JOURNAL | PROFILE | FRIENDS | MANIFESTO FOR 40 | ABOUT THE SITE | CONTACT
Thursday 20 November 2008
Heh
After posting that last item I got a 'Ping error' from weblogs.com, and for the first time ever actually looked at the error message, for which I commend them. Wouldn't you?:
"Ping 'http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2' failed: Ping error: Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every half-hour. It's cool that you're updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice -- take a break, you'll enjoy life more."
Forgot To Say....
....that the reason I posted the below now is that I'm heading off to the frozen North early in the morning (well probably not that frozen) to spend some New Year family time.
I won't have a connection of any sort while there, so I'll be running silent until Friday afternoon/evening when I'll be back home.
So in the meantime, have a great New Year's whatever you're doing, and I'll see you next year.
Last Day Of The Year
I thought about trying to do a Mayfly Project round-up of the year, but realised that it's been full of so much incident that I couldn't possibly do it justice.
One thing that has struck me is that 2003 has been a bad year for a huge number of people I know. It's been remarkable to note.
Anyway, in an attempt to categorise:
Work: Well, I'd call it a year of ups and downs. The very best endeavours sometimes come to nought no matter how hard you try or how strongly you believe in what you're doing. My feelings about not being my own boss any longer are still in a state of flux - the sheer relief of being in another job, with a bit of security and a chance to make something equally good, if very different, is over-riding any other analysis just at the moment. From the depths of despair to the pleasure of opportunity in about 24 hours is a bit much to take, really.
One thing I won't miss is having to deal with the worse client I've ever had to deal with. Someone I used to regard as a mate, and who turned into a malicious, vindictive and entirely unprofessional monster for no good reason we could see but that she'd begun to realise exactly how far out of her depth she is. You've got to feel at least a bit sorry for someone who goes on about how technically experienced they are and then keeps referring to HTML as 'the back end'. At least, you feel sorry for them until they start rubbishing your team behind your back in attempt to deflect people from their own performance.
Life: The above has had a significant impact. A general feeling of insecurity and uncertainty has hung over the whole year, pretty much. I've been pretty down, and distracted from what would usually have been my escape routes - hardly been to the cinema, never got back into the proper routine or rhythm to do the writing I'd like to, couldn't socialise as much as I wanted to - and wasn't much in the mood anyway - even the online places I used to haunt haven't seen much of me for months. I'm hoping that some of this can start to change now.
Blog: And again the impact of the first item was felt. I was distracted and even when present was brief and uninspired for much of the year. The lack of attention to parts of the site that I mentioned in connection with the redesign was a sign of the malaise. But I'm starting the new year with plans to turn a bunch of my ideas for online projects into reality at last, and also to revisit the ones I've been neglecting.
So the end of the year has coincided with the end of some pretty negative times, and the start of some hopefully positive ones. It's possible that all will go horribly awry, but equally possible that this was a thing that was meant to be.
To quote a certain Time Lord who's been mentioned here quite a bit in the last few months:
"Time will tell. It always does."
Work In Progress
So - All Change? Not quite all, but quite a bit of change.
I've given this place a new look in time for the new year. I liked the old one, but this is a bit lighter, with a slightly more upbeat feel, I think.
I've also done some serious rationalising - I've dumped everything I wasn't updating on a regular basis, the Links, People, Words pages, and the entire Opinion section, and brought the focus firmly back to the blog and its related pages.
I've always done that thing of advocating websites as living, changing things, and having all that stuff there as dead as a dodo was not exactly practicing what I preach. I will reintroduce some bits, like a dedicated links page, when I can find a way to do it that I'm happy with and that I can keep up to date.
As far as the Opinion stuff is concerned, I have a plan for that, but it's going to take a little while to get organised. I'm going to build on the idea I mentioned a few weeks back of setting it up as a blog so that it's easier to update and also so that people can comment on it. I'm just vaguely planning the expansion of that at the moment, but I'll hopefully have something in place within a few weeks.
Anyway - this is indeed a work in progress - I'll need to run through various odd pages that launch from old journal entries and the like to make sure they're behaving properly and a few other bits of housekeeping like that. Plus the search templates need completely redoing, but the core stuff is all where it's supposed to be for the moment.
