Lego Scriboque

I Love the BBC

2009-09-02T22:32:00.001+01:00

Does anyone really doubt that the BBC is great? Apparently only those who think they could profit from its demise. The BBC is one of the things that makes this country great, seriously, it and the NHS are the two most important institutions in the country, two of the greatest British achievements of the last century. Without them, frankly we may as well live anywhere, like America, or the sea. If I ever get a chance to ask I would love to know what would happen to public owned broadcasting in Scotland. Like the NHS it has flaws, but like the NHS those flaws just show that it needs defending, and protecting, and perhaps reforming, never that it needs reducing, or replacing, or destroying.

Murdochs claim, and even the Guardian has reported semi-positively that the BBC is holding back the print media. Too fight gross over simplification with gross over simplification: the print media in America is in just as much, if not more, trouble than in the UK. Without a BBC. The BBC is a challenge to print media, and over news sources, because in a world with the BBC there is only so shit British news can be. Sky News is pretty poor, but it is a paragon of prophesy compared to its siblings across the pond. Partly this is because of regulation designed to keep bias off the airways. Not that this works, as even the briefest sample viewing will show. The Telegraph was even handed in its slating of MPs over expenses and yet Sky managed to be incredibly partial. Sky will show entire Tory press conferences, and quote every press release, but ignore the Government. Partly Sky is forced to be better than it might, because if it ever stooped to the mendacity of Fox it would be a laughing stock in a country where we are used to news having at least some proximity to reality. (Although even in that low ambition one is sometimes confounded)

The BBC is never going to replace print news. It has none of the opinion that newspaper readers want. Nor is Sky news ever going to suffer, it has an approach that the BBC is never going to be able to compete on. (Partial coverage and a policy of being "never wrong for long" e.g. reporting unsubstantiated rumour as soon as it emerges. The BBC is painfully slow to report current events as it must first go through the tedious process of fact checking.) Print News salvation is not in a diminution of the overall quality of public discourse, but in finding ways to effectively monetise its online presence. To give them their due News International is trying to do this, but with a model which is never going to be successful in the long term. We need an easy and safe way to spend very small amounts of money across online outlets so we can pay 2p for an article on the Times, 3p for an opinion piece from the Guardian etc. Something like iTunes for papers. Furthermore more effective advertising models are required, and papers need to better market their side lines e.g. pay to access archives, crosswords etc.

Of course I can think of lots of ways in which the BBC should change.

It should stop trying to hard to chase the populist market. Jonathon Ross and Chris Moyles fans aren't in danger of being undercatered for. Dump them and their kin.

It should stop producing filler material, if it is still making Two Pints of Larger... then it clearly has too much airtime. Before a programme gets made a decision should be made as to whether, in the great reckoning of human achievements, it would be weighed on the good or evil side of the balance. Does this contribute positively to the human condition, or is it a symptom of the slow heat death of the universe. Two Pints, I think all will agree, is clearly in the latter camp. Being almost watchable if you are drunk should not be sufficient commendation for a programme to run for ten years.

As there will be less TV material, cut the channels to three. Popular, High Brow, and Quirky. Similarly trim the radio output, and put more money into radios 4 and 3.

When the micropayment system needed to save print media is up and running stick as much as possible into a great big online store, all the stuff that gets put onto radio 7, and much of what goes on radio 3 should be available for cheap, but not free, download.

Thai Curry

2009-06-28T21:40:00.000+01:00

A good object lesson in making two meals. On Friday, for dinner, with company (we were five) we had a thai curry on rice. Today the two of us had a thai stir fry with noodles.

The thai curry was a green paste mixed in with two cans of coconut milk (half fat) with a little stock, (c. 200 ml). When heated I added potato, cauliflower, broccoli and mange tout, not all at once, but so that they would all be cooked at roughly the right time. This was served a couple of ladles on nice hot fragrant rice. The recipe was that in the Newlyweds Cookbook a very kind wedding gift from our priest and his wife. The timings in it were nonsense, (two minutes to cook inch cubes of potatoes!) but obviously so, so I was prepared. The result was lovely, creamy and fragrant. It was quite mild (good for the company, not all of whom like spicy foods), and a change from the subcontinental style curries I usually prefer. It had a moderate sauce to veg ratio, more than a coating (see below) but it was not swimming in the stuff. I caused a moderate amount of amusement when I had to transfer from my medium casserole to my BIG casserole dish. It served five people, with seconds for some. There was a large extra portion which formed the beginning of the next meal.

That leftover portion would have served, as it was, as a light lunch for two. Or tea for two if those two didn't mind a stingy curry to rice ratio. Instead I bulked it out slightly. In a wok I heated the remaining paste with half a thai chilli, some mushrooms and about 500 ml of stock. I reduced this a little and added some mushrooms, after the mushrooms stir fried a little I poured in the tuppaware of curry. Alongside I cooked some noodles. I put the noodles in the wok with plenty of spinach. The combination of stir frying and the noodles made this much drier - the sauce really was just a coating. It had more of a kick, from the chilli, but was still fairly fragrant. Noodles are nice and filling, so the end result was a very satisfactory meal.

On friday we had it with beer, beer beer, rather than a more appropriate lager. Maybe Tiger would have worked. Tonight we had Lime and Soda, I like Lime with spicy dishes.

Yummy.

A Wedding is Announced

2009-06-20T18:33:00.005+01:00

Owen David Griffiths is delighted to announce his marriage to Natasha Katherine, neé Wood.
Celebrated in the company of friends and family on the 13th of June 2009, at St Peter's Church Edinburgh.

We have returned from a lovely honeymoon, our rings are still shiny, and I haven't quite gotten used to saying "my wife."

We would both like to thank everyone who got us this far, for everything. Including for the cards, a small number of which are pictured below.

Many pictures are available on facebook, but Chris Scott's are to be found on Flickr and the official photographers blog.

We can highly recommend:

The Royal Scots Club
A beautiful venue, with very friendly staff, and a fab four poster room. Leila was always wonderfully enthusiastic, and incredibly helpful, the day would not have been so good without her input.

St Peter's Church
Well, it is our church, so we would, but the ceremony was everything we had hoped for, and it was great to show of the redecoration.

Andy Craig
Andy managed to put us both very much at ease. An unfriendly photographer could really have put a dampener on things, but Andy was incredibly friendly, which really helped us to relax, what we have seen of his photos are great, and we are looking forward to seeing more.

The Nectary
Everyone said that the flowers were wonderful, Kay provided exactly what we wanted, which was impressive, because when we met with her we didn't know what we wanted. She was terribly friendly, and the bouquets were an especial testament, I was only sorry we couldn't keep some of the flowers.

Ecosse Classic Cars
I didn't spend long in it, but it was a gorgeous Daimler, with a very cheerful driver.

Helen and Mike
Matched only by each other, we couldn't have had anyone better by our sides on the day.

Entertaining: St David's Day Lunch

2009-03-14T15:23:00.003Z

1 March 2009, Sunday. Feast of St. David.
Stockbridge.

Guests
We were five, gathered around the kitchen table

Menu

Sherry

***

Cheese Bread
Cennin Cawl (Leek and Potato Soup)

***

Cheese and Crackers

***

Welsh Cakes
Tea

Notes
Overall this is a menu worth wheeling out again, we now own a stone, which makes the welsh cakes much easier. It was nice to have a few daffs, and pretend to be welsh for a while. We played a combination of Catatonia, Tome Jones, and Bryn Terfel, who sings a good Land of My Fathers.

The cheese would have been better if Peckhams hadn't run out of Y Fenni. The Cheese bread went a bit wrong, probably because I mis programmed the bread machine, but it tasted fine, it was just ready too early (and thus not lovely and warm.) If I tried it again I might b e tempted to drop some mustard in with the cheese, or maybe a drop of ale. (Brains or similar for St Ds day ideally.)

The Leek and Potato soup was a sort of success, taste wise I was happy. I boiled potato and then added the potato, to gently fried leek and onion, with some stock. I had liberally seasoned the leek and onion, and put some sherry in with it. I served it far too gloopy, subsequent lunches saw it refined with more sherry, a little milk, and lots more water. We served this with creme fraiche and plenty of pepper.

