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| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 |
addedentry
|
9:00a |
Up to 11 Truck Festival 11, 19-20 July 2008After two years of rain at Glastonbury (that is, two occasions on which it rained, when each time it seemed like two years' worth), I decided not to go this time. Instead I went to Truck. It's nearer, just south of Oxford, so I knew I could pack up and leave if the predicted rain got too much; and it's smaller, by a factor of forty. And that has made all the difference. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) j4 wasn't excited by the advertised lineup of bands and stayed at home, but she'd looked after me well at previous festivals and this time I was lucky to have the company of several Oxford friends and veterans. Special thanks to barnacle for erecting my tent and juggzy for bacon and eggs. Special thanks, too, to anyone not at the festival who put up with my hourly text messages tagged #truck. Here are my photos. Somehow there are six stages on the tiny farm, mostly not interfering with each other's sound. The sensible thing to do is stay in one place but I can't, so I saw at least some of perhaps 30 performances. But I did spend most of Sunday evening at the Barn stage (which is a barn, made of concrete, smelling faintly of manure) for Sonic Cathedral. ( Positive about feedback )Only one word for it. Regrettably, that word is: shoegasm! |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 |
caramel_betty
|
11:53a |
Is there something we need to know?  | |  |
| His Grace, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams | | Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic |
Current Mood: astounded |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 |
caramel_betty
|
4:01p |
|
| Sunday, July 20th, 2008 |
k425
|
8:43p |
I worry
about the wrong things.
I spent last week worrying about booking meals for the Discworld Convention in August, because I couldn't find the membership info. Not little worrying, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night panicking. Until I was able to get the membership number and, in five mins, sort it out.
This week I picked a recipe to make this weekend, but spent half the week wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night panicking because it was a recipe for 8 (with recipes for the leftovers). Until I decided at 3am this morning to just halve the recipe.
I think I'm currently stressed. I just don't know what I'm stressed about. I don't think those are the things that are stressing me, those were just the things that the stress could hang itself off. I don't think I'm worried about OldBloke finishing work, or YoungBloke starting school. Perhaps I'm worried about Best Friend's visit, and her seeing the state of the house. Goodness knows. It's annoying though.
In other news, I roasted the fillet of lamb for dinner today. It was lovely. I mean, really. LOVELY. We'll have leftovers on Tuesday, so I'll hack the meat off the bones shortly. There'll be enough leftovers, actually, that I'll stick half in the freezer with a view to making shepherd's pie at some point. I'd forgotten how lovely lamb is. Omnomnomnom. |
k425
|
7:46a |
Last weekend I took advantage of the lack of rain to harvest. I got a bucket of potatoes from the 6 tubs, and I'm very happy with that. I got rather a lot of very small shallots, and I got lots of garlic. The purple garlic mostly did well but the white didn't make proper cloves. It's still usable, but a bit disappointing. I also picked another kilo of raspberries from the wild canes over the road. When I packed the half a lamb into the freezers I had to remove the two tubs of raspberries to make space, so I decided to make jam yesterday. That necessitated a trip to Lakeland for more jars (until last autumn we always recycled them. Now I keep them but can't keep up with my jam demand!). When we got home I put jars in the dishwasher and started the jam-making, wishing I'd also bought a proper preserving pan (2kg of berries plus 2kg of sugar filled my big pan to the top). It became obvious when I started jarring it all that I still hadn't washed enough jars, so I hand-washed some more in hot water. In all I got 13 jars of jam, plus a small bowl that wouldn't fit in a jar. I'll make sure we eat the jam from the unsterilised jars ourselves (and watch, obviously, for signs of mould). While OldBloke watched the qualies, before we went to Lakeland, I got yet another kilo-plus of berries from over the road. After dinner I divided most of the latest set of berries between three kilners, added icing sugar, and then topped them with booze. One vodka, one gin, one rum. And I located the frozen sloes my boss gave me last autumn and finally got around to putting them in a bottle of gin too. Today YoungBloke and I will use the last of the berries, including some from the garden, to make Eton Mess (or 'Pudding', as he calls it). All the other raspberries we pick now are likely to be used for that. Or I could make raspberry and blackberry jam in September... It surprised me when I go berry-picking, how many berries there are. Very few people are picking them. Last weekend a group of youths wandered past and I heard one say, as they saw me, "we could pick some berries". Another said "what are they?" and they wandered off. What are they? They're free food, that's what they are! Well, moderately free. Once I've bought the sugar and the jars they're less free, but that's not the point! Foraging, see. It's ace. OldBloke is wondering about making raspberry wine. I suspect that's a caerleon query. |
| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
celestialweasel
|
12:01p |
|
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
hoiho
|
11:00p |
Gonna leave a greasy trail, gonna travel the world Three days of work done, and I’m absolutely exhausted. I haven’t done much, if anything, other than work, eat and sleep. The one advantage of being dog-tired is that the drugs can’t stop be sleeping, although they do tend to wake me in the middle of the night.
