SLEEPING SATELLITE

I happened to glance at the calendar this morning and noticed that there was an opaque black circle next to today's date, just as there had been on New Year's Day. Assuming that this meant 'full moon' I then tweeted about it, as you very rarely see a full moon twice in the same month. In fact, it happens literally, once in a blue moon.

As it turns out, the makers of the calendar intended an open circle to mean full moon, rather than a filled-in one. A filled-in moon (apparently) means today is the second 'new moon' of the month.*

Oh well. I saw this as a good opportunity to find out about the phases of the moon. I don't really know much about this, but it's pretty easy to remember when you think about what the words mean:

New Moon - so new you can't really see it. Try and spy it tonight. The sun isn't in the right place to light it up.

Waxing Crescent - right hand crescent (in the northern hemisphere). In about a week's time, you might be able to see it. There's also a phenomenon called 'Earthshine' which is reflected light from the Earth lighting up the rest of the moon! If you can just about see the rest of the moon with the crescent, that's lit up by Earthlight.

First Quarter - 'half-moon' right hand side (in the northern hemisphere). Most visible in the afternoon and early evening.

Waxing Gibbous - bulging but not quite full (right side illuminated). Gibbous means 'humpbacked'. Also waxing is an old-fashioned way of saying 'growing' which gives you an idea about which quarter of the lunar cycle you're in.

Full Moon - you can see all of it.

Waning Gibbous - bulging but not quite full (on the other side). Waning means disappearing or shrinking, like it was that day I howled at it after choir practice.

Last Quarter - 'half-moon' left hand side (in the northern hemisphere).

Waning Crescent - left hand crescent (in the northern hemisphere). You can usually only see this one before the dawn or during the morning. Maybe that's why the crescent on lots of national flags is the other way round. Maybe that's got nothing to do with it.

New Moon - you can't really see it.

I like the moon.

*reflecting what you actually see when you look up at the moon, I suppose. But then, shouldn't the background be black?

THE CELEBRITY WORSHIP LEADER

It's poetry time again.

I don't want to explain this one, other than to say there is a culture in some churchy-circles that I don't like - most specifically because I've seen it reflected a little bit in myself. I've heard it elsewhere too: backstage with sound-guys; in facebook posts, and overheard attitudes of people in conversations which make it seem like they're centred in completely the wrong place, given what they do. This will either make no sense at all to you, or perhaps you'll get what I'm talking about. I'm not going to explain it here.  Ask me about it when you see me.

Every stage presents a challenge - I wish I'd known that years ago.

The Celebrity Worship Leader

Clutching a coffee, flick of the hair
Folder of songs in a stylish affair
Beat-up guitar case, glittering smile
Trendiest clothes in the church by a mile

Boots on stage while he chats to the guys
Ladies who swoon at his perfect blue eyes
He winks at the sound-man, smiles at the band;
Celebrity worship, celebrity brand

Picks out the songs that he wrote on the beach
With the difficult chords and the big vocal reach
Closes his eyes and he strums the guitar
Dreaming of stages and concerts afar

Dreaming of playing to thousands of fans,
He cries on the stage and he flings wide his hands
And through every motion, he sings and he plays
Celebrity worship, celebrity praise

But deep in his heart is a truth he must know
That worship has only one Place it can go
And one day he'll realise in broken despair
That all his celebrity disappears there.

SAND

"the multi-coloured sweetshop
of tiny wonders"

It's raining. My lunchtime walk was a brisk march through curtains of water, dripping off my hood and sinking through my socks.

It reminds me of holidays. We'd sit on the beach in the kind of storm only England knows how to produce, watching the waves crash in, munching Marmite sandwiches and huddling together in anoraks under a golf umbrella.

"It'll pass," my Dad would say, "It's only a shower," or, "Think about the sea - it's wet out there!"

Sooner or later, we'd be brushing off crusty sand from our clothes and complaining about how it got into the picnic box. I know we look back on these times with rose-tinted glasses, but I kind of hope Heaven has a rain-soaked English beach somewhere where the grey sea smashes into the pockmarked sand.

Sand is fascinating: rocks and shells that have been eroded for thousands of summers and thousands of winters, rolling and crashing together, mixed and tumbled by the ocean, until finely ground into tiny grains, smaller than the ridges of your fingerprint. You can dig holes, build castles with moats, bury your Dad or even use it to time a boiled egg.

Look at it though, when it's under a microscope. The picture shows it magnified 250 times. Amazing isn't it? Like a jewellery box of priceless gems, a multi-coloured sweetshop of tiny wonders.

Somebody once said that humanity is a little like a beach made of billions of grains of sand - an ocean of tiny gemstones of which all of us are a part. I really like this idea. You may have had a lifetime of trouble, rolling in the deep of a roaring ocean, crashing mercilessly against the rough edges of other people and situations; you might think of yourself as an insignificant dot, shuffling along with all the other insignificant dots in the terrible emptiness of the world. You're not though, are you?

I walked back to the office with droplets of rain collecting on my glasses. I threw off my hood and pushed through the revolving door, swiping my feet across the mat.

"It's wet out there," said the receptionist. I smiled.

THE TINY SEED & THE FLOWERPOT: A METAPHOR

I put a little seed in some unlikely-looking soil, tightly packed inside a beautiful flowerpot. Grow, tiny seed, grow, I said hopefully as it fell.

I'm not confident that it will.

I like to think that that little seed will get all the sunshine and rain that it needs - that it's buried deep down there in the darkness, waiting for some chemistry to kick in. That's how these things begin - chemistry: a tiny spark of life in the darkest of places.

This feels like the darkest of places, the waiting. Perhaps one day soon, it will burst into the open, shoot out into the sun and explode with hope and thankfulness. I watch the flowerpot for the smallest of signs. There are none. Watch and wait, watch and wait, watch and wait.

Tiny seeds can become the tallest of trees. Perhaps one day, this little seed, sown into unlikely soil, resting in the cool darkness of the earth, will somehow be enough to tower over me in the dappled sunlight of a summer's day, to cover me from the winter snow and delight me with the colours of Autumn.

Or perhaps it will just remain a tiny seed, forlorn and hopeless in the beautiful flowerpot. Time will tell, I think to myself, in this darkest of places. Time will tell.

TELEPHONE TROUBLES

Alexander Graham Bell
1847-1922

My phone's gone weird. Every now and then it buzzes for no reason. There's nothing more disappointing than thinking you've got a tweet or a message, then discovering that your phone is simply having some kind of electronic breakdown.

It keeps switching its volume up as well. Normally, I keep it on vibrate - which is perfect for people who want to be notified without everyone around them knowing. However, that setting no longer seems to apply - now it's ALL or nothing. Life's getting embarrassing.

Yesterday at the dentist's, I tried to tap in the next appointment on my calendar. As ever, I missed the correct sequence of touch-screen keys and my phone started auto-correcting the word 'hygienist' for me audibly.

"Hugging," it said proudly and loudly.

"Would you like me to write it down for you?" asked the receptionist, stifling an unprofessional grin.

"Yes please," I said, diffidently.

-

Phones are great when they work aren' they? You can turn your voice into an electrical signal, send it zipping down a wire, through the atmosphere, into actual space, off a satellite and half-way round the world before the other person has had a chance to say 'hello'. Not only that but you can access a worldwide network of connected computers in your pocket, all chattering away to each other in real-time 1s and 0s. It would have blown Alexander Graham Bell's mind to think that this would be possible within 150 years. He was excited enough by his own wobbly little telephone.

Time for an upgrade then. This leads to inevitably difficult questions: preserving numbers, which operating system? what model? what tariff? ... I can't bear all that. Maybe I'll just give up having a phone altogether. After all, my avoidance of facebook has been the best thing I've done in 2014 - maybe I'll just extract myself from the modern world altogether, regain that simple old-fashioned life that old people go on about. Maybe I'll join the Amish! People would say "What did happen to Matt Stubbs exactly?" and other people will reply knowingly, "Well his phone went weird... and then so did he."

... If they don't already.