The sherry was mainly an excuse to use our decanter and glasses, I was the only one who was mad keen on it, of those others who would drink sherry, I think most would drink something more on the lines of bristol cream. I suppose it would have been better to have some beer on hand also.

We made the welsh cakes while everyone was there, so folk could eat them warm off the stone. Everyone loves welsh cakes, and I hope to make them more often. Next year perhaps we should round of with a trip to the pub, or a wander round our back garden.

Time II, New Babylonian Time

2009-03-14T14:53:00.003Z

Tempora igitur a temperando nomen accipiunt, sive quod unumquodque illorum spatium separatim temperatum sit: seu quod momentis, horis, diebus, mensibus, annis, saeculisque et aetatibus omnia mortalis vitae curricula temperentur

Times take their name from "measure", either because every unit of time is separetely measured in moments, hours, days, months, years, ages, and epochs.¹

As you can see I was recently reading about time. In that last time related post I mentioned some of the fun to be had from alternative ways of reckoning time. Towards the end I said the following:

On the internet one can find advocates for pretty much anything, including temporal reform. The last time anyone seriously attempted to change the way we measure time was the french revolution. The French indulged their fetish for the metric by giving us a ten day 'week', and a metric system of hours (etc). Whilst for scientific, and many technical purposes the metric system is admirable, for many practical purposes it is useless, although not as useless as a system when every day of the year has its own name. Nonetheless metric time has some enthusiastic proponents. There are other people who suggest time to be told in binary or hexadecimal format.

Most of these systems are pretty hopeless, for practical purposes. Metric time has some advantages from a mathematic point of view, fitting in with the rest of the base-10 world. binary or hexadecimal time have other advantages - especially in terms of co-ordinating with computers etc. "Binary" clocks already exist, but they just use systems of on/off lights to denote duodec/sexages-imal time. Binary degrees are used by some programs for 3D graphics, under this system the circle is cut into 256 degrees. 256 being the largest number that can be represented by 8 bits, or 1 byte. Most people don't really get the binary systems, most people readily admit to being mystified as to the units used in computing, why 256 colours, why is a gigabyte not actually a thousand bytes etc. The system does have a beauty though, and it would be pretty impressive if one could learn to count binary on ones fingers, but alternative ways of counting on your fingers is for another day, maybe for never. Anyway, lots of people have proposed several different time counting systems, mainly provoked by the flimsy reasoning that the current system is antiquated (as if antiquity alone were a bad thing - I will have to blog about tradition some time as well), and that the metric/decimal system has a shiny modernist newness to it. (not that it is any newer than, say the sexagesimal, or octal or any counting system used by humans over the last 12,000 years.)

Anyway, I continue with the following:

I must admit to being fascinated by alternative ways of measuring time, partly because they destabilise cosy notions of regularity and order, but mainly because they seem so damn sci-fi. If we take man into space, it doesn't matter how long his day is, never mind how it is divided. Kim Stanley Robinson's otherwise excellent Mars books, deal with martian time by sticking 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds, onto the end of a day, which seems an unimaginative way of doing things. Surely there could be better solutions? I like the idea of returning to our Sumerian heritage and dividing the day into 360 equal portions (of four minutes), and (orbit of the earth be damned), cutting the year into 360 days.

Having said that, I suppose I felt like fleshing the idea out, for the sci-fi epic I will never write.

New Babylonian Time

So here, I present New Babylonian Time. A system based on 360.

The day will last for 360 degrees NBT, for a period lasting 24 hours Old Time (OT). A degree will therefore be four old minutes long. I think four minutes is a neat length of time for most of our purposes. The degree will be the main unit used for both duration, e.g. "Just popping in the shower, be out in a degree", and also for scheduling, e.g. "Meet me for lunch at one-eighty". In terms of duration it may be printed normally, e.g. "The exam will last for twelve degrees", but in scheduling the zeros will always be used, e.g. "I didn't go to bed till naught-thirty", where ones alarm clock would read "030". I propose the time, for scheduling purposes, be told in the form "naught-ninety", "one-eighty", "two-seventy two", rather than the cumbersome "Two hundred and seventy two". The symbol for a degree is, obviously, °. Midnight will be 000, not 360.

The day will be divided, as now, into morning and afternoon, colloquially, but we will have an exact definition of early, mid and late morning/afternoon. This is because the day will be cut into six "watches" which make more sense than morning/afternoon in a sunless/dayless environment. The watches will each last for sixty degrees, they will either be referred to as early morning, mid morning etc, or (more formally) first, second and third watch etc. The new watches will begin at 000°, 060°, 120°, 180°, 220°, and 300°. So 120 will be the first degree of the third watch. Occasionally a unit called the Span will be used. One span lasts 6°, and whilst much scheduling will occur in six and its multiples they will not be used as much as hours are. The span will remain largely in colloquial use, and to describe approximate or metaphorical duration. "She went on for spans!"

The degree does not need to be subdivided for most every day use, the only time I can think of when I use seconds is when I am programming a microwave, then I do it in units of thirty seconds. For such purposes one can either use NBT "Minutes" - based on the arc minute, and lasting 4 old seconds, e.g. 60' = 1°, or fractions of a degree, usually sixths. One could further propose that rather than using 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 5/6. one use 1/6, 2/6, 3/6. One could refer to these as degree-watches, as opposed to day-watches. An NBT second, for rare scientific purposes, would be sixtieth of an NBT minute - based on the arc second. It would last for 0.0666... of a second.

Why 360?

I will admit to lifting the system wholesale from the compass, the advantage being that we can already instinctively divide 360 into fractional chunks. Half is 180, a third 120, a quarter is 90 a sixth is 60, easy. NBT minutes and seconds are based on arc minutes and seconds. It is also a pleasing nod to our sumerian forebears. It has a high number of divisors. (The same advantage that sixty and 12 have). It is s a fairly manageable number, avoids having to use two different units for most purposes. (Nearly everything is in degrees instead of hours and minutes). Most of all it sounds pleasingly sci-fi. I can imagine my space explorers with their big 360 clocks on the bridge.

Variations

Of course I initially suggested that this is a unit for people not tied to earth, so one variation would be to abandon the 24 hour OT day. Martians could adopt a 360 degree day for their 1475 minute (and 35.244 second) OT day. In which case every degree would be fractionally longer than four minutes. One could adopt a horribly long day of approximately 36 hours. (Although there are people out there who have tried to adopt bizarre cicadian patterns, based around, amongst other things, 36 hour days.) in a 36 hour OT day a degree would be 6 minutes OT long.

A more advanced step would be, however long ones day was, to also redivide the year. Firstly one could jettison any attempt to key the year to the orbit of the earth, something that is increasingly irrelevant to us, and would be even more irrelevant to people not dwelling on earth at all. A 360 day year could be divided into six months of sixty days, and sixty weeks of six days. Each month would be exactly ten weeks long, alternatively one could have 12 months of five weeks/30 days. - But I would advise keeping the symmetry with the division of the year. A six day week is kind of cosy as well, but demonstrates the biggest problem with any such a reckoning, which is that it entirely messes up the religious year, as I have moved up the candle I have become increasingly more interested in sacred time, and that includes the significance of the seven day week. It would be sad, from a selfish point of view, to lose the connection between sacred and profane time completely, although our brethren the Orthodox, as well as those of other faiths, demonstrate that one can keep to separate calendars for religious reasons perfectly well.

Conclusions

All I have really done is have a bit of a play with numbers, make a system which would work for sci-fi, even though I know that focusing on daft novelties is a hallmark of bad sci-fi, it is a thing most famously done by the first Battlestar Gallactica. Really I know that the whole thing is a fond thing vainly invented. But the process of inventing it was fun, and I hope I poked fun at some of those who are (I think) more seriously proposing temporal reform.

Ready Reckoner

The Year
360 Days
6 Months of 60 days
60 Weeks of 6 days

The Day
360 Degrees
6 Watches of 60 degrees
60 Spans of 6 degrees (rare)

NBT - OT
Day - 1 day/24 hours
(Day-)Watch - 4 hours
Span - 24 minutes
Degree - 4 minutes
Degree-watch - 40 Seconds
Minute - 4 seconds
Second = 0.0666... seconds.

