at the end of the universe

I spent Saturday evening watching television, right from the excellent tea-time frolics of Doctor Who all the way through to the alien adventures of Eurovision.

One of the shows was set in a kind of space station at the end of the universe. It resembled a late 20th Century dance club. The other show moved it on into something a little more 21st Century.

In the case of Doctor Who, there were plenty of references to other space and sci-fi series in the script as well as self references to old-school Doctor Who. Even a retro control room.

Pleasingly, the characters had a kind of Amanda Palmer meets Danger Ensemble look about them. Not surprising with Neil Gaiman as the writer of the episode.

Gaiman took the Doctor to a Neverwhere outside of the Universe. The Doctor even commented that it was somewhere he'd never been, which is fairly unusual nowadays.

It gave a chance for the plot to move up a level, presumably breaking through a few sealed doors along the way. Once a new piece of fundamental Who-history gets written there is no turning back because the fan-base will have it recorded for all time.

So the Star Whale type construct of riding on a bubble on the edge of the Universe permitted the humanisation of a slightly delirious TARDIS. She (The TARDIS, excellently played by Suranne Jones) then had to rapidly make up for 'lost time' whilst hurling some great one-liners into the script. She simultaneously channeled Queenie from Blackadder whilst stating "Biting's like kissing only with a winner."

And we got a good backstory about the theft by the TARDIS of the Doctor "Back in the Day". I'm a great believer in Time stopping everything happening at once, so it's probably fortunate that most of this happened outside of the main Universe.

That way we didn't all suffer from a catastrophe that would create tears before bedtime. Although, it has to be said that the end of the episode created a tear-jerking morph of TARDIS back to being the soul of the machine.

The tears in the following programme were somewhat different as we watched the transition of Europop to европоп.

Yes, the Russian bloc have it.

My own more trippy tastes were towards Moldova's Zdob şi Zdub or even the Irish Jedward entry, both of which featured Pop, strange headgear and whirly lights. Instead, after hours of sonics and two many Screwdrivers, we had a largely forgettable win from that epicentre of pop culture Azerbaijan. At least they dressed up.

I decided to clear my mind of all of this today and took out on my bicycle, finding myself in a Forest by a River. There was a Pond as well.

I may need help.

Oh, Crumbs!

So much for stealth.

I actually bought the orange packet last weekend.

But only opened it today. Quite carefully.

Immediate problem.

Crumbs trickled from the tear-around strip.

I moved the packet to clear the crumbs.

A single hobnob fell out.

More crumbs.

I picked it up carefully.

Crumbs now reaching to the floor.

This was getting out of control.

I placed the hobnob onto a surface.

Cleaned the crumbs.

Picked up the hobnob.

A ring of crumbs.

Maybe it was Time To Walk Away.

I looked behind me.

A trail. Crumbs on the carpet. Crumbs on the sofa.

This hobnob was going down fighting.

internet closures for the weekend

My last few work days have included a particular spice, but because of my own rules about the content of this blog, I won't be able to say too much.

I'm usually quite good at predicting moves and outcomes, but on this occasion it's all taking a life of its own. I timed some parts of it for this weekend and my phone has been blipping away with texts and emails.

In the meantime, another work assignment has arrived, which means I'll be extremely busy next week. But I have to throw the big weekend switch at some point.

Reminds me of that button to turn off the internet.

cupboard consequence

I still have a link to last.fm here on rashbre central, and it still keeps a tally of tracks that get played on some of the rashbre central iTunes.

Today I noticed that its been mysteriously recording a whole series of Britney Spears tracks being played, although I can't remember listening. It turns out it was the fault of the New Cupboard.

It was delivered a couple of days ago and required placement in a room. This meant moving a few things including the television's computer. I realise that I'd somehow replugged it without checking what it was doing, and its started working its way through the alphabet of songs. Its only in the 'Bs' but has been playing tracks for a few days, undetected by me.

It was only when Britney's Toxicity track caught my eye that I spotted what has been happening. Still, if you've not heard the bedding track remix of Toxic by rashbre central (circa 2005) then here it is.

spread

This week I'm dealing with Helsinki and Houston, which is quite a timezone spread. The worst meeting scheduling was for 23:30, which was a tiny bit late to start a decent conversation.

The theory is that everyone can get together and have a single conversation, but sometimes it simply chops the debate into several smaller pieces. It's still possible to get the big picture, but it can also be somewhat filtered.

So I'll admit I'm thinking up some new plans at the moment, beyond inventing the 25 hour day.

