Tuesday 29th September 2009
Set off for the flickr meetup in bath, taking a pack of mixed nuts with me
for the squirrels. Re-took the cat door picture, and also another nutty gate
that opens onto a precipice. No warning sign or fixed closure - nothing!
Walking towards Sydney gardens, the DWP phoned me. Because my paid working
have been reduced to zero my the earlier fine, I am probably now ineligible
for SEC and will have to make a re-claim for JSA, meaning another fine:
A fine for being fined; well that's just fine, isn't it?!
This one will be for the SEC owed to me now, ie �200. A back claim for JSA
for the same period will be �257, so if I am fined, in theory they'll owe me
the cost of the fine, and an extra �57.
As I am working "Part-Time hours", I don't have a full time job - but I do!
the self-employment (when things come back together) will be a Full-Time wage
for PT hours. Because the DWP defines my hours worked as PT, I am probably
going to be treated as if I am not doing enough to support myself, and
because going back on the (higher rate) JSA means I have to be able to work
(another job) and be looking for work, well, there's a contradiction there:
If I were to get another PT job, I'd have to turn them down. In the meantime,
however, I suppose I could squeeze in a PT job as well, and that could take
the place of JSA? First find your chicken...
Found squirrels, but only at a distance, in Sydney Gardens. Also found two
tunnel entrances (gated), that were a surprise to see there but not really
photogenic.
Took some test shots pointing the camera straight at the sun (no direct
optical viewfinder, so no problem), producing odd lens flare and corona
effects and no burnt CCD.
An alarm was sounding in the council offices next to some cafe's, who
assumed the council's security operatives must already know about this.
I phoned them, and they didn't! Well, they know now.
Walked up Lansdown Road, back through Hedgemead, and into the Paragon for the
Star Inn.
Started with two Pints of Black Cat, the lowest-alcohol beer they had, at
approximately 3.4%/Vol. I was delighted to find that this settled my
indigestion, which I had resigned myself to putting up with for the evening.
Got talking to some people at the Bar about the housing bubble, and wondering
where the flickr meet was, whereupon the tables starting filling with
photographers. That was, of course, who I was supposed to be with, but I
didn't want to be rude and leave before the conversation broke.
Eventually, swapped over to the flickr meetup, whom turned out to be a fairly
diverse bunch. Got talking to a theatrical [employed by the Theatre Royal
down the road, next to the Garret's Arms, which one of my stalkers keeps
going on about] lighting electrician/technician, whose work has many features
in common with mine. Our working patterns and work habits are very similar,
so it seems. Our behaviour at social meetings, ie using them as excuses to
drink, also seems to be in parallel evolution.
Later on in the evening, gave in to the urge to get more drunk,
and tried their strongest Pint, Hell's Bells (6%), then someone brought
me a Whisky, then I finished with a Gin.
I left for the rail terminal at a run, running through the wall due to the
alcohol, and electing a rousing cheer from people outside the Pub for some
reason.
Got to the station with far too much time to spare, which by now had filled
with creepy-looking types also waiting to get back to 'Nam.
Wednesday 30th September 2009
Last night through to two a.m. today, slept rough at my own house.
To elaborate, I have two sets of keys and two sets of doors at the rear.
The front door was deadlocked (this is called a security feature, but
because it's so easy to do accidentally it's really a bug), so I used
my second set to get in round the back.
Between my two rear doors is a little room whose' purpose is to provide space
for the other room's doors to open into. These doors are toolshed, downstairs
toilet, garage, main house rear door.
The main inner rear door's lock had seized a little, because my key for it is
a bad copy, and when I finally got it in, I found the rear door accidentally
deadlocked as well.
I managed to get some sleep until about 2am, when I was woken up by the cold.
I insulated myself from the concrete/vinyl floor with the doormat, my bag as
a pillow, and wearing my coat etc, but then I had to go back down the office
for proper warm sleep. Outdoors it was actually warmer than in the utility
room.
So I walked away, knowing full well that (a) another hour and someone inside
would be awake downstairs, and (b) I'd've frozen by that time. Apparently
they noticed only a quarter of an hour later.
Working away at 8am; suddenly lost vertical control on the mouse.
I may need to buy a new/2ndH mouse quickly, or all work ceases.
Where's my mouse emulator?...
Banged the mouse against the desk accidentally - now it's going again...
Mouse emulator (Warfarin) doesn't work on the RPC, so I'll have to find the
source, and in the meantime, find my previous BASIC emulator (to keep handy,
just in case).
The y roller in the mouse is fine, it was something to do with the movement
sensor itself(!), which is solid state, so what advantage banging it on the
desk gave is hard to say.
Blew nearly a pound on a much-needed reviving Pot Noodle.
'Will have to get several cheap Value Noodles; a quarter the cost.
Mousing mystery solved: The bit of board I had to flex with cardboard
underlay in order to mate the Select microswitch with it's button is next to
the portion the y-roller optical sensor is on, and distortion around a
precision position-sensor doesn't help.
So I took the board-flexing wedge out, and re-positioned it, thinned out a
little, above the microswitch, so it supplement�s the appropriate button
instead. Result: One repaired mouse (again).
Added a clock display (!Alarm) to the iconbar, because I'm always referring to
the time these days.
Cleared some ground outside the boiler room, but very tired and had to cut
that short. One of The Others accepted my plea for a lift home.
Thursday 1st October 2009
Ahead of separate (datawise) business accounts, brought personal accounts
into line with them, by regarding savings as part of available cash and
changing building society withdrawals & deposits into notes. This is
a saner way of tracking, and enables the easier tracking of income.
(Prior to this, income and savings transfers were mixed in together.)
The remaining bits of business accounting in my personal documents is now an
"orphaned" error-checking facility, not something to turn into cashbook,
ledgers, etc, by report-producing scripts. The new business documents will
have a simpler layout, negating the need for separate scripts for basic
data, and using scripts for more complex reports instead.
As a result of trying various methods, business balance held has no meaning,
because the business'es "cash in pocket" is abstract from personal funds, and
as much as required from therein. Mathematically, it served no purpose in the
spreadsheet, so I removed it, because spurious variables complicate.
For some reason, it doesn't appear to be necessary.
Further tests, with business spending, as when paid for by bank transfer
or bank cheque, clearly need to be run! -And not least because there's no
obvious place to read future C/fwd amounts from, apart from the current C/Fwd
amount, which can't be right.
Perhaps it just cancelled-out because I didn't try the direct business [bank
account] spending scenario while it was present.
Next to extend datawise business accounts backwards. (Perhaps after the
balance tests, though.)
Found a small program on a CD which disables the "long hardware test", much
of the POST, I think. Ran it, and start-up seems faster, but it is rather
hard to tell, because (1) it was fast to begin with, and (2), I no longer
have a stopwatch at the office, the need for which in this matter clearly
prove's point 1.
Hang about - do I have a timer on my phone? - Yes! ...
Countdown timer, but still-
No effect on warm reset; cold start takes 3 seconds less.
Timer button a bit wobbly, so Ithink it's down from 23s to 20s.
This is timing until the banner disappears, and it may be usable beforehand,
although with the flaky mouse & keyboard it can be hard to tell.
I think I'll keep the extended hardware check off; power-on is the main time
you want keep down anyway.
Ah yes; you can use the machine 4s before the banner disappears', making a
theoretical power-up time of 16s, responsive mouse essential. (And a responsive
stopwatch may knock more time off.)
My phone takes 21s to power up. 'Dunno why. 'No excuse for it.
It'd still be nice to turn more of the POST off, and to find out how much
time the ROM-copy burns.
Friday 2nd October 2009 (just gone midnight)
Revamped some posters from other people's source photography.
Will ask permissions, and start stamping out (when less tired).
For now, sending draft output back to them for comments.
"Hear/Feel the Power of advertising"
I can feel a series coming on...
Monday 5th October 2009
Had to rush on the journey down the hill to the council offices first thing
this morning, nearly taking out a trio of joggers round what turned out to be
a blind corner. By some miracle, backstepped hard enough to avoid them. 'Bit
of a panic there.
Met with Business Link, they say they think my business idea is silly and
that I should stop doing it. Fortunately that decision is not up to them, and
they are not supposed to say that sort of thing anyway.
They gave some vague marketing help, not very much really. They also
protested that they don't understand why I'm virtually-living in commercial
premises, and kept repeating that. - None of their business also.
They offered a standard programme of help and support, and presumably further
sarcasm, and said there's a marketing seminar "in a nice hotel and you get a
free meal". And hopefully some help with marketing.
Rather sleep-deprived at the meeting, but with that kind of attitude I'm
glad I didn't need to wake up to get through it.
Perhaps the business adviser is not a morning person either. That could
explain it.
Then had to go home and sleep for about one and a-half days.
Tuesday 6th October 2009
Yesterday, the DWP left a message informing me my SEC grant application
had been turned down, and advising me to claim for JSA instead.
SEC Denied because they define me as not being in work. The JSA helpline
booked me an appointment for tomorrow (Good), but warned me that the back
claim was unlikely to succeed because they defined me as being in work for
the period... Make yer mind up!
Someone just called asking how to get into Betterware - she said she'd found
me through my subsite - I told her I hadn't worked for them for two years,
and gave her their head office area for directory enquires use.
I'll make that clear on the subsite tomorrow!
Longish chat with the Landlord this evening. He thinks I should stand as
an MP. I almost took him seriously there.
flickr photographers of source material for the new posters all gave their
approval, and none asked for payment.
I think I will get the new posters hard-laminated afterall.
WHS have A3 laminators in for �20 apiece, with a pack of 25 pouches going for
�8. Unfortunately, this is too small: I would need four small prints to
assemble one A3 sheet, whereas I only need nine large ones for a A2 sheet.
That would make �2 per poster run in pouches, verses DigiPrint's �25. I think
I'll hold out for a cheap secondhand A2+ laminator, preferably one that'll
fit in the office, and take full A2 pages, rather than A2 with an inch shaved
off the edges, which was rather less than helpful.
The Landlord has given me a scrap machine to, er, disassemble for scrap.
Wednesday 7th October 2009
Reapplied for JSA, applied also for a crisis loan to keep me going in the
meantime, which was turned down on the grounds it will take me two days to
starve, therefore it isn't a crisis yet. I think, when they ask me to pay it
back (if they haven't coughed up the rest of the debt by then), I will refuse
on the grounds that they are in no danger of starvation, and that this
is a valid reason, because it follows their own arguments and
reasoning. We'll see what they make of them potatoes.
Wrote out a statement formally, and applied for a Review anyway. They appear
to have lost the note which should have made the decision from the previous
appeal still valid.
www.randomandtwisted.org
<br>Hopefully a GOOD thing <br>Tea and toast with Ben Aldhouse<br><a href=\"http://randomandtwisted.blogspot.com/\">BEING HERE</a>
Office blog
Moderator: freedom
by freedom » Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:39 pm
Friday 9th October 2009
Interestingly for someone with few liquid assets, I spend the day giving away
money.
The HMRC granted me a deferment (on paying my NI contributions), but they
took the money from my account anyway, thus putting me the red - where I am
not allowed to be!
Fortunately, Lloyds' textalert system alerted me to the situation, and I put
�20 that I was considering giving to Agent X, into Lloyds instead. I can't
afford the time to go and bite the HMRC's deferment department until Monday,
and Lloyds will be happy as I settled the unauthorised overdraft (from an
unauthorised withdrawal) within 24 Hrs.
Then I rushed down to bath to pay the overdue line rental on the secretarial
service. They waived the fee on the test call, and said they had actually
forgotten about my payment, which (as well as explaining why they hadn't sent
me an invoice) meant they weren't put out by the delay.
Then I spent some time wandering around the centre of bath, looking for
signholders to photograph, not finding any, and hunting for businesses that
might otherwise be interested: The place is stuffed with them; you just need
to look when you're not carrying bulky equipment around with you.
And so now it should be just four days until I can Sign On again, and nine
until some cash come's through in a proper quantity, and I can get looking
for clients and other work again.
Saturday 10th October 2009
I have �16 to last 8 days = �2 per day. Hmmmm.
'Could be worse.
Trimmed the bushes down the brothel late this afternoon.
I could do no more than roughly hack into the jungle, clearing a path for
finer work tomorrow. I intend to cut the shrubbery back to brown branches,
ready for the winter. I have loosened the litter, and created two huge mounds
of cuttings, one on the path, and one on a self-cleared area between the
(raised) path and the (lower) east side.
Next morning, I shall ferry bales of branches onto the pavement, and onward
towards and into the sloping clear area of the rear garden, for them to
merrily rot away like last time.
Ideally, I will then be able to remove litter and finer amounts of plant
material, and get the place looking how it should. I will need to use the
large secateurs-that-look-like-boltcutters to chop out the bits that were too
bit for the hand-sized cutters today.
Sunday 11th October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Looked at the innards of my cheap LED headlamp, and the Landlord's brother's
PC.
The torch has a 3-AAA carrier assembly pressing against a pickup, which also
carries a momentary tactile switch, fired off +V. The output of this switch,
and the two supply lines, go to a small PCB carrying 7 white LEDs, an
on-board-"blob"-encapsulated IC, and a surface mount resistor & capacitor.
the LEDs may be lit as none, 1, 1+2=3, or 1+2+4=7. Most of the trickery
turning the user button control into various steady states, is therefore done
by the LED carrier board, and it would be easy to bridge the tactile switch
with trailing leads to a remote[ish] push-button switch elsewhere, reasonably
water-proofed (probably with potting compound or heat-shrink tubing).
I need to do this so I can have footlights (literally) under my footpads on
the stilts (one each side), and run a lead up to near the knees, with a
switch there, instead of having to contort myself into reaching under my feet
to activate the supplied switches. Sound's trivial, but try touching 2 inches
beneath your toes when you can bend your knees slightly... but not your hips
or back.
This is important because the light from my powerful headlamp barely
illuminates the ground, from 8 foot up.
The PC, meanwhile, is odd. There is no dust in the case, which is apparently
14 years old. The only traces are some fluff in a corner, and minute sandy
bits on the leading edges of the CPU fan.
There aren't any proper ventilation slots, either, which could explain it.
Fans traditionally draw air out of the machine, so it would be naturally
filtered by being "squeezed" on the way in.
The components in there all look brand new, although there is a kind of
"technological waste" going on: The components could be used to build
something useful, but instead they've been used to build a PC.
Now, however, my instructions are to cannibalise it for electronic
scrap/parts. This is because the HDD contains confidential information and
needs to be destroyed. Why not just securely delete it, and resell the whole
unit otherwise intact as secondhand? The HDD is 10Gb, the other
specifications I'm not sure about with the machine off.
The case is large, and quite handy if you wanted to build a fridge, or a
thermally-conductive safe, but less so for a smallish lightweight computer.
This smallish computer is very spread-out inside, which is a bit, well,
stupid.
There are no USB ports, significant networking connections, or anything, and
the HDD is accessed through the rear of the case, for some reason.
I might be able to nick the working store RAM for the PC.
There aren't really the sort of things I value in parts: There are the
various read-only drives, the RAM, the video bits, PSU, motherboard, and so
forth, but no switches to speak of, and although there's a lot of ribbon
cabling and IDCs, most if not all of them are attached to the resellable
drives. There aren't any large non-video display devices, no large capacitors
or reusable discrete components. There are some logic ICs and some sockets,
but these are 74 series TTL and few, respectively.
It all looks very useful... to someone else.
Meanwhile, I came down here [to the office] to service the brothel (tick),
load up the trolleys with waste and supplies (tick), and do some routine
filing (fumble).
Sunday 11th October 2009
On The Politics Show on BBC1, this lunchtime, there was footage of the
Liberal Democrate leader (whoever he is) and the local candidate, Duncan
Haines, whom recently added me as a contact on flickr (dunno if that's good
or bad), in Chippenham, down the local boozer, shot Thursday last. The town
boozer this time, instead of the boozer near to where I live (although
technically speaking I am equidistant from two outlying Pubs), the one where
I used to live.
The Conservative candidate, Wilfred Emmanual-Jones, gatecrashed their
meeting, ambushing them when they came out again, infront of the TV cameras.
('Strange; I thought he was in Manchester.)
Aside from their supporters from inside their own party, and the camera crew,
no-one was around.
This was quite annoying [for me] / fortunate [for them], because I have
things to say to them, mainly concerning Welfare Reform, drugs, economic
issues, crime, corruption, and WEJ's general ignorance of the local area
(inexcusable for an MP (he think's it's purely a commuter town in isolation
from the villages and smaller towns it serves)).
When I'm around that area, people are always coming up to me [why?], and I
really must find out how many votes a prospective candidate would have to
get, and indeed where the new electoral area's boundaries are.
The Landlord said if I did stand, I could recoup my deposit (�1500
apparently) by betting on myself to get at least 100 votes. --Come on, at
least 1000, surely?
How many people know me / know of me? At least 5,000, maybe 10,000, at a low
estimate. How many saw my protest story, repeated in local papers from
Bristol to Bournmouth? 50,000? How bad is voter apathy? How many votes are
there, and how many did the last incumbent [Grey] get, adjusted
proportionally to the smaller area?
I'll do a quick straw poll among the people I regularly meet, asking whom
would they vote for, me, WJE, or DH?
And how much power do MPs have, anyway? Would I be able to push through
proposals I would be elected on? I though MPs were mainly mouthpieces, or
supposed to be anyway?
Time to gather some stats...
Photographed some spiders' webs on the way home this morning, being mistaken
for a council spy halfway along. When I explained I was snapping a web, not
her car as such, they were flattered instead again (which is odd, because
they're not a spider, although I suppose it's possible she knitted the web
herself).
Dropped off the last of the office refuse, nearly filling my home bin,
collected the large secateurs, refuelled and had a short sleep, then back
down town again, stopping at the brothel triple site instead of the office to
slice down the small trees in the carpark and the main front semi-enclosed
area, and the bit on the bridge, before dropping things off at the office -
also truncating the bases of persistent weeds outside the office too.
Back to the brothel, shuttled most of this green waste into the rear
semi-enclosed area, did a quick litterpick, and found a video recorder and
some spare leads in the wheelie bins as I was putting that away.
Took all that away to the office, wherein I discovered dual-core leads,
tactile switches complete with accompanying PCB sections, lots of non-stepper
motors to give to the railway modellers, discrete components to desolder
later, and lots of very-flat ribbon connectors and leads.
Also found two coaxial leads and a TV signal booster, AC lead, SCART cable,
and reusable snap-fit mains grommet, all of which I can either use, or know
someone whom would like: That's the Christmas presents taken care of, then...
Spent a little time dismantling the VCR, liberating some smelly plastic
contaminated with bin dirt, and some sheet metal that wasn't. 'Will chuck the
plastic etc, and file away some of the rest at home. Sorted and packed away
the misc bits.
Tuesday 13th October 2009
Swept away cuttings from the brothel bushes, then used the saw to deal with
bushes that were resisting penetration. Fed up with jokes about trimming
bushes etc: Used my special tool to sort them out.
Managed to break the stiff broom in the process, somehow; repaired with duct
tape.
Tried to lift the drain cover by the office with cord, but it was either too
heavy (unlikely, as I can generate 180Kg of lift fairly easily,) or too
stuck.
Found that shortly after the HMRC had made the unauthorised withdrawal, it
had put it back again, meaning I put in a �20 repair when I hadn't needed to.
Drew that out, and brought some lighting equipment and food. Nonetheless,
received a warning letter of the authorised overdraft this morning, which
I will have to check about.
Wednesday 14th October 2009
Informed by St. Austell that I had to return documents to them at the date of
my next Signing, which was a bit unfair because the letter bearing them only
arrived 1:30 Hrs before I was due to Sign On.
Nonetheless, managed to get them filed in before the end of the day, which
the Job Centre said would be okay.
Contacted the bank and the HMRC about my surprise direct debit & overdraft.
The HMRC denied approving my earlier deferment, and denied that the
department capable of doing so existed. That department denied doing so, and
that it was incapable of doing so, tried to shift the blamed onto me for them
assuring me everything had gone through fine previously, then advised me that
I didn't have to pay NI this year anyway, and to cancel the direct debit
through the bank, which I did. It took a while to explain this to the bank,
who were very sympathetic, and waived the overdraft charge.
Somehow in this day of tail-chasing, I managed to apply for an electronic
assembly job in the vicinity, by way of a sympathetic [[employment] agency]
agent, whom had also had a silly day.
At some point, probably Friday, I shall regain the ability to send emails
again (library closed when I'm in the town centre; free intercafe closed when
'on the outskirts;) and I will be able to read the message that overloaded my
phone from Business Link, and send the job applications I promised the Job
Centre.
Thursday 15th October 2009
Having notified me a few days ago that they definitely were going to pay me,
the DWP informed me today that they wouldn't, on the grounds of "recent
changes". the only recent changes have been returning two longish forms
yesterday, and the letter was dated two days ago, so that couldn't be it.
Asking for clarification, it seems they've suspended my claim because I
hadn't (at the time) provided them with information (the forms) that they
hadn't asked me for yet. But now I have anyway, so they want me to check back
tomorrow and Monday that they've received the forms to their processing team
in... St. Austell, and then we can all move on.
In the meantime, I hit the Job Points, and there appears to be a flurry of
temporary assembly work in Westinghouse, which is virtually next door.
Managed to apply to several by Job Centre phone immediately, and prepared
emails for several more (to go out Friday), in the evening.
Interestingly for someone with few liquid assets, I spend the day giving away
money.
The HMRC granted me a deferment (on paying my NI contributions), but they
took the money from my account anyway, thus putting me the red - where I am
not allowed to be!
Fortunately, Lloyds' textalert system alerted me to the situation, and I put
�20 that I was considering giving to Agent X, into Lloyds instead. I can't
afford the time to go and bite the HMRC's deferment department until Monday,
and Lloyds will be happy as I settled the unauthorised overdraft (from an
unauthorised withdrawal) within 24 Hrs.
Then I rushed down to bath to pay the overdue line rental on the secretarial
service. They waived the fee on the test call, and said they had actually
forgotten about my payment, which (as well as explaining why they hadn't sent
me an invoice) meant they weren't put out by the delay.
Then I spent some time wandering around the centre of bath, looking for
signholders to photograph, not finding any, and hunting for businesses that
might otherwise be interested: The place is stuffed with them; you just need
to look when you're not carrying bulky equipment around with you.
And so now it should be just four days until I can Sign On again, and nine
until some cash come's through in a proper quantity, and I can get looking
for clients and other work again.
Saturday 10th October 2009
I have �16 to last 8 days = �2 per day. Hmmmm.
'Could be worse.
Trimmed the bushes down the brothel late this afternoon.
I could do no more than roughly hack into the jungle, clearing a path for
finer work tomorrow. I intend to cut the shrubbery back to brown branches,
ready for the winter. I have loosened the litter, and created two huge mounds
of cuttings, one on the path, and one on a self-cleared area between the
(raised) path and the (lower) east side.
Next morning, I shall ferry bales of branches onto the pavement, and onward
towards and into the sloping clear area of the rear garden, for them to
merrily rot away like last time.
Ideally, I will then be able to remove litter and finer amounts of plant
material, and get the place looking how it should. I will need to use the
large secateurs-that-look-like-boltcutters to chop out the bits that were too
bit for the hand-sized cutters today.
Sunday 11th October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Looked at the innards of my cheap LED headlamp, and the Landlord's brother's
PC.
The torch has a 3-AAA carrier assembly pressing against a pickup, which also
carries a momentary tactile switch, fired off +V. The output of this switch,
and the two supply lines, go to a small PCB carrying 7 white LEDs, an
on-board-"blob"-encapsulated IC, and a surface mount resistor & capacitor.
the LEDs may be lit as none, 1, 1+2=3, or 1+2+4=7. Most of the trickery
turning the user button control into various steady states, is therefore done
by the LED carrier board, and it would be easy to bridge the tactile switch
with trailing leads to a remote[ish] push-button switch elsewhere, reasonably
water-proofed (probably with potting compound or heat-shrink tubing).
I need to do this so I can have footlights (literally) under my footpads on
the stilts (one each side), and run a lead up to near the knees, with a
switch there, instead of having to contort myself into reaching under my feet
to activate the supplied switches. Sound's trivial, but try touching 2 inches
beneath your toes when you can bend your knees slightly... but not your hips
or back.
This is important because the light from my powerful headlamp barely
illuminates the ground, from 8 foot up.
The PC, meanwhile, is odd. There is no dust in the case, which is apparently
14 years old. The only traces are some fluff in a corner, and minute sandy
bits on the leading edges of the CPU fan.
There aren't any proper ventilation slots, either, which could explain it.
Fans traditionally draw air out of the machine, so it would be naturally
filtered by being "squeezed" on the way in.
The components in there all look brand new, although there is a kind of
"technological waste" going on: The components could be used to build
something useful, but instead they've been used to build a PC.
Now, however, my instructions are to cannibalise it for electronic
scrap/parts. This is because the HDD contains confidential information and
needs to be destroyed. Why not just securely delete it, and resell the whole
unit otherwise intact as secondhand? The HDD is 10Gb, the other
specifications I'm not sure about with the machine off.
The case is large, and quite handy if you wanted to build a fridge, or a
thermally-conductive safe, but less so for a smallish lightweight computer.
This smallish computer is very spread-out inside, which is a bit, well,
stupid.
There are no USB ports, significant networking connections, or anything, and
the HDD is accessed through the rear of the case, for some reason.
I might be able to nick the working store RAM for the PC.
There aren't really the sort of things I value in parts: There are the
various read-only drives, the RAM, the video bits, PSU, motherboard, and so
forth, but no switches to speak of, and although there's a lot of ribbon
cabling and IDCs, most if not all of them are attached to the resellable
drives. There aren't any large non-video display devices, no large capacitors
or reusable discrete components. There are some logic ICs and some sockets,
but these are 74 series TTL and few, respectively.
It all looks very useful... to someone else.
Meanwhile, I came down here [to the office] to service the brothel (tick),
load up the trolleys with waste and supplies (tick), and do some routine
filing (fumble).
Sunday 11th October 2009
On The Politics Show on BBC1, this lunchtime, there was footage of the
Liberal Democrate leader (whoever he is) and the local candidate, Duncan
Haines, whom recently added me as a contact on flickr (dunno if that's good
or bad), in Chippenham, down the local boozer, shot Thursday last. The town
boozer this time, instead of the boozer near to where I live (although
technically speaking I am equidistant from two outlying Pubs), the one where
I used to live.
The Conservative candidate, Wilfred Emmanual-Jones, gatecrashed their
meeting, ambushing them when they came out again, infront of the TV cameras.
('Strange; I thought he was in Manchester.)
Aside from their supporters from inside their own party, and the camera crew,
no-one was around.
This was quite annoying [for me] / fortunate [for them], because I have
things to say to them, mainly concerning Welfare Reform, drugs, economic
issues, crime, corruption, and WEJ's general ignorance of the local area
(inexcusable for an MP (he think's it's purely a commuter town in isolation
from the villages and smaller towns it serves)).
When I'm around that area, people are always coming up to me [why?], and I
really must find out how many votes a prospective candidate would have to
get, and indeed where the new electoral area's boundaries are.
The Landlord said if I did stand, I could recoup my deposit (�1500
apparently) by betting on myself to get at least 100 votes. --Come on, at
least 1000, surely?
How many people know me / know of me? At least 5,000, maybe 10,000, at a low
estimate. How many saw my protest story, repeated in local papers from
Bristol to Bournmouth? 50,000? How bad is voter apathy? How many votes are
there, and how many did the last incumbent [Grey] get, adjusted
proportionally to the smaller area?
I'll do a quick straw poll among the people I regularly meet, asking whom
would they vote for, me, WJE, or DH?
And how much power do MPs have, anyway? Would I be able to push through
proposals I would be elected on? I though MPs were mainly mouthpieces, or
supposed to be anyway?
Time to gather some stats...
Photographed some spiders' webs on the way home this morning, being mistaken
for a council spy halfway along. When I explained I was snapping a web, not
her car as such, they were flattered instead again (which is odd, because
they're not a spider, although I suppose it's possible she knitted the web
herself).
Dropped off the last of the office refuse, nearly filling my home bin,
collected the large secateurs, refuelled and had a short sleep, then back
down town again, stopping at the brothel triple site instead of the office to
slice down the small trees in the carpark and the main front semi-enclosed
area, and the bit on the bridge, before dropping things off at the office -
also truncating the bases of persistent weeds outside the office too.
Back to the brothel, shuttled most of this green waste into the rear
semi-enclosed area, did a quick litterpick, and found a video recorder and
some spare leads in the wheelie bins as I was putting that away.
Took all that away to the office, wherein I discovered dual-core leads,
tactile switches complete with accompanying PCB sections, lots of non-stepper
motors to give to the railway modellers, discrete components to desolder
later, and lots of very-flat ribbon connectors and leads.
Also found two coaxial leads and a TV signal booster, AC lead, SCART cable,
and reusable snap-fit mains grommet, all of which I can either use, or know
someone whom would like: That's the Christmas presents taken care of, then...
Spent a little time dismantling the VCR, liberating some smelly plastic
contaminated with bin dirt, and some sheet metal that wasn't. 'Will chuck the
plastic etc, and file away some of the rest at home. Sorted and packed away
the misc bits.
Tuesday 13th October 2009
Swept away cuttings from the brothel bushes, then used the saw to deal with
bushes that were resisting penetration. Fed up with jokes about trimming
bushes etc: Used my special tool to sort them out.
