MEMEHUNTER

10% more efficient than grooming AND a very good idea.

2006-09-04T13:36:00.000+01:00

How many times can one man learn the same lesson? An hour or so's chat across messenger and a whole lot of things are not just fixed but substantially better than they used to be.

Of course, sometimes it takes a little time to work out what it is exactly you need to chat about, but it's always a good plan. People are, after all, and no matter what they think, NOT psychic and the only way, therefore, that they can really know what you're thinking is if you tell them. Then, and this is the great part, they get to tell you. Then everyone knows what's going on.

Hoorah!

It's been ages, hasn't it? Sorry everyone. Rapid catchup:

-went to teach the kids the stuff and had a good time, but came back with vicious lurgee.
-down to London for mate's stag day. Had to organise also, as am best man. Shaves, cocktails, burgers and club. Woo, hoorah. fun fun.
-work work work like bastard.

That's it really.

How are you?

Too many jokes...

2006-07-19T15:11:00.000+01:00

Now this is what I call quality programming. Quite literally a load of toss.

"Hello, channel 4"
"Yes, hello, I'd like to complain about your recent documentaries"
"Yes, sir, what about them?"
"Well, how can I put this? Well, they're just a bit wank, really"
"..."
"hello?"
"hello sir, let me just transfer you to our commissioning editor... I think you may be on to something"

Work is a silly place today. I may leave soon.

Seriously, why bother with a fondue?

2006-07-17T15:04:00.000+01:00

Sorry, been busy.

Not much to add though. Busily squeezing sense from some data. Trying to learn how to interpret the output from a binary logistic regression. Woo. You hear me? Woo.

Anyway, the good news is, I suppose, that this data is looking good. Might finally try to get something published soon. Initial finding spiralling out in to new directions, all getting very interesting thank you. My supervisor seems cheery and positive about it all. I guess we'll see...

Erm. Seriously, the most interesting thing to have happened recently is the seagull in my front yard. Which is a very short story, and involves me finding a juvenile seagull in my fron yard that hopped up the stairs and waddled off. I could go on. I choose not to.

I went out on Friday night and recovered from the hangover on Sunday evening. Now, I have long accepted that my metabolism has slowed down rather considerably since my early 20's and that my hangovers are getting markedly worse, but 2 days? Come on now, this is hardly fair. I still feel a little peculiar.

Ah well. You know what they say about falling of the horse...

watch out for the hooves.

Message ends.

Break in to my place, will you?

2006-07-07T11:52:00.000+01:00

The Scene of Crime Officer came round to my flat yesterday. She was a very small, late 20's lady who took her job very seriously (as one might) and spoke VERY LOUDLY about EVIDENCE. She had a tall guy with her who turned out to be her student. He called me mate. I felt this to be slightly unwarrented familiarity but decided, on balance, that it was probably ok.

Anyway, she got some "good palm prints" off the window and the window sill and was very excited by the orange juice carton. Earlier that day A and I had put a bucket over the carton to protect it from rain / goblins. She was very impressed with my foresight. Carton was covered with prints AND was swabbed for DNA. Brilliant! Just like CSI. Only our hair wasn't as good.

I am told that, with the evidence available, if they're on the database, they'll find them. She went on to tell me that I'd hear in a few months if they'd caught someone. I asked if I could go poke them with sticks once they'd been found.

She didn't seem impressed.

One hard shove.

2006-07-06T11:20:00.000+01:00

So. Here I am back in sunny Scotland. Actually, it's been cocking cold and miserable for a few days now, which is DEEPLY frustrating as the rest of Britain seems to be enjoying a phew-what-a-scorcher style heatwave. I can now feel smug, however, for the sunshine up here is very pleasantly warm, with a cool breeze sweeping across the sea. A sunny day, a simple friendship... ah, life.

Moved in to my new flat on sat. ROCKS it does. Centre of town. Just got me in it etc. Some small problems to get fixed; washing machine was non-functional, light switch in bathroom did nuffink and the catch on the window in the living/bedroom seemed to have been bent upwards. Somewhat as if it had been... forced? No, don't be ridiculous, who would have forced the flat window open? The same people who moved the window box off the window sill perhaps? Pah, no.

Don't be ridiculous.

Anyway, all these things were fixed. Washing machine now works, bathroom exceedingly well lit, window catch replaced.

2 evenings ago the police came round. Asked me who lived in the flat. I said well, I did. They took my details and the name of the previous occupant from me and wandered off. A bit odd, thinks I, but settle down to continue watching a DVD. Went to bed about 1.00, was kept awake for a while by the sound of the seagulls surrounding my new area having a party, but lay in the darkness, sort of drifting off.

At 2.10 (I know because I checked), I heard footsteps outside. You
can hear people walking along the street outside my flat, so it didn't
bother me immediately, but just as I started to think "you know, that
sounds kind of... close", I heard somebody say "they've replaced the
lock" and then force my bedroom window open.

Yuh.

I've given some thought to what I would have liked to be able to
shout at that point. Something like "what the FUCK do you think
you're doing", or "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY FLAT" or possibly just
"AVAST!", but under the circumstances (mad, adrenaline fueled
scrabble for glasses and lightswitch) the best I could manage was a
sort of low-register "heyyy". Anyway, they vanished like lightning.
And I got out of bed and stared at my open window and the section of
the *new* window latch that had just *pinged* off when the window was opened.

I called the police at this point. They appeared very quickly.

All very odd. I went round to my letting agents yesterday to tell them.
They were gratifyingly shocked. They said that the flat was only
empty for 1 day (Friday) and then cleaned on sat. So I guess that's
when the peoples decided to break in the first time... or something.
My agents assured me that they were going to make my flat "as secure
as possible". I was hoping for gun turrets, but they've opted for more or less nailing my windows shut. Not quite what I had in mind.

Judge Jones is my hero.

2006-06-30T14:59:00.000+01:00

Ok. Going back to the beginning of the month when I was in Philadelphia...

It was my privelege to attend a panel discussion on the teaching of evolutionary science in schools. One of the panelists was Judge Jones, who presided over Kitzmiller vs the Dover Area School District in 2005. This has been widely reported as a rerun of the Scopes 'monkey trial' of 1925. In short, Creationist school board attempts to introduce teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes in Pennsylvania public schools. Judge rules that this is unconstitutional, declares Intelligent Design wholly antithetic to science, exposes a long running fundamentalist political agenda and ultimately causes the whole school board to be replaced.

Get in.

Anyway. I've just read Judge Jone's official opinion . It's 136 pages of brilliance. Very easy to read, very exciting. At the conference, we were all urged, as scientists, to read it and I have to say I wholly agree. If you're a scientist, you should read it to feel reinvigorated. If you're an adherant to Intelligent Design, you should read it if only to be put firmly in your place (which is the theology department, incidentally), if you're neither, then simply read it as an wonderful exersize in rationality.

I'm so excited, I'm going to link to it again.
And again.

In these days, when so many people seem intent on abandoning rational thought and pretending that the Enlightenment was just a bunch of wooly minded academics poncing about in libraries, it is very exciting to have a piece of writing like this emerge. Intelligent Design publically exposed as a fundamentalist, theist, creationist agenda which has about as much place in a science classroom as a big fat crucifix.

"Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upone what we can observe, test, replicate and verify" Judge Jones, 2005, p.65

while we're on the subject.

2006-06-23T16:42:00.000+01:00

could have been worse, though. I guess. Teeheehee, Dell.

on the extreme heat of my Powerbook and the crapness of my PhD

2006-06-22T00:45:00.000+01:00

Went to the British Library today, which was... useful. Learnt me some stuff about skin structure and comparative life history. Not yet found a way to connect the two, but hey, what can you do? Can't help feeling that I'm starting the library work a little late. Can't escape the gradually dawning realisation that my PhD has been a bit of a let down. I think I've been supervised quite badly. I think. Well. I guess time will tell.

Also, my powerbook is very seriously overheating. The fans don't seem to be turning at all. It gets so hot that touching the bottom of it can actually be uncomfortable...

***

You'd think I'd have checked that out before now, wouldn't you? Online, I mean. My lovely Powerbook's been burning my thighs for some time now. I now find out that this is normal... at least there is some precedence . People tell me that there is no way to force my machine's fan's on and furthermore that the heat issue is partly due to the fact that the aluminium case acts as a heat dissipation device , although there is apparently some discussion over whether or not my battery might burst in to flames. Mostly though, it seems fine .

Happy I could share that with you.

If only my academic life could be so speedily remedied.

explanetary

2006-06-18T12:25:00.000+01:00

People seem perplexed by my queue in the hip-hop club observation. Well, it went like this: there was a dance floor, with girls getting jiggy with eachother and a few guys. The guys in the middle of the dancefloor were most involved, then there were a few satelite males around the edge, getting progressively less jiggy as they reached the wall, along which they seemed mainly to have formed a line. From this line, a girl could select a new dance partner by approaching him/her and, well... grinding, I suppose. My labmates and I subverted the system by striding gamely onto the dancefloor and throwing down some British shapes. One of the walls was mirrored too. Hysteria as local males sans female partner danced with themselves, using the mirror.

Anyway, I'm off to a barbecue soon. Best get dressed.

the unexamined wife

2006-06-17T00:23:00.000+01:00

Right. Recovery breads an obligation to post.

The conference was good. Full of academics of all shapes and sizes, famous and less so. I met quite a few I had heard of, many I had not but should have done and made some new friends. I actually handed out my cards to people. Excellent. I have considered going through a day by day account of Memehunter vs the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, but on the whole, I think there are probably more interesting things to read, and if you're really interested in how academics pass time in and between talks, you can check here .

So I'll try and condense things.

The jetlag took me exactly 3 days to get over, with day 3 being the worst. On my arrival in Philly, I had a wander about, swiftly establishing that Philadelphia is my new favourite place (after Florence, Italy of course). My exploration of my immediate vicinity was a simple matter; I waited until an attractive looking guy walked past and I followed him. No, I was not stalking him, there was not a hint of sexual intent. I simply reasoned that good looking people would go to interesting places. It paid off anyway, I got a good tour. So, thanks random guide. Anyway, after a while of wandering Philly, I realised I'd been awake for around 14 hours and went back to my hotel for a nap to await the arrival of labmates. Dinner with LabmateMike swiftly followed, in a "pub" amusingly titled the Elephant and Castle. Made me feel right at home.

Anyway, the conference reception was the next night (too jetlagged to remember my own research, somewhat embarassing) and the conference proper began on Thursday. Interesting talks. Then some drinks. Earlyish bed, coz my talk (and LmM's and Miriam's) was the next day.

The time between me waking up (around 8.30) and the time of my presentation (3.20) was one of the most scary experiences of my life. I jest not. I was terrified. Part of my mammalian brain just wanted to run and kept whispering to me about how easy it would be to just go to the hotel. I sat it out though, and in the end my talk went quite well. There was a traffic-light style system that was meant to keep everyone on track time-wise; a strip of green on the computer monitor that went orange when you had 5 minutes left (to take questions) and then counted down from a minute before turning red, at which point you had to GET OFF the stage. Podium. Whatever. Anyway. I was CONVINCED I was going to be done in 5 minutes and refused to look at my watch in case I scared meself. Also, I am red-green colourblind, so could not see the shift from green to orange. It was a surprise to me, then, when the counter started counting down when I still had 2 slides to go. Rapid conclusion, apology, sit down. No questions for me. Ha ha! That evening we all got extrememly drunk and ended up, after touring South Street , in a Hip Hop club somewhere downtown, where I was bemused by the dancing style of my transatlantic cousins. Seriously. It'd be sexy, but you have to, like, form a queue to get involved... or something. It was so weird.

More conference after that, which was fun. Then I spent my last night in the US in Westchester... but I think I shall save that for another post.

Also, I am doing fierce battle with the landlords of my last flat.

Watch this space.

tease

2006-06-14T23:52:00.000+01:00

Hello hello, I am back with tales of academic bruhaha and London mum moving.

I am, however, still tired.

Thank you for your patience. More to follow.

feral

2006-05-23T16:15:00.000+01:00

Right.

It's coming up for the end of my lease, so I have to move out of my flat. I have to move out of my flat next wednesday, in fact. This is a stressful situation at the best of times, made somewhat more problematic this time by the fact that I cannot move in to my new flat until July. So I'm going home for a bit.

What is causing me to want to cry at the moment is the state my flat is in and the fact that my flatmate fucked off to Berlin yesterday morning. No, he's not coming back. He's moved most of his stuff out, but has left me to clean what has undoubtedly become one of the most filthy places I have ever encountered. He left his notes all over the living room carpet, covered in academic scribblings and red wine. He left cigarette butts in a wine glass. He left rubbish all over his bedroom floor. He used pots and pans that I cleaned on sunday and left them festering in the sink.

I was kind of expecting it. In fact, I saw it happening. And I'm not the tidyiest of people myself, but I am being driven to the bad end of rage.

Ah well. I threw all his notes away yesterday.

It's the little victories that count.

mailathon

2006-05-09T13:38:00.000+01:00

Well, the Powers that Beep have fixed the password lock on the postgrad societty's mailing list so people can no longer engage in recursive spamming. This is a shame, in my opinion. The emails "Re: take me off this list" kept on coming well in to last night and for this morning. As far as I can see, a group of asian students thought that the phrasing of the original "take me off this list, I don't want these emails" message was too, too beautiful to be wasted with but one transmission so took to copying and pasting that particular message in to their own. Joy. A few emails had just started to arrive extoling the wonders of receiving so many communications so regularly and how loved it was making some of us feel, my own favourite being the subversive "please keep me on this lovely list" message. Oh, and then there was the message mailed just to me (bless) explaining how the sender was confused and didn't have a list and maybe I should take it up with accomodation services.