Converting duration.

(Hours * 60) + (Minutes) + (Seconds/60) = Time in OT minutes.
OT minutes/4 = NBT minutes

e.g. 4 Hours 14 minutes and 40 seconds.
= 240 + 4 + 0.666... = 244.666 Seconds
= 244.666.../4 = 61.1666...° OR 61°4/6 Or 61°40'

---

1 Bede, On the Reckoning of Time. Latin, Liverpool Texts Translation.

Dairy Milk: A Glass and a Half of Fair.

2009-03-04T20:52:00.004Z

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
I've been waiting for this moment for all my life

A little over a year ago, I mentioned that Tate and Lyle had been Fair Trade certified for their range of sugars. At the time I said:

that the victories for fairtrade will not come with niche companies, but with normal suppliers of coffee, tea, chocolate, or ... sugar, going over to fairtrade.

This is not to deny the important contribution played by niche companies such as Cafe Direct or Divine Chocolate. Divine provides a valuable illustration, because its pioneering work supported the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative of Ghanian cocoa farmers. Kuapa Kokoo provides cocoa, via Divine, to the Co-Op and now to Cadburys for its Dairy Milk range.

The Dairy Milk announcement, which I discovered here is why I am blogging today. Last year I expressed praise for Tate and Lyle, and I do so again here. It demonstrates that the big faceless corporation can be persuaded towards more ethical behaviour with a bit of consumer pressure. For this to work we need an informed consumer society - and the work of the fairtrade foundation has been to raise awareness of ethical purchasing, the fairtrade mark allows consumers to make easy yet informed decisions.

Cynics might suggest that this move is no better than the Partner's Blend initiative from Nestle. However I believe there are several differences. Whilst both are applied to a single product - or range, within companies with substantial portfolios, Cadburys is changing an existing brand, rather than creating a new one. What is more the brand is a major one, Partner's Blend can barely be found, whereas the Costcutter next door sells Dairy Milk, and will presumably continue to do so. Dairy Milk is surely the brand of milk chocolate. What is more Cadbury claim that they intend to roll out the certification to more of their products, if in the next few years they have no done so, then the cynics will have had the day, but if encouraged by success in Dairy Milk Cadbury continue to improve their ethical standards then a true blow has been struck against injustice. For more, and hopefully more on the devlopment of fairtrade in the Cadburys range, see their blog.

---

I have never posted praising the Co-Op, so this seems like an apposite moment to mention that they have played a very important role in supporting ethical produce, both through retail and funding for various groups. They combine this work with ethical practices in other areas, such as ethical banking, positive employment policies and of course their co-operative structure. A further diversion would be to mention some reading I did today, being the Church of Scotland's response to Agricultural and Food policy. This made clear that there are people in economically marginalised communities who do not receive a living compensation for their work. These people however live in Scotland, and their plight may be less dramatic than that of those in less economically developed countries, but they are still squeezed by the same villains, the half dozen major retailers and distributors who often do not pay farmers enough to cover production costs.

Time

2009-02-27T22:22:00.002Z

Time - he flexes like a whore
Falls wanking to the floor

I wish I could remember when, and how old I was, but at some stage, many moons ago, my uncle, aunt and cousins bought me the book Time, by Alexander Waugh.¹ The 24 hour day, 60 second minute, 12 month year and 7 day week all betray a cornucopia of influences. Our reckoning of time was forged in the cradle of civilization, the Sumerians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and Jews all played a role. Bede was capable of discussing the second, a period of time he can have had no way of measuring.

The chapters are arranged largely by forms of measurement, e.g. Second, Minute, Decade etc. Each chapter discusses the origins of the form, and usually includes some interesting diversions, and into this rather elegant scheme discussions of e.g. the calendar, the technology of time telling, creation etc are inserted. The book makes no claim to academic rigour (which is a good job as we shall see), and does not contain any academic apparatus, as with all such books it would be nice if there was at the very least an annotated bibliography/further reading section at the end. Some reviews on Amazon suggest that the structure is a little too chaotic, but in the main I think that meandering nature is quite pleasant. - Like a long conversation with a learned friend.

The book is not without its flaws, a fine line divides the interesting diversion and the irrelevant digression. A slightly broader gap separates these from the rant, of which there are a few. Despite the occasional admonishments against it, Waugh does indulge in a little chauvinism, especially were God is involved, and the credulity of the medieval man, and the control of the medieval church. This is coupled with a few editing and factual issues. A good editor should surely make sure that when an author says "As I have said", that he has, and that the information does not, in fact, come later. A good editor should also check in which year Caesar invaded Britain, which way round Einstein's theories go, the difference between an arc minute and a degree etc. Anyone who is researching such things should be able to correctly discuss a 'spherical' universe. Most of all he should not get the Venerable Bede (Saint, Doctor of the Church, medieval monk of Wearmouth-Jarrow etc) and Adam Bede (Carpenter, eighteenth century, fictional character from the pen of George Eliot).

Perhaps his chauvinism blinded him to an interesting area of discussion, and that is of Church time. The way the church, along with many other religions, keeps its own calendar, of seasons, (Lent, Epiphany etc), and festivals. The way in which to the catholic mind, not only the seasons, but also the days of the year, the days of the week and the hours of the day are imbued with a sacred significance. Observant adherents of several religions count both secular and sacred time.

The most interesting thing about time, at least as revealed in this book, is the arbitrary nature in which we cut it up. In fact I find that we do cut it up pretty interesting in itself. The human urge to measure, divide and identify is fascinating, and yet so primal that it is almost impossible to think about. On one level the division of time is a practical thing, we need to know when to get up, when to go to bed, when to work etc. Alfred the Great wanted to make sure he spent as much time praying as ruling, and as we have seen, time is cut up for sacred purposes. In many ways the way we count time seems both arbitrary and archaic. The second is a pointless unit of time, the minute is a bit better, but most of the time I divide time in chunks of five minutes. For planning purposes I use chunks of ten minimum, usually chunks of half an hour. Half an hour traveling time, half an hour to make tea etc.

On the internet one can find advocates for pretty much anything, including temporal reform. The last time anyone seriously attempted to change the way we measure time was the french revolution. The French indulged their fetish for the metric by giving us a ten day 'week', and a metric system of hours (etc). Whilst for scientific, and many technical purposes the metric system is admirable, for many practical purposes it is useless, although not as useless as a system when every day of the year has its own name. Nonetheless metric time has some enthusiastic proponents. There are other people who suggest time to be told in binary or hexadecimal format.

I must admit to being fascinated by alternative ways of measuring time, partly because they destabilise cosy notions of regularity and order, but mainly because they seem so damn sci-fi. If we take man into space, it doesn't matter how long his day is, never mind how it is divided. Kim Stanley Robinson's otherwise excellent Mars books, deal with martian time by sticking 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds, onto the end of a day, which seems an unimaginative way of doing things. Surely there could be better solutions? I like the idea of returning to our Sumerian heritage and dividing the day into 360 equal portions (of four minutes), and (orbit of the earth be damned), cutting the year into 360 days.

---

1 Who is indeed related, being grandson, to a Much More Famous Waugh. Whose Brideshead I found most enjoyable. The rest of the less famous Waugh's output is an interesting mix. Classical Music, Wittgenstein, his family, and God.

Employment

2009-02-24T18:19:00.002Z

Thankyou for attending the recent interview. I am pleased to inform you that we are now in a position to offer you an appointment as a Administrative Support Assistant

This, of course, is the news I have been waiting for, for some time.

On one level there is very little to say, right now it changes very little. I do not know when the post starts, because to be formally given the role I have to submit my disclosure etc. This is exciting enough nonetheless.

I don't actually know what I will be doing, but whatever it is, it is unlikely to be the kind of job to put in one's epitaph. On the other hand it is an in, an entrance to the civil service, and a way of obtaining the much needed experience in a rigorous environment. Since I have (sort of) chosen the route of entering at the bottom and climbing, I intend to be fairly aggressive in my own advancement, seeking opportunities to learn and advance wherever they arise.