Managed to break the stiff broom in the process, somehow; repaired with duct
tape.
Tried to lift the drain cover by the office with cord, but it was either too
heavy (unlikely, as I can generate 180Kg of lift fairly easily,) or too
stuck.
Found that shortly after the HMRC had made the unauthorised withdrawal, it
had put it back again, meaning I put in a �20 repair when I hadn't needed to.
Drew that out, and brought some lighting equipment and food. Nonetheless,
received a warning letter of the authorised overdraft this morning, which
I will have to check about.
Wednesday 14th October 2009
Informed by St. Austell that I had to return documents to them at the date of
my next Signing, which was a bit unfair because the letter bearing them only
arrived 1:30 Hrs before I was due to Sign On.
Nonetheless, managed to get them filed in before the end of the day, which
the Job Centre said would be okay.
Contacted the bank and the HMRC about my surprise direct debit & overdraft.
The HMRC denied approving my earlier deferment, and denied that the
department capable of doing so existed. That department denied doing so, and
that it was incapable of doing so, tried to shift the blamed onto me for them
assuring me everything had gone through fine previously, then advised me that
I didn't have to pay NI this year anyway, and to cancel the direct debit
through the bank, which I did. It took a while to explain this to the bank,
who were very sympathetic, and waived the overdraft charge.
Somehow in this day of tail-chasing, I managed to apply for an electronic
assembly job in the vicinity, by way of a sympathetic [[employment] agency]
agent, whom had also had a silly day.
At some point, probably Friday, I shall regain the ability to send emails
again (library closed when I'm in the town centre; free intercafe closed when
'on the outskirts;) and I will be able to read the message that overloaded my
phone from Business Link, and send the job applications I promised the Job
Centre.
Thursday 15th October 2009
Having notified me a few days ago that they definitely were going to pay me,
the DWP informed me today that they wouldn't, on the grounds of "recent
changes". the only recent changes have been returning two longish forms
yesterday, and the letter was dated two days ago, so that couldn't be it.
Asking for clarification, it seems they've suspended my claim because I
hadn't (at the time) provided them with information (the forms) that they
hadn't asked me for yet. But now I have anyway, so they want me to check back
tomorrow and Monday that they've received the forms to their processing team
in... St. Austell, and then we can all move on.
In the meantime, I hit the Job Points, and there appears to be a flurry of
temporary assembly work in Westinghouse, which is virtually next door.
Managed to apply to several by Job Centre phone immediately, and prepared
emails for several more (to go out Friday), in the evening.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Mon Oct 19, 2009 12:30 pm
Friday 16th October 2009
Having promised two days ago that they would not charge me for the
unauthorised debit, the bank sent me a letter today saying they would (in a
month's time). This is probably something to do with things being
automatically generated before the time when they were cancelled, and the
delay in internal email shutting around, so I will wait a few days, and go
and prod the bank again.
When I have some more money, I will increase the buffer amount I have in the
bank (by �11), so I won't go overdrawn if they accidentally charge me, thus
incurring another charge etc.
Somehow I have lost the combination lock from my bag - pretty cheap to
replace though. It must have dropped off when I forgot to fasten it, or
perhaps the mechanism failed. I will retrace my steps for a bit, when I have
the time - I had to do quite a bit of running immediately following the last
time I used the lock.
'Gone through the Business Link support pack and seminar list - 2-3 meetings
could be helpful; I have booked for one so far; the support plan is full of
errors, eg "you have been trading for a year and only made �150 turnover..."
I've been only actively trading three weeks, and two of those were entirely
devoted to marketing! So effectively, it's �150 a week, not �150 a year. In
average conditions, this would mean �7,000 a year - bang on [cashflow
forecast] target.
I really need to work through these backup and contingency plans - I was just
thinking; if a meteorite hit the office while I was out, I'd be stuffed. -
But then I had another thought; that if a meteorite hit the office while I
was in, it might be worse. (As well as all the trains between London and
Bristol being cancelled for a week while they fill in the crater and replace
the melted lines, all landlines & internet in the area being down while they
rebuild the phone exchange, airlifts into the second largest cul-de-sac in
Europe which would then be cut off, etc. There's quite a lot of essential
infrastructure up here next to me, infact. Maybe they should look at their
contingency plans, too.)
Sunday 18th October 2009 (late evening)
Opened the door for Tiddles again, first this time trying to pick him up and
take him round the back, where he has a catflap. But the cat don't like it.
The route round (that I can (easily) take) is twice as long as his route over
the tiles, and carries him into unfamiliar territory, which makes him
uncomfortable.
Bumped into the office clown, who has apparently not so far encountered any
of The Others yet. Surprisingly pleasant conversation about exhibitions,
regional geography, and his hatred of Tenerife. (If it's so much trouble, I'd
be happy to step into his place; call anytime, etc.)
Nothing about the vast sums he owes The Others, and he left an unopened
single-slice packet of quiche in the "fridge" for me.
Discovered that I am 8p richer than I thought I was, when I finally got
around to cleaning some blackened coins I found somewhere and discovered a 2p
was infact a 10p!
Cleaned with a small cup of salt & vinegar, but then some Brasso to make it
clearer (these really were grubby).
Printed some conceptual art for CMRS 2010. The colour balance is a bit naff,
but it is only ideas, anyway.
Monday 19th October 2009 (very early morning)
Quickly looked at the sizes of work areas (split into three-month
directories). A year ago, they topped out at half a gigabyte. Now they're
twice that. This is too much. Most of that is downloaded gumpf, and most of
that is misc files I don't need, that MsIE added in addition.
I looked at the files in a typical flickr page. Deleting the graphics icons
and javascript alone save's half a megabyte for each page(!)
Went through some of the more obvious wastages and removed those, releasing
1% of HDD space, ie about 140Mb. Clearly I need to do this more often,
particularly for older areas, ahead of backuping & archiving.
Monday 19th October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Just finished doing some of the overdue filing: Personal & Business
correspondence. technically, it was already filed, in the sense of being all
in one place, in date order, but now it's sorted into two separate boxfiles,
and for all that, slightly less accessible.
Next [time I'm awake], receipts and topping-up the inkjet cartridges.
(They're all fine at 60% each currently, so no rush.)
I am, however, [probably] awake enough to [informally] finish the tyresocks
stocktake. [Oh no I'm not.] -And now I've just tired myself out writing bits
of this blog.
Managed to tidy & clear my desk space, ie do some proper working-filing, and
leaving the desk free for actual work as it arises (or as it needs
"unfiling"). -Then put back the new stack of new docwals, on the desk,
because balancing it ontop of the Landlord's brother's defunct PC is asking
for trouble.
Let's see now... when was it, in the dim and distant past, that the DWP last
promised some money would finally be received in my account? Ah yes, the
19th: Tomorrow; or today, rather - and technically-speaking, now, since it is
gone midnight. I won't be able to check my balance until 0930ish, however,
and probably early afternoon, since I have to check my emails for passtickets
or whatever, so they'll let me into the Creative Bath "Things can only Get
Better... Please god!" seminar tomorrow, and that and associated fumblings
will take me a few hours on the opposite side of the town to where the
building society is.
I will also be able to nip round to the Royal Mail and ask about temporary
vacancies, and re-register at all the employment agencies, stating my
availability for that type of work, along the way.
Monday 19th October 2009 (standard morning)
Popped into the building society early, and, surprise surprise, no credit.
Went straight round to the DWP who said they didn't know why. This is because
they have run out of excuses. Then they fell back to the last excuse, that of
the processing team not having received my paperwork yet, and that they will
call me back when they know more, probably within the next three hours. Ah
well, it isn't as if I don't have anything to keep me busy in the meantime.
This at least will not affect next fortnight�s Signing: The suspension can be
switched off instantly, and the banking delays do not compound.
Shakeaways have opened a week early. This is a problem, because I was going
to offer to do promotional work for them, but and (Sinc.) I suppose I still
can. They've missed their own opening day, making them oddly eager to open.
Most companies would delay if they were early, but not Shakeaways. While they
were preparing, it looked like a carpenters and a shopfitter were in a
blender with some sawdust, all whizzing around behind glass.
Their Chippenham store is one of the ones owned and operated directly by the
franchiser rather than a franchisee, which is odd - and interesting -, also.
They're full throttle zany, too, (supposedly my core market) with a
mini-football table thingy in the shop, like a sort of kiddy-Pub theme, which
I suppose is what they are.
The recipe sound's rather like a Starbucks' Frappuchino mix, perhaps they do
a frappuchino flavour, and plain frappuchino is available (with a shot of
coffee)? I wonder what a plain Shakeaway taste's like?
Having promised two days ago that they would not charge me for the
unauthorised debit, the bank sent me a letter today saying they would (in a
month's time). This is probably something to do with things being
automatically generated before the time when they were cancelled, and the
delay in internal email shutting around, so I will wait a few days, and go
and prod the bank again.
When I have some more money, I will increase the buffer amount I have in the
bank (by �11), so I won't go overdrawn if they accidentally charge me, thus
incurring another charge etc.
Somehow I have lost the combination lock from my bag - pretty cheap to
replace though. It must have dropped off when I forgot to fasten it, or
perhaps the mechanism failed. I will retrace my steps for a bit, when I have
the time - I had to do quite a bit of running immediately following the last
time I used the lock.
'Gone through the Business Link support pack and seminar list - 2-3 meetings
could be helpful; I have booked for one so far; the support plan is full of
errors, eg "you have been trading for a year and only made �150 turnover..."
I've been only actively trading three weeks, and two of those were entirely
devoted to marketing! So effectively, it's �150 a week, not �150 a year. In
average conditions, this would mean �7,000 a year - bang on [cashflow
forecast] target.
I really need to work through these backup and contingency plans - I was just
thinking; if a meteorite hit the office while I was out, I'd be stuffed. -
But then I had another thought; that if a meteorite hit the office while I
was in, it might be worse. (As well as all the trains between London and
Bristol being cancelled for a week while they fill in the crater and replace
the melted lines, all landlines & internet in the area being down while they
rebuild the phone exchange, airlifts into the second largest cul-de-sac in
Europe which would then be cut off, etc. There's quite a lot of essential
infrastructure up here next to me, infact. Maybe they should look at their
contingency plans, too.)
Sunday 18th October 2009 (late evening)
Opened the door for Tiddles again, first this time trying to pick him up and
take him round the back, where he has a catflap. But the cat don't like it.
The route round (that I can (easily) take) is twice as long as his route over
the tiles, and carries him into unfamiliar territory, which makes him
uncomfortable.
Bumped into the office clown, who has apparently not so far encountered any
of The Others yet. Surprisingly pleasant conversation about exhibitions,
regional geography, and his hatred of Tenerife. (If it's so much trouble, I'd
be happy to step into his place; call anytime, etc.)
Nothing about the vast sums he owes The Others, and he left an unopened
single-slice packet of quiche in the "fridge" for me.
Discovered that I am 8p richer than I thought I was, when I finally got
around to cleaning some blackened coins I found somewhere and discovered a 2p
was infact a 10p!
Cleaned with a small cup of salt & vinegar, but then some Brasso to make it
clearer (these really were grubby).
Printed some conceptual art for CMRS 2010. The colour balance is a bit naff,
but it is only ideas, anyway.
Monday 19th October 2009 (very early morning)
Quickly looked at the sizes of work areas (split into three-month
directories). A year ago, they topped out at half a gigabyte. Now they're
twice that. This is too much. Most of that is downloaded gumpf, and most of
that is misc files I don't need, that MsIE added in addition.
I looked at the files in a typical flickr page. Deleting the graphics icons
and javascript alone save's half a megabyte for each page(!)
Went through some of the more obvious wastages and removed those, releasing
1% of HDD space, ie about 140Mb. Clearly I need to do this more often,
particularly for older areas, ahead of backuping & archiving.
Monday 19th October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Just finished doing some of the overdue filing: Personal & Business
correspondence. technically, it was already filed, in the sense of being all
in one place, in date order, but now it's sorted into two separate boxfiles,
and for all that, slightly less accessible.
Next [time I'm awake], receipts and topping-up the inkjet cartridges.
(They're all fine at 60% each currently, so no rush.)
I am, however, [probably] awake enough to [informally] finish the tyresocks
stocktake. [Oh no I'm not.] -And now I've just tired myself out writing bits
of this blog.
Managed to tidy & clear my desk space, ie do some proper working-filing, and
leaving the desk free for actual work as it arises (or as it needs
"unfiling"). -Then put back the new stack of new docwals, on the desk,
because balancing it ontop of the Landlord's brother's defunct PC is asking
for trouble.
Let's see now... when was it, in the dim and distant past, that the DWP last
promised some money would finally be received in my account? Ah yes, the
19th: Tomorrow; or today, rather - and technically-speaking, now, since it is
gone midnight. I won't be able to check my balance until 0930ish, however,
and probably early afternoon, since I have to check my emails for passtickets
or whatever, so they'll let me into the Creative Bath "Things can only Get
Better... Please god!" seminar tomorrow, and that and associated fumblings
will take me a few hours on the opposite side of the town to where the
building society is.
I will also be able to nip round to the Royal Mail and ask about temporary
vacancies, and re-register at all the employment agencies, stating my
availability for that type of work, along the way.
Monday 19th October 2009 (standard morning)
Popped into the building society early, and, surprise surprise, no credit.
Went straight round to the DWP who said they didn't know why. This is because
they have run out of excuses. Then they fell back to the last excuse, that of
the processing team not having received my paperwork yet, and that they will
call me back when they know more, probably within the next three hours. Ah
well, it isn't as if I don't have anything to keep me busy in the meantime.
This at least will not affect next fortnight�s Signing: The suspension can be
switched off instantly, and the banking delays do not compound.
Shakeaways have opened a week early. This is a problem, because I was going
to offer to do promotional work for them, but and (Sinc.) I suppose I still
can. They've missed their own opening day, making them oddly eager to open.
Most companies would delay if they were early, but not Shakeaways. While they
were preparing, it looked like a carpenters and a shopfitter were in a
blender with some sawdust, all whizzing around behind glass.
Their Chippenham store is one of the ones owned and operated directly by the
franchiser rather than a franchisee, which is odd - and interesting -, also.
They're full throttle zany, too, (supposedly my core market) with a
mini-football table thingy in the shop, like a sort of kiddy-Pub theme, which
I suppose is what they are.
The recipe sound's rather like a Starbucks' Frappuchino mix, perhaps they do
a frappuchino flavour, and plain frappuchino is available (with a shot of
coffee)? I wonder what a plain Shakeaway taste's like?
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:52 pm
Tuesday 20th October 2009 (evening)
Went to the Creative Bath event, stopping off at Maplins to pick up heat
shrink tubing and cable ties, for my own dark purposes.
The seminar was at the Ustinov Theatre, at the back end of the Theatre Royal
block. The timetable was quite simple: Turn up and get name badge, hang
around free bar introducing yourself to fellow delegates and trying to
forge some business, get photographed, upstairs to talking shop with
questions afterwards, get photographed, back down to discuss questions more
easily in bar, get photographed, filter out, get lost.
Then it was wandering around bath for an hour until the train turned up,
looking for Komedia, which turned out to be under a massive red neon sign
visible across half the city, saying "Komedia".
Somehow ended up promising the Landlord and his Agent that I would have the
�15 outstanding rent ready for them in two days time, by way of loan from
parents (my parents, not theirs).
Wednesday 21st October 2009
Grumbling at the Job Centre, futile job searches, and then grumbling some
more, about late things. Picked up application form directly from local
employer, largely to avoid postal strike difficulties.
Failed to obtain small loan from parents, on grounds that I can get a crisis
loan tomorrow.
Thursday 22nd October 2009 (early morning)
Photoretouched a photo I took a few weeks ago of The Arches (Chippenham
landmark) into a heart shape.
Thursday 22nd October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
In a fit of awakeness, just finished rewriting some data for the next secret
thingy.
(At last count, there were three projects shortly due for release, that are
currently under wraps, all completely different from one another.)
Went to the Creative Bath event, stopping off at Maplins to pick up heat
shrink tubing and cable ties, for my own dark purposes.
The seminar was at the Ustinov Theatre, at the back end of the Theatre Royal
block. The timetable was quite simple: Turn up and get name badge, hang
around free bar introducing yourself to fellow delegates and trying to
forge some business, get photographed, upstairs to talking shop with
questions afterwards, get photographed, back down to discuss questions more
easily in bar, get photographed, filter out, get lost.
Then it was wandering around bath for an hour until the train turned up,
looking for Komedia, which turned out to be under a massive red neon sign
visible across half the city, saying "Komedia".
Somehow ended up promising the Landlord and his Agent that I would have the
�15 outstanding rent ready for them in two days time, by way of loan from
parents (my parents, not theirs).
Wednesday 21st October 2009
Grumbling at the Job Centre, futile job searches, and then grumbling some
more, about late things. Picked up application form directly from local
employer, largely to avoid postal strike difficulties.
Failed to obtain small loan from parents, on grounds that I can get a crisis
loan tomorrow.
Thursday 22nd October 2009 (early morning)
Photoretouched a photo I took a few weeks ago of The Arches (Chippenham
landmark) into a heart shape.
Thursday 22nd October 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
In a fit of awakeness, just finished rewriting some data for the next secret
thingy.
(At last count, there were three projects shortly due for release, that are
currently under wraps, all completely different from one another.)
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:52 pm
Friday 23rd October 2009 (mid afternoon)
Due to not being able to retract items previously published (despite repeated
requests to do that impossible thing (usually from an editor (who should know
better))), and some entries being sensitively related to projects still
under wraps, these entries covering a period of time from Friday 23rd to
part of Thursday 29th October (inclusive) have been left blank for the time
being.
When it is safe to do so, this date-filed entry will be expanded and filled
in.
Due to not being able to retract items previously published (despite repeated
requests to do that impossible thing (usually from an editor (who should know
better))), and some entries being sensitively related to projects still
under wraps, these entries covering a period of time from Friday 23rd to
part of Thursday 29th October (inclusive) have been left blank for the time
being.
When it is safe to do so, this date-filed entry will be expanded and filled
in.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:53 pm
Thursday 29th October 2009 (late afternoon)
Today I was accidentally locked in the garage by my parents, who thought the
[noise of me] banging [on the inner rear door] was the DIY-mad neighbours.
Eventually I had to climb out of the window, which involved shifted the (very
heavy) freezer across the garage, and threading a stepladder through a window
that hadn't been opened for 30 years, under a sofit that hung down too far
because it had been added scarcely 15 years in the past.
BMRG Think my picture of a male model entitled "Model Show" is "crude", so
that's another idea in the bin, then. (Or rather, recycled to another
client.) Personally, I think they should be targeting the female market more,
but... Perhaps a female model then... Maybe something steamy (literally).
There was a sketch show on yestereve, saying "add breasts/bums to everything
and it'll sell", featuring Modeller's Monthly, and a golfing magazine;
perhaps that's crept into my imagination more than I realised.
My involvement in modelling shows never seems to live up to the hype.
'Out with the photographer in a station earlier on this evening, taking shots
of things to retouch.
Today I was accidentally locked in the garage by my parents, who thought the
[noise of me] banging [on the inner rear door] was the DIY-mad neighbours.
Eventually I had to climb out of the window, which involved shifted the (very
heavy) freezer across the garage, and threading a stepladder through a window
that hadn't been opened for 30 years, under a sofit that hung down too far
because it had been added scarcely 15 years in the past.
BMRG Think my picture of a male model entitled "Model Show" is "crude", so
that's another idea in the bin, then. (Or rather, recycled to another
client.) Personally, I think they should be targeting the female market more,
but... Perhaps a female model then... Maybe something steamy (literally).
There was a sketch show on yestereve, saying "add breasts/bums to everything
and it'll sell", featuring Modeller's Monthly, and a golfing magazine;
perhaps that's crept into my imagination more than I realised.
My involvement in modelling shows never seems to live up to the hype.
'Out with the photographer in a station earlier on this evening, taking shots
of things to retouch.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:22 pm
Friday 30th October 2009
Worked through the night, not going home and thus ending up very hungry. Got
a pack of fig rolls from Tescos for cheap quick filling nutrition.
To save time, connected at the station's paid intercafe, so I didn't have to
trek halfway across town and back to connect at the free one.
Dropped into the job centre to get St. Austell to tell me what they tried to
phone me about yesterday. It seems that, in their eyes, all my declarations
so far are invalid because I haven't accompanied them with blank B7s
(declarations of PT earnings, ie that I am not earning anything). Hence the
forms requiring me to detail my hours worked and/or earning to the hour over
the last three months. Promised to fill those in and return, which will take
much crossreferencing, and suggest's that they didn't bother to read the
accounts in a different form that I did bother to produce and send to them.
Spot of stocking [up (shopping)], library internet, and back to the office.
Found Creative Bath pictures from last Tuesday, from their website News,
leading to a flickr photostream!
http://www.creativebath.org/news/2009/1 ... esday-427/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30420545@N07/
Saturday 31st October 2009 (Halloween, evening)
Got some "Premium" photo paper from wilkinsons, only to find it wouldn't feed
through the printer, even when I took the back cover off to feed it through
without bending.
The printer creased up two sheets of paper sheets of expensive paper in the
process; I shall try to get a partial refund, nonetheless. I'm not paying
�3.22 for two sheets of paper.
The idea was, use expensive paper for the promfolios, with cheaper stuff for
the business cards. So it'll be off down to various Tescos for the better
paper for now, and continue to use the Glossy wilkinsons photo paper for the
business cards.
I have discovered that I can charge the phone with the USB cable: Switch
phone off, connect to PC, charging begins. Because I moved my Ac Charger
home, this means I can now change the phone wherever I am.
Let's try that trick with the RPC... It work's! But first I have to detach
the inbetweening cable I had taped to the side of the PC, so less useful in
this configuration.
Two of The Others just came in - enlisted my help looking for "a little blue
board" - and left again. "'Night," they said. I'm not sleeping here you know!
No trouble with trick-or-treaters yet, anyway. All the nuts seem to be in the
Pubs, now Halloween has fallen on a Saturday.
Sunday 1st November 2009 (All Saints' Day, midnight)
Walking home, found the wooden barrier to the "forecourt" of Hut2 has been
pushed down (or fallen down).
Sunday 1st November 2009 (afternoon)
Wedged-up the wooden barrier.
Expecting a packed Sunday meeting with BMRG for "client approval" of the CMRS
2010 posters, only two turned up, and they weren't authorised to give final
approval. They did, however, help with rejecting unsuitable styles, and gave
guidance as to what to add and what would be likely to be approved.
Monday 2nd November 2009 (very early morning)
Just finished doing some basic poster work; now off to work on the lighting
system for light relief [(oh my aching sides)].
Worked straight through to the morning, having assembled and tested the
switch assemblies, applied 'n' dried two coats of lacquer, and in the
meantime refilled the inkjet cartridges.
During tests, discovered that the heatshrink tubing will not be activated by
a mere hairdryer style fan-heater, as promised, but a soldering will do the
trick, albeit unevenly. Therefore, it'll soon be off home to fetch a
cigarette lighter and some aluminium foil, which, along with the cartridge
syringes would make an interesting picture if the police happened along at a
nearby juncture.
Used a soldering iron someone had left behind, because all the other irons
have knackered bits and the funds for me to buy my own iron haven't come
through yet, plus I need to get these tasks done so I can start pulling in
paper folding stuff ASAHP.
Managed to catch part of the lead of the iron with the iron itself, thus
melting the outer sheath. I immediately noticed and disconnected it, but not
fast enough to stop the melt in the first place. Earth insulation exposed, a
connection which irons don't use anyway, so duct taped over and carried on
using. Ideally, would need to cut off below the fault and use an inline
connector to patch to a longer lead, rather than buying whoever a new iron,
but that will have to wait (at least until I'm awake).
Still to do the tyresocks and the other fittings of the lights; probably the
lights first, after the heatshrink tubing glued & shrunk; & attached, &
stuff, &c.
Then up at 0830 to make a crisis loan...
Noticed the new superglue dispenses very low viscosity adhesive, which caught
me out, but wasn't fast enough to catch out my preventative measures [(wipe
it off)].
Monday 2nd November 2009 (afternoon)
This lights refitting is driving me nuts. It's all working, but the process
is fiddly, I haven't had any sleep (aside from an interrupted sub-one-hour
nap), any proper food, and the DWP have just fined me �50 for asking for a
�100 crisis loan which they promised me last week.
This means no external bills get paid until next Monday, when everything
get's paid at once.
Back to the lighting: I've completed & tested the switch assemblies (ie
waterproof switches), using a cigarette lighter and aluminium foil to
activate the heatshrink tubing, got both of them strapped to the stilts, and
the cable threaded down to the attachment points.
When I opened up the second headlamp, the circuitry was all different inside,
but much tizzling out found me to points to bridge. Then I found the cable
wires are too thick to attach directly, so I attached solid wire first, as a
"step". After lever-melting up the microswitch to get the wire around it's
legs, I remembered I had some spare resistors, the leads of which are
thin-but-study gauge... Too late now.
One of the now-four filament inter-board wires detached, got that back,
tested-good my modifications, but still need to work out the order of
reassembly so that the battery contacts line up with the battery "shuttle".
All this while wearing thin disposable gloves so I didn't get [skin] grease
on the wires.
Started hearing voices, then realised that might be the station rail
announcements.
Later I may come back and refit the tyre socks as a change.
Still have to thread the cables through the reassembly order in-situ next to
the stilts - Later.
The lamp assembles are full of tiny filigree wires and bad joints, but the
lamps in normal operation are as sturdy as heck.
I'd quite like to replace this apparently-delicate-yet-also-sturdy lighting
set with some off-the-shelf remote lighting gear... But I can't find any.
Surely someone must produce stilt lights for eight foot high creatures with
the controls on the end of a cable... ah bugger, they don't, do they?
Perhaps there's a gap in the mainstream (cycle lights) market for cabled
lighting controls.
Tuesday 3rd November 2009
Three streams of potential work arrived at once, and I had to choose one.
Potential earnings? Well, that's another matter.
Rummaged around for my old broken soldering iron at home, and discovered both
that not only had I chucked it, but I had brought a whole new one and
forgotten about that.
BMRG Approved the CMRS poster, or rather only the first one of the series,
making it a non-series, and making me change the exciting "Are you ready?" to
the less exciting "Coming soon...", and even then it was an uphill struggle.
... Which I eventually lost. "Move that bit up," which meant cloning [making
up] more of the picture at the top, then "can you bring out the detail of the
bottom," which turned out to be deceptively simple, but only because it was a
good photo in the first place.
And finally approved.
'May have to [do something subtle to] improve the contrast of the new
headline text...
Wednesday 4th November 2009 (very early morning)
Now chopped up the two A1+ files, and sliced them on the RPC, but having
difficulty transferring them back quickly: Simple transfer from the RPC slow,
PC read fast; compress on RPC & transfer fast, PC decompress slow.
Yet to redo the green ad at high resolution (if ness), and to chop that up,
let alone continuing with the lighting bits and the tyresocks.
Once the transfer down, a quick batch convert back to PNG on the PC (with
PSP), and those are ready for print.
The slicer on the emulator on the PC run's over [under] ten times slower than
on the RPC, but chop's out the transfer times.
Wednesday 4th November 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
And so here we are at silly o'clock in the morning again, while the printer
chugs away in the background (under the desk actually), and the radio keeps
me sane[ish].
Fascinating tasks ahead include stacking up the printouts with blank sheets
of paper inbetween them, waiting for the ink to dry, guillotining/assembly
etc, filling-in or rather attempting to fill-in reams of paperwork from the
HMRC, DWP, and two over-keen employment agencies.
And then there's the remaining soldering, and the tyresocks, of course.
And -if I'm still awake- when the print bureau open's, the hard-lamination.
When all that lot's done (aside from the HMRC/DWP paperwork), I can prep 'n'
check 'n' test the boards & the stilts, and then start phoning people and
making travel arrangements.
And then it's back to printing more promfolios and business cards so I can
kick off another promotional run, hopefully squeezing in another Business
Link seminar somewhere along the line, not so much to gain insight, as to
palm off advertising on other people looking for ways to promote their
businesses.
The heater's on full blast, dehumidifying the air, with my office door open
to get the last batch of steam into the midway enclosed office: Great for the
printouts, not so good for me.
Ah, the printer's finished. It's not the only one.
I think I'll get on with some hoovering (to wake me up).
0759GMT, And I've just got the lighting set fitted. The first one worked
flawlessly, but the switch assembly failed for no good reason on the second
one, then just as I was musing the possibility of splicing in an extra switch
somehow, it started working fine again, again for no good reason - probably
mechanical.
Using only two of The Other's communal tools: An extension lead, because I
don't have one (here), and the soldering iron lead is too short; and a
"nicer" pair of pliers, in other words small and light. I will have to plug
this remaining gap, and also to find some screwdrivers of my own.
Next; food/nap, tyresocks, the haberdashery for "lace ribbons" if enough cash
left over from the hard-lamination. Strap-fix, printouts assembly....
Just gone One O'Clock, and I've finished assembling the printouts with the
lightbox, ready for lamination. In future, I will have to ensure all images
to be printed are the same size, using extra white space, because some hidden
"helpful" setting on the printer made subtle scaling adjustments, causing me
to have to jump through mathematical hoops to get everything to fit.