...And I do realise that there's around 31 hours in the day already, if one follows the sun in the right direction.

But I suppose there's always a risk of going around in circles.

trashed laureate

A new form of Poet Laureate was created a few days ago, with the Trashed Laureate moments at the recent Trashed event. A simple process to collect lines, blend them together and create a single work, with the best lines awarded a laureate-like bottle of port.


[1] I want to live a million more lives;
dine with a million more people, say to each;
show me the workings of your world, 
before this one winds down.

[2]The house sags on itself as clumsily as a southpaw’s scribblings,
[3]The sky-blue of the china lay scattered;
[4]If you didn’t associate with anyone who’d done a bad thing…
you wouldn’t know anyone at all.

When you shout it makes me horny.
With a great aplomb, the frozen lugworm 
grew a third nostril and besmirched 
the bowl of peanuts with a large ironing board.

[5]The cymbals hiss, the dragons bliss 
soaring high the clouds do die.
Cornice gleam is cornish ice-cream
[6]Alluring, alliterative alliance of arts.
We toss our syllables towards the stars…

Hand in a Jar.
No ideas spring to mind, I’ve scoured the thoughtscape of my mind
Oh well least I tried, now be a good sport 
and hand me that port 

[7]Motors drone, lights shimmer
An ancient story Arcs through the night.
[8]Life is about randomness, it makes my soul shine.
Amazing, grazing its all about dazing
The beast of uncertainty stands before my eyes 
should I walk the right or be the man whom I despise?

[9]Make wine & drink the music.
Paint a beat and make a picture.
Oop, my soup is gloop!
[10]Ten green bottles, preening on the walls.

When you shout it all feels better

[1  Poet Laureate Winner : Jake Campbell]
[2 Claire Thomas]
[3 Viccy Adams]
[4 Rob John Waters]
[5 Andrew Sclater]
[6 the incomplete poet R.Viglionisi]
[7 Ben H]
[8 Sandra]
[9 Abraham Lincoln]
[10 Steve R]

snoitcurtsni eht daer ton od

It's a kind of reflective day for me today.

I've been into the main office and then working on a project with some folk in Sweden. On this occasion I've sidestepped the travel.

And perhaps because of the relatively slow pace of the weekend, I don't feel that I've caught up with the things I intended to do and have a slight sense of slipping backwards.

There's been a enough of those little "spanner in works" things popping up which have created a variety of deviations from plan.

Sometimes its better not to read the instructions.

cayo

Sunday evening and I'm watching television.

Last weekend was pretty hectic and as it concluded a few of us sat together in a pub wondering how we'd packed so much in.

By contrast, this weekend has blurred for different reasons; a combination of Saturday's late start after a mid evening Friday return from the airport. I didn't even unpack until Saturday afternoon.

Add some household tasks and a Sunday bike ride followed by hours of business work and the weekend soon evaporated.

Right now I can hear the distant squeak of a blueberry cheesecake coming from the refrigerator.

It needs liberation.

frying tonight

We had a power outage at home yesterday and a resultant selection of devices that don't have battery backup have subtly revealed themselves over the last few hours.

Today I spotted a little box flashing an orange light as a sign that all was not well. Indeed the box and its twin were attached to a now dormant grey box that used to have pretty green and yellow lights flashing.

The power cut also shut down the home disk server and although it restarted itself, it decided to be a little secretive and not re-announce itself to the network.

I restarted it all in a couple of minutes, but it did remind me of the olden days of mystery device drivers and numerous reboots required to fix anything.

Normal service is now resumed albeit with one less grey box of now fried electronics. I'm not quite sure what it did anyway.

vacuum packed

Flying around this week, with some early starts and late nights.

Along the way a languid evening meeting in a castle and a successful negotiation of the Brussels bus system. Then staying in a posh hotel that transformed itself overnight into a conference centre exhibiting bright orange tractor-sized cleaning systems for public spaces.

The hotel was very clean.

And the memorable and entirely genuine question from an over-travelled American colleague, who asked me which country we were in.

I had a chance to say, "It's Thursday, so it must be Belgium".

favicon in blogger

A reminder about how to set a 16x16 favicon to appear in Blogger:

<link rel='shortcut icon' href="http://myfaviconaddress.ico" type='image/x-icon'></link>

The insert goes after the <Title> in the HTML.

I just had to reset it because I changed templates.

bubble

What a difference a day makes.

The signs of last week's London festivities have rapidly moved, as have the Press who have moved to the next paper filling story.

Truly a Shakespearean weekend of world events but strange to have been in a separate bubble whilst much of it was unfolding.