"You dressing up tomorrow, Matt?" said Nathan.
"No," I said calmly and firmly. Call me old-fashioned but I'm not sure it's very wise to celebrate evil. I hoped he was joking. "How about you?" I said.
"Well yes, I think so. We're all off clubbing tomorrow night - but a lot of the costumes we saw were just so heavy, I figured I'd be boiling - plus it's pretty difficult to go to toilet in them, and they're so expensive and fiddly, some of those things. So... we're going as bananas."
"What?"
"Yeah, we've got banana suits. We'll get some fake blood as well, my mates and me, and we'll be like ... well, like bloody bananas."
"Ha!" said someone else eavesdropping over the partition. "You'll look like right nanas."
I rolled my eyes while the eavesdropper cackled to himself. He'll be laughing at that lightning-fast bit of humour all night I reckon. Nathan chuckled politely and then looked at me.
Yes, it's All Hallows' Eve. Tradition dictates that tomorrow we ward off evil spirits by taking the logical step of dressing up as them and inviting them in. To protect our children, we send them out to take sweets from strangers and we cover them with the stuff of nightmares. Meanwhile at home, we carve frightening faces into fruit and illuminate them with candles to prevent the need to be afraid of them. It's never made much sense to me, this dangerous, ludicrous and unwholesome evening.
Anyway, I'll be at something much more horripilating tomorrow night: the Engineering Curry Night. I said I wouldn't go to one of these again but it's Steve's last day and I thought it would be rude not to show up. However, if there's any nonsense with projectile popadoms or alcohol-fuelled mischief - or if there's that unbelievable tension over splitting the bill like there always is, then I might just go home.
Though there's every chance I might run into Nathan and his Banana Crew on the way to the train station - which is, by all standards, a terrifying thought.
Thursday, 30 October 2014
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
YOU KNOW WE BELONG TOGETHER
Something weird happened today. I was walking along the road, thinking about how to define the concept of irony to an alien civilisation, when I suddenly heard myself singing.
Alright, alright - the singing to myself part of that is probably not the weird part, but bear with me. It was more the content.
"You know we belong together..." I sang.
OK then.
"You and I forever and ever..."
Where did that come from? A dusty corner of my head which hasn't glimpsed the sunlight for twenty years must have been shaken up by something - a close call, crossing the A4 earlier perhaps? My manager talking about Australia to an interview candidate? Hard to tell.
"No matter where you are;
You're my guiding star."
Perhaps thinking about irony led to me thinking about the use of the question mark for sarcasm? You can do that? In the end if you keep ending sentences with the inflected question? What happens? You sound like you should be in an Australian soap opera?
"And from the very first moment I saw you,
(oooh)
I've never felt such emotion.
I'm walking on air,
Just to know (just to know)
You are there (you are there)..."
The leaves were blowing about and there was a really fine drizzle pervading the air. It felt like the spray of the waves, the kind of waves which would lap against the sand at Summer Bay while high school students would lounge about in their red jumpers and check-patterned dresses.
Twenty years eh. Is it still popular, Home and Away? Do people still watch it? I thought about good old Alf and Ailsa and the diner and the surf shop and I had a little go at the accents and frightened a builder when I called myself a great galah in passing. I can't do the Australian accent - it seems like a really slanted combination of cockney, dutch and scottish all sort of rolled into one sunny drawl.
"Hold me in your arms
Don't let me go
I want to stay forever
Home and away
With you each day
Let me be the one
That you turn to
Someone you can rely on
Closer each day
Home and Away..."
It had some really interesting chord progressions in it, didn't it? Major sevenths and cheesy keys. I think it might actually have influenced my song writing. Aww, the 80s. Although, I reckon I'd have a harder time explaining what that was all about to those aliens.
Alright, alright - the singing to myself part of that is probably not the weird part, but bear with me. It was more the content.
"You know we belong together..." I sang.
OK then.
"You and I forever and ever..."
Where did that come from? A dusty corner of my head which hasn't glimpsed the sunlight for twenty years must have been shaken up by something - a close call, crossing the A4 earlier perhaps? My manager talking about Australia to an interview candidate? Hard to tell.
"No matter where you are;
You're my guiding star."
Perhaps thinking about irony led to me thinking about the use of the question mark for sarcasm? You can do that? In the end if you keep ending sentences with the inflected question? What happens? You sound like you should be in an Australian soap opera?
"And from the very first moment I saw you,
(oooh)
I've never felt such emotion.
I'm walking on air,
Just to know (just to know)
You are there (you are there)..."
The leaves were blowing about and there was a really fine drizzle pervading the air. It felt like the spray of the waves, the kind of waves which would lap against the sand at Summer Bay while high school students would lounge about in their red jumpers and check-patterned dresses.
Twenty years eh. Is it still popular, Home and Away? Do people still watch it? I thought about good old Alf and Ailsa and the diner and the surf shop and I had a little go at the accents and frightened a builder when I called myself a great galah in passing. I can't do the Australian accent - it seems like a really slanted combination of cockney, dutch and scottish all sort of rolled into one sunny drawl.
"Hold me in your arms
Don't let me go
I want to stay forever
Home and away
With you each day
Let me be the one
That you turn to
Someone you can rely on
Closer each day
Home and Away..."
It had some really interesting chord progressions in it, didn't it? Major sevenths and cheesy keys. I think it might actually have influenced my song writing. Aww, the 80s. Although, I reckon I'd have a harder time explaining what that was all about to those aliens.
Monday, 27 October 2014
AUTUMN FAIR
I just stood in the kitchen and watched the sun hanging low through the trees. The lake was like gold, shimmering and sparkling in the early evening. Long shadows fell across the grass, criss-crossing under a pattern of crunchy leaves.
I shut the fridge door and took a sip of tea. There should be a name for today, the first Monday after the clock-change. A couple of years ago, on the equivalent day, I had an afternoon meeting in a room with no windows: I couldn't believe it when we emerged to black skies and lit streetlamps.
Anyway, as I stood there looking out across the lake, I thought about a poem I wrote a while ago and despite the fact that it's a little out of date, it still seems like a good day to post it. It's called Autumn Fair.
Autumn Fair
When I was little, I remember,
Crispy days in late September:
Summer sun and chilly breeze
That rippled through the golden leaves
And I remember sun-kissed grass
With shadows falling, long and fast
And silver light between the trees
That winked goodnight with silent ease
Oh I remember Autumn nights
With twinkled stars and fairy lights
A woollen scarf my Grandma knit
A duffel coat that tightly fit
And all around the ones I loved
In woolly hats and matching gloves.
The velvet night fell fast and fair
As laughter filled the frozen air
When I was little, I remember,
Autumn days in late September
And I remember you were there
To smile and sing the Autumn fair,
To hold my hand through chilly night
Through winter’s grip and heartless bite
And I remember, and yet will
That through it all, you’re with me still.
I shut the fridge door and took a sip of tea. There should be a name for today, the first Monday after the clock-change. A couple of years ago, on the equivalent day, I had an afternoon meeting in a room with no windows: I couldn't believe it when we emerged to black skies and lit streetlamps.
Anyway, as I stood there looking out across the lake, I thought about a poem I wrote a while ago and despite the fact that it's a little out of date, it still seems like a good day to post it. It's called Autumn Fair.
Autumn Fair
When I was little, I remember,
Crispy days in late September:
Summer sun and chilly breeze
That rippled through the golden leaves
And I remember sun-kissed grass
With shadows falling, long and fast
And silver light between the trees
That winked goodnight with silent ease
Oh I remember Autumn nights
With twinkled stars and fairy lights
A woollen scarf my Grandma knit
A duffel coat that tightly fit
And all around the ones I loved
In woolly hats and matching gloves.
The velvet night fell fast and fair
As laughter filled the frozen air
When I was little, I remember,
Autumn days in late September
And I remember you were there
To smile and sing the Autumn fair,
To hold my hand through chilly night
Through winter’s grip and heartless bite
And I remember, and yet will
That through it all, you’re with me still.
Sunday, 26 October 2014
UNIVERSAL DYSCALCULIA
My niece (12) showed me a vine that's currently going round the Internet where a young African-American boy can't add up numbers and is called 'stoopid' by an off-camera adult voice.
Is it just me, or is this totally not funny? I mean dyscalculia is a very real condition that lots of people suffer from. In fact, to some degree I think we all suffer from it. More on that in a while.
How did this get to be a thing? Didn't we used to send cutesy things round the Internet like skateboarding cats and hamsters playing piano?
Here's what I think: the little boy (and he can only be 10 or 11 at most) adds up '9 plus 10' and comes up with 21. I reckon he's adding two tens together and then trying to take away the extra 1. However, rather than taking it away, he's adding it by mistake. Well this is far from 'stoopid'. It's a very neat method, just backwards in its execution. He's visualising and chunking and processing several steps all at once, and he's doing it quickly.
And that thought leads us back to universal dyscalculia. Imagine 5 coins arranged on a desk. Now try to imagine 13. Come on! It's easy! No don't count them, just imagine them! Right, now 27, now 76 and 164! If you're like me, it'll be tough to visualise numbers over about 9 or 10 without arranging them or counting them. How do you feel about that? Stupid? Well you shouldn't. It's just dyscalculia, scaled out into a less frequently occurring problem.
Here's another. Multiply out these brackets without writing it down:
(a+b)(b+c)(a+c) = ?
The point is that sometimes it's very difficult for us to hold multiple things in our heads, to keep track of the numbers as we add, subtract and multiply them. And I bet all of us have felt 'stoopid' in a maths class when everyone else just 'got it' and we were left red-faced with tears. For that poor young man, the problem was relatively difficult but it is most definitely not his fault. And now, over 3 million people have seen an adult humiliate him for comic effect, ironically proving that it's us, all of us who share and cackle at this stuff, who need educating. Shame on us.
Things have come a long way since the sneezing panda.
Saturday, 25 October 2014
CHANGING THE CLOCKS
My Dad's putting all the clocks back. This biannual ceremony is quite a thing in a house where most of the clocks don't update themselves over the Internet.
Once, when we were young and our house was bigger, I decided to follow him round and put the clocks back an extra hour again. He got really mad and spent the extra hour resetting them all. Even then, no-one was quite sure what the actual time was the following morning. I was in a lot of trouble.
Fascinating how we mess around with time isn't it? I think the Intrepids find this one much more depressing than the spring-forward-clock-change, as it marks the official end to British Summer Time and the beginning of those long, dark, evenings. Yes, the nights are drawing in rapidly now, my father will soon be saying, with all the predictability of a man who repeats the same phrases every year. It'll soon be dark at four o'clock, mark my words.