Got quote (just over �40), took documents, paid (over �55 [DigiPrint isn't
know for being cheap], but they only charged me for the whole sheets), some
glitches which I can fix. This now leave's me �1, so I need to borrow say �20
(and give some back quickly) to cover travel to Calne, bath, and the
lamination patches.
Printed the patches now, ready: Two hours to borrow ���...
Thursday 5th November 2009
Rested at home, got some food, borrowed �15. DigiPrint laminated the repairs,
waiving the fee on the grounds it was their fault in the first place.
Phoned the bank, noticing that they have a geographic number (strangely
Peterborough, for a London bank,) they clarified that no charge is due.
[Probably] Arranged demo meeting with Calne Town Council, found I do infact
have sufficient board covers (for now).
So now, it's adding velcro to the board cover (that I neglected to do
earlier), fitting the new posters to the covers/boards, then the tyresocks,
then practice time (if not too dark), otherwise practice tomorrow.
Maybe a break at the library to upload & check stuff.
Friday 6th November 2009
A very refreshing bath, quick flickrmail, and down to the office.
Replaced the tyresocks, noting along the way that while I now have plenty of
used tyres and enough cut lengths ready for forming, I now do not have any
ready-formed ones. (-Although it doesn't take long to form a 'sock.)
Got some bolts 'n' bits for securing my footlights (moving on from the
superglue & tape fixatives), and some fabric tape to speed up threading the
velcro straps through their little metal hoops whilst experiencing some
limitation of movement caused by safety gear worn to [eventually] increase my
freedom of movement.
Second-priority tasks are now: Sew the strap guides, bolt the footlights.
-With first priorities as: Patch red mould on one soaked/dried rear board
cover with white overlayer, add velcro to the second rear board cover, fit
the first rear board cover then fit Ladyred "Hear the Power of advertising"
to that, repeat with the front covers, fitting Green fumble "Feel the Power
of advertising" to that one. That, and when the covers are off, inspect and
service the straps.
And of course third priority: Form one set of tyresocks, preferably
long-style.
Raining earlier today, then dark quickly, so no practice session tonight.
Instead, an short early session tomorrow morning (without boards), largely to
check the performance of the new tyres.
Several of the stopgap sliver cable ties snapped during fitting today. They
seem to be somehow brittle relative to the standard black ones. Odd.
Also: Correct metal watch to GMT, incise Star of David onto replacement Poppy
(done), and fit Poppy into elbow pad or helmet.
Well, that's all the high priority bits done.
There was some difficultly shifting A1+ documents around a small office -
even with the use of the 75%-empty floor space in the adjoining (and twice
the size) office - but I managed it in the end.
Two desks 90% cleared one this, and one of them immediately taken up again -
with a single document!
Bolted bits may well have to wait until the weekend; but I'll have a go at
the sewing now. I'll look at attaching the Poppy to some PPE, as well.
The Star of David doesn't show up very well - it's in pencil, then I found
out my gold pen must've seized up months ago.
Is there a specific commemoration day for the Holocaust? There must be.
Worked through the night, not going home and thus ending up very hungry. Got
a pack of fig rolls from Tescos for cheap quick filling nutrition.
To save time, connected at the station's paid intercafe, so I didn't have to
trek halfway across town and back to connect at the free one.
Dropped into the job centre to get St. Austell to tell me what they tried to
phone me about yesterday. It seems that, in their eyes, all my declarations
so far are invalid because I haven't accompanied them with blank B7s
(declarations of PT earnings, ie that I am not earning anything). Hence the
forms requiring me to detail my hours worked and/or earning to the hour over
the last three months. Promised to fill those in and return, which will take
much crossreferencing, and suggest's that they didn't bother to read the
accounts in a different form that I did bother to produce and send to them.
Spot of stocking [up (shopping)], library internet, and back to the office.
Found Creative Bath pictures from last Tuesday, from their website News,
leading to a flickr photostream!
http://www.creativebath.org/news/2009/1 ... esday-427/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30420545@N07/
Saturday 31st October 2009 (Halloween, evening)
Got some "Premium" photo paper from wilkinsons, only to find it wouldn't feed
through the printer, even when I took the back cover off to feed it through
without bending.
The printer creased up two sheets of paper sheets of expensive paper in the
process; I shall try to get a partial refund, nonetheless. I'm not paying
�3.22 for two sheets of paper.
The idea was, use expensive paper for the promfolios, with cheaper stuff for
the business cards. So it'll be off down to various Tescos for the better
paper for now, and continue to use the Glossy wilkinsons photo paper for the
business cards.
I have discovered that I can charge the phone with the USB cable: Switch
phone off, connect to PC, charging begins. Because I moved my Ac Charger
home, this means I can now change the phone wherever I am.
Let's try that trick with the RPC... It work's! But first I have to detach
the inbetweening cable I had taped to the side of the PC, so less useful in
this configuration.
Two of The Others just came in - enlisted my help looking for "a little blue
board" - and left again. "'Night," they said. I'm not sleeping here you know!
No trouble with trick-or-treaters yet, anyway. All the nuts seem to be in the
Pubs, now Halloween has fallen on a Saturday.
Sunday 1st November 2009 (All Saints' Day, midnight)
Walking home, found the wooden barrier to the "forecourt" of Hut2 has been
pushed down (or fallen down).
Sunday 1st November 2009 (afternoon)
Wedged-up the wooden barrier.
Expecting a packed Sunday meeting with BMRG for "client approval" of the CMRS
2010 posters, only two turned up, and they weren't authorised to give final
approval. They did, however, help with rejecting unsuitable styles, and gave
guidance as to what to add and what would be likely to be approved.
Monday 2nd November 2009 (very early morning)
Just finished doing some basic poster work; now off to work on the lighting
system for light relief [(oh my aching sides)].
Worked straight through to the morning, having assembled and tested the
switch assemblies, applied 'n' dried two coats of lacquer, and in the
meantime refilled the inkjet cartridges.
During tests, discovered that the heatshrink tubing will not be activated by
a mere hairdryer style fan-heater, as promised, but a soldering will do the
trick, albeit unevenly. Therefore, it'll soon be off home to fetch a
cigarette lighter and some aluminium foil, which, along with the cartridge
syringes would make an interesting picture if the police happened along at a
nearby juncture.
Used a soldering iron someone had left behind, because all the other irons
have knackered bits and the funds for me to buy my own iron haven't come
through yet, plus I need to get these tasks done so I can start pulling in
paper folding stuff ASAHP.
Managed to catch part of the lead of the iron with the iron itself, thus
melting the outer sheath. I immediately noticed and disconnected it, but not
fast enough to stop the melt in the first place. Earth insulation exposed, a
connection which irons don't use anyway, so duct taped over and carried on
using. Ideally, would need to cut off below the fault and use an inline
connector to patch to a longer lead, rather than buying whoever a new iron,
but that will have to wait (at least until I'm awake).
Still to do the tyresocks and the other fittings of the lights; probably the
lights first, after the heatshrink tubing glued & shrunk; & attached, &
stuff, &c.
Then up at 0830 to make a crisis loan...
Noticed the new superglue dispenses very low viscosity adhesive, which caught
me out, but wasn't fast enough to catch out my preventative measures [(wipe
it off)].
Monday 2nd November 2009 (afternoon)
This lights refitting is driving me nuts. It's all working, but the process
is fiddly, I haven't had any sleep (aside from an interrupted sub-one-hour
nap), any proper food, and the DWP have just fined me �50 for asking for a
�100 crisis loan which they promised me last week.
This means no external bills get paid until next Monday, when everything
get's paid at once.
Back to the lighting: I've completed & tested the switch assemblies (ie
waterproof switches), using a cigarette lighter and aluminium foil to
activate the heatshrink tubing, got both of them strapped to the stilts, and
the cable threaded down to the attachment points.
When I opened up the second headlamp, the circuitry was all different inside,
but much tizzling out found me to points to bridge. Then I found the cable
wires are too thick to attach directly, so I attached solid wire first, as a
"step". After lever-melting up the microswitch to get the wire around it's
legs, I remembered I had some spare resistors, the leads of which are
thin-but-study gauge... Too late now.
One of the now-four filament inter-board wires detached, got that back,
tested-good my modifications, but still need to work out the order of
reassembly so that the battery contacts line up with the battery "shuttle".
All this while wearing thin disposable gloves so I didn't get [skin] grease
on the wires.
Started hearing voices, then realised that might be the station rail
announcements.
Later I may come back and refit the tyre socks as a change.
Still have to thread the cables through the reassembly order in-situ next to
the stilts - Later.
The lamp assembles are full of tiny filigree wires and bad joints, but the
lamps in normal operation are as sturdy as heck.
I'd quite like to replace this apparently-delicate-yet-also-sturdy lighting
set with some off-the-shelf remote lighting gear... But I can't find any.
Surely someone must produce stilt lights for eight foot high creatures with
the controls on the end of a cable... ah bugger, they don't, do they?
Perhaps there's a gap in the mainstream (cycle lights) market for cabled
lighting controls.
Tuesday 3rd November 2009
Three streams of potential work arrived at once, and I had to choose one.
Potential earnings? Well, that's another matter.
Rummaged around for my old broken soldering iron at home, and discovered both
that not only had I chucked it, but I had brought a whole new one and
forgotten about that.
BMRG Approved the CMRS poster, or rather only the first one of the series,
making it a non-series, and making me change the exciting "Are you ready?" to
the less exciting "Coming soon...", and even then it was an uphill struggle.
... Which I eventually lost. "Move that bit up," which meant cloning [making
up] more of the picture at the top, then "can you bring out the detail of the
bottom," which turned out to be deceptively simple, but only because it was a
good photo in the first place.
And finally approved.
'May have to [do something subtle to] improve the contrast of the new
headline text...
Wednesday 4th November 2009 (very early morning)
Now chopped up the two A1+ files, and sliced them on the RPC, but having
difficulty transferring them back quickly: Simple transfer from the RPC slow,
PC read fast; compress on RPC & transfer fast, PC decompress slow.
Yet to redo the green ad at high resolution (if ness), and to chop that up,
let alone continuing with the lighting bits and the tyresocks.
Once the transfer down, a quick batch convert back to PNG on the PC (with
PSP), and those are ready for print.
The slicer on the emulator on the PC run's over [under] ten times slower than
on the RPC, but chop's out the transfer times.
Wednesday 4th November 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
And so here we are at silly o'clock in the morning again, while the printer
chugs away in the background (under the desk actually), and the radio keeps
me sane[ish].
Fascinating tasks ahead include stacking up the printouts with blank sheets
of paper inbetween them, waiting for the ink to dry, guillotining/assembly
etc, filling-in or rather attempting to fill-in reams of paperwork from the
HMRC, DWP, and two over-keen employment agencies.
And then there's the remaining soldering, and the tyresocks, of course.
And -if I'm still awake- when the print bureau open's, the hard-lamination.
When all that lot's done (aside from the HMRC/DWP paperwork), I can prep 'n'
check 'n' test the boards & the stilts, and then start phoning people and
making travel arrangements.
And then it's back to printing more promfolios and business cards so I can
kick off another promotional run, hopefully squeezing in another Business
Link seminar somewhere along the line, not so much to gain insight, as to
palm off advertising on other people looking for ways to promote their
businesses.
The heater's on full blast, dehumidifying the air, with my office door open
to get the last batch of steam into the midway enclosed office: Great for the
printouts, not so good for me.
Ah, the printer's finished. It's not the only one.
I think I'll get on with some hoovering (to wake me up).
0759GMT, And I've just got the lighting set fitted. The first one worked
flawlessly, but the switch assembly failed for no good reason on the second
one, then just as I was musing the possibility of splicing in an extra switch
somehow, it started working fine again, again for no good reason - probably
mechanical.
Using only two of The Other's communal tools: An extension lead, because I
don't have one (here), and the soldering iron lead is too short; and a
"nicer" pair of pliers, in other words small and light. I will have to plug
this remaining gap, and also to find some screwdrivers of my own.
Next; food/nap, tyresocks, the haberdashery for "lace ribbons" if enough cash
left over from the hard-lamination. Strap-fix, printouts assembly....
Just gone One O'Clock, and I've finished assembling the printouts with the
lightbox, ready for lamination. In future, I will have to ensure all images
to be printed are the same size, using extra white space, because some hidden
"helpful" setting on the printer made subtle scaling adjustments, causing me
to have to jump through mathematical hoops to get everything to fit.
Got quote (just over �40), took documents, paid (over �55 [DigiPrint isn't
know for being cheap], but they only charged me for the whole sheets), some
glitches which I can fix. This now leave's me �1, so I need to borrow say �20
(and give some back quickly) to cover travel to Calne, bath, and the
lamination patches.
Printed the patches now, ready: Two hours to borrow ���...
Thursday 5th November 2009
Rested at home, got some food, borrowed �15. DigiPrint laminated the repairs,
waiving the fee on the grounds it was their fault in the first place.
Phoned the bank, noticing that they have a geographic number (strangely
Peterborough, for a London bank,) they clarified that no charge is due.
[Probably] Arranged demo meeting with Calne Town Council, found I do infact
have sufficient board covers (for now).
So now, it's adding velcro to the board cover (that I neglected to do
earlier), fitting the new posters to the covers/boards, then the tyresocks,
then practice time (if not too dark), otherwise practice tomorrow.
Maybe a break at the library to upload & check stuff.
Friday 6th November 2009
A very refreshing bath, quick flickrmail, and down to the office.
Replaced the tyresocks, noting along the way that while I now have plenty of
used tyres and enough cut lengths ready for forming, I now do not have any
ready-formed ones. (-Although it doesn't take long to form a 'sock.)
Got some bolts 'n' bits for securing my footlights (moving on from the
superglue & tape fixatives), and some fabric tape to speed up threading the
velcro straps through their little metal hoops whilst experiencing some
limitation of movement caused by safety gear worn to [eventually] increase my
freedom of movement.
Second-priority tasks are now: Sew the strap guides, bolt the footlights.
-With first priorities as: Patch red mould on one soaked/dried rear board
cover with white overlayer, add velcro to the second rear board cover, fit
the first rear board cover then fit Ladyred "Hear the Power of advertising"
to that, repeat with the front covers, fitting Green fumble "Feel the Power
of advertising" to that one. That, and when the covers are off, inspect and
service the straps.
And of course third priority: Form one set of tyresocks, preferably
long-style.
Raining earlier today, then dark quickly, so no practice session tonight.
Instead, an short early session tomorrow morning (without boards), largely to
check the performance of the new tyres.
Several of the stopgap sliver cable ties snapped during fitting today. They
seem to be somehow brittle relative to the standard black ones. Odd.
Also: Correct metal watch to GMT, incise Star of David onto replacement Poppy
(done), and fit Poppy into elbow pad or helmet.
Well, that's all the high priority bits done.
There was some difficultly shifting A1+ documents around a small office -
even with the use of the 75%-empty floor space in the adjoining (and twice
the size) office - but I managed it in the end.
Two desks 90% cleared one this, and one of them immediately taken up again -
with a single document!
Bolted bits may well have to wait until the weekend; but I'll have a go at
the sewing now. I'll look at attaching the Poppy to some PPE, as well.
The Star of David doesn't show up very well - it's in pencil, then I found
out my gold pen must've seized up months ago.
Is there a specific commemoration day for the Holocaust? There must be.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:23 pm
Saturday 7th November 2009
Photographed bits of the commercial locality that nobody appears to
question, in order to question it, on flickr.
Because it was dark & rainy yesterday, did a quick 5min stiltwalking test
without boards in the carpark. No muscle problems, and the new tyres
didn't pop off, although there was a worrying creaking/squeaking from
the subquality cable ties.
Got down to bath and started stiltwalking around the new Southgate centre, ie
the streets. Scared a shopper as I rounded a sharp corner, apologised, got
photographed a lot. Some security types were looking at me for a bit. Then...
"Now, you're not supposed to be here, are you?"
What the hell are you talking about? I'm a adult citizen in a free country,
I've every bloody Right to be here, I thought, loudly.
Apparently the streets of Southgate are private property. It's not as if they
go out of their way to tell anybody this - I'was born here and this is the
first I've heard of it.
And so after some chatting I went off to the nearest public streets,
followed by two security guys, and asked there which streets were whose.
It seems the northern border it also private, which doesn't make much sense
as M&S need access through it to get to their own goods inwards area, and if
Southgate take you to Court for trespass, well the Court is on their private
road, which means... nonsense. However, the street actually called
"Southgate" is not part of the Southgate centre - pretty typical that one:
It'd make sense otherwise, wouldn't it?
Lots more stiltwalking, mainly up the main North-South areas. Very dense
crowds, more than summer I think, walked along the centre slowly as I could,
crowds parted, flashbulbs popped. Dunno if it was me they were shooting, but
there were a lot of happy snappers out there.
Stopped and rested by The Hobgoblin. And there I acquired a hitchhiker, a
passenger.
He climbed up on my feet, standing on my toes (armoured boots you see),
although I wouldn't have noticed if he'd stood on the laces (heavy duty
straps you see), and perhaps he did.
He was about 5' high, adult, medium build. When he got comfortable, the top
of his head fitted under my chin. The stilts went down, but not as much as I
expected, and they certainly didn't "bottom out" [hit the limiters].
So he stood there chatting to his friends, and I balanced and waited for him
to bugger off. I expect I could have thrown him off any number of ways,
and he didn't stay for all that long anyway.
The stilts creaked (where from I dunno) for several minutes afterwards, but
there were no lasting aftereffects).
Going up the road by Pig & Fiddle, was flagged down and offered a drink.
Unfortunately I had to decline. [Because I'm driving/walking/something.]
Got talking to some people outside The Rifleman's Arms, and dismounted there.
They too offered me a drink. I said half a lager, the cheapest.
Nah, they said: have the most expensive one in the house.
This turned out to be a Periodd, or that's what it sounded like.
And very refreshing it was too.
Told them about my battle with the DWP. One of them gave me �5!
(This makes the trip to 'Bassett possible.)
Hopped on the train back to the office [literally].
In 'Nam, passed by Wil Hodgson, obstinately following me in front again.
Perhaps trying to feel as if he has stalkers when he doesn't.
Bumped into the Landlord outside the office, packed things away.
Went to pick up some things from Tescos, having to challenge the sort of
people a soldiers returning from Afghanistan are terrified by. (No, I kid you
not - they tell me these things themselves.) These "drug dealing knife
welding teenagers" (sound's just like the office doesn't it?) says the Gossip
and Hearsay... So off I go, challenging them by walking straight at their
blockage across the wooden footbridge.
It's not so much that I avoid Monkton Park at night, it's just that usually
it isn't directly on my way anywhere.
I neared the bridge, expected abuse then forced compliance. Instead, it was
compliance, then I curtly acknowledged "thankz", expecting to be sullenly
ignored, but then:
"Not at all."
"Our pleasure."
"Have a nice evening, Sir."
"Toodle-pip!"
That Bloody Paper!
Passed by bonfire visible on the other side of the river. On the way back,
stopped by it to warm my hands.
Sunday 8th November 2009 (Remembrance Sunday)
Travelled up to Wootton Bassett, partly for my own dark reasons, and partly
for other dark reasons of my own.
Passed by a very close friend's house: She has installed an illuminated
sculpture of my namesake on her porch. A good sign.
Took some photographs of the media circus in the High Street (now on
flickr).
Then took a break in the Waggon & Horses, or rather tried to. Someone there
recognised me (and about time too). They said I was banned. (Uh?!) On being
asked why, they said they couldn't remember, but they did remember banning me
over a year ago, and they can't remember why. That does not make
sense.
Tried out the new Phoenix Club instead. Photographed a panda in a window.
Went home.
Monday 9th November 2009
'Out to Calne, meeting & demo for Calne TC, booking details & confirmation,
leafleting test. Back to 'Nam for 1:30 Hrs stiltwalking, advertising the
Calne Show, only one leaflet refusal!
The return bus fare to Calne appears to have dropped by 20p.
Just worked out: �800 fine for earning �150 = 533% tax, plus 8% NIC
= 534% income tax (gross; non-compound).
Uploaded some parade photos at the library, found "virus" on my personal &
old campaign sites. This turns out to be a javascript trojan in the
advertising, beyond my immediate control. This will affect all Mega Web
Services (or whatever they're called now) Hosted sites of the ad-supported
variety. Probably time to inform Sophos, or for MWS to act and do so, or for
me to tell them [MWS] all that.
Tuesday 10th November 2009
Was about to head off to the office, partly to complete the ASE-FCC form (I
wish to make a complaint...), partly to pay the rent, when I hit "The Wall"
of exhurstion, a day late, and had to go and lie down for a large number of
hours.
Wednesday 11th November 2009 (Armistice Day)
British Gas were on the two minute silence for over half an hour today: It's
a mark of respect for the fight for freedom, not an excuse for an extended
lunchbreak! Tsk.
Meanwhile, the Crisis Loan people relayed the happy news that there will be a
cheque waiting for me a the job centre today at 1500, for �211.
It's only 25% of the debit, but they do chop it up by claim period, so that's
better than nothing. Now I can buy more airtime for my phone, and pay in the
�20 charge the bank took out, despite repeatedly confirmed that it wouldn't,
as well as (tomorrow) paying my secretary and buying necessary electronic
bits, as well as [perhaps] a meeting with the Southgate manager, for
permission to walk down the street.
After much badgering and tedious waiting around, and passing back and forth,
and playing one of the free Java games that came with my mobile to pass the
time, my arrears (for the current JSA claim) were paid at 1600.
This is for up to the last Signing date, so �128 more will be on the
way by Monday 16th, and I have a Pound in 2p pieces, and a 98p in 1p's ready
to put in the building society, too.
Thursday 12th November 2009
Stopped off at the free intercafe, for quite an extended period of time,
until it got dark infact, in other words about three hours.
Registered for LinkedIn, discovered I was already registered and had
forgotten about it. Also found that the system had (wrongly) deduced that I
went to Bath University, and that an Alumni association had sent me an email
regarding that last year.
Corrected wrong information, and tried to add links. However. The site is
unfriendly and wouldn't let me approach people I know well, but would let me
connect with people I hardly know.
On the way to the office, someone nearly ran me over at a pedestrian
crossing, I swore loudly at them and muttered about the stripy thing not
being for decoration. They just sat in their van and looked sheepish.
Saw the mysterious building that looks like the office being locked up, and
stopped to ask what went on there. A carpenter's business, it seems, with
very reasonable rent. On hearing that I had found this out talking to the
neighbours, the FD has the impression that I'm in favour trying to gazump
them. The Directors are always on the look out for better cheaper
accommodation, while I also am, just on a smaller scale. I'd like something
more secure, where the walls aren't acoustically transparent, and it doesn't
rain indoors, but ideally also close to a rail station.
Come to think of it, just before I started renting this place, a friend's
father pointed out he rent's out property nearby. When the business is more
on it's feet, perhaps it'd be worth giving him a call...
Brought in both trolleys to bring supplies up from the supermarket, and to
trundle away waste.
As a result of picking up some cleaning supplies, I now have a Pound in
pennies, so it's off to put that scrap metal into the building society,
tomorrow morning.
Yesterday, looked at the plaques on the war memorial in 'Nam: Whereas Bassett
has contributions from St. John's Ambulance, the police, army, and so forth,
Chippenham is dominated by the Freemasons, various schools, and two lodges of
the RAOB, whoever they are.
Looked up RAOB: Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloe. Lodge No. 667.
That ring's a bell: It's a "social club" on the way home, quite near me.
Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes
Originally, just "The Buffaloes", the royal being a mispronunciation of
loyal, added to avoid being sinisterly secretive, and antediluvian referring to
their principles rather than themselves. Founded by theatrical types and a
comedian in a Pub 200 years ago, something about chasing cows and defending
the weak.
Also called "the Buffs", and claiming not to be a secret order, but an order
with secrets. I am not impressed by this, being a member of a secret society
[WAUG] that doesn't want to be secret, which meets in a military base.
Sounding like the a kind of Masons for pheasants, they say some of them are
both. (Buffaloes and Masons, not Masons and pheasants.)
Lodge No. 667 appears to be the Chippenham and District Provincial Grand
Lodge, although nothing of the front of the building says this, and it used
to be a large green shed. Come to think of it, I am typing this inside a
large green "shed" [barn].
Friday 13th November 2009 (Aaarrrggh)
Overdid the time at the free intercafe again, nipped down bath, picked up
overdue filing and leaflet dispensing-extension essentials from Woods,
and footlight-extension plus tyresock cable ties from Maplin.
Paid for the secretarial service via Wild & Lye, stepped out into a rainstorm
reminiscent of the trailer for the 2012 apocalyptic film, checked out the
Putney Arms, found the new Southgate Sainsburys is a pocket boutique type
outlet, with overpriced food, no Basics range, and no laces.
'Thought for a brief moment that I may have lost my keys, before realising I
may have locked them away in the secure compartment for the long journey.
I will write a simple train times displayer app/prog, taking the current
time/date, and showing the next departing bus & train times, because I need
this information so often.
Popped into the new Bridge House Pub, just a single Pint for my digestion,
lots of people I don't know, and tried to sink comfortably into obscurity.
then somebody asked to have their photo taken with me... What the - I'm not
on stilts now, so why...? Nonetheless, sink comfortably into... then I was
found by one of my stalkers, who I ended-up buying a drink. Right, that's the
Christmas presents taken care of then.
I had decided to take some of the frozen food home with me so I didn't have
to nip back to the office after the Pub. I did not, however, expect to be
searched on the door. Normally I decline to enter Clubs/Pubs with that sort
of policy, but they were very nice about it and I let it go this time because
it's an opening night.
Laterwhile, inside, I was spending over half my time giving way to people
coming the opposite way. Mathematically, half the people should not be not be
giving way, so the next time I gently pushed the queue the other side out of
the way. they didn't seem to mind, apart from being initially surprised,
because I don't [think I] look as if I can get away with that, but I am
strong enough, and before I was strong I could do it anyway. I just choose
not to, that's all - and clearly too often. Ah well, it works in prison, why
wouldn't it work in a Pub? It's not as if they could do anything about it.
Saturday 14th November 2009
More stocking-up, this time in Chippenham. Found some very-reasonably-priced
(�6) bolt cutters in wilkinsons; to use chopping through tyre wire for
tyresock batch-production, and, in tinsnip mode, for cutting out brackets from
recycled backplate and other metal-shaping tasks.
Took some shots of the swollen river, intending to document the box-channel,
but levels too high for that today, and got good churning frenzy instead, as
well as some nice shots of waterfowl being strange by The Bridge.
Unable to find any decent mice in town, but the fancy dress shop think's
it may have some antlers for me next week.
Bolt cutters don't work as tinsnips! These ones don't, anyway. All they do is
score a line, which the sheet won't even fold along. Grrr. They do,
however chop through tyrewire very nicely, which is the main reason I got
them for, and that will save me days for hacksawing time, thus making
possible tyresock manufacture for selling-on, which would otherwise not be
possible.
And, so back to the hacksaw for the (thin) sheet metalwork.
I searched for Bassett on facebook (mobile version), and found a tribute
group to them, with ten times as many members as people who actually live in
Bassett. Now, what could the town do for all those visitors? It's not as if
donations aren't pouring in. Re-open the public toilets, perhaps? Build a new
hotel? Nah, put up a flagpole and spend weeks arguing about what colour to
paint it. Small town councils: Don't ya just love 'em? I suppose I ought to
suggest...
Some of the things they're saying on that facebook group are rather
bloodthirsty; people repeating stock phrases without thinking about what
they're saying. It's all rather abhorrent. We don't need praise in that
context, thanks very much.
Ah no, now it's gone ten in the evening; I said I'd be back home for lunch,
then I had a meal in the office so I could quickly nip off to bath, then I
realised it was getting late anyway and I had virtually all the essentials I
could purchase before Monday. Then it slipped my mind what I'd come in for
apart from stopping from from/to shopping, and brought a �1 Bundle to surf
the mobile web for a few things, then I looked up and it's evening. Curses.
Monday 16th November 2009
Up to 'Bassett for the 99th repatriation, and the circus is firmly back in
town after the more sensible experience of Remembrance.
Finding it hard to stop thinking of a Flake ice cream cone.
The town council says they don't know in advance when repatriations will
be - someone in Lyneham makes the decision then tell's them.
They also say there is no set day of the week when these things come through,
and hence no avoiding them and/or forward planning. I don't want (eg) cheery
advertising to clash with a funeral. So it look's like pot luck and a
danger of a shuffling schedule. Ah well. At least there's not two in a row.
The media were out in force for this one: Three outside broadcast vans, and
too many photojournalists with stepladders to count. They weren't inside
Bevirs as far as I could tell, either. They were camped outside on the
pavement.
Lots of people on the TV news earlier, not in Wootton Bassett, still wearing
Remembrance Poppies. Lots here too. I stopped one guy with one in his hat,
and asked why he was still wearing it (the poppy, not the hat). Long chat,
and eventually it comes down to personal preference. If this carries on,
though, we'll be wearing poppies at Christmas and beyond.
The convoy came along, and stopped with brilliant sunshine dazzling everyone
who tried to look in their direction.
There were three police outriders, then a police car, then the two hearses, a
"spare" hearse, a black hearse-van with a purple flashing light (?) on, and
then another squad car.
Flag bearers stepped forward and raised standards, a troupe of people lead by
someone in a suit who seemed to be also a TV correspondent filed out of the
Cross Keys (central Pub), across the road and over to the convoy, and there
deposited bundles of flowers on their roofs.
Squaddies saluted, because they're in the army, and then the police saluted
too, because they think they're in the army. police behaviour very strange
here, so no change there then.
