I've got pie but I'm not a pion

Things that strike you

2009-11-06T23:58:23Z

I must have listened to the song '(You) Tattooed Me' by Tom Robinson over a hundred times easily, it has been on heavy rotation on mix-tapes / CDs / iPods for 20 years I think. Today, for the first time it occurred to me that the lines
"When I was sound asleep as you left to join the fleet
You tattooed your name with a needle in my arm"
perhaps don't quite work, you would have to be very sound asleep indeed!

The lyrics on the website of the gentleman broadcaster himself say 'drunk asleep' but even so... (and the lyrics don't quite match up with the album version (which is also available to download free from the website.
There is actually another live version on Tom's website, where the year changes from 54 to 34. But (an alternative) 1934 or 2034? And the peace talks move from Dublin to Geneva.
Not as SFnal as 'Drive All Night' from the same album, though.

It's a kind of (partition) magic

2009-11-05T22:55:29Z

Thanks for the responses, I have forwarded them!

Partition Magic and similar

2009-11-04T23:27:06Z

Quick question... does anyone have any recentish experience with Partition Magic or similar? My cousin's partner wants to make her new PC duel boot. Going to XP SP3 & Ubuntu instead of just Ubuntu, as I understand it.

And whilst in random links mode...

2009-11-04T20:42:37Z

... some of you may not have heard the self-referential boy-band-stylee song
Title of the song

Fiona Bruce hosts the event, which comes today from Stoke On Trent

2009-11-04T20:38:52Z

Adam and Joe (well, Joe actually) does words to the Antiques Roadshow theme. One of their best songs ever I think.

Hell is other people's C++, cont.

2009-11-03T22:11:58Z

This amused me. It is from the blog of Peter Seibel, author of Coders At Work (which more accurately could be titled 'People who write about software or writing software talk to someone who writes about software and he writes about it). I had a look at Bjarne Stroustrup's web-site to see if he had responded to Ken Thompson's account
"When Stroustrup read the interview he came screaming into my room about how I was undermining him and what I said mattered and I said it was a bad language. I never said it was a bad language. On and on and on." (quoted in the link above, quoted from the book).
Stroustrup's FAQ is fairly abrasive, and I am surprised he has yet to respond to this, but he hasn't updated it since the end of July.

Having said that, there is something of the Slashdot weenie in many of those comments about C++ in that article, however one of the comments is I think particularly telling..

"And I know a couple of people who are masters of C++ and I love to see how they do things because I think they don’t rely on it for the stuff that it’s not really that good at but totally use it as almost a metaprogramming language". Yes, well, hmm. I am trying to think of a good simile for this, something about someone talking about how they like to see chef X make creative use of his chainsaw without safety catch in the kitchen springs somhow to mind.

Grrrr

2009-11-03T22:11:06Z

Semagic is playing up. Apologies to those who have seen a malformed post come and go twice. Grrrr.

BBC news story so big pinch of salt, obviously

2009-11-03T12:02:35Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8339647.stm

"An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. "

Dilemmas of LJ

2009-11-03T00:07:18Z

Defriend the dead, which seems wrong somehow, or be reminded of their birthdays.

Question

2009-10-31T12:39:42Z

Has anyone tried one of these things where you play it a chunk of music and it tells you what it is? Do they work?

There is a track I had years ago on a tape, alright decades, of some sort of soft jazz variety. Whilst we were at Marguta, probably the best vegetarian restaurant in the world, in Rome, they played this track, which I had forgotten about but was buried in my subconscious. Sadly when I asked it wasn't a CD, but was some sort of satellite radio service. I could probably find a tape with a crappy recording off the radio but on the whole I think it is only worth tracking down (it will be on a BASF C90 with a number written on it, in a box, somewhere, perhaps), if I can play it to the interwebs and have it tracked down.
I think I can rule out it being Spyro Gyra or Earl Klugh, who were the main exponents of such jazz who got mainstream(ish) radio play in the early 80s, though it is someone vaguely of that ilk.

So...

2009-10-31T10:20:55Z

Back from holiday. I definitely recommend Budapest, which has a fine decaying in places fin de siècle splendour. The Metro line 1 which was the first underground line in continental Europe is particularly lovely.
This picture from Wikipedia doesn't really do it justice but is better than the ones I could find on Flikr. The hotel (Novatel) was an odd mix of art nouveau original features and Novatel blandness. Because quite a lot of London was built at the same time and, indeed, one could argue that Britain was at its peak at the same time, there is an odd mirror world feel to it. Though, of course, much less has happened to Budapest since due to their being essentially on the wrong side in both world wars and then not much building happening under the communist regime.

But I could have done without the car going 'bing' half way back from Gatwick and even more so I could have done without the power steering failing whilst turning right on a roundabout. Also, my phone has had what appears to be one of its failure modes (a message complaining it doesn't have a Sony Ericsson battery followed by it refusing to find any mobile networks). A Google for suitable keywords revealed that this seems to be a known problem and amid the voices crying into the wilderness was a suggestion that upgrading the firmware would fix it. This has gone surprisingly smoothly and seems to have done the trick. Hoorah. And it would have been a bit of a downer if this had happened whilst we were away, so better now than earlier. Bizarre though.