A Few Quiet Days
Not for any other reason than that there's bugger all going on. I've been working on work, but that's hardly blogworthy. And apart from that, there's not much to report. But I am working on some stuff of my own too, so maybe I'll get that to a state where I can unveil it.
Ooh - aren't you intrigued....
D'You Know....
....despite my expectations to the contrary, I didn't actually go completely over the top with food yesterday. Alison and I spent the day at Chris's, and though we started with a late breakfast, had lunch at 4pm (one course) and finally felt we could face dessert at around 9pm, the sum effect was like we had one three-course meal spread across about ten hours, so not too over-the-top at all. The drink was rather more consistently applied, mind you :-)
And against all expectations, I managed to track down a couple of decent films in the morass of 'seasonal programming' - Belleville Rendezvous, only in cinemas a couple of months ago, is a strange but brilliantly constructed French animation, and then later on, Amélie, which I always intended to see but had never got round to.
And today I'm at home, doing as little as possible. I know I'll have to make some productive use of the next few days, so this is my reading and dusting off the Playstation day.
Hope everyone's chilling well.
That's It Then
I'm out of the office now for one day shy of three weeks. This is not the same as not working for three weeks of course, but it's close enough for now.
Hope everyone has a good break, and if you celebrate something, it's a very enjoyable one.
For myself, I'll be celebrating the human ability to eat huge amounts of food and drink while watching crap TV.
BSE in the US
There's an episode of The West Wing, I forget which one, but it's either late in Season Two or early in Season Three, in which cattle at a US farm appear to test positive for BSE (though annoyingly, they never once refer to it as such - It's "mad cow disease" all the way.
During the course of the episode, the immediate effect of the US declaring its first case is discussed, including the decimation of a multi-billion dollar export business, fast food being deserted, and millions being wiped off meat industry shares.
Looks like a pretty accurate assesment, really.
The Prodigal
Mr Cook is in town, so I'm going to go along and join some drinkage organised by his social secretary, Dave. I'm expecting to see Mike and Chris, so it'll be a pleasany and somewhat unexpected pre-Christmas get-together.
I hardly ever see Mr Cook, but it's always pleasant to do so. He actually gave me the job that led me to get to know all these other people, so he clearly has a lot to answer for.
I So Love Being Patronised
So I sent an email to someone today who's doing some work on behalf of a client. We'd spoken on the phone and he'd asked me to mail him so he had my contact details. I did so, and asked him in the process what he wanted doing with a domain name we're transferring to his company. My standard mail sig notes my position as Head of New Media - I'd make the assumption that someone in that position might have at least a small idea what they were talking about, leaving myself to be proven wrong later.
But the response I got had to be seen to be believed - "if you don't know how to do this, call me and I'll talk you through it".
Patronising fuckwit.
The Israeli Situation
"That makes Israel the world's fifth largest nuclear power, boasting more bangs from Washington's bucks than Blair's Britain. And over in the other WMD basket, nobody much dissents when a report by the office of technology assessment for the US Congress concludes that Israel has "undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities" and is "generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare programme". Bombs, missiles, delivery systems, gases, germs? Tel Aviv has the lot. We only forget to remember because it's not a suitable subject for polite diplomatic conversation."
Peter Preston, in his Guardian column today If Libya can do it, why not Israel? makes a strong case (though in truth, as cases go, it doesn't need much help) that the already-over-developed, and fundamentally unusable Israeli stockpile of nuclear and biological weaponry is increasingly, glaringly, an unnecessary threat in a region where there are fewer and fewer threats which require such a deterrent.
The Joy Of Blogs
Well, one of the joys anyway:
When you write about a subject; a book, a film, an event, whatever. Every now and then someone connected to it will get in touch. Which in some cases just creates a sort of closure to what you wrote, and in others actually opens up a dialogue.
So far it's happened to me with the authors of books, people who have worked on films and TV series, and then just this weekend, a comic creator.
Back in June of 2002, I was given reason to reflect on a series from many years earlier called Open Season. I waxed lyrical about its quirky, surreal humour and its brilliant creator, Jim Bricker.
Can you see where this is going?