Tomorrow morning, very early, it’s off to the airport, and a flight to Innsbruck. I still don’t speak German, and I have no idea what to expect. Might be interesting. Especially if I can stop the drugs and start drinking again. Current Mood: tiredCurrent Music: Franz Ferdinand / this boy |
celestialweasel
|
6:14p |
Where do you want to go today?
Did you know that
1) the 64 bit versions of things on 64 bit Vista are in the Win32 directory
2) but the 32 bit versions are in the WOW64 directory
On which note, time to go home... |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 |
news
[ theljstaff ]
|
7:10a |
Basic Accounts and X-Men Account Structure UpdateBack by popular demand, Basic Accounts will be available to all users again by the end of the (northern hemisphere) summer. More information on the decision-making process and proposals relating to the future of Basic Accounts are in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) lj_2008. New ThemesTwo attractive and all-new Flexible Squares themes, " Circular" and " Circular Brown" are now available.  L to R: Circular and Brown New V-GiftsGive someone you care about the gift of enticement. With the new Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, Tea, Coffee, Curry and Sushi v-gifts, all the significant people in your life will be able to share in the longing for the tasty edibles below. Plus, it reminds loved ones you think they're really sweet, really savory or just plain satisfying.  L to R: Chocolate Ice Cream, Vanilla Ice Cream, Tea, Coffee, Curry and SushiЖ-Men...but not the ones you might expect!This week LJ Russia launched Ж-Men, a new comedy series about superheroes, inspired by the LJ communities dedicated to superheros, comics and cartoons. The title's "Ж" comes from ЖЖ, the nickname for LiveJournal in Russia. Ж-Men's script is written by a group of LJ enthusiasts who also happen to be television professionals. Who knew? Following the premiere, five more episodes will be broadcast over the next two weeks. We hope you find the series fresh and enjoyable. This is, of course, an experiment for LiveJournal. As always, we'd love to hear what you think! Current Mood: awake |
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 |
k425
|
11:05a |
Credit crunch
Yesterday the Sunday Times Wine Club rang to check I was happy with the frequency of our regular case delivery. I am, but took the opportunity to order a case of one of the wines we had recently - Speargrass Shiraz 2006, and to change our delivery address back to home.
Today one of the academics came in to delivery my boss the half lamb she ordered from his farm. I asked if I could put in an order and he said I could have one of the spare halves in the back of his car. With liver and heart thrown in free. So there's a half a lamb, cut up, in a box on the spare desk...
That half a lamb cost £40, for nearly 15kg. For free range, home-grown lamb that the farmer takes to the abattoir himself, stays with while it's slaughtered so it's not stressed, and hangs. It was just lamb - a week or two off being hogget. It looks lovely. I'll have to do a lot of work in the freezers tonight, though! |
| Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 |
hoiho
|
4:39p |
I struggled through barbed wire, felt the hail fall from above
Yeah, I know it’s just sad man hifi geekery, but, hot damn, aren’t these pretty?