The main change is a fairly abstract one, for some time now all the elements of my life have been in place. I live in a fine flat in a wonderful city. I live with my fiancée, an ambition which I had been holding for some time until, finally, it could happen. We manage a fairly comfortable lifestyle, and see enough of our fine friends to keep us very happy indeed in that respect. However, there has been a force which has been dragging my happiness back. My failure, for some time, to find employment, has been a terrible burden to carry.

Job Seeking (as opposed to leisurely unemployment, which I am sure I could enjoy) is a depressing purpose. Firstly it forces one to prostitute oneself far and wide. I have filled in countless applications, pouring in as much enthusiasm as possible into each one. For many of these applications several hours of work was not even met with courtesy reply. In some cases I would spend yet more time, preparing for, and then attending, an interview. The interview process was emotionally taxing every time. In order to come across well at interview I would work up the maximum enthusiasm for a post, leading to inevitable crushing disappointment when, again, I heard nothing. Secondly the process makes one question ones value, in a world where people define, and value themselves, in relation to their employment a failure to find employment can leave one very cold. Finally the guilt is all consuming, I felt I should be looking for work at every minute, felt every time I watched TV that I was cheating the system. I tried to avoid reading news stories about unemployment, so as not to encounter the inevitable driveling "what I reckon", about scrounging JSA scum.

Throughout this process I was "supported" by the Job Centre "Plus". I feel having finally gotten a job I can confidently say that the Job Centre has made life much more difficult than it needed to. Firstly in treating me like a feckless cheat. For instance in making me attend punishment interviews twice in a week at nine o'clock in the morning because I "missed" an appointment. What actually happened is that I had an interview at my signing on time, I rang, and asked to re-arrange to a different time, I was given another appointment. Only when I got to this rearranged appointment did I discover that this was not to perform the usual signing on, but to provide evidence of my interview, evidence which I did not know to bring. As such I had to attend a second appointment with this evidence. In the first appointment I received what can only be described as a ticking off. Being treated as a truanting child does not do wonders for the self esteem.

The Job Centre claims to help the seeker find work, this help was not only not offered, but not given even when it was requested. I needed help, I had to find it elsewhere. When I first came to the Centre I did so full of naive enthusiasm, on entering a Job Centre you are met by burly security guards who wish to know why you are there. I stated the obvious, and was admitted as far as the "welcome desk". At the welcome desk I explained to a grumpy woman that I was looking for help finding a job. She looked at me blankly for some time before asking if I would like to claim benefits. These two anecdotes are representative of the whole Job Centre system, as I have experienced it.

I have to thank everyone who has been supportive through the process especially the patience of my family, and my Natasha. I have no illusions about the job, I am sure it will be at times difficult, at times dull. But I will feel a lot happier for doing it.

[b]addendum[/b]

What I managed not to mention above are some of the more stupid regulations.

It is right and proper that a condition of receiving JSA is that one actively seeks work, to this end one is supposed to perform three job seeking tasks a week. This is woefully low, and I did far more. However they also expect you to not be doing anything else. Which is stupid. In order to keep myself sane, and improve my employability, I started volunteering, first at a small building preservation charity, and I was later accepted as an intern with the Church of Scotland. One of the regulations was that I was only permitted to do a maximum of 12 hours of voluntary work. This prevented me from taking up the full internship at the Church of Scotland. If I had not gotten that I would have been unable to take more voluntary work.

Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't the Job Centre be encouraging people to improve their prospects, and give back to society, by volunteering?

In addition, one cannot claim JSA if ones partner works for more than 20 hours a week. Paid or otherwise. It is not based on money or income. Your partner can be a part time banker, or a jobbing cleaner, and it has the same effect. If your partner is working on the minimum wage that is not enough to support you both, it is probably not really enough to support em. - Stupid.

The amounts paid in JSA assume that a 24 year old needs significantly less money than a 25 year old. Under-25s are also not eligible for working tax credits, presumably their are some shops I don't know about that sell food to u25s at a massively discounted price.

Finally, for no reason I can discern, one receives no JSA for the first two days on which one is actively job seeking. - A tiny, petty complaint, but the pettiness is what makes it annoying.

Yes he did, and wasn't the coverage poor.

2008-11-05T13:15:00.005Z

"Cool," said I.

"Yeah its brilliant," agreed H-S.

I think N was silently holding back the tears.

That was our response when, fueled by american beer, wine and bourbon, we came to the end of a pretty joyous night. I am prepared to admit that I felt some strong manly emotions during both McCain's concession, and Obama's acceptance. Obama is one of the finest orators in politics, possibly the finest. And the finest orator-president since Kennedy. The strong emotions nearly became tears during the cuts to a crying Jesse Jackson.

Mainly though, I am writing to note how utterly poor the BBC coverage was. We had David Dimbleby sat on a table with a bunch of bad tempered, poorly shod, commentators. Who spend most of the time bickering, or in John Bolton's case, providing some comedy gold, for which see below.

We had regular spots in Culpepper, about which we did not care. We had regular spots with Jeremy effing Vine, and his map, which was poor. First of all, Vine is no Snow, Vine could never move with the kind of nine elbowed enthusiasm that a snow can muster. (What he lacked in ability, he made up for in facing away from the camera, and presenting us his back.) It did not help that he had clearly been stranded on a tiny soundstage in London, when all the real newsies were on their American jolly. Secondly the quality of the CGI studio was very poor indeed. Thirdly the content was deeply lacking. All we got was highlights of small counties about which we did not care. We never saw any predictions or projections. We never saw any historical comparisons, and what information Vine did give, he was incapable of putting into context.

David Dimbleby, whilst in many ways excellent, never betrayed any real interest in the historic events surrounding him. Perhaps in protest at the shower of shits on the table around him. (With two exceptions: Simon Schama and some chap with shiny black hair.) His main contribution was to be rude about the coverage.

The organisation of the coverage was very bad, no one seemed capable of finding anyone with anything worth saying, and when there was something to hear, the coverage cut off. The nadir for this was when rather than hear from Jesse Jackson, making a speech to the exultant Democrats in Grant Square; we instead found ourselves listening to the gems of wisdom from... Jeremy Vine. (Who needs history, when you have the graying hair of the back of Jeremy Vine's head.) At every hour a clock would count to the close of a new raft of polls, where without fail a graphic fanfare would herald David Dimbleby authoritatively looking to the camara, over his glasses, and explaining, once again, that he didn't have anything new to tell us.

Best 5 TV Moments

5 David Dimbleby Cuts off the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

"Yeahyeah-mumble"

4 John Bolton vs The BBC.

Bolton chooses not to discuss an interview, but instead berates David Dimbleby personally for the quality of an interview which was "more of an argument", ending with the assertion that the reporter knew nothing about the area and should be sacked. Bringing in the phrase "guests in this country."

David Dimbleby responded by asking if the pertinent facts raised by the reporter were in fact accurate. This apparently was beside the point.

This was the second time he berated a reporter who dare disagree with him.

3 John Bolton vs Simon Schama.

Simon Schama listens politely, before responding that Bolton had undermined his entire argument (a dull one on the cycles of political history), and unpicking it - before concluding that far from the result of natural political cycles Obama's success represents a genuine "tectonic shift". As Bolton looks on in open mouthed, mustache bristling, eye burning rage.

Simon Schama later wiggles in glee as Bolton trips over his words.

2 Gore Vidal.

A bizarre interview, where Vidal addressed short rants, (only loosely related to the questions,) to some point to the far lower right of the camera. The culmination was: "I don't know why you asked me, I know something about the subject usually you ask people who know nothing about the subject..." Note Vidal does not really share any of his bounteous knowledge. He followed this by telling Dimbleby "Its your turn now."

Dimbleby's comment on the weirdness - "Well, that was fun"

1 A Photograph from the White House.

Over what was clearly a stock photo, if not some kind of photoshop job, of George W. Bush gurning into a telephone we had the following sterling commentary:

"There is the president, George Bush congratulating Barack Obama, in the white house." Dimbleby continued by reading some random comments off the screen. before concluding. "That was the President, well..."

"It was a photograph."

----
Afterthoughts

We were not the only ones who found the coverage truely shocking: MediaMonkey, The Guardian; LibDemVoice.