Mr Bricker thanks me for my kind words and asks if I have any questions. I'm a little bowled over. I shall have to have a think :-)
's Bloody Late....
And against all my original plans, I stayed on at the company Christmas do for long enough to get hammered and decide that going on to the club was a good idea,
In very many ways, tonight has been very interesting. The extremely high level of expectation attached to our joining the place creates a certain amount of pressure. but it's a positive pressure, and one that gives a lot of scope for making something really good happen out of it.
It's been an interesting day all told, featuring workshops and presentations on the company and where it's going, with Christmas gifts for everyone, and not a penny needing to be spent by anyone on anything (except the bosses of course ....)
Edit - This was originally significantly less coherent, having been written when I came in, having been drinking on and off since 11am yesterday. Note to self - never blog while drunk.
What Weapons?
This morning's headline story in The Independent makes for fascinating reading - the ongoing attempt to rewrite history regarding the reason's for the war on Iraq in particular:
"For Mr Bush, the missing weapons are a politically charged issue. Pressed to explain why his administration had asserted Saddam possessed weapons, when at best fragmentary evidence of programmes had been found, Mr Bush replied: "So what's the difference? "If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," he said in an interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer.
Mr Bush's public dismissal of the weapons issue is the latest move by Washington and London to changethe justification for war. Weapons of mass destruction, and even weapons programmes, are no longer being put forward as the reason for the invasion."
It's Not Just Me, Is It?
But it does look like the reason that Santa has 'left his Christmas shopping unattended' is in order to have a slash against the tube map, doesn't it?
PVP
PVP is a comic strip I'd never heard of until just now, but knowing I'd seen and loved
I may start checking it out regularly.
Overkill
So according to the BBC Breakfast News this morning, today's Sun devoted thirty-seven pages to the Soham case, including interviews with those who had previously laid charges against Ian Huntley and a lengthy examination of the 'blunders' on the part of various police forces involved.
Thirty seven pages. It's not just me who thinks that this is totally insane is it?
By the way, and related to a point I would have made anyway about the odd voices raised saying that these accusations should have been available for the jurors to take into account (the point being "no they shouldn't - that's not how the criminal justice system should work"), today's Independent has a very solid leading article on the case, though extremely annoyingly, even leaders are now regarded as premium content by the Indie, so unless you want to be charged for the privilege of reading it, you'll have to take my word for it....
Returned
Well, that was not too shabby. Three and a half hours flew by, filled with more incident, excitement, spectacle, and moments of just sheer heart-stopping "Bloody Hell!" than I'd imagined even this series could achieve. Far and away the best of the trilogy, if this one doesn't finally get Jackson an Oscar then the Academy will at last have shifted itself into complete irrelevance.
I was starting to lose track of the times when I found myself holding my breath, but a couple of the standouts were the lighting of the beacons from Minas Tirith and most of the shots of the various armies charging into battle. And while we're on the subject: Minas Tirith: Fucking Hell!
The criticism, which is unavoidable, and in which I reflect other views I've seen, is that it has at least three endings too many.
The Return....
Woo-Hoo! Today's the day. 7PM showing - there we'll be, wallowing in three hours and thirty five minutes of uninterrupted Middle Earth.
Empire is giving it five stars, and making all sorts of noises about the various other film series and even genres to which it throws down the gauntlet.
I'm *very* excited....
Christmas Cards
Last year, I sent out a number of electronic Season's Greetings cards to various people, including all my regular commenters, various people I only tend to communicate with electronically, and others who were getting a real card, but not necessarily until after the appropriate day (see my previous comment about the late writing of cards).
As I used Dave's handy e-card system, I had a record of who accessed theirs, and it turned out that various (sometimes surprising) people didn't. I suspect this is because I sent the message to addresses that people had used in their comments, which are sometimes not their everyday accounts, or addresses that people had been using at some point during the year but had moved on from.
So in order to avoid any confusion, if you regularly stop by, even if you don't comment, I'd like to say hi and season's greetings properly, so drop me a line with an email address that you do check, and a beautifully crafted personalised message will be winging its way to you within the next few days.
Productivity
I meant to mention that I had a curiously productive weekend - there's nothing like getting a call at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon from someone asking if they can come over on Saturday evening to focus the mind on getting the place straightened up.