Maybe I will, jb, maybe I will.

But now someone has fixed it and we can no longer mail eachother. I'm giving serious thought to grouping everyone together using the emails they sent me and group mailing everyone just to say how much I enjoyed working with them.

Ah well.

Suitmonkeys are here. Not wearing suits. Not technically monkeys either. But you get the idea.

Grist to the list.

2006-05-08T15:54:00.000+01:00

So, there's a mailing list that allows all the postgrads here to mail eachother. It's kind of handy if you have something you need to tell everyone about (like a big postgrad event) or if you need something (like a home), but mostly it's fairly silly and is ignored by all.

Until today.

2, maybe 3 people emailed the list looking for somewhere to live for the summer, which is fair enough. Someone took exception to this, decided their inbox was too, too valuable to be frittered on this crap and emailed the whole list asking to be taken off the list, explaining that it was one to her whether her postrgraduate comrades had anywhere to live or not. Her email inspired others, who also emailed the list, asking to be removed. Then someone else got annoyed by ALL the emails she had received today from "students [she] does not even know" and demanded that the nonsense stop. Then someone else (who may or may not have been me) emailed asking to be taken off the list of people wanting to be taken off the list. Then the Director of Housing emailed the list saying that the list wasn't a housing list, and in any case emailing the list asking to be taken off the list was probably a fairly silly idea. Then someone else emailed asking us all to stop, in no uncertain terms. More and more emails keep flooding in. It's like some glorious snowball, running grimly down a hill. I'm hysterically glad to have been a part of it.

Intriguingly, speaking as a psychologist, I have noticed a sex difference in these mails. Those demonstrating a total lack of humour about the whole affair have been from female postgrads. The few from males have had a tone of wry amusment about them.

Ah well. Fucking postgrads, eh?

sit semper cum omnibus nobis

2006-05-04T11:55:00.000+01:00

It's all go.

Our corporate sponsors want to see us next week, so the Lab is busy pullling amazing data out of its collective arse. It's worst for LabmateMike who has to submit a report on 4 years of work. All a bit stressful. Miriam's going to present findings which contradict stuff she found beforfe, Ian's got to build a presentation by tomorrow despite the fact that he's only just started gathering data. My presentation is somewhat chaotic at the moment, to put it mildly.

It breaks down like this: the MegaCorp that funds us has 2 wings; one in the UK one 'cross the pond in the US. I, for my own part, am funded by the US lot, as is Ian. Miriam and LbM have UK money. This means that Miriam and LbM have to journey down to Luton on Sunday night, present to UK businesstypes on Monday and come back up on Monday night to meet US suitmonkeys to whom Ian and I will be presenting.

Fascinating, no?

In any event, this whole scenario sees me desperately running regression after regression on skin texture data and correlating hormone levels with goddamn everything I can find. My supervisor has just handed me a different version of my dataset... and now something that used to work doesn't anymore... I might pretend I didn't notice.

Shit.

Tonight I'm off to watch Miriam beat the living shit out of a woman I have never met before. Never been to a boxing match before. I'll let you know how it goes.

Then we have a lab meeting at 9.00 tomorrow morning. Joy. Rapture.

Ah well... these stats aren't going to run themselves.

Laters.

revelation

2006-04-27T17:51:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking about it and I've come to a conclusion.
Gayest. University. Ever.

Seriously. This town is insane. Being a straight girl round these parts must be a nightmare. Maybe it's something about being by the sea... all that fresh air. I dunno.

I mean, EVERYONE is gay. There are about 10 straight lads in the entire place. One of my close female friends has often commented how she didn't know ANY gay guys until she came to uni and now all her male friends do blokes. From innocent to faghag in 3 easy years.

My flatmate's in a theatre thing. I was trying to remember the name of one of the other lads in it the other day and found the easiest way to do refer to him was "you know, the other straight guy apart from you"... fair enough I guess. Except that 2 nights ago the only other straight guy in the troup came out / on to my flatmate in a flurry of homosexual enthusiasm.

Not that I'm going to complain, obviously.

But still.

Gayest town ever. I'm telling you.

Distract the Gloom.

2006-04-26T13:45:00.000+01:00

My supervisor has vanished off to edinburgh today. Not one of us is doing any work, with the possible exception of Andre the Intern who is using photoshop to manipulate people's gaze direction. LabmateMike is wandering aimlessly around the lab, trying desperately to avoid writing the report he has a week and a half to write, I think he's just finished reading someone else's thesis. I'm looking for things to buy on ebay (feeling spendy). I can't see what Ian's doing on his computer, but Miriam isn't even here.

In just under half an hour I have an appointment with the postgraduate tutor here to have a general chat about how mindcrashingly stressful my supervisor can be. I'm trying to get my thoughts together on that one... ah well.

Last night, I watched Nightwatch. Yes I did. What EXCELLENT fun it is. Well done, crazy Russian peoples. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I lost track of exactly what was happening every now and then. Can't wait for the next chapter.

Of course, having watched the film, I now want to be an Other. I think I'd probably join Nightwatch if I had the chance... but then, I guess you never know.

It is, after all, easier for a man to destroy the light inside him than to defeat the darkness all around.

And vampires are awfully sexy.

See you in the Gloom...

je n'ai pas du pantalons

2006-04-25T15:16:00.000+01:00

My life has begun to calm down again.

Actually, that's not entirely true. My life HAD begun to calm down until last Friday when I got a big list of ARSE from my supervisor. Actually 2 lists of arse. Given that my musical finished on Thursday night (and went very well, by the way) and that I had just started to relax on Friday morning (day off work with massive hangover, hoorah), my life was calm for about... 4 hours.

Yes well. In a week or so, we have to journey to sunny Luton (woo) to meet our corporate sponsors and WOW them with our science. Cue my supervisor descending once more in to bintness and mild panic. I've been running multiple regressions all morning. I now pronounce myself bored.

I've clippered my head again. I melted the grade 2 guard in the washing machine so had to use the grade 1. Shorter than it's ever been before. Weirdly, cutting off your hair seems to compel people to point out to you that "you have no hair". It's hard to know what to say to that. I've been oscillating between looking surprised and feeling my head in shock
and insisting that they are wrong, and look, look at my flowing locks!

I want a new watch.

Also I am thirsty and the water fountain still tastes of disinfectant.

Ah well.

I got a nice letter from the nice people at Maverick TV yesterday, thanking me for my input in to their tellyprogram. Bless them. Maybe they'll want more from me for the ALREADY COMISSIONED (woo) 4th series of 10 Years Younger. We can but hope.

How very random all this has been.

Ah well, as you were...

The inevitability of plaid

2006-04-11T14:00:00.000+01:00

Hello.

My supervisor sent me a very rude email last week about my lack of productivity. I replied listing all the work I'd done getting experiments together and making sure the panicking undergraduates were ok with their projects, and then I submitted a piece of work to him, so he apologised yesterday. This does not alter the fact that I am more than somewhat concerned about my doctorate and all. The endless fun of my first year has paled somewhat with the realisation that I have no direction to my thesis. This problem was not helped by my supervisor pointing out to me that I have no direction to my thesis and saying that this was cause for concern. Well no, that's because I spent my first year letting theory wait on empirical data like you told me to . You fuckstick.

Anyway, it's not all bad news. Little Shop of Horrors opens a week today. Have I mentioned that I'm in it? Heh. So I'll be singing my lungs out next tuesday-thursday. Laaaa.

Andandand I signed on the dotted for my flat next year! Wooo. Basement flat in a very nice part of town. Just me in it. Oh yes yes I think so. Of course I will have no money ever again, particularly this month because the deposit on the new flat plus rent on my exisiting place means I will have output 3 times the normal amount of rent. Hoorah.

My talk and poster have been accepted by HBES, so I'm off to Philadelphia in June for a conference. The rest of the lab is going too. Should be a giggle.

Anything else? Well, I'm hungover and very very thirsty.

Plus ca change.

memetic drift

2006-04-08T17:44:00.000+01:00

So. Grabbed a meme from Jess because I am trying to avoid work in all its forms despite the fact that my supervisor hates me and I have some writing to be done, thank you. Anyway, it looked like a laugh. So I did it.

List of books. bold the ones you've read, italicise the ones you might read at some point and ~~strikethrough~~ ones you defintely won't. Mark any on your shelves with an *.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown*

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger*

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams*

The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald*

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger*

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman*

~~Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling~~

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller*

~~The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien~~

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

1984 - George Orwell*

~~Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling~~

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~~Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden~~

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

The Secret History - Donna Tartt*

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis

(Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides)

(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Atonement - Ian McEwan

(The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

~~Dune - Frank Herbert~~Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austen

(Mrs. Mike - Benedict & Nancy Freedman)

(My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Piccoult)

The Illiad - Homer

(The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien)

(The Girls Guide to Hunting & Fishing - Melissa Banks)

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Age of Iron - JM Coetzee

Existentialism and Human Emotions - Jean-Paul Sartre

In general keeping, here are a few books I think should be on the list, all of which I've read (obv):

The Diceman - Luke Reinhardt
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Pale FIre - Vladimir Nabokov
Rules of Attraction - Brett Easton Ellis
Vurt - Jeff Noon
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith

I have to stop now because I want chocolate.

**EDIT: Ah, yes. Forgot to mention: brackets mean you've never heard of it. Ta Andy.**

Airfoil rocks my world

2006-03-29T21:06:00.000+01:00

Ok.
So, I don't often post about techical things. Not really. I love my mac and all things mac and occaisonally wish I knew more about them than I do. I'm more of a geek-wannabe than a true geek, which is a sad admission.

However.

I have a 15 inch G4 Powerbook. I run Tiger. I have equipped myself with airport extreme and I use airtunes, which is great fun. It has often occured to me that I would very much like to transmit other sounds from my laptop to my airtunes speakers. DVD sound not least, but also online radio and schtuff.

Enter, to triumphant fanfare, Airfoil . Hahaha, I laugh, it does everything I want it to and very, very easily. At a mere £18 ($25) it seems a bargain to me. It will happily play all system sound on remote speakers, so that you can annoy your neighbours with all your beeps and whistles, or will "hijack" sounds from any specific application and play that exclusively. This means it can, if you have multiple remote speakers, play different things in different rooms. Hoorah.

Now, I had a brief panic a moment ago, because playing anything on airtunes involves a delay between transmission and playback, due to encryption or somesuch malarky. This means that when you play a dvd, the sound lags behind the video, by a good 5 seconds. Which is crap and annoying. There are, however, ways to fix this, and patient tinkering with these instructions (and a download of the latest version of VLC ) has made it work like a dream.

Joy joy joy. Lots of sounds.

Hail Eris

2006-03-24T13:46:00.000Z

Today, oh avid readers, I present myself hungover.

I guess it's down to my rapidly decelerating metabolism, but my hangovers are becoming increasingly disproportionate in their severity. In all honesty, do I deserve to feel this pants just because I spent some time with a chum, drinking beer and trying to explain (patiently) that maybe he needs a hobby and that no, insisting that every woman he sees wants to sleep with him is not a hobby, it's the horn? I suggested he try stamp collecting instead.

Anyway.

So I just went to get lunch. I ordered a large capuccino. I was handed a large moccha. I don't like mochha very much (hot chocolate or coffee, make a cocking choice) but couldn't be arsed to complain, especially since the man had spent so long preparing the quantum beverage. I wandered back to work thinking about how I was going to post about how I wanted a capuccino and got a mocha and about how that seemed to be fairly indicative of how today is destined to proceed. It was going to begin, "so, it's one of those days...".

It is with great surprise, then, that I can now report that the accidental mocha was perhaps the best accident ever. Ye gods of the stochastic process, oh great oxymorons, I salute you. I would prostrate myself before you but I'd never get up again. I feel invigorated by the caffeine, calmed by the chocolate and pleasantly soothed by the whole experience. Hoorah.

So, I'm no longer sure what sort of a day it is, but it's one where I didn't get the coffee I wanted only to have my accidental coffee far surpass what I was dissapointed to be missing.

You know, one of those days...

Snow on the tracks.

2006-03-20T09:43:00.000Z

Hello everyone.
It's 9.39 in the morning.
I have paid the electricity bill.
The sheriff's office is calm and I'm getting forms from the council.
That's two things sorted.
So preoccupied with money was I yesterday, however, that I neglected to mention that the face-eating bacterium is attempting a resurgence. Great.
Two down, one more to deal with.

Ah well. Let's just hope that light at the end of the tunnel ain't no choo-choo.

Things which suck...

2006-03-19T23:46:00.000Z

1. The local council don't believe that me and my flatmate are students and have enlisted the help of the sheriff (yes, the sheriff) to send us threatening letters about sending men round to take stuff. £1,157.

2. Scottish Power are instigating legal proceedings against us for an unpaid bill. £217

3. The university is making unhappy noises about moneys they think I owe them and over which I suspect we are about to fall out. £756

4. I have nowhere to live next year yet. The place I want to live in, which is an amazingly cheap and lovely cottage for one person, is unlikely to be available for 6 months after I want it.

Ah well. Family Guy's on TV in a second.

Run away. Run fast.

2006-03-15T15:44:00.000Z

Busily putting abstracts together for a conference in June, got to submit them today. My supervisor looked them over yesterday and seems to think they're alrighty. One poster (fine fine) and one talk (scary-pants-bejesus).

I mean, I have to give a talk to the department once a year and I get worked up enough about that (although actually quite enjoyed last years'). Standing up in front of the luminaries of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society. Meh. It scares me. The idea that most people I'll be referencing will actually be in the audience. I mean, holy crapsticks.