REGGAE REGGAE MONDAY

Not for bovine consumption

I've been practising reggae tonight. Yep, you heard me correctly: reggae.

The trouble with finding reference tracks is that it doesn't take you long before you're listening to previously unheard of classics such as Ganja Farmer and Police in Helicopter (looking for marijuana). I don't really want to practise that culture so much; I just don't think laid-back rastafarianism is going to work out for me.

I'm trying to learn how to do the bubble thing, freestyle over the top of the beat and hold a tune while being resolute with my 2 and 4 stabs. Some would say you've got to chill to get the feel of it, and the only way to do that is to properly chill, if you catch my drift. I might push the boat out and buy an extra can of Lilt, but that's as far as it goes.

It's difficult to be focused and relaxed at the same time. That's the thing with reggae - if it's not natural to you and you struggle to feel it, you have to be mindful of the beat and the cross-rhythms all the time. It does require a kind of tightness to the rhythm and the timing. However, it also requires a sunshine-soaked freedom to kick back and feel the music move you. I noticed today too that a lot of the chord progressions are jazz-themed. Who doesn't love a jazz-themed chord progression?

Anyhow, enough of the tech talk. What's been going on in the world? Well, you know how a headline is supposed to both grab your attention and concisely give you all the facts all at the same time?

Flatulent Cows Start Fire at German Dairy Farm

BERLIN (Reuters) - Methane gas from 90 flatulent cows exploded in a German farm shed on Monday, damaging the roof and injuring one of the animals, police said.

High levels of the gas had built up in the structure in the central German town of Rasdorf, then "a static electric charge caused the gas to explode with flashes of flames," the force said in a statement.

One cow was treated for burns, a police spokesman added.

What a story. The last little detail is my favourite - I'm not sure why we need to know that one cow had to be treated for burns. I pictured her shaking a sorry head in the back of an ambulance while paramedics wrapped her in a foil blanket:

"I said it, I blooming said it, didn't I? didn't I say it? 'Go outside,' I said, 'if you're going to be doing that,' but hoho no! Someone had to go trumpin' away like there was no tomorrow."

I also think there's something intrinsically funny about a small explosion of cows - though I am grateful that most of them were OK.

Well folks, there is a tomorrow of course, and it's got Tuesday written all over it. I quite like the idea of being focused and relaxed at the same time. Maybe I'll master the technique and have a kind of Reggae Reggae Tuesday. When my boss asks me for those patch release notes I've been working on for two weeks, maybe I'll take a swig of the old Lilt and suggest we all just take it easy as the release notes will be arrivin' in their own sweet time.

In hindsight, I think I'd better lay off the Lilt.

SOME SPECULATION ABOUT THE ART AND HISTORY OF DENTISTRY

"Someone's taking the mick."

I went to the dentist today. Or rather, I should say, I went to see the dental hygienist. As I was lying under the interrogation lamp, trying to ignore the terrible sounds scraping through my skull, I was wondering at what point in the history of medicine, dentistry branched off and became a separate thing altogether. I would have asked but it was impossible at the time.

I have my suspicions. I think it might have evolved from the practice of barbaric medieval torturing monks, trying to extract valuable information from heretics and dissenters. Oh, it's all there - the shiny rack of hooked implements with sharp, curly points, the odd machinery and the pious instruction to keep a sanctified mouth; not to mention the extortion of your hard-earned coins for the privilege.

It's OK. My dental hygienist is my sister (not the one I don't text). You might think this is a bit weird, but it's surprisingly OK. Incidentally, she is a fully qualified hygienist in a proper surgery; we haven't just rigged up some kind of makeshift dentist's chair out of old boxes and mirrors in the garage. It has pictures on the wall and everything.

Yes, that reminds me. The pictures. Maybe I'm reading too much into the smartly framed photographs at my local dental surgery, but I think someone's taking the mick. As the chair whirred me upright I noticed a lovely picture of Stonehenge. And why not? Our nation's finest example of prehistoric monumentia, a neolithic reminder of the constancy and legacy of human endeavour, of our inescapable desire for something greater as we seek to glimpse the sunrise between the stones and the stars.

Or... a giant row of wobbly teeth.

I couldn't help noticing downstairs too, in the waiting room, that they'd gone for monochrome pictures of vast, gaping halls, stretching back into the darkness, into vacuous chasms of blackness, tunneling backwards from the foreground of marble-white pillars and arches: actual cavities.

The hygienist gave me a little plastic cup with some green minty liquid swirling around in it. I rinsed and handed it back to her.

"Right," she said. "Time for the Cavitron."

"Is that the thing that tastes of oranges?"

"Nope. This is the thing that's a lot of noise and a lot of water."

"Oh," I said cheekily, "Just like Alton Towers."

It wasn't.

LESS IS MORE

"Hpfy bmfday"

Church was top-drawer today. I've annoyed myself again though, by playing too many fiddly bits instead of keeping it steady with the patches. I've got to learn how to hold back - to remember that less is more. Someone asked me when my week off will be, which I thought was hilarious. When I realised that they weren't actually looking forward to me not playing, I stopped chuckling and told them that it's in two weeks' time.

Two weeks' time will be the closest weekend to my birthday. Despite my best wishes, I will be ticking over to the ripened age of 36, and trying hard not to think about all the things I could have done in the three dozen revolutions here on Planet Earth. In the meantime, people are starting to ask whether there's a plan for socialising to celebrate - and there isn't of course because I'm not very good at organising things like that.

I'll just about manage to take cakes into work, I hope. That seems to be the thing to do: celebrate your birthday by watching your colleagues grazing on doughnuts and yumyums. "Hpfy bmfday," they mumble as they pass your desk.

I'll also manage to keep my other tradition of a lovely trip to a museum. This is something I've done for the last few years. I think it might be the turn of the National Gallery this time; maybe a little visit to the British Museum as well if there's time.

There's a delicious anonymity to London on a drizzly February day. I find myself blending invisibly into the crowd: a single pixel in the vast greyscale image that is our nation's capital. It's strangely comforting - especially when it's your birthday.

A single pixel. Hmm. It's probably best if I don't dwell on that. Less is more, after all.

PAINTING DAY

I've spent most of the day painting. Paint's amazing stuff: in the pot, in the tray, even on the roller, it's gloopy, swirly, sticky stuff like white custard in a tin. As soon as it's on the wall though, the paint seems to stick to the plaster without so much as a drip peeling down towards the skirting boards. Thixotropy, I think they call that. Magic, I say.

I was painting the walls of the new conservatory, and trying my best not to get annoyed. I'm not much of a do-it-yourselfer; I suffer from terrible clumsiness and a chronic lack of practical confidence when it comes to those fiddly little jobs that need to be done in a certain way. Quite why I volunteered to paint the walls today then, I don't know.

"I'll do it!" I'd said in a moment of enthusiasm. The Intrepids were taking Liam (my nephew) out for a day trip to what he's been calling the "Splitfire Museum" - I'd have the day to myself to get it done.

Stick the radio on, I thought, whack some old clothes on, get the roller and the paint. Boom. Simple.

Some hours later, with my face flecked with white paint, my splodged bare toes cold against the terracotta tiles, and two pairs of socks ruined, I was regretting the moment of enthusiasm and naivity that had led me to this splattered afternoon.

The radio annoyed me too. I was listening to people talking about football. They were talking about it as though it were the most complicated and important thing in the history of mankind. Nowhere else in society can people get away with saying absolutely nothing useful with so many cliches.

"Course, what City do well is they play from the back, so that they can push through the middle and they're strong up front." = they're a good team.

"Well Brendan's an experienced manager, he won't be treating this lightly; you'd expect the lads to be too strong for Bournemouth today, but you never know in this competition - anything could happen." = they'll win but don't switch off your radios, folks.

"There's no doubt he really believes in the romance of the cup; a great thing for top managers these days."

The romance of the cup? I'm no expert on romance but the unexpected triumph of a team of men kicking a ball around in a slightly luckier way than the other team, while thousands of other men cheer them on... is not particularly romantic.