Thank heavens for Christmas! Well, actually, first for the Romans who sort of decided that winter was a bit too depressing and invented a party right in the middle of it. While Saturnalia wouldn't really be my kind of thing, the event that replaced it is a stroke of festive genius - not to mention the hope, light, life and future that we celebrate bursting into the darkness of our world every 25th of December.
It's always the microwave that's tricky. He's beeping away at it, scrolling through the digital numbers. I think the ritual is a homeowner thing. Perhaps when I own a house, I'll feel that same magnificent pride in fiddling with the clocks: swinging open the glass case of the grandfather clock (I imagine having) and pushing the hands round with my index finger; rifling through kitchen drawers, trying to find the manual for the oven; getting angry with the DVD player, that sort of thing.
Ah, I'm not there yet. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh? We have to go backwards an hour first.
Friday, 24 October 2014
DOUBLE-ENDED DAYS AND CANDLES
I really need to do nothing at all tonight. My nose is running and my chest feels weak - a clunking cold has found me.
So much for early morning walks and late night music arranging. This is where it leads when you burn the candle at both ends.
Funny phrase that. I used to think it meant turning the candle upside down so that you got more use out of it in the small hours. Pesky old dangling modifiers. It's both ends of the day, of course, not the candle. You already knew that.
The late night music arranging was worth it. The choir picked up both pieces really quickly last night, and with a bit of polishing, they'll sound great at Christmas. Ding Dong Merrily on High was a particular highlight - though curiously, the men had a bit of a laughing fit when I made an accidental innuendo. Unbelievable.
The early morning walking felt good at the time too. I strolled through the remains of Hurricane Gonzalo on Tuesday morning, with the wind whipping the sky into an angry frenzy of swirling cloud and rain. It was invigorating but I regretted not taking my raincoat.
This cold is ridiculous. Who gave this to me? As you know, I'm socially unable to blow my nose in public, which means I have to get up every five minutes and venture in to the Gateway to Hades. They're enough to shock both Dante and Milton, those toilets. I'm just thankful that I can't smell anything at the moment.
So, I think a film might be in order for tonight. Or maybe I'll just go to sleep. It's been an OK week but some Fridays, I'm just grateful for the end.
So much for early morning walks and late night music arranging. This is where it leads when you burn the candle at both ends.
Funny phrase that. I used to think it meant turning the candle upside down so that you got more use out of it in the small hours. Pesky old dangling modifiers. It's both ends of the day, of course, not the candle. You already knew that.
The late night music arranging was worth it. The choir picked up both pieces really quickly last night, and with a bit of polishing, they'll sound great at Christmas. Ding Dong Merrily on High was a particular highlight - though curiously, the men had a bit of a laughing fit when I made an accidental innuendo. Unbelievable.
The early morning walking felt good at the time too. I strolled through the remains of Hurricane Gonzalo on Tuesday morning, with the wind whipping the sky into an angry frenzy of swirling cloud and rain. It was invigorating but I regretted not taking my raincoat.
This cold is ridiculous. Who gave this to me? As you know, I'm socially unable to blow my nose in public, which means I have to get up every five minutes and venture in to the Gateway to Hades. They're enough to shock both Dante and Milton, those toilets. I'm just thankful that I can't smell anything at the moment.
So, I think a film might be in order for tonight. Or maybe I'll just go to sleep. It's been an OK week but some Fridays, I'm just grateful for the end.
Thursday, 23 October 2014
HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD
If you could save the world just by going vegetarian, would you do it?
I'm not a veggie, but neither am I one of those people who can't cope without meat. It's become a bit of a blokey thing, I've noticed, to go a little bit caveman in front of a steak. What's more, in Christian circles, the whole topic of nutrition, of eating healthily and exercising well, is weirdly taboo.
Yep. Instead (at least, in my experience) we joke about fast food being bad for us and then think nothing of meeting up in McDonalds for our little catchups. We organise socials around Indian and Chinese takeaways and tables of sugary cakes and snacks, next to mountains of triangular white-bread sandwiches. Then we wash it all down with 'proper coffee'. We seem far more concerned with preaching about what we take in through our eyes sometimes than the food we're shovelling into our stomachs.
I read an article today about chicken farming. You can read it on the BBC website here. Farming seems to be a loose term for what's essentially a production line for millions of living, breathing animals. In a cavernous factory (barn) a sea of chicks, no older than 40 days, shuffle about in a perfectly efficient climate with carefully controlled food and water, and not a great deal of space. They never go outside. Within six weeks of hatching, they're slaughtered, stripped, butchered and vacuum-wrapped on a polystyrene tray with a supermarket label emblazoned with misleading words like 'farm fresh' or 'premium quality'.
90% of the chickens we eat in the UK are prepared this way, apparently.
Now, is this right? I mean, is this OK? I understand that it has to be this way for meat to be affordable. I get that chicken is popular too, and very very tasty. I love it. But should we be treating animals this way?
I don't know the answer to that. I just feel a bit sad about it, like the day I first heard prawns squealing in a pan. I don't move in lobster-eating circles, but I'd expect the sound of an animal being boiled alive would be equally unappealing. I wondered back then, as I peeled the skins and cracked off the tails, whether I was on the long slow march to vegetarianism. I haven't eaten them since.
But then, If I am on that march, I haven't done a lot of other marching. I still crack open a can of tuna and sizzle up the odd rasher of bacon. I love lamb chops, roast chicken and a classic lump of beef, not to mention gammon, turkey, fish pies and pork sausages. I am statistically carnivorous, yet just a little bit uncomfortable about it.
Then there's that niggling little Orwellian thought that we're a bit like those chickens ourselves, locked up in the Matrix, feeding and clucking and drinking the carefully regulated water provided by our financial masters. We have no idea what it's like outside. I'd better not mention this thought to Carlos The Liberator - I have a feeling he'd be organising a sort of 'Animal Farm' type revolution before sundown.
The truth is that we could probably save the world by going vegetarian. Colossal amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are emitted in the raising and transporting of livestock. Giving up meat lowers your carbon footprint much more than giving up driving ever would. Perhaps we should, you know, give it a go? What have we got to lose?
We could start by just cutting out meat, say once a week. If we all did it, it would make a huge difference, wouldn't it? If you want to join the long slow march and make a difference, that is. You might not. I'll give it a go though - as difficult as I'll find it. I'll even throw it open to the steak-munching, barbecue-loving, captain cavemen and risk being ostracised from their meaty membership and carnivore club - if only to help prove that I'm on the side of the chickens.
I'm not a veggie, but neither am I one of those people who can't cope without meat. It's become a bit of a blokey thing, I've noticed, to go a little bit caveman in front of a steak. What's more, in Christian circles, the whole topic of nutrition, of eating healthily and exercising well, is weirdly taboo.
Yep. Instead (at least, in my experience) we joke about fast food being bad for us and then think nothing of meeting up in McDonalds for our little catchups. We organise socials around Indian and Chinese takeaways and tables of sugary cakes and snacks, next to mountains of triangular white-bread sandwiches. Then we wash it all down with 'proper coffee'. We seem far more concerned with preaching about what we take in through our eyes sometimes than the food we're shovelling into our stomachs.
I read an article today about chicken farming. You can read it on the BBC website here. Farming seems to be a loose term for what's essentially a production line for millions of living, breathing animals. In a cavernous factory (barn) a sea of chicks, no older than 40 days, shuffle about in a perfectly efficient climate with carefully controlled food and water, and not a great deal of space. They never go outside. Within six weeks of hatching, they're slaughtered, stripped, butchered and vacuum-wrapped on a polystyrene tray with a supermarket label emblazoned with misleading words like 'farm fresh' or 'premium quality'.
90% of the chickens we eat in the UK are prepared this way, apparently.
Now, is this right? I mean, is this OK? I understand that it has to be this way for meat to be affordable. I get that chicken is popular too, and very very tasty. I love it. But should we be treating animals this way?
I don't know the answer to that. I just feel a bit sad about it, like the day I first heard prawns squealing in a pan. I don't move in lobster-eating circles, but I'd expect the sound of an animal being boiled alive would be equally unappealing. I wondered back then, as I peeled the skins and cracked off the tails, whether I was on the long slow march to vegetarianism. I haven't eaten them since.
But then, If I am on that march, I haven't done a lot of other marching. I still crack open a can of tuna and sizzle up the odd rasher of bacon. I love lamb chops, roast chicken and a classic lump of beef, not to mention gammon, turkey, fish pies and pork sausages. I am statistically carnivorous, yet just a little bit uncomfortable about it.
Then there's that niggling little Orwellian thought that we're a bit like those chickens ourselves, locked up in the Matrix, feeding and clucking and drinking the carefully regulated water provided by our financial masters. We have no idea what it's like outside. I'd better not mention this thought to Carlos The Liberator - I have a feeling he'd be organising a sort of 'Animal Farm' type revolution before sundown.
The truth is that we could probably save the world by going vegetarian. Colossal amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases are emitted in the raising and transporting of livestock. Giving up meat lowers your carbon footprint much more than giving up driving ever would. Perhaps we should, you know, give it a go? What have we got to lose?
We could start by just cutting out meat, say once a week. If we all did it, it would make a huge difference, wouldn't it? If you want to join the long slow march and make a difference, that is. You might not. I'll give it a go though - as difficult as I'll find it. I'll even throw it open to the steak-munching, barbecue-loving, captain cavemen and risk being ostracised from their meaty membership and carnivore club - if only to help prove that I'm on the side of the chickens.
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
LEADERSHIP FOR DUMMIES
I finished Silent Night. There were two juicy chords I just couldn't resist but the rest is all quite straightforward. Plus I wrote a little eight bar introduction... which sounds great.
Hmmm.
This morning I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and walked round to the Nestle 3000, ready to fill it with 'Chocolate'. One of the students got there just before I did but very kindly let me go first.
"After you, Matt," he said, "I'll be here ages 'cos I have to have three shots of espresso."
"Thanks," I said, swinging my mug into place and pushing the button. The machine flashed into life, whirred into an ultraviolet glow and started pumping hot chocolate into my mug.
"Wait, three espressos?" I said. He looked at me bleary-eyed.
"Y'hm."
"You know what'll happen? Eventually your body will reset its base-level at three espressos and you'll need more caffeine just to feel as awake as you do now. You should go cold-turkey I reckon."
He looked at me a little shocked. To be honest, I was a little shocked myself. I'm not normally quite so direct.
"You're making me feel really bad now!" he said. Then I felt bad. Who am I to criticise someone else's coffee-drinking habits? Just because three espressos would be enough to send me to the moon, it doesn't mean I have the right to criticise someone else's preference, does it?
