uninvited guest

I see dawn creeping away, walking like a dream in this early morning light.

Not stippled white stripes of four, but a crimson slash of five before choosing first attire.

Now is the time to walk with this guest before rowdier elements define daylight.

elemental sandwiched tryst and travails

Yesterday I mused that I'd get some elements upon my skin today as I headed across to Canary Wharf for some meetings.

I sure did.

Brilliant confident sunshine as I started the journey; then blasts of air swirling the skyscrapers of the wharf making walked phone conversation difficult, a pause to admire the river before ferocious rain storming with horizontal lightning shards and coin sized rain bubbles frothing from the pavements.

Sandwiched between fire, wind and water.

My earthy moment was whilst I spent a few subterranean minutes in a sandwich bar - such is the design of much of the Canary Wharf complex.

Sandwiched between two sets of people.

To one side were the couple who had broken free from a nearby tower block for a tryst in a darkened corner, with much curling of arms. To the other side was the yolky salesman working extremely hard as he explained a fantastic story to a hard-boiled recipient about how life would be so much better if product X was added to the portfolio.

For the first couple, anyone could spot the intensity of a new lovers' relationship. A less clear cut story in the sales scene though. The eyes and facial gestures of the salesman suggested the hard fought story he was telling had a few fabrications along the lines of 'what does this guy want to hear'.

I could be wrong, about both, of course. But it was my one of my elemental moments in the day.

more blurred london scenes

Another day where I've been purely desk-bound working on the same thing that I was doing yesterday. I actually started at 06:00 which gave me a sense of achievement by nine thirty. I was on my second expresso as other people were sleepily clearing their in-boxes from last night.

And then later I had an afternoon of those hurdle type meetings, most of them in 30 minute successions.

Munich, Houston, London, composite, Milan, Paris. You get the picture.

Low carbon footprint because I didn't have to travel to any of them. The rest of the day has passed in a blur again.

Tomorrow I shall step out to somewhere by the Thames to feel some kind of element upon my skin.

nine o clock and matisse is going blurry

I've spent the whole day since quite early logged onto my computer moving lots of boxes and squiggles around as well as producing sufficient wordage to make it all make sense. But it does seem to be proceeding at a snail's pace, compared with my expectation.

I just looked at the clock here which is around 20 minutes fast and noticed it already shouts nine o'clock in the evening. It feels to me like it should be around five thirty and I still have a bundle more things to do.

My reason for this short pause is whilst I old-school print the story so far so that I can take a malicious pen to edit it into something more sensible in line with my deadline.

I'm not sure I'd call what I'm doing art, but I'm getting a sense of the need to stand back from it and not to get bogged down in detail.

Henri Matisse did this when he asked his assistants to help him assemble his own interpretation of a snail which is hanging on the walls in the Tate.

I notice that if you walk up close to it, you can still see the writing on the underlying paper square where he overpainted the green.

dancing in the dark

We made it to the festival by late Sunday afternoon, giving a chance to move from a weekend of work to a little fun and games.

Taxi ride from train station dropped us into a world of dayglo paints, unexpected tu-tus and stalls selling herbal remedies. A tex-mex later and we were ready for anything. Well anything except the strawberry dacquiri angostura rum drinks which froze my head after two sips.

But there was music and banter and then a big grin from the sun. We danced through to the dark and although the weekend had arrived late, at least it finally felt as if there had been one.

punctuation from a working weekend

In truth, I've had to do a fair amount of work this weekend, interspersed with modest unsatisfactory television grazing and a spot of (well received) cooking on Saturday evening.

Apart from that it's been a rather quiet weekend, although not one where I feel particularly recharged because the working part has blurred it into a 'working from home' weekday sensation.

Right now I've decided to put everything work related away, checked the weather outside (now sunny again) and to find myself heading out to make a late appearance at a music event. It's somewhere in Surrey and will involve varied transport.

At least there will be some punctuation from the working week and I'll head into the proper office tomorrow.

destructobase or 2010 Torchwood competition?

We need a Torchwood competition...now read on...

Like many, I watched the Torchwood series this week, not as a fan exactly, but as one who expected some good plotline compressed over a few days. I thought the idea of aliens using children as drugs was sufficiently evil, if somewhat Matrix-like.

The original trade of 11 of children back 40 or so years ago and the later consequences was clever thinking although I had a bit of a problem with the step change from a dozen to millions as the next logical increment. They must have been passing the kouchie an awful lot back on that tentacular planet.

The stock film of London Town and Cardiff got a large airing though, for the location signposting. Perhaps a spot of Michael Mann/Spooks editing would have compressed some of this to good effect. I suppose the HD viewers could wonder why the streets were both traffic jammed and deserted at the same time.

And speaking of Spooks, in that series they are fairly cavalier with their lead actors, expending them whether or not the replacement character is already in view.

The difference with Torchwood is that it has a broad fan-base including many from the Doctor Who environs. So the snuffing of a lead like Ianto after a couple of others were erased in the last series leaves a conundrum if the series is expected to go anywhere further.