The convoy moved slowly off, and then came to a halt again fifty yards down
the road. They stayed there for a long time, then disappeared with more
speed.
Since I had a Day Explorer (cheaper than a Wootton Bassett Return - crazy)
and Swindon was just around the corner I decided to chuck my original plan of
going back to 'Nam by bus and catching a train out to bath, and just carried
on into Swindon.
On the way along to the bus stop, everyone was busy apologising to everyone
else for bumping into them - 'Bassett isn't designed for these sorts of
crowds - and then as I passed by a gaggle of half a dozen police all bunched
up in a line, a large white spiky military aircraft passed low overhead, and
very slowly too. I've never seen one go so slow without stalling. So we all
stopped and looked up, and I managed to get a photo, which doesn't look at
all impressive, but will enable ID-ing of the plane.
A guy in an orange hi-viz came along, and he turned out to be from Stagecoach
[bus company], keeping us all informed of when the next ones will be along.
This is very considerate & helpful, particularly for Stagecoach, whom
often choose to leave us all in the dark especially if we're travelling
through Wootton Bassett, for some reason.
And on to Swindon, passing what appears to be a new humpback bridge over the
motorway. They should have a sign just north of Junction 16: Welcome to
Swindon: Or even "Beware of Swindon". Yes, that would be better.
Phoned the bank, who clarified that while they may have previously indicated
that the Charge would not stand, considered the situation again freshly, and
pointed out that it was not a banking error. Er yes, but you just said... And
that while I was not liable, the HMRC was, and I should pass the �20 fee onto
them. Yes, well that was Plan 'B', if... But as a gesture of goodwill, they
would waive the Charge on this occasion, largely because it would be too much
trouble to investigate.
I seem to remember the bank stating that if something was not my fault, they
would not charge me... and �20 is a lot, but never mind now; there's
no need to labour the point.
They put the refund through while I was on the line to them, and they say the
amount will be credited to my account within the next two days. Good. Right.
Now I can get the next �100 or so from the DWP out of my building society
account, and put �70 or so into the bank, in order to buy a new pair of boots
(suddenly the local shop won't accept cash), a mouse, an extra-heavy mouse
ball (improves precision), and a "Helping Hands" specialist clamp.
Much searching around through all the model and art shops I could find in
Swindon proved fruitless for the clamp. I got some vests from M&S on a
voucher from several Christmases ago, and couldn't resist grabbing a cheap
sandwich from wilkinsons when I went in to look for cheap thick gloves.
Passing back through 'Bassett, noticed the war memorial, with it's attendant
garden, has acquired more wreaths, and a giant shiny single-poppy.
Back in the office, one of The Others offered to lend me his Helping Hands
while mine are on order. This is good: I have a lot of work to get done
fairly quickly. Also discussed one of the secret projects. I'd go nuts if I
had to keep all these secrets to myself, and I'm sure nobody would notice.
Lots of new photos to choose from; several pending ones to continue selecting
from; little online time anyway: Later.
Photographed bits of the commercial locality that nobody appears to
question, in order to question it, on flickr.
Because it was dark & rainy yesterday, did a quick 5min stiltwalking test
without boards in the carpark. No muscle problems, and the new tyres
didn't pop off, although there was a worrying creaking/squeaking from
the subquality cable ties.
Got down to bath and started stiltwalking around the new Southgate centre, ie
the streets. Scared a shopper as I rounded a sharp corner, apologised, got
photographed a lot. Some security types were looking at me for a bit. Then...
"Now, you're not supposed to be here, are you?"
What the hell are you talking about? I'm a adult citizen in a free country,
I've every bloody Right to be here, I thought, loudly.
Apparently the streets of Southgate are private property. It's not as if they
go out of their way to tell anybody this - I'was born here and this is the
first I've heard of it.
And so after some chatting I went off to the nearest public streets,
followed by two security guys, and asked there which streets were whose.
It seems the northern border it also private, which doesn't make much sense
as M&S need access through it to get to their own goods inwards area, and if
Southgate take you to Court for trespass, well the Court is on their private
road, which means... nonsense. However, the street actually called
"Southgate" is not part of the Southgate centre - pretty typical that one:
It'd make sense otherwise, wouldn't it?
Lots more stiltwalking, mainly up the main North-South areas. Very dense
crowds, more than summer I think, walked along the centre slowly as I could,
crowds parted, flashbulbs popped. Dunno if it was me they were shooting, but
there were a lot of happy snappers out there.
Stopped and rested by The Hobgoblin. And there I acquired a hitchhiker, a
passenger.
He climbed up on my feet, standing on my toes (armoured boots you see),
although I wouldn't have noticed if he'd stood on the laces (heavy duty
straps you see), and perhaps he did.
He was about 5' high, adult, medium build. When he got comfortable, the top
of his head fitted under my chin. The stilts went down, but not as much as I
expected, and they certainly didn't "bottom out" [hit the limiters].
So he stood there chatting to his friends, and I balanced and waited for him
to bugger off. I expect I could have thrown him off any number of ways,
and he didn't stay for all that long anyway.
The stilts creaked (where from I dunno) for several minutes afterwards, but
there were no lasting aftereffects).
Going up the road by Pig & Fiddle, was flagged down and offered a drink.
Unfortunately I had to decline. [Because I'm driving/walking/something.]
Got talking to some people outside The Rifleman's Arms, and dismounted there.
They too offered me a drink. I said half a lager, the cheapest.
Nah, they said: have the most expensive one in the house.
This turned out to be a Periodd, or that's what it sounded like.
And very refreshing it was too.
Told them about my battle with the DWP. One of them gave me �5!
(This makes the trip to 'Bassett possible.)
Hopped on the train back to the office [literally].
In 'Nam, passed by Wil Hodgson, obstinately following me in front again.
Perhaps trying to feel as if he has stalkers when he doesn't.
Bumped into the Landlord outside the office, packed things away.
Went to pick up some things from Tescos, having to challenge the sort of
people a soldiers returning from Afghanistan are terrified by. (No, I kid you
not - they tell me these things themselves.) These "drug dealing knife
welding teenagers" (sound's just like the office doesn't it?) says the Gossip
and Hearsay... So off I go, challenging them by walking straight at their
blockage across the wooden footbridge.
It's not so much that I avoid Monkton Park at night, it's just that usually
it isn't directly on my way anywhere.
I neared the bridge, expected abuse then forced compliance. Instead, it was
compliance, then I curtly acknowledged "thankz", expecting to be sullenly
ignored, but then:
"Not at all."
"Our pleasure."
"Have a nice evening, Sir."
"Toodle-pip!"
That Bloody Paper!
Passed by bonfire visible on the other side of the river. On the way back,
stopped by it to warm my hands.
Sunday 8th November 2009 (Remembrance Sunday)
Travelled up to Wootton Bassett, partly for my own dark reasons, and partly
for other dark reasons of my own.
Passed by a very close friend's house: She has installed an illuminated
sculpture of my namesake on her porch. A good sign.
Took some photographs of the media circus in the High Street (now on
flickr).
Then took a break in the Waggon & Horses, or rather tried to. Someone there
recognised me (and about time too). They said I was banned. (Uh?!) On being
asked why, they said they couldn't remember, but they did remember banning me
over a year ago, and they can't remember why. That does not make
sense.
Tried out the new Phoenix Club instead. Photographed a panda in a window.
Went home.
Monday 9th November 2009
'Out to Calne, meeting & demo for Calne TC, booking details & confirmation,
leafleting test. Back to 'Nam for 1:30 Hrs stiltwalking, advertising the
Calne Show, only one leaflet refusal!
The return bus fare to Calne appears to have dropped by 20p.
Just worked out: �800 fine for earning �150 = 533% tax, plus 8% NIC
= 534% income tax (gross; non-compound).
Uploaded some parade photos at the library, found "virus" on my personal &
old campaign sites. This turns out to be a javascript trojan in the
advertising, beyond my immediate control. This will affect all Mega Web
Services (or whatever they're called now) Hosted sites of the ad-supported
variety. Probably time to inform Sophos, or for MWS to act and do so, or for
me to tell them [MWS] all that.
Tuesday 10th November 2009
Was about to head off to the office, partly to complete the ASE-FCC form (I
wish to make a complaint...), partly to pay the rent, when I hit "The Wall"
of exhurstion, a day late, and had to go and lie down for a large number of
hours.
Wednesday 11th November 2009 (Armistice Day)
British Gas were on the two minute silence for over half an hour today: It's
a mark of respect for the fight for freedom, not an excuse for an extended
lunchbreak! Tsk.
Meanwhile, the Crisis Loan people relayed the happy news that there will be a
cheque waiting for me a the job centre today at 1500, for �211.
It's only 25% of the debit, but they do chop it up by claim period, so that's
better than nothing. Now I can buy more airtime for my phone, and pay in the
�20 charge the bank took out, despite repeatedly confirmed that it wouldn't,
as well as (tomorrow) paying my secretary and buying necessary electronic
bits, as well as [perhaps] a meeting with the Southgate manager, for
permission to walk down the street.
After much badgering and tedious waiting around, and passing back and forth,
and playing one of the free Java games that came with my mobile to pass the
time, my arrears (for the current JSA claim) were paid at 1600.
This is for up to the last Signing date, so �128 more will be on the
way by Monday 16th, and I have a Pound in 2p pieces, and a 98p in 1p's ready
to put in the building society, too.
Thursday 12th November 2009
Stopped off at the free intercafe, for quite an extended period of time,
until it got dark infact, in other words about three hours.
Registered for LinkedIn, discovered I was already registered and had
forgotten about it. Also found that the system had (wrongly) deduced that I
went to Bath University, and that an Alumni association had sent me an email
regarding that last year.
Corrected wrong information, and tried to add links. However. The site is
unfriendly and wouldn't let me approach people I know well, but would let me
connect with people I hardly know.
On the way to the office, someone nearly ran me over at a pedestrian
crossing, I swore loudly at them and muttered about the stripy thing not
being for decoration. They just sat in their van and looked sheepish.
Saw the mysterious building that looks like the office being locked up, and
stopped to ask what went on there. A carpenter's business, it seems, with
very reasonable rent. On hearing that I had found this out talking to the
neighbours, the FD has the impression that I'm in favour trying to gazump
them. The Directors are always on the look out for better cheaper
accommodation, while I also am, just on a smaller scale. I'd like something
more secure, where the walls aren't acoustically transparent, and it doesn't
rain indoors, but ideally also close to a rail station.
Come to think of it, just before I started renting this place, a friend's
father pointed out he rent's out property nearby. When the business is more
on it's feet, perhaps it'd be worth giving him a call...
Brought in both trolleys to bring supplies up from the supermarket, and to
trundle away waste.
As a result of picking up some cleaning supplies, I now have a Pound in
pennies, so it's off to put that scrap metal into the building society,
tomorrow morning.
Yesterday, looked at the plaques on the war memorial in 'Nam: Whereas Bassett
has contributions from St. John's Ambulance, the police, army, and so forth,
Chippenham is dominated by the Freemasons, various schools, and two lodges of
the RAOB, whoever they are.
Looked up RAOB: Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloe. Lodge No. 667.
That ring's a bell: It's a "social club" on the way home, quite near me.
Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffaloes
Originally, just "The Buffaloes", the royal being a mispronunciation of
loyal, added to avoid being sinisterly secretive, and antediluvian referring to
their principles rather than themselves. Founded by theatrical types and a
comedian in a Pub 200 years ago, something about chasing cows and defending
the weak.
Also called "the Buffs", and claiming not to be a secret order, but an order
with secrets. I am not impressed by this, being a member of a secret society
[WAUG] that doesn't want to be secret, which meets in a military base.
Sounding like the a kind of Masons for pheasants, they say some of them are
both. (Buffaloes and Masons, not Masons and pheasants.)
Lodge No. 667 appears to be the Chippenham and District Provincial Grand
Lodge, although nothing of the front of the building says this, and it used
to be a large green shed. Come to think of it, I am typing this inside a
large green "shed" [barn].
Friday 13th November 2009 (Aaarrrggh)
Overdid the time at the free intercafe again, nipped down bath, picked up
overdue filing and leaflet dispensing-extension essentials from Woods,
and footlight-extension plus tyresock cable ties from Maplin.
Paid for the secretarial service via Wild & Lye, stepped out into a rainstorm
reminiscent of the trailer for the 2012 apocalyptic film, checked out the
Putney Arms, found the new Southgate Sainsburys is a pocket boutique type
outlet, with overpriced food, no Basics range, and no laces.
'Thought for a brief moment that I may have lost my keys, before realising I
may have locked them away in the secure compartment for the long journey.
I will write a simple train times displayer app/prog, taking the current
time/date, and showing the next departing bus & train times, because I need
this information so often.
Popped into the new Bridge House Pub, just a single Pint for my digestion,
lots of people I don't know, and tried to sink comfortably into obscurity.
then somebody asked to have their photo taken with me... What the - I'm not
on stilts now, so why...? Nonetheless, sink comfortably into... then I was
found by one of my stalkers, who I ended-up buying a drink. Right, that's the
Christmas presents taken care of then.
I had decided to take some of the frozen food home with me so I didn't have
to nip back to the office after the Pub. I did not, however, expect to be
searched on the door. Normally I decline to enter Clubs/Pubs with that sort
of policy, but they were very nice about it and I let it go this time because
it's an opening night.
Laterwhile, inside, I was spending over half my time giving way to people
coming the opposite way. Mathematically, half the people should not be not be
giving way, so the next time I gently pushed the queue the other side out of
the way. they didn't seem to mind, apart from being initially surprised,
because I don't [think I] look as if I can get away with that, but I am
strong enough, and before I was strong I could do it anyway. I just choose
not to, that's all - and clearly too often. Ah well, it works in prison, why
wouldn't it work in a Pub? It's not as if they could do anything about it.
Saturday 14th November 2009
More stocking-up, this time in Chippenham. Found some very-reasonably-priced
(�6) bolt cutters in wilkinsons; to use chopping through tyre wire for
tyresock batch-production, and, in tinsnip mode, for cutting out brackets from
recycled backplate and other metal-shaping tasks.
Took some shots of the swollen river, intending to document the box-channel,
but levels too high for that today, and got good churning frenzy instead, as
well as some nice shots of waterfowl being strange by The Bridge.
Unable to find any decent mice in town, but the fancy dress shop think's
it may have some antlers for me next week.
Bolt cutters don't work as tinsnips! These ones don't, anyway. All they do is
score a line, which the sheet won't even fold along. Grrr. They do,
however chop through tyrewire very nicely, which is the main reason I got
them for, and that will save me days for hacksawing time, thus making
possible tyresock manufacture for selling-on, which would otherwise not be
possible.
And, so back to the hacksaw for the (thin) sheet metalwork.
I searched for Bassett on facebook (mobile version), and found a tribute
group to them, with ten times as many members as people who actually live in
Bassett. Now, what could the town do for all those visitors? It's not as if
donations aren't pouring in. Re-open the public toilets, perhaps? Build a new
hotel? Nah, put up a flagpole and spend weeks arguing about what colour to
paint it. Small town councils: Don't ya just love 'em? I suppose I ought to
suggest...
Some of the things they're saying on that facebook group are rather
bloodthirsty; people repeating stock phrases without thinking about what
they're saying. It's all rather abhorrent. We don't need praise in that
context, thanks very much.
Ah no, now it's gone ten in the evening; I said I'd be back home for lunch,
then I had a meal in the office so I could quickly nip off to bath, then I
realised it was getting late anyway and I had virtually all the essentials I
could purchase before Monday. Then it slipped my mind what I'd come in for
apart from stopping from from/to shopping, and brought a �1 Bundle to surf
the mobile web for a few things, then I looked up and it's evening. Curses.
Monday 16th November 2009
Up to 'Bassett for the 99th repatriation, and the circus is firmly back in
town after the more sensible experience of Remembrance.
Finding it hard to stop thinking of a Flake ice cream cone.
The town council says they don't know in advance when repatriations will
be - someone in Lyneham makes the decision then tell's them.
They also say there is no set day of the week when these things come through,
and hence no avoiding them and/or forward planning. I don't want (eg) cheery
advertising to clash with a funeral. So it look's like pot luck and a
danger of a shuffling schedule. Ah well. At least there's not two in a row.
The media were out in force for this one: Three outside broadcast vans, and
too many photojournalists with stepladders to count. They weren't inside
Bevirs as far as I could tell, either. They were camped outside on the
pavement.
Lots of people on the TV news earlier, not in Wootton Bassett, still wearing
Remembrance Poppies. Lots here too. I stopped one guy with one in his hat,
and asked why he was still wearing it (the poppy, not the hat). Long chat,
and eventually it comes down to personal preference. If this carries on,
though, we'll be wearing poppies at Christmas and beyond.
The convoy came along, and stopped with brilliant sunshine dazzling everyone
who tried to look in their direction.
There were three police outriders, then a police car, then the two hearses, a
"spare" hearse, a black hearse-van with a purple flashing light (?) on, and
then another squad car.
Flag bearers stepped forward and raised standards, a troupe of people lead by
someone in a suit who seemed to be also a TV correspondent filed out of the
Cross Keys (central Pub), across the road and over to the convoy, and there
deposited bundles of flowers on their roofs.
Squaddies saluted, because they're in the army, and then the police saluted
too, because they think they're in the army. police behaviour very strange
here, so no change there then.
The convoy moved slowly off, and then came to a halt again fifty yards down
the road. They stayed there for a long time, then disappeared with more
speed.
Since I had a Day Explorer (cheaper than a Wootton Bassett Return - crazy)
and Swindon was just around the corner I decided to chuck my original plan of
going back to 'Nam by bus and catching a train out to bath, and just carried
on into Swindon.
On the way along to the bus stop, everyone was busy apologising to everyone
else for bumping into them - 'Bassett isn't designed for these sorts of
crowds - and then as I passed by a gaggle of half a dozen police all bunched
up in a line, a large white spiky military aircraft passed low overhead, and
very slowly too. I've never seen one go so slow without stalling. So we all
stopped and looked up, and I managed to get a photo, which doesn't look at
all impressive, but will enable ID-ing of the plane.
A guy in an orange hi-viz came along, and he turned out to be from Stagecoach
[bus company], keeping us all informed of when the next ones will be along.
This is very considerate & helpful, particularly for Stagecoach, whom
often choose to leave us all in the dark especially if we're travelling
through Wootton Bassett, for some reason.
And on to Swindon, passing what appears to be a new humpback bridge over the
motorway. They should have a sign just north of Junction 16: Welcome to
Swindon: Or even "Beware of Swindon". Yes, that would be better.
Phoned the bank, who clarified that while they may have previously indicated
that the Charge would not stand, considered the situation again freshly, and
pointed out that it was not a banking error. Er yes, but you just said... And
that while I was not liable, the HMRC was, and I should pass the �20 fee onto
them. Yes, well that was Plan 'B', if... But as a gesture of goodwill, they
would waive the Charge on this occasion, largely because it would be too much
trouble to investigate.
I seem to remember the bank stating that if something was not my fault, they
would not charge me... and �20 is a lot, but never mind now; there's
no need to labour the point.
They put the refund through while I was on the line to them, and they say the
amount will be credited to my account within the next two days. Good. Right.
Now I can get the next �100 or so from the DWP out of my building society
account, and put �70 or so into the bank, in order to buy a new pair of boots
(suddenly the local shop won't accept cash), a mouse, an extra-heavy mouse
ball (improves precision), and a "Helping Hands" specialist clamp.
Much searching around through all the model and art shops I could find in
Swindon proved fruitless for the clamp. I got some vests from M&S on a
voucher from several Christmases ago, and couldn't resist grabbing a cheap
sandwich from wilkinsons when I went in to look for cheap thick gloves.
Passing back through 'Bassett, noticed the war memorial, with it's attendant
garden, has acquired more wreaths, and a giant shiny single-poppy.
Back in the office, one of The Others offered to lend me his Helping Hands
while mine are on order. This is good: I have a lot of work to get done
fairly quickly. Also discussed one of the secret projects. I'd go nuts if I
had to keep all these secrets to myself, and I'm sure nobody would notice.
Lots of new photos to choose from; several pending ones to continue selecting
from; little online time anyway: Later.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Sat Nov 21, 2009 6:22 pm
Tuesday 17th November 2009 (very early morning)
Prep'd & put out most of the "delayed photographs".
I will have to get a flickr Pro account sometime soon: I will exceed my
maximum number of shots probably sometime this month, and flickr is a more
valuable social/business networking site than LinkedIn (ugh) or facebook.
Tuesday 17th November 2009 (morning)
Feeling a bit woozy, had to grab a Mars Bar &c - haven't eaten properly for
over a day. No poverty - just busy.
Decided to leave the RPC power switch always-on. There should be no
electrical difference, and when a cold start take's 23s, the 5s taken
plugging in and switching on at the power point, with the 3s to sit down and
look up, is significant. Effectively, this will save 8s of waiting, reducing
the start time to 15s; a 65% saving.
How much time do I save switching !Docktor off?...
Five seconds.
Bugfixed !FATform, in passing, and finding a minor new bug in the interactive
help along the way. The new bug affects the iconbar menu, and is odd in that
my other programs do not suffer from it.
Tuesday 17th November 2009 (afternoon)
Finished shovelling around some money, took some more photos of the cascade
bit of the river, uploaded o/st material to flickr.
Completed my first online purchase, which was also my first debit card
purchase, with CJE Micro's, whom just phoned back to confirm the card number.
'Slight typo there. It's nice they're rapidly alerted to errors like that.
Later in the evening, received a letter saying that we needed to talk,
pointing out our relationship and how much they cared about me and expressing
concern about how my life may be going. It was from the bank.
Dated last Friday, and arriving after I had already contacted them, without
prompting. So that should be all right then.
Wednesday 18th November 2009 (late afternoon)
It's just gone five, and it's dark already. Now the [draft] timings from
Calne TC are beginning to make [more] sense.
I've been fumbling around with facebook at the free intercafe', trying (and,
largely failing,) to find useful information on the discussion forums of
their groups. Instead, it seems to be all "I'm right therefore you're wrong
and you should all die", with no conclusions or admissions at all, as far as
I could find, anyway.
And now I have to get back to my (slightly neglected) previous task of
drawing up another subdivided tasks list. I implemented all of my previous
list inside last week. Now it's halfway through this week and I haven't even
got the next list out of draft. (Although, TBF, I've already completed some
tasks I haven't written down yet and I have been out and about a lot.)
TBF: To be fair: Too many abbreviations creeping in. How would converting the
last paragraph entirely into abbreviated form look?:
Yeee... Naaaah... Hmmmm. So maybe not too many abbreviations yet, then.
The text alerts from the bank tell me the bank has re-credited the erroneous
�20 charge back into my account. Yesternight I received a letter dated last
Friday from them, grumbling that I hadn't contacted them about overdraft 2.0
and asking if I was experiencing financial difficulties.
So now I can take the �20 temporary allowance off my budget planner.
'Have looked up what "ISAF" stand's for, which I saw on a squaddies'
desert-camoflaged fatigues last Monday: "International Security Assistance
Force". It says underneath in Afghan "Help and Cooperation". This is infact
the invading army, helping and assisting them by shooting everything that
moves, then blaming the Afghans for all the violence.
Noticed[,] as I came in [to the office this afternoon,] that the footbridge
lights have been repaired, and replaced with new ones so bright you can't use
the bridge at all, or even look at it directly. The new lights are in the old
housings, so they also shine directly into your eyes when trying to cross the
bridge, as opposed to the sane ones of yore that pointed down at the bridge
instead.
However, the most prominent of the too-bright industrial-use-only-type lamps
at Platform 2 stairwell in bath station has been replaced with a merely
very-bright lamp, which means you can now look in the direction of the stairs
from the platform without suffering pain and risking eye damage. An optician
told me that eye damage will be prevented if you look away immedjatly.
Of course, you don't expect to see a blinding light in the places FGW have
put them, so your chances of averting your gaze quickly are reduced. I have
complained about this (it must have been a year ago now) to FGW in reference
to the situation at bath; now I shall have to do so again for here.
I suppose Network Rail are responsible for the 'Nam situation, as technically
the footbridge isn't in the station, at least not the bit FGW lease(?)
Thursday 19th November 2009 (very early morning)
All this money, and no spare food in the office. I have half a loaf of bread,
some "fruity" sauce, hardly any breadspread, and, that's about it. Priorities
not re-balanced yet, clearly.
I've just realised: I'm advertising the Calne Xmas Lights Switch-On, but I
don't know what extra help I'm doing this year (maybe participation in the
Latern Parade, maybe not), and who is actually doing the switch-on itself, or
if they just come on automatically. They're on a timer, so they all come on
automatically (and -in theory- simultanously), but I dunno if Calne TC are
pretending there's a button, and someone to press it, or not.
Probably someone from the council would do it. -So that'd be the Mayor,
then(?)
Things to do: Design another A9/VA/SWS advert. Hmmmmm. Probably best to have
the A9 poster descending from text-based, with a snappy poster-image, and a
featureless bit along the bottom, ready to accept a strip plugging the SW
Show 2010. Back burner.
Then there'll be the ROL re-worked one to use at Capital Bocking 2010.
Dusty strip of vinyl flooring, behind the cooker with the burners on.
Other things to do: Draw up Xmas Cards list and send some out before
February. This is where facebook come's in handy; browsing my contact's
contact lists for friends I forgot I knew.
facebook seems to be more a CMS with a very large userbase, rather than a
proper social networking site. (Like flickr.)
"You mean twitter?" asked one of my stalkers, in Wetherspoons.
"No, flickr."
"Twitter?"
"f-l-i-c-k-r dot com."
"Twitter?"
It's too noisy in there.
Thursday 19th November 2009 (afternoon)
My new mouse arrived today; fitted; good.
Will get a mousemat and try that and the new ball with it later.
Added mousemat and installed the extra-heavy mouseball.
Results: Mouse is heavier, and slightly easier to control for precise
movements. Non-slip mousemat slips either way up. Will have to ask for
clarification and use blu-tack in the meantime.
Wilkinsons mousemat is very good (part from being slightly confusing in use),
being black, A5-sized, rectangular, niether too hard nor too soft,
and cheap (50p).
I'm using it soft-side-down for now.
Prep'd & put out most of the "delayed photographs".
I will have to get a flickr Pro account sometime soon: I will exceed my
maximum number of shots probably sometime this month, and flickr is a more
valuable social/business networking site than LinkedIn (ugh) or facebook.
Tuesday 17th November 2009 (morning)
Feeling a bit woozy, had to grab a Mars Bar &c - haven't eaten properly for
over a day. No poverty - just busy.
Decided to leave the RPC power switch always-on. There should be no
electrical difference, and when a cold start take's 23s, the 5s taken
plugging in and switching on at the power point, with the 3s to sit down and
look up, is significant. Effectively, this will save 8s of waiting, reducing
the start time to 15s; a 65% saving.
How much time do I save switching !Docktor off?...
Five seconds.
Bugfixed !FATform, in passing, and finding a minor new bug in the interactive
help along the way. The new bug affects the iconbar menu, and is odd in that
my other programs do not suffer from it.
Tuesday 17th November 2009 (afternoon)
Finished shovelling around some money, took some more photos of the cascade
bit of the river, uploaded o/st material to flickr.
Completed my first online purchase, which was also my first debit card
purchase, with CJE Micro's, whom just phoned back to confirm the card number.
'Slight typo there. It's nice they're rapidly alerted to errors like that.
Later in the evening, received a letter saying that we needed to talk,
pointing out our relationship and how much they cared about me and expressing
concern about how my life may be going. It was from the bank.
Dated last Friday, and arriving after I had already contacted them, without
prompting. So that should be all right then.
Wednesday 18th November 2009 (late afternoon)
It's just gone five, and it's dark already. Now the [draft] timings from
Calne TC are beginning to make [more] sense.
I've been fumbling around with facebook at the free intercafe', trying (and,
largely failing,) to find useful information on the discussion forums of
their groups. Instead, it seems to be all "I'm right therefore you're wrong
and you should all die", with no conclusions or admissions at all, as far as
I could find, anyway.
And now I have to get back to my (slightly neglected) previous task of
drawing up another subdivided tasks list. I implemented all of my previous
list inside last week. Now it's halfway through this week and I haven't even
got the next list out of draft. (Although, TBF, I've already completed some
tasks I haven't written down yet and I have been out and about a lot.)
TBF: To be fair: Too many abbreviations creeping in. How would converting the
last paragraph entirely into abbreviated form look?:
- Code: Select all
ANIHTGBTM (SN) PTODUASTL. IIAOMPLILW. NIHTTWAIHEGTNLOOD.
(A, TBF, IACSTIHWDYAIHBOAAAL.)
Yeee... Naaaah... Hmmmm. So maybe not too many abbreviations yet, then.
The text alerts from the bank tell me the bank has re-credited the erroneous
�20 charge back into my account. Yesternight I received a letter dated last
Friday from them, grumbling that I hadn't contacted them about overdraft 2.0
and asking if I was experiencing financial difficulties.
So now I can take the �20 temporary allowance off my budget planner.
'Have looked up what "ISAF" stand's for, which I saw on a squaddies'
desert-camoflaged fatigues last Monday: "International Security Assistance
Force". It says underneath in Afghan "Help and Cooperation". This is infact
the invading army, helping and assisting them by shooting everything that
moves, then blaming the Afghans for all the violence.