So, London was great fun. Apart from the funeral, and the infection in my face that turned out to be 'staph'. Never get staph, it is no fun. Basically, bacteria that happily lives on your skin, doing fuck all gets under your skin and gets really goddamn angry. Bits of your face start to come off and go sort of red and... crusty.
Which is nice.
Common in children, the doctor told me, and can appear in the beard of men. Great. Anyway, a quick course of penicillin and I'm all better. Beautiful again.

Anyway, enough of that. Funeral, yes. Sad event. Rest of London sojourn very nice. I've decided I really miss London now. I've been away for just too long. Boo. Stuck in Scotland where it is cold and grey.

Ah well. Only a year and a half to go.

In other news, did anyone else know that there are social spiders? Eusocial insects, I knew about. The hymenoptera and all that; ants, termites blah. Fascinating things as well. I've often said that if I didn't do people, I'd do social insects. Hmm. Anyway. SOCIAL SPIDERS? Hello? Who's crazy idea was that? They weave massive great hammock-style webs in the rainforest that can, apparently, last upwards of a year. They sit on their webs and pulse around, scuttling about in sort of synchronous movement. They pounce, as one, on anything that lands in their web and carry it off. They. Are. Repulsive.

I think I'm becoming more arachnophobic as I age. I saw the social bastards on the tv last night. After they'd made my skin crawl, they showed me an orb spider. A female orb spider (more than 100 x bigger than a male). Huge. Nightmarish. I was transfixed. I also went foetal. And then I started to cry a little.

I was gonna put pictures of the relevant arachnids in this post, but the process of searching for images got too stressful.

Help me.

Fun with science

2006-03-09T10:03:00.000Z

Hello. I'm at home in London at the moment, thrilling over the mild staph infection in my face. Yey. More shall follow on my activities down here.

In the mean time. Fancy helping a guy out?

I've got a new experiment up and running. Clicky here and rate some personal statements for me. G'wan.

Please?

I never really liked Vimto.

2006-02-28T00:10:00.000Z

The newspaper man likes my first offerings, so beer is coming my way. Woo. Although his editor, it seems, wants me to include more "psychological profiles" in the blurbs. More personality assassination, I think. I pointed out that not only is there no art to find the mind's construction in the face, but also that physiogamy went out in the late 19th century. Still, I said I'd do what I could.

And, frankly, as long as they keep the beer coming, I'm game for anything... beer-whore that I am.

Monday segues into Tuesday with the regular disconnection from the msn servers which always throws me in to a mild panic and, once again, reminds me that my matrix connect/disconnect sounds are sort of backwards.

I have new discoveries at work that are entertaining and which I shall enthuse about at a later juncture. It's looking good, though. Also quite exciting. I am quite excited.

Salesman is currently enthusing about a torch. Which is nice. It is a lovely torch though. With a torch like that, a man could do anything. Should he buy it? What do you think, readers? Answers on a postcard.

Apparently, it can do this. Which is an oddly surreal image and one which shall haunt my waking dreams for days. I am sure.

Other than that, I am tired, my bed is slightly broken and I have no idea where I'm going to live next year. Oh, and the shower has stopped working. Arsecrisps.

Everything else is peachy.

Oh, except that I have to go to London next week for a funeral. Not so great.

But there it is. What can you do?

That's pretty much the only major cloud on my horizon. All else is groovy and I still a very happy camper.

Poetry corner.

2006-02-26T13:47:00.000Z

So, last night I read this over at Pete's and this morning I woke up with this in my head. Not sure it'll mean much to many, but I felt like putting it up. Here:

A Bookseller's Lament

"I'm sorry, but it's not in stock," I said and passed
Nothing but a smile across the counter.
You didn't understand, and I
(although as ever passionate)
didn't really care.
It's hard to be helpful when,
Where your book used to be,
There's only a hole.

Primer.

2006-02-18T20:06:00.000Z

Apparently, people are becoming obsessed with this movie .

I can see why.

I rented it earlier today and have watched it twice. It's like a glorious puzzle. My fascination with it reminds me of my continuing love of Pale Fire; you think you unserstand the plot, but the finer points of the story still escape you. Just to be sure, just to find out, you have to give it another go and when you do, you notice new things, you hear new dialogue. I think I get it... but my brain is humming trying to work it out.

The setup is... I guess quite simple. Two guys build a machine that does something pretty amazing. As a side effect, they discover it does something else even more amazing and, potentially, lucrative. So they set about... using it.

If you have ever watched a time travel movie and been irritated by the failure to address and explore paradoxes, then the only possible answer is to watch Primer. The writer/director/lead was a physisist and mathematician once. He has it covered.

Actually, despite the brain-melting complexity of some of the ideas, and the speed with which the characters discuss them, the story has simple elements. It's just put together so well. First time film and everything.

I might have to watch it again now.

All well and good but my feet are cold.

2006-02-18T12:35:00.000Z

I'm feeling a bit more focussed about things these days. Do I mean focussed? Generally happier, perhaps. I've been feeling a little lost with my PhD recently, as I may have mentioned. (Did I? Who knows?). Anyway, I've abandoned thoughts of dominance and pheromones for the moment and am concentrating instead on health and skin texture and stuff. Simpler variables and, inevitably, some quite interesting stuff is coming out of it. w00t.

Mainly, though, I've found my self one or two other things to do outside of work. I seem to be in a musical, for example. Little Shop of Horrors. Yes, at last I get to be the Dentist. Oh yes, oh the joy. The audition (which was last week) was memorable for being the first (and last, if I have anything to do with it) time I was asked to be a tree. I kid you not.

Anyway, evidently I give good wood.

Part of what I thought was extra great about the Dentist is that he is a fantastic character, sings a fantastic song and then dies at the end of act 1. This is true. However, the actor playing the dentist also plays (count them) 7 other characters. Three of those characters appear in the same song. Quick change, baby.

Anyhew, I rehearse my songs tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

The main point is that I can feel things slotting back in to place around me. Which is good.

Enuff for now.

I heart you

2006-02-14T20:11:00.000Z

Ah, Valentines Day . Woo. This morning, whilst rushing to intercept Miriam in order to get a lift to the lab, I slipped on a small hill of grass and landed on my knees in the mud. Then I slid. It was raining a little.

It's a good thing Valentine's got postponed until tomorrow really, otherwise that would be a really crappy beginning.

Did no one tell you about the postponement? Well, there was a memo.

Could this be the best job in the world?

2006-02-10T15:07:00.000Z

One of the undergraduate project students just switched the mains off in the lab, thereby immediately killing the computers on which participants were running experiments. The act of turning the mains on again tripped the mains breaker. Once we'd fixed that, we had to go through the experiments with each participant working out where they'd got to.

Go him.

I'm going to the bop tonight. For those unaqiuainted, the bop is a heaving, sweaty mass of gyrating students housed within the concrete superstructure of the students' union building. Cheesy tunes and cheep(ish) drinks. Oh yes, I will get drunk and shake my stuff. Frankly, I'm looking forward to having a bit of a boogie. Boptastic.

And then it gets to be the weekend and I don't have to do any work for a bit. Hoorah. I think i shall finally get round to scouring the evil from the kitchen because it is, to put it mildly, FUCKING disgusting. We're approaching Withnail standard here. Say it with me: re-pul-sive.

In other, exciting news, I've been offered a regular slot writing reviews of faces (I kid you not) in a tongue-in-cheek stylee for a certain trade journal. Monthly installments of around 100 words. Sounds good to me, not least because it brings my dream of being a columnist ever closer. Also, the discipline of writing something regularly should be good for me, even if it's only a 100 word burst. The really great news, however, came when I asked if there was any chance of any moolah attached.

No, they said.
But they can pay me in beer. Monthly supplies thereof.

Beer, eh? Where do I sign?

Test

2006-02-08T20:04:00.000Z

So, now that my mac is back and working and yey. What are the chances I can post from my dashboard again?

2006-02-07T11:34:00.000Z

So, the good news is that my Powerbook is back.
The bad news is that they had to replace the harddrive so all my data is gone.
The good news is that at some point I backed up all my music to the Lab's network.

YEY!

So, I'm busy installing all the free things I had running on this guy before now. Quicksilver, Adium, Cyberduck. I'll have to hit the widgets soon and get everything back up to speed. Oh yes, oh yes.

However. I am wracked with jealousy, for my friend John has placed an order for a MacBook Pro which I badly want. Part of me was hoping they'd "accidentally" send me one, but no. No MacBook for me. Despite my fervent love for all things Maclike. Despite the people I have converted to the wonder of Apple. No macbook for me.

Sigh.

Anyway. There's a new guy in the lab. He doesn't have a key yet so he has to wait for people to arrive befirfe he can get in. I am reminded at this point that I want to change my photo on the lab website. Hmm. I'll get round to that at some point.

It's nice to know that even with my computer back I still have nothing much to say for myself, isn't it? Go me. I'll try to think of something meaningful to say soon.

shove it up your RSS

2006-02-02T11:26:00.000Z

Still here, still here and feeling endlessly guilty about lack of updates and posts and blah and hah. but my Powerbook's still dead and posting is somehow terribly tedious without it. I've been forced back in to the fetid clutches of microsoft. Big clunky PC. Oh it's slow. Oh it crashes. Oh the colour is so beige.

Anyhew.

My supervisor has gone mad. He never was especially sane, but he's wa-heeey behind on his preparation for teaching and is taking out his stress on the 3 of us in the lab. It's better now Miriam's back from America, because most of the grr was falling about my small (but beautifully formed) ears. Now we all get a go. Just looking at him at the moment makes me want to stab him in the neck with a pencil.

Oh, oh. If you're wondering, never ever bother with this film. It is pants. Ignore the positive reviews on that there page. Tis boring.

So, there are two pieces of news which are important:
1) I want (and mean to shortly obtain) a Full English Breakfast
and
2) another chumley of mine enters blogspace. Yey. Salute and read. Much wry amusement will doubtless follow.

Right, on with breakfast plans... then discriminant analysis. Hoorah!

Loving the PhD.
(hmm)

a priori assumptions

2006-01-17T23:37:00.000Z

I'M SO BORED OF THIS STUPID GREEN THEME I HAVE.

Bored bored bored.

To be honest, I've only gotten bored of it recently, coz I have no RSS viewer on this machine so have to look at all the blogs I normally frequent to find out what's where with who and how. I am overcome with tedium just looking at it. Such regular readers as I have must also be bored. I apologise. But what's a boy to do? I guess I could bring such coding skills as I have to bare and whip me up a something, but frankly, you know how it is;

je ne peut pas m'arser.

Today, my supervisor stressed me out, and now I am tired.

I should go to bed really. No, really I should. Otherwise I'll have to tell you all about my data and how shockingly craptastic it all might go at any moment.

Hmm.

Over the christmas hols, I was discussing a film with a friend of mine. I can't remember what particular film it was, but he began to tell me how it was based on a Shakespearean play:

BigC: it's got the graveyard scene from Hamlet in it.
Me:Really?
BigC: yes, you know, he says "he was a man infinite in jest"
Me: it's "a fellow"
BigC: no, I'm pretty sure it's Hamlet.

Laugh? I could have filled a bucket.

Arse on Mars

2006-01-12T14:20:00.000Z

Life on Mars is an excellent song. I'm listening to it now. Lyrically, musically (inasmuchas I am qualified to comment) it's brilliant. Calming, moving... dare I say... inspirational?

Inspirational? Really?

Then what the big fat cock is this all about?

Have you ever wondered what some of the meetings about new programmes must be like? How on Earth the pitch for this one went?

"ok, so. He's a bright, young, successful policeman in 2006. He takes no nonsense but operates within the system. I mean, this guy has morals, right? So he's upset when his ex-girlfriend/ partner goes off on her own to get evidence to catch a serial killer. Even more upset when she gets abducted. So upset, that he gets run over by a car and wakes up ... wait for it... in 1973."

mm-hmm

"only he's not REALLY in 1973, right? Well, he kind of is. But he's ALSO in a coma in 2006. And fairly regularly he can overhear people talking to him in his hospital bed. Generally while watching TV. So he's trying to wake up from this coma, but also wondering if he's just mad and also finding time to solve crimes in 1970's Manchester. It's a sure-fire success."

I mean... what?

So there's comedy while he tries to be a policeman without a mobile or any computers and weekly ethical crises as he tries to deal with the fact that the British Constabulary in the 70's appears to make a habit out of beating suspects and fabricating evidence. Then there's drama because he's actually trying to catch nasty criminals as well, and they're proper nasty (rapists, murderers etc). Then there's a sort of quasi-sci-fi aspect coz he's trying to work out how to wake up from this coma he's in.

It's like the Bill meets Heart Beat meets Aberro los Ojos.

There was even an "I'm going to jump off this roof to wake up from this coma" scene.

It's like my mum used to say when she tasted my cooking; "Darling," she'd say, "sometimes you should try to include fewer flavours".

oh, the humanity

2006-01-12T13:30:00.000Z

2006 and time to start posting regularly again. I think.

Sorry about the pause. All sorts of things were happening. Most irritating of all; my Powerbook was (and is still) knackered. It works most of the time (like now, for example) but every so often demands to be restarted and / or simply will not start up. Also it is running slowly and the Superdrive is knackered.

Who rues the decision not to get Applecare?
I do.

And THEN it was Christmas. Wooo. A gentle one this year, with just me and me mutha. Which is all fine by me because the vast majority of my family is nuts. I mean whooop-ting-mental. Anyway, got some classy shirts from me mum, which was nice. I've decided I want to overhaul my wardrobe. Bring it kicking and screaming in to line with the kind of person I consider myself to be. I mean, really. All the shapeless tshirts simply have to go. This is why I am wearing a shirt and cufflinks to work. I wish to engender an element of class about my life.