At least Vine never sunk to the level of dancing, or putting on a stetson and talking in an american accent.

Vegetarian Joy

2008-09-18T11:47:00.004+01:00

In the kitchen at Raeburn Place, sandwiched between two Coca-Cola bookends,¹ are a handful of books, these books to be precise. Of these, a good number contain vegetarian recipes, a few of these I am going to describe a little below.

Simon Rimmer, The Accidental Vegetarian

This book promised some yummy sounding food, N got particularly excited by it, because none of it sounded too much like vegetarian food. As a result I tried recipes from it with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, I have had a few problems.

Firstly: The instructions are not especially helpful, it lacks details where details would be really helpful. And when I say "lack of detail" I may be seeking a more charitable way of saying, "gets stuff wrong" or "misses stuff out". Example: I made some onion gravy to the letter of the recipe, but had to fiddle with it a lot to make it edible (i.e. something one pours rather than slices - this coming from someone who likes thick gravy)

Secondly: A lot of the recipes require you to deep fry, and even where it says one can shallow fry, you would need to be a better man than me to get a satisfying result. (As opposed to an oily mess) Generally speaking shallow frying is rarely a good replacement for deep frying, as I haven't got a deep fat fryer that closes a lot of doors to me.

Thirdly: One can kind of tell it is a restaurant cookbook, there is a feel to a lot of the recipes that they would be quite practical if you had a restaurant kitchen, but someone with a small range of high quality domestic apparatus might struggle a little. So for instance I have had to discount most of the recipes that require a deep fat fryer, the recipes are not designed to be easily scalable, and even simple dishes have relatively complex recipes.

Finally: The dishes themselves sometimes tended towards a trap all too common with vegetarian food, especially as found in restaurants. Chefs seems to panic, and worry that vegetarian food is too boring, sometimes they are right to do so, but that does not mean one needs to layer flavour upon flavour. A good meal should have three or four good flavours, no more than two very rich ones, with a couple of more subtle background notes. So pasta, with a rich tomato sauce, basil and cheese is, from a flavour perspective, perfect. Something swimming in a rainbow of Jus is not.

Delia Smith Vegetarian Collection

This I have had for some time, and shows the first sign of a good cookbook, that is that I have adopted some of the recipes and techniques into my general reptoire.²

Of course this was written before Delias current slutish phase,³ and shares the problem common to many of her books, that of excessive complexity, priggish obsessiveness and a peculiar aversion to microwaves and tinned tomatoes.(Amongst other things...) These are obstacles I have learned to live with, it helps to know that if one can be bothered to follow Delia step by step one will cook excellent food, in many cases a definitive version of a dish: to the degree that a vegetarian can cook an excellent Christmas turkey. Delia also makes her explanations clear precises and easy to follow, making her dishes and techniques very easy to adapt, perhaps Delia is best used by the more confident cook who is comfortable with riffing with her.

Worthy of note here is the tenor of the dishes, which are without exception dishes I would be proud to serve to my parents. None are really comfort dishes, to be eaten in grubby jumpers in front of the TV. All are dishes for proper meals, which might be eaten at table.

The Rest

The rest can be dismissed fairly quickly, or at least, they shall be here. Rose Elliot provides lentilly eighties fare in Gourmet Vegetarian Coking. The 30 minute Vegetarian contains simpler dishes than I would follow a recipe for, but there are some excellent, very appetizing ideas in it; slightly better, and aimed at the same market is Ursula Ferrigino's Real Fast Vegetarian Food. The New Students Vegetarian Cookbook is merely a curiosity, to be disregarded by anyone who does not find them selves wanting a recipe for a sandwich, - if that judgment is a little harsh I should mention that it does contain some useful advice for the absolute beginner, some basic versions of student standbys, and some excellent money saving tips.

---
1 Thank you Sister for getting me these, I suspect they came from the excellent "Everything But the Cook" on North Parade, Bradford. I searched for an image, but alas could not find one, but have learnt that there is a lot of Coca-Cola merchandise out there.

2 Her Italian Stuffed Aubergines make an impressive starter, or a good main (with some potatoes or similar).

I have also taken the trouble to roast all the ingredients for the odd tomato soup, or sauce, and met with considerable success in doing so, after following her recipe for a Tomato Soup

3 In the Katherine Whitehorn sense of a slattern, of course. Whitehorn's 1963 article(alas not available on the Observer archives), caused quite a stir when she tried to reclaim the word in a more positive sense, in the same way that Delia tried to reclaim "cheating". Time magazine provides more here, and I was pleased to see that another has drawn the Whitehorn-Smith line on the related issue of frugality here.

Announcement: Move

2008-07-01T16:59:00.001+01:00

As of today I live in Scotland, as of today I live in Edinburgh, as of today I live with Natasha. As a result, as of today, I am no longer in a long distance relationship, but rather I am in... a relationship.

For the next few weeks I will live in Natasha's flat with the girls. After that we will move into our own flat, for just the two of us.

It occurs to me, that this is only the second real change in my living arrangements. First I lived with my parents, then I lived at university, with other students, and now I live with my partner and, as of July the 24th, not with anyone else. For the first time in three years I have no base in Manchester (also as of today, as it happens). I have also, essentially moved out of Bradford. Arguably I had moved out of Bradford the summer I spent largely in Manchester, so I could see more of Natasha, or at the very latest the summer I spent in Edinburgh last year.

Obviously this is a very momentous step, second perhaps to my forthcoming nuptials, and yet in a sense evincing a more substantial change in lifestyle. On one level it doesn't feel very momentous, the significance has not sunk in. Probably because I have been visiting Edinburgh for so long, and so in a sense it already felt like I lived here, and conversely it now feels the same as a mere visit.

Living, permanently, together will force changes on our relationship, and I have no real idea what these changes will be. We will have to accommodate, and merge our ways of doing things, until we develop ways of doing things which are genuinely ours. Rather than the novelty of living together, or having our own house, perhaps it is the adventure of forming a family unit, with a distinctive family personality is the most exciting thing of all.

Footnotes

2008-06-11T19:35:00.003+01:00

I have been wondering how best to deal with footnotes for some while.

In the last post I included two, so I decided to include a fairly boring post on how I have decided to do so.

basically I shall be using a combination of superscripting, anchor links and mouseover boxes.

The superscript can be achieved easily using the SUP code, the anchor link is something I have always been able to do using A NAME, and the for the mouseover I am using the ABBR tags, because that is sufficient for my purposes. I will only include short example text, if I wanted something more impressive I could always use some javascript solution, such as that offered by overLIB.

The end point is going to look like this.¹

The code looks like this: (But less spaced out, obviously)

<small>
<sup>
<abbr title = "Woot! Example Squeee">
<a href="#1">
1
</a>
</abbr>
</sup>
</small>
---
<a name="1">
1</a> Loooonger more detailed example squeee.

---
1 Loooonger more detailed example squeee.

Silence in the Library

2008-05-26T18:57:00.006+01:00

One of the excellent gentlemen from The Doctor Who Forum got a rather lovely screen capture from the current BBC Doctor who page, concerning the forthcoming Moffat adventure Silence in the Library

To quell my excitement re: the forthcoming episode, and distract me from more mundane tasks I have decided to post my analysis thereof.

The shot is of a bookcase, and it is fun exercise for my geek muscles to describe it.

In the first chunk we have nine volumes, one of which is unidentified/filler.

Filler

The War of the Worlds - Wells, who was the inspiration for much Who, this particular book was read by the Master in the story Frontier in Space. Wells himself appeared in the otherwise truely dreadful story Timelash. This featured moments like a latter day TUatW, with as many Wells references squeezed in as possible.

The Time Machine - Obviously Wells again, and obviously an inspiration for the whole series. In the TV Movie (not canon, not canon, not canon), Sylvester McCoy's, and possibly Paul McGann's, Doctor reads this.

Love's Labours Lost - Shakespeare, as seen in The Shakespeare Code, the prequel to Love's Labours Won, the lost play which played a significant role in TSC.

Monty Python's Big Red Book - This should of course be blue, and be Monty Python's Big Red Bok Python-Who links are somewhat tenuous. John Cleese appeared in the excellent City of Death, and Douglas Adams, did a lot of work with Graham Chapman, and may have contributed to MP'sBRB. ¹

A Journal of Impossible Things - John Smith's book in Human Nature.

