the eyes have it

I know this is a lazy post, but I've been busy this week and am now sitting in front of the television which is dispensing an episode of Coronation Street. Not usually part of my viewing, but entertaining to deconstruct.

Corrie has a bittersweet sense of humour and a fun sport is to 'count the looks' whilst it plays.

Tonight's episode is a classic, with plenty of cutaways to different peoples' eyes, in church, in the pub and along the Street. Even the baby gets a chance to do a look. And then a grim reaper appears in a big car and wearing a black hoodie. I don't know the plot, but the similarities with something from Lord of the Rings are worth a mention.

There's also a heavily sweating man with shifty eyes (well lit) who I assume runs the unisex underwear factory, which got a few closeups and got me thinking. I predict this character is on a heart-attack trajectory for some time next week. He could be rushed to hospital, wired up and then fess-up to something fairly evil. It would make a good storyline like the above sketch (complete with a 'look').

Sorry, "fess-up" is probably more Eastenders than Corrie.

right menace faces questioning

Two sets of spin are on hand this week.

There's the exhaust from the Newsnight special format programme on Thursday, which was more or less devoted to a single issue. The decision tree from the occasion becomes quite complex. To do the show or not? To standardise the format or not? To provide robust response or not? To keep a conventional 'west London' audience or not?

For journalism and politicians, there's ways to spin most of the combinations and we are seeing the rather dangerous and slippery central character attempt to manipulate the outcome and to maximise further coverage.

I suppose the party of revisionism could take some lessons from the masters of spin who are about to launch the second series of 'The Thick of It'. This is a series of originally around half a dozen episodes dealing with life in Westminster. Fast paced and rude, it sheds a suspiciously realistic-looking light on the corridors of power. A 'Yes, Minister' for the 21st Century. I shall enjoy.

straight lines

Backwards and forwards across the City today, intermingled with some 'desk time' which I need for a specific project. Really I'll need to keep my head down for the rest of the week to get things done, although various little meetings keep tiptoe-ing into the schedule.

And there's almost no time for any non-work activity this week, so I'm rather impressed to see that work is already in progress for at least one NaNoWriMo.

If yesterday I was stuck in a Faraday cage whilst my car's misbehaviour sparked Tesla-like around me, then today I'm in a vacuum chamber, blissfully unaware of things not in my direct list of 'To-Dos'.

rebooting a car, with modest sparks

I had to take the car for its annual inspection today.

After the one hour series of tests, the car passed. The dealer gave me a discount on the normal price of the test too, which was a pleasant surprise. I waited in a plush area with complementary coffee, wifi and iMac internet access. I took a conference call meeting and it really didn't interfere with my day.

So far so good.

Then I drove home uneventfully, until I switched off the engine and noticed that the radio/satnav stayed on. Usually it switches off. I pressed the button and sure enough, it switched off. I idly pressed it again. Nothing. The system refused to restart. I had lost the satnav, CD player, the phone and it was stuck on a single radio station.

I pressed the off button, twiddled the car ignition, pressed all the adjacent buttons but to no avail. Stuck in startup, a little like a frozen computer. The dealer is closed by this time and its getting dark.

I try the internet to find out how to reset the console. There's various earnest experts describing the system and the general opinion seems to be to take it to a dealer who can use a special diagnostic device to reset everything. Apparently the car has a fibre optic ring main with these components on it.

I discover the car has two cunningly concealed fuse boxes, one in the front and another in the rear, I trace the circuits which don't really describe the main console, but have baffling names like "Audio Gateway". The spot designated for a radio fuse is ominously empty.

I decide to remove the two or three fuses (from about 50) that I think are associated with the sound, phone and satnav. I leave them disconnected for a few minutes to give everything a chance to reset. I noticed a slight sparking sound when I removed the 45amp one in the back of the car.

The I put it all back together and press the on button for the radio. A flash on the console screen. The warning message about driving carefully. Hooray. Its working again.

I feel both pleased and relieved that I've managed to re-boot my car's operating system.

the purple haze was all around

We didn't just make one track of "music" on Sunday. We made three, in between much general messing around. It seems to be my job to unload them from the recording device.

Of course, it all started innocently enough.

A casual comment along the lines of "I wonder if they make a 4 track recorder for the iPhone?"

Five pounds ninety nine later we were in business, with a hastily assembled band using an acoustic guitar, an old roland effects unit, a banjo, a yamaha piano and an electric guitar, plus a few percussive substances. We even figured out the optimum placement for the the improvised microphone.

And don't get me started about the 49 key roll-up keyboard piano with drum machine we bought at the Texaco. Jimi's place of honour on the wall was under no threat.

bed feet
half a side of vinyl progressive rock 8:11

remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes

Even Squeaker was tired by Sunday evening.