I've misunderstood the beautiful game, haven't I? Probably because I disliked the way the beautiful game treated me at school. I quite like knowing about it - it gives me something to talk to people about - but I'm not a massive fan of the culture that somehow follows it around. And I can't play it for toffee.

I probably should have opened the windows. While the January sun poked its way through the clouds and burned through the glass roof, I rolled emulsion up and down the smooth walls inside. I don't know whether emulsion gives off fumes with the same potency as gloss - I do know that I was feeling a bit queasy by the end and I had to have a lie down. At least, that's what the purple dragons recommended.

LET'S GRAB A COFFEE

Really proud of the choir tonight. They picked up You've Got a Friend very quickly and by the end, it was sounding reasonable for a first run-through. Also, currently the number of people who are in a huff with me is down to a magnificently low: 1, so that's a relief.

I've never understood sulking. What does it achieve? It's like staying at home with the bitter pill you're forcing yourself to drink in order to teach someone you're avoiding, a lesson. If there is a problem with me, the most logical and sensible thing to do is to talk to me about it, surely? I thought I'd made myself as approachable as possible too. Oh well. I'm thicker-skinned about these things than I used to be.

Speaking of being thick-skinned, I had this phone conversation today:

"Matt, really looking forward to our coffee next week."
"It's tomorrow."
"Oh. Yes, so it is. Really looking forward to our coffee tomorrow."

I laughed, but it wasn't funny. It suddenly struck me that neither of us actually drink coffee. He's a tea drinker; so am I. Yet both of us were content to use 'coffee' as a kind of umbrella term for something else - a catchup, a meeting, a whatever. We will indeed catch up over a tea, but somehow that doesn't sound quite right. From tentative first dates to informal job interviews, from mid-morning chinwags to tellings off, "Let's grab a coffee" seems to be the thing to say.

What is it with coffee anyway? Fancy machines in middle-class kitchens, foil bags of beans flown in from South America, frothy milk at the perfect temperature, office workers who can't even say a polite good-morning until they've imbibed a grotty espresso... it's all a bit ridiculous I think.

I know I'm in the minority. A quick walk through the town centre's enough to tell me that; or perhaps the fact that we have a Nestle 3000 (I really ought to find out what its proper name is) replicating coffee next to the vending machine at work. By contrast, we don't even have a teapot in the office - just a jar of PG Tips pyramid bags and a hot water boiler attached to the wall.

Is coffee really that great though? I'm not convinced. Talk about a bitter pill you're forcing yourself to drink! I'd better not take on all you coffee-drinkers on though. There's a lot of you, with your cardboard cups and your bleary-eyed mornings. Maybe one day when I'm a new father or I have some high-powered job that requires my utmost attention in those moments before the sun twinkles above the glassy horizon... maybe then I'll understand it. Until then...

Stick the kettle on.

YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND

Choir starts again tomorrow. In a last-minute flurry of dots and squiggles, I found myself finishing off the latest arrangement. I dislike that I end up arranging music but it's so difficult to find appropriate parts. The music has to be simple enough for my singers to pick-up, and yet somehow interesting enough to make it fun.

What I usually end up with is a bit of a compromise: simple tunes with mildly interesting harmonies and nothing too unpredictable. This time it's You've Got a Friend by Carole King, covered by James Taylor among countless others. We're not quite ready for Handel's Messiah.

As I mentioned on Twitter today, arranging music seems to take up pretty much all my concentration. There aren't many things that are quite so intense, but this turns me into a grunting neanderthal if I'm asked to consider rejoining the real world at any point. I'm no multi-tasker at the best of times, but this orchestration of voices seems to require me to be completely laser-focused on the job in hand.

Part of the reason I find it so exacting is that I'm not really very good at it. I've always been a feel-it-play-it musician. I love the sense that the piano keys are moving underneath my fingertips and I can roll them any way that I like until I like what I hear. I've always thought music should be like that, if it can be. The technical side of learning an instrument is supposed to enhance your ability to express yourself through it - that's all.

This rather hippyish approach that I've adopted has meant that the idea of annotating my creative expression is a little bit 'square'. However, it has to be done sometimes - especially for other people to be able to follow it. Even the free-love movement had to give way to accountancy, I suppose.

And so it is I find myself on nights like these, scratching my head trying to remember how to break the beaming pattern of a bunch of quavers.

On top of that, the lyrics of You've Got a Friend made me analyse how I define what a friend is. You'll be relieved to know that I don't have time to go into all of that. However, you should also know that if we are actually friends, I'd love to be the guy that says he'll be there if the sky's full of clouds or that old north wind's about to blow. All you have to do is call.

Just as long as it's not a night when I'm arranging music.

TIRED

"Of course it's good for you.
Eat up, little Timmy, eat up."

Late night McDonald's seems less of a clever idea this morning. That's the thing with the golden arches - it calls out to you, enticing you in, like the fabled sirens singing out to wayward sailors. Then, when it's too late, you wake up feeling like you've eaten salty cardboard.

Well, not so much the salty cardboard this time. I only had a tea and a muffin. I am tired though... and yes, I'm blaming Ronald McDonald. Yeah, Ronald; grabbing the wheel of my car and pulling me into the car park at 9:30pm on a school night. What were you playing at, making me sit there listening to your terrible music and drinking the milky tea you made me ask for and pay for quite politely thank you very much. What a cheek.

THE GOLDEN ARCHES

I had a few minutes spare tonight, so I popped into McDonald's for a milky tea and a chocolate muffin.

I'm not a massive customer. I can never decide what to have. I stand there, several feet away from the counter, gazing up at the illuminated board of shiny burgers, while an orange-shirted, baseball-capped teenager drums her fingers on the till.

"Can I help you?" she says in a way that's somewhere between friendly and slightly menacing. I remind myself that she's probably been trained to perfect that particular tone and timing - and I smile politely.

I used to have a technique for this situation. I'd stay cucumber-cool as I scanned the menu for a second, then I'd simply approach the till and order a "quarter-pounder-with-cheese-meal-with-an-orange-juice"... every time. I vaguely like a quarter-pounder-with-cheese-meal-with-an-orange-juice and it was simple to remember. Plus the quarter-pounder-with-cheese-meal-with-an-orange-juice is significantly easier to eat than a BigMac.

Oh. Who in the world doesn't get furious... when the thing you're trying to eat falls apart at the exact moment you pick it up? A BigMac is sticky-fingers and a box full of salad. It's a disgrace. At least with a quarter-pounder-with-cheese-meal-with-an-orange-juice you can handle the thing without it disintegrating.

Anyway, I'm digressing. I'm also painting the picture that I go to McDonald's a lot more than I'm letting on - and I really don't. These are experiences over a long period of time: from GCSE revision to uni-breakfasts to youthwork meetings. Tonight, I needed a quick cup of tea and the golden arches are on my way home.

They were playing some really odd music in there.

It was quite empty; no screaming highchair-bound kids covered in the gloopy remains of a McFlurry, no teenagers flirting with each other or blowing straw-covers at pensioners. There was me, a tea swirling in a cardboard cup and a chocolate muffin - and nothing else to cover up the odd pounding of popular music.

I think it's kind of generic MaccyD pop that they pipe into these places. When you listen to some of the lyrics, you realise that they just doesn't make sense. It's no wonder teenagers are confused half the time. Some guy was warbling about giving his heart away and feeling something or other about it with a plan to journey to the centre of the earth while not knowing who his parents were, while the drums and bass were exploding behind him. Another seemed to be some kind of hip-hop rapping tramp, desperate for 'dollar' which he wanted either to 'share' or 'borrow' (it wasn't clear) without being specific about the terms of repayment. I didn't recognise any of it. I guess they don't play a lot of Classic FM in there.

After a while, I slipped my phone into my pocket and drained the dregs of the tea. Another orange-t-shirt was pushing a mop around the immaculate floor. I swiped the contents of the blue tray into the bin and swung my rucksack onto my back. The mop-lady smiled at me with envy as I carefully stepped past her and out through the doors into the cold. I found myself hoping that she goes home to a nice cup of earl grey and a bit of Mozart.