The gender politics of the series was also something of a vanguard and this has no doubt suffered a few setbacks if the plan is to keep Torchwood as a brand.

Slightly more into the storyline, there were some interesting ideas dealt with quite rapidly - I know many have been used elsewhere, but there was sufficient to keep one guessing:

- keeping the thunderbolt space alien landing in London almost secret
- handling the chanting kids as a kind of bemused news static
- self interests around deciding who to protect
- children being used as alien drugs
- the essence of the trade ‘just 12’ turning into ‘ten percent’
- resolving who gets selected (the epsilons, of course)
- the lack of challenge of the decisions
- the tiny coterie of involved individuals
- the obedience of the military
- the good ol’ “reverse the polarity of the standing wave” moment
- the final sacrifices to resolve it
- no ‘not really dead’ resolutions (except Jack)
- the blemished hero

Maybe Russell T Davies and co have decided to shut down Jack on earth. Perhaps he is about to go intergalactic?

So here’s my suggestion: I think the BBC could have a fantastic coup now to open a competition to rewrite the last episode of that series of Torchwood.

A different ending x 5. Public submissions and then professional scriptwriting.

Start the petition.

Parallel universes anyone?

Oh - and let's not forget the other space aliens with proper space ships that landed 27 years ago and have been holed up in District 9 in Southern Africa.
Click to explore the zone


And good prequel mini-doc here:

amphibious for linear and non-linear space

A small joy of quietly sitting drinking a coffee today was reading a random discarded magazine, which had the intriguing front page story about amphibious aggregation of non linear rights.

I decided to look at the pictures instead and worked out its something about the excellent 'Green Wing' being re-shown on telly.

alleged hacks hacking hacks off public figures

The technology of digital phones is supposed to make call interception more difficult. By chance I watched the Wire yesterday evening which had an episode about it taking more than a week to get a tap onto a 'pay as you go' mobile.

Today's Guardian allegations imply that there's other weak points to intercept.

My guess is that its through the voicemail, guarded by its massive 4 digit code, which for Orange used to be 1111, for Cellnet/O2 was 8705 and for T-Mobile was 1210. I guess if people change it the most likely substitution will be to their birthday date (ie DDMM* or MMYY).

So any malicious eavesdropper can take a punt that one of the default pins will work, or simply look up the person's birthday.

Three attempts should do it in most cases.

Press to hack rashbre central voicemail

* unless American-influenced, of course.

Millbank space aliens find a parking spot

I'm watching the Torchwood series this week, albeit slightly later than the original screening times. The aliens have decided to land in London in the Security Services HQ at Thames House by Vauxhall Bridge.

I'm just not so sure that this type of alien would attract as much attention in London as the one in the television series. Sure, the children freezing and chanting might get noticed, but a smoke filled glass tank with some thrashing tentacles? in London??

There's stuff like this happening every day.

Whether its silver painted statues walking around, over sized beer bottles having parties on open topped buses or just generally people with tentacles walking about, there's still plenty of Londoners who would take this in their stride. I know I've seen that gunk on walls and windows as I walk around too. I'll grant that in the TV series they blocked off the north side of the Embankment, but everyone knows that there's a cone army on continual manoeuvres in the central area.

So it could all kick off tomorrow when the aliens get angry and the tank of poison gas explodes, but at the moment I'm wondering whether the aliens got MI5 to build them a rooftop parking spot and flew in to avoid paying the Congestion Charge?

I shall still watch though, and keep a sofa handy in case I do need something to hide behind.

Plinther Group - I, Plinthian

Burdened with a surfeit of rum this afternoon (Sunday). At least its not a surfeit of palfreys, or I could end up like Henry.

More importantly, I think I have one of the last pictures of The Empty Plinth. Just before it gets grabbed by the daily Plinthers.

It will be webcammed too.

I think I may even build a link.

And here's one of the first...

eyes on virginia at the national portrait gallery

NPG for lunch yesterday, and fittingly my menu had a portrait of Virginia Woolf on it. Why? The National Portrait Gallery's restaurant balcony looks out towards Trafalgar Square which, as the many rainbow flags attested, was the destination for London Pride 's march and party yesterday.

So why? The exhibition downstairs included Virginia amongst its selection. A different picture and not one that I'd seen before. Staring into the camera whilst smoking a cigar. Defiantly Bloomsbury rules, I would say.

I found myself looking long at the brown eyes of this iconic independent feminist writer. "A room of one's own" is probably her most well known publication and was self published in 1929, with the cover art drawn by her artist sister Vanessa Bell.

I remember first picking up on Woolf when still at school; the stream of consciousness writing of someone with more history than she would admit. Child abused, promiscuous marriage to Leonard Woolf, co creator of the Hogarth Press, long relationship with Ms Vita Sackville-West, depressive and finally suicidal, filling her raincoat with large stones before entering the River Ouse.

Those eyes.