Poker - If we turn the image upside down this becomes a little clearer.²

The French Revolution - Lefebvre perhaps? Susan returns it (and complains of errors) in An Unearthly Child, it is later seen in a lab of Coal Hill School in Remembrance of the Daleks.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Either the real fiction work by Douglas Adams, or the fictional Encyclopedia featured in same. Douglas Adam's worked on Doctor Who a lot during the Tom Baker era, and many ideas found their way from one to the other.

The second section contains six volumes.

Origins of the Universe - by Oolon Coluphid, which Tom Baker reads in Destiny of the Daleks, thanks to an intervention by Douglas Adams. The book was apparently "wrong on the first line."

Everest in Easy Stages - Read by Tom Baker in The Creature from the Pit.

The Type 40 TT Capsule Operation Manual - Must be mentioned a few times, but I presume it is the same volume found by Peri, propping open a vent in Vengeance on Varos.

Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen Fielding, I am unaware of any Who link.

Black Orchid - A book featured, and given to the Doctor, in the Peter Davison story of the same name.

Understanding Telebiogenesis - Telebiogenesis is a science mentioned by Nyssa in Castrovalva, she knows very little about it, a fact which distresses her as it pertains to the rather traumatic regeneration she has just witnessed.

---

There are other books, but they appear to be missing, to give the impression of full shelves these books are repeated, sometimes reversed.

The above is not all my own work, I posted this on the Doctor Who Forum and was given a number of corrections, see also specific footnotes crediting additions made on my fathers advise.

---

1 See Michael Palin's Diaries: Credit due to my father for pointing this out.

2 Credit due to my father for pointing this out, and providing the image.

Fishywishy

2008-04-20T22:23:00.004+01:00

Pimp her parataxis

How an Aquatic Monster was driven off by virtue of the blessed man's prayer.

ON another occasion also, when the blessed man was living for some days in the province of the Picts, he was obliged to cross the river Nesa (the Ness); and when he reached the bank of the river, he saw some of the inhabitants burying an unfortunate man, who, according to the account of those who were burying him, was a short time before seized, as he was swimming, and bitten most severely by a monster that lived in the water; his wretched body was, though too late, taken out with a hook, by those who came to his assistance in a boat. The blessed man, on hearing this, was so far from being dismayed, that he directed one of his companions to swim over and row across the coble that was moored at the farther bank. And Lugne Mocumin hearing the command of the excellent man, obeyed without the least delay, taking off all his clothes, except his tunic, and leaping into the water. But the monster, which, so far from being satiated, was only roused for more prey, was lying at the bottom of the stream, and when it felt the water disturbed above by the man swimming, suddenly rushed out, and, giving an awful roar, darted after him, with its mouth wide open, as the man swam in the middle of the stream. Then the blessed man observing this, raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster, saying, "Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed." Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man and the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were struck with admiration, and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens, who were present, were forced by the greatness of this miracle, which they themselves had seen, to magnify the God of the Christians.

How many lightbulbs does it take to change a fish?

Pimp her parataxis

Bibles

2008-04-18T20:44:00.001+01:00

This is an explanation designed to accompany the “bible” tag on my LibraryThing.

Bible, biblical, Testaments
I have a collection of 29 Bibles and biblical paraphrases to date. These are tagged both “Bible”, and “Biblical”, the “Biblical” tag referring to other books about the bible, and the “Bible” tag being reserved for Bibles, books of the Bible, and biblical paraphrases. According to the contents of the specific volume Bibles are also tagged “Old Testament”, “New Testament”, and “Apocrypha”. This does not mean the entire testament or section is included, only that the book draws from one or more of those sections. So a book containing only Esdras would be tagged “Old Testament”, a “full bible” would be tagged with all three. The “Psalms” tag I have used differently, I have used this to tag books which contain Psalms, btu not any over part of the Old Testament, in practice my two Gideons.
There are three works with the tag “extra canonical”, one of these is Good as New and also has the “Bible” tag, as it also contains books from the canon*, the other two, being editions of the Dead Sea, and Nag Hammadi scriptures are not included in my Bible count, but they are tagged “biblical”.

Paraphrase
Amongst my Bibles I further divide with the tag “Paraphrase”. What is and is not a paraphrase is obviously a judgement call. It was easy to make that decision in the case of the Good As New, or Enid Blyton’s Bible for Children. There are some who would not think of The Message as a paraphrase, I do, although I am coloured by the value judgement I make regarding it. On the other hand there are some who would say that the Good News Bible, being more of a sense than a word translation is Paraphristic. I disagree. I have chosen not to try and divide Sense and Word translations in the tagging structure.

Translations
I have tagged translations in order to group them, tagging, so far, only the non paraphristic bibles. I have:
2 “English Standard Version”
1 ”Good News Bible”,
3 ”King James Version”,
3 “New English Bible”
3 “New International Version”
3 “Revised Standard Version”

Special Note
The two gems in my collection are two particularly substantial bibles, one a particularly large leather bound New English Bible, the other a King James Version, which was presented in 1876 to Miss M.A. Thomas. Both were made available to any good home by the Religious Studies department of Bradford Grammar School. I must offer thanks to the gentleman who made the latter available to me, despite his earlier claim to it.
Also unusual is the parallel translation of the 1611(Authorised) and 1881(Revised) versions, which was published in 1882. Unfortunately it is an unlovely book, made from plates about half the size of the paper sheets used.

* See Article VI of the 39 Articles, for instance.

Christ Is Risen! N is 21! I am 22!

2008-04-08T00:10:00.002+01:00

V - Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia!
R - Et apparuit Simoni, alleluia!

Christ is Risen, as ever, and for the first time in my life I celebrated the fact in a church not Thornton Methodist. It was just a special though.

Shortly after Easter I celebrated both N’s and my own birthday. These are the second birthdays we have spent together, and the third since we were a couple. (I rang N from a phone box on Iona for her 19th, on her 20th we had a day trip to York). Obviously N’s was the more significant birthday, so we spent both days in Liverpool, and on her birthday went to an interesting Russian Restaurant.

I have never eaten Russian before, so didn’t really know what to expect. I was first struck by the range of food, the menu contained food which was reminiscent of Sub-Continental cuisine, eastern European dishes, and food which sounded Oriental in nature. Unsurprising given the vast size of Russia. The place was interestingly laid out, pleasant overall - but a little more attention to detail would have been nice. E.G. To use the sink in the mens bathroom I had to stoop under a sloping roof (and I am not quite six foot tall), and my seat had an uncomfortable sag just under my right buttock, so I had the disconcerting feeling that I was sitting on the side edge of my chair. My meal was exceeding pleasant though. I had some borscht, which tasted much unlike the beetroot soup I am more used to. I followed this with some interesting affairs like mushroom burgers or similar. I wish I knew their composition because they were lovely. I washed it down with much Baltika, at least some of which was free, in apology for a mix up with N’s food. I was rather sorry not to get what I ordered (they were out), which was originally going to be a stew with mushroom dumplings, and topped with dough. All in all I liked the place, and would go to the Manchester Branch given the chance, the trip was worthwhile, and made doubly so by the music and dancing…

As it was my birthday I pulled in a handful of gifts, one way or another. Including a number of books, some of which are tagged ”Birthday ‘08” on LibraryThing.

It is safe to assume that in the near future I will be reading some of the following (Not an exhaustive list):
Kari Mauns, The Welsh Kings: Warriors, Warlords and Princes
J.L. Carrell The Shakespeare Secret
Julia Fox, Jane Boleyn, The Infamous Lady Rochford
The Book of General Ignorance
The English Year

Thank you to anyone who got me anything by way of a birthday gift, or card.

iTunes and Apple Matters

2008-04-07T13:45:00.002+01:00

Apple Matters, is just one of a number of websites which has had a bit of a sprucing up recently. The others are: the Ship, whose new look I very much like, especially (unlike everyone else) the fixed width, partly for the same reasons I use Tofu* for reading; and the BBC, whose new look I am still getting used to. AMs look is very swish, not how I would want everything to look, but about right for one of the links which I file under “Geekery” in my book marks.