THE FEAST OF ST FRUCTUOSUS

Thou shalt remember
thy sister's birthday.

It's my oldest sister's birthday today, so I sent her a text message:

Happy birthday, old bean. Sorry I can't make it later. Hope you have a nice day.

It was about then that I scrolled up to see that the last message I'd sent was frighteningly similar... and exactly a year old.

Is it terrible that I only text my sister once a year? When I looked further back in time, it turned out that the conversation before that took place in August 2012. I asked her a music question and she answered at great length on the topic of altered dominant scales.*

Not only is it my sister's birthday, but it's also the feast day of St Fructuosus (Wikipedia tells me). There's not a lot known about him, but it seems he was a bishop in Hispana (Spain) in the Third Century. Going to bed one night, he was arrested (presumably for being a bishop) and dragged (presumably not diagonally) in front of the Roman Governor, on the 21st of January, 269AD.

Rome at that time was ruled by an Emperor called Valerian, who didn't much like Christians. He thought that everyone ought to toe the linea Romana and get on with worshipping Jupiter and Bacchus and all the rest of those garlanded marble statues that never did very much. If you said no, it would probably be the last thing you said. Rebels weren't treated nicely in the Empire.

Fructuosus did ask if he could pop his shoes on though and the guards said that was OK. After a short interrogation, which I imagine went something like this:

Governor: So, still worshipping God then?
Fructuosus: Yup.

... someone hauled in some wood, tied the bishop and two of his acolytes to the pile and then set the whole thing alight.

"Officers were posted to prevent any demonstration because even the pagans loved Fructuosus due to his rare virtues. The Christians accompanied them with sorrow tempered with joy. The faithful offered Saint Fructuosus a cup of wine, which he refused because, being it was only 10:00 a.m., it was too early to break the fast."

- Catholic Saints of the Day
http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0121.shtml

He seems completely unconcerned that he's about to be martyred. He just carried on doing what he knew was right, fearlessly and faithfully. I really love that - he was operating on a different level.

I'm not even faithful enough to text my sister in between birthdays.

*She's a musician.

BLUE MONDAY

It's supposed to be 'Blue Monday' today. I forgot all about it, so I've turned up to work feeling happy and contented. And who could blame me? When I walked in this morning, the world was postcard-perfect: a bright, cold sky, sparkling frost and the low wintry sun casting long shadows through the morning mists. There's very little to be blue about on such days.

"Morning," I said to my colleagues, cheerily. Nothing. I smiled, slipped out of my coat and swivelled into my chair.

It's funny how we have our little morning routines. Mine goes right down to the detail. I pulled my keyboard out in front of me, rubbed my hands together to get the circulation flowing and then punched Ctrl+Alt+Delete to log in.

Even the computer had somehow twigged it was 'Blue Monday'. It took forever to get past the Welcome screen (which is, incidentally, blue). I went through to the kitchen and made a hot chocolate while it struggled to remember who I was.

We have an extraordinary coffee machine. It has futuristic, angled buttons and when you punch in your selection, the whole thing illuminates your cup with cool-blue lights. Much to the developers' chagrin though, it uses powdered milk and a brown powder that's supposed to taste like coffee. Some time ago, someone told The Big Cheese that 'proper coffee' would be a winner with the engineering department but failed to specify. What could be more apposite then, TBC must have thought to himself, than a Star-Trek-style replicator globbing out perfect coffee every time?

It's not too popular down here but it makes a feasible hot-choc.

While the Nestle 3000 (or whatever it's called) was whirring and flashing away, I did my usual scan of the vending machine. This little ritual is probably the closest I get to 'window shopping' - focusing past my reflection in the cold glass and counting the Bounties. I couldn't help noticing that they've put the prices up. Unbelievable. Twirls are now a staggering 75p. Even the humble KitKat Chunky sets you back 65 of your English pence!

It suddenly felt like Blue Monday was out to get me. In fact, when I got back to my desk, I opened two emails that may as well have been Exocet missiles zipping through the air towards my good humour. I quickly replied as graciously as I could muster - the most effective defence against sarcasm I know.

It's supposed to be the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday. It's a complicated calculation involving nebulous factors like Time Since Christmas, Debt Incurred, Weather and Motivation Level.

Depressing. 

Only, it's not is it?

I did a little research and guess what? Blue Monday was invented by a travel company! Yup, suddenly it all fits together. You've seen the ads: sandy white beaches, flowing cotton, impossibly blue skies and sunsets over wine glasses. The travel companies know what they're up to in bleak old January in 'miserable' old England.

Blue Monday is just another marketing ploy to get us all thinking about jetting off to parts of the world where we don't need to pack extra socks and an umbrella. It's a subtle trick, designed to persuade us that life is depressing and that little things like holidays are the only hope we've got of turning the battleship-grey skies of the ordinary into the brilliant blues and yellows of a perfect vacation.

Well listen up, Britain. That's not the truth. You don't have to have a Blue Monday. You can decide. You can make a choice to change your own atmosphere and find a little sunshine wherever you are.

-

Apparently, it's also Penguin Awareness Day. Are you aware of penguins? Goodo. Me too. I'd much rather celebrate that than how depressed some company thinks I ought to be. After all, we can climb aboard a metal tube and zip off to Benidorm; these little fellas can't fly anywhere at all, and they've got actual wings. They just get on with it.

I could learn a lot from penguins.

SUNSPOTS AND APOSTROPHES

the sun in happier times

It's another quiet Saturday. The Intrepids are chatting about prescriptions and the new conservatory and going to Swanage and whatever else needs to be talked about (apparently). There's tea and leftover chocolates and Classic FM. I'm doing some reading.

Scientists think the sun might be falling asleep. For the last three hundred years or so, it's been quite predictable, our lovely clockwork star: every eleven years, it bursts with solar flares and sunspots - sometimes thousands of which are peppered across its fiery surface.

Sunspots are 'cold' patches on the sun's outer surface which are formed by magnetic flux. They're a bit like the eddies or whirlpools you sometimes see in water. They are a great way to measure solar activity... and at the moment, there aren't any. In fact, since 2004, sunspots have been gradually disappearing.

I don't think we should be massively worried. The sun isn't about to blink out like a giant lightbulb. It's not ready to swell up like an enormous balloon either, as most stars do when they reach the end of the Hertzsprung-Russell chart. Nope. This kind of thing has happened before. Notably in the Seventeenth Century, during the Maunder Minimum.

"It's 11.3 out there," said my Dad, looking at the remote thermometer. The sensor's perched on the windowsill of the conservatory, measuring the ambient temperature as the plaster dries. Apparently, double figures is a good thing. "What it is outside is another matter."

We talk about the weather a lot; especially in this house. When it snows we don't hear the end of it. My Dad has gadgets measuring all sorts of statistics and odd weather seems to light him up.

Weather itself of course, is driven by the sun's activity (in a complicated balance) - which is why this sunspot problem could have some surprising results. The Maunder Minimum of the late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Centuries for example, corresponded to the Little Ice Age, which threw most of Europe into decades of cold, long winters. Professor Lockwood of Reading University thinks there's a 20% chance this could happen again.

I had a quick look round for my winter gloves.

-

Not only are sunspots disappearing; apostrophes are on the way out too apparently! I just heard on the radio that Cambridge Council are abolishing apostrophes on street signs! What a bunch of jokers - in the seat of learning as well: the hub of academia and one of the world's oldest University Cities.

Astonishingly, the national guidelines for new street names suggest that apostrophes might 'lead to mistakes - particularly for emergency services'. I don't understand. It's incorrect - that in itself, is a mistake. Alright, it's not a life-threatening mistake, but it's still wrong. And anyway, what kind of mistakes are they envisaging?

"St Peter's Close, Jim."

"You what?"

"St Peter's Close."

"Where?"

"Up the King's Avenue."

"What's he doing there?"

"Who?"

"St Peter!"

"Just drive."