He went on to explain how he likes his coffee dark, rich, strong and how the stuff that spurts out of the Nestle 3000 doesn't really count as proper coffee anyway. I smiled weakly.
"Alright," he said, "I'll go for two shots today. Maybe I'll ease off slowly."
I apologised again and we headed back out into the office.
You know what? Technically I've influenced somebody to raise their standards, challenged their behaviour and possibly helped them see the difference between good and better. I'm doing OK according to Leadership for Dummies.
Why do I feel bad about it then? Is that the thing with proper leadership? Feeling bad and being rude to students?
I might just slip it back into the bookcase.
Well another thrilling afternoon. While I was waiting for the latest version of my install guide to print out, I had a little wander over to the lending library.
The lending library is a bookcase, stocked with everything from Improving Your Golf Swing to Maximum Security: A Hacker's Guide to Protecting Your Internet Site and Network. I slid out a pristine copy of Leadership for Dummies.
I might give it a go. I flicked through to Chapter 1 and spotted a little test to prove that we all have the potential to be good leaders. I think the idea is that you recognise these 'leadership' situations:
- I was really enthusiastic about something and someone caught or was infected by my enthusiasm.
- I stood up for something or someone I believed in when it or the person was being wrongly criticised.
- I did something that I knew was right to do when I doubted my ability to do it.
- I helped someone to understand the difference between right and wrong.
- I influenced someone to raise [their] standards.
- I challenged someone who was behaving in an unacceptable way to change [their] behaviour.
Hmmm.
This morning I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and walked round to the Nestle 3000, ready to fill it with 'Chocolate'. One of the students got there just before I did but very kindly let me go first.
"After you, Matt," he said, "I'll be here ages 'cos I have to have three shots of espresso."
"Thanks," I said, swinging my mug into place and pushing the button. The machine flashed into life, whirred into an ultraviolet glow and started pumping hot chocolate into my mug.
"Wait, three espressos?" I said. He looked at me bleary-eyed.
"Y'hm."
"You know what'll happen? Eventually your body will reset its base-level at three espressos and you'll need more caffeine just to feel as awake as you do now. You should go cold-turkey I reckon."
He looked at me a little shocked. To be honest, I was a little shocked myself. I'm not normally quite so direct.
"You're making me feel really bad now!" he said. Then I felt bad. Who am I to criticise someone else's coffee-drinking habits? Just because three espressos would be enough to send me to the moon, it doesn't mean I have the right to criticise someone else's preference, does it?
He went on to explain how he likes his coffee dark, rich, strong and how the stuff that spurts out of the Nestle 3000 doesn't really count as proper coffee anyway. I smiled weakly.
"Alright," he said, "I'll go for two shots today. Maybe I'll ease off slowly."
I apologised again and we headed back out into the office.
You know what? Technically I've influenced somebody to raise their standards, challenged their behaviour and possibly helped them see the difference between good and better. I'm doing OK according to Leadership for Dummies.
Why do I feel bad about it then? Is that the thing with proper leadership? Feeling bad and being rude to students?
I might just slip it back into the bookcase.
Monday, 20 October 2014
BIT TOO GEEKY
No funny maths tonight, don't worry. I've switched back to thinking about music. Choir this week will be a very festive affair as we start our run up to Christmas - at least it will, if I can figure out how to arrange the music for it.
It's pretty tricky when my Dad is watching Dracula next door. It's the 1958 version - plum voices, swelling strings that are loud enough to rattle the telly and the occasional screaming girl, taken unawares by Christopher Lee. It's not exactly conducive to scoring out Silent Night for Soprano, Alto and Bass.
My problem is, as always, trying to make the music interesting enough to perform and to listen to, but somehow keeping it simple enough to learn quickly. I realised a while ago that one of the keys is making memorable melodies out of each part. Another is keeping the intervals close together so that no-one has to reach for a sixth or an augmented seventh or some other curious leap. The trouble is, it's those beautiful intervals that make it sound great. I'm so tempted to sneak them in but I know the trouble it causes. Plus, once it's written down in the dots and squiggles, it's pretty much unchangeable. Funnily enough, the tension between these two requirements gets reflected in the tension I feel between really loving it and really going mad with frustration.
I feel a bit geeky this week. Maths, music, Beethoven, la di da. I probably shouldn't go on about anything for a while, especially after confusing myself with probabilities. The truth is I really enjoy finding out about all this stuff - I think the world is an amazing place and there's so much that I want to learn and do and see before I leave it. I may well be a Jack of All Trades rather than a Leonardo Da Vinci Savant, but I hope I can say at least I had a go at all this stuff.
There is always table football. Steve and I had another game today. Thrashed. Four of his points were scored by me, back passing the ball straight into my own goal. I just don't have the kind of co-ordination required. Plus, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, especially to the Finance Guys, but I just don't think I care enough about it. Maybe that's how most people feel about maths and grammar, science and music theory? Hmm.
I wonder if Leonardo would have been any good at table football? He could write backwards with his left hand while writing something else forwards with his right hand, apparently. I guess co-ordination wouldn't have been a problem. The beard might have interfered with his team, and I can see him getting angry and flashing into a rage of Latinate fury when fishing the little yellow ball out of his goal while the Finance Guys look on smugly.
Right. Enough procrastination - Silent Night awaits. Table football? Da Vinci? What am I going on about?
Sleep in heavenly peace, people. Sleep in heavenly peace.
It's pretty tricky when my Dad is watching Dracula next door. It's the 1958 version - plum voices, swelling strings that are loud enough to rattle the telly and the occasional screaming girl, taken unawares by Christopher Lee. It's not exactly conducive to scoring out Silent Night for Soprano, Alto and Bass.
My problem is, as always, trying to make the music interesting enough to perform and to listen to, but somehow keeping it simple enough to learn quickly. I realised a while ago that one of the keys is making memorable melodies out of each part. Another is keeping the intervals close together so that no-one has to reach for a sixth or an augmented seventh or some other curious leap. The trouble is, it's those beautiful intervals that make it sound great. I'm so tempted to sneak them in but I know the trouble it causes. Plus, once it's written down in the dots and squiggles, it's pretty much unchangeable. Funnily enough, the tension between these two requirements gets reflected in the tension I feel between really loving it and really going mad with frustration.
I feel a bit geeky this week. Maths, music, Beethoven, la di da. I probably shouldn't go on about anything for a while, especially after confusing myself with probabilities. The truth is I really enjoy finding out about all this stuff - I think the world is an amazing place and there's so much that I want to learn and do and see before I leave it. I may well be a Jack of All Trades rather than a Leonardo Da Vinci Savant, but I hope I can say at least I had a go at all this stuff.
There is always table football. Steve and I had another game today. Thrashed. Four of his points were scored by me, back passing the ball straight into my own goal. I just don't have the kind of co-ordination required. Plus, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, especially to the Finance Guys, but I just don't think I care enough about it. Maybe that's how most people feel about maths and grammar, science and music theory? Hmm.
I wonder if Leonardo would have been any good at table football? He could write backwards with his left hand while writing something else forwards with his right hand, apparently. I guess co-ordination wouldn't have been a problem. The beard might have interfered with his team, and I can see him getting angry and flashing into a rage of Latinate fury when fishing the little yellow ball out of his goal while the Finance Guys look on smugly.
Right. Enough procrastination - Silent Night awaits. Table football? Da Vinci? What am I going on about?
Sleep in heavenly peace, people. Sleep in heavenly peace.
POTENTIAL
I woke up early this morning with a sudden jolting thought. What if the host opens the door with the car behind it?
Monday. The sky was light and streaked with gold. I got up and opened the window, letting the cold breeze in. I really love how the most beautiful time of day coincides with the most difficult time to see it. Somehow, the all-embracing warmth of the duvet is tough to beat at 6am on a Monday morning.
I threw on some clothes and headed out for a quick walk around the village. The dog-walkers were out. There were so many of them, I actually felt a little self-conscious for not having a dog to whistle at. Huge floppy hounds lolloped about the field while little scotties darted and yelped. Wellington-wearing walkers swung leads and tennis balls on sticks around as they went by. It was all a bit middle-England if you ask me. Thankfully, I was there - scruffy, dishevelled and dogless to meander through the picture.
If the host opens the door with the car behind it, it renders the total possibility of the car being behind either of the others as zero, in which case, you could argue, yes that an apparently independent event has changed the probability of your choice from 1/3 to 0.
Here's the thing though - if he (or she) does reveal the car, it isn't really an independent event as it alters the total balance of probability of the entire situation - the two closed doors are no longer forming an independent probabilistic system. In fact, the game is over and the idea of probability is irrelevant altogether, given that everything that could possibly happen has already been decided.
The sun winked through the trees. I thought about the way that the Earth was rolling with me stood on it, slowly being tipped towards the great yellow ball of light in front of me. For some reason, the rotation seems faster when the sun is at the horizon.
The sky filled with light and the trees fluttered their golden tops, still half-hidden in shade. A streetlamp blinked out as the day broke into the night. It all seemed really hopeful somehow, watching a new day burst into life. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the house I'd stopped outside, happened to be called Potential. I smiled upwards.
I strolled home and got ready for work, feeling grateful, alive and awake. Potential. It's so much better than probability - it's definite, like the sun rising or the darkness being extinguished by the light. It's locked inside of us, created for us by so much more than a game show host playing an odd game of chance with doors and goats. I think if we're going to change the world, if we're going to make a difference, then understanding our potential seems like a good way to start the day.
Monday. The sky was light and streaked with gold. I got up and opened the window, letting the cold breeze in. I really love how the most beautiful time of day coincides with the most difficult time to see it. Somehow, the all-embracing warmth of the duvet is tough to beat at 6am on a Monday morning.
I threw on some clothes and headed out for a quick walk around the village. The dog-walkers were out. There were so many of them, I actually felt a little self-conscious for not having a dog to whistle at. Huge floppy hounds lolloped about the field while little scotties darted and yelped. Wellington-wearing walkers swung leads and tennis balls on sticks around as they went by. It was all a bit middle-England if you ask me. Thankfully, I was there - scruffy, dishevelled and dogless to meander through the picture.
If the host opens the door with the car behind it, it renders the total possibility of the car being behind either of the others as zero, in which case, you could argue, yes that an apparently independent event has changed the probability of your choice from 1/3 to 0.
Here's the thing though - if he (or she) does reveal the car, it isn't really an independent event as it alters the total balance of probability of the entire situation - the two closed doors are no longer forming an independent probabilistic system. In fact, the game is over and the idea of probability is irrelevant altogether, given that everything that could possibly happen has already been decided.
The sun winked through the trees. I thought about the way that the Earth was rolling with me stood on it, slowly being tipped towards the great yellow ball of light in front of me. For some reason, the rotation seems faster when the sun is at the horizon.