Noticed[,] as I came in [to the office this afternoon,] that the footbridge
lights have been repaired, and replaced with new ones so bright you can't use
the bridge at all, or even look at it directly. The new lights are in the old
housings, so they also shine directly into your eyes when trying to cross the
bridge, as opposed to the sane ones of yore that pointed down at the bridge
instead.
However, the most prominent of the too-bright industrial-use-only-type lamps
at Platform 2 stairwell in bath station has been replaced with a merely
very-bright lamp, which means you can now look in the direction of the stairs
from the platform without suffering pain and risking eye damage. An optician
told me that eye damage will be prevented if you look away immedjatly.
Of course, you don't expect to see a blinding light in the places FGW have
put them, so your chances of averting your gaze quickly are reduced. I have
complained about this (it must have been a year ago now) to FGW in reference
to the situation at bath; now I shall have to do so again for here.
I suppose Network Rail are responsible for the 'Nam situation, as technically
the footbridge isn't in the station, at least not the bit FGW lease(?)
Thursday 19th November 2009 (very early morning)
All this money, and no spare food in the office. I have half a loaf of bread,
some "fruity" sauce, hardly any breadspread, and, that's about it. Priorities
not re-balanced yet, clearly.
I've just realised: I'm advertising the Calne Xmas Lights Switch-On, but I
don't know what extra help I'm doing this year (maybe participation in the
Latern Parade, maybe not), and who is actually doing the switch-on itself, or
if they just come on automatically. They're on a timer, so they all come on
automatically (and -in theory- simultanously), but I dunno if Calne TC are
pretending there's a button, and someone to press it, or not.
Probably someone from the council would do it. -So that'd be the Mayor,
then(?)
Things to do: Design another A9/VA/SWS advert. Hmmmmm. Probably best to have
the A9 poster descending from text-based, with a snappy poster-image, and a
featureless bit along the bottom, ready to accept a strip plugging the SW
Show 2010. Back burner.
Then there'll be the ROL re-worked one to use at Capital Bocking 2010.
Dusty strip of vinyl flooring, behind the cooker with the burners on.
Other things to do: Draw up Xmas Cards list and send some out before
February. This is where facebook come's in handy; browsing my contact's
contact lists for friends I forgot I knew.
facebook seems to be more a CMS with a very large userbase, rather than a
proper social networking site. (Like flickr.)
"You mean twitter?" asked one of my stalkers, in Wetherspoons.
"No, flickr."
"Twitter?"
"f-l-i-c-k-r dot com."
"Twitter?"
It's too noisy in there.
Thursday 19th November 2009 (afternoon)
My new mouse arrived today; fitted; good.
Will get a mousemat and try that and the new ball with it later.
Added mousemat and installed the extra-heavy mouseball.
Results: Mouse is heavier, and slightly easier to control for precise
movements. Non-slip mousemat slips either way up. Will have to ask for
clarification and use blu-tack in the meantime.
Wilkinsons mousemat is very good (part from being slightly confusing in use),
being black, A5-sized, rectangular, niether too hard nor too soft,
and cheap (50p).
I'm using it soft-side-down for now.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:03 pm
Friday 20th November 2009
Waiting (fruitlessly, as it turned out,) for the delivery of my new boots.
Perhaps they've been accidentally delivered to my home address instead. We
shall see.
Did some sewing (see below (Monday)) for more details.
Got further into facebook, adding more friends (to complete my Christmas Card
List). The rest are media, politicians, and the bank.
facebook told me I'd forgotten about the Chippenham Xmas Lights switch-on.
Went down and photographed things, processed them on the PC, then largely
failed to upload them through my mobile.
Discovered that my stalker is not only on facebook, but in communication with
a secret stalker. Oh well, it's nice to be liked, I suppose. And now, to
hide...
I put the Landlord's brother's scrap PC out of the way behind some things
under the desk, against the wall. I'm too busy with other things to
cannibalise it for the time being, it's not exactly compact, and it's in the
way.
Monday 23rd November 2009
I have several projects on the go. Some of them are part of my business, some
are not. Are some are secret. Secrecy is an annoying evil, largely for
patenting or similar reasons.
I name my projects, at least the ones I'm working on currently, to refer to
them easily, eg Project XLS. I also name my secret projects, and the name is
the only thing that get's discussed. To distinguish these from other
projects, I codename them, eg Codename Ebony.
Currently, I have three secret projects on the go, two of which co-habit
inside Codename Refresh, the minor one being Codename Subfresh if you like,
and the third is Codename Ebony. Now I have named them publicly, I can
refer to them on here without actually giving away what they are, and when
they become public, it will all make sense without me having to annotate this
blog.
I also have a non-secret project ongoing, which is Project XLS. This stand's
for Xmas Lights Switch-ons. the ordinary project names are meaningful. the
secret ones are not, or at least not helpfully, so there's no point trying to
guess what they mean, and there's no point asking, because I'm not telling.
You'll just have to wait: They'll release when they're ready.
Codename Refresh (both bits) have been rather rudely shoved out the way by
Codename Ebony, because it is more important, which is in turn waiting for
Project XLS to finish up and clear off, because it is fixed immovably in
time (mainly because Christmas is).
'Put bits of Project XLS on the events section of my business facebook page.
This made two events: The gatecrashing of Bath's Lights switchon party on the
26th, and the thing I've been booked for in Calne on the 28th.
To me, there is a third on the 27th, but that's a private meeting with Calne
TC, rather than a public-diary event in the way facebook defines it.
I found I can't read fb discussion tabs through my mobile, and the full
version of fb just redirect's me back into the mobile version when I try to
get around it that way. This meant I couldn't, until early this afternoon,
read 'Bassett's Mayor's reply to my post on police behaviour until now, but
he didn't write anything interesting. -Just words to the effect that he
think's the police are just great because he'd never been attacked by them,
which is a bit like denying the existence of burglars on the grounds that
haven't been burgled yourself.
Took delivery of my new boots, at the office address, after the delivery went
astray last Friday. Because it's ordered from nextdoor, someone walked round
with it, rather than going to all the trouble of sending out a van, as they
previously advised. Last year I could walk into their shop, give them some
paper folding stuff, and walk away with some leather goods. This year they
insist upon phone contact and debit cards. They are, however, still just next
door. [Over the [rail[way]] [foot]bridge, actually.]
Bits of Project XLS are:
In the meantime today I have brought and part-formed some wooden components
for Codename Ebony, and I shall be buying the paint for that when I nip down
to bath tomorrow to buy more plug/sockets and harangue the Southgate Centre
manager about needing permission to walk through it. There have been
lots of complaints about this.
Thus far, I have been able to run none of my secret projects by myself, and
the latest one is no different, leading to the usual tricky coordination
problems. However, all the other people involved "know the score", and this
help's a great deal.
Examining my new boots, titled VR6 instead of V6, but still model-named
"Bison", I see the quality continues to fall in deference to the price
rising, and now the soles are stiffer. The excuse for this is that they have
better grip, which I find hard to believe for outside surfaces.
There are more garnish yellow bits visible, though on a brighter note the
insides appear to have even more padding.
The midsole is still steel, but the toe cap is now composite material, and
it'd be nice to know what.
I'm gonna have ta' go home early now, to start the marination process so my
boot'll be ready to wear in the morning. (Look's at the "clock": It's Ten
O'Clock... but still early for me.)
Tuesday 24th November 2009 (early afternoon)
New boots duely soaked and polished. Or so I thought: The residue leather
food liquefied the polish, so it won't dry on top and won't polish. Buffing
it just pushes it around. I shall have to wait until it dries out and/or
scuffs a little before trying again.
The boots glistened while they were marinating, looked dull beforehand, and
look dull again now - after half an hour of "polishing". In addition, they
need breaking in.
Tuesday 24th November 2009 (late afternoon)
'Down bath now; got an appointment with Southgate, sourced (much to my surprise)
(soft) antlers, picked up some paint for Codename Ebony, got the extra power plugs
for Project XLS, quick intercafe usage, and away...
Waiting (fruitlessly, as it turned out,) for the delivery of my new boots.
Perhaps they've been accidentally delivered to my home address instead. We
shall see.
Did some sewing (see below (Monday)) for more details.
Got further into facebook, adding more friends (to complete my Christmas Card
List). The rest are media, politicians, and the bank.
facebook told me I'd forgotten about the Chippenham Xmas Lights switch-on.
Went down and photographed things, processed them on the PC, then largely
failed to upload them through my mobile.
Discovered that my stalker is not only on facebook, but in communication with
a secret stalker. Oh well, it's nice to be liked, I suppose. And now, to
hide...
I put the Landlord's brother's scrap PC out of the way behind some things
under the desk, against the wall. I'm too busy with other things to
cannibalise it for the time being, it's not exactly compact, and it's in the
way.
Monday 23rd November 2009
I have several projects on the go. Some of them are part of my business, some
are not. Are some are secret. Secrecy is an annoying evil, largely for
patenting or similar reasons.
I name my projects, at least the ones I'm working on currently, to refer to
them easily, eg Project XLS. I also name my secret projects, and the name is
the only thing that get's discussed. To distinguish these from other
projects, I codename them, eg Codename Ebony.
Currently, I have three secret projects on the go, two of which co-habit
inside Codename Refresh, the minor one being Codename Subfresh if you like,
and the third is Codename Ebony. Now I have named them publicly, I can
refer to them on here without actually giving away what they are, and when
they become public, it will all make sense without me having to annotate this
blog.
I also have a non-secret project ongoing, which is Project XLS. This stand's
for Xmas Lights Switch-ons. the ordinary project names are meaningful. the
secret ones are not, or at least not helpfully, so there's no point trying to
guess what they mean, and there's no point asking, because I'm not telling.
You'll just have to wait: They'll release when they're ready.
Codename Refresh (both bits) have been rather rudely shoved out the way by
Codename Ebony, because it is more important, which is in turn waiting for
Project XLS to finish up and clear off, because it is fixed immovably in
time (mainly because Christmas is).
'Put bits of Project XLS on the events section of my business facebook page.
This made two events: The gatecrashing of Bath's Lights switchon party on the
26th, and the thing I've been booked for in Calne on the 28th.
To me, there is a third on the 27th, but that's a private meeting with Calne
TC, rather than a public-diary event in the way facebook defines it.
I found I can't read fb discussion tabs through my mobile, and the full
version of fb just redirect's me back into the mobile version when I try to
get around it that way. This meant I couldn't, until early this afternoon,
read 'Bassett's Mayor's reply to my post on police behaviour until now, but
he didn't write anything interesting. -Just words to the effect that he
think's the police are just great because he'd never been attacked by them,
which is a bit like denying the existence of burglars on the grounds that
haven't been burgled yourself.
Took delivery of my new boots, at the office address, after the delivery went
astray last Friday. Because it's ordered from nextdoor, someone walked round
with it, rather than going to all the trouble of sending out a van, as they
previously advised. Last year I could walk into their shop, give them some
paper folding stuff, and walk away with some leather goods. This year they
insist upon phone contact and debit cards. They are, however, still just next
door. [Over the [rail[way]] [foot]bridge, actually.]
Bits of Project XLS are:
- Build some footlights, and now re-build them stronger, because putting the
controls on the tops of the stilts the first time around meant they were
still too low to reach, and the microswitches I used were too cheap and one
set jammed, despite me adding a barrier to stop this happening.
I have done some of this already; the planning/design, and sewing two
leg-straps together out of fabric tape and Velcro. Sewing on Velcro is just
terrific, as the thread snags all the time on the hook strips,
although the fluffy ones are okay.
I also need (probably later) to attach the current footlights with
custom-made brackets and bolts, instead of the duct tape which they
currently use, and to break (with plugs/sockets) the travel of the wire from
switch to stilt conduit, and between stilt conduct and footlight, to ease
assembly, servicing, and testing. This mean's one of the stilts will have to
wait, because I only brought two sets of plugs/sockets when I was last down
bath way, at the end of the day: Bath night!
-And I only have the loan of the specialist clamps until tomorrow evening,
too. - Make some antlers, from wire and tinsel and elastic, to strap onto my hat.
This may have to wait until later, due to the delays in the preparation
process caused by the bloody DWP. - Make another rear board cover, because although I have a spare front one,
my both my current rear ones are carrying posters ready to swap over. I need
front and rear blank ones fitted to accommodate Calne TC's requirements on
the 27th. - Make another pair of tyresocks from the blanks I have in stock, and do a
short practice run (if I can fit it in), which will wear down the current set
of tyres in the process.
In the meantime today I have brought and part-formed some wooden components
for Codename Ebony, and I shall be buying the paint for that when I nip down
to bath tomorrow to buy more plug/sockets and harangue the Southgate Centre
manager about needing permission to walk through it. There have been
lots of complaints about this.
Thus far, I have been able to run none of my secret projects by myself, and
the latest one is no different, leading to the usual tricky coordination
problems. However, all the other people involved "know the score", and this
help's a great deal.
Examining my new boots, titled VR6 instead of V6, but still model-named
"Bison", I see the quality continues to fall in deference to the price
rising, and now the soles are stiffer. The excuse for this is that they have
better grip, which I find hard to believe for outside surfaces.
There are more garnish yellow bits visible, though on a brighter note the
insides appear to have even more padding.
The midsole is still steel, but the toe cap is now composite material, and
it'd be nice to know what.
I'm gonna have ta' go home early now, to start the marination process so my
boot'll be ready to wear in the morning. (Look's at the "clock": It's Ten
O'Clock... but still early for me.)
Tuesday 24th November 2009 (early afternoon)
New boots duely soaked and polished. Or so I thought: The residue leather
food liquefied the polish, so it won't dry on top and won't polish. Buffing
it just pushes it around. I shall have to wait until it dries out and/or
scuffs a little before trying again.
The boots glistened while they were marinating, looked dull beforehand, and
look dull again now - after half an hour of "polishing". In addition, they
need breaking in.
Tuesday 24th November 2009 (late afternoon)
'Down bath now; got an appointment with Southgate, sourced (much to my surprise)
(soft) antlers, picked up some paint for Codename Ebony, got the extra power plugs
for Project XLS, quick intercafe usage, and away...
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:53 pm
Wednesday 25th November 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Considerable progress made (and about time too).
Got the "brackets" working, using a sturdy wire cutter to nibble through
sheet metal, and a small drill bit to widen and deburr the existing holes,
Coated those with black duct tape, both to blend in visually, and to make the
edges of the component safer.
Made some soft washers out of thin foam using existing repair washers as
templates. Added all that together, and hey presto: Bolted-on footlights.
In the meanwhilebeforetime, I had already broken the cable run in two places,
assembled new switchbuttons, and dismantled the old tape 'n' foam fixtures.
This leaves: Board covers (separate task), and repairing & fitting the
remaining plug to, to flaky footlight.
The one of The Others whom leant me the specialist clamp and had arranged to
collect it earlier didn't turn up today, thus enabling my current poor
time-management / task-prioritisation to triumph in the end. (And I'm still
not quite certain how.)
And now a pause to tidy the desk before carrying on.
Five hour's *ahem* nap, because I reached the point where soldering became
dangerous, after the amount of effort and fatigue I had accumulated.
Hoovered up lots of little bits of wire, both in here and in the adjoining
office, where electronic work had also been going on yesternight.
Attached the soft antlers to my hat, potentially boosting my height to 9 foot
and bringing to a halt my publicity sideline of popping into accommodating
hostelries.
Thursday 26th November 2009
Damn boots still won't polish. Furiously buffing away for half an hour, and
no joy at all.
Checked my appeal for photographers on flickr, and there was a very positive
response waiting for me, along with two shots one of them had taken of me on
my last trip down.
Lots of preparation: Blacked out the "non-antler" bits of the antlers,
swapped the board covers around from CMRS 2010 to "ladyred", ran indoor tests
of if I could put my antlers on before lifting the sandwichboards over my
head (no). Tested the new boots with the stilts (Pass), stopping the traffic
along the way.
Nipped down to bath, carrying my hat this time. Was able to mount, as
promised, on the cafe'-style chairs outside the Sports bar of the Royal
Hotel, next to the rail station.
It was getting properly dark at this point, and I went along Dorchester
Street into Southgate Street, passing by Orange leafleteers, who complained
that my presence was completely unfair; that and something about a broadband
offer.
Went up towards Milsom Street, which was blocked off on the bottom end,
because that was where the stage was. Diverted into York Street area, and the
vicinity of the Christmas Market (lots of little garden sheds supplied by
Whitehall Garden Centre).
Met a nine-foot tall white fairy, but she was a different one to either of
the ten-foot tall fairies I had met during the summer. Although my head level
was a foot below hers, she would have been on a level with my antlers, so
from her point of view, we would have appeared equal height.
You never expect to meet anyone else up there, but then, this is bath.
Several times when I passed by small children, they greeted me with "Hello
Mr. Reindeer". This was an unexpected development. The antlers aren't there
to appeal to children, their purpose is to attract the eye upwards. Then
again they aren't there to dispel attention (from anyway), either. "Hello,
child." I responded, and they seemed to accept that as natural.
Up Barton Street, some mounted police were blocking the road, or at least
they were until I inadvertently frightened their horses away.
Went up Gay Street, on the pavement, into and along George Street. Stayed
there for a while but was unable to get down Milsom Street, where the stage
was at the bottom, and hardly anybody was infront of it; the crowd control
people terrified of a repeat of Birmingham's crush incident, and somewhat
over-reacting. 3000 People? There were barely 300 infront of that stage.
Wondered where the giant TV screens, promised in The Chronicle, were.
Wandered along George Street, went over to the crowd on the "north bank", but
very tricky staying there, and crossed back to descend Gay Street again, this
time on the road for good traction.
Popped into Quiet Street, to see if they'd let me into Milsom Street through
there, but no joy. It wasn't on my plan, anyway. Back up to Lower Borough
walls, and was soon boxed in by a dense crowd.
Stayed there for some time, listening to the warbley PA system.
There was a countdown, and the lights came on about a second afterwards.
When the crowd cleared enough -some time later- I bocked over to where the
post office used to be, on the corner of Bond Street, and clung to a signpost
for a while. There was a dense crowd streaming south past me, and a bunch of
police playing at being traffic lights between me and the Abbey.
I pointed my rear boards at the crowd, and proffered leaflets as they
streamed past. The roads around there (particularly Broad Street) were closed
off to allow the crowd to escape.
Feeling very wobbly indeed -never a good thing on stilts- headed for benches
in Kingsmead Square. However, on arrival, found these were low benches with
no back. Fortunately, the Boston Tea Party, a pavement cafe', had low chairs
and tables out, and I "crashed" down onto these.
The occupants of the neighbouring table gave me a sip of mulled wine and
offered me a mince pie(, which I declined).
I sat there for a quarter of an hour, which was the length of time it took me
to cool down. Apparently it wasn't a hot evening for everyone else tonight.
A BBC HD outside broadcast van was parked nearby, but it's cameras were
elsewhere.
Wandered into Milsom Street. People were photographing me all the time, and
people asked to have their pictures taken with me about once every few
minutes, and sometimes several in a row.
The giant TV screens were on the back of the stage, handily facing the wall,
so nobody could see them(!).
Passed by a TV camera, wandered up the street, turned round, wandered down,
hung around infront of the stage area for a bit, where the crowds were
clinging, then down past the Pump Rooms to Southgate, or rather I tried to.
There was a dense crowd of people, too dangerous to move through, massed
outside the Pump Rooms. Apparently somebody had said Nicholas cage was in
there, about two hours ago, and everyone was waiting. Some wondered if he
really was in there.
Via the Abbey Square, and lots of little garden sheds, went round to the
other side, to give myself more options.
The police were keeping that road clear, and I could see at least one very
polished black "prestige" car waiting within what was now a dense crowd. A
waited there for quite some time. More police turned up, and every time
someone opened the door, the crowd went nuts.
Eventually the rumours proved true, as he came out, spending some time in the
crowd. I couldn't him directly, even from my vantage point, but I could tell
where he was by the concentration of flashbulb fire.
Then he got in a very shiny Range Rover, and I could see him in the front
passenger seat, a direct view. He was in darkness some of the time,
intermittently well-illuminated with camera flashes.
He looked just like he portrays himself in the movies, which is odd, because
most actor(esse)s look different "off duty".
Bocked down Southgate Street, gave out the last leaflets I was holding, and
dismounted on a handy bench.
At the rail station, found that the next train was over an hour away, and
waited in main Bar of the Royal Hotel. The Hotel constantly insists that bar
is only for guests, but nobody pays them any heed, and they don't enforce it.
Had a coffee, facebooked and flickr'd on my mobile to pass the time, using up
my 7Mb free internet prize.
Friday 27th November 2009
Met with Calne TC, mounted advertising on boards, loaded boards with first
half of leaflets, briefly planned routes and times. Left boards with them
overnight.
Considerable progress made (and about time too).
Got the "brackets" working, using a sturdy wire cutter to nibble through
sheet metal, and a small drill bit to widen and deburr the existing holes,
Coated those with black duct tape, both to blend in visually, and to make the
edges of the component safer.
Made some soft washers out of thin foam using existing repair washers as
templates. Added all that together, and hey presto: Bolted-on footlights.
In the meanwhilebeforetime, I had already broken the cable run in two places,
assembled new switchbuttons, and dismantled the old tape 'n' foam fixtures.
This leaves: Board covers (separate task), and repairing & fitting the
remaining plug to, to flaky footlight.
The one of The Others whom leant me the specialist clamp and had arranged to
collect it earlier didn't turn up today, thus enabling my current poor
time-management / task-prioritisation to triumph in the end. (And I'm still
not quite certain how.)
And now a pause to tidy the desk before carrying on.
Five hour's *ahem* nap, because I reached the point where soldering became
dangerous, after the amount of effort and fatigue I had accumulated.
Hoovered up lots of little bits of wire, both in here and in the adjoining
office, where electronic work had also been going on yesternight.
Attached the soft antlers to my hat, potentially boosting my height to 9 foot
and bringing to a halt my publicity sideline of popping into accommodating
hostelries.
Thursday 26th November 2009
Damn boots still won't polish. Furiously buffing away for half an hour, and
no joy at all.
Checked my appeal for photographers on flickr, and there was a very positive
response waiting for me, along with two shots one of them had taken of me on
my last trip down.
Lots of preparation: Blacked out the "non-antler" bits of the antlers,
swapped the board covers around from CMRS 2010 to "ladyred", ran indoor tests
of if I could put my antlers on before lifting the sandwichboards over my
head (no). Tested the new boots with the stilts (Pass), stopping the traffic
along the way.
Nipped down to bath, carrying my hat this time. Was able to mount, as
promised, on the cafe'-style chairs outside the Sports bar of the Royal
Hotel, next to the rail station.
It was getting properly dark at this point, and I went along Dorchester
Street into Southgate Street, passing by Orange leafleteers, who complained
that my presence was completely unfair; that and something about a broadband
offer.
Went up towards Milsom Street, which was blocked off on the bottom end,
because that was where the stage was. Diverted into York Street area, and the
vicinity of the Christmas Market (lots of little garden sheds supplied by
Whitehall Garden Centre).
Met a nine-foot tall white fairy, but she was a different one to either of
the ten-foot tall fairies I had met during the summer. Although my head level
was a foot below hers, she would have been on a level with my antlers, so
from her point of view, we would have appeared equal height.
You never expect to meet anyone else up there, but then, this is bath.
Several times when I passed by small children, they greeted me with "Hello
Mr. Reindeer". This was an unexpected development. The antlers aren't there
to appeal to children, their purpose is to attract the eye upwards. Then
again they aren't there to dispel attention (from anyway), either. "Hello,
child." I responded, and they seemed to accept that as natural.
Up Barton Street, some mounted police were blocking the road, or at least
they were until I inadvertently frightened their horses away.
Went up Gay Street, on the pavement, into and along George Street. Stayed
there for a while but was unable to get down Milsom Street, where the stage
was at the bottom, and hardly anybody was infront of it; the crowd control
people terrified of a repeat of Birmingham's crush incident, and somewhat
over-reacting. 3000 People? There were barely 300 infront of that stage.
Wondered where the giant TV screens, promised in The Chronicle, were.
Wandered along George Street, went over to the crowd on the "north bank", but
very tricky staying there, and crossed back to descend Gay Street again, this
time on the road for good traction.
Popped into Quiet Street, to see if they'd let me into Milsom Street through
there, but no joy. It wasn't on my plan, anyway. Back up to Lower Borough
walls, and was soon boxed in by a dense crowd.
Stayed there for some time, listening to the warbley PA system.
There was a countdown, and the lights came on about a second afterwards.
When the crowd cleared enough -some time later- I bocked over to where the
post office used to be, on the corner of Bond Street, and clung to a signpost
for a while. There was a dense crowd streaming south past me, and a bunch of
police playing at being traffic lights between me and the Abbey.
I pointed my rear boards at the crowd, and proffered leaflets as they
streamed past. The roads around there (particularly Broad Street) were closed
off to allow the crowd to escape.
Feeling very wobbly indeed -never a good thing on stilts- headed for benches
in Kingsmead Square. However, on arrival, found these were low benches with
no back. Fortunately, the Boston Tea Party, a pavement cafe', had low chairs
and tables out, and I "crashed" down onto these.
The occupants of the neighbouring table gave me a sip of mulled wine and
offered me a mince pie(, which I declined).
I sat there for a quarter of an hour, which was the length of time it took me
to cool down. Apparently it wasn't a hot evening for everyone else tonight.
A BBC HD outside broadcast van was parked nearby, but it's cameras were
elsewhere.
Wandered into Milsom Street. People were photographing me all the time, and
people asked to have their pictures taken with me about once every few
minutes, and sometimes several in a row.
The giant TV screens were on the back of the stage, handily facing the wall,
so nobody could see them(!).
Passed by a TV camera, wandered up the street, turned round, wandered down,
hung around infront of the stage area for a bit, where the crowds were
clinging, then down past the Pump Rooms to Southgate, or rather I tried to.
There was a dense crowd of people, too dangerous to move through, massed
outside the Pump Rooms. Apparently somebody had said Nicholas cage was in
there, about two hours ago, and everyone was waiting. Some wondered if he
really was in there.
Via the Abbey Square, and lots of little garden sheds, went round to the
other side, to give myself more options.
The police were keeping that road clear, and I could see at least one very
polished black "prestige" car waiting within what was now a dense crowd. A
waited there for quite some time. More police turned up, and every time
someone opened the door, the crowd went nuts.
Eventually the rumours proved true, as he came out, spending some time in the
crowd. I couldn't him directly, even from my vantage point, but I could tell
where he was by the concentration of flashbulb fire.
Then he got in a very shiny Range Rover, and I could see him in the front
passenger seat, a direct view. He was in darkness some of the time,
intermittently well-illuminated with camera flashes.
He looked just like he portrays himself in the movies, which is odd, because
most actor(esse)s look different "off duty".
Bocked down Southgate Street, gave out the last leaflets I was holding, and
dismounted on a handy bench.
At the rail station, found that the next train was over an hour away, and
waited in main Bar of the Royal Hotel. The Hotel constantly insists that bar
is only for guests, but nobody pays them any heed, and they don't enforce it.
Had a coffee, facebooked and flickr'd on my mobile to pass the time, using up
my 7Mb free internet prize.
Friday 27th November 2009
Met with Calne TC, mounted advertising on boards, loaded boards with first
half of leaflets, briefly planned routes and times. Left boards with them
overnight.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:35 pm
Friday 27th November 2009 (late afternoon)
Popped into the office, bumped into the Landlord, who have me the happy news
that the office clown has handed in his keys... until he wants to come back
again. He was going to pay for his non-worked painting Advance by leafleting,
which has therefore now turned back into a debt.
Quick station intercafe visit, during which I was SMS'd by the office clown,
who claimed to have lost his keys, and wanting to be let in.
The things he needed so urgently to do were, eat a whole large pizza, large
bottle of coke and extra fat, then bring in a box of leaflets which he had
picked up from The Landlord earlier, open it, and leave it in the office
without doing anything with it.
Saturday 28th November 2009
Bus to Calne, picked up other equipment and first half of leaflets at Bank
House. Asked likely questions the public might ask me. Was offered the option
of an indoor break.
Did the first half of the stiltwalking, taking 2 1/2 hours to get rid of 150
leaflets. Then went for a lie down in Bank House for 20 minutes (Notice: "Mr.
Reindeer is hibernating"), ate most of my high-energy flapjack, and back out
on the densely-packed streets. This time, all the leaflets were gone in half
an hour.
In the gathering darkness, it was looking too slippy up the hill, so I stayed
in the centre near the council offices and Church Street (which is closed to
traffic). I switched my hazard lights and rear indicators from cascade (one
of three lights on all the time) to flash (all three lights on/off
simultaneously), and went for a final clunk down the badly-lit tunnel bolted
onto the side of Somerfields. The orange warning lights lighting up the
walls and the echoing clunking noise, it's just like the scene from Aliens
where the exoskeleton-JCB thingy fight's the alien monsters. This being
Calne, they have the monsters too.
The town council had hired a band and set up a stage on the other side of the
river. It a bit cold by now, and tipping down with rain. It was just like the
summer.
Finished playing with the monsters, and hung around the band area for a bit.
Nothing to hang onto there, so had to move back to the central area by the
town hall.
Dark now, lots of light sabre and candyfloss sellers taking up the streets
one end, a small-but-brightly-lit fairground in the distance, and emergency
vehicles with their lights on sealing off the road behind me. Not to be
outdone, I was covered with flashing lights too. At the start, they wanted to
put balloons on me too, but then decided they'd look better on the railings.
