world go by. I feel as if I'm in an art installation actually, but I'm sure it's one of those moments when the body needs to catch up with the mind.

Or maybe it's the other way around.