Then on Sunday, as well as shopping and going to the cinema, I managed to get a bunch of Christmas cards written, which was a bit of a shock to the system, as usually I'm busy writing them the weekend immediately before the break with no hope whatsoever that they'll get where they're going in time.
And on top of that I had time to iron for the week, get myself sorted with some work stuff, and generally act like someone in control of their life.
Clearly it can't last.
Not Listing Badly
This time last year I was in a kind of list-making mania, which made its way out into a few fairly meaningless lists here at the end of the year. You will be relieved to learn that no such mania is upon me at the moment.
But I am in a slightly reflective mood, which has partly been kicked off by the realisation that I'm coming to the end of this year in very many different 'places' than I started it, or expected to end it. I say partly because I also think that the reflective and slightly melancholic nature of the farewell posting over at Troubled Diva has also had an influence, because I'm aware that I haven't been able to give this place the attention it deserves for much of this year. I haven't posted a review of anything in months (though I'll try to make an exception for The Return of the King on Wednesday); I haven't added any useful new features, and I haven't been posting here with either the frequency or thoughtfulness that I used to think (somewhat arrogantly really) were both characteristic of my blogging - indeed, I've been half-expecting to notice I've been relegated from Gert's Frequent Updaters list.
I'm hoping that the new year will help me focus on a better routine and more attention to the various parts of the site. One thing I'm thinking of doing is recreating the Opinion part of the site as a Movable Type implementation to do two things:
1) Make it quicker and easier to update, and
2) To add commenting there and allow people to dispute or discuss with my opinions.
Of course, setting that up and making it work the way I'd like to will take a bit of time, and the good news is that having been expecting to get no more than the statutory days off over Christmas and the New Year, it looks like I'll get a week and a half off here, immediately followed by a week of actual holiday in sunny Grenada, which I'm being taken on because I have far better friends than I deserve.
So hopefully during the break I'll do some fixing up around the place and get geared up for a more productive start after I get back from the Caribbean.
More a way of (private) life
I'm a couple of days late getting compliant with The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, for which I'll apologise publicly to the powers that be and all you lovely visitors.
For anyone who missed the news, the changes are primarily intended to his spammers, but also have an effect on any site that collects user information.
So if you're particularly eagle-eyed you may have spotted that there's now a link to the More a way of life.... Privacy and Cookies Policy on every page. It's over on the left. I promise I'm not doing anything bad with your info.
When The Phone Rings....
....at midnight, I usually expect it to be an overseas caller. Last night was no exception.
Simon called from Ohio for a catch up and a general check to see I'm still alive. We caught up on a whole bunch of things, including but not limited to, our respective work situations, new Doctor Who, reality TV, the likely publication date for his book, and most spectacularly of all, his recent forays into the world of film-making with the students at his college. As well as playing a professor battling zombies in Full Moon Fever, he's been filming this week for a Star Wars Episode three and a Half production in which he has a lightsabre battle with Darth Vader. By his account, the technology being used is pretty impressive, and I'm gasping for the chance to see it.
It certainly put my mundane activies well and truly into perspective.
Stuffed
That was me last night. Good dinner, and officially I avoided the obvious turkey, though unofficially, I finished Alison's, which covers the best of both worlds I suppose.
But I'm getting desperately intolerant in my old age - one of the people from Judi's 'other table' was smoking and kept using an ashtray that was on our table while we were still eating. I got thoroughly fucked off about it. I think it's the rudest, most thoughtless thing I've been subjected to in a long time. I'm usually quite tolerant of smokers, but this just wound me right up.
Season of goodwill? Bollocks to that.
First Of The Year
Seasonal meal, that is. This evening, the old Limes Grove crowd are having a somewhat depleted get-together. A small but select gathering of six of us, or strictly five and a half, as Judi's school is having its staff night out in the same place at the same time (the Gravy, where else?), so she'll be flitting. Which could be entertaining for her - how many meals will she manage to scoff?????
Fewer Guns In Brazil
I notice that a law has been passed in Brazil to outlaw the carrying of guns in public and tighten up ownership rules. James tells me that guns are riduculously easy to come by in Brazil, which have led to a situation where even bar fights end in fatalities all the time because one or other party involved has a gun with them. The next stage in the Brazilian process in a referendum in two years time on a total ban.