 
Hey ho, back to work tomorrow. Current Mood: tired (of it all)Current Music: Magnetic Fields / All My Little Words |
addedentry
|
3:00p |
Irresistible forces The Magnetic Fields, 2008-07-10, Cadogan Hall, LondonI'm never sure how to pigeonhole the Magnetic Fields. Disco torch songs? Tragicomic cabaret? 'Ironic synthpop' seems most accurate, yet at this show they were unplugged and heartbreakingly sincere. I'd downloaded their current album with an excitement that sadly dissipated as I heard the songs, or rather, strained to hear them underneath Distortion's deliberate distortion. So when j4 bought me birthday tickets, I was grateful but trepidatious. We needn't have worried. The show made a splendid (re)introduction to the new songs by dismantling the wall of sound. I do wish Stephin Merritt, adored for lyrics which are pretty and witty and gay, would give up burying them in the mix (as on everything he recorded before 69 Love Songs) or smothering them in fuzz. He's surely neither tongue-tied nor bashful. Cadogan Hall is a converted church near Sloane Square, grand, white and airy. The band made an understated entrance, taking some time to settle down; Claudia invited people standing to claim empty seats in the front row, which they did, slowly. Looking over the side from our pew, Stephin was out of sight. He was also out of sorts and out of patience, the band having only just been reunited with instruments mislaid in transit on the penultimate night of the tour. Nonetheless, as Stephin, Claudia and Shirley sang each other's songs promiscuously, his singing voice was still lugubriously expressive. It was an eclectic set with songs from the last three Magnetic Fields albums, both 6ths discs, even the obscure soundtracks (though nothing from the Future Bible Heroes). In alphabetical order, reconstructed from memory: All Dressed Up In Dreams / As You Turn To Go / The Book Of Love / California Girls / Courtesans / Crows / Dreams Anymore / Drive On, Driver / Give Me Back My Dreams / Grand Canyon / I Looked All Over Town / I Wish I Had An Evil Twin / If You Don't Cry / It's Only Time / No One Will Ever Love You / The Nun's Litany / Old Fools / Papa Was A Rodeo / Take Ecstasy With Me / This Little Ukelele / Three-Way / Too Drunk To Dream / Walking My Gargoyle / What A Fucking Lovely Day! / When I'm Out of Town / Yeah! Oh Yeah! / Zombie Boy. Four songs about dreams! Lost dreams, of course. j4 held my hand in defiance through every song of sad regret. Then they had to play ' It's Only Time'. And ' Grand Canyon', and ' As You Turn To Go'. And there was something in my eye, damn it. |
| Monday, July 14th, 2008 |
celestialweasel
|
9:17p |
Mr Y Gets His End Away
My copy of 'The End of Mr Y' has arrived. It begins with two pages of praise for PopCo, which was an utterly bizarre book - though not an unpleasant read because it was so deeply pathological. One of the reviews says 'If Cryptonomicon and Fight Club jointly impregnated Thursday Next, then PopCo would be their unholy demon seed. Sprawling, imaginative, clever and absorbing, PopCo is a thinking person's adventure tale, and will delight any reader who embraces their inner, four-eyed, scholastically inclined, misfit geek'.
Hmm. I would have said PopCo was the anti-Cryptonomicon, its sentiments being close to those shared by the straw-(wo)man girlfriend and her eeevil post-modern academic friends. But there are probably levels of irony I am not appreciating.
Anyway, will keep you posted... |
hoiho
|
8:57p |
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit with the juice running down my leg Poll #1223271 Fruit Loops
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllThe berry of choice is... Current Mood: desolateCurrent Music: Frank Zappa / The Black Page (new age version) |
gleet
|
3:02p |
|
celestialweasel
|
1:15p |
No, that's not what I meant, thank you Mr Google
Did you mean: "up bill gates's house" |
hoiho
|
7:29a |
I can't sleep at night for trying
Insomnia sucks.
That is all.
Current Mood: tired & cranky
Current Music: San Francisco Daydream / John Burgess Quartet |
gleet
|
6:52a |
QOTD
"Do you have smoke alarms in England?" |
| Sunday, July 13th, 2008 |
hoiho
|
2:48p |
Slowing spinning down (circling the plug hole?) You know you’re getting old when you find that you can no longer read the colour stripes on a resistor, or the printing on top of an IC, without the aid of a magnifying glass, and a bright light. Dammit! |
celestialweasel
|
12:40p |
And finally for now...
... have upgraded the iPod Touch to version 2.0. There is always something about seeing long lists of bits of software like the AppStore or whatever they're calling it set out together on a slab in the manner of fish at a fish-monger's, particularly when lots are slightly lame utilities, is somewhat soul sucking...
On the other hand, it does now have a scientific calculator, so if I ever want a 15 digit random number I know where to find one. |
celestialweasel
|
12:21p |
Hamsters within wheels within wheels I was amused to find, in the Wikipedia entry on Noel Coward, a reference to a Dr. Who novel Mad Dogs and Englishmen in which, I quote from Wikipedia 'The Doctor Who novel Mad Dogs and Englishmen features a version of Coward who has allied himself with alien poodles and gained time travel technology'. I did wonder whether The Boy Who Told Plausible But Dull Lies had been at work again, but it appears to exist. Mat Coward appears to have written a Dr. Who short story ( see 'losing the audience' in http://homepages.phonecoop.coop/matcoward/). Looks interesting, but not interesting enough to buy a book of Dr. Who short stories, I don't think. This bizarrely leads round in a circle because Coward (Mat, not Noel) says “Losing the audience” involves several of my great fascinations; Doctor Who, of course, and radio comedy, as well as BH itself, and a period of history that I’m very interested in - the plans for the British Resistance during World War Two', and the reason I was looking up Coward (Noel, not Mat) was that I had just read the Noel Coward play 'Peace In Our Time' which is set in a Britain defeated by the Germans in 1940 and subsequently liberated in Act 2, and largely concerns the Resistance. |
celestialweasel
|
11:48a |
Taunted by chocolate
As part of the quest for world domination, our local Tesco has an aisle of stuff that would normally be sold in local ethnic shops where e.g. you can buy large containers of spices for the price of the naff little jars two aisles along, cheaper chick-peas than available in the canned food section etc. They also have some Polish stuff including Mella Galaretka which are chocolate covered fruit jellies which are vegan. They are best described as being like Jaffa Cakes but without the cake.