Apple Matters is an excellent place to pick up on what Apple is up to, as well as a source of the odd tip, and occasional opinion. I have it on my reader, and I recommend it to anyone interested in any of the above. I doubt it would satisfy someone really keen, but for my casual interest it is sufficient.

To launch their redesign (or just for the craic) AM has started a series of articles on how to better use iTunes, the first of which inspired me, and this post. I am one of those the article describe who has “playlists -- even smart playlists -- that are fairly dull.” I have a handful of short compilations for my listening pleasure, a series of longer collections that suit a particular feel, and a group of dull smart playlists. (Classical, Jazz, Recently Uploaded etc). Inspired by that article I have created some new lists, one of unrated music (of which there is 16.67 GBs), and one which will hopefully become my most listened to folder. It is broken down like this:

In I Dig Music:
5*, 2 Days (Rated 5 Stars, not played in the last 2 days.)
4*, 4 Days
2*, 6 Days

N.B. Excluded are podcasts, Audiobooks, Classical music, and Opera.
This gives me, at the moment, a total of 4.85 GB of music. (Out of my library of 23.09 GB). This is only a starting point. It will be improved as I rate more of my music, and it will be improved by the addition of more playlists in the folder. E.G. A playlist of infrequently played, well rated music; a dumb playlist of this week favourites etc.

For the moment though, I am happy with the results.

* Which I recently converted my sister to - so she can read Mummies Alive fanfics on it…

Data Migration and Palaeography

2008-03-16T23:20:00.003Z

- The Codex Bruchsal

I have recently been composing a very dry essay on the lists and catalogues of interest to Anglo-Saxonists. I have been struck by a couple of factors. Firstly the inadequacy of the printed medium, to reliably consult Ker, possibly the first point of call for anyone interested in a particular manuscript one also has to consult two supplements, one of which is published in the journal Anglo-Saxon England (which is only available online from 2001- present, at least according to Manchester, which has one of the most comprehensive package of electronic subscriptions in the UK), the other is a chapter in a book, which at least appears to have had a fairly large print run. This is because the world of Anglo-Saxon in manuscripts is not as static as one might think, manuscripts change hands and location, are subject to renewed paleaographic investigation, and, intermittently, new leaves crop up in bindings of other books. Much relevant information needs to be consulted in other indexes anyway. As well as Ker’s Catalogue there is a list of texts, with their associated manuscripts, this is also invaluable. So we have two very different indexes, with two very different functions, but both very important. Both should be consulted before anyone goes near a real manuscript.

These texts are crying out for a database. A searchable database, one with two types of record, an MS record, describing palaeographic and codicological features and linking to the texts found in that MS, and a text record which links to the MSS where that text can be found, and also holding other information, ideally a basic bibliography, but at least editions and facsimiles of the text. To see a similar concept in action one should consult PASE (Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England), such a database would have been inconceivable in the pre-digital age, now I can explore the relations between people and places with great ease. PASE contains information on, and indexes of, people, sources, locations, events, offices (Bishop of Winchester etc), status occupations, relationships and possessions.

This is where I get to my second point, those in the field of manuscript study are somewhat suspicious of technological solutions to many problems. They embrace them, but with reservations. This is largely because they have all been burnt, especially by microfiche, but by all sorts of digital data forms as well. The British Library is the best example of the problem, which, rumour has it, expends a lot of money maintaining the equipment to read floppy disks of several types, CDs laser disks, microfiche, cassettes, of various types, reel-reel etc. All libraries expended a lot of money on microfiche, including microfiche catalogues which are now almost entirely useless. A project to compose an Old English Dictionary(started in ‘73, currently on G) to supersede Bosworth-Toller begun on microfiche, and had to invest considerable effort in digitising that microfiche when it became clear that microfiche was a pretty dead medium. A lot of information is still only available on microfiche, and libraries have to maintain machines, and train staff in their use, so that staff can in turn instruct the occasional keen student. If the effort to maintain equipment, and train staff, fails, then the Library or institution will be left with boxes of useless celluloid. Digitising microfiche can be done, with automatic readers, for $0.15 a page, making a single newspaper a little more expensive to digitise than to buy, and that is just producing images, not OCRing or transcribing the text.

- Microfiche

On the other hand the codex has remained a compatible medium for two millennia. Arguably there was no significant advance in data preservation between the codex and the internet. And putting stuff in stone in pyramids is still the hands down most endurable data preservation method. So one can see why people are skeptical about the long term benefits of technology as a solution to data preservation.

I think the internet is different though, once information is digitised, it should never become inaccessible, because, especially with the advent of the internet, it should be possible to migrate data with limited danger of mutation/corruption. The internet should make this even easier, if server A becomes obsolete, it should be possible to migrate all the information seamlessly, and easily to server B, thus preserving the data, and silently upgrading the medium. Even the software should be easily transferred, especially if everyone uses standard forms. It is possible that in one hundred years my Scrivener files will be unreadable, but if I save a copy in .rtf, it should not be too hard to maintain the information. (Bear in mind that whatever replaces .rtf will HAVE to be compatible with .rtf)

On the Use of Words

2008-03-15T22:39:00.002Z

misogynist, n. and adj.
A. n. A person who hates, dislikes, or is prejudiced against women.
B. adj. That is a misogynist; characterized by hatred of or prejudice against women; misogynistic.

- Oxford English Dictionary

I have been thinking recently about the application, and misapplication of certain terms. My thinking was triggered by the use of the term “Misandrist” by a Shipmate of Ship of Fools, who was referring to those who advocated the Ordination of Women. It reminded me of the use of the term “Homosexualist” on the very interesting, and informative website Fish Eaters. See this section on veiling (The website is worth exploring, despite the conservative authorship).

This annoys me, and I will try and explore why in this post. One element is the use of jargon or terminology in order to give authority to a position. Here it is used to add a sense of rationality to a position that I believe to be irrational, (more on my beliefs later) and as such it winds me up a little. There is something else distinctive about these two usages, in that they are a subversion of other concepts and terms. Misandrist is a deliberate reversal of misogynist, homosexualist is an attempt to make the advocates of sexual equality the bigots. As devices therefore they both attempt to shape the territory of the debate which they inhabit. Instead of a debate between equals these terms attempt to label the parties in the debate. If I allow you to term me bigot in a debate you do not need to listen to me, if I am able to establish myself as the rational figure of authority, then what I say begins to carry credence. I am not saying this is an intentional tactic, or not always. We tend to believe that we are right and others wrong, we have to believe this. (Simply speaking If I think proposition A is true, I do not, by definition, think it is not-true,) One of the ways we can enforce our own sense of rightness, which is a comforting thing to do, if by labeling opposing opinions as inherently wrong. This saves us the trouble of interrogating ourselves, if you are a bigot, I don’t need to bother listening to you. Of course you are misusing the Bible and quoting out of context, of course you are using dodgy statistical/scientific data.

- Eve astride the Serpent

Of course sometimes the use of a term will be intentional, I suspect the use of the word misandrist is a considered attempt to subvert the same language used against those who, for instance, oppose OoW. Here I am hinting about a problem though. If I do not like the use of misandrist against positions I hold, should I not also oppose the use of the phrase misogynist? During oral presentations of Research Outlines on Tuesday one of my peers described the assignation of women as “meek and mild” as “misogynist”. (To be fair she used this as an example of misogyny, rather than as a description therof) So now I am wondering, is that a good use of the term? Is the concept of misogyny cheapened by application to proto-complimentarist understandings of Gender? Or is it legitimate to say that such concepts of Gender are entirely bankrupt, to a degree that the bigot designation sticks?

I certainly intend to think twice before using these terms, but then I need to try and work out when they are appropriate. I spent some wordage over christmas discussing the misogyny of one reader of John Rylands’ Manuscript 2 : Lydgate’s Fall of Princes. In this case I was using misogyny in fairly technical context, but even then, did I pay less regard to the subtleties of Medieval gender Politics by labeling a position so broadly?

For more on misogyny specifically:
On Misogyny, Misandry and Misanthropy
Wikipedia on Misogyny

Citizenship

2008-03-12T09:57:00.000Z

I am going to leave the advertised content for a short while, although I do still intend to return to conference soon.