It says something about me I think, that I'm more worried about this than I am about the disturbing lack of sunspots. The trouble is, if apostrophes start disappearing, people everywhere will start asking what the point of these curious little punctuation marks are at all. And then where will we be? The hipster apostropherminators won't stop at lasering out the possessives. Soon the contractive apostrophe will be lined up in their crosshairs - and not just on street signs. We'll have to cope with typing: Thisll be fun LOL. and Dont worry about me Ill be fine. Shudder.

"Why bother with them at all? " they'll chime in some focus group, pushing their Google Glasses up the bridges of their trendy noses. "We all get confused with the pesky its and it's don't we? Stuff it - let's get rid of that nonsense. And what the flip is the comma for, while we're at it? The comma? Pft! We don't need that old thing. Yeah! It's the revolution, man! Get with it, you squares."

I'm with the squares. Bring on the ice age.

WHAT I THOUGHT ABOUT IN A MEETING

I'm fed up of meetings. I zoned out in one today because it had nothing to do with me. The guy who looks like David Mitchell was expounding in some developer-speak about Microsoft Exchange, Kerberos, NTLM and some other stuff I only half understood.

My favourite kind of meetings are the ones that happen spontaneously. If I could, I'd put myself in the place where I'm likely to see my favourite people all the time. There'd be tea and cakes, probably, and a loosely framed agenda.

But you can't run the world like that. Things have to be organised and efficient and recorded and audited. Still, it occurs to me that meetings, especially work meetings, are just not the best use of time. They spin off at ridiculous tangents, they soak up more of the day than they're ever allocated, and a lot of the content could be solved by a quick volley of well-worded emails.

People get really formal as well, sometimes. Give them a label like 'secretary', or 'chairman', or 'scrum-master' perhaps, and they conduct the whole affair as though it's an emergency convention of the UN security council. Either that or they go the other way and slide into irrelevant nonsense. I was in a meeting about charity giving days once and we ended up discussing the best way to work out how many spherical balls with a given diameter would fit in a plastic tube. Fascinating maths, but no-one had the sense to interrupt.

I think we Brits suffer from two conditions which make our meetings inefficient. We're polite and we're easily bored. The politeness prevents us from rudely dragging the meeting back to where it was supposed to be, and the boredom drags us away again. I think a lot of meetings drag on because these two things are constantly at odds with each other.

In fact, that's probably one reason why we need agendas. Someone realised long ago that meetings were getting hijacked by people who were bored with what everyone else was talking about and wanted to talk about what they wanted to talk about. The Bored People made their favourite topic fit somehow with something somebody said and tangentialised the whole thing until we were all clamouring over their own personal hobby-horse. If only there were some way of stopping them getting distracted from the point...

The Polite People need to be a bit more assertive, I think. That would help too.

[Sales Guy]: Well of course, the financial year graph doesn't prove anything set out by the big cheeses (chortle) because the trend line is only drawn between two points in this quarter here, instead of three, and that one. It's a bit like saying Einstein worked out relativity by just guessing.

[Boron the Engineer]: Well he did in a way. You do know he used to do thought experiments?

[Marketing Millie]: Thought experiments, really? What do you mean?

[Boron]: He used to imagine himself sitting on a photon, travelling at close to the speed of light. Then he'd imagine another light particle at similar speeds next to him and...

[Polite Paul]: Shut up, Boron. What's that got to do with anything?

Alright, Polite Paul's probably not going to be known as Polite Paul for much longer. They'd have to call him something less pleasant. He may even find his computer wrapped in clingfilm one of these days, but at least he can console himself that his meetings don't go on for half the day.

There are better ways to do this, of course. I'm not really advocating being incredibly rude to people at work meetings. I'd just like them to be a bit more focused, and relevant to the people who are actually there.

I was a bit worried that David Mitchell was going to interrupt my daydreaming by turning to me and asking me what I thought about his idea for designing the authentication user interface. He didn't though. I don't think clever people like that value my opinion on such highfalutin matters.

Either that or he's just far too polite.

ADDING UP

Right. I'm not married; not even close. In fact, I can't really imagine it. However, it hasn't stopped me thinking about how it works. As a result, I've written a little ditty. It's not much but I quite like it.

Adding Up

There's one of me and one of you,

And one plus one is surely two,

So me plus you is you plus me;

A simple sum of symphony.

A simple sum? But God is three!

(The one they call the Trinity),

And he's with you and also me,

The threefold chord in harmony.

So altogether that makes five,

To keep our married life alive,

The Father, Spirit and the Son

Plus you and me in unison.

And someday soon, as time goes by,

The five of us will multiply,

And on that day when life's begun,

We'll hear a zero flip to one.

Oh sum of sums! For then we'll be

A one, a two, a six, a three!

And somehow out of nought but me

The Father made a family

THE TORTOISE, THE HARE... AND THE INCREDIBLE HULK

You won't like me when I'm angry

I'm having a bit of a meltdown tonight. I think it's because I've been up since 5:30. It's not a nuclear meltdown; I haven't slipped into an angry mushroom cloud or anything. It's more of a quiet leave-me-alone-in-the-corner type meltdown. I get these from time-to-time.

Oh it's not all sugary sweet in Stubbsytown. No siree. We have our fair share of caramel fires and marshmallow blowups round these parts. Tonight, I've just let the smallest things get right under my skin, and so to minimise the collateral damage, I've shut myself away in my room where I can pray and ask for a little help.

Crikey. It's like being the Hulk. Every week, Bill Bixby would walk off into the distance to the sound of that melancholy piano playing the Lonely Man Theme. That's depressing. I need to snap out of it. What's going on in the world?

Tortoise beats rabbit in China pet ski-off

That's quite a headline.

A tortoise beat a rabbit in a skiing competition held for pets and their owners in China, a report said on Tuesday.

In an unexpected outcome akin to an ancient Greek fable, a tortoise beat a rabbit, with the shelled reptile eventually claiming third place overall, the report said.

"Because the rabbit loved jumping and didn't follow its owner's commands, it was overtaken by the tortoise," it said.

Source: AFP/AFP

It turns out that the poor tortoise was simply strapped to some skis - which is a dreadful (if aerodynamic) thing to do. Meanwhile, rabbits do like jumping; oh they love a bit of jumping, rabbits. It's almost as though they're designed for that sort of thing. That's why it's always struck me as odd that 'ancient Greek fable' - I don't think it's very fair.

First of all, the race is designed to test who is the fastest of the animals. Will it be specimen A: note the long athletic legs and quick reflexes, the darting eyes and the nervous energy... or will it be specimen B: an ancient reptile with a massive shell on its back, noted chiefly for its longevity and low speed? Alright, the hare gets complacent while the tortoise understands the value of perseverance. Slow and steady wins the race, quote the masses. Try telling that to Usain Bolt.

In the end, the fable is nothing to do with speed at all - it's a clever way of letting us know that character is more important than gifting. It's just a little unfair how it gives a whole load of tortoises the idea that they can outrun rabbits.

I guess on skis, they can.

The Hulk is all about character and gifting too. Bruce Banner is utterly conflicted by the monster that rages inside him, just as Dr Jekyll was repulsed by the diminutive Mr Hyde in the Victorian story. These are tales about what boils within us, seething and bubbling and fuming... and how we handle it; about how we perceive ourselves, and how we judge our own behaviour around others... which is rather apt, as I sit here alone, trying not to sink into depression with myself. My one bit of thankfulness is that I know Jesus, a man who demonstrates perfect control and shows how a man's character is designed to dovetail with his gifting. I have a feeling he won't let me walk down the road like Bill Bixby.

I'll be alright tomorrow.

THE SENSIBLE END

not a picture of Siberian miners

I just read an article about two drunk Russian men who cut off their ears to settle a bet. Apparently, they couldn't decide which of them had won an arm-wrestling contest, so both agreed to forfeit an ear.