Perplexingly, the box shows pictures of flavours other than orange, viz cherry and something purple which could be blackberry or blackcurrant. More perplexingly, a search on the web reveals there are at least 3 other flavours including these three i.e. 6 in total. However, whilst there are on-line Polish shops in the UK, they all deliver themselves rather than sell by post (one only in London, one in London and other places where they presumably have partner shops), the only place I have found which does them mail order is from Poland and I don't think I want them that much.
The Polish shop down Cowley Road was shut when I went past it yesterday evening, but didn't obviously have any unless on the one shelf not visible from the window, I shall go and check though.
Incidentally, the doomed shop (on the corner of Bullingdon Road and St Mary's Road, I think) has shut again, it is going to open as a Bangla fish and stuff (and Afro-Caribbean stuff) shop later in July. It has been, in fairly short order, a tattoo parlour, a Brazilian food shop and a Polish shop. Better luck this time, I guess :-) |
| Saturday, July 12th, 2008 |
hoiho
|
9:55p |
Old and in the way Today, I ventured out into the world for the first time in about a month (apart from the visits to the doctor, of course). Getting prepared for going back to werk, I suppose, was the the reason for this -- my current line ends on Wednesday, and I can’t stand any more idleness. Anyway, I took the train in to Edinburgh - mainly to see how I dealt with the travel, as the last time I went anywhere, in a car, I was violently ill afterwards. And, other than taking over three times as long as it should ( FirstScotFail & Notwork Rail conspired to punt us up the Dalmenty Chord, as the Almond viaduct is being provocatively maintained), it went OK. I spent a couple of hours in Edinburgh, dropped off my latest line onto the office secretary’s desk, noted the absence of an expected parcel on my desk (presaging a dance of doom with the PO), picked up a few odds and ends in Maplin (for the new moving coil cartridge step-up transformer box) and then went shopping for LPs. I only bought ten; meet the new FOPP (same as the old FOPP)! I’m going to list them now, in absence of anything else interesting to say... I wonder what all that says about my musical taste? That was just two hours this afternoon, plus the trip back. And I’m now totally knackered. But I can’t sleep, as a side-effect of the drugs is “difficulty getting to sleep”. Sucks to be me. |
| Friday, July 11th, 2008 |
celestialweasel
|
9:35p |
|
celestialweasel
|
8:57p |
There's a satirical novel I needn't bother writing Returning to the subject of the Tenori-on, behold the Tenorions http://www.thetenorions.com/biog.htm Not at all a lame Yamaha stunt, oh no. The misogynistic and misanthropic Idiot Toys featured them yesterday http://www.idiottoys.com/2008/07/celebrity-holding-girl-band-tenerions.htmlRead the PR text and weep. One of the commenters said 'The Last Sane Man Alive said... Let this day be remembered as the day I realised humanity must die and began the greatest Killing Spree in history.' And I can kind of understand that response. The trouble with doing satires of the music industry (and I would, of course, not let my total ignorance of it stand in my way) is that these things end up as a one note thing e.g. 'sickening quantities of drugs, egomania and wasted money, success pretty much a lottery' - see Kill Your Friends by John Niven (link to The Man's bookselling site: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kill-Your-Friends-John-Niven/dp/043401799X ), all the good jokes in which I read in a review, although there was one funny scene in it. Of course, once we have the band created to publicise the expensive music device, what do we do with them? A Scarlett Thomas style searing indictment of modern capitalism with No Logo thoughtfully included in the reading list in the appendix, or a late Gibson style novel aimed squarely at Monocle http://www.monoclemagazine.com/ readers? (I always think of it as Mon Oncle and think it should have a sister magazine Ma Tante - they could even sell pens as a sideline, ha ha). |
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