Tried to get out of the way of the route for the lantern parade, but found my
escape route sealed off by crowd barriers. Pavement looked too slippy, but
managed to find a gap, and asked that section of the crowd to make way, which
they did, although only a narrow way.
Asked an official of the council for more leaflets, but I've used them all
now, apparently. What to do? "Bounce around amusing people" is the only
remaining tenet of my job description I can fulfil. So behind the crowd,
whom are waiting for the lantern parade to kick off, hopefully followed by
the lights switchon event itself, I walk around a bit, going for extra
bounce. Everyone seems to like this very much, which tell's you how bored
they are.
The crowd seemed not to mind the silly-hatted police and florescent-jacketed
marshals wandering around, and me also for some reason, although I didn't
know what I was doing, but I carried on doing it because I strongly suspected
the town officials didn't know what they were doing either.
Eventually the lantern parade arrived, and promptly ground to a halt because
there were too many of them. And so everybody watched the traffic jam for a
while, and then they had the switchon before the parade had finished.
Dismounted, and into Bank House for debriefing, passing through the foyer
which was occupied by St. John's Ambulance staff, who frowned at me as I
passed. My hazard lights were still on at this point, and I was carrying the
boards, with the stilts over my shoulder, and ducking my antler-sprouting hat
to get through the doors.
I had been promised hot tea, but nobody was around, so I decided to try
upstairs, where I found other performers clustered around a kettle. I
ended-up making my own coffee, and doing some of Calne TC's washing-up for
them. For balance, I left my empty mug in the back office instead of taking
it back up to the kitchen.
On the midway level was a half-open door full of radio chatter and uniformed
officials. Upstairs in a darkened room next to the kitchen were off-duty
marshals looking out the window at the crowd. They didn't mind me having a
look as well.
Every so often a policeperson seemingly on a tea-related expedition passed by
and beamed approvingly at whoever he passed, no matter who they were or what
they were doing. I'm not sure about this assumed security - presumably it
only works because you have to work out that you're allowed in before you
try. If you haven't worked that out, you'd ask if you're supposed to be here,
which presumably means you're not.
Then I went downstairs and asked/waited for my cheque, which was not
forthcoming. They said something about posting it to me instead, which will
do. I had to dash off for the bus then. Sod's Law says someone will turn up
with my cheque immediately I'm out of range.
Back to 'Nam, two hours drying out in the office, a little Pub-obsessed
facebook-checking, then in the Pub for a few Pints. Every time I go out, beer
has gone up. Now it's �3/Pt.
Added a status update to facebook, saying where I was and the futility of
doing so when actually in a Pub, and showed it to Shaun, one of the
other people around the table. later on, I discovered he had pressed the
"like" button, making it look as though I had "liked" my own status.
Some people were more drunk than me, some of whom I had to help off the
floor.
Split up after the Pub, and later met Shaun again by The Arches. Long chat,
and helped him into a taxi.
Sunday 29th November 2009
No hangover, but slept at home a lot nonetheless, savouring the strange
sensation of being warm & dry.
Monday 30th November 2009
A busy, bath-centric morning.
Was going to nip down to the cashpoint in town to get a quick �10 out for the
early rail ticket, but then realised I could do it quicker and without
drawing so much, using the card-accepting ticket machine in the station.
Arrived in bath with time to spare, so drew out some of my JSA money to make
things run smoother, faster.
Had the SouthGate meeting, which was brisk and informative. Some mutual
misinterpretations cleared, some sticking points highlighted. No miracles,
but could have gone a lot worse.
Then went off to pay my secretary a day early, then planning to drop by the
model shop to see if they had my delivery in. As on way into secretary's
office, phoned by then saying they have it ready.
Paid secretary, picked up Helping Hands, 1 Pound cheaper than advertised.
Topped up mobile, stopped in a Pub for piece & quite & coffee, and wrote
short report from notes. The coffee, at an eye-watering �2.25 (that'll teach
me to stop at a touristy place) came in a Irish-coffee handled glass
contraption, (pointlessly) on a saucer with a spoon, a large lump of brown
sugar, and a small dish with extra lumps of sugars. The top third was froth,
which was a bit rich at that price. I stirred in the sugarlump, discovering
as I finished that it was fudge. Fished that out again with the spoon.
An email came through on my phone, from Calne TC: They want me to invoice
them: Fair enough.
Visited my friend's intercafe', and typed in the report; posted on the
relevant flickr group thread:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/23702100@N ... 836861476/
'Let the buskers information site know about it, too.
Clarified definitions of the Dolphin package at the Orange Shop:
All internet usage is free, not just facebook, up to a 50Mb cap.
This is during the evening, which is defined as 7pm-7am.
It doesn't seem to be charging me for daytime internet use either now, but
then I have just topped up. Hey:- I wonder if the "per month" Top-Up
frequency refer's to calendar months? ie, Will it revert to daytime-only,
charging-for-texts, tomorrow?
Shopping whilst hungry, and bearing in mind how little fish I'm getting these
days, and the need to get lots of nutrients in the winter, brought a small
box of sushi from the station outlet. Wouldn't have paid �3.75 for that if I
wasn't as hungry as I was.
-And back to Chippenham.
Brought some more components for Codename Ebony - now all I need is to bring
in some tools from home. (And, er, finish the actual research.)
Tuesday 1st December 2009
Brought in some tools from home.
I brought a replacement headlamp (for use on my head; the first two I've
converted into footlights and bolted to my stilts, the last one was taken
apart for spares for the footlights), a warm hat, and some food, to kick off
the volunteer leafleting in relative [to last year] comfort. Then I was
knocked for six by the new Pot Noodle Doner Kebab flavour. It's a very mild,
lamb soup concoction, and a sachet of chilli sauce, which is like
paintstripper. Jocular warnings are NOT helpful and NOT funny. I'm sure there
are laws against this sort of thing. It reminds me of the Monty Python sketch
where there's a complaint about someone biting into a "chocolate surprise"
and a contraption inside piecing both his cheeks with spikes. When police
asked the manufacturer why, he replied "That's the surprise!". Not funny in
real life.
Beforehandwhile, I shifted the padding for my stilts from under my knees
to behind my ankles to stop the second type of scraping that breaking in my
boots was producing. On the trip down to the shops this has worked quite
well. (And well afterwards, although I've been a bit too distracted by the
hydrochloric acid "sauce" to appreciate it.)
Earlier on, stamped out version two of the invoice form; just have to look up
how to print that now... If I had some in stock ready, I could've sent one
out yesterday!
Saturday 5th December 2009 (just gone midnight)
Exploding abscess problem necessitated Vodka & paracetamol & caffeine, so
wasn't able to follow through extensive plans laid down for this weekend.
(At least, now for today.)
A bit wobbly now, but pain entirely gone.
Saturday 5th December 2009 (late morning)
No ill effects from last night, probably because I used the minimum amount of
alcohol, and not enough to get properly drunk.
Fixed small bug in personal accounts spreadsheet that means I no longer need
to add correction offsets whenever banking is "mentioned".
Took !Docktor out of boot sequence and replaced with most commonly used icons
from (put on the pinboard), and one to start !Docktor if ever required
after boot. RPC Now usable in 20s from cold power up, causing
perceptual wait of 12s. Perceptible timings starts from sitting down after
plugging in at wall, looking up at screen and having hand on mouse, and end's
when machine will respond to user input.
Some anti-social behaviour at the station; had to call out the BTP and liaise
with FGW.
During my diverted time away from 'Bassett and staying in 'Nam, guarding the
office, did a few thing I'd been putting off, including a retouched photo of
the Conservative PPC brandishing a pink light sabre. Then did a blue version
(Tory colours). 'Will upload these to flickr on Monday.
Sunday 7th December 2009
500 Charity leaflets out in Pewsham, over 3:45 Hrs, making an average of
133/Hr, or one every 27s. Not too bad, considering it's a low density housing
area, and it takes a while to rush from house to house, and the overall time
includes breaks.
At this rate, the remaining 4,500 leaflets will take another 34Hrs to
deliver, or at 1000/day, 5 more days. At 500/day, 9 days. I experienced some
minor chafing towards the end, so I'll stick to 500/day until my body adapts.
Monday 7th December 2009 (early morning)
Worked through bits of the night, wide awake now, but hungry, thus too little
energy to continue without a proper break. Tidied desk, gathered up to take
home, some bits that were unnecessary to have hanging around.
Too tired to do the board swapping etc that I need to, for now.
Popped into the office, bumped into the Landlord, who have me the happy news
that the office clown has handed in his keys... until he wants to come back
again. He was going to pay for his non-worked painting Advance by leafleting,
which has therefore now turned back into a debt.
Quick station intercafe visit, during which I was SMS'd by the office clown,
who claimed to have lost his keys, and wanting to be let in.
The things he needed so urgently to do were, eat a whole large pizza, large
bottle of coke and extra fat, then bring in a box of leaflets which he had
picked up from The Landlord earlier, open it, and leave it in the office
without doing anything with it.
Saturday 28th November 2009
Bus to Calne, picked up other equipment and first half of leaflets at Bank
House. Asked likely questions the public might ask me. Was offered the option
of an indoor break.
Did the first half of the stiltwalking, taking 2 1/2 hours to get rid of 150
leaflets. Then went for a lie down in Bank House for 20 minutes (Notice: "Mr.
Reindeer is hibernating"), ate most of my high-energy flapjack, and back out
on the densely-packed streets. This time, all the leaflets were gone in half
an hour.
In the gathering darkness, it was looking too slippy up the hill, so I stayed
in the centre near the council offices and Church Street (which is closed to
traffic). I switched my hazard lights and rear indicators from cascade (one
of three lights on all the time) to flash (all three lights on/off
simultaneously), and went for a final clunk down the badly-lit tunnel bolted
onto the side of Somerfields. The orange warning lights lighting up the
walls and the echoing clunking noise, it's just like the scene from Aliens
where the exoskeleton-JCB thingy fight's the alien monsters. This being
Calne, they have the monsters too.
The town council had hired a band and set up a stage on the other side of the
river. It a bit cold by now, and tipping down with rain. It was just like the
summer.
Finished playing with the monsters, and hung around the band area for a bit.
Nothing to hang onto there, so had to move back to the central area by the
town hall.
Dark now, lots of light sabre and candyfloss sellers taking up the streets
one end, a small-but-brightly-lit fairground in the distance, and emergency
vehicles with their lights on sealing off the road behind me. Not to be
outdone, I was covered with flashing lights too. At the start, they wanted to
put balloons on me too, but then decided they'd look better on the railings.
Tried to get out of the way of the route for the lantern parade, but found my
escape route sealed off by crowd barriers. Pavement looked too slippy, but
managed to find a gap, and asked that section of the crowd to make way, which
they did, although only a narrow way.
Asked an official of the council for more leaflets, but I've used them all
now, apparently. What to do? "Bounce around amusing people" is the only
remaining tenet of my job description I can fulfil. So behind the crowd,
whom are waiting for the lantern parade to kick off, hopefully followed by
the lights switchon event itself, I walk around a bit, going for extra
bounce. Everyone seems to like this very much, which tell's you how bored
they are.
The crowd seemed not to mind the silly-hatted police and florescent-jacketed
marshals wandering around, and me also for some reason, although I didn't
know what I was doing, but I carried on doing it because I strongly suspected
the town officials didn't know what they were doing either.
Eventually the lantern parade arrived, and promptly ground to a halt because
there were too many of them. And so everybody watched the traffic jam for a
while, and then they had the switchon before the parade had finished.
Dismounted, and into Bank House for debriefing, passing through the foyer
which was occupied by St. John's Ambulance staff, who frowned at me as I
passed. My hazard lights were still on at this point, and I was carrying the
boards, with the stilts over my shoulder, and ducking my antler-sprouting hat
to get through the doors.
I had been promised hot tea, but nobody was around, so I decided to try
upstairs, where I found other performers clustered around a kettle. I
ended-up making my own coffee, and doing some of Calne TC's washing-up for
them. For balance, I left my empty mug in the back office instead of taking
it back up to the kitchen.
On the midway level was a half-open door full of radio chatter and uniformed
officials. Upstairs in a darkened room next to the kitchen were off-duty
marshals looking out the window at the crowd. They didn't mind me having a
look as well.
Every so often a policeperson seemingly on a tea-related expedition passed by
and beamed approvingly at whoever he passed, no matter who they were or what
they were doing. I'm not sure about this assumed security - presumably it
only works because you have to work out that you're allowed in before you
try. If you haven't worked that out, you'd ask if you're supposed to be here,
which presumably means you're not.
Then I went downstairs and asked/waited for my cheque, which was not
forthcoming. They said something about posting it to me instead, which will
do. I had to dash off for the bus then. Sod's Law says someone will turn up
with my cheque immediately I'm out of range.
Back to 'Nam, two hours drying out in the office, a little Pub-obsessed
facebook-checking, then in the Pub for a few Pints. Every time I go out, beer
has gone up. Now it's �3/Pt.
Added a status update to facebook, saying where I was and the futility of
doing so when actually in a Pub, and showed it to Shaun, one of the
other people around the table. later on, I discovered he had pressed the
"like" button, making it look as though I had "liked" my own status.
Some people were more drunk than me, some of whom I had to help off the
floor.
Split up after the Pub, and later met Shaun again by The Arches. Long chat,
and helped him into a taxi.
Sunday 29th November 2009
No hangover, but slept at home a lot nonetheless, savouring the strange
sensation of being warm & dry.
Monday 30th November 2009
A busy, bath-centric morning.
Was going to nip down to the cashpoint in town to get a quick �10 out for the
early rail ticket, but then realised I could do it quicker and without
drawing so much, using the card-accepting ticket machine in the station.
Arrived in bath with time to spare, so drew out some of my JSA money to make
things run smoother, faster.
Had the SouthGate meeting, which was brisk and informative. Some mutual
misinterpretations cleared, some sticking points highlighted. No miracles,
but could have gone a lot worse.
Then went off to pay my secretary a day early, then planning to drop by the
model shop to see if they had my delivery in. As on way into secretary's
office, phoned by then saying they have it ready.
Paid secretary, picked up Helping Hands, 1 Pound cheaper than advertised.
Topped up mobile, stopped in a Pub for piece & quite & coffee, and wrote
short report from notes. The coffee, at an eye-watering �2.25 (that'll teach
me to stop at a touristy place) came in a Irish-coffee handled glass
contraption, (pointlessly) on a saucer with a spoon, a large lump of brown
sugar, and a small dish with extra lumps of sugars. The top third was froth,
which was a bit rich at that price. I stirred in the sugarlump, discovering
as I finished that it was fudge. Fished that out again with the spoon.
An email came through on my phone, from Calne TC: They want me to invoice
them: Fair enough.
Visited my friend's intercafe', and typed in the report; posted on the
relevant flickr group thread:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/23702100@N ... 836861476/
'Let the buskers information site know about it, too.
Clarified definitions of the Dolphin package at the Orange Shop:
All internet usage is free, not just facebook, up to a 50Mb cap.
This is during the evening, which is defined as 7pm-7am.
It doesn't seem to be charging me for daytime internet use either now, but
then I have just topped up. Hey:- I wonder if the "per month" Top-Up
frequency refer's to calendar months? ie, Will it revert to daytime-only,
charging-for-texts, tomorrow?
Shopping whilst hungry, and bearing in mind how little fish I'm getting these
days, and the need to get lots of nutrients in the winter, brought a small
box of sushi from the station outlet. Wouldn't have paid �3.75 for that if I
wasn't as hungry as I was.
-And back to Chippenham.
Brought some more components for Codename Ebony - now all I need is to bring
in some tools from home. (And, er, finish the actual research.)
Tuesday 1st December 2009
Brought in some tools from home.
I brought a replacement headlamp (for use on my head; the first two I've
converted into footlights and bolted to my stilts, the last one was taken
apart for spares for the footlights), a warm hat, and some food, to kick off
the volunteer leafleting in relative [to last year] comfort. Then I was
knocked for six by the new Pot Noodle Doner Kebab flavour. It's a very mild,
lamb soup concoction, and a sachet of chilli sauce, which is like
paintstripper. Jocular warnings are NOT helpful and NOT funny. I'm sure there
are laws against this sort of thing. It reminds me of the Monty Python sketch
where there's a complaint about someone biting into a "chocolate surprise"
and a contraption inside piecing both his cheeks with spikes. When police
asked the manufacturer why, he replied "That's the surprise!". Not funny in
real life.
Beforehandwhile, I shifted the padding for my stilts from under my knees
to behind my ankles to stop the second type of scraping that breaking in my
boots was producing. On the trip down to the shops this has worked quite
well. (And well afterwards, although I've been a bit too distracted by the
hydrochloric acid "sauce" to appreciate it.)
Earlier on, stamped out version two of the invoice form; just have to look up
how to print that now... If I had some in stock ready, I could've sent one
out yesterday!
Saturday 5th December 2009 (just gone midnight)
Exploding abscess problem necessitated Vodka & paracetamol & caffeine, so
wasn't able to follow through extensive plans laid down for this weekend.
(At least, now for today.)
A bit wobbly now, but pain entirely gone.
Saturday 5th December 2009 (late morning)
No ill effects from last night, probably because I used the minimum amount of
alcohol, and not enough to get properly drunk.
Fixed small bug in personal accounts spreadsheet that means I no longer need
to add correction offsets whenever banking is "mentioned".
Took !Docktor out of boot sequence and replaced with most commonly used icons
from (put on the pinboard), and one to start !Docktor if ever required
after boot. RPC Now usable in 20s from cold power up, causing
perceptual wait of 12s. Perceptible timings starts from sitting down after
plugging in at wall, looking up at screen and having hand on mouse, and end's
when machine will respond to user input.
Some anti-social behaviour at the station; had to call out the BTP and liaise
with FGW.
During my diverted time away from 'Bassett and staying in 'Nam, guarding the
office, did a few thing I'd been putting off, including a retouched photo of
the Conservative PPC brandishing a pink light sabre. Then did a blue version
(Tory colours). 'Will upload these to flickr on Monday.
Sunday 7th December 2009
500 Charity leaflets out in Pewsham, over 3:45 Hrs, making an average of
133/Hr, or one every 27s. Not too bad, considering it's a low density housing
area, and it takes a while to rush from house to house, and the overall time
includes breaks.
At this rate, the remaining 4,500 leaflets will take another 34Hrs to
deliver, or at 1000/day, 5 more days. At 500/day, 9 days. I experienced some
minor chafing towards the end, so I'll stick to 500/day until my body adapts.
Monday 7th December 2009 (early morning)
Worked through bits of the night, wide awake now, but hungry, thus too little
energy to continue without a proper break. Tidied desk, gathered up to take
home, some bits that were unnecessary to have hanging around.
Too tired to do the board swapping etc that I need to, for now.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Mon Dec 21, 2009 12:59 pm
Monday 7th December 2009 (afternoon)
Dusted off my tape dictaphone and used it to record thoughts in the dark,
which are always clearer thoughts. Brought that in to the office, to type up
'n' sort.
Monday 7th December 2009 (late evening)
I have just noticed that in last Saturday's entry, my retouched picture of
the Tory PPC, above the paragraph mentioning him, is also directly below the
paragraph describing "Some anti-social behaviour at the station; had to call
out the BTP..."
I would like to clarify that the PPC was not behaving anti-socially, was not
present at the railway station at the time, and the stormtroopers are not
BTP.
In addition, I have informed him of the picture, although I am not able to
read his response until tomorrow morning, as Orange have just made off with �8
of of my credit, despite having a �2/day cap on free internet use.
Gosh, I'm glad I switched to Dolphin now: If I'd stayed on Orange Starter,
and just brought Extras (Browsing Bundles), I'd have at least �20 free now.
'Will grumble to Orange about this, in the morning.
Changing dressings for bearing of boot-breaking-in, found large deep red
welts, which could hamper leaflet delivery and general moving around
progress. Cleaned and applied fresh extra-thick dressings.
Cleaned with vodka, which at least told me the skin wasn't broken. It wasn't
the right shape either, but you can't have everything. Applied one of the
expensive dressings to the most worryingly mishappen area.
Wednesday 9th December 2009
'Bit wobbly today and yestereve. Brought some multivitamin tablets to
rebalance my diet.
Removed the old Poweriser Pages saved HTML, that which isn't directly
convertable to text anyway, saving 1% of HDD space (about 150Mb). I won't
move the new slimline versions into the old spaces; it'd be best to have them
all nice 'n' searchable in one place, anyway.
Remembered to tell Calne TC I'd run out of invoices, but then they emailed me
before I had the chance to send my email... Printed out a new master invoice
copy, should be able to run a few photocpies off that tomorrowish.
Thursday 10th December 2009
A rushed bath, and off for a lunch-meeting with an amatuer film-maker. Via
facebook, I have volentuneered to be his assistant this Saturday. Essentially
I will be a mic stand.
We have arranged to meet at a cafe in town, not something I generally do.
We discussed my motivation, travel arrangements, my job role, and what to
bring.
Because food was involved and it takes time to eat, we also talked about each
other's careers.
Then off to Bassett to be a reindeer, to-ing and fro-ing around the High
Street and Borough Fields, and handing out a great deal of CMRS leaflets,
over fifty -maybe a hundred.
Wandered over to the Leisure Centre, in search of cameras and arriving
traffic at the Question Time studios. Enquires there pointed me in the
direction of the school (damn that local paper!), and after hanging around
the school gates for a minute or two not seeing much apart from one unmanned
police van, nipped down the carpark road a little, to ask directions.
The first person I passed didn't know anything, then two others spied me, and
tried to help. It was an equation of potentials: Put advertising near
cameras. However, the specifics weren't helping: All camera inside, filming
not yet happening, no arriving traffic, and any action taking place hours
after I have to leave. And speaking of leaving, they did ask me to leave,
which was a bit off - I had only come in to speak to them, and then to leave
for a place by an entrance, so I would have been leaving shortly anyway.
Trudged back towards the High Street, followed by lots of students. Walked
briskly.
Conversations while briskly walking, brisker and brisker. Cut back through
Sprats Barn Crescent again, flumoxing the natives, and crossing the High
Street and the miniroundabout, bringing the traffic to a halt.
Positioning myself near trees/posts, to advertise mainly to the traffic,
because -as someone pointed out- most of the pedestrians had gone by then.
Started to get strange, with cold dark tricky pavements, less people, more
rowdy behaviour, and jam-packed traffic. Decided to dismount.
'Off to watch Question Time, much facebook involvement...
Friday 11th December 2009
Planned to wash hair, pick up supplies, produce and delivery invoices,
and go round to a close friend's house, but it turned out to be too much of a
squeeze for public transport whilst under attack [me not them], so I ended-up
dropping the deliveries and preparing for tomorrow and going leafleting
instead. No spare money for contingencies during the trips anyway, so 'best
[put] forward to Monday, anyhow.
Managed to leave my only comb at the office, so will have to wet and recomb
hair later. Early night tonight; strange [is there any other kind?] day
tomorrow.
Somehow not enough time left for the leafleting in the evening, so decided
to drop that and have an early night. I had to get up early in the morning.
Saturday 12th December 2009
Waited otside the office for a lift from the actor, then realised I didn't
know what he nor he car looked like, and phoned the Director, who said he
would be picking me up anyway.
After a few minutes, a tiny flashy sportscar pulled up and I squeezed in.
Fortunatly the seat adjusted back quite a bit. The engine was were the rear
seats ought to be, with luggage compartments in both front and rear.
We zoomed down to bath, sticking to the speed limit but feeling much faster.
There we parked at the actresses' house, and went off again with her in the
actor's car, which was big enough to carry the four of us and all the gear.
Then it was back up nearly to Chippenham and, stopping in a turning for a
field on the edge of Ford. We used the back roads out of bath, at one point
passing the inverted-cone of a concrete water tower visible from the A4
between Corsham and Box. It was standing in part of an RAF base, probably
Colerne.
Then it was a rather lengthy series of shots using the car as a prop, in the
turning, then in the field. Then we went off through another field to a muddy
wooded bit, to film another chase section. All the while now, we could hear
reving engines and screeching tyres, because Castle Combe race track was
right over the next hill.
Then it was back to the car and off to Dyrham Park, near Chipping Sodbury, to
shoot a small section of chase in a grassy expanse off a track. And then down
to bath, stopping at a Pub for lunch.
On the way, we passed a giant illuminated sign advising us not to leave
valuables in the car. What that was doing in the middle of nowhere along the
A46 instead of in the city itself was anyone's guess.
So we stopped at this Pub on the edge of the city, er, taking our bags with
us, and the Director brought us all lunch, which was a very nice surprise.
And then it was back in the car again, and parking as close as we could to
The Circus, in Bennet Steet, infact.
Met with another actor in The Circus. Filmed at The Circus and an alleyway
near it.
The Director misplaced a lense cover, so I volunteered to retrace our route.
I returned five minutes later with a black circular thing that wasn't it.
While I was gone he found it anyway, in one of his hundreds of equipment
compartments.
And then it was back in the actor's car again, having lost the third actor
somewhere along the way, and back to the actress's house again to all swap
around.
We were blocked out by a Drain Doctor van for a bit: We needed to get the
Director's car out.
When we got down there, the Director asked me to wait up the hill. His engine
is too small without the turbocharger to get more than the driver up a hill.
When it heats up, the turbocharges kick's in, and then full power is
available.
We motored back to 'Nam, and he agreed to drop me at my house instead of the
office. I was tired out.
My role was carrying things around and pointing the boom mic towards the
actors, while treating them as objects (so I didn't distract them by looking
into their eyes). Also some switching on and off of the recording equipment,
which looked like a datalogger.
Looked on facebook, and found I have been described as the Director's
Assistant and Sound Engineer. (I described myself as a mic stand.)
Sunday 13th December 2009
Wanted to go leafleting today, but had to stay home and calm down a relative
who went nuts and wanted to burn down the house.
Do other people have these problems?
Monday 14th December 2009
Planned to do a lot of travelling today, but very difficult getting out of
the house in the mornings: 'Will have to invest heavily in this.
Mid afternoon, collected income, noting that DWP have taken �12 out already,
and picked up a few basic supplies.
Picked up two cheap calendars from Wilkinsons, to hang side-by-side:
A tabular one with the month and last & next months' in preview, and a
fill-in monthly one.
No facebook checks today: The transmitter near my home is down for
"datamissions", and so is the one near my office, ie the one on top of the
phone exchange.
Leafleting, estimated 327 out. In 2:10 Hrs, one leaflet every 24s: It's
getting better. Only that number out partly because I hit 2100 [Nine O'Clock,
not 2,100 leaflets], and partly because when I did so, I reached the end of
Wick's Drive.
It took 1:25 to transverse the fractral monstrousity that is Wicks Drive,
making four of these done so far, and nine remaining on the gnarled bush that
is the Pewsham estate. When I've done the next one, Fortune Way, I will have
completed the first quarter.
Wednesday 16th December 2009 (evening)
Exploring http://hunch.com artificial intelligence trained by users - a
decision making engine. (via facebook)
Friday 18th December 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Went to see my very special friend in Bassett (Met a nice cat instead though,
in a Pub), but left it a bit late (as opposed to a bit early), and will have
to redo tomorrow. Not sure if she was in, but took 250 CMRS-only leaflets
with me to keep me busy anyway. Of which, aprx 80 delivered.
Compressed AVI files on PC HDD; released 2% space.
Friday 18th December 2009 (early evening)
Most of my time wasted by relatives today. I have analysed this:
0930 Up (late alarm after late night caused by yesterday's delays)
1230 Wait for food (locked away)
1400 Recover from poor quality of food
1500 Interruptions to tasks at home, mainly cleaning
1630 Interruptions to leaving (hidden keys etc)
1800 Long long walk to pick up supplies before getting to office
1920 Short bits of work at office
To fix with:
0630 Up (early alarm)
0700 Food, prepared elsewhere and stored in small quanities
0730 Run down to office
Ummm, now what could go wrong there?
Maybe to put all that back by 1:30 Hrs, so it can all be done before anyone
else gets up.
Devotion at Karma today; Goldiggers reunion.
No time for leafleting today (grrr). Bassett attempt put off to Saturday;
easier to refumble times of day for meeting attempts. Even if fluffed at
least will have met and can redo on subsequent trips.
Off to do a litterpick of the driveway soon... Done, and the washing-up.
Now for the tanking-up...
Made some new age bar prompts for my phone. Full screen display for stills
show's controls, which obscure the picture, but not so for movies; so
converted some of them to movies(!)
Via facebook:
2119 Preparation: Washing-Up, then tanking up.
2209 Karma says they'll let people in All Night Long.
2318 Cooked some food, made a few drinks animations.
2328 Printer just spurted cyan ink over me, and said "unable to clean."
It won't wash off.
Saturday 19th December 2009
Via facebook:
0017 No queue outside Karma! (Maybe it's karma).
0100 Tanked up to 7 Units, Tescos (Fresh & Easy) vodka mixed with pink stuff.
ETA 0115.
0122 Plished now: let's go frighten the muggers: Arrrrgghhhh!!
... And off to Karma...
Got in two hours late, wrong side, had to pay again to go nextdoor. (A few
people did that, apparently.)
I made a new female friend near closing, and outside, every guy we passed
claimed to be her boyfriend.
She insisted on holding my hand - remember this was where all the trouble
started with the last one - and I, not wishing to take advantage of her,
well, not being free to anyway, just wanted her to get safely to wherever she
was going.