These were Siberian miners. You've got to admit, that's a tough job, mining in Siberia. There was no mention of what they were mining for. I wanted it to be dilithium. I instantly pictured them circling each other in a snowy cave, like a scene from Star Trek. One flicks out a knife from beneath his furs and the other growls, showing his grizzly yellow teeth through an oily beard. The drums beat, the orchestra stabs at diminished off-beat chords as the tension rises...

I've not got the kind of job that will drive me to sozzle myself in bootlegged vodka. Nor am I likely to challenge my colleagues to a high-stakes drunken arm wrestle. I am very grateful for this, even if I do have to research how email encryption works. There'll be no cave-circling for me, Sergei. At least not today.

Perhaps foolishly, I have agreed to go on the next Engineering Curry Night. I've been to two of these affairs before. The first was well-mannered and short: classy conversations, nice food, fine ales and good company. The second was a little more... kindergarten. I went home feeling furious that night.

I can hear the tension-music as I think about it. I'm hoping that it will be alright. Alcohol always seems to push people into different states at different speeds. At the end of the debacle last time, one of the students shuffled up to our end of the table and said, "This is definitely the sensible end," which I took as a compliment, while trying to duck under the spoonfuls of pilau rice which were hurtling through the air.

The Sensible End. Onboard the starship Enterprise while the away team fight it out in the cave. Do you remember when 'sensible' was the opposite of 'naughty'? I think one of the great tragedies in society has taken place, almost imperceptibly, by switching the antonym of sensible to 'fun'. You can either be 'sensible' or you can be 'fun'... but you can't be both, it seems.

Well, yes, you can. Yes, you flipping well can. You can have a great night out too without getting drunk, while we're at it. And anyway, if we're going to get picky, the opposite of sensible is probably something like foolish or ignorant...or maybe stupid... like slicing off your ears in a Siberian mine to settle an inebriated wager. I don't mind being at the sensible end if that's where the alternative takes you.

Spock out.

I said Spock out.

I said... Spock... oh never mind, Sergei, never mind.

PLANNING POKER

I feel as though my body's falling apart. Muscles are tight, eyes are heavy, limbs feel like they could just drop off at any moment. It is the end of the week and I am super-tired. Tiredness is a ruffian sometimes: he creeps up behind you, tiptoeing like a medieval pickpocket, waiting to duff you up. And then he does, whacking you round the head with a yawny stick, stealing your efficiency, robbing your ability to words use in right order the in... and all the rest of your exhausted faculties while he's at it. Cad.

Alternatively, it may be because today I sat through a six hour planning meeting.

Yes (sigh) who knew when we embarked on our quest as Team Spamalot, that we would encounter such lengthy discussion upon our travels? Who indeed squire, could have predicted the discourse in meeting room F on a steadily darkening afternoon?

I must admit actually, that I did know it would be that long. When I explained it to a friend of mine yesterday, she was taken aback by the thought of spending six hours in a planning meeting. For some reason by way of explanation, I then went on to explain Planning Poker to her, and she recoiled in a kind of incredulity.

"That is random!" she said, and not in a quirky interested way. It was more as though she'd just seen a spider wearing a tiny hat.

So I thought, tonight, as I sit here aching all over, that I'd do my best to explain Planning Poker. If you're into Agile engineering, or you know some zany software developers, this will come as no surprise. You may even have played Planning Poker yourself. Lucky you.

Planning Poker is a way of estimating a whole bunch of tasks in a project.

Firstly, your team writes down every single task they can think of which needs to be complete for the project to be considered finished. Today it was the Professor's turn to scribe the tasks upon the whiteboard. That took about an hour for each feature, believe it or not.

Then, the whole team goes over the tasks again, one-by-one. However, this time, each of the team members is given a pack of Planning Poker Playing Cards. These are cards which each have a number printed on them: 0, 1/2, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100 or the infinity symbol. As you go through the tasks on the whiteboard, you have to pick a card from your pack which you think represents the complexity of the task. Everyone does the same; each member of the team placing their cards face down on the table. When ready, the team members then flip their card over to reveal their numbers.

The idea is to reach a consensus. Using some complicated algorithm, the score of each task gets translated from 'complexity' into 'how long will it take' and a bright spark somewhere adds up the numbers to get a ballpark figure about how long the project will take as a whole.

What it looks like to a casual observer, is a load of software developers playing cards in a meeting room. That's what it looked like to me when I first played Planning Poker. What's more, my problem is that I don't have a clue how difficult it is to deploy a bit of UI or rewrite a 'milter'... What in the world is a milter anyway? I don't know what a unit test does and I couldn't care less about validators, consolidators, motivators, rotivators, flibberty-gibbets or howdy-dooberiees.... (I made some of those things up by the way).

I'm a technical author. I live in the front end of the design where the user skips about on the grass, clicking checkboxes and expanding drop-down lists. Out here in the sunshine, the blissful users and I, we're unaware of the horrors that lurk beneath the soil, the complexity of the ecosystem that's working under the lawn to keep it green and fresh... at least while it's working, anyway, we don't really care.

The first time I played Planning Poker, my estimates were so wildly out I may as well have just played the infinity card for every task. Today I was a bit more with it.

That's really all there is to Planning Poker. Was my friend right? Is it a bit weird? Oh what fun. All you non-software types, you're really missing out on big-time entertainment with your normal lives and your enviable ability to socialise.

I'm off to sleep before that scoundrel from the middle ages comes back for a second round of fatigue-inducing muscle-ache.

A TEDIOUS DAY, THE ORIGINS OF SPAM AND A GIANT RUBBER DUCK

It was a tedious day today. I've been allocated to Team Spamalot, the scrum team responsible for enhancements for our anti-spam features. It was either that, or Team Awesome and I definitely don't think I qualify for that at work. Spamalot's much more up my street.

I looked up spam today. The use of the word in the context of unwanted email came about from a Monty Python sketch set in a cafe. As the waitress reads out the menu, it becomes apparent that everything listed tends to be served with spam, a type of processed meat:

Man: Well, what have you got?

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam...

Soon some vikings are singing heartily about spam and it's your typical Pythonesque* mayhem. In the 70s, everyone would have remembered the cans of spam that pervaded the larders and kitchen cupboards of post-war Britain. It was everywhere, not quite proper meat (it came in a can) and it was mostly unwanted.

No wonder then, that when email was invented, the pioneers of the technology borrowed the term from the Python sketch. For a start, it was a time when everyone was quoting the show, especially techies. Those bearded programmers of the 1980s with their massive computers and shirt-pockets packed with pens would have taken great delight in asking each other about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, or jumping out in the lab with a demented cry of 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!'.

Spam quickly became integrated into the language of electronic communication. It refers to unsolicited email and there are all sorts of clever ways to detect it, filter it out and send it to the trashcan. You might find this hard to believe but 80% of all email traffic is spam; not the stuff that arrives in your spam folder, but the vast and varied digital detritus, the electronic flotsam and jetsam that washes up unseen beyond the shores of your firewall and never gets a sniff of your inbox.

In Team Spamalot, we deal with anti-spam software. It's a curious etymological circle that brings our team round to be called 'Spamalot'. Spamalot, of course, is the name of the stage-show production of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, a film which played on the original spam sketch by rhyming Spamalot with Camelot... a lot. I think the scrum master chose the name because he thought it was a pun; not realising that the two ends of the spam circle were connected... by the Pythons.

It really was a very boring day.

I don't cope well with boredom. I also found out today that a Dutch artist has gone off in a huff because someone copied his idea of making a giant rubber duck. Florentijn Hofman his name is, and in 2007 he created a seaworthy, 18m high, inflatable bath duck with which he travels the world. A stallholder in Keelung, Taiwan, wanted to boost the dwindling number of visitors to the duck's exhibition in the harbour and so reconstructed his own version. Hofman, who let's face it, didn't come up with a truly original idea himself, is furious at the 'copycat' and has disappeared in an arty mood, presumably taking his giant duck with him.

I imagined him sailing it into the distance, disappearing into the sunset over the South China Sea. Now that's Pythonesque.

*I dislike that I've used this word, but under the circumstances, it's the only one that will do.