The sky filled with light and the trees fluttered their golden tops, still half-hidden in shade. A streetlamp blinked out as the day broke into the night. It all seemed really hopeful somehow, watching a new day burst into life. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the house I'd stopped outside, happened to be called Potential. I smiled upwards.
I strolled home and got ready for work, feeling grateful, alive and awake. Potential. It's so much better than probability - it's definite, like the sun rising or the darkness being extinguished by the light. It's locked inside of us, created for us by so much more than a game show host playing an odd game of chance with doors and goats. I think if we're going to change the world, if we're going to make a difference, then understanding our potential seems like a good way to start the day.
Sunday, 19 October 2014
WHAT ARE THE ODDS?
"Did you hear about that couple who changed their normal numbers one week?" asked my Dad.
"Oh, and then their old numbers came up?" asked someone - my sister I think it was.
"Yes! And guess what they did the next week? Would you believe it, they changed their numbers back! I mean the chances of those numbers coming up again..."
"Um..." I said, raising a finger. "Aren't the chances... exactly the same as any other set of numbers?"
"What?" said my sister.
"Well, the statistics are the same for any set of numbers," I protested geekily, "the lottery balls don't have a memory!"
This is a weird feature of probability don't you think? I mean, intuitively, if you roll a six, and then another six, and then a third six, you'd think the chances of rolling a six again for the fourth time are miniscule, wouldn't you? But the truth is, as you hold that die for the fourth time, defying the odds in that one instant, you've actually got just as much chance of rolling a six as you had the time before. It always is, and always will be 1/6 (16.7%)... unless the die somehow knows what's just happened.
It's this feature I think, that makes gambling so appealing - it kind of tricks you into thinking you've got more chance than you really have sometimes. I'm really fascinated by the psychological effect it has on us - a random set of numbers picked for the lottery somehow seems much more likely to come up than a nicely ordered sequence. Don't be fooled though. 1,2,3,4,5,6 is just as good a selection as any other.
This is what makes the Monty Hall Problem work I think, though from slightly the other way around, it proves that probability can be a bit tricky to believe. Monty Hall is a really famous puzzle that plays with your perception of statistics. Forgive me if you've already come across it, but it works like this:
You're a contestant on a game show with a really simple premise. There are three closed doors and behind each of these doors is a prize. The host tells you that behind one of the doors is a car, and behind each of the other two, they've put a goat. You win whatever's behind the door you pick. Now the host knows exactly what each door conceals and waits for you to choose one. When you've selected, the host then opens one of the remaining doors to reveal a goat. The other two doors remain closed and the host asks you whether you would like to stick with your original choice or swap to the other closed door. What should you do? Stick or switch? Does it matter?
Well, the answer, as counterintuitive as it appears, is that you should always switch doors, as it doubles your chance of winning. You might think this is bonkers but it is actually true - and it's true because the probability of a thing happening doesn't change because of an independent thing also happening - just as the probability of a set of lottery numbers coming up this week has nothing at all do with the numbers which came up last week. If it did, you could probably claim that the lottery is not random at all, and is exhibiting all the signs of being either rigged or predictable.
The fact is that when you selected the first door, you had a probability of 1/3 of selecting the car. The host opening another door has no effect at all on that probability, once you've picked - the car and the goats are still in exactly the same configuration as they were moments ago. Therefore, the probability that the door you've chosen is hiding the car... is still 1/3 (33%). This also means that the probability of the car being behind the other door is now 2/3 (67%) as there are no other possibilities.
There was a silence around the coffee table. I think my Dad was trying to figure out a way to prove me wrong and my sister scratched her head as though confused by the whole thing. I was hoping to have a discussion about how compound probability changes when the variables depend on each other - for example, when one lottery ball is chosen by the machine, you've got a better chance of matching the next one - and how it doesn't when the events are independent. In the end, my Mum looked at me and broke the tension with a sentence that always carries a high probability of being spoken in our house.
"Put the kettle on, Jimper," she said.
"Oh, and then their old numbers came up?" asked someone - my sister I think it was.
"Yes! And guess what they did the next week? Would you believe it, they changed their numbers back! I mean the chances of those numbers coming up again..."
"Um..." I said, raising a finger. "Aren't the chances... exactly the same as any other set of numbers?"
"What?" said my sister.
"Well, the statistics are the same for any set of numbers," I protested geekily, "the lottery balls don't have a memory!"
This is a weird feature of probability don't you think? I mean, intuitively, if you roll a six, and then another six, and then a third six, you'd think the chances of rolling a six again for the fourth time are miniscule, wouldn't you? But the truth is, as you hold that die for the fourth time, defying the odds in that one instant, you've actually got just as much chance of rolling a six as you had the time before. It always is, and always will be 1/6 (16.7%)... unless the die somehow knows what's just happened.
It's this feature I think, that makes gambling so appealing - it kind of tricks you into thinking you've got more chance than you really have sometimes. I'm really fascinated by the psychological effect it has on us - a random set of numbers picked for the lottery somehow seems much more likely to come up than a nicely ordered sequence. Don't be fooled though. 1,2,3,4,5,6 is just as good a selection as any other.
This is what makes the Monty Hall Problem work I think, though from slightly the other way around, it proves that probability can be a bit tricky to believe. Monty Hall is a really famous puzzle that plays with your perception of statistics. Forgive me if you've already come across it, but it works like this:
You're a contestant on a game show with a really simple premise. There are three closed doors and behind each of these doors is a prize. The host tells you that behind one of the doors is a car, and behind each of the other two, they've put a goat. You win whatever's behind the door you pick. Now the host knows exactly what each door conceals and waits for you to choose one. When you've selected, the host then opens one of the remaining doors to reveal a goat. The other two doors remain closed and the host asks you whether you would like to stick with your original choice or swap to the other closed door. What should you do? Stick or switch? Does it matter?
Well, the answer, as counterintuitive as it appears, is that you should always switch doors, as it doubles your chance of winning. You might think this is bonkers but it is actually true - and it's true because the probability of a thing happening doesn't change because of an independent thing also happening - just as the probability of a set of lottery numbers coming up this week has nothing at all do with the numbers which came up last week. If it did, you could probably claim that the lottery is not random at all, and is exhibiting all the signs of being either rigged or predictable.
The fact is that when you selected the first door, you had a probability of 1/3 of selecting the car. The host opening another door has no effect at all on that probability, once you've picked - the car and the goats are still in exactly the same configuration as they were moments ago. Therefore, the probability that the door you've chosen is hiding the car... is still 1/3 (33%). This also means that the probability of the car being behind the other door is now 2/3 (67%) as there are no other possibilities.
There was a silence around the coffee table. I think my Dad was trying to figure out a way to prove me wrong and my sister scratched her head as though confused by the whole thing. I was hoping to have a discussion about how compound probability changes when the variables depend on each other - for example, when one lottery ball is chosen by the machine, you've got a better chance of matching the next one - and how it doesn't when the events are independent. In the end, my Mum looked at me and broke the tension with a sentence that always carries a high probability of being spoken in our house.
"Put the kettle on, Jimper," she said.
Friday, 17 October 2014
BEETHOVEN'S NINTH
I'm listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. You might not know it, but if you've seen Die Hard or in fact, pretty much anything with Germans in it, you'll have probably heard one of its most famous sections, the Ode to Joy.
It's good. I tell you what as well, if you have heard any of Beethoven's Ninth, you've heard more of it than Beethoven ever did; he was completely deaf when he wrote it. In fact, in 1824 when he premiered the piece, he had to be turned around to see the audience applauding, having conducted what must have been to him, a silent orchestra.
It's this overcoming of adversity that I like. When you listen to this symphony in all its delicate and magnificent movements, it's incredible to think that this is a masterpiece painted in the dark.
Thirteen years earlier, aged 41, Beethoven had attempted to perform his own 5th Piano Concerto and was unable to, presumably with the deleterious effect on his hearing at the time. I guess in today's world, the media would have lampooned such a failure and his career could easily have floundered.
You can't keep a genius down though. The Ninth Symphony is a spectacular achievement of composition and form, and is sometimes hailed as Beethoven's greatest work.
I really like it. It shows what you can do in the face of adversity, if you have passion to do it. I'm the kind of person who sometimes sees the obstacles and difficulties around me with a heavy heart, analysing and separating the impossible from the possible.
Have a listen to Beethoven's Ninth sometime. Think of Beethoven standing in silence as the hall is filled with majesty and soaring voices, gloriously rising and falling with each fluid motion of the baton in his hand. Think of the standing ovation that must have greeted his teary eyes as he turned to face the audience that night in 1824. Think of it, and you can do it. Nothing is impossible.
Nothing.
It's good. I tell you what as well, if you have heard any of Beethoven's Ninth, you've heard more of it than Beethoven ever did; he was completely deaf when he wrote it. In fact, in 1824 when he premiered the piece, he had to be turned around to see the audience applauding, having conducted what must have been to him, a silent orchestra.
It's this overcoming of adversity that I like. When you listen to this symphony in all its delicate and magnificent movements, it's incredible to think that this is a masterpiece painted in the dark.
Thirteen years earlier, aged 41, Beethoven had attempted to perform his own 5th Piano Concerto and was unable to, presumably with the deleterious effect on his hearing at the time. I guess in today's world, the media would have lampooned such a failure and his career could easily have floundered.
You can't keep a genius down though. The Ninth Symphony is a spectacular achievement of composition and form, and is sometimes hailed as Beethoven's greatest work.
I really like it. It shows what you can do in the face of adversity, if you have passion to do it. I'm the kind of person who sometimes sees the obstacles and difficulties around me with a heavy heart, analysing and separating the impossible from the possible.
Have a listen to Beethoven's Ninth sometime. Think of Beethoven standing in silence as the hall is filled with majesty and soaring voices, gloriously rising and falling with each fluid motion of the baton in his hand. Think of the standing ovation that must have greeted his teary eyes as he turned to face the audience that night in 1824. Think of it, and you can do it. Nothing is impossible.
Nothing.
Thursday, 16 October 2014
THIN
I sometimes feel like I'm living with my emotions bubbling away just under the surface. It's a very thin way to live, like being a translucent bag of fury, sadness, joy and tears, all at once. One mistimed joke, one ill-judged comment from the wrong person and I could explode like a box of fireworks.
It's no way to live, this, is it? It takes a lot of effort and hard work to keep myself contained. I look at those laid-back types who coast through life so carelessly. Nothing seems to faze them, nothing really gets their goat or takes their biscuit. It's all sort of cool somehow, life is good and if it's not they sort of make it work anyway - and then it is. Are they like me but just better at pretending? I wonder. I wish I were cooler.