New Year came and went in a fug of alcohol induced euphoria, karaoke and tube strikes. People tell me I enjoyed myself.

And now I'm back here. Drinking coffee, chatting to my labmates, looking at the business cards I had printed and thinking about how to avoid work today.

All the undergraduates in my life are panicking about some exams at the moment. I feel sorry for them. At the same time, however, I confess myself extremely glad that my exam taking days seem to be properly over. I've been holding back on saying that because the last few times I've said "hoorah, no more exams!" I have promptly been visited with an exam. This time, though, I think I'm clear. Much joy therefore, but sympathy for the exam-encumbered.

Somehow have to remember how to do a PhD. My supervisor wants me to put together a questionnaire-website to ask people the questions that were omitted from the latest round of data gathering because he said they made the process too long. Sigh.

I have a sneaking suspicion I'm going to be on telly this week.

How peculiar.

More posts will follow.

2005-12-15T18:41:00.000Z

Ok, so my laptop's still a bit broken, hence TOTAL silence from me for a while. Sorry about that. Also I never quite recovered from the general failure of my posting widget.

But anyway.

What can I tell you?

It's been ages and ages since I said anything. Sad thing is, I can't think of anything I can tell you about. Erm.

Well, I went down to London last weekend for a media training course, which was good. Makes for tedious telling, though.

My flatmate went home the other day and has left me with a great big massive hellmouth of a kitchen to clean up. The fridge is oozing milk. It's repulsive. Also, I have just eaten a pot of cottage cheese and feel a bit peculiar.

Did you know it's nearly christmas? Well it is. And I have no idea, none, what to get anybody. Heading home on Sunday for pleasant chrimble just me and my mum, which will be nice because the rest of my family is totally, totally mental and best avoided.

Off to have christmas drinks tonight... actually very soon. Bloody hell, where does the time go? Better shave.

Ok, here is a blog promise : MUCH MORE INTERESTING POSTS TO FOLLOW.

my mouth tastes a bit weird.

2005-11-23T01:04:00.000Z

The thing is, that the widget I have used previously to transmit my ramblings 'as if by magic' in to the etherous tangle that is the interweb has broken. So writing is no longer as convenient as F12, click, typetypetype, submit DONE! Now I have to log iiiinnnn, and navigaaaate and tyyyype and publisssssh and blahhhhh. Which is boring.
Hence my sudden infrequency.

So, sorry.

The project students in my lab are doing their stuff and we are FINALLY up and running. Watch that data pour in. Right on cue, my supervisor wanders over to me today and asks me how the manuscript of my paper is coming along. My what, sorry? You mean the thing I haven't been able to do for the last 4 weeks because we've been doing battle with the ethics committee and getting questions off the project students and discussing protocol and then coding html pages to get these experiments running? *That* manuscript? The one I'd have to have been superhuman to work on? Oh, I shoved that right up your arse, I think.

Also, as a side effect of all the science, my lab is fuller than might seem reasonable of urine. Yes, human. Pots of piss. Yey.

I love my job.

Actually, there are TV people in slow orbit around my lab at the mo. One of them might want to come do some filming, possibly interviewing muggins here. I'll let you know how that goes.

Madgirl at work is going mad again. I am running out of tolerance.

In other news...

Well. In other news, I am very pleased at the moment.

Those concerned will know why.

Gorecki

2005-11-11T15:43:00.000Z

So this is the idea:

You live in a block of flats, some floors up and are faced with an insurmountable problem. Could be work related, could be something personal, the details don't matter, but this problem is so huge you can't stop worrying about it, and it's causing you stress, and you can't see a solution.

So. You go down the road to your farmer friend, and you borrow his horse. You may need some carrots or sugar lumps for the next bit, but you lead the horse back to your flats, and lead him gently up the stairs to your floor. You give him a reassuring pat, and go back in to your flat. And you wait.

The thing about horses is that the way their legs work means that, while going up stairs is not a problem for them, they find going down stairs nigh on impossible. So when you go outside again to see what all the commotion is about, you will find your neighbours realising that there's a horse on the landing and no apparent way to remove it. Joining in the discussion, you will find that your own particular dilemma pales in comparison to the sheer logistic problems you and your neighbours face trying to move a horse.

And this is the fact:

There is less than 0.1% genetic difference between any two humans on this planet. We are over 99.9% identical.

Do you see?

Looking around myself, I can see that I have quite a lot of friends. My default position is to like people; I find active dislike of someone hard to maintain. I'm not naive. I know there are untrustworthy people out there, but I've found that if you don't bother people like that, they tend not to bother you. In my early days, I gave a great deal of myself to people and didn't always get much back. I learned, through experience mainly, that people who don't give anything back to a friendship ultimately do not care at all if you stop investing. As a consequence, not only do I have quite a lot of friends, but the vast majority of them are great. I consider myself lucky in this regard.

I'm sitting in work at the moment. I'm meant to be jigging html around so that we can start experiments on Monday. Instead I'm trying to work out how to phrase what I'm trying to say.

It's not my style to play games with people, and I have a mild obsession with being "genuine" (which, psychologists in other fields than mine tell me, is consistent with the rest of my personality). I have an advanced sense of humour and am not easily rattled.

I've had great times with the people I know, and have great memories associated with each one of them. Whether that's gorging on roast chicken and dips and watching movies, shocking our systems diving in to the North Sea, listening to tracks given to me on repeat for hours (days), falling asleep together listening to music, reading poetry while playing bongos or just getting drunk and stupid. And the best thing about it is, that there's plenty more to come.

I've been radiating affection for various friends over the past couple of days and I think it has something to do with knowing that no matter what happens, my friends know that at any given moment a horse could appear on the landing.

And (as Gabriel rolls on to my itunes) it seems that in the mean time, there's plenty of hugs to keep us busy.

Digest (metablogs)

2005-11-08T13:29:00.000Z

Owing to total lack of interest in my life, here's a summary of what's going on in the Blogspace nodes I frequent;

Pete's been going deaf for a fortnight, which has been entertaining me. Touring the Birmingham gigs, dealing with such dangers as not being able to find front door of a venue and a numb scrotum. All things considered, I think it's a shame Pete doesn't have a video camera with him, as the whole process sounds as if it would make a brilliant documentary. "One man, one music scene, 14 days". It's proving an informative guide to alternative / indie music in general, which is always handy. The other night saw him getting his groove on in the Barfly in Birmingham, which is a very nice segue into...

Kathryn has been working in the Barfly in Camden (aka 'The Monarch') and discovering the delights of dancing while pouring pints and avoiding being kissed by customers. Sounds like the basis of a life philosophy to me. She went to what looks like a rather spectacular bonfire display the other night. Am I the only one to have noticed that, where people used to content themselves with burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, this year people have started to burn the Houses of Parliament as well? Perhaps we're trying to tell someone something...

Me pal MandalinRose has beaten her coke addiction. Yey. Yes, yes, so it may be the drink, not the drug, but it's still impressive. Well done her. Her battle against tedium in this small Scottish town continues. Good luck and godspeed, young lady.

Jess has been feeling a bit lonely recently. This is a shame because she's a good cyber-pal of mine and is also great and destined for dizzying heights of fame and success. Go her. I hearby order everyone who reads this to go check her out and give her a great big hug. She's also recently been in a retreat with some kids . No idea what that means, I'm afraid Jess, but it sounds vile.

My good chum Andy's been a bit quiet recently, but then that's life in a big city for you, I guess. Happily, I chatted to him the other night and can assure anyone who is for some random reason checking here to find out how he is that he is very well. Hope you've recovered from the party, mate, haagen dasz is always the way to go.

That's it, I think. A fair summary of my (quality not quantity) blogroll.

Strange post. Don't worry, I don't think I'll do it often.

Fantastic.

2005-11-08T11:26:00.000Z

I wrote a reasonably long post last night. It wasn't hugely interesting, but it entertained me. Now it seems that the posting widget I use has stopped working. Dammit.

There may be a pause while I get used to that idea.

Hmph.

M.I.B it's a big horse...

2005-10-28T18:58:00.000+01:00

It occurs to me, as it often does, that some time has passed since last I put virtual ink to cyber blah and put something up here. Oddly, there's been a strange hiatus in bloggage among all those scribblers that I read (list to the right), as if we've all been far, far to busy, darling, to sling anything into the ether. Hmm. The others seem to be coming out of hibernation at the moment, so I suppose I should join in... seems somehow impolite not to.

So, I went home to London last weekend. For Chris and Rachel's engagement HOOO-hah! (that's like a party, but more so). Took me most of saturday to get back home, met my dad at the station, checked that my mum's car was still parked in the random house in St John's Wood and back to me dad's for martini (woo) and lasagne. Then off to party.

Spent most of the first half of the party moaning to friends various about how I wasn't getting drunk no matter how much I drank. So I drank more until very suddenly I couldn't feel my face and was having difficulty speaking. Yey. Amusing moments: me agreeing with Danny that what this party needed was goddamn limbo, me feeling up the German girl because I thought it was a mate of mine (what do you say? "sorry, I thought that was George, who I was feeling up ... for a... um...joke..."), the massive Old Wet pile-up, and me trying to kiss absolutely everyone. Then I passed out on the floor. Woo.

Nice lunch with some people on Sunday, and the purchase of what are undoubtedly the gayest cowboy boots in all the world. I'll supply a picture at some point, but me camera's up the creek. I wore them out on Sunday night (think shiny patent leather, think bright red stiching, think slightly S&M spur-strap thing... and you're not yet close) but, being new cowboy boots, they ATE my feet. Post pub, I had to hail a cab.

Now, if you've never been to London and ridden in a taxi, stop reading NOW, go there and do just that. There is nothing better than London black cabs and no better species of human than the London cabbies. Except the racist ones. They're cunts.

Conversation with cabbie ran as follows (cabbie has outrageous East End accent, I have mellow RP tones), we begin a minute after we are underway:

Cabbie: Mate, the weirdest thing just happened to me.
Me: Really?
Cabbie: Yeah. The fare just before you was this woman. She was totally pissed, right?
Me: gotcha.
Cabbie: so, I takes her where she wants to go, and she's paying me through this slot here [indicates a new feature of the black cabs, which is a slot in the perspex behind the driver for money posting]
Me: right
Cabbie: and she's down right on her knees, pushing money through. And she sneezes, right?
Me: ...right
Cabbie: and she fires her front tooth through this gap, and it hits here somewhere [indicates the dashboard].
Me: you're kidding
Cabbie: no, mate. It's in here somewhere... I don't know where. I think it's in me bag. She had all the doors open, we was looking everywhere. God knows where it went, but I know it's in here coz I heard it, you know?
Me: [unable to speak through laughter]

He went on to tell me that it is a well known con to take a cab and drop a ring in the front of the car when paying so that the cabbie bends down to pick it up and you can cosh him over the back of the head and take his money. I didn't know that, but apparently it's very common. He said he wasn't all that worried this time because it was, you know, a tooth and seemed somehow a bit extreme.

So that was great.

God I miss London.

Anyway, pleasant day with mum on Monday ("are you *sure* you're gay?"/ "yes, mum, reasonably") with roast beef and things. Yum. Then back up here on Tuesday and back to work on Wed. Fun fun.

My supervisor's decided he hates all of us today. No one knows why. I suspect the menopause. Or something.

I'm drunk. Ignore me.

2005-10-21T02:10:00.000+01:00

After I've finished writing, I'm going to open the Kinder Surpise Egg that's sitting, humpty-like, by my hip.

There's a bunch of stuff that deserves recording. I watched Sin City last night and wished I'd seen it on the big screen. A mate of mine came to see me, and he's unconscious just over there. I made a decision not to type an arrow. Just then. My supervisor is pleased with me again and I was so pleased about it I let my enthusiasm outweigh my tongue and heard my own report mutate by interpretation. I fixed it. But it was hard.

One friendship I cannot afford to loose.

So. Pete's been talking about tumblelogs . It's bothered me a bit, because I don't really see the difference between the definition he offers and the stuff I write.

I mean.

I don't redraft. Not really. I post and that's that. I fling bits of my life into the ether. And what I choose to fling, I do not edit. I return, I correct spelling. I punctuate.

I do not think, for example "this is worth a post". I just... you know, post.

So. My blog, I guess, IS a tumblelog. I think about posting, so I post. I tend not to worry about formatting. I tend not to draft before posting. What you read is what I wrote. That sort of jazz.

Which is fine. I understand that blogs are meant to contain more links. That what you have here should probably be hosted by Livejournal. Blahdeblah.

"it just gets things out there"

Said the man who got me in to all this in the first place.

Hmm. It's a very scary snail thing. Who'd put this inside a chocolate? People are weird.

Deviations will not be tolerated.

2005-10-15T14:31:00.000+01:00

Right. So. Thursday night.

The plan was simple:
1. Leave work and go home.
2. Get ready.
3. Get train to Edinburgh to arrive around 8 ish.
4. Sink pints.
5. Go to gig.
6.Dance like a fuckwiit.
7. Overnight in a hostel.

It was a good plan and as we all know, or should by now, one has to stick to plans. That is what they are for. Modifying plans an hour before their implementation is never a good idea.

So, I left work. I came home. Flatmate is ill and thinks he should abandon gig. This is sad. Lynn comes over to check the plan and goes to get ready. 5 minutes later she calls from the flat downstairs (the girl there is coming too) and says that she has met a guy who wants to come as well who has a car. A seven seater. Given that there are 4 of us going (since Flatmate has pulled out) that sounds good. We go to chat to him. Flatmate decides he will come after all, we all agree the car is a great plan ESPECIALLY since we can then drive back AFTER the gig. They guy with the car says his friend is coming too and he won't be drinking and he'll be driving.