It got a bit mad around her taxi. Everyone but me hopping in and out and
generally annoying her.
I discovered there was a very long line of taxis two streets down, and tried
to tell the other guys, but they thought I was trying to trick them, and
stood where they were, freezing, and waiting for taxis that never came.
Meanwhile, the taxi drivers thought I should advise the customers to go to
them rather than the other way around, and stayed put where they were, too.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
Via facebook:
0416 Karma closed 0300 - feel so cheated - shoulda started drinking earlier &
used more violence [force] at the taxi rank.
1159 Treated a burn on my arm with a needle, Magicool and Compeed. Glad I
brought my lighter.
Sunday 20th December 2009 (mid afternoon)
Feeling a little wobbly. Some ice on the ground, some patches bone dry.
Bright sunshine and clear skys predicated until at least Thursday, not that
it seems to be melting much of the ice. Highs of 3'C and 2'C on Monday and
Tuesday; let's see if that helps. Plotting to boardwalk in Swindon or maybe
Corsham (better), on Monday/Tuesday.
Would like crampons for Christmas.
Sunday 20th December 2009 (evening)
Went out leafleting. Icy underfoot, with "skating rink" patches. The main
roads were safest, with their salt, grass was safest.
Only went over while leafleting once, and on the way back, went over
backwards once on a short down-slope, only scraping my finger.
423 Leaflets out, total time very roughly 3:15 Hrs. I left my awkward analogue
watch at the office, and relied on my mobile, which said "recharge battery"
when I needed it the most.
This gives a leaflet/minute time of 28s, which is good, considering I had to
go slow for ice. I now have 1250 leaflets delivered.
Just read on the News that an asteroid called Apophis has a 2% chance of
hitting us in 2036, and we have to start preparing Now if there's any chance
of altering it's orbit. Stop the war, I want to get off!
Found this while searching for rumour about facebook charging in six month's
time. That doesn't appear to be true, but huff.com, a newsfeed service I
hadn't heard of before, has proposed a charge then, and you can get a feed
from that through facebook.
Wikipedia points out that Apophis has been downgraded from 4 to a category 0
on he Torino Scale. More recent observations have negated the threat. A bit
of a damp squib, then, but still highlighting the woeful lack of NEO funding.
I've just been told I've started a "comment party" on facebook, with them
trying to find out what crampons are, not helped by my keypad fumbling typo
of "crapons".
FGW's Xmas advice pamflet says "Excess comsumption of alcohol can lead to
people falling asleep or becoming unconcious, which may lead to sustaining
frostbite injuries." Er, yeah, thanks for that: It could explain my "burn".
I could concievably have rested my arm on a cold metal surface and not
noticed while drunk.
Monday 21st December 2009 (a lot after midnight)
Filling in missing portions of this blog, ready to upload, after someone
grumbled I haven't uploaded for a while.
By my calculations (a pile 55mm thick contains 500 leaflets) I have put
out 1250 and have 2750. This makes 4000, whereas I know that there are
5000 in total.
This means my calculations are off, and 55mm contains 625. I've split these
in half, so each bundle contains 312 instead of 250.
This means I've put out 1562 and have 3438 left to do, which puts
me 31% way through instead of 25% done.
It also means my dry rates of 27l/s and 24l/s and icy time of 28/s are infact
34, 30, and 35 respectively.
Dusted off my tape dictaphone and used it to record thoughts in the dark,
which are always clearer thoughts. Brought that in to the office, to type up
'n' sort.
Monday 7th December 2009 (late evening)
I have just noticed that in last Saturday's entry, my retouched picture of
the Tory PPC, above the paragraph mentioning him, is also directly below the
paragraph describing "Some anti-social behaviour at the station; had to call
out the BTP..."
I would like to clarify that the PPC was not behaving anti-socially, was not
present at the railway station at the time, and the stormtroopers are not
BTP.
In addition, I have informed him of the picture, although I am not able to
read his response until tomorrow morning, as Orange have just made off with �8
of of my credit, despite having a �2/day cap on free internet use.
Gosh, I'm glad I switched to Dolphin now: If I'd stayed on Orange Starter,
and just brought Extras (Browsing Bundles), I'd have at least �20 free now.
'Will grumble to Orange about this, in the morning.
Changing dressings for bearing of boot-breaking-in, found large deep red
welts, which could hamper leaflet delivery and general moving around
progress. Cleaned and applied fresh extra-thick dressings.
Cleaned with vodka, which at least told me the skin wasn't broken. It wasn't
the right shape either, but you can't have everything. Applied one of the
expensive dressings to the most worryingly mishappen area.
Wednesday 9th December 2009
'Bit wobbly today and yestereve. Brought some multivitamin tablets to
rebalance my diet.
Removed the old Poweriser Pages saved HTML, that which isn't directly
convertable to text anyway, saving 1% of HDD space (about 150Mb). I won't
move the new slimline versions into the old spaces; it'd be best to have them
all nice 'n' searchable in one place, anyway.
Remembered to tell Calne TC I'd run out of invoices, but then they emailed me
before I had the chance to send my email... Printed out a new master invoice
copy, should be able to run a few photocpies off that tomorrowish.
Thursday 10th December 2009
A rushed bath, and off for a lunch-meeting with an amatuer film-maker. Via
facebook, I have volentuneered to be his assistant this Saturday. Essentially
I will be a mic stand.
We have arranged to meet at a cafe in town, not something I generally do.
We discussed my motivation, travel arrangements, my job role, and what to
bring.
Because food was involved and it takes time to eat, we also talked about each
other's careers.
Then off to Bassett to be a reindeer, to-ing and fro-ing around the High
Street and Borough Fields, and handing out a great deal of CMRS leaflets,
over fifty -maybe a hundred.
Wandered over to the Leisure Centre, in search of cameras and arriving
traffic at the Question Time studios. Enquires there pointed me in the
direction of the school (damn that local paper!), and after hanging around
the school gates for a minute or two not seeing much apart from one unmanned
police van, nipped down the carpark road a little, to ask directions.
The first person I passed didn't know anything, then two others spied me, and
tried to help. It was an equation of potentials: Put advertising near
cameras. However, the specifics weren't helping: All camera inside, filming
not yet happening, no arriving traffic, and any action taking place hours
after I have to leave. And speaking of leaving, they did ask me to leave,
which was a bit off - I had only come in to speak to them, and then to leave
for a place by an entrance, so I would have been leaving shortly anyway.
Trudged back towards the High Street, followed by lots of students. Walked
briskly.
Conversations while briskly walking, brisker and brisker. Cut back through
Sprats Barn Crescent again, flumoxing the natives, and crossing the High
Street and the miniroundabout, bringing the traffic to a halt.
Positioning myself near trees/posts, to advertise mainly to the traffic,
because -as someone pointed out- most of the pedestrians had gone by then.
Started to get strange, with cold dark tricky pavements, less people, more
rowdy behaviour, and jam-packed traffic. Decided to dismount.
'Off to watch Question Time, much facebook involvement...
Friday 11th December 2009
Planned to wash hair, pick up supplies, produce and delivery invoices,
and go round to a close friend's house, but it turned out to be too much of a
squeeze for public transport whilst under attack [me not them], so I ended-up
dropping the deliveries and preparing for tomorrow and going leafleting
instead. No spare money for contingencies during the trips anyway, so 'best
[put] forward to Monday, anyhow.
Managed to leave my only comb at the office, so will have to wet and recomb
hair later. Early night tonight; strange [is there any other kind?] day
tomorrow.
Somehow not enough time left for the leafleting in the evening, so decided
to drop that and have an early night. I had to get up early in the morning.
Saturday 12th December 2009
Waited otside the office for a lift from the actor, then realised I didn't
know what he nor he car looked like, and phoned the Director, who said he
would be picking me up anyway.
After a few minutes, a tiny flashy sportscar pulled up and I squeezed in.
Fortunatly the seat adjusted back quite a bit. The engine was were the rear
seats ought to be, with luggage compartments in both front and rear.
We zoomed down to bath, sticking to the speed limit but feeling much faster.
There we parked at the actresses' house, and went off again with her in the
actor's car, which was big enough to carry the four of us and all the gear.
Then it was back up nearly to Chippenham and, stopping in a turning for a
field on the edge of Ford. We used the back roads out of bath, at one point
passing the inverted-cone of a concrete water tower visible from the A4
between Corsham and Box. It was standing in part of an RAF base, probably
Colerne.
Then it was a rather lengthy series of shots using the car as a prop, in the
turning, then in the field. Then we went off through another field to a muddy
wooded bit, to film another chase section. All the while now, we could hear
reving engines and screeching tyres, because Castle Combe race track was
right over the next hill.
Then it was back to the car and off to Dyrham Park, near Chipping Sodbury, to
shoot a small section of chase in a grassy expanse off a track. And then down
to bath, stopping at a Pub for lunch.
On the way, we passed a giant illuminated sign advising us not to leave
valuables in the car. What that was doing in the middle of nowhere along the
A46 instead of in the city itself was anyone's guess.
So we stopped at this Pub on the edge of the city, er, taking our bags with
us, and the Director brought us all lunch, which was a very nice surprise.
And then it was back in the car again, and parking as close as we could to
The Circus, in Bennet Steet, infact.
Met with another actor in The Circus. Filmed at The Circus and an alleyway
near it.
The Director misplaced a lense cover, so I volunteered to retrace our route.
I returned five minutes later with a black circular thing that wasn't it.
While I was gone he found it anyway, in one of his hundreds of equipment
compartments.
And then it was back in the actor's car again, having lost the third actor
somewhere along the way, and back to the actress's house again to all swap
around.
We were blocked out by a Drain Doctor van for a bit: We needed to get the
Director's car out.
When we got down there, the Director asked me to wait up the hill. His engine
is too small without the turbocharger to get more than the driver up a hill.
When it heats up, the turbocharges kick's in, and then full power is
available.
We motored back to 'Nam, and he agreed to drop me at my house instead of the
office. I was tired out.
My role was carrying things around and pointing the boom mic towards the
actors, while treating them as objects (so I didn't distract them by looking
into their eyes). Also some switching on and off of the recording equipment,
which looked like a datalogger.
Looked on facebook, and found I have been described as the Director's
Assistant and Sound Engineer. (I described myself as a mic stand.)
Sunday 13th December 2009
Wanted to go leafleting today, but had to stay home and calm down a relative
who went nuts and wanted to burn down the house.
Do other people have these problems?
Monday 14th December 2009
Planned to do a lot of travelling today, but very difficult getting out of
the house in the mornings: 'Will have to invest heavily in this.
Mid afternoon, collected income, noting that DWP have taken �12 out already,
and picked up a few basic supplies.
Picked up two cheap calendars from Wilkinsons, to hang side-by-side:
A tabular one with the month and last & next months' in preview, and a
fill-in monthly one.
No facebook checks today: The transmitter near my home is down for
"datamissions", and so is the one near my office, ie the one on top of the
phone exchange.
Leafleting, estimated 327 out. In 2:10 Hrs, one leaflet every 24s: It's
getting better. Only that number out partly because I hit 2100 [Nine O'Clock,
not 2,100 leaflets], and partly because when I did so, I reached the end of
Wick's Drive.
It took 1:25 to transverse the fractral monstrousity that is Wicks Drive,
making four of these done so far, and nine remaining on the gnarled bush that
is the Pewsham estate. When I've done the next one, Fortune Way, I will have
completed the first quarter.
Wednesday 16th December 2009 (evening)
Exploring http://hunch.com artificial intelligence trained by users - a
decision making engine. (via facebook)
Friday 18th December 2009 (Silly O'Clock)
Went to see my very special friend in Bassett (Met a nice cat instead though,
in a Pub), but left it a bit late (as opposed to a bit early), and will have
to redo tomorrow. Not sure if she was in, but took 250 CMRS-only leaflets
with me to keep me busy anyway. Of which, aprx 80 delivered.
Compressed AVI files on PC HDD; released 2% space.
Friday 18th December 2009 (early evening)
Most of my time wasted by relatives today. I have analysed this:
0930 Up (late alarm after late night caused by yesterday's delays)
1230 Wait for food (locked away)
1400 Recover from poor quality of food
1500 Interruptions to tasks at home, mainly cleaning
1630 Interruptions to leaving (hidden keys etc)
1800 Long long walk to pick up supplies before getting to office
1920 Short bits of work at office
To fix with:
0630 Up (early alarm)
0700 Food, prepared elsewhere and stored in small quanities
0730 Run down to office
Ummm, now what could go wrong there?
Maybe to put all that back by 1:30 Hrs, so it can all be done before anyone
else gets up.
Devotion at Karma today; Goldiggers reunion.
No time for leafleting today (grrr). Bassett attempt put off to Saturday;
easier to refumble times of day for meeting attempts. Even if fluffed at
least will have met and can redo on subsequent trips.
Off to do a litterpick of the driveway soon... Done, and the washing-up.
Now for the tanking-up...
Made some new age bar prompts for my phone. Full screen display for stills
show's controls, which obscure the picture, but not so for movies; so
converted some of them to movies(!)
Via facebook:
2119 Preparation: Washing-Up, then tanking up.
2209 Karma says they'll let people in All Night Long.
2318 Cooked some food, made a few drinks animations.
2328 Printer just spurted cyan ink over me, and said "unable to clean."
It won't wash off.
Saturday 19th December 2009
Via facebook:
0017 No queue outside Karma! (Maybe it's karma).
0100 Tanked up to 7 Units, Tescos (Fresh & Easy) vodka mixed with pink stuff.
ETA 0115.
0122 Plished now: let's go frighten the muggers: Arrrrgghhhh!!
... And off to Karma...
Got in two hours late, wrong side, had to pay again to go nextdoor. (A few
people did that, apparently.)
I made a new female friend near closing, and outside, every guy we passed
claimed to be her boyfriend.
She insisted on holding my hand - remember this was where all the trouble
started with the last one - and I, not wishing to take advantage of her,
well, not being free to anyway, just wanted her to get safely to wherever she
was going.
It got a bit mad around her taxi. Everyone but me hopping in and out and
generally annoying her.
I discovered there was a very long line of taxis two streets down, and tried
to tell the other guys, but they thought I was trying to trick them, and
stood where they were, freezing, and waiting for taxis that never came.
Meanwhile, the taxi drivers thought I should advise the customers to go to
them rather than the other way around, and stayed put where they were, too.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother.
Via facebook:
0416 Karma closed 0300 - feel so cheated - shoulda started drinking earlier &
used more violence [force] at the taxi rank.
1159 Treated a burn on my arm with a needle, Magicool and Compeed. Glad I
brought my lighter.
Sunday 20th December 2009 (mid afternoon)
Feeling a little wobbly. Some ice on the ground, some patches bone dry.
Bright sunshine and clear skys predicated until at least Thursday, not that
it seems to be melting much of the ice. Highs of 3'C and 2'C on Monday and
Tuesday; let's see if that helps. Plotting to boardwalk in Swindon or maybe
Corsham (better), on Monday/Tuesday.
Would like crampons for Christmas.
Sunday 20th December 2009 (evening)
Went out leafleting. Icy underfoot, with "skating rink" patches. The main
roads were safest, with their salt, grass was safest.
Only went over while leafleting once, and on the way back, went over
backwards once on a short down-slope, only scraping my finger.
423 Leaflets out, total time very roughly 3:15 Hrs. I left my awkward analogue
watch at the office, and relied on my mobile, which said "recharge battery"
when I needed it the most.
This gives a leaflet/minute time of 28s, which is good, considering I had to
go slow for ice. I now have 1250 leaflets delivered.
Just read on the News that an asteroid called Apophis has a 2% chance of
hitting us in 2036, and we have to start preparing Now if there's any chance
of altering it's orbit. Stop the war, I want to get off!
Found this while searching for rumour about facebook charging in six month's
time. That doesn't appear to be true, but huff.com, a newsfeed service I
hadn't heard of before, has proposed a charge then, and you can get a feed
from that through facebook.
Wikipedia points out that Apophis has been downgraded from 4 to a category 0
on he Torino Scale. More recent observations have negated the threat. A bit
of a damp squib, then, but still highlighting the woeful lack of NEO funding.
I've just been told I've started a "comment party" on facebook, with them
trying to find out what crampons are, not helped by my keypad fumbling typo
of "crapons".
FGW's Xmas advice pamflet says "Excess comsumption of alcohol can lead to
people falling asleep or becoming unconcious, which may lead to sustaining
frostbite injuries." Er, yeah, thanks for that: It could explain my "burn".
I could concievably have rested my arm on a cold metal surface and not
noticed while drunk.
Monday 21st December 2009 (a lot after midnight)
Filling in missing portions of this blog, ready to upload, after someone
grumbled I haven't uploaded for a while.
By my calculations (a pile 55mm thick contains 500 leaflets) I have put
out 1250 and have 2750. This makes 4000, whereas I know that there are
5000 in total.
This means my calculations are off, and 55mm contains 625. I've split these
in half, so each bundle contains 312 instead of 250.
This means I've put out 1562 and have 3438 left to do, which puts
me 31% way through instead of 25% done.
It also means my dry rates of 27l/s and 24l/s and icy time of 28/s are infact
34, 30, and 35 respectively.
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:21 pm
Monday 21st December 2009 (late afternoon)
Found out what may be wrong with the printer: Either an obstruction to the
print head or paper path, or the ink absorber tank need's changing. There's a
Dealer in Yate, and they only cost �3, plus �50 etc service fee, which I can
do myself. Plus, er, the return rail/bus cost, whatever that is.
Monday 21st December 2009 (evening)
Started snowing as I started leafleting (of course), forecast bright sunshine
[earlier], clear skies (of course), when it finished, the snow was deep
enough (about an inch) to make the footing safe over the ice.
Leafleted Sin City (Northeast Pewsham) and a bit of the surrounding area.
533 Leaflets in 3:01 Hrs = 20s/l.
Should be s/l [in the previous entry]; seconds per leaflets, not
leaflets per second(!).
Via facebook:
2203 The chafing is killing me.
Tuesday 22nd December 2009 (morning)
Slept in the office, as too badly injured to make it home. Set alarm for the
time the pharmacies open.
Bus to Yate �7.70 peak (off-peak �6.90), railfare �9.10 (off-peak [after
0930] �6.90). Dealer open 29th-31st December. Off-peak bus travel is after
0900 weekdays, and all day on weekends and public holidays. Rail services
running "normally" 29th-30th, some evening reductions on the 31st. -Right,
Tuesday 29th it is, then, travelling off-peak rail.
Wednesday 23rd December 2009 (Christmas Eve Eve, mid afternoon, -2nd Day of Christmas)
Funny noise coming from RPC: I think it's the fan...
... Shut it down, 'put the fan heater on full blast for five minutes,
switched on again... No funny noise. Maybe the temperature sensor thought too
cold = too hot(?) HDD off at the moment, usual fan noise. Maybe the fan has
several settings(?)
The Landlord just informed me that I have 4000 leaflets in total, not 5000.
This means my calculations need re-normalising again. It is possible/likely
they will revert to the original estimates.
Small bundles, previously believed to be 250 leaflets each, recalculated
as from 5000 in total instead of 4000, now reverted, means:
312.5 x 4000/5000 = 250
Summary of previous results:
Teffont says my [Orange] email has bounced, and that the price of the ink
absorber boxes is �15, and they will only have on in stock until after xmas,
which will have to do.
They ask that I call beforehand on the day.
Friday 25th December 2009 (Christmas Day, 0th Day of Christmas, First Night)
Via facebook:
1712 We only realised xmas lunch was underdone when we had eaten most of it... Fortunately, it has not made a reappearance.
Saturday 26th December 2009 (Boxing Day, the 1st Day of Christmas, 2nd Night)
Via facebook:
0953 Heatwave! 9'C and ice melted - May go boardwalking tomorrow.
1113 Has just been informed that Saturday is ongoing now, NOT tomorrow.
Sunday 27th December 2009 (2nd Day of Christmas)
The cold (?) got the KVM/KMV for a second or two. Reset RPC, and seemed to
work again. 'Tis strange.
Via facebook:
1210 is down to one (medical) dressing, and healing well.
2241 had forgotten how Bloody cold it is in his office this time of year.
2358 Tracking the location of a disappeared friend halfway across the globe, to find they've settled virtually nextdoor.
Monday 28th December 2009 (3rd Day of Christmas)
Whilst in 'Bassett, the Landlord sent me a friend request through facebook.
Via facebook:
1742 is on his way to 'Bassett, or at least will be when the bus gets a move on.
1951 the window-cleaners are out in force tonight, polishing the High Street windows & covering the pavements with ice.
2156 Too cold, late, and dark to do much in 'Bassett apart from freeze. Back in 'Nam now.
Tuesday 29th December 2009 (4th Day of Christmas)
Off to Yate, to collect printer parts.
Yate's rather bleak, although to be fair mid-winter probably isn't the best
time to visit a new place. (Unless it'sa ski resort &c.)
Picked up the printer parts without too much fuss, except when it came to pay
and I had to be old-fashioned and use cash. They had to do a whip-round to
get change.
The ink absorber tank was �14; �3 was from some online discount site that may
not still be operating. 'Still cheap compared to ink cartridges.
Via facebook:
1316 off to Yate for spare parts.
1404 Damn this crick in my neck: When I click it, people think I'm nodding authoritively at them.
1541 Stuck in Yate until 1613. Bleak isn't the word.
1702 Sliding into the Bath (rather than A bath).
Anyways, stopped off in bath on the way back, made enquires about using
non-brand-name lenticular posters to advertise charity events. The stockist
said there probably would be no problem using material in that way for a
non-profit event, and pointed me in the direction of the publishers for
clarification/confirmation.
Charity and non-profit are not necessarily the same thing, aswell.
Via facebook:
1849 Sitting in a friend's (freezing) internet cafe in Bath, trying to be diplomatic about surprising messages. Some kind of misinterpretation going on, both ways probably. And researching two poster companies, relating to licensing issues.
1930 Going through friends and group news feeds and disconnecting the sweary ones without unfriending them. Too much "graffiti" on my wall.
-- 1933 There were only about four, in the event, and most of them were Groups. Either that or the sweary ones are going through a quiet spell.
Stopped at a friend's internet cafe', where it seems the heating is off.
A flurry of facebook messages from an old friend, misinterpretation and
confusion abounds. Suggested we try the anti-flame technique of sleeping on
it instead of replying without thinking.
Maybe it's facebook's fault: You get people talking to you on there in ways
they'd never dream of in person. I asked someone if they could help trace a
friend and they sent me back a "**** you" type reply, whereas if I approached
someone directly, they generally fall over themselves to help.
Maybe I ought to stop messaging people as new contacts on solely on facebook,
then: This sort of thing can be avoided.
You never have this bother on flickr: It's so much more upmarket - probably
because you can see other users and their surroundings before you contact
them. I'm sure there's a psychological reassurance there. Facebook is strange
too because people tend to use their real names instead of "creative"
usernames, and tend to be more honest, perhaps because of that. In flickr,
usernames and real names co-exist, and some (eg me) use their real names as
their usernames.
I'm not going to go on about it in this blog, either; that'd be just as bad.
I'll add make notes offline, and continue conversing directly (as opposed to
third-person behind their back blog-noting) in due course. These blog notes
are supposed to be applicable to general situations, not specific instances
in this example.
Just saw Casper Flagg's dead: I just used him as an example of not giving up
hope to someone.
Wednesday 30th December 2009 (New Year's Eve Eve, 5th Day of Christmas)
Decided to try my luck boardwalking down Corsham way, on the grounds that
today is the last Christmassy day before the New Year celebrations muck it
all up and people start ignoring the last 3 days of Christmas.
This went moderately well. First I tested to see if I could wear my woolly
hat under my helmet (fail), and my coat under the boards (tick).
When I got down the Corsham High Street, hardly anyone was about. I wandering
around the centre, then had to do it again and again, because the centre of
Corsham really isn't that big at all.
Eventually, gave out at least 50 CMRS leaflets, and some self-advertising
ones too, after adopting the tactic of running after hapless punters.
Took a break - and a whisky (purely for circulatory issues) - in the Royal
Oak, and they said "I could advertise their Pub? How much do I charge?"
Then went off back out, to emptying streets, and a long hunt to locate the
bus stops.
The bus shelters in Corsham have no painted/penned graffiti on them, and are
covered in dust & grime, in which little fingers have scrawled obscene
remarks. Clean the shelters and you'd solve both problems in one go!
Serviced printer, and it's working again, which helps, because my business
depends upon a working one.
Will try cleaning the sponges on the old ink absorber tank now...
Via facebook:
1513 Mr. Reindeer is off to Corsham High Street for the afternoon!
1819 About 50 leaflets for the Calne Show given out, and a potential new client!
2151 I may just skip drinking for a bit: We make ourselves ill with alcohol, then grumble when we get colds. Maybe there's a subtle connection.
2258 Robin is servicing his printer. Hmmmm....
-- 0035 Printer working again now.
Thursday 31st December 2009 (New Year's Eve, 6th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
1249 Mr. Reindeer is off to Corsham again, once he works out where Mr. Bus is.
1641 Mr Reindeer has finished spreading Christmassy silliness around Corsham, and is coming home.
1929 Happy Old Year, everybody!
2321 I'm so tired-out tracking down the address of the party I've been invited to, I'm too tired to go now. (Napped since.)
Nipped into another Pub in Corsham, for whisky, for medicinal purposes.
Whilst I was outside, a lady knocked on the window from the inside, then came
out. She tried to Hug me, which isn't really possible when you're wearing
sandwich boards. Nobody has tried this before, largely because I've been way
up in the air on stilts usually at the time, so they'd just be hugging my
legs. Or something.
Now I know how the guy in the Mickey Mouse suit feels.
Friday 1st January 2009 (New Year's Day, 7th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
0000 BONG! (GMT) happy Ten past Eight, everyone! -on the seventh day of Christmas, in January.
Sunday 3rd January 2009 (9th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
0037 I tried to find the official Taliban website the media keep going on about: It was deleted ages ago. So what are they reporting from?...
The reasoning behind this is: The media keep reporting about the Taliban etc
website, and I get much of this stuff through news websites, so why not just
cut out the middle man and search for the source website in the first place?
Easier said than done, though.
"taliban dot com" is a parked domain, with automatically-generated content
designed to keep the search engines indexing it. I hope they're not reporting
on a computer-generated fantasy; that would be just insane, wouldn't it?
-So that'll be what's happening, then.
None so simple, there must be other source websites out there.
How does anyone know what is genuine and representative, and who is it that
issues statements on these things claiming to represent global forces?
The "intelligence" services are paid a fortune to "prove" that these groups
and their websites exist and control impossibly vast resources centrally and
efficiently; there's no control on who set's one up; this is just open to
massive abuse, huh?
I have a cunning plan: Start a "terrorist" group website, and announce
on it that the war is over.
I just need to sort out a few fine details first... ie, get someone else to
implement the actual thing. (And get shot when MI5/6 recognise them as
"genuine".) Maybe I could get rid of the office clown this way - he's looking
for work. Hmmmmm. (Unfortunately he's too stupid to perform the simplest of
tasks, so it'll have to be some other idiot. Never mind: The World's full of
them.)
Monday 4th January 2010 (10th Day of Christmas, 11th Night)
Mindnumbed by the Daily Mail's account of Ismlam4UK's commemorative proposal,
'brought a Guardian and an Adver (because it was of the front page of the
Adver, which is the only local daily). The Adver coverage was extensive and
fascist, whereas the Guardian coverage was absent. Had to nip back and
pick up an Independent. -Nothing there either. Hoping to save my pennies, I
went back and scanned through all the main papers they had. Not a sausage in
the quality broadsheets, nothing in the Mirror or the Express.
The Sun called for the peace campaigner (which presumably he is(?)) to be
shot, (or locked up, or locked up then shot, or shot, locked up, and
deported, or something like that anyway,) and the Western Daily Press had
some coverage, which my fingers were by that point too numb [with cold] to
turn the pages for, so I brought a copy of the WDP and returned to the
office.
The WDP, sadly, largely follows the Adver, manages to avoid racism, but does
pump out the fascism, although not as badly as the Adver. The WDP does,
however, acknowledge some balance.
Perhaps the coverage will be better tomorrow.
Discovered late yesterday that someone who friend-requested me and had the
same name as one of my friends, is ten years too young to be her. Explained
this and asked her what is going on, and found today that she has simply
deleted my message without replying; so deleted [unfriended] her.
Later on, brought some more materials for Codename Ebony, to combat potential
wind resistance(, he says, not caring whether people understand him or not).
Have to go out later, but should have plenty of evening time to work on it.
Too cold to get out now. Too hungry, too. 'Bit too late, as well.
Via facebook:
1916 is disturbed by the amount of extremist racism in the papers today. No coverage at all from the broadsheets.
2044 would like to apologise to those he is currently unable to reach.
After this reply from an asking-for-directions type query, a few days ago:
"I haven't got a clue who you are. Please don't contact me again..."
It occurs to me that the oft-dished-out advice to guard your personal info
and never talk to strangers doesn't work very well in the adult world, where
all sorts of people will contact you casually, often on a once-off basis:
People asking for directions, checking up on friends, buying stuff from
shops, etc.
If I'm trying to be friends with someone I will start slower (and probably
try to avoid doing it online), but often I will contact people online for
business-type purposes, and make and/or respond to appeals for voluntary
help.