Right now I am excised by the fuss about the so-called citizenship proposals. I should say now that Ekklesia makes some very good points about the theological implications, and criticisms.

My initial reaction was mainly a political one, and one that I would like to think is informed by a little national pride. The theological problems are well put by Ekklesia, it is very true that a Christians first allegiance is not to the nation, but to "Another Country" (Beware - MIDI).

Of course most of the fuss has been about one, tentative, element of the proposals. People have been generally put off by the idea of swearing allegiance to the Queen. Quite rightly, I for one just don't feel like I owe the queen any allegiance, and I am far from being a republican. I also think there is something contradictory about asserting our Britishness by importing Americanisms, well, I hope that is contradictory. If I were to swear allegiance to any thing to represent my Britishness, it would probably be parliament. We haven't had a thousand years of the negotiation of a democratic settlement for it all to be ignored overnight. I might go as far as the King(Queen) in Parliament. I am not entirely sure what the Crown represents, is it the imperium of the monarch? Is it indeed the power of the King in Parliament? Bottom line however, is that I would rather not swear allegiance to anything. No flag, no Constitution, no Queen, King, or Corporation.

Many of the other ideas have some merit, I would like to ignore anything about being a citizen, about citizenship ceremonies etc. If one is an incorporated citizen in a proud nation, one shouldn't need to prance about to prove it. Tax discounts, or reduction in tuition fees, for people who do volunteer and community work couldn't hurt. Millions of man hours must be put into socially valuable but financially unrewarding volunteering every year, the benefits to society, the state, and the economy should be rewarded, if only marginally. I would also love to see an extra bank holiday, perhaps on St George's Day, Shakespeare's birthday, or the anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

What I would really like to see however, is an attempt to make people British with a good immersion in real British History, and Liberal thinking and Philosophy.

The core would have to be a Magna Carta to Holyrood tour-de-force over several years, modeled perhaps on Starkey's Monarchy, which tells the story of the shift of power from King - Parliament. With a good dose of the history of the institutions and the formation of the nation, and an understanding of how our rights arose a better appreciation might be gained. This would have to be accompanied by a basic introduction to some of the classic philosophy of the state.

The loss of classics has had a severe deleterious effect on education generally, someone who studied classics for a good length of time should understand not only the language, but also English grammar, and the basics of rhetoric. More importantly it is in Latin and Greek that some of the most important ideas about the state were first formed, a grounding in these is sorely lacking. To build on the classics an understanding of John Stuart Mill and Rousseau should be enforced. Neither is particularly difficult, but if more people understood Mill, the world would surely be a better place.

Tate and Lyle go Fairtrade

2008-02-25T11:38:00.006Z

Manufacturing giant Tate & Lyle's decision to switch its retail cane sugars range to Fair Trade has been welcomed by development campaigners and church aid agencies - but the need to move the social justice agenda in economics remains, they say.

- Article

After posting below I went to my google homepage and saw this story on my news reader. I have always said that the victories for fairtrade will not come with niche companies, but with normal suppliers of coffee, tea, chocolate, or in this case sugar, going over to fairtrade.

This is different to Nestlé's partners blend, because that was still only a niche product, so that they could say they had a product available, and also that consumers didn't have an appetite for fairly traded goods. Greenwashing indeed.

It is even better than Taylors of Harrogate, who have a number of fairtrade lines, and who, even when not officially marked, better than most in the tea industry. (Because the production of higher quality tea is always going to depend on smaller plantations with better practices, and because of good management and careful puchasing).

The taking over of a whole line means that large numbers of consumers will accidentally buy fairtrade, hopefully learning something as a result. The concept will be demonstrated as commercially viable, and consumers who would buy fairtrade if they could are more likely to do so.

So, if you just buy normal sugar, I would suggest buying Tate and Lyle, and partnering it with some nice fairtrade tea, little of which is better than the Taylors stuff, but I can also recommend Clipper (for their black teas, less so their green and aromatic stuff).

Links:
Ekklesia Story
Tate and Lyle - Press release
Fairtrade Foundation
Fairtrade sales approach £500m

Visceral Theology

2008-02-25T11:23:00.003Z

A visceral theology majors in the sense of touch rather than in the sense of hearing ... The sacred must be rediscovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble, in what is proximate rather than remoe, ordinary rather than extraordinary, natuive rather than imported

A visceral theology therefore demands reawakening of the body, the resurrection of the bodily

If the church fails to develop a visceral theology and fails to help modern man rediscover and reverence his flesh and his feelings, it will neglect a source of common grace as well as the seed from which his compassion grows.

- Sam Keen

It is highly probable that sexual activity, the frenetic preoccupation with sex that characterises western culture, is in so many cases not the expression of sexual interest at all, but rather a search for the satisfaction of the need for contact.

- Ashley Montague

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him...

- Col 2.9-10

This is my first reaction to the SCM Conference in Hope, it is probable that I will follow this with at least one other post. I didn't want to try and fit it all into one very confused post. I can assure you it will all be interconnected.

This concept is definitely an interesting one, the word 'visceral' is certainly an arresting one. Perhaps one of my favourites, I can say it again and again. It is not erotic, but it certainly evokes tangibility.

I am not a very tactile person as a rule, I do not always tend to hug my friends, for instance. But I like to think I am comfortable with touch. When I went to Footsteps Nicola went through a phase of trying to get us comfortable with touching each other, without it being silly, or weird, or sexy or whatever. It makes you realise just how reified touch has become.

Christians have touched each other for years, sharing the Peace. It is interesting that this is one of the elements of church life which many people really dislike. It is often described as being a hygiene issue. but hygiene has nothing to do with it. (x's hands are likely no less hygienic than the hands of whoever prepared your cup of tea, or put out your biscuits, or gave you your hymnbook etc) Jesus used touch as a central part of his ministry, dialogues of ritual purity made some people untouchable, perhaps like the Dalit community, but Jesus flouted the regulations and he touched the ritually unclean on a regular basis. He touched lepers, bleeding women, foreigners, to him no one was unclean. The importance of this cannot be understated, it is often ignored as just a detail, but it cannot be dismissed as such if we believe in a Christ who was Bodily Incarnated. I think touch and the body is central, and deeply relevant. For all I do not like the fuss about Lady Diana, one of the best things she did was to touch AIDS sufferers. The dialogues of ritual purity are alive and well, children practice them in the playground, "the lergy" as a way of defining community and excluding the outsider. Every school I suspect had one child who was "manky", excluded and, perhaps crucially, untouched.

Two workshops at the movement challenged me to think again about touch, space and physicality, I attended an excellent session on Mime, and a very interesting session on Celtic Spirituality, the latter I may return to, perhaps tangentially in a separate post. The former was mainly creative, Martin taught us some mime basics, how to create simple illusions, how to portray certain characters. We then split into two groups to create a simple sketch (ours wasn't as simple as perhaps it should have been) I was surprised to discover that most of the Celtic Spirituality session was spent exploring our attitudes to space, and our bodies. There was a thesis that traditional Latin descended Christianity had a poor attitude to the body, with which I sort of agree, but do not believe it is as simple as that, nor that there is any evidence that the "Celtic Church", if such a thing ever existed, was any different.

Touch, and physicality fitted quite well into the theme of interconnectedness. The language we use is dominated by concepts of touch, we keep "in touch", we are "connected", or make a "connection", we might "touch base" with someone "touch on", an issue. Unsurprisingly nothing makes one feel more connected than physically touching to something. Putting a hand on someone's shoulder, a resting arm over a treasured possession, or the hearth of the family household. Pope John Paul II earned a certain amount of popularity for the simple, humble action, of kissing the tarmac in a new country. Not demonstrating his allegiance or humility through words, but through a simple physical action. I can't remember where I read a quote suggesting he would have done better to move off the Tarmac and kiss the earth that sustains the people of that country. As I understand visceral theology it is the concept that by becoming comfortable with my own body, with my own space, and the physical connections with the world, I will become more in tune with the reality of the incarnation, as well as battling the malaise of loneliness, negative body image and fulfilling the basic human desire to be touched.

Coming Soon...

2008-