Job's a goodun.

We get ready.

And we wait.

And we wait.

Until 9.00, when our wheels turn up. No one is hugely bothered, but we're feeling the change of plan rather keenly. The car appears (a massice renault) and we pile in.

We meet the driver.

He is fucked. On nothing more serious than dope, I think, but still. He takes off like a rocket in to the night, hitting 80 mph as soon as he's vaguely outside town (on country roads, mind). ALL of us tell him to slow down, which he does. For a bit. When we hit the motorway, the speedometer (a softly glowing pair of numbers in the centre of the dashboard) climbs to 90 mph. We shout. He slows.

We arrrive in Edinburgh almost before we set off, all glad to be alive.

A small tangle with directions, with everyone shouting to the driver to "go just down there" even though he can't see where anyone is pointing which is fine because everyone's pointing in different directions anyway.

We leave the car. The 5 of us have a group hug to celebrate our not being dead and decide, on balance, not to get back in the vehicle.

Then MandalinRose looses her ticket, probably at the garage we stopped at to, you know, breathe a bit. We decide to go to the club anyway and see what we can do.

We get there. A man sells Mandalin a ticket for the bargain price of £16 (face value, bless him) and we are about to go in... when we realise we haven't checked in to the hostel and, consequently, will not have keys for it when we roll back at 5 in the morning.

It is now 11.00 and the gig is starting.

Mandalin and I leap in to a taxi and tear across town to Cowgate where she runs to the hostel while I bitch to the taxi driver about how contrary to plan the evening was going. Mandalin returns, and we race back to the club and go in. After queuing for half my life to put my coat somewhere, we hit the bar / start to dance.

And have, I must say, a FANTASTIC time. Dancy dancy. Couldn't get near the dance floor (heaving) but found ourself a place up on a sort of mezzanine. 2manydj's themselves were cool, as were the other dj's on the decks before and after.

A question: why did anyone bother making any more dance tracks after Josh Wink released Higher State of Consciousness? Where else is there to go?

Anyway, there were some small dramas after the gig ended, but let us not worry about those. Needless to say we did NOT drive back that night, but staggered home the following morning. Quick shower, straight in to work to be shouted at by my supervisor.

A whole other story that one.

Anyway. Barring the adventures en route, or even including them, I had an absolutely FANTASTIC evening. Oh yes.

Today I have an eye infection, which is very poorly timed indeed. Not to worry, I have eyedrops that'll clear it up by tonight. I insist.

Endorphins.

2005-10-13T15:23:00.000+01:00

This week is going very, very well so far and I am very pleased. GRIN.

Ok, so this morning my supervisor went through the draft paper I gave him yesterday and took it apart a bit, but in a very nice constructive way. The one cloud on the horizon there is that I have to return to the data and grab more info from it. This is a problem because I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember where the rubbery fuck it is. All a bit embarrassing. As a bonus, however, my super thinks it's his fault because the computers all crashed a while back.

Disasters with data notwithstanding, I AM ON A ROLL. Much like ham and cheese. Only larger. And less edible. Sort of.

Have gone ALL domestic. Tidied the kitchen last night, the living room the night before that. That leaves my bedroom and it'll all be great.

I wrote a paper yesterday.

I'm sleeping well again.

And TONIGHT (oh tonight) I'm off to see 2manyDJs in Edinburgh tonight. Oh yes. Oh yes in-DEED. I shall be dancing myself into a state of mild euphoria, transcending both space AND time in a glorious sacrifice of my identity into the collective.

What fun it shall be.

Then I have to stagger back here tomorrow (after an overnight in a hostel) and meet with a new PhD student and try SOMEHOW to make sense. Oh god.

Anyway, I shall let you know how it goes.

BIG.
GRIN.
ON.
MY.
FACE.

yadda yadda

2005-10-10T16:48:00.000+01:00

My supervisor is doing the rounds of the lab today. What with there being only 3 of us here, it's been quite intense. He has melted my head and forced my progress with the paper I'm writing at the moment into sudden retreat. Begin again, I think may have been the message. He was asking LabmateMike about spherical wavelet analysis or something. It's all go.

Not much else happening. Getting kind of excited about a few things, but I'll let you know about them as and when. Don't want to jinx anything.

There's the gig I'm going to on Thursday... but I think I'll save that for later.

No, that's it. How tedious. Think I'll go buy a book.

I think I need a holiday.

2005-10-04T13:03:00.000+01:00

All I want to do is curl up somewhere and read The Golden Gate . Sadly I cannot.

People do tend to complicate their lives, don't they?

Putting a shout out.

2005-10-03T15:42:00.000+01:00

By the way. Anyone seen this lady recently? She has vanished from cyberspace. Hello? HELLO?

Like shouting in to a hole.

Wading through treacle.

2005-10-03T15:41:00.000+01:00

It's really perfectly simple, all I have to do is write a paper. I mean, I've done the research, I have results. People are excited by them...

Why, then, am I finding it so hard to knuckle down and WRITE up my results. One might have thought I'd be keen to see my work published. I mean, I am, obviously. It's just sitting down and GETTING the THING written. Sigh.

Anyway, I've told me superv that it'll be with him this week. At least a draft. And so it shall be done. It must be done. IT WILL BE DONE.

sigh.

Tidied my desk today. I can see formica and everything. Tis a miracle.

Sometimes purpose devalues activity.

2005-09-28T13:24:00.000+01:00

Wow, seems to have been ages since I last had anything interesting to say.

Not that today is any different, particularly. Nothing much is happening Apart from the usual sort of neo-machiavellian scheming and plotting that happens in a psychology department, of course, for which I have absolutely no tolerance nor patience. Also I have had what seems to be Freshers' Flu for about a week now. It just WON'T SHIFT. Particularly galling since I haven't been anywhere near any freshers at all. Hmph.

There are new PhD students here. We all went out to bond properly last night. As per normal, that involved a great deal of alcohol. Hoorah. Then I was overcome by fatigue at midnight or so and had to go home.

Oh. If memory serves, we committed to "Commando Friday" where no underwear is permitted.

Postgrads, eh?

Trying to put various experiments together. Gotta get ethics forms in for a massive social network-stylee investigation AND another for the collection of axillary hair.

Axillary? Of or relating to the armpit.

I could tell you why... but do I really need a reason?

My job is very strange.

2005-09-19T16:28:00.000+01:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my job, as an academic, PhD type person involves quite a lot of work with faces. We use pictures of people to investigate various aspects of attractiveness etc. We have quite an exciting piece of software to do it with.

I have spent today ageing people.

The photo posted here is me, aged to the ripe old age of 55. Or thereabouts.

I must say, I think I look quite good for a fellow in his mid 50's.

This does not, however, negate just how utterly freaky I find this image. I am unsettled to the very core of me.

Listening to Blue Jam is, of course, probably not helping.

All hail Chris Morris.

Approaching nuptuals.

2005-09-17T17:16:00.000+01:00

A lot of talk about weddings out there recently. Thought perhaps I should join in.

Got a call from Big Chris this lunchtime. HE'S TOTALLY ENGAGED. Yey. He and Rachel gonna do the decent after 9 years (9 years? Jesus) of itemship. Hoorah. I actually started to cry when he told me, sensitive guy that I am. Although it was a little embarassing because I was in a restaurant at the time. Also, I'm not sure the table of old ladies next to me appreciated my cry of "congratulations you big fuckstick". Fuck it. HOORAH. Weddings. Congrats to them (congrats to you).

ALSO. My old pal Owain has just got engaged as well. Tis the season. Hoorah. Weddings everywhere.

I'll have to buy a hat. Maybe 2.

Yeeha, let's get gibbered.

Danger in the darkness

2005-09-12T12:04:00.000+01:00

Heading off for blissful slumber last night, I became aware of something rustling in my room. The noise of paper crinkling under the weight of a lifeform. Of something pushing its body through the detritus on my floor. Signals of a definite, non-human presence.

Now, I live in the top floor of my block of flats. Ok, so that's only three floors up, but still; a little high for a mouse. Straining in the darkness, I heard it again. Sure as hell sounded like a mouse to me. So I turned on the light, put on my glasses and looked around.

There was (was) a large cardboard box near my bed. The noise seemed to be coming from that general direction. As I looked at it (still trying to work out if I was really hearing the noise or not) a spider larger than madness crawled out onto the cardboard. Eyed me pointedly, and scuttled on its way out of the box and into my nightmares.

Now, I'm not exactly phobic. Not technically, but I will admit the point is a semantic one. I do not LIKE spiders. They make me recoil. I walk away from them with great purpose when I see them. I had to rescue a reasonably large spider from the bath the other day; the process took me about 20 minutes, most of which was spent with me staring at the beast and muttering "right". Last night's arachnid was bigger. I mean, huge.

Seriously. If god were a spider, he would be this big.

I had to log on and immediatly get online support from Kathryn . My flatmate came home at 3.30 to find me standing in my room, armed with a kendo sword and a hoover, looking slightly ashamed of myself.

After he finished laughing, he gave me a hand.

We moved the box, but we never found the spider.

Spindly bastard.

Prescribe me not my duty,

2005-09-08T16:18:00.000+01:00

Oh, the world would be such a less stressful place if people would just remember to keep their sense of a) humour and b) perspective.

Not going to go into detail, but someone I know was very bad last night. Not properly bad in any lasting sense, but certainly very, very naughty. The other party has not found it amusing. At all. Fair enough. I'm friends with both of them, can certainly understand why she's upset, but also understand what he was doing. Which was playing. Not a good thing to be doing, but less problematic than it could have been.

Anyway, so I had a VERY sternly worded email invoking my status as a FRIEND.

Now.
1. I don't like being told what I should and shouldn't do.
2. I don't think I need my duties as a chum pointed out.
3. This is, in the end, nothing really to do with me.

So I was cross. I'm less cross now. A bit... off, I guess. Not the subject matter of the email, but the phrasing.

ANYWAY. It'll all be fine.

ENORMOUS spider in my bath this morning. I knew that was a poor start to a day.

Elisabeth passed her viva yesterday. That makes her a doctor now. Very exciting. All went out for a nice dinner and DRINKS. Hoorah.

Also, my poi arrived today. Woo, new hobby for me. Boo, I just tried spinning them in the lab and hit myself in the ear.

Perhaps I could call today off. Got an eye infection too, so I'm in my specs, which I hate. HATE.

Sorry... can we go again?

Bibbety, bobbety, booze.

2005-09-06T13:21:00.000+01:00

Friends of mine will be familiar with my ghost train analogy.

For those unaquainted with it...

Do we all remember Ghostbusters 2? Specifically, do we remember the scene where 3 of the 'busters are wandering through an old subway tunnel when a massive great ghost train comes screaming down the tunnel? Two of the heroes leap out of it's path, one stands in the track and screams as the whole train rushes over him. Being insubstantial, it goes through him. Being, well, a train, it also surrounds him. For a moment, he is utterly surrounded by an ethereal, glowing, rushing force. Then it is gone.

I find this a suitable image for those "oh... my... god" moments that we all have after a particularly heavy night. They tend to visit most people in the shower the following morning, generally when one has just started to relax and rinse shampoo out of one's hair. I'm talking when memories of indiscretions of the night before suddenly surface and knowledge of just what a fool you made of yourself scream around and through you like... well, like the ghost train in Ghostbusters 2.

It is a handy analogy. I use it often.
I feel it frequently.

Like today.

Now, I'm not actually going to tell you what todays ghost train is carrying. Suffice it to say that I now think that alcohol is EVIL. Evil and bad and wrong. I also think that I am a bit of an eejit. Surprised even me this time. Ah well, I shall blame the booze.

Beer used to be my friend. Suddenly beer hates me. What did I do to beer? Why, beer? Why the betrayal?

Ah well. As Homer said:

"Alcohol: cause of, and solution to, all life's problems"

Tease.

2005-09-04T13:07:00.000+01:00

Just to let y'all know, I'm still around, but am waiting for the broadband thingummy to be activated in my new flat. Have had to treck into work today just to check my email and write this. I can't really be bothered to stay here much longer and desperately need coffee. This will be brief.

In fact... it's over.

Untitled.

2005-08-30T14:16:00.000+01:00

Back in Scotland, weather's nice, flat spacious... all sorts of pleasant to be back. Can't work out how to make hot water happen in the flat... but there it is.

Me flatmate's just arrived, which is nice. Gonna meet him for lunch in a bit. Catch up etc.

The new Starbucks in town has got fed up of students demonstrating disapproval by taking the letters from their sign (when I left it said "**r**cks") and has painted its name in big yellow letters instead.

Back in March, I went to a funeral. Well, I went to two, actually, but only one is relevant to the rest of this post.

His name was Finn. Well, actually it wasn't, but that was the name he chose for himself, so that's what we called him. Whatever he called himself, he was a very good friend of mine. We saw eachother kind of infrequently since we left school, but in bursts of semi-regular contact. Often a year or two could roll by without us seeing eachother and then we'd get back in touch and hang about together for a bit. It was kind of nice.

He had some problems. He was rather heavily depressed, on some fairly serious medication, I gather. I tried to help, but he was fairly hard to reach. He knew I was around, though.

In any case, I hadn't seen him for a while when I came up here to start my PhD and I had just started to try and get in touch with him when I got a phone call from his ex-girlfriend (and long time confidente) to tell me he'd hanged himself and that was that really.

There's a lot I could say about that. There's a great deal I could set down. I could, for example, mention that not one day has gone by without me thinking of him at some point or another. I could say that I missed him. I could say many things but, on the whole, I don't think I will. It seems fairly facile.

What I will say is that he would have been 26 today.

So Happy Birthday Finn.