THE ANTIGUA DREAM

The other day I happened to mention to my friends that I'd never had a nightmare. It is true: I've never dreamed of being chased by axe-weilding zombies or witches with pitchforks. I've never had a dream where I'm trapped or falling or flying, and the unspeakable terrors of all those awful horror films remain an unknown quantity for me, which is just the way I like it.

"You've never had a nightmare?" asked someone, incredulously.

I put it down to not having exposed myself to that kind of thing. What I failed to realise I think, is that those are probably not the only type of nightmares. Where this came from then, I don't know. I'm just mildly annoyed that having proudly claimed to have lived a nightmare-free life, I went and had one (of sorts) just a few days later.

I had a dream that I was standing on a jetty next to a large party boat, packed with drunk young people. Some were sprawled across the deck, others were embracing in dark corners. There was drunken laughter and cheering and the sound of glasses rolling across the wood as the ship, the Antigua, bobbed on the tide, all underpinned by the long low thud of a bassline, thumping from somewhere inside.

For some reason, I was doing my best to get them off the boat. It was cold and the night air was clasping around me, its icy fingers tightening as I called out form the jetty. I can't remember what I was saying; only that whatever it was felt urgent as though I somehow knew that they had to disembark. Some young men were jeering, leaning over the side, beer swirling at the bottom of their glasses. One made a rude gesture with his fist and his friends erupted into laughter. A beer bottle smashed on the wood somewhere near me, and some girls shrieked with delight. The music grew louder.

I remember looking up at the stars. There was something sad and cold about them twinkling silently in the pitch black night. Beneath their ancient gaze, the warm glow of the Antigua spilled out upon the inky sea and the old wooden jetty. I lowered my eyes.

Out at sea, something was happening. The horizon, barely visible in the darkness, was changing, bulging and growing. A sea-breeze blustered in and spattered my face with spray. I looked back to the boat. No-one had noticed. I shouted. Nothing. They couldn't hear me. I couldn't hear me. It was as though my voice had lodged in my throat. I looked frantically back out to sea. The great wave was rushing inwards, I looked back to the boat, looked back to the dark ocean, and ran for my life.

I sprinted down the jetty, leapt from its wooden planks and rolled onto the grass. I could hear it rushing, crashing, pouring in. There were screams, profanities, all kinds of language. There were shouts of 'God, help us!' echoing through the air as I scrambled up the hill, clutching the muddy grass with my fingers. I looked back just in time to see the Antigua flip helplessly into the air like a toy boat, then smash horrendously upon the jetty. It was as though it was made of balsa wood. It cracked apart, splintering into pieces; the hull ripped open, the water sweeping in over the wreckage and in less than a few seconds, the party boat, the Antigua and the old jetty were completely gone. The seawater pounded inland, roaring like a lion. The screaming had stopped. I lay back on the hillside and looked at the stars, trying to catch my breath through my tears.

And I woke up.

TEN EXCUSES

While the Reverend Henry Wilder might have been lucky enough to have a patch of land in the right place for a little round love-tower, some of us are less fortunate in those pesky affaires-de-coeur. 

I had an email today which carried the subject line: 10 Excuses You Give For Still Being Single. It was a humorous look at responses us singletons might give when asked the 'inevitable question' about our marital status: So, how come you're still single?

I read a book once which recommended some tactics when quizzed by married people. The author suggested replying to the ever-irksome: "How's your love life?" with a straight-faced: "Fine thanks. How's your sex life?"

I'll be honest: I've never been brave enough to put it into practice.

Excuses, said the email. Not reasons! Excuses. What are they assuming? It's tough to see any further than the obvious: that the correct, expected, normal, best and most acceptable state for an adult human being is to be in a relationship. So much so that anything else requires an excuse... like a sicknote that gets you out of P.E. or explains why you won't be able to do any heavy lifting. What a load of nonsense.

I'm growing more and more fed up with this hidden culture that says you must be with someone to be any good. I am single. I don't mind it most of the time. I have had plenty of opportunities not to be single, and I've turned down some great options. I've also taken up some terrible options in the past, if I'm honest, but I've learned that raking it over isn't too helpful.

What I am convinced of though is that singleness is really OK. It's not a mark of failure or inferiority. It doesn't have to be a trigger for analysing where it all went wrong and it's not a terrible pathway to everlasting loneliness. The hidden culture wants us to believe it, but it just isn't true. The key is (just as Paul noted in the letter to the Philippians) to be thankful in all circumstances.

There's no doubt that being with someone is fantastic. Having a person there who loves you and wants to spend time with you is brilliant; being committed to them through the adventure, with the ups and the downs and swings and roundabouts must be incredible. But it's not the case that not having those things is any less brilliant or incredible. It can be anything you want to make it.

So perhaps the answer to the question is not to pull an answer from the list of handy excuses? Perhaps the answer to the inevitable question is just: 'because I am and that's OK with me'. Then when they give that sympathetic look that seems to say 'Ah, but if only you knew what you were missing!' you can smile pleasantly back and remind yourself that the same sentiment exactly, applies to them.

WILDER'S FOLLY

I went on a long walk today: a ramble, if you will. Ramble. I quite like the word. It carries a sense of lazy meandering on a summer afternoon, windswept grasses on a sun-kissed ridge, shady woods, backpacks and sturdy walking boots. I suspect I think this because it contains the word 'amble' and that's a type of walking with an air of aimless wonder. I reckon I subconsciously thought of a ramble as a kind of amble-extra, a super-amble that you can only take on with a walking pole and a mac.

Certainly, my book of 24 Classic Berkshire Rambles was promising me a gentle stroll in the countryside. In the summer perhaps, the little yellow book with its cheery instructions would have been less deceitful. Take the well marked path (indiscernable chain of puddles and thick mud) along the hedge (brambles, twisted branches and nettles) until you come to the style (rotting deathtrap) at the top of the field (cowpat minefield).

Just as you can add a simple R to a happy little amble to make it a ramble, you can also carry on prefixing and stick on an S and a C. For a scramble, much as I found today, is no simple trek across the fields - it's more like a kind of extreme sport in the mud where it's a small victory if you return with both of your shoes.

It was fun though. I slipped down woody paths, grabbed hold of mossy tree-branches, sank my freezing feet into puddles, forded a small torrent that's normally a stream, got myself wedged in some brambles, climbed a tree, squelched through leafy, slimy woodland and strode across fields in the pouring rain. It's a great way to feel alive.

In addition, I also visited the lonely brick-built tower known as Wilder's Folly. Since my university days, when I accidentally discovered Sham Castle, I've always had a bit of a thing for follies. I like their oddness - stuck out alone in a place that makes them look ridiculous. I have a sympathy for that kind of thing.

Wilder's Folly is a small round tower, originally castellated with arched windows (now bricked up) on the first floor. It sticks up like a pepperpot on the ridge of a hill and it's visible from miles around. It's been used as a dovecote and apparently, pigeons still nest in its ruined roof. It's not much to speak of, but you do get the feeling that it might have meant something once, to someone.

And indeed it did. The story goes that Wilder, a young reverend from the village about a mile away, built it as a token of his love for Joan, a girl from the next village. She could see the tower and be reminded of him; he, from his prayers and studies at Sulham House, could look up and be reminded of her. It was a point of connection (and perhaps of rendezvous) that simply reminded them both of each other. It was then, a primitive PDA - after all, everyone else could see it too.

I stopped by Wilder's Folly today and thought about the fact that their public display of affection had long outlived both of them: Henry and the girl he eventually married. I peered through the arch at the white house in the trees. I turned and looked the other way to see Theale, clustering around the parish church. I was perfectly positioned at the convergence of an eighteenth century romance.

It seems odd to call it a folly, when it represents something so permanent. In this age of social networking, of mobile phones and photographs and all the rest of it, it's much easier to forge those little points of connection without calculating lines of sight and building a memento. We have our own ways to remind ourselves of the other person and how love holds us together across the valley. We can't all build a tower, but we can make little follies of our own I suppose.