More Google Poetry (from Budapest)

2009-10-28T09:04:20Z

More about...
Love Words »
Love Poems »
Love Lyrics »
Removing Scars »

About A Boy

2009-10-14T09:46:30Z

Something which occurred to me on the way to work by an obscure chain of associations... can anyone think of a plausible reason why the film of About A Boy substituted the Nirvana plot with a rather lame and inferior one? The book seemed to me to be obviously written with 1.99 eyes on a film adaption with Hugh Grant.
If there was a problem with rights, couldn't they have had Bert Bobain, lead singer of Oblivion or somesuch? You wouldn't need that many lines of exposition to get this across.

Cat or bin-bag?

2009-10-12T21:33:27Z

Yes, it's the day where greyhounds play 'cat or bin-bag?', the greyhound equivalent to 'cheese or font' etc. Today Harvey did particularly badly, missing the only real cat we saw, which cunningly hid behind a recycling box.

It is disturbing

2009-10-12T18:43:11Z

When people disable comments on their posts and don't have mood or music, because then the friends list page runs two stories together with a paragraph gap so if you are not looking carefully it looks like the first paragraph of the next (i.e. previous) post is just the next paragraph of the previous (i.e. next) post.

The pen of my grandfather's aunt

2009-10-11T22:40:36Z

'Lines on reading a book of Kelly Link short stories' by E J Weasel, 17 3/4

The pen of my grandfather's aunt is grey.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt may be of extraterrestrial origin.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt has a slogan on the side in Linear A. If only we knew what it meant.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt usually writes in turquoise ink. It smudges easily.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt compels those who use it to dot their Is with little stars.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt writes tales of loss, of disappointment, of unfaithfulness.
The pen of my grandfather's aunt produces doodles that from time to time look unfortunately like 'Kathy' cartoons.
I have stuck the pen of my grandfather's aunt up the bottom of a stuffed okapi.

Drum and Bass^H^H^H^H Theremin

2009-10-08T23:20:24Z

For fans of such things, there is an Oxford Contemporary Music thing featuring a drummer and a thereminist at Modern Art Oxford next Thursday, 15th.
Irksomely it is at 6 p.m. Also, the 'I am wacky' photo on the website http://www.ocmevents.org/events/Autumn%2009/rochford/rochford.htm does not thrill me. It reminds me of the photo of Rebecca Carrington http://www.rebeccacarrington.co.uk/ so has been Done Before.
We have the DVD of cello based humour if anyone would like to borrow it (a mixture of English and simple German in the main).
The DVD of theremin based humour cannot be far behind.

In the words of I. M. Weasel, "He was a fine monkey and a genuinely talented theremin player."

The City And The City

2009-10-02T21:41:19Z

Questions about this book, which I haven't read, but cut for spoilers anyway...

1. Will I hate it? I write as someone who got the twist based on 'It's by China Mieville. It's called 'The City And The City'. It's a detective story. There's a twist'.
2. Is the behaviour of dogs explained?
3. Music?
4. Babies Crying?
5. Why in our excitingly globalised world is it not the funny story at the end of the news every day?
6. Is the amount of suspension of disbelief required reasonably constant? I think actually this is the main determining factor as whether I will want to read it.

Things that sound like irksome indy band names, part 94

2009-10-01T21:57:18Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland-Zanzibar_Treaty

Hokey Cokey (F1 edition)

2009-09-29T21:26:51Z

Am I the only person to have noticed that Kazuki Nakajima and Heikki Kovalainen both fit well into the Hokey Cokey?

Oooooh Heikki Kovalainen
Ka-Zuki Nakajima
Oooooh Heikki Kovalainen
Knees bend arms stretch rah rah rah

It's the Friday evening unhealthy YouTube searching hour

2009-09-25T21:50:20Z

Small boys, jumpers for goal-posts, isn't it, hmm? The credits of 'The Paper Lads' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLEIE8WD0X4 Theme by Renaissance (ah, that voice - yes, I have said this before, I know).
I blame everything on the decline of ITV, you know. And the decline of ITV on the Tories, obviously. I had that Roland Rat in the back of my cab one, guv.

An extended ITV self-promotion video with the late 80s 'dum didley-dum-dum dum' theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fIm-yo-UEw (video blank after 2 mins for some reason)
The return of ITV after the 1979 strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZvrWCIbpMU (Note that Quatermass, depicting a Britain terrorised by evil trade unionists [subtext] was the 9 p.m. drama)

The sad history of Centre Radio, the commercial radio station in Leicester, which went bust - the IBA allowed the Nottingham Station to take over. This was really the beginning of the end for the IBA's old system of the local great and good owning a station with its own locally originated programmes - http://www.transdiffusion.org/rmc/commercial/centre.php

Uncanny valley

2009-09-23T20:54:01Z

Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech with a musical accompaniment, taken from Airwaves by Loops And Topology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R26pEnrCFYw

Hang on, you think, did he sing it? I don't remember that. Then you think, but the music and acoustics aren't quite right.
It is the weirdest thing though.