Sounds like quite a significant step, considering the stage things seem to have reached there.
Tales From The Blogosphere
In case anyone is wondering, I have in fact been reading the various blogs which I have listed over on the right, I just haven't had much opportunity to comment or link recently, mostly as I don't have a machine to work with at home at the moment , though I'm hoping that can be rectified from next week.
But I did want to do a quick round up of some stuff:
Gert seems to have been something of a hit at a pre-Christmas Bloggers get-together that I didn't even know was happening (like I'd have been missed....), judging by comments on her site and postings on others.
Oin and Tammy are expecting a new arrival next year.
Dave and Mike are having a good time in Thailand, and true to form, El Gatto didn't even make it home on their first night there.
Cath's got a very cool photo of a kid at the England rugby team parade on display.
Darian has embarked on what appears to be a burgeoning career as a porn star. This is in no way euphemistic or exaggerated. He's a porn star.
Lara and Roj are getting ready to leave New York, which has led Lara to note some things she'll miss and things she won't.
And with great sadness, I join the chorus of disappointment over the termination of Mike at Troubled Diva's blogging career.
Going Slow
And speaking of odd.
I received a text message last night that was sent on Friday evening. That's more than a little insane - 72 hours for the thing to make its way from one phone to another. Technology is a wonderful thing isn't it?
Not Going Slow
I didn't realise until I got to the tube station (early) this morning that the proposed industrial action 'go slow' by tube drivers had been postponed. So instead of the hour-long commute I was expecting, I did the trip in a so-far-record-time of 40 minutes door to door.
Very odd.
The British Museum
Spent a large part of yesterday at The British Museum, checking out some of the current exhibitions and getting a stunning experience of The Great Court - it was particularly impressive because of the quality of the winter sunlight and the clear sky. The whole effect made everything seem so white and crisp you'd have to have seen it to believe it.
I spent quite a lot of time looking at the Living and Dying exhibition in The Wellcome Trust Gallery, which includes the art installation, Cradle to Grave by Pharmacoepia, a disturbing item which among other things, lays out in a metres long display the number and range of prescription drugs the average man and woman in the UK will use in a lifetime. Well worth checking out.
Winter Wonderland
Nice sight: The Millennium Dome, lit up and active for the first time in a while. There's a "Winter Wonderland" event going on through this month, including a funfair and a German-style Christmas market.
As one of those people who went to the Dome in 2000 and thought it got a generally unnecessary bum rap, it's been a source of constant frustration to me that the ongoing mess over what is going to be done with the thing has never been resolved. It's definitely a good sight to see it lit up and with people coming and going.
It Seems There's No Avoiding It
Also yesterday, between coming into the office in the morning, and me leaving at night, the building's Christmas Tree was erected in the lobby - not having been out all day it gave me quite a start when the lift door opened and I was suddenly confronted by the thing.
So I guess it's official - the festering/festive season is on its way....
Big Sulks
I saw the most extraordinary display last night.
On the tube home, I was standing next to a couple who weres itting with about half a hundredweight of Hatchards bags between them. Words were being had, on a topic I didn't manage to establish, but something about having to wait for three hours featured.
The one doing all the moaning was the bloke, who was, between moans, doing a classic "I'm not talking to you" routine of staring directly in front of him and ignoring his partner's comments completely, including her observation that she'd had to wait for three hours too, and her repeated assertion that 'it' wasn't her fault. She looked extremely unhappy to be having to deal with him in this frame of mind.
Astonishingly, this isn't a young couple - I'd place them both in their forties at least, but he was literally behaving like a stereotypical sulking brat of a teenager. Rarely could you see a grown man acting more like a spoiled kid. Reminded me of my stepdad, actually.
A Big Read
I'm having an interesting time getting into the new commuting model required by the new job. There's a highly variable wait for a bus in the mix on what seems to be my optimum route, which can affect the overall duration of the journey in the morning by as much as 15 minutes. It's a bit of a change from three stops on on tube line, and I haven't yet got back into the habit of picking up a book to read en route. For such a short journey as it used to be, I'd lapsed into picking up the frequently-dreadful Metro, and I'm still doing so. It's so thin on content that I'm actually doing the word and number puzzles too.