Well, that's if you have somebody to build it for! I smiled and picked up my trail through the muddy field. I do enjoy a scramble.

#TWITQUIZ13: ANSWERS

As promised, here are the answers to November's TwitQuiz. Highlight the hidden text to view the solutions:

TwitQuiz13 Answers	Fastest Answer (hh:mm)	Average Answer (hh:mm)
Q1. What's missing from this sequence: blue, ____, yellow, blue, green, red? (1) A1. Red. This is the sequence of colours in the Google logo.	00:14	4:01
Q2. A Roman city, a southern county, a catholic country and an invaded island. What sends them into a state? (1) A2. "New". New York, New Hampshire, New Mexico and New Jersey.	01:52	03:15
Q3. Titania, Oberon, Miranda and Ariel are dancing in circles. Who's in the middle? (1) A3. Uranus. Titania, Oberon, Miranda and Ariel are moons.	00:45	03:29
Q4. Oxford-1blue=Green, Warwick+6brown=Oxford. Holland+6red=Liverpool-6red. Oxford-3red=? (1) A4.Lancaster. These are tube stop co-ordinates on the London Underground. Red = Central Line, Blue = Victoria Line, Brown = Bakerloo Line	00:31	03:45
Q5. Which of these words is the odd one out and why? - life, seventeen, simply, beautiful. (2) A5. Simply. The other words form a band name when combined with a direction: EAST seventeen, WESTlife and the BEAUTIFUL South: Simply RED.	05:38	15:41
Q6. My friend Sherpa Olelo is trying to climb the world's tallest mountain. He's half way up. Why can't he eat his sandwiches? (1) A6. He's underwater. The world's tallest mountain is Mauna Kea and it is mostly underneath the Pacific Ocean.	03:01	04:17
Q7. Where can you find a dove, a bunch of bananas, sugar cane and a coconut palm? (1) A7. On the flag of Fiji. Also present on the coat of arms.	00:13	03:55
Q8. Which of these is the odd one out and why: piglet, rabbit, tigger, eeyore? (2) A8. Eeyore. The others are all arranged as CVCCVC, where C=consonant, V=vowel.	28:09	28:09
Q9. Bill & Paul are chatting. Bill has decided Utah is red and New Mexico is yellow. What colour will they decide for Colorado? A9. Green. The Four Corners states are arranged in the same formation as the Microsoft logo. Bill and Paul are Bill Gates and Paul Allen (founders of Microsoft).	04:26	18:26
Q10. Where might you find a lamb, a primrose and a retired major, climbing a staircase? (1) A10. 10 Downing Street. There are pictures of former Prime Ministers: William Lamb, Archibald Primrose and John Major.	24:45	40:13
Q11. James has a collection of intriguingly named items. If Silverthumb is 3 and Lightningbat is 4, what number is Earthjump? (1) A11. 23. Each of the 'items' is the opposite of a Bond film. Goldfinger (3), Thunderball (4), Skyfall (23).	01:45	24:05
Q12. Every day on Mt Olympus the amber nectar is passed from Selene to Ares; Ares to Hermes; Hermes to Zeus. Who gets it next? (2) A12. Aphrodite. Each deity's Roman counterpart represents a classical day of the week. Selene = Luna = Monday, Ares = Mars = Tuesday, Hermes = Mercury = Wednesday, Zeus = Jupiter = Thursday, Aphrodite = Venus = Friday.	25:29	29:04
Q13. What two letters are next in this sequence: HeLiBNNa..? (1) A13. Al. This is the sequence of atomic numbers which are also primes. He(2)Li(3)B(5)N(7)Na(11)Al(13)	00:56	02:19
Q14. Which city is missing from this list: Montevideo, Rome, London, Munich, Buenos Aires, ____? (2) A14. Paris. Each of these cities was the venue where the FIFA World Cup was won by the host nation.	04:47	04:52
Q15. Fill in the blanks: AB_OP_R. (4) A15. ABDOPQR. These are the seven letters of the alphabet with enclosed sections that can be 'filled in'.	25:22	25:22
Q16. Which of these is the odd one out and why: São Tomé and Principe, Venezuela, Lake Victoria, The Pacific Ocean? (4) A16. Venezuela. The Equator passes through each of the others.	00:28	01:06
Q17. EL + Joseph + Tweedsmuir - ((Enid x Jerome) - E) = ? (4) A17. Dodie. These are famous authors who wrote numerical works. El James (50) + Joseph Heller (22) + John Buchan (39) - ((Enid Blyton (5) x Jerome K Jerome (3)) - E. Nesbit (5) = Dodie Smith (101).	01:55	11:04
Q18. Harry chugs out of the engine shed 18 minutes before an intruder tries to derail James. Who was in the shed at 6pm? (2) A18. George III. These are kings of England with the intruder being Guy Fawkes at 16:05.	03:34	26:28
Q19. Complete the sentence with an appropriate word: As anticipated, bunnies can't easily halt ___ (2) A19. "Multiplication" or "Multiplying" or "Mixamytosis". The first letter of each word corresponds to a Fibonacci number: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13.	25:31	25:42
Q20. Schneemann, Sam and Schuss are ski-ing in the Alps. Who's the odd one out? (2) A20. Schneemann and Schuss are mascots from Winter Olympics (1976 and 1968). Sam is a mascot of the Summer Olympics (1984)	01:29	14:14
Q21. Where would you find four fathers who used to be six grandfathers? A21. Mount Rushmore. The four men are the four Presidents carved into the mountain which was previously known by the Sioux as 'The Six Grandfathers'.	00:09	00:11
Q22. What links Massachusetts, Armageddon and a Pythian Prize? (1) A22. Bay. Massachusetts is known as The Bay State, The film Armageddon was directed by Michael Bay and the prize in the Pythian Games was a garland made of Bay Laurel leaves.	00:18	00:18
Q23. In my collection I have 23 players, 10 jumpers, 5 sparklers and a shooter. How many layers are there in total? (2) A23. 23. My collection is the items of the Twelve Days of Christmas in which there are 7 swans + 6 geese + 4 birds + 3 hens + 2 doves + 1 partridge in the 'shooter' = 23 'layers'.	12:43	12:43
Q24.Mr Pike and Mr Salmon are bigwigs in the city. They have a £10 wager that each of them can get the other's autograph without the other knowing. Who's likely to win and how? (2) A24. Mr Pike wins easily. Mr Salmon's signature is on every single UK banknote.	37:46	38:43
Q25. What 8 letter word should this remind you of: pine tree, show me, ocean, yellowhammer? (2) A25. 'Memorial'. These are nicknames of US States. Maine (The Pine Tree State) = ME, Missouri (The Show Me State) = MO, Rhode Island (The Ocean State) = RI, Alabama (The Yellowhammer State) = AL.	11:43	28:16
Q26. If treasons maketh ten spiders, what must thou be to maketh me spirit miner? (1) A26. An MP. These are anagrams: treasons = senators, ten spiders = presidents, me spirit miner = prime minister.	04:26	04:26
Q27. ^& > %£ > "^ > "£ > &. *( > *£ > ? > ? > ? > &. (3) A27. £%, "^, "£. Substitute the symbols for numbers on an ISO keyboard. Multiply the digits then shift the digits of the answer one key to the right. Repeat.	U	U
Q28. My old teacher, Mr Stonen, still thinks that RWs S the DBOM. What does he think SL has that is ATS? (1) A28. AD or 'a date'. Mr Stonen (Sonnet) is reciting Shakespeare. "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of may // And summer's lease hath all too short a date."	07:16	07:16
Q29. What can you do with Mr Livingstone, Parsifal, a Red Panda and a Long Journey? (1) A29. Browse the internet. These are all web browsers: Livingstone (Explorer), Parsifal (Opera), Red Panda (Firefox) and a Long Journey (Safari).	U	U
Q30. Mr Bean has lost the timer for his camera. Where is it? (1) A30. On the Moon. Alan Bean is an astronaut who lost the timer for his camera during an Apollo Mission.	U	U

(U = unsolved).