There is also a section from 'Big Decisions' about the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ZccNJjrVk
The 'Paul Keating' section in the middle is perhaps the most impressive

I also present 'The White Australia Policy'. Be warned, it is probably the last thing in the entire universe you want to find yourself singing, and it's very catchy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0TUZwj06nM

More here, though I think those three are the best of the ones on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=topologyrob&view=videos

Caught in a sub-clause

2009-09-20T20:18:59Z

Something I meant to say yesterday but got sucked into a sub-clause from which I never escaped, was that the the book about Boars Hill is the one by Margaret Aldiss, the late wife of the great man. Indeed, sadly, the book was published posthumously.
The question to which I would like an answer is why did Cousin Jasper advice Charles Ryder to stay away from Boars Hill? Was there a house of ill-repute before the war, as there was during the war. Or what? The interwebs do not seem to be able to help me with this one.

Good old positive thinking

2009-09-19T13:45:16Z

“I usually try for a window seat, as far forward on the plane as I can get. I think if you do it properly – i.e. first or business class – there’s nothing traumatic about flying 250 days of the year.”

There are times when I think I should try and cultivate a more positive outlook on life. However, success seems to elude me.This is not helped by things like the ludicrous Monocle magazine having as its cover article something on the joys of compulsory national service. This is even more ludicrous than its annual 'most liveable city' article. This year it is Zurich. My personal view is that Tyler Brûlé (not clear whether he added the accents or his father dropped them), should be confined to his favourite city of the year with snipers trained on him 24/7 to make sure he does not leave the city limits or by air. That will perhaps make him consider whether Zurich or Copenhagen really are the world's most liveable cities.

Another magazine I didn't buy today was 'Broadcast'. This used to be one of my vices, and I did in fact subscribe for a year, as I find the media fascinating. However, a flick through today's issue looked very small and sad 'money is short and there is musical chairs at the top' it said more or less verbatim. It had a 'Buggy Whip Manufacturer's Weekly' feel about it.
I also didn't buy a £30 and very thick book on the Ottoman Empire and World War I. I wondered whether I would really read it. It is an interesting subject - most of the problems in the middle east can, on some level, be traced to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and it was by no means certain that they would join WWI on the 'wrong' side.
Also, of course, I didn't buy any of the magazines in what I think of as the 'Nathan' section of Borders, the enormous number of of glossy art / culture magazines. Who buys them? Who produces them? Do they make a living from it? How? Why does Borders occupy that amount of space with them? I suppose someone must buy them or the Borders mothership would notice and reallocate the space. Strange.
I notice the computer books section has been further eroded. There has been blatant encroachment on two fronts by the law books. This could be a horrible metaphor for something. The day when there will be a handful of 'how to connect to the Internet' books left and thereafter you will be expected to buy any computer book on-line cannot be far off.

I did however buy a Budapest travel book and get three books out of the central library, including the book on Boars Hill (there are copies in the central library and in the Botley branch library, don't quite see why there rather than Abingdon - maybe people in Boars Hill have servants who prefer Botley to Abingdon).

Bizarrely, I got a letter at home from the new overlords telling me that my new job title is Principal Technical Leader. I suppose that since they don't seem to have established any bulk mail between us and the mothership, they think they might as well send things to people's homes. Actually, I suppose they are mainly a civil engineering consultancy and I have worked places before that routinely send things to one's home. We are definitely in a new world, though.

I have been having strange dreams recently. Not so much because of having cheese as having my cheese moved, I suspect. Last night's was in the manner of a TV detective series / detective novel. My subconscious mind is quite good at capturing the tropes of these things - it got the 'annoying sister' having trouble with 'annoying sister's husband' off pat, very much in the manner of Tempe Brennan's sister or the mother of the heroine of Veronica Stallwood's novels. Not quite sure why the location of the house where the arson took place moved from Edinburgh to the Isle of Man and then to somewhere unspecified in Russia where the train service had been reduced to one every couple of days despite the attractive modernist station. Not sure such a place exists, of course.

(I have found a blog following the works of the great Mr Brule http://www.beingtylerbrule.com )

And finally, of course, Morecambe and Wise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKN7aWTUrIU
(also spotted what I believe to be a mistake in Wikipedia. Doing a search for Variety Artists Federation shows no article and a link to one saying it was the forerunner of Equity which I don't think is true. I remember the Morecambe and Wise autobiography saying that they were not involved in some TV strike as they weren't in Equity, they were in the VAF - not sure enough to change it though)

Now, that is depressing

2009-09-17T20:56:35Z

The one line ad on GMail is for a solicitor. The magic algorithm has deduced that I want one. Which is depressing. I already (in my role of executor) have a solicitor. I would like fewer rather than more solicitors, please.