All the best, mate, and cheers.

Here's to you.

Thankyou Colin.

2005-08-24T17:50:00.000+01:00

Okay, so my plans to give you a day by day, blow by blow account of Memehunter versus the Kids kind of fell by the wayside, but hey, what you gonna do? The best laid plans of hmm and hah and all that.

Was interviewed today by man from CEDAR, which stands for something Educational. Possible some sort of Research body... I have no idea. Anyway, he wanted to know what I thought of the whole summer school phenomenon and the Anthropology strand in particular. Bless his cottons. So I told him and that was that really. He manifested later to see Robin give a small lecture (a lecturette, if you will, and I often do) on magic.

What else has happened? I spun some fire poi in front of all the kidlings last night. Wasn't gonna, coz I'm not all that good, but some old friends of mine were teaching the kids how to do the poi thing (with socks and rice rather than chains and flames) and then gave a flaming demo later on, when it was darker. Somewhat surpised when my chum grinned in my direction and call me out. Further surprised when the kids started chanting my name. Out I went. Haven't done flaming poi for YEARS. But the kids were cheering, so what could I do? Other than panic.

Anyway, tonight I seem to be joining the RAs in singing a song to the kids at their big gala show.

Two more days to go...

Ah, gotta dash. Dinner calls.

Joy!

2005-08-21T12:17:00.000+01:00

HUZZAH! I have FINALLY made the university network here give in and let me run Adium. It being sunday, however, no one is online. Sigh.

A sunny day, a simple friendship...

2005-08-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

Hooo, end of the first week.

Should have updated previously to let you know that I don't hate the kids any more. Days 4 and 5 went very well, although I was greatly tired and hungover on day 4 so I tried not to look at them. Happily it was ethnomusicology and the oriental museum on Thursday, so I didn't have to say much. Yesterday was hominid evolution and library research. Having spent AN HOUR AND A HALF lecturing to the poor guys on primates on Wednesday, I thought maybe a change of style was in order (also I had been told by the Site Manager that I had slightly melted the kiddlies brains with my talkingtalking). This was also helpful because hominids really aren't my field AT ALL and I know very little about them. So I gave them each an animal, and told them to go and research it and present it to the group. Then off they went to the library to find out what they could about Homo floresiensis and stuff. All in all, a good day.

Just got back from helping shepherd the kids out and about through town. Some of them have bought hair dye (frowned upon). I look forward with interest to the results. Heh.

Ooh, hey, gottsa get ready to gwout. Pizza with some old chums tonight.

Whoop.

Shitemonkeys

2005-08-17T16:41:00.000+01:00

Evil little bastards.

"Do we HAVE to do the assignment?" Yes, you do. "But whyyyy?" Because we need something to assess that we can write about how relentlessly great you are to your schools. "None of the other courses have homework" Well, that's their problem. "It's so *unfair*". Well, it's not exactly homework, we are, in fact, giving you time to do it now. In the classroom. This is, in fact, called class work. "No one else has to do it... seriously, it's why I want to change, I don't like it."

I mean. For. Fuck's. Sake.

And then that otherwise charming youth announced that he just didn't like the biological bits. Whoop. After a day of me pouring primatological knowledge in to their ridiculous sub-primate brains. GAH.

Hmph.

Ah well, I'll be fine tomorrow. I must say, it took me longer to get to this stage last year. Of course, most of them are lovely. Working on the projects with no problem. Listening attentively AND, it seems, absorbing information.

I just can't stop HATING THEM.

[[[[[[[[RAGE]]]]]]]]]]

...

Not to worry. I'll go out and get drunk as a fuckwit tonight, that'll sort it ALLLLL out.

It seemed to be going so well, also. Ok, so I spoke UTTER nonsense in the genetics lesson this morning, to the extent that Serena had to step in and help, but they seemed to get to grips with evolution alright and then seemed to like the primate stuff. Blimey, I was on my feet talking for an hour and a half. I was knackered, never mind them. I hope some of it stuck.

I can't help wanting them to learn. I want them to understand it all. At least some of them.

I am somewhat irritated that they have annoyed me so.

Teacherama

2005-08-16T23:54:00.000+01:00

Day 2 went off sans hitch. No teaching at my end today, much preparatory work for tomorrow afternoon, which shall be just me haha and the kids and LOADS OF PRIMATES. Not actual primates... unless you count the kids themselves, and me and Robin, of course... would have been great to reveal a chimp or something, but no. Have to make do with a begillion photos.

Dammit, I have the theme from the closing credits of the Raccoons running through my hair.

Running through my *hair*? How strange.

Yes, I am a tired hominid today. I must to my bed.

One of the kiddlies wants not to do Anthropology any more. Whispering in the ranks; I'll not have it. Tis a mystery though. For fun, I shall attempt to guess which one it is tomorrow.

But now, lest more typos reveal more about my personality that strictly necassary (in true Freudian penis-sorry-fashion), I shall to my bed, which I must say is more comfortable than it initially looked.

It has begun. (Teaching Day 1)

2005-08-15T20:18:00.000+01:00

Amusingly this lady is keeping her own record of this grand occasion, but from her own perspective as a residential assistant.

Day 1 now over. Kids ensconsed in various activities at the moment. Regimented fun of the most compulsory nature. A nice range of activities; some are engaged in a quiz, some are drawing, some are dissecting hearts somewhere with my medic chum (also site manager) and some are out on a nice walk around town... although that group just summoned Kevin the Nurse. I hope all's well.

Lessons today went well. Introductions, setting the assignment. Some ice-breakers (which I inevitably and totally deplore), tours of the classrooms etc. I was up after lunch, basic intro to Biological Anthropology (during which, I think, I failed to make a single bit of consecutive sense... go me) and then an introduction to Mendelian inheritance. Woo. They seem bright enough.

One girl seems to have spent all morning crying coz she was homesick. I didn't notice. Robin, my course leader, tells me that this means I'm cold and heartless. Shame.

I was going to write more and more here, but now have to go leap in a shower and go to the pub, because I've spent too long on the phone.

Arses.

To be continued... maybe.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

2005-08-13T14:11:00.000+01:00

HELLO everyone.

Blimey.

Well, here I am ensconsed in sunny/cold and rainy Durham. Once again. Careful readers may note that this is not far off where I began this blog. Sort of. Mind you, less careful readers will recall that I mentioned that not so long ago. Ah well, whatever.

It's kind of odd to be back. My old college is over the road... if I lean out of my window, I can see the old place. Fun though. Took a group of the RA's (that's Residential Assistants) to a local nightclub last night. Hadn't been in it for years. Oh how the memories came flooding back.

Anyway, I'm sitting in my (en-suite) room, attempting to put together a lesson on mendelian inheritance for monday. w00t.

Heh, remember the mowhawk? Well, I got M and J to carve it back in to my head on Tuesday, before I came up here (brief hysteria when J accidentally carved a bit of an S bend into it. Her first time with clippers... M fixed it). Yesterday Kathryn bleached it. Heh. Blonde mowhawk for me. I must confess that part of the motivation for doing it was because the kids are arriving tomorrow and I want to see the look in their parents' eyes when I tell them I'll be teaching their kiddlies anthropology. Grin.

Right, so I was tagged by Jess ,which was a first for me.

"List ten songs that you are currently digging ... it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."

10. Instant Pleasure - Rufus Wainwright
9. Interview With an Angel - Ghostland
8. I'll Find You - Hundred Reasons
7.Out of My Mind - James Blunt
6. Dead Man - Nitin Sawhney
5. Walk on Gilded Splinters - Dr John
4. Overkill - Colin Hay
3. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall
2. I Thought You Were My Boyfriend - Magnetic Fields.
1. Breathing - Lifehouse

... you know, Itunes made that quite easy. Inspired mainly by my Top 25 most played list. Logical I suppose.

Anyway, now I have to tag people. The problem is, that I don't know 5 people to tag. How sad. Ah well, Kathryn, Andy and Pete . Consider yourselves tagged.

Cheerio.

One more thing...

2005-08-09T10:01:00.000+01:00

Oh lawks, I've been tagged . That's going to take some thought. I shall play, I shall, but give me a moment.

Crustacea

2005-08-09T09:56:00.000+01:00

My word and good gracious me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Off to summer school tomorrow. If they've got me kitted out with net access from my room, I'll be in touch at greater length then.

Was down in London, you see, and mum's new place had no web access that I could easily use, then was back here and the suitmonkeys came to see me. They're still here, actually, but are over in Computer Science having their heads scanned. Woo. Supervisor took us all out for a very, very nice dinner last night. Fish restaurant down on the sea front. Mmm. Tasty goodness. M. accidentally ordered oysters thinking they were going to be muscles. Asked me why they were cold, after eating four of them very fast. "I'll tell you tomorrow", I said.
"Are they... cooked?" she asked.
"Well, no."
She looked a little pale.
"Why are they so cold?" she asked again.
"Because they're about as fresh as they can get"
She looked at me. "Are they...?"
"yes" I said.

She gave me the last one.

Colonel Catch Up

2005-07-30T15:04:00.000+01:00

Been a little busy this last week with a write up of my year's work. Got it finished and handed in yesterday, somewhat underlength. Well, I mean I said everything that needed to be said and then, you know, stopped. Still, a piece of work that's meant to have a maximum of 13 000 words and ends up at roughly 7 500... well. Unless the first words my examiners say at my viva is "this was very efficiently written" I may be in trouble. Sigh.

Not much else to report, I'm afraid. Off home on Tuesday, if I get my act together. OOOH, I move in to my new flat on Monday. That'll be fun. I'll have to introduce you to my flatmate... those of you who don't know him that is. Well, there'll be plenty of time for that.

I mean, I've nearly finished the first year of my PhD. Two years to go and it'll be DR Memehunter.

Accidentally magnetised my ipod. Dammit. Seems to be buggered. What am I to do?

Summer school soon. One of the teachers has pulled out and has been replaced with a medical anthropologist who seems, as far as I can see, to have no sense of humour. Oh dear. Also says in her email to me, and I quote: "I have no interest in Evolutionary Psychology". Alright love, there's no need to be rude.

TIREDTIREDTIRED

2005-07-24T23:03:00.000+01:00

I am a big tired badger. Tired tired tired. YAWN.

Been drinking too much also. Why haven't I gone to bed? Strange boy.

Last night my dad and gran came to see me. Went out and got a bit drunk. Well... a lot drunk, acherly, if I'm being honest. Good times. Dad seems well, Gran much the same and on good form. Dad shamelessly flirting with young psychology postgrads. Tsk. Ah well, runs in the family I guess.

Friday night partyparty. LabmateMike came along, which was cool coz he doesn't often come out to play with us all. Then he got drunk, which was funny. He got a bit... aggressive towards then end of the evening, which is strange, I know, and not at all like him. Hmm. Kicked off slightly at some arsehole who was being a tit. Called eachother out for a fight. I actually did that thing when you have to hold your buddy back. "Leave it mate, he's not worth it, just calm down... just leave it" etc... fun fun. LmM, it appears, opted to repay my wingmanish antics by outing me. Actually, that happened before the holding-back, but I only found out yesterday. Bless him.

Not a problem. Not a problem at all, coz it's not like I'm 'in', but the person he told didn't know. Heh, she mentioned it yesterday at drinks. "Oh, you'll never guess what he told me about you..." she said, "and I said NO, he's NOT" ... pause. "Yeah, he might have a point there" says I. Oh the hilarity.

Anyhue, I reminded him today. Totally mortified. Heh. I look forward to sorry pints at some point.

By the way. BY THE WAY. London is freaking me out. 5 times in the head. Totally innocent. For fuck's sake.

Have a whole LOAD of work to do by Friday. Holy crap. Ho-leee krap.

Jess, those are some loved Chucks. Keep it up.

Poisoned to Dearth

2005-07-19T01:17:00.000+01:00

I'm not entirely sure what happened last night.

I have collected some clues which I can spread before you. A collection of odds and ends that point to events, suggest causes. A three-dimensional representation of something larger, and ungraspable. A tesseract of an assemblage, unfolded into a recognisable set of dimensions, the original form lost forever. The thing unfolded, but not the thing itself.

1. This morning my coat pocket contained an empty packet of hoola hoops, a king-size Twix and a jar of marmite.
2. There was a text on my phone telling me that my friend was an arsehole.
3. Also on my phone was a picture of me, slumped in an arm chair in a pub I didn't remember being in.
4. Flashbacks of a huge, empty marquee... crowds of people... faceless barstaff.

Put it together and what have you got?
Bibbetty...
...bobbetty...

The plan, of course, was to go out and get drunk with LabmateMike. Suiting action to thought, we met, at 6, in one of the more expensive drinking establishments this town has to offer. We had dinner. I seemed to be powering pints away. I remember that.

The background shimmers and dissolves and we are in the bar of a small hotel. A man starts to play the bagpipes. And why not? The bar is boiling with golfguys. Another shift, a seemless segue and to a larger, more expensive barish pub (pubbish bar?) around the corner.

At this point, the beers begin to bite. The asp of alcohol sinks its fangs into the Cleopatra of my cortex. I begin to sink.

Others arrive, now we are four. Mr X and J(Me') are clear of work. This puts the time at roughly 10.30. Another small hotel bar, but we sit outside this time and LmM and I spend no small amount of time tearing J's discipline apart. Frankly, though, she's had that coming ever since she called Biological Anthropology the "bastard child of sociocultural studies". Frown. At some point after this, I get very, very drunk and stop recording information. I have some flashes. I think I bumped in to someone else I knew, I think I lost LbM for a bit and worried the bouncers by looking for him repeatedly... then there's the bit with the marquee.

Then comes the part called "being in the Vic" of which I have no memory. Well... not much. Bits and pieces. It is during this time that LmM kicks off.