I am dissatisfied I think, and the frustration with myself is growing. I lack confidence - so much so that I've signed up to some coaching at work, hopefully to help me deal with this crushing self-defeat I constantly feel and can't explain. My first session is tomorrow.
It's no way to live, this, is it? It takes a lot of effort and hard work to keep myself contained. I look at those laid-back types who coast through life so carelessly. Nothing seems to faze them, nothing really gets their goat or takes their biscuit. It's all sort of cool somehow, life is good and if it's not they sort of make it work anyway - and then it is. Are they like me but just better at pretending? I wonder. I wish I were cooler.
I am dissatisfied I think, and the frustration with myself is growing. I lack confidence - so much so that I've signed up to some coaching at work, hopefully to help me deal with this crushing self-defeat I constantly feel and can't explain. My first session is tomorrow.
Wednesday, 15 October 2014
THE APPRENTICE
I spent today writing a job description and thinking up telephone interview questions. We're hiring another technical author, a person who, if successful, will get the auspicious privilege of working in a team of two... with me.
I say let's forget the normal HR process. It's way too straightforward. What we should do is filter down the inevitable hundreds of thousands of applicants to a much smaller group, say twenty individuals who, for some inexplicable reason, believe themselves to be the best technical authors ever to grace the planet.
This bunch of hopefuls will be extraordinary - chosen for their braggadocio, their blistering naivity and colossal ambition, not to mention their natural propensity for continually selecting the stupidest option, despite their colossal IQs and glittering past achievements.
Once we have our super twenty, we should then split them into teams. Over the course of several weeks, we'll give the teams some very simple authoring tasks. Can they, for example, write a features list for a new product? Work as a team to upload a help set with appropriate callouts? Organise a successful localisation drop?
Naturally, successful teams will be rewarded by progressing to the next part of the interview (another new and pointless (they won't know that) task of course) and we'll give them a little treat - maybe a fiver each to spend at the coffee van or a round of teas in our special corporate mugs? We can work out the details nearer the time...
Of course, unsuccessful teams will need to come and have a chat with me about why they failed. I imagine they'll squabble about whether 'organise' is spelled with a Z or an S and whose bright idea it was to use Google Translate instead of sending the content off to our dedicated Japanese translators and all the rest of it. That's OK because somehow, like a great bearded mystic, rubbing my wise and noble chin, this will give me deep insight into which of them is worthy of the job - and which of them need to update their LinkedIn profile.
Ah yes, that's it! Once this fractious brawl in the conference room has occurred, I think I'll just select the most suitable candi.. ah no, wait! No, I need to get it right, you know, to be absolutely sure. I'll drag it out for as long as possible. Yes, every week in an unbearably cringeworthy meeting, you know, the type that causes you to lose all faith in human kindness, I'll just ask them to point fingers at each other and then ask the daftest or shoutiest one to leave (I might even arrange them a taxi) letting the rest move on to the next (exciting) authoring challenge.
Marvellous. So the whole thing should take about 15 weeks, should humiliate 19 strangers, embarrass the company with a huge waste of resources and cause a whole bunch of people to hate each other, yes? 15 weeks. Oh I'm sure that'll be fine. I don't have much other work to do. And anyway, after all that 'interviewing' is out of the way, I can just pass it all on to the newbie right?
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
THE WOOD FOR THE TREES
I feel really weird at the moment; like something is wrong but I can't put my finger on it. Don't worry about it, this is pretty normal for me; I get this a lot. What I can't work out is whether it's over-sensitivity to something going on behind the scenes, or my own short-sighted inability to see the obvious thing properly.
The wood for the trees.
I still have a little chesty cough. The flu thing I had while Gary Lineker was ripping the bathroom apart the other week is long gone, but this irrepressible symptom remains. It doesn't aid singing and song writing, I can say. Neither does it help with that other thing I used to do, oh you remember... where you sort of shut your eyes at the end of one day... and then wake up at the beginning of another.
Gosh, that'd be nice.
-
My colleague held up an album. It looked like it was made of ancient parchment, which happened to be exactly the same shape as a CD case.
"Not something you see every day," he said tapping at it with his index finger.
"What's that?"
"Wax," he said, "it's a wax seal!"
I looked closely. It was. The folds of the CD case were overlapped together by a penny-sized disc of imprinted, blood-red wax that might as well have come from a museum of ancient signatures.
"My girlfriend's dad's partner's son," he said casually, "is in a band - like a folky metal band where they play medieval folk stories but thrash metal? This is their first album. Thought I'd give it a go."
That's weird, I thought. I'm sure I know a band like that. An old friend of mine in Birmingham plays bass in a band where they dress up in kilts and boots and monks' habits and throw their hair around during guitar solos. They're always trying to talk like they're from the fourteenth century, throwing in thees and thous and forsooths while clutching electric guitars and flagons of ale.
"Your girlfriend's dad's partner's son..." I said, trailing sceptically. Another colleague chipped in, suggesting that the band couldn't have been hoping to sell many discs if they were hand-sealing them all with actual wax.
"Are they any good?" I asked the owner of the disc.
"Yeah they're alright," he said, "not exactly my type of thing, but I'll give it a go."
Now, if it is the same band (and how many medieval soothsaying screamo black metal bands are out there?) then I'm not sure how you give something like that 'a go'. I love music, but this stuff just sounds like a complicated way to blow up a PA system to me. It is very much an acquired taste, listening to someone growling into a microphone while his friends throw themselves about with their instruments. I'm sure they're very good but I remain (happily) uninitiated. I resolved to find out just whether the world is as small as I think it is.
Seeing the wood for the trees is all about focus isn't it? Sometimes you just have to adjust the lens until the thing you're searching for becomes crisp and clear in front of you. I think sometimes too, I know this all too well, but I'm very scared of it. Actually, the more I think about it, that's pretty much exactly my problem today. The thing I require is probably the thing I fear.
And it's probably staring me in the face.
The wood for the trees.
I still have a little chesty cough. The flu thing I had while Gary Lineker was ripping the bathroom apart the other week is long gone, but this irrepressible symptom remains. It doesn't aid singing and song writing, I can say. Neither does it help with that other thing I used to do, oh you remember... where you sort of shut your eyes at the end of one day... and then wake up at the beginning of another.
Gosh, that'd be nice.
-
My colleague held up an album. It looked like it was made of ancient parchment, which happened to be exactly the same shape as a CD case.
"Not something you see every day," he said tapping at it with his index finger.
"What's that?"
"Wax," he said, "it's a wax seal!"
I looked closely. It was. The folds of the CD case were overlapped together by a penny-sized disc of imprinted, blood-red wax that might as well have come from a museum of ancient signatures.
"My girlfriend's dad's partner's son," he said casually, "is in a band - like a folky metal band where they play medieval folk stories but thrash metal? This is their first album. Thought I'd give it a go."
That's weird, I thought. I'm sure I know a band like that. An old friend of mine in Birmingham plays bass in a band where they dress up in kilts and boots and monks' habits and throw their hair around during guitar solos. They're always trying to talk like they're from the fourteenth century, throwing in thees and thous and forsooths while clutching electric guitars and flagons of ale.
"Your girlfriend's dad's partner's son..." I said, trailing sceptically. Another colleague chipped in, suggesting that the band couldn't have been hoping to sell many discs if they were hand-sealing them all with actual wax.
"Are they any good?" I asked the owner of the disc.
"Yeah they're alright," he said, "not exactly my type of thing, but I'll give it a go."
Now, if it is the same band (and how many medieval soothsaying screamo black metal bands are out there?) then I'm not sure how you give something like that 'a go'. I love music, but this stuff just sounds like a complicated way to blow up a PA system to me. It is very much an acquired taste, listening to someone growling into a microphone while his friends throw themselves about with their instruments. I'm sure they're very good but I remain (happily) uninitiated. I resolved to find out just whether the world is as small as I think it is.
Seeing the wood for the trees is all about focus isn't it? Sometimes you just have to adjust the lens until the thing you're searching for becomes crisp and clear in front of you. I think sometimes too, I know this all too well, but I'm very scared of it. Actually, the more I think about it, that's pretty much exactly my problem today. The thing I require is probably the thing I fear.
And it's probably staring me in the face.
Sunday, 12 October 2014
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 4 AND 36
The family came round today. All of them. It always looks like a biscuit bomb has gone off in a toy factory: train track twisting round the sofas, bits of lego and Jenga blocks scattered across the carpet, crumbs of cake, half-eaten jammy dodgers, broken custard creams, an upturned plate and empty juice cups.
Sam (5) was connecting together bits of Duplo to make a gun, no doubt with me as its first target, as soon as the plastic bathtub was connected to the lamp bit.
"How old are you Uncle Matthew?" he asked, sweetly.
"I'm 4," I said, smiling. He laughed.
"It must be a bigger number than that!"
I inwardly agreed - it absolutely must be 'a bigger number than that', though sometimes I'm not sure it's really the size it is.
"36," I said, eventually.
His eyes widened as though he couldn't imagine it. What must it be like to be that old! That's the thing though, isn't it? He can't imagine it, and I don't think anyone would expect him to. His world is chocolate biscuits and school jumpers, lego and CBeebies - mine is a minefield so complicated and dangerous, it may as well be another planet to his little wide eyes.
"Are you married to someone?" he asked.
"No, I'm not," I replied.
"Why not?"
"Well, I... don't actually know," I said, racking my brain for a way to explain it that would have made sense to him. It would have been so easy to have slipped into cliché-gear and dragged out the old stock response: 'I just haven't met the right person yet', but I was acutely aware that while it sounds like a neat little suitable summary of a very painful journey, that actually isn't exactly how I think of it these days, and I didn't want to be dishonest to my nephew.
It's fascinating to me how even in the simple world of a five year old boy, the idea that you should be married by a certain age has already been cemented as a kind of central principle of life. If you follow this dreadful principle through logically, it leads to the inevitable and unbearable pressure on young people to make a huge decision, sometimes at the silliest time in their lives, not to mention the world it helps to create - where single people are treated as losers and outcasts but only behind twitching curtains and closed doors.
There is another member of my family who believes I'm not in a relationship because their own inability to hold it together has somehow 'put me off' the idea altogether. I don't really understand this argument. It's sort of saying, "Well, look if I can't manage it, Matt, if it's too difficult for me... pfft! you got no chance, buddy." which is offensive tosh for lots of reasons that I don't need to explain.
My sister butted in and answered Sam's question for me while I was thinking about it.
"He just hasn't met the right lady," she said. I slumped a bit in the sofa. "But one day," she continued, "we'll all dress up posh and go to Uncle Matthew's wedding."
I wonder how old Sam will be by then?