So how can we modify online security advice for this?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (11th Day, Twelfth Night, just gone midnight)
It seems Islam4UK have often tried to stir up trouble in the recent past to
give themselves an excuse to exist, and generally while pretending to have a
wholesome objective, eg attending/hosting a peace conference, or debating the
significance of religious figures.
'Reminds me of Bassett Town Council, or the ceremonial bits of it anyway;
and/or the increasingly-creepy Legion.
'Tis a point though: If a (for sake of argument) fascist organisation make
a peaceful and progressive suggestion, is that a good thing or a bad
thing?
Unfortunately in this case, it may well be a subverted thing, twisted to
cause offence. 'Reminds me of...
Honestly, what do they think they're playing at? [The council.]
I think the council, ought to put an empty hearse in there, symbolic of the
majority of victims. There's some nasty racist and even fascist stuff
bubbling out of them [the council] in response.
What should we be watching out for? Iconography, disapproval at independent
thought, inviting army types to hang around, telling Afghan types to get
lost, dehumanising the "enemy", excess patriotism, jingoism, racism, and
-finally- fascism.
We've got all those apart from blatant iconography and fascism, now, haven't we?
There was a documentary of brainwashing techniques used by tyrants to gain
control on the BBC [not tyrants controlling the BBC...], a year or two ago -
a list of things used by the fascists 'n' stalin the last time around; things
to watch out for. Can anyone remember what that was called, or list the
things I've missed?
To sum up, and I think Kryten in Red Dwarf said it best:
"Engage panic mode."
"Panic mode engaged."
"Arrrrggggghhhh...."
Found out what may be wrong with the printer: Either an obstruction to the
print head or paper path, or the ink absorber tank need's changing. There's a
Dealer in Yate, and they only cost �3, plus �50 etc service fee, which I can
do myself. Plus, er, the return rail/bus cost, whatever that is.
Monday 21st December 2009 (evening)
Started snowing as I started leafleting (of course), forecast bright sunshine
[earlier], clear skies (of course), when it finished, the snow was deep
enough (about an inch) to make the footing safe over the ice.
Leafleted Sin City (Northeast Pewsham) and a bit of the surrounding area.
533 Leaflets in 3:01 Hrs = 20s/l.
Should be s/l [in the previous entry]; seconds per leaflets, not
leaflets per second(!).
Via facebook:
2203 The chafing is killing me.
Tuesday 22nd December 2009 (morning)
Slept in the office, as too badly injured to make it home. Set alarm for the
time the pharmacies open.
Bus to Yate �7.70 peak (off-peak �6.90), railfare �9.10 (off-peak [after
0930] �6.90). Dealer open 29th-31st December. Off-peak bus travel is after
0900 weekdays, and all day on weekends and public holidays. Rail services
running "normally" 29th-30th, some evening reductions on the 31st. -Right,
Tuesday 29th it is, then, travelling off-peak rail.
Wednesday 23rd December 2009 (Christmas Eve Eve, mid afternoon, -2nd Day of Christmas)
Funny noise coming from RPC: I think it's the fan...
... Shut it down, 'put the fan heater on full blast for five minutes,
switched on again... No funny noise. Maybe the temperature sensor thought too
cold = too hot(?) HDD off at the moment, usual fan noise. Maybe the fan has
several settings(?)
The Landlord just informed me that I have 4000 leaflets in total, not 5000.
This means my calculations need re-normalising again. It is possible/likely
they will revert to the original estimates.
Small bundles, previously believed to be 250 leaflets each, recalculated
as from 5000 in total instead of 4000, now reverted, means:
312.5 x 4000/5000 = 250
Summary of previous results:
- Code: Select all
Date Out Duration Rate Conditions Completion
(#) (Hrs) (s/l)
6/12 500 3:45 27 Dry 500 12%
14/12 327 2:10 24 Dry 827 21%
20/12 423 3:15 28 Ice 1250 31%
21/12 426 3:01 25 Snow* 1676 42%
* Bad chafing
Teffont says my [Orange] email has bounced, and that the price of the ink
absorber boxes is �15, and they will only have on in stock until after xmas,
which will have to do.
They ask that I call beforehand on the day.
Friday 25th December 2009 (Christmas Day, 0th Day of Christmas, First Night)
Via facebook:
1712 We only realised xmas lunch was underdone when we had eaten most of it... Fortunately, it has not made a reappearance.
Saturday 26th December 2009 (Boxing Day, the 1st Day of Christmas, 2nd Night)
Via facebook:
0953 Heatwave! 9'C and ice melted - May go boardwalking tomorrow.
1113 Has just been informed that Saturday is ongoing now, NOT tomorrow.
Sunday 27th December 2009 (2nd Day of Christmas)
The cold (?) got the KVM/KMV for a second or two. Reset RPC, and seemed to
work again. 'Tis strange.
Via facebook:
1210 is down to one (medical) dressing, and healing well.
2241 had forgotten how Bloody cold it is in his office this time of year.
2358 Tracking the location of a disappeared friend halfway across the globe, to find they've settled virtually nextdoor.
Monday 28th December 2009 (3rd Day of Christmas)
Whilst in 'Bassett, the Landlord sent me a friend request through facebook.
Via facebook:
1742 is on his way to 'Bassett, or at least will be when the bus gets a move on.
1951 the window-cleaners are out in force tonight, polishing the High Street windows & covering the pavements with ice.
2156 Too cold, late, and dark to do much in 'Bassett apart from freeze. Back in 'Nam now.
Tuesday 29th December 2009 (4th Day of Christmas)
Off to Yate, to collect printer parts.
Yate's rather bleak, although to be fair mid-winter probably isn't the best
time to visit a new place. (Unless it'sa ski resort &c.)
Picked up the printer parts without too much fuss, except when it came to pay
and I had to be old-fashioned and use cash. They had to do a whip-round to
get change.
The ink absorber tank was �14; �3 was from some online discount site that may
not still be operating. 'Still cheap compared to ink cartridges.
Via facebook:
1316 off to Yate for spare parts.
1404 Damn this crick in my neck: When I click it, people think I'm nodding authoritively at them.
1541 Stuck in Yate until 1613. Bleak isn't the word.
1702 Sliding into the Bath (rather than A bath).
Anyways, stopped off in bath on the way back, made enquires about using
non-brand-name lenticular posters to advertise charity events. The stockist
said there probably would be no problem using material in that way for a
non-profit event, and pointed me in the direction of the publishers for
clarification/confirmation.
Charity and non-profit are not necessarily the same thing, aswell.
Via facebook:
1849 Sitting in a friend's (freezing) internet cafe in Bath, trying to be diplomatic about surprising messages. Some kind of misinterpretation going on, both ways probably. And researching two poster companies, relating to licensing issues.
1930 Going through friends and group news feeds and disconnecting the sweary ones without unfriending them. Too much "graffiti" on my wall.
-- 1933 There were only about four, in the event, and most of them were Groups. Either that or the sweary ones are going through a quiet spell.
Stopped at a friend's internet cafe', where it seems the heating is off.
A flurry of facebook messages from an old friend, misinterpretation and
confusion abounds. Suggested we try the anti-flame technique of sleeping on
it instead of replying without thinking.
Maybe it's facebook's fault: You get people talking to you on there in ways
they'd never dream of in person. I asked someone if they could help trace a
friend and they sent me back a "**** you" type reply, whereas if I approached
someone directly, they generally fall over themselves to help.
Maybe I ought to stop messaging people as new contacts on solely on facebook,
then: This sort of thing can be avoided.
You never have this bother on flickr: It's so much more upmarket - probably
because you can see other users and their surroundings before you contact
them. I'm sure there's a psychological reassurance there. Facebook is strange
too because people tend to use their real names instead of "creative"
usernames, and tend to be more honest, perhaps because of that. In flickr,
usernames and real names co-exist, and some (eg me) use their real names as
their usernames.
I'm not going to go on about it in this blog, either; that'd be just as bad.
I'll add make notes offline, and continue conversing directly (as opposed to
third-person behind their back blog-noting) in due course. These blog notes
are supposed to be applicable to general situations, not specific instances
in this example.
Just saw Casper Flagg's dead: I just used him as an example of not giving up
hope to someone.
Wednesday 30th December 2009 (New Year's Eve Eve, 5th Day of Christmas)
Decided to try my luck boardwalking down Corsham way, on the grounds that
today is the last Christmassy day before the New Year celebrations muck it
all up and people start ignoring the last 3 days of Christmas.
This went moderately well. First I tested to see if I could wear my woolly
hat under my helmet (fail), and my coat under the boards (tick).
When I got down the Corsham High Street, hardly anyone was about. I wandering
around the centre, then had to do it again and again, because the centre of
Corsham really isn't that big at all.
Eventually, gave out at least 50 CMRS leaflets, and some self-advertising
ones too, after adopting the tactic of running after hapless punters.
Took a break - and a whisky (purely for circulatory issues) - in the Royal
Oak, and they said "I could advertise their Pub? How much do I charge?"
Then went off back out, to emptying streets, and a long hunt to locate the
bus stops.
The bus shelters in Corsham have no painted/penned graffiti on them, and are
covered in dust & grime, in which little fingers have scrawled obscene
remarks. Clean the shelters and you'd solve both problems in one go!
Serviced printer, and it's working again, which helps, because my business
depends upon a working one.
Will try cleaning the sponges on the old ink absorber tank now...
Via facebook:
1513 Mr. Reindeer is off to Corsham High Street for the afternoon!
1819 About 50 leaflets for the Calne Show given out, and a potential new client!
2151 I may just skip drinking for a bit: We make ourselves ill with alcohol, then grumble when we get colds. Maybe there's a subtle connection.
2258 Robin is servicing his printer. Hmmmm....
-- 0035 Printer working again now.
Thursday 31st December 2009 (New Year's Eve, 6th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
1249 Mr. Reindeer is off to Corsham again, once he works out where Mr. Bus is.
1641 Mr Reindeer has finished spreading Christmassy silliness around Corsham, and is coming home.
1929 Happy Old Year, everybody!
2321 I'm so tired-out tracking down the address of the party I've been invited to, I'm too tired to go now. (Napped since.)
Nipped into another Pub in Corsham, for whisky, for medicinal purposes.
Whilst I was outside, a lady knocked on the window from the inside, then came
out. She tried to Hug me, which isn't really possible when you're wearing
sandwich boards. Nobody has tried this before, largely because I've been way
up in the air on stilts usually at the time, so they'd just be hugging my
legs. Or something.
Now I know how the guy in the Mickey Mouse suit feels.
Friday 1st January 2009 (New Year's Day, 7th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
0000 BONG! (GMT) happy Ten past Eight, everyone! -on the seventh day of Christmas, in January.
Sunday 3rd January 2009 (9th Day of Christmas)
Via facebook:
0037 I tried to find the official Taliban website the media keep going on about: It was deleted ages ago. So what are they reporting from?...
The reasoning behind this is: The media keep reporting about the Taliban etc
website, and I get much of this stuff through news websites, so why not just
cut out the middle man and search for the source website in the first place?
Easier said than done, though.
"taliban dot com" is a parked domain, with automatically-generated content
designed to keep the search engines indexing it. I hope they're not reporting
on a computer-generated fantasy; that would be just insane, wouldn't it?
-So that'll be what's happening, then.
None so simple, there must be other source websites out there.
How does anyone know what is genuine and representative, and who is it that
issues statements on these things claiming to represent global forces?
The "intelligence" services are paid a fortune to "prove" that these groups
and their websites exist and control impossibly vast resources centrally and
efficiently; there's no control on who set's one up; this is just open to
massive abuse, huh?
I have a cunning plan: Start a "terrorist" group website, and announce
on it that the war is over.
I just need to sort out a few fine details first... ie, get someone else to
implement the actual thing. (And get shot when MI5/6 recognise them as
"genuine".) Maybe I could get rid of the office clown this way - he's looking
for work. Hmmmmm. (Unfortunately he's too stupid to perform the simplest of
tasks, so it'll have to be some other idiot. Never mind: The World's full of
them.)
Monday 4th January 2010 (10th Day of Christmas, 11th Night)
Mindnumbed by the Daily Mail's account of Ismlam4UK's commemorative proposal,
'brought a Guardian and an Adver (because it was of the front page of the
Adver, which is the only local daily). The Adver coverage was extensive and
fascist, whereas the Guardian coverage was absent. Had to nip back and
pick up an Independent. -Nothing there either. Hoping to save my pennies, I
went back and scanned through all the main papers they had. Not a sausage in
the quality broadsheets, nothing in the Mirror or the Express.
The Sun called for the peace campaigner (which presumably he is(?)) to be
shot, (or locked up, or locked up then shot, or shot, locked up, and
deported, or something like that anyway,) and the Western Daily Press had
some coverage, which my fingers were by that point too numb [with cold] to
turn the pages for, so I brought a copy of the WDP and returned to the
office.
The WDP, sadly, largely follows the Adver, manages to avoid racism, but does
pump out the fascism, although not as badly as the Adver. The WDP does,
however, acknowledge some balance.
Perhaps the coverage will be better tomorrow.
Discovered late yesterday that someone who friend-requested me and had the
same name as one of my friends, is ten years too young to be her. Explained
this and asked her what is going on, and found today that she has simply
deleted my message without replying; so deleted [unfriended] her.
Later on, brought some more materials for Codename Ebony, to combat potential
wind resistance(, he says, not caring whether people understand him or not).
Have to go out later, but should have plenty of evening time to work on it.
Too cold to get out now. Too hungry, too. 'Bit too late, as well.
Via facebook:
1916 is disturbed by the amount of extremist racism in the papers today. No coverage at all from the broadsheets.
2044 would like to apologise to those he is currently unable to reach.
After this reply from an asking-for-directions type query, a few days ago:
"I haven't got a clue who you are. Please don't contact me again..."
It occurs to me that the oft-dished-out advice to guard your personal info
and never talk to strangers doesn't work very well in the adult world, where
all sorts of people will contact you casually, often on a once-off basis:
People asking for directions, checking up on friends, buying stuff from
shops, etc.
If I'm trying to be friends with someone I will start slower (and probably
try to avoid doing it online), but often I will contact people online for
business-type purposes, and make and/or respond to appeals for voluntary
help.
So how can we modify online security advice for this?
Answers on a postcard to the usual address, please.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (11th Day, Twelfth Night, just gone midnight)
It seems Islam4UK have often tried to stir up trouble in the recent past to
give themselves an excuse to exist, and generally while pretending to have a
wholesome objective, eg attending/hosting a peace conference, or debating the
significance of religious figures.
'Reminds me of Bassett Town Council, or the ceremonial bits of it anyway;
and/or the increasingly-creepy Legion.
'Tis a point though: If a (for sake of argument) fascist organisation make
a peaceful and progressive suggestion, is that a good thing or a bad
thing?
Unfortunately in this case, it may well be a subverted thing, twisted to
cause offence. 'Reminds me of...
Honestly, what do they think they're playing at? [The council.]
I think the council, ought to put an empty hearse in there, symbolic of the
majority of victims. There's some nasty racist and even fascist stuff
bubbling out of them [the council] in response.
What should we be watching out for? Iconography, disapproval at independent
thought, inviting army types to hang around, telling Afghan types to get
lost, dehumanising the "enemy", excess patriotism, jingoism, racism, and
-finally- fascism.
We've got all those apart from blatant iconography and fascism, now, haven't we?
There was a documentary of brainwashing techniques used by tyrants to gain
control on the BBC [not tyrants controlling the BBC...], a year or two ago -
a list of things used by the fascists 'n' stalin the last time around; things
to watch out for. Can anyone remember what that was called, or list the
things I've missed?
To sum up, and I think Kryten in Red Dwarf said it best:
"Engage panic mode."
"Panic mode engaged."
"Arrrrggggghhhh...."
- freedom
- Posts: 266
- Joined: Thu Aug 24, 2006 2:27 pm
- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
by freedom » Thu Jan 07, 2010 4:35 pm
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (noon)
Here, at last, is my "Dancing Table" video, as previously promised on fb.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (late afternoon)
Nipped round the corner and brought hardboard for the VDLC from Homebase, who
were kind enough to suggest and provide a panel-carrying trolley, and to let
me wheel it round to the office from there.
Trolleying... and stowed ready for taping/velcroing, in the late evening/night.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (late evening)
Saw Anna again!
Confronted my irrational mental block against knocking on close friends'
doors. Chickened out on several previous trips, and started taking CMRS-only
leaflets with me, for something to do if I avoid not avoiding things on my
travels. So far, I have delivered 300 leaflets whilst struggling with my
mental block, so that's something at least. (At least 100 of those,
reindeering in Corsham.)
Here is a list of things that didn't go wrong this time:
Some dramatic license has been taken with the slip-up and pet-escape lines.
Unbelievably, I have to do more doorstep work this month. For some reason, nobody-else want's to do it.
And here's a list of things that didn't go wrong when leafleting in Bassett this evening:
Anna of course, does not share the same mental block, and was fine about it.
handed over token token (Sinc.) Christmas Card, talked about block and
brevity, departed. Visited the Cross keys afterwards - I needed a drink (or
three) to cushion my system.
I notice much has changed there. For a start it's central-Pub rival, the
Angel, was closed down, and it's opening times are displayed as "11am -
close". It's also very very clean inside, as if someone has been over it with
a sandblaster and a microscope, and the toilets have been upgraded to
4-Star standard.
I looked promptingly at the manageress. She or one of her staff used to be a
slave to PMT, and would tip full ice buckets over unsuspecting punters and
staff for no apparent reason, and had banned me for unclear reasons. She gave
little sign of recognising me, but didn't reinforce the previous ban this
time round. Perhaps the hospitality process from the repatriations has been
a growing experience for her - infact I'm sure it has.
There was a loud (and small - about five - it's 'Bassett) crowd in the small
Bar, and they didn't mind me being quiet. I ordered a Pint of Bitter and
sipped and reflected.
After about half an hour of reflecting, I apologised for being silent,
explaining that I had been having a long argument with myself in my head.
They liked this a lot.
"Ha - Brilliant!"
"Who won?"
Took the penultimate bus back to 'Nam, and stopped for more cushioning at the
Rose & Crown, which has developed a new and welcome cosiness of Regulars.
Discovered that I do not experience motion sickness (caused eg by facebooking
on a double decker) when drunk. So next time you're on a ship, you know what
to do.
Wednesday 6th January 2010 (Last Day, Epiphany, just gone midnight)
Hodson's x Observation
If juggling/worrying-about x women, x more will get involved:
Via facebook:
2349 [Robin] is reflecting...
Rachel: "On what, Robin? Or shouldn't I ask?"
Jacqui: "On life!!!! Don't forget Rachel is single Robin! Could be your date for the reunion! <grin>"
Rachel: "Oh Jack don't try to cover up how you feel about him. He knows it's you that likes him. Wouldn't want to step on your toes, Jack. LOL"
Sally: "He's looking in the mirror !!!"
Rachel: "Anyway I'm so happy single."
Jacqui: "LOL You're soooooooooooooooooo funny, Rachel! Now what did you say your address was? Can you remember, Sal?"
Sally: "You will have to buy some stilts Jack, and then you can have some nice walks together. x"
Rachel: "I'm moving, you bitch. xxxxxxx"
Rachel: "Sal, PMSL LOL"
Jacqui: "You're funnier than Rachel, Sal! PMSL! <grin> x"
Rachel: "To be honest with you Robin, Sal, Jack, and me like you. The thing is, Sal's married, I'm happy single, so that only leaves Jack. xx"
Jacqui: "God, I really am PMSL! Get back to the Unit, Rachel! <grin> x"
Rachel: "Where's that, Jack? LOL"
Jacqui: "You telling me you can't remember, Rach?! You probably can't because you came from there! <grin> LOL x"
Sally: "PMSL.. What [are] you two like.... Mental .... Well, I suppose you must be, 'cos you were both in the Unit. <grin>"
Robin: "Emotional bribery aside, I have been reflecting on the happy effects of meeting up with the Lady in my life again, in Bassett, and then reflecting my life in general in my beer."
Ah well, perhaps facebook isn't that bad afterall.
This is doing my ego no healthy good at all.
The Unit, was a school-within-a-school in Hardenhuish where mentally
disturbed students were taught. The reunion, refers to a planned Hardenhuish
reunion planned for the summer, that I have been roped into helping organise.
Presumably old students from the Unit will be invited as well, if we can find
them.
Rachel: "Don't drink toooooooo much, Robin. LOL"
- * -
Two nights without sleep now, just occasionally resting on the
floor/chair/bus (various locations).
Set alarm for half-hourly intervals, and napped in my own bed, for 1:20 Hrs,
then straight down to Sign On. Wanted to go leafleting, but finding myself
doing a lot of staring blankly into space, meaning sleep deprivation effects
are kicking in.
Picked up some rolls, cottage pie, and canned fish from the local shop and
ate a good meal from most of that, in the office. Then I started getting "Lie
Down!" warning messages from my body, so I lay down in a darkened room for an
hour or two, unable to sleep BTW, just feeling a bit subdued. After this I
perked up fine, and started building the VLDC.
Via facebook:
0824 Merry Last day of Christmas, folks.
1758 Starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation.
2256 Just finished constructing the VLDC (Very Large Document Container).
Wednesday 6th January 2010 (very late evening)
Here are some photos of the VLDC, comparing the size with a 300mm ruler,
coffee mug, and exhibition stand; and also showing it against the LDC
(Large Document Container) and a standard foolscap document wallet.
There are certain technical problems with this size of document wallet, ie
it's too big to open in my office, so I would have to use a shared facility
for this eventuality. Other technical issues became apparent upon closing
the VLDC: Additional closures were required top and bottom. I've added
temporary ones.
And now I have lost a mess but (re)gained a desk, or at least the mess
immediately under the large document previously obliterating the sidedesk,
which can now be stored properly. Meanwhile, the alcove where the VLDC now
sits vertically look's clean and blank.
Shortly, I will have gone without sleep for four days now, so I'd better go
home [while I am energetic enough to do so], even though I feel real perky
right now.
Thursday 7th January 2010 (just gone midnight)
Some portions of tape are lifting on the rough side of the hardboard, and
will have to be glued later on.
Wil Hodgson has just accepted my friend request, and about thirty other
pending friend requests, following his Comedy Club stint at the Rose & Crown,
which I intended to go to earlier, but was too tired and didn't think the
performers would appreciate my nodding off during their act.
Here, at last, is my "Dancing Table" video, as previously promised on fb.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (late afternoon)
Nipped round the corner and brought hardboard for the VDLC from Homebase, who
were kind enough to suggest and provide a panel-carrying trolley, and to let
me wheel it round to the office from there.
Trolleying... and stowed ready for taping/velcroing, in the late evening/night.
Tuesday 5th January 2010 (late evening)
Saw Anna again!
Confronted my irrational mental block against knocking on close friends'
doors. Chickened out on several previous trips, and started taking CMRS-only
leaflets with me, for something to do if I avoid not avoiding things on my
travels. So far, I have delivered 300 leaflets whilst struggling with my
mental block, so that's something at least. (At least 100 of those,
reindeering in Corsham.)
Here is a list of things that didn't go wrong this time:
- Not living there anymore
- In the middle of ****ging someone when turn up with romantic stuff
- Sniper attack by militant paedophiles
- Distraction attack leading to bus hijacking from violent sociopaths
- Slip up on ice and break someone-else's arm
- Get blamed/arrested for violent/invasive crime committed by unknown others and corrupt police by same police just before reach door
- Pet escape
Some dramatic license has been taken with the slip-up and pet-escape lines.
Unbelievably, I have to do more doorstep work this month. For some reason, nobody-else want's to do it.
And here's a list of things that didn't go wrong when leafleting in Bassett this evening:
- Mistaken for double glazing salesman or for PPC if actually canvassing for double glazing company
- Mistaken for Royal Mail employee and berated about, when leafleting
- Mistaken for Royal Mail employee and berated about, by dog
- Dog inside knock's itself out as result of charging at door
Anna of course, does not share the same mental block, and was fine about it.
handed over token token (Sinc.) Christmas Card, talked about block and
brevity, departed. Visited the Cross keys afterwards - I needed a drink (or
three) to cushion my system.
I notice much has changed there. For a start it's central-Pub rival, the
Angel, was closed down, and it's opening times are displayed as "11am -
close". It's also very very clean inside, as if someone has been over it with
a sandblaster and a microscope, and the toilets have been upgraded to
4-Star standard.
I looked promptingly at the manageress. She or one of her staff used to be a
slave to PMT, and would tip full ice buckets over unsuspecting punters and
staff for no apparent reason, and had banned me for unclear reasons. She gave
little sign of recognising me, but didn't reinforce the previous ban this
time round. Perhaps the hospitality process from the repatriations has been
a growing experience for her - infact I'm sure it has.
There was a loud (and small - about five - it's 'Bassett) crowd in the small
Bar, and they didn't mind me being quiet. I ordered a Pint of Bitter and
sipped and reflected.
After about half an hour of reflecting, I apologised for being silent,
explaining that I had been having a long argument with myself in my head.
They liked this a lot.
"Ha - Brilliant!"
"Who won?"
Took the penultimate bus back to 'Nam, and stopped for more cushioning at the
Rose & Crown, which has developed a new and welcome cosiness of Regulars.
Discovered that I do not experience motion sickness (caused eg by facebooking
on a double decker) when drunk. So next time you're on a ship, you know what
to do.
Wednesday 6th January 2010 (Last Day, Epiphany, just gone midnight)
Hodson's x Observation
If juggling/worrying-about x women, x more will get involved:
Via facebook:
2349 [Robin] is reflecting...
Rachel: "On what, Robin? Or shouldn't I ask?"
Jacqui: "On life!!!! Don't forget Rachel is single Robin! Could be your date for the reunion! <grin>"
Rachel: "Oh Jack don't try to cover up how you feel about him. He knows it's you that likes him. Wouldn't want to step on your toes, Jack. LOL"
Sally: "He's looking in the mirror !!!"
Rachel: "Anyway I'm so happy single."
Jacqui: "LOL You're soooooooooooooooooo funny, Rachel! Now what did you say your address was? Can you remember, Sal?"
Sally: "You will have to buy some stilts Jack, and then you can have some nice walks together. x"
Rachel: "I'm moving, you bitch. xxxxxxx"
Rachel: "Sal, PMSL LOL"
Jacqui: "You're funnier than Rachel, Sal! PMSL! <grin> x"
Rachel: "To be honest with you Robin, Sal, Jack, and me like you. The thing is, Sal's married, I'm happy single, so that only leaves Jack. xx"
Jacqui: "God, I really am PMSL! Get back to the Unit, Rachel! <grin> x"
Rachel: "Where's that, Jack? LOL"
Jacqui: "You telling me you can't remember, Rach?! You probably can't because you came from there! <grin> LOL x"
Sally: "PMSL.. What [are] you two like.... Mental .... Well, I suppose you must be, 'cos you were both in the Unit. <grin>"
Robin: "Emotional bribery aside, I have been reflecting on the happy effects of meeting up with the Lady in my life again, in Bassett, and then reflecting my life in general in my beer."
Ah well, perhaps facebook isn't that bad afterall.
This is doing my ego no healthy good at all.
The Unit, was a school-within-a-school in Hardenhuish where mentally
disturbed students were taught. The reunion, refers to a planned Hardenhuish
reunion planned for the summer, that I have been roped into helping organise.
Presumably old students from the Unit will be invited as well, if we can find
them.
Rachel: "Don't drink toooooooo much, Robin. LOL"
- * -
Two nights without sleep now, just occasionally resting on the
floor/chair/bus (various locations).
Set alarm for half-hourly intervals, and napped in my own bed, for 1:20 Hrs,
then straight down to Sign On. Wanted to go leafleting, but finding myself
doing a lot of staring blankly into space, meaning sleep deprivation effects
are kicking in.
Picked up some rolls, cottage pie, and canned fish from the local shop and
ate a good meal from most of that, in the office. Then I started getting "Lie
Down!" warning messages from my body, so I lay down in a darkened room for an
hour or two, unable to sleep BTW, just feeling a bit subdued. After this I
perked up fine, and started building the VLDC.
Via facebook:
0824 Merry Last day of Christmas, folks.
1758 Starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation.
2256 Just finished constructing the VLDC (Very Large Document Container).
Wednesday 6th January 2010 (very late evening)
Here are some photos of the VLDC, comparing the size with a 300mm ruler,
coffee mug, and exhibition stand; and also showing it against the LDC
(Large Document Container) and a standard foolscap document wallet.
There are certain technical problems with this size of document wallet, ie
it's too big to open in my office, so I would have to use a shared facility
for this eventuality. Other technical issues became apparent upon closing
the VLDC: Additional closures were required top and bottom. I've added
temporary ones.
And now I have lost a mess but (re)gained a desk, or at least the mess
immediately under the large document previously obliterating the sidedesk,
which can now be stored properly. Meanwhile, the alcove where the VLDC now
sits vertically look's clean and blank.
Shortly, I will have gone without sleep for four days now, so I'd better go
home [while I am energetic enough to do so], even though I feel real perky
right now.
Thursday 7th January 2010 (just gone midnight)
Some portions of tape are lifting on the rough side of the hardboard, and
will have to be glued later on.
Wil Hodgson has just accepted my friend request, and about thirty other
pending friend requests, following his Comedy Club stint at the Rose & Crown,
which I intended to go to earlier, but was too tired and didn't think the
performers would appreciate my nodding off during their act.
- freedom
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- Location: Chippenham, Wilts
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