We'd started today with a hastily improvised progressive rock jam session that only the very hardy could listen to in playback, using one microphone, with the players moving nearer or further away in an analogue semblance of mixing the sound.



Then an extended French breakfast with milky coffee, croissant and fromage.

I think it may have already been early afternoon.

Later we travelled onward to an impromptu wine tasting and then eventually to The Duchess for some pub food, where we chatted in the assembling shadows from the adjacent Battersea Power Station.

no trade marks hurt in the process

I'll admit to goofing off from blogging for a few days this week. A combination of extra events meant I was invariably back late most evenings, with the record probably being Friday evening after the pub lock-in.

That's not to say there hasn't been quite a lot happening. I was with Ed the Synth on Tuesday evening, then by almost complete chance with two friends from different parts of America, who both coincidentally happened to be in London Wednesday evening. Thursday featured a very late Japanese dinner which brings me back to Friday locked in pub.

I also recollect that Thursday featured the draft construction at 1 a.m. of a test logo for an upcoming Devoted and Disgruntled event. We created the logo and then tried it out on some New York scenes in preparation for the marketing of the event.

lightning fast mortal combat

I just noticed the movement at the edge of the window.

Mortal combat.

Roughly even sized adversaries each with different and distinct advantages. Fighting so fast that it couldn't register with the human eye. The fly had managed to keep a wing free and was twirling so fast that there was a simple blur of legs and bodies.

It would stop for a moment and then resume, without obvious advantage to victim or pursuer.

Then, suddenly, in the midst of a black blur, the web's strong thread snapped and they were whisked into the air.

As I type this, the spider has returned.

Seemingly alone.

don't panic

I know there's more important things to shout from the rooftops, but one is also reminded not to panic on days like today. Depending how it is measured, today is the 30th anniversary of the Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy (h2g2).

Douglas Adams helped create a very British version of Life in Space adding much to everyones' knowledge of all things intergalactic with gargleblasters, paranoid androids and, of course, the very important number 42.

I have the Guide installed on my phone, for moments when I need smile.

An example entry poses that whilst Earth generates lots of noisy radio signals now, they could all suddenly stop as a result of moving to lower powered satellite reflected digital signals. This relatively sudden cessation will alert our near neighbours of our planet and its changing conditions.

So will the Futurama prophesy come true? We'd see space folk from Omicron Persei 8 arrive demanding to see the final episode of Single Female Lawyer (Ally McBeal) no longer viewable at a long distance since digital cutover?

It will still take a long time to find out.

If Gliese 581c is one of our neighbouring galaxies nearest "earth like" planets, it is still around 20 light years or 120 trillion (trillian?) miles so right now if they watched earth telly they would be watching the Berlin Wall coming down. It'll be another 8 years before the first episode of Ally McBeal even reaches them.

And pity the poor folk on 47 Ursa Majoris. Not only has it been sent two customised Cosmic Call 2 messages to decode, but they were also broadcast the first interstellar advertisement from a radar array at the EISCAT European space station.

Advertising what? Why Doritos tortilla chips, of course.

how could I refuse a favour or two?

When I was still weak from the Moscow tryst a couple of years ago, I made a comment that sometimes things can start all over again.

Now I sense the progression. No bagman's gambit, each time the motorcade looks different and I see other ways for Декабристы to take the Senate.

That's how it is with the NaNoWriMo.

Still three weeks away, but around the right time to decide whether or not to try to clear an hour a day to write 1,666 words.

I've got mixed feelings but I suspect the tattooed Miranda will persuade me.

bagman's gambit - decemberists

in a surprise result, Saturday ran to plan

Unlike Friday, Saturday ran to plan, except that I hadn't really been told all of it until part way through. Suffice to say that we linked together a series of events pretty seamlessly, which started at around 10:30 in the morning and probably finished somewhere around 2 a.m. on Sunday, by which time much tea had been consumed.

A principle objective was to shower Katherine with cupcakes, which we did pretty comprehensively and I think I'm personally still on a sugar rush as I back-post this on Sunday morning. Along the way there was fairly comprehensive central London navigation, much chatter and some midnight bike riding.

Not to mention the "blogger's moment" where people referenced things I'd done that I'm sure I haven't told them about - but of course they'd read here on rashbre central. Copies of 'The Triangle' were also dispensed.

Antidote upon application.

caged in or caged out?

Today didn't go quite to plan.

It started routinely enough with some phone meetings and general email finagling.

Then, at around eleven o'clock, everything quietly derailed and I found myself in an altogether different situation.

Its nothing to worry about, but its as if a few of the little cages that hide in trees had jumped out to capture my day and its plans.

I know the secret though, sometimes you have to look down in order to go up.