Sam (5) was connecting together bits of Duplo to make a gun, no doubt with me as its first target, as soon as the plastic bathtub was connected to the lamp bit.
"How old are you Uncle Matthew?" he asked, sweetly.
"I'm 4," I said, smiling. He laughed.
"It must be a bigger number than that!"
I inwardly agreed - it absolutely must be 'a bigger number than that', though sometimes I'm not sure it's really the size it is.
"36," I said, eventually.
His eyes widened as though he couldn't imagine it. What must it be like to be that old! That's the thing though, isn't it? He can't imagine it, and I don't think anyone would expect him to. His world is chocolate biscuits and school jumpers, lego and CBeebies - mine is a minefield so complicated and dangerous, it may as well be another planet to his little wide eyes.
"Are you married to someone?" he asked.
"No, I'm not," I replied.
"Why not?"
"Well, I... don't actually know," I said, racking my brain for a way to explain it that would have made sense to him. It would have been so easy to have slipped into cliché-gear and dragged out the old stock response: 'I just haven't met the right person yet', but I was acutely aware that while it sounds like a neat little suitable summary of a very painful journey, that actually isn't exactly how I think of it these days, and I didn't want to be dishonest to my nephew.
It's fascinating to me how even in the simple world of a five year old boy, the idea that you should be married by a certain age has already been cemented as a kind of central principle of life. If you follow this dreadful principle through logically, it leads to the inevitable and unbearable pressure on young people to make a huge decision, sometimes at the silliest time in their lives, not to mention the world it helps to create - where single people are treated as losers and outcasts but only behind twitching curtains and closed doors.
There is another member of my family who believes I'm not in a relationship because their own inability to hold it together has somehow 'put me off' the idea altogether. I don't really understand this argument. It's sort of saying, "Well, look if I can't manage it, Matt, if it's too difficult for me... pfft! you got no chance, buddy." which is offensive tosh for lots of reasons that I don't need to explain.
My sister butted in and answered Sam's question for me while I was thinking about it.
"He just hasn't met the right lady," she said. I slumped a bit in the sofa. "But one day," she continued, "we'll all dress up posh and go to Uncle Matthew's wedding."
I wonder how old Sam will be by then?
Saturday, 11 October 2014
A LITTLE ESSAY ON PHOBIAS
I looked up 'fear of geese' on one of those lists-of-phobias websites. They're extraordinary lists, those - you wouldn't believe the kind of things that there are to be afraid of out there. For example, petsetaphobia is apparently the fear of towels. Who's afraid of towels? Then there's linonophobia, the terrible fear of string. And what about anatidaephobia, the strange feeling that somewhere you're being watched by a duck.
I've got to be honest, I think someone's making these up. Someone with a bit of a thing for greek prefixes has simply invented a whole set of fears by shunting a 'phobia' on the end of each one. The fastest way to create something like that is to give it a label. And sometimes they haven't even bothered with the greek! As I scrolled down, I noted that in the Y section, some wisecracker had entered:
Ynotophobia: the fear of life having not been worth living
and I wondered whether the whole thing might be a bit of wind-up.
I did a quick Ctrl+F anyway and searched for geese. I found it. The fear of geese is apparently, chinaphobia, not to be confused with chionophobia (fear of snow) or sinophobia which is a deep-seated resentment of Chinese people. Now I love snow and I've got nothing against the Chinese. As Father Ted once said, they're 'a great bunch of lads' and (despite my sister once dreaming that she was imprisoned in a Chinese detention camp) I'm not really all that terrified of them. Plus, I really like paper, gunpowder, compasses and tea.
There must come a point when these phobia names become completely pointless. I reckon most people would understand arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia and maybe hydrophobia*, but beyond that - isn't it just easier to say you have a fear of whatever it is? In fact, I notice with interest that the spellchecker hasn't picked up any of those four phobias but is currently making suggestions for all of the others I've mentioned so far. Therein lies the tale.
So in case you're wondering, I do still have the fear of geese (also note how chinophobia has two more syllables in it and is actually less descriptive than 'fear of geese') and they do freak me out a little bit. It's their little beady eyes and reptilian legs, strutting about like miniature fluffy dinosaurs, ready to pounce, raptor-like upon their unsuspecting victims. It's them and cows. But I'll leave an in-depth discussion of bovinaphobia for another day.
I have got to stop looking up stuff on the Internet.
*Whatever you do, don't leave these people in a tiny outdoor swimming pool filled with spiders.
I've got to be honest, I think someone's making these up. Someone with a bit of a thing for greek prefixes has simply invented a whole set of fears by shunting a 'phobia' on the end of each one. The fastest way to create something like that is to give it a label. And sometimes they haven't even bothered with the greek! As I scrolled down, I noted that in the Y section, some wisecracker had entered:
Ynotophobia: the fear of life having not been worth living
and I wondered whether the whole thing might be a bit of wind-up.
I did a quick Ctrl+F anyway and searched for geese. I found it. The fear of geese is apparently, chinaphobia, not to be confused with chionophobia (fear of snow) or sinophobia which is a deep-seated resentment of Chinese people. Now I love snow and I've got nothing against the Chinese. As Father Ted once said, they're 'a great bunch of lads' and (despite my sister once dreaming that she was imprisoned in a Chinese detention camp) I'm not really all that terrified of them. Plus, I really like paper, gunpowder, compasses and tea.
There must come a point when these phobia names become completely pointless. I reckon most people would understand arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia and maybe hydrophobia*, but beyond that - isn't it just easier to say you have a fear of whatever it is? In fact, I notice with interest that the spellchecker hasn't picked up any of those four phobias but is currently making suggestions for all of the others I've mentioned so far. Therein lies the tale.
So in case you're wondering, I do still have the fear of geese (also note how chinophobia has two more syllables in it and is actually less descriptive than 'fear of geese') and they do freak me out a little bit. It's their little beady eyes and reptilian legs, strutting about like miniature fluffy dinosaurs, ready to pounce, raptor-like upon their unsuspecting victims. It's them and cows. But I'll leave an in-depth discussion of bovinaphobia for another day.
I have got to stop looking up stuff on the Internet.
*Whatever you do, don't leave these people in a tiny outdoor swimming pool filled with spiders.
Friday, 10 October 2014
ALARMS & ALERTS
So often, despair follows elation. It's almost as though the Universe is trying to propel me into a bipolar cycle of unutterable highs and unfathomable lows.
Well, get stuffed, Universe. I don't belong to you.
I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock, buzzing into my brain. There are really only two types of alarm call: the gentle lull of harps and clouds, softly rousing you from your slumber... or the jolting emergency sirens which yank you out of your sleep like a sergeant-major with a bullhorn.
I prefer the sergeant major I think. I did try harps and ducks and the gentle tinkle tinkle of a tiny bell but it only resulted in two things: (1) oversleeping, and (2) HATING the sound of that particular ringtone every time I heard it. I figured if I were going to despise hearing any kind of sound it might as well be one which sounds like it should be loathed. After all, the sergeant major with a bullhorn is really asking for it, I reckon.
In any case, the etymology of the word gives the game away: alarm comes from the Italian, 'all'arma' which translates as 'to arms'! Similarly, 'all'erte' (alert) means 'to the lookout' or 'to the watchtower' - which, you'll agree, is not the gentle sound of jazz piano or soft-strings drifting lazily by. That, my friends, is the sound of emergency, work and boot-lace-ready battle.
So I awoke to the sound of the klaxon blaring next to my head like the prelude to a nuclear holocaust. My eyes cracked open, I sat bolt upright and looked at the luminous numbers flashing a digital green in the darkness. 5:30. Unbelievable. Get stuffed, Universe.
I don't think I'm a morning person.
Well, get stuffed, Universe. I don't belong to you.
I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock, buzzing into my brain. There are really only two types of alarm call: the gentle lull of harps and clouds, softly rousing you from your slumber... or the jolting emergency sirens which yank you out of your sleep like a sergeant-major with a bullhorn.
I prefer the sergeant major I think. I did try harps and ducks and the gentle tinkle tinkle of a tiny bell but it only resulted in two things: (1) oversleeping, and (2) HATING the sound of that particular ringtone every time I heard it. I figured if I were going to despise hearing any kind of sound it might as well be one which sounds like it should be loathed. After all, the sergeant major with a bullhorn is really asking for it, I reckon.
In any case, the etymology of the word gives the game away: alarm comes from the Italian, 'all'arma' which translates as 'to arms'! Similarly, 'all'erte' (alert) means 'to the lookout' or 'to the watchtower' - which, you'll agree, is not the gentle sound of jazz piano or soft-strings drifting lazily by. That, my friends, is the sound of emergency, work and boot-lace-ready battle.
So I awoke to the sound of the klaxon blaring next to my head like the prelude to a nuclear holocaust. My eyes cracked open, I sat bolt upright and looked at the luminous numbers flashing a digital green in the darkness. 5:30. Unbelievable. Get stuffed, Universe.
I don't think I'm a morning person.
Thursday, 9 October 2014
MOISTURISING INSIDE THE X=-X PARADOX
I'm horrendously disorganised. I am, and sometimes it's so bad it's embarrassing. So here's what I've tried to do. I've tried to cover it up by being organised.
This struck me as a weird paradox today - how you can deal with a characteristic trait by applying its own solution. Let me explain.
"Matt, how can you say you're not organised? Whenever I see you, you're always making spreadsheets and checklists and doing stuff that looks pretty organised to me!"
Well yes, made-up imaginary person, you're kind of right. I do do those things, but only because I have to, in order to cover up my terrible inbuilt hard-wired tendency to leave everything until the last minute, panic and then call in everyone I can think of who can fix it while my hair turns grey with the stress. Every disorganised person knows that's bad... and so do their friends.
I'm similarly tidy/untidy too. How does that work? My natural inclination is to spread my stuff everywhere as though I'm slowly invading the world with piles of paper. I hate this, so I fight my nature continually by putting things away, finding a place for things and not letting it get into a pickle. So am I tidy (x) or untidy (-x)? I genuinely don't know. I suspect over time, you get to be whatever you choose to be.
The concert went really well. I don't think I've ever been quite so chuffed at the choir's performance or the level of enjoyment they displayed tonight. I watched them from behind the piano, thanking God that he allowed me to do this two years ago. Out of the ashes of my own disappointment, he managed to put together something so beautiful and so hopeful that it's enough to make your very heart sing. It's fascinating to me how nothing else I've ever been involved in has carried the same kind of buzz for this length of time. Running a choir might have been one of the best decisions I ever made. That and moisturiser.