X has filled in some gaps for me. Turns out J didn't take well to being called a moronic fascist. "Everything you've said or done tonight has been moronic, from the very first thing you said to that moronic smile on your face right now".

I'm told that I remained silent through most of the tirade. Apparently only reacting at all to stop X from wandering in to the firing line. He complimented me on being aware of social space even if every other sensory experience was bouncing off me. J stormed out.

My memory starts to resurface after this point.

LmM went off to find someone to punch. X and I wandered homewards. It seems I visited the All Night Garage (see clue 1). X bought me chips (and haggis, it seems... and, at my insistence, a "random sausage"). I decided that the double vision was going to get in the way of watching a film and went to bed.

X tells me when he came upstairs, I had kicked off my duvet and was lying, spreadeagled, on the bed. Given that I had woken up naked, this purturbed me. It seems, however, that at this point I was actually wearing pants. Pants that, he tells me, I removed (whilst still asleep) about 10 minutes later.

Excellent.

Dignity, Memehunter, always dignity.

Act without doing...

2005-07-17T12:16:00.000+01:00

Oh, oh, I remembered what I was going to say.

Quicksilver is changing my life. Cheers to Andy for drawing my attention to it. if only some similar interface existed for life, I would be a hive of efficiency.

A hive, I tell you.

Macs rock. It's official.

There's nothing worse than being drunk and disproven.

2005-07-17T01:30:00.000+01:00

The man in Woolworths had a cloak on today.

That's all l have to say on that subject.

Instead of doing any work today, I read The Rules of Attraction by Brett Easton Ellis.

Now, I read American Psycho a few years ago and hated it. I mean physically loathed it. It disturbed me profoundly. I was repulsed. Sort of avoided Ellis ever since. Picked up Rules on a whim... and am now a convert. So much so that I may have to read Psycho again. Not least because there are character crossovers that I now need to explore. Ah well.

Anyway, cut a long story shorter... read Rules of Attraction. It's really good.

There was something else I was gonna say, but can't for the life of me remember.

Nope. 'gone.

Ah well. Night.

Bah, humbug...

2005-07-15T13:03:00.000+01:00

Wow, after a plug in Jess' blog, my stats have gone through the roof. That's pleasing.

Guess I'd better start being interesting.

The summer school that I teach in every year is gearing up again... thinking about it, one of my first posts here talks about it. Guess that means this blog's about a year old. Guess THAT means I'm nearly done with the first year of my PhD. Oh, Sweet Spaghetti Monster.

Anyway, I'd better start putting thought in to what I'm gonna teach the l'il bastards.

I took a frisbee to the face on Friday. Surprisingly painful, right across the bridge of my nose. Ehhh. Got a bit of a bruise and a cut. Look slightly as if I've been fighting. Grr. Inspired, I got a friend to take clippers to my hair and cut me a mowhawk.

It's received mixed reviews, but I (at least) am very entertained.

Oh unspeakable joy, oh rapture, oh the profundity of my excitment, the next Harry Potter comes out at midnight. Woo, yey. Woop.
Er.
Yey.
No, it's no good, I can't care. I try, I really do.

Sigh. At least people have got used to the books existing now. Means I am no longer bombarded with commands to read them. "omg, you HAVE to read them" No, madam/sir, I do not. I choose not to. Thanks though.

Ah well, I'm happy for the Potter fans. I'm pleased you're all pleased. I shall grin at your excitment and pretend I understand.

GRIN.

Fantastic

2005-07-13T14:41:00.000+01:00

Oh yes, oh YES.

May the Noodly Apendage encircle us all in joy.

Garrr.

F&MO

2005-07-12T11:10:00.000+01:00

Before I go any further I have to tell you this:

the source of the foul and mysterious odour haunting my room over the last couple of days, which caused me no small embarassment, was due not to evil lurking in my clothespile, but rather to the shoes of the gentleman currently sleeping on my floor.

Nice.

Nonproductive

2005-07-09T17:24:00.000+01:00

It's no good.

I was meant to end today with at least 2000 words of my project written. What have I got so far?
381 words of w a n k.

Ah well.

I'm just not feeling the urgency here. Have to come up with at least 10 000 words by the end of the month. Ah well. If I head to the lab tomorrow morning, at least I can write up the stats section and the methodology. I've got 3000 words of an introduction that needs to be tinkered with. So by monday (hopefully) will have ... er... somewhere around 5000 words, I guess. Leaving 5000 words of discussion? Hmm. What's to discuss? It works. End of.

Sigh.

Chatting to various pg types yesterday. One who thinks that academia is not for her at all. She spoke about academia as if it were something she'd be involved in later. Hmm. She said she'd rather own a travel company and a coffee shop. Fair enough I guess. The other phd stude there said she loved the research but hated what she kept referring to as "the politics". They both went on about it. On and on and on.

Now. First off, show me a career path that does not involve "politics". Show me, in fact, any way of grouping humans together that does not require them to behave politically. It's a game, yes, and among academics it's a strange one because you are dealing with MASSIVE egos and people who are not entirely *normal*, but you have to play. Even choosing not to play is a strategy.

This is the thing: you cannot help but play.

She kept saying how she didn't want to kiss arse... how she didn't want to have to tell people she loved their work when they thought it was rubbish. Personally, I don't see the need to do that. If someone is renowned for something, you treat them with respect. This involves being polite and attempting not to wade in with "your theory SUCKS". I mean, that's just rude.

At the end of the day, people need people. We're social beasts. You have to play.

Sigh.

It annoys me when people say they refuse to play games they are manifestly playing.

So the world of academia turns out to be a world of networks and nepotism... are we surprised? What world isn't?

Hmm.

So I ordered a new phone on Friday.

Should be here on Monday, hoorah! Strange story: went to Orange shop in Dundee, was told I could get £50 off the phone I wanted if I took an 18 month contract, but couldn't upgrade till next week. Then was in London and was told that no, honey, they couldn't do that. Then was back here and phoned Orange and said I wanted the phone but could we bring the price down?
"yes," she said, "you can have that for free"

I mean...
... what?

London III

2005-07-08T02:22:00.000+01:00

Strange day.

Having discovered that everyone I could think of was safe and sound back home I was left at something of a loss. I couldn't sit at my computer without staring at the BBC news website or listening to the radio. The mounting panic before my friends and family confirmed as not exploded had left me feeling a bit odd. At a loss, or something. Then me labmate asked if I fancied a pint. Somehow that seemed logical.

Got a bit drunk.

Faint feeling of sickness lingered as the news rolled on on the screen in the corner.

It was a strange feeling; feeling relieved at not being in the city when it all kicked off and somehow wanting to be back home more than ever.

Haven't really sorted out what I think about it all really which might place the vitriol of the last post in context.

Not London's first brush with bombs by any means. Not by a long shot. It takes more than that to shake the city properly as well. Londoners seem quite resilient. Looks as if the explosions are done with and, if the Spanish bombs are anything to go by, we are not facing a campaign.

I suppose I'm worried about what the reaction's gonna be. ID cards become the least of our worries. More new powers for the police? Probably. Another attempt to give judicial power to the Home Secretary? Who knows?

*** a pause there while a VERY drunk housemate came to talk to me. Bless. **

Anyway, I think I'm done here. I should go to bed or something. No idea what I was trying to say, except that some bombs exploded in my city today and it's shaken me up.

More than I expected.

London II

2005-07-07T13:51:00.000+01:00

Beginning to work out what I'm feeling now, as the political rhetoric starts flooding in, as Blair starts up the old 'US AND THEM' fun.

We fucking had this coming, that's what I'm feeling, and if I can see that, then the politicians sure as hell could.

We were waiting for this. And here it is.

London

2005-07-07T12:56:00.000+01:00

Ok.
So, have now established that none of my family or friends in London have been hurt, so that's ok.
Blimey.
The thing I'm finding strange is that work is very much carrying on as normal around me, while I'm here glued to the news, texting everyone I can think of back home because the mobiles all went down. Trying to work out whether I'd be doing the same if it were another UK city.
Last time I remember this feeling was back in, er, 2000? 2001? can't recall exactly. It was the nail bomb attacks in London. Bars and clubs in the West End of London were being attacked with nail bombs. Nasty business. I remember though that everyone from London in my uni town looked the same, all slightly bemused and a little distracted, generally clutching a newspaper. This one's different though. That was some homophobic madman blowing stuff up, effected Londoners alone really. This one... well, I don't know. This could be bigger.

Well, anyway, it's going to stir things up a bit, to put it mildly. Scary.

Strasbourg has already held a minute's silence in solidarity.

I feel as if I should do something, but I don't know what it is.

Shit.

Fridgemagnet.

2005-07-06T23:26:00.000+01:00

Wow. Is it wrong to want a fridge this much?

Seriously, I think I could cope with anything life could throw at me, I'd be stronger, faster... fitter.

With that fridge...

With that fridge, I could conquer the World.

Keeping you posted.

2005-07-06T16:34:00.000+01:00

It is, however, very nice to back in touch with old friends. Well, old friend, to be precise, there only being one of him at the moment. All praise the internet... and were it not for his blog, how would I know what he's been up to for the past 2.5 years?

Banging around my head.

2005-07-05T00:44:00.001+01:00

The question of the day is: how long ago does something have to be before it can make you nostalgic?

I am beset on three sides by images.

The first two are photographs:

1. I'm standing with three other people, wearing a towel around my waist. Behind my shoulders; the horizon, the sea, the wave, the surf, the beach make horizontal lines, lineup style. We are measured against eachother by the backdrop. We look pleased. We look proud. A few moments ago, we were swimming, and the sea forced air out of our lungs. Now we hold/wear/hold/clutch towels to ourselves. Shortly we will realise how cold we are, but for now we stand and smile. No one is behind the camera. It is later than we imagine, but the sun still shines. The sea was cold. We are exhillarated. Andy, me, Helena, Rachel. It is three weeks ago.

2. More lines, but closed in this time. Blackboard, counter, two levels of bar, the light is different. This time I'm kneeling, although again in a group of four. Another man kneels next to me, his name is Pete. Behind him is Greg. Behind me, Heather. Around us, there is a bar, pints dot the scene. It is two and a half years ago. I have more hair and have sideburns but no beard. We are smiling. Our shop closed so we got drunk. There are cocktails and liqueur coffee available. There are crisps three levels behind my shoulder. Heather needs a drink. I have no idea who took this photograph, but I remember the occasion.

The third is a dream:

3. A dark haired man who represents everyone I know whose name is Simon. A classroom. Ancient insecurities surface and an old headmaster makes his presence felt. My mind screams prepschool at me, and I have no idea why. You don't know these people and I cannot name them. Time is meaningless.

Three images (or sets of images) from my past.

How long ago do things have to be before you can become nostalgic?

Rephrased: does anyone else find themselves missing their recent past more than their distant history?

Fancy that

2005-07-03T01:27:00.000+01:00

My birthday is 99, 211 decimal places in to pi. Which is nice to know, I guess.

Saw Batman Returns today. You know, I think I liked it.
Quite the cast it's got there.
And didn't Michael Cane do well? Who'd have thunk it.

Of course I did go to the cinema by myself... but then, sometimes I think it's nice to spend a day mooching about toute seule. Kind of enjoyed meself anyway. Bought some hair clippers, which is enough to show for any day, really.

Helping Michael move house tomorrow. Must remember to buy housewarming wine. Or something.

and...relax

2005-06-30T16:43:00.000+01:00

Done.
Dusted.

Gave my talk this afternoon. Some people came... about 8 I think. Mebbe 10. Mainly my labmates, so a friendly crowd. A couple of others, a postdoc, a visiting researcher and the Prof what convenes the talks. Although he was late. Hahaha.

Seemed to go ok. I thought I was talking abject nonsense, but am assured I was making great sense. Fb came up to me and said "well done, you're a great speaker", which was nice. I got my mac working to great effect. Had my notes on my screen, the slides on the biggun. Excellent. The kids at the summer school ain't gonna know what's hit 'em.

Perfectly timed as well.

Success or not. It's done. Phew.

Off to get ratted now, I think.

At last...

2005-06-29T17:54:00.000+01:00

I knew it, I knew it was evil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4626517.stm

Have it, have it you crazy frog f*cker. HAHAHAHA.

Seriously... what?

2005-06-29T14:18:00.000+01:00

So, the Fugees, I hear, are gearing up to release a new album.
This'll be their first in ten years.

Read that again.
Say it slowly.

Their last album was TEN-YEARS-AGO.

What the rubbery fuck is that all about? TEN YEARS?
Strumming my pain with his whatever, singing my life with his stuff... TEN YEARS AGO?

No way.
I do not permit it. It is not permitted.
There.

More coffee please.

2005-06-29T10:21:00.000+01:00

The left Apple key came off my powerbook last night. That's quite annoying. Trawling through the Apple.com help site last night, trying to find the "yes, we'll send you a keycap" section. Couldn't. Frustratingly found loads of instructions for putting a key back on. But I need a new one. Gah.

That talk I've been meant to give for the last FOREVER? It's coming up tomorrow. I've kind of lost interest in it. Sigh. Also means that I have to get up reasonablyt early tomorrow also. Dammit. I just want to curl up in bed and stay there.

In positive news, I've been invited to a Wedding. My mate Andy-from-Durham is marrying his girlf. Caroline. Coming up in just over a month. Intriguingly, there's no "and guest" option... guess I'll have to find me some company when I get there.

Started listening to radio again. Hooray.

Mum, Dad... I'm a Sith.

2005-06-27T19:17:00.000+01:00

Hmmm...

Well, that's another one to tell my mum, I guess.