Note to self - buy books.
And Thinking
I've been trying hard to work out what I want to say in my 'think' space this year - it's odd to be so confused about what would be the best use of this opportunity to get things off my chest, but I'm simply not sure there's very much I have that's worth sharing that's of any particularly profound consequence.
But then I reflected on the newspaper stories that have run through the last week about the increases in the number of HIV infections around the world, and it got me to thinking about something that those stories must by definition have behind them, and that's unsafe sex. I know that some proportion of the numbers are accounted for by other means of infection, but by far the most common means of transmission remains sexual.
Setting aside for the moment (though you all know I could rant at length about the misinformation being given out about the effectiveness of condoms in certain parts of the world) places where health education is not well-developed, or condoms not widely available, the unavoidable fact, borne out by general levels in the infection rate of all STDs, is that there are people here in the UK who know that HIV exists, and who still have sex with people whose sexual history and/or HIV status they don't know.
I've spoken on these occasions in the past about my own experience of having grown into sexual maturity when AIDS was already a part of the world, and the extreme paranoia that gripped the people I first came to know in the gay community when it came to sex. And I watched that shift into what I referred to as 'sensible intimacy', in which people found ways to be close and involved without giving away all measure of pleasure and excitement.
But clearly that particular trend has swung too far the other way, to the point where people are no longer being sensible. There's a gay dating site called Gaydar, on which people can list their profiles with a view to meeting like-minded souls for love, romance, friendship, or a quick shag, according to their personal preferences. One of their standard profile fields is 'Practice Safe Sex:" with options of 'Always' 'Sometimes' and 'Never'. Can I be the only one who would simply not be interested in anyone who placed themselves in anything but the 'Always' category? Don't get me wrong - in a monogamous relationship with mutual openness about HIV status, I think the ability to be truly intimate with a partner is one of the most wonderful possibilities around, but that's not what I read into those profiles.
And nor am I pretending to be a saint - I've slipped occasionally in the past myself, but that's exactly what it's been - a slip, not a plan. I know that there's also a thrill that some people experience from 'barebacking'; that it adds to the excitement of the experience for some, or simply makes the experience better for those who dislike the intrusion of latex (and I'm certainly no fan of condoms myself). But personally-speaking, I've weighed up the lack of sensation against the risk to my health, and I make my decisions. I don't exactly condemn those who knowingly make theirs differently, but I can't pretend to understand them either.
And it's not just a gay thing now any more than it ever really was - heterosexual STD and HIV infection rates also climb continually. The message, and the lesson, is being lost in all our communities.
I said last year that the slow-down in the rate of AIDS-related deaths created a situation in which the danger of complacency became all the greater. Tragically, this seems to be what is happening. Because new treatments are giving those infected the ability to live longer and better than before, the disease seems somehow less horrifying, less scary. But it's still a killer, and worst and most tragically of all, it's a killer to which no one, certainly not here in the UK at least, ever needs to fall victim to again.
So why are they?
If I had the answer to that question....
Linking
As is traditional on these occasions, I'm linking first:
As is often the case, the BBC have one of the most comprehensive online resources on a wide range of HIV and AIDS-related topics. Check out in particular the section on the worldwide spread of HIV and the series of personal stories of people Living With HIV.
The Guardian has a permanent Special Report on the subject, which is constantly updated with news and analysis, and includes last week's outstanding Observer Special HIV/AIDS In Africa
If you feel like you have some cash you'd like to contribute to a worthwhile cause, I'd point you in the direction of Cruisaid as one such, which has been working to support those living with the disease and also sponsor efforts to develop treatments for over fifteen years.
The Worlds AIDS Day site itself is a good source of general information.
And please, please, check out the Link And Think site, and stop by some of those other sites taking part in this initiative. No one participating is doing so for any other reason than to help keep awareness of this problem alive and create some light in the darkness. I'd like to point out some of the people who stop by here whose sites appear on the participating list especially - Something, sleepingsheep, terreus (apologies if I missed anyone) - but please check out others too.