Oh! That's exactly it! The x=-x paradox! When I got in, I put on moisturising cream because my face has been falling apart today, flaking off like old wallpaper. I wouldn't normally slap it on, but then my skin isn't normally this crumbly. So now it isn't - I have applied the solution because of my problem and now I'm simultaneously smooth-faced and yet still eroded. Perhaps this applies to lots of areas - I'm not a very good musician so I practiced and pretended that I was; I blagged my way into technical writing, claiming to be able to 'express complex ideas in a clear and simple way' when I still didn't fully understand just how complex those ideas were going to be. Eventually, you kind of become the thing you set out to be.
Maybe it's OK to live in the paradox, to whack on the moisturiser or bash out those I, IV and V chords. Maybe it's OK to pretend to be an adult, a father, a mother, a whatever. I guess you really can choose what you want to be.
This struck me as a weird paradox today - how you can deal with a characteristic trait by applying its own solution. Let me explain.
"Matt, how can you say you're not organised? Whenever I see you, you're always making spreadsheets and checklists and doing stuff that looks pretty organised to me!"
Well yes, made-up imaginary person, you're kind of right. I do do those things, but only because I have to, in order to cover up my terrible inbuilt hard-wired tendency to leave everything until the last minute, panic and then call in everyone I can think of who can fix it while my hair turns grey with the stress. Every disorganised person knows that's bad... and so do their friends.
I'm similarly tidy/untidy too. How does that work? My natural inclination is to spread my stuff everywhere as though I'm slowly invading the world with piles of paper. I hate this, so I fight my nature continually by putting things away, finding a place for things and not letting it get into a pickle. So am I tidy (x) or untidy (-x)? I genuinely don't know. I suspect over time, you get to be whatever you choose to be.
The concert went really well. I don't think I've ever been quite so chuffed at the choir's performance or the level of enjoyment they displayed tonight. I watched them from behind the piano, thanking God that he allowed me to do this two years ago. Out of the ashes of my own disappointment, he managed to put together something so beautiful and so hopeful that it's enough to make your very heart sing. It's fascinating to me how nothing else I've ever been involved in has carried the same kind of buzz for this length of time. Running a choir might have been one of the best decisions I ever made. That and moisturiser.
Oh! That's exactly it! The x=-x paradox! When I got in, I put on moisturising cream because my face has been falling apart today, flaking off like old wallpaper. I wouldn't normally slap it on, but then my skin isn't normally this crumbly. So now it isn't - I have applied the solution because of my problem and now I'm simultaneously smooth-faced and yet still eroded. Perhaps this applies to lots of areas - I'm not a very good musician so I practiced and pretended that I was; I blagged my way into technical writing, claiming to be able to 'express complex ideas in a clear and simple way' when I still didn't fully understand just how complex those ideas were going to be. Eventually, you kind of become the thing you set out to be.
Maybe it's OK to live in the paradox, to whack on the moisturiser or bash out those I, IV and V chords. Maybe it's OK to pretend to be an adult, a father, a mother, a whatever. I guess you really can choose what you want to be.
CRUNCHY MANGO
My skin's cracking and flaking off. What causes it? Is it just dehydration? You know that feeling you get when you go to the seaside and you come home and your face is tight, and you're so happy it's just exhausting? That's it... without the happiness.
Perhaps I'm not eating enough fruit. I stopped off in the Co-Op this morning and got a little tub of mango.
You know what the worst part is? I don't want to get too descriptive but I do have to keep brushing my jumper. Eww indeed. When I dried my hair this morning, it looked like I was trapped inside a snowglobe - that's a rather depressing thought, not to mention that little subconscious feeling that I'm falling apart whenever I get stressed out and shaken up. Don't overthink that.
The mango tastes like it was picked and diced several weeks ago and has been sitting on a radiator.
Meanwhile, in the other, more confident half of my life, I found myself in Staples at lunchtime, looking for something I didn't know the name of.
"It's a thing you use to hold lots of pages together," I heard myself explaining to the blank-looking sales assistant. I held out my fingers and pinched them together. "It's long, and it's made of plastic - and oh, it's kind of triangular!" I said, smiling at my own inability to talk.
"Do you mean a spine?" she asked, glinting.
"Yes!" I cried, "That's the chap!" She led me round the corner to the multi-coloured wall of folders. I saw her smiling to herself, which was nice for her. It must be great to actually know your stuff and be able to help people.
Don't overthink that either.
That's the chap? Did I really say that? Not only had I forgotten the name for the thing that holds a book together, I now seem to be talking like I'm from a different decade. I'll be tally ho-ing before the day is out, at this rate.
I've eaten the cardboard mango. It came with a little plastic fork which wasn't quite strong enough for the job, so in the end I just popped each cube in with my flaky fingers and crunched my way through it. I'm not sure it's doing my skin any favours.
Perhaps I'm not eating enough fruit. I stopped off in the Co-Op this morning and got a little tub of mango.
You know what the worst part is? I don't want to get too descriptive but I do have to keep brushing my jumper. Eww indeed. When I dried my hair this morning, it looked like I was trapped inside a snowglobe - that's a rather depressing thought, not to mention that little subconscious feeling that I'm falling apart whenever I get stressed out and shaken up. Don't overthink that.
The mango tastes like it was picked and diced several weeks ago and has been sitting on a radiator.
Meanwhile, in the other, more confident half of my life, I found myself in Staples at lunchtime, looking for something I didn't know the name of.
"It's a thing you use to hold lots of pages together," I heard myself explaining to the blank-looking sales assistant. I held out my fingers and pinched them together. "It's long, and it's made of plastic - and oh, it's kind of triangular!" I said, smiling at my own inability to talk.
"Do you mean a spine?" she asked, glinting.
"Yes!" I cried, "That's the chap!" She led me round the corner to the multi-coloured wall of folders. I saw her smiling to herself, which was nice for her. It must be great to actually know your stuff and be able to help people.
Don't overthink that either.
That's the chap? Did I really say that? Not only had I forgotten the name for the thing that holds a book together, I now seem to be talking like I'm from a different decade. I'll be tally ho-ing before the day is out, at this rate.
I've eaten the cardboard mango. It came with a little plastic fork which wasn't quite strong enough for the job, so in the end I just popped each cube in with my flaky fingers and crunched my way through it. I'm not sure it's doing my skin any favours.
Wednesday, 8 October 2014
FUSEBOY
"There's three of us here now," said Gary Lineker proudly.
"Oh really?" I said, hanging my coat on one of the empty hooks.
"Yep, there's a sparky in the loft."
I still haven't worked out why we needed a sparky in the loft. Nonetheless, the ladder was down and a shuffling, thumping sound reverberated through the ceiling. It was Gazza, the electrician.
"Alright?" said Gazza through the loft hatch.
"Hi," I replied.
"'Ere, where's the fuseboy?"
"Um..."
"The fuseboy. D'you know where it is, chap?"
I almost certainly looked blank - blank like a newly pressed sheet of A4 paper, glistening and fresh from the ream. I have no idea what a fuseboy is. I began to wonder two things:
Does he mean the fuse box?
Do all electricians call it that? Did it start out as a typo and they've just kept the joke going until they've all forgotten what they used to call it? Am I going to look stupid for pointing out the box of fuses and switches, controlling the electrical supply for our house to a qualified electrician?
"I thought it was in that cupboard," I said, cautiously. He didn't laugh so I assumed I was OK. I might be too colour-blind to actually ever be an electrician, but golly I can point out a fuse box.
It wasn't in the cupboard.
So while Gary Lineker was angling the cistern into place over the toilet, Gazza and I were hunting around the house for the fuseboy.
What was he doing in the loft?
"Oh really?" I said, hanging my coat on one of the empty hooks.
"Yep, there's a sparky in the loft."
I still haven't worked out why we needed a sparky in the loft. Nonetheless, the ladder was down and a shuffling, thumping sound reverberated through the ceiling. It was Gazza, the electrician.
"Alright?" said Gazza through the loft hatch.
"Hi," I replied.
"'Ere, where's the fuseboy?"
"Um..."
"The fuseboy. D'you know where it is, chap?"
I almost certainly looked blank - blank like a newly pressed sheet of A4 paper, glistening and fresh from the ream. I have no idea what a fuseboy is. I began to wonder two things:
Does he mean the fuse box?
Do all electricians call it that? Did it start out as a typo and they've just kept the joke going until they've all forgotten what they used to call it? Am I going to look stupid for pointing out the box of fuses and switches, controlling the electrical supply for our house to a qualified electrician?
"I thought it was in that cupboard," I said, cautiously. He didn't laugh so I assumed I was OK. I might be too colour-blind to actually ever be an electrician, but golly I can point out a fuse box.
It wasn't in the cupboard.
So while Gary Lineker was angling the cistern into place over the toilet, Gazza and I were hunting around the house for the fuseboy.
What was he doing in the loft?
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
THE ADVENTURES OF GARY LINEKER
Well someone's listening to me. It seems the Indian Summer Switch has been flicked to 'on' today. Thank you God and thank you jet stream. I threw off my coat and flung it over my shoulder like a casual stroller, basking in the warmth of the October sun.
Gary Lineker was off to Newbury to get more supplies, he said, as I clicked the front door closed behind me. I think he was intending tiles, grout and laminate flooring, rather than crisps.
"Alright mate," I said, without really thinking about it.
"So yeah, lock up after yourself won't you?" said Gary Lineker.
Cheek.
Gary Lineker was off to Newbury to get more supplies, he said, as I clicked the front door closed behind me. I think he was intending tiles, grout and laminate flooring, rather than crisps.
"Alright mate," I said, without really thinking about it.
"So yeah, lock up after yourself won't you?" said Gary Lineker.
Cheek.
Monday, 6 October 2014
THE AUTUMN SWITCH
Someone's flicked on the Autumn switch. Rain tumbles from smoke-coloured clouds, the paths are carpeted in soggy leaves and the air is damp and cold.
I'm back to work, where everybody seems to exist in a kind of suspended misery. I looked around during today's scrum meeting to try to figure out how people were feeling. You can tell a lot from body language. Eyes down, arms folded, one or two yawns. Monday, and: the Autumn switch is on.
Outside, the lake was rippling with rain and droplets were racing down the window. I stared out for a while as the team talked about builds and servers, about continuous integration and performance testing. Same old same olds. Just beyond the thin pane of glass was a world where everything was moving. Trees swayed as the wind swept by, leaves danced in swirls and eddies, and the rain fell silently to earth. The ducks and geese waddled and swam, and even the swans floated past like royal barges surveying their subjects. It was all much more interesting on that side of the glass, I thought to myself.
"Welcome back, Matt," said Andrea, bringing my thoughts suddenly into the room. I glanced down at my notebook and reminded myself what I'm supposed to be doing before reporting it to the team. It turned out that she meant welcome back from being ill rather than from daydreaming.