In other news, if I may resort to an Americanism for a moment:

THIS TOTALLY BITES.

*sigh*

What on Earth is the point of making great new friends if they go and graduate and naff off home. Hmph.

Ah well. As Kathryn said, I guess it's just so that next time we go out drinking together, they have more interesting stories to tell.

What I should absolutely NOT be doing now is drinking cider. Foolish, foolish youth. And what IS it with me and cider recently? I never liked it before. I never got so drunk I couldn't walk onm it when I was 16. Hmm.

Went swimming in the sea yesterday, though. That was fantastic. FAN. TAS. TIC.

Marianne Faithfull... what's going on there?

Hmm.

Happy Birthday Jess , by the way, I raise a glass of Strongbow in your honour.

God my room's a mess.

Et super te.

2005-06-24T12:55:00.000+01:00

Raining today. Shame.

Went to a graduation ceremony this morning. Not my own, obviously. Went to see a mate of mine to the graduating thing. They do it well here, lots of pleasing academic pomp. They have some ceremonial maces that get clamped into the sides of the Chancellor's throne. An old cap that they touch the graduands with. Latin that they intone.

My graduation, although great, was lacking in the mystery part. There was a procession and everything, and our degrees were conferred on us, but all at once. Got a handshake of Peter Ustinov, though, who remains one of the most inspirational men the world had on offer. Mind you, I did get to graduate in Durham Cathedral the second time around, that was pretty special.

The mystery is important, somehow, I think. Actually being inducted into some other group. Rite of passage etc. The world of Academia should be seperate from other worlds. Not because academics are in any way priveleged, but the academics are specialists. We move in rarified fields. We don't do normal, not really. I mean, what we do is think about stuff. Work stuff out so that others don't have to. Ah, I realise I am sounding like a bit of a tosser. Let me fix this: I don't think that *only* academics deserve cermonial bruhaha. All fields are specialist. I ain't no lawyer... poor example, they have their fair share of pomp.

I suppose I mean that more professions should have rites of passage associated with them. There should be indoctrinations into the mysteries of recruitment consultancy, robes of office for accountants, a ceremonial mace for estate agents. Why the hell not?

Bring back the mystery, that's what I say.

Off to the graduation ball this evening. At some point. That is if my date gets in touch and tells me where to meet her. Hmm. Apparently my DJ's ready to pick up... I think I'll go get it.

Get a sarnie too, while I'm about it.

Extra cold

2005-06-23T16:37:00.000+01:00

Just ran a participant who wouldn't stop LAUGHING. Seriously. I had to leave her alone in the photo room to record her own voice, so chronic were her giggles. Entertainingly, she'll be working with us in the lab next year as a project student. Sounds as if I'm doing the stuff closest to what she wants to be doing, so I guess she'll be mine. Yey. I can hardly wait.

Beer. Beer soon. And in quantity.
That's what you get for having an appropriate amount of sleep...

... beer thirst.

Decaffeinated.

2005-06-22T09:01:00.000+01:00

I cannot believe I'm in before 9. Albeit only by 10 minutes or so, but still. Man, am I tired.

All the graduands are graduating. Makes me feel all nostalgic. I cried a bit at my graduation. Well, I didn't actually *cry*, but when the Chancellor confirred our degrees on us formally (using advanced academic magic) I definitely welled up a little. Bless.

Suitmonkeys are coming at 9.30. Seriously, who wants a meeting at 9.30? How long do you have to work with academics before you realise that's not a good plan? 9.30? Not one of us will be capable of making any sense. Goddamn suitmonkeys.

I. Need. Coffee.

And sleep. To be honest, I need sleep more than I need coffee, biologically speaking. Maybe I'll crawl under my desk and catch some z's. That'd be good.

"And here's our new researcher... er... under his desk"
"zzzzzz"

9.00 and all's nuts.

Early Bird.

2005-06-21T09:53:00.000+01:00

Seem to be the first bunny to get to work today. How unusual. There was me thinking everyone would be in already and panicking about the meeting we're having at 10 about the meeting tomorrow with the Suitmonkeys.

***

Lengthy pause there while I ran a Gabor Wavelet analysis on some skin patches. Oh yes, and before 10 in the morning as well. Oh the heady delights of my productivity.

The secretary has manifested... as yet no supervisor, no labmate. Hmm.

My mouth tastes disgusting.

These facts are in no way related.

At least, I sincerely hope they're not.

I hope they're not intending me to go through my presentation in a meaningful way today. Hmm.

Stocktaking

2005-06-20T00:10:00.000+01:00

Reinstalled in sunny Scotland, after a fairly crappy journey North. The power cab in the train went totally verschnicket or something and not even the magic of the engineers boarding at Engineerville could help. w00t let's withdraw the train at Edinburgh, yes let's. That'll be fun. Extra 2 hrs added to journey.

Anyway, a vvery enjoyable evening catching up with a chum I ain't seen for woo-hmmm... 3 years? 2 years probably. Anyway, he went of to China 5 years ago. FIVE YEARS. For fuck's sake.

Anyway, we got a bit drunk. Hoorah. He headbutted his pint and spilt beer all over my phone which is now utterly knackered rather than just being slightly knackered like it was before. Been lugging around a mate's old motorolla, from the dark days of mobiles. It's the size of a brick and hideously complex to use.

Beeps like a motherfucker too.

I seriously need to pare down my accessories. Going to purge my life of extranenous crap, I think. I want to get to the stage when all I carry around is a laptop and an ipod.

Or something like that.

Back to work tomorrow. Back to it.

The suits are coming on wednesday, I have to show them what I've been up to. Got a presentation together and ting.

Feels as if I've been away from this place for much longer than a week.

Taking a bow...

2005-06-18T12:25:00.000+01:00

Blimey, it's hot today. Roasting. I am sweating like a big sweaty postgraduate psychologist. Which is approptiate enough, I suppose.

Quick post, then disconnecting computer in readiness for heading back up to Scotland. Been a crazy, crazy week. Big thanks to all involved for support etc, that goes for all who read this blog and those who don't. Thanks Jess for nice comments etc, good to have a pal in blogspace. Ta Big Chris for being big and great. Thanks Kathryn for being on hand on messenger. Thanks to CC48 also for well timed texts.

And of course, a great big thanks to that tall Irishman I know. You rock.

Beginning to feel a bit like an academy award speech this one. [sob] I'd just like thank [snf] my director (we did it!) [smf] and my fantastic writers [sob sob] and, of course, my parents for making it all possible in the first place [ironic wink].

Right. Onwards. Back to the academic grindstone.

Cheers

Strike 2

2005-06-17T18:54:00.000+01:00

So. Job's a goodun.

Went round to see me dad this afternoon to show him this new laptop of mine and also (vaguely) to fill him in on the latest visavis me.

Made me really nervous. It was very odd. I mean, I knew he was going to react well, but there seemed to be no easy way to begin. "So, in other news, I do lads" seemed my only option, for a time. Then I started to think maybe I didn't need to tell him. I mean, this is about me. I remembered how I've never felt obliged to publicise my sex life and have never been encumbered by the spirit of frank confession that appears to characterise my generation (yesyes, I know, I have a blog, how ironic). So I was tempted to leave it. Then I remembered how crap it would be if my mum told one of their mutual friends and he found out from someone other than me.

Somewhat torn I was.

Then he started telling me how he's back in the game, as it were. His wife died fairly recently, which was very sad. He's living in the house by himself and building a hell of a social network to keep him busy. He tells me he's started dating again. More power to him, I say. So he's been out with various women recently. He was explaining how nothing's really happened, but he just likes going out with women anyway,

"I mean," he said, "who wants to go out with boys, eh?"

And that, reader, is what they call in the trade a 'feed line'. To good a one to pass up.

"Funny you should say that," I said, ever mindful of my viewing public, "I kind of do".

And on we went from there.

It's all good, he's pleased I told him, I'm pleased I told him. Etc etc.

In other news, my mother continues to be extremely stressed about moving. Did some shouting at me. But it's alrighty.

Oh oh, in a new twist, now it turns out that the Sandman comics turned me gay.

Who'd have thunk it?

Just testing something

2005-06-17T00:46:00.000+01:00

So. Did I mention I bought a new computer? Well I did and it's great. My triumphant return to the world of Macs. w00t. That's what I say. Anyway, this is me testsing a blogging widget. I wonder if it works.

I, Londoner

2005-06-16T13:39:00.000+01:00

Man am I tired.

Took my mate on a tour of London 'by night' yesterday evening. This city does well in the dark. Big river, bright lights, night owls drinking coffee, clubbers clubbing, pubs chucking out. Looking down the Thames from the Hungerford Bridge (or whatever that new bridge is called), the dome of St Paul's glowing softly just over there, the red oh-cross-oh opposite, lights on both banks reflecting in the water, the National Theatre blinking in the distance.

I think the city makes a great deal more sense from the water. You can see how it grew. Where the roads go. Stuff like that. I do like this city. I like being part of it, feeling part of it. London is nothing without the people in it; more than any other city I've been in, it's built to get people from one place to another. The places you go through, the various locales, quarters, sub-quarters all, essentially, waypoints en route to somewhere else in itself a waypoint. London as meta-journey. We travel for the sake of travelling. Someone has to use the busses. The tube needs passengers to survive. The roads exist only to be walked. London, ultra memeplex, requires that her children travel. So we travel. Who are we to argue? We have no more choice in the matter than blood cells.

That's why I like it. Step into the stream. Float like a corpuscle. Let the beat push you.

And if the penalty is always feeling alien everywhere else you go... so be it. At least city folk know how to cross a road properly.

SURPRISE!

2005-06-15T13:54:00.003+01:00

So. Here I am at home. My mum's tidying up the kitchen, there's an electrician doing... something to the lights upstairs. Bags everywhere. My room's in chaos. The whole house is in chaos.

Moving, you see. My mum is. Moving out of this house, I mean. Next week is moving day, so it's all a bit hectic. I can only be here for this week, really, before I have to leg it back up north and present academic flimdoo to my corporate sponsors. Great.

My mum's having all sorts of nervous breakdowns at the moment. Convinced nothing'll be ready or done or anything. Although she's calmed down a bit since we got the parking permits and the mail forwarding things sorted out. We did that today. She was deeply stressed in fairly predictable ways when I got here. Moving house and all.

More stressful than divorce, they tell me. And she's done a couple of those.

So, my mission statement was to be as helpful as possible, I guess. You know, take the strain, provide support. Be helpful.

Don't do anything stressful.

Like, say, come out.

Yes, an excellent plan all told. Wait until your mother's REALLY stressed out, THEN tell her you're kind of in to boys, actually. Great. Nice one.

Although, at the same time, it seemed a strangely appropriate time. Selling the house I've lived in since I was 2. End of one chapter and all that. Glad I did it. Had to eventually, I suppose and, as A said, she would have reacted in much the same way whenever I did it.

How did she react? ... all-right, I guess. She cried a lot. Got a bit cross. Taken it a bit... personally. She's feeling the loss of grandchildren rather keenly. Coincidence with the chucking of an awful lot of my childhood baggage not helping. "I was going to keep these for your children," she says, "doesn't seem much point now, does there?" Stuff like that.

She's coming round. Initially she actually refused to believe me, which is weird, because she's been asking me if I'm into girls for years. To be honest, I was expecting less surprise. "You don't SEEM gay to me" she said. She thinks if I had sex with more girls I'd change. Something about "habituating" myself to lads.

Yadda yadda.

Ultimately, she'll be fine. She still bought me slippers today. Just some adjusting to do.

In other news, I bought this swanky new machine yesterday. Am now proud owner of a Powerbook. 15" screen. Brushed aluminium casing. Oooooo. I like it.

Should tell my dad next, really. I imagine that'll be easier. For him, I mean. This ain't hard for me. I'm sorry she's upset. What can I do? She'll be fine once the move is over. I hope.

Hmm.

Probably more to come on this issue, at a guess. Better crack on with doing useful house packing things.

Laters.

No one's here except me and the research assistant.

2005-06-10T10:45:00.000+01:00

Morning All.

Sorry, it's been a while. Again, it's not as if I've been doing anything ESPECIALLY exciting... been working my buns off the past week. I'm going home to London tomorrow, so my supervisor's been crawling all over my intellect, compelling me to do "a year's worth of work in 2 days" (yes, he said that) for the Industrial Sponsor-dudes who are coming to see what shakes in a fortnight or so. Woo.

Also been putting that talk that keeps surfacing together. Was kind of ready to go yesterday... getting bits and bobs changed, finishing touches to slides etc. Thinking "you know, this could be ok" when the fire alarm goes off. Turns out someone called in a bomb threat.

Seriously. A bomb threat.

And no, it wasn't me.

So we evacuated the department. Didn't look as if anyone warned Theology over the way. Ah well. Sat in a coffee shop over the road with labmates and supervisor and watched the fire engines come and go. Bomb squad and everything. During this time I entirely loose my motivation and desire to give a talk on the effects of social condition on pheromone detection, which everyone tells me is fair enough.

Entertainingly, the building is given the all clear 5 minutes before the talk is due to begin. The convener seems to be intent on carrying on as normal. In a small amount of panic, I had to get my supervisor to say "no, no, he doesn't have to". So ha. Another 2 weeks. Guess it had better be something fairly special though.

Oh, it will be.

Have begun my life-streamlining by getting rid of an awful lot of hair. Never had my head clippered before. I quite like it. Certainly means I get out of the house earlier in the mornings.

Some drama last night. In pub with various. Labmate Mike got a leetle drunk, as did we all... was feeling argumentative. Made someone else cry then went home. Blimey. Nearly lost my rag with him... had to remember to breathe.

Guess I'd better crack on with these faces, really. Sigh.

Matlab, ho!