I've often wondered whether four seasons are enough to describe our weather. For example, Autumn seems to be either glorious blue with golden leaves, spider webs and long shadows on the grass... or rain-soaked, soggy and overcast.
Spring too seems to be split into the heady days of fresh-cut grass and warm sun... and then blossoming hayfever, rainbows and those short sharp showers that nobody seemed to have been expecting. You could argue that there are two types of winter as well: before Christmas it's sort of mild and dry, maybe even a little too warm for Christmas shopping. Then, as soon as January comes along it seems that the cold wind picks up and you can't leave the house without gloves, scarves and an extra pair of socks. It's not long before that cold wind drags in sleet and freezing snow and we're all going on about how inconvenient/exciting it is.
So that's at least seven seasons: Harvest, Autumn, Advent, Winter, Spring, Early Summer and Summer. I think even Summer could be split into Summer and The Rainy Season. I guess that would mean eight switches in total. Maybe even nine, if you count the Indian Summer we always go on about every October.
Actually, that's next isn't it? Right, could we switch into that one please God? It's not that I don't like watching the Autumn rain or waxing lyrical about the falling leaves...
It's more that I've got to walk home for lunch.
I'm back to work, where everybody seems to exist in a kind of suspended misery. I looked around during today's scrum meeting to try to figure out how people were feeling. You can tell a lot from body language. Eyes down, arms folded, one or two yawns. Monday, and: the Autumn switch is on.
Outside, the lake was rippling with rain and droplets were racing down the window. I stared out for a while as the team talked about builds and servers, about continuous integration and performance testing. Same old same olds. Just beyond the thin pane of glass was a world where everything was moving. Trees swayed as the wind swept by, leaves danced in swirls and eddies, and the rain fell silently to earth. The ducks and geese waddled and swam, and even the swans floated past like royal barges surveying their subjects. It was all much more interesting on that side of the glass, I thought to myself.
"Welcome back, Matt," said Andrea, bringing my thoughts suddenly into the room. I glanced down at my notebook and reminded myself what I'm supposed to be doing before reporting it to the team. It turned out that she meant welcome back from being ill rather than from daydreaming.
I've often wondered whether four seasons are enough to describe our weather. For example, Autumn seems to be either glorious blue with golden leaves, spider webs and long shadows on the grass... or rain-soaked, soggy and overcast.
Spring too seems to be split into the heady days of fresh-cut grass and warm sun... and then blossoming hayfever, rainbows and those short sharp showers that nobody seemed to have been expecting. You could argue that there are two types of winter as well: before Christmas it's sort of mild and dry, maybe even a little too warm for Christmas shopping. Then, as soon as January comes along it seems that the cold wind picks up and you can't leave the house without gloves, scarves and an extra pair of socks. It's not long before that cold wind drags in sleet and freezing snow and we're all going on about how inconvenient/exciting it is.
So that's at least seven seasons: Harvest, Autumn, Advent, Winter, Spring, Early Summer and Summer. I think even Summer could be split into Summer and The Rainy Season. I guess that would mean eight switches in total. Maybe even nine, if you count the Indian Summer we always go on about every October.
Actually, that's next isn't it? Right, could we switch into that one please God? It's not that I don't like watching the Autumn rain or waxing lyrical about the falling leaves...
It's more that I've got to walk home for lunch.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
TOAST, AND A RANT ABOUT THE MEDIA
I think I know why the Intrepids weren't overly fussed about having no bathroom this weekend. They're off again on holiday tomorrow. I know. They've only been back two days. Cornwall this time, to take in the artistic light, the stunning geography and the surging waves that pound over smugglers' rocks. Meanwhile, I will be preparing for the choir concert on Thursday and trying to catch up with the work I missed last week.
An article just popped up about some famous heiress who doesn't know what toast is. I despise articles like this. They remind me of the snotty kid who tugs away at your sleeve and points across the playground. "Look, look, look!" they implore you, "girl over there can't work out what goes in a bacon sandwich, ha ha ha, isn't she thick? Not like us normal people eh! Oh not like us..."
I'm not giving it the time of day. We all have to learn something the first time. Crumbs, I only found out a few weeks ago that the Oval Office is on the ground floor of the West Wing and not front-and-centre of the White House! Yeah, I'm stupid aren't I? I mean you only know what you know, right? And if you don't know something, the last thing you want is some snivelling journalist poking fun at you because you live the life where you've never had to use a toaster.
While we're on the subject, why is it that journalists think we're all obsessed with how female celebrities get dressed for award shows? It's astonishingly sexist and no-one seems to be tremendously bothered by this rampant predisposition for ogling. They never zoom in on the men's tuxedo buttons, or chart up leading actors in those ghastly hot or not columns according to the neatness of their bow ties. In fact, as gentlemen attending a formal event, we have our choices of eveningwear made frighteningly simple; ladies must go through a personal crisis just to think about leaving the house in a particular colour. The range of complexities they must endure just to get it 'right' must be mind-bogglingly stressful - one slip and you're in the red carpet failure club with the wardrobe malfunctioneers and the drunkards and this week's bad-hair-day crowd - a club which, we'd do well to remind ourselves, leery men with cameras and notepads have invented for the sole purpose of knocking off pariahs from their perches.
Well I've opened the rant about the media door. I didn't mean to crank that one open. I was just thinking about how that article wanted me to join in its chorus of 'not like us' towards the toast girl. What is the point of pointing out that someone is 'not like us'? That never goes well, does it? I mean the truth is that we're all kind of beautiful, kind of rotten and kind of damaged, every one of us, aren't we? Most people are agreed, surely, that if humanity is going to become anything better than its current iteration, it has to start by realising that on some level, we are actually all in this mess together. Surely it follows that we can be beautiful together then too?
Not that you can all come round and sing campfire songs with me while the Intrepids are away. I've got hanging baskets to water.
Friday, 3 October 2014
GARY LINEKER'S DAD SHOWS UP... AND SO DOES MINE
No work again today. I considered going in and spluttering over my colleagues but in the interest of politics I decided against it. Also, they all, to a man, would have looked at me with derision for going back on a Friday, even if I were able to complete a full day's work. I emailed my manager and carefully explained that I hoped to feel much better on Monday.
Gary Lineker's dad turned up today to inspect his work. I listened from my room as they bantered about circular saws, football and the awful traffic between here and Wickes, the builders merchants.
"Yeah well that shower tray didn't turn up till Wensdy," said Gary.
"Sounds about right."
"Still the towlin's done."
"Good work son, good work."
The tiling is indeed done. This afternoon when they'd gone, I noticed too, that they'd cleverly removed all the dust sheets, the rubble and the old bits of bathroom from the drive, meaning that the house was about as acceptable as it could have been by the time the Intrepids arrived home from Ireland.
Though disappointingly, we're still without a basin or a shower. I have to be honest, the Intrepids seem less concerned about it than I thought they would. A couple of cold mornings getting washed with a washing up bowl on a spread-out bath-towel might make it less comfortable, I'd wager.
It's pretty difficult at the moment, to work out whether or not they had a nice time in Ireland. They sort of said they did, but didn't really go into much detail. The first thing Mum had to do was to call all three of my sisters, a ritual which takes up quite a time. The first thing my Dad had to do was to ask me whether I'd put the bin out, and the second thing he did was to look pleasantly surprised and oddly proud when I told him that I had.
"Good work son, good work," he almost said.
Beyond that, the TV was flicked on and while my Mum chatted away to each daughter in turn, my Dad was engrossed once again in Celebrity Mastermind.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
THE SICK DAY
I'm off sick. Finally, the energy-zapping bug and tickling throat have got the better of me and as I leaned over the kitchen sink this morning, coughing up the contents of my stomach, I knew I wouldn't make it in to work.
I couldn't have picked a worse week to be ill. Gary Lineker is nowhere near finished and all day today he's been hammering away in the bathroom, each metallic blow reverberating around my head as I buried myself under the duvet.
We have tiles anyway. One wall is a checkerboard of smooth-finished, ungrouted bathroom tile; the other three, still plaster. There is no sign of a shower. There is no sign of a basin. The toilet remains but the door is off its hinges and now angled against the wall by the front door. I had to wait for Gary Lineker to nip off for his crisps before I could fly down the hall and relieve myself. You would be surprised how difficult it is to go to toilet without a bathroom door. I was ninja-speed.
So what do you do on a sick day? I've already watched several episodes of QI and read two short H.G. Wells stories. I tried making a bit of lunch but I couldn't face it. I went to sleep for a bit, but I was woken up by the sound of the house shaking and a drill rumbling into my brain. I rubbed my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. My reflection was vibrating out of focus. It seemed to be a fuzzy image of a tramp in a t-shirt with hair like a birds' nest.
I don't have many sick days. This is probably about the fifth time in my life. At school, I was awarded a 100% attendance certificate one year. Well, I would have been, but unfortunately my music teacher had arranged a theory exam which coincided with the presentation. I was embarrassingly absent while the headmaster called me up to the front of the assembly.
Maybe I'll do a bit of work on my time-travel book. My trouble is, I get really bored and then it takes forever to get something finished. Perhaps, I find myself reflecting, that's what's happened to Gary Lineker.
I couldn't have picked a worse week to be ill. Gary Lineker is nowhere near finished and all day today he's been hammering away in the bathroom, each metallic blow reverberating around my head as I buried myself under the duvet.
We have tiles anyway. One wall is a checkerboard of smooth-finished, ungrouted bathroom tile; the other three, still plaster. There is no sign of a shower. There is no sign of a basin. The toilet remains but the door is off its hinges and now angled against the wall by the front door. I had to wait for Gary Lineker to nip off for his crisps before I could fly down the hall and relieve myself. You would be surprised how difficult it is to go to toilet without a bathroom door. I was ninja-speed.
So what do you do on a sick day? I've already watched several episodes of QI and read two short H.G. Wells stories. I tried making a bit of lunch but I couldn't face it. I went to sleep for a bit, but I was woken up by the sound of the house shaking and a drill rumbling into my brain. I rubbed my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. My reflection was vibrating out of focus. It seemed to be a fuzzy image of a tramp in a t-shirt with hair like a birds' nest.
I don't have many sick days. This is probably about the fifth time in my life. At school, I was awarded a 100% attendance certificate one year. Well, I would have been, but unfortunately my music teacher had arranged a theory exam which coincided with the presentation. I was embarrassingly absent while the headmaster called me up to the front of the assembly.
Maybe I'll do a bit of work on my time-travel book. My trouble is, I get really bored and then it takes forever to get something finished. Perhaps, I find myself reflecting, that's what's happened to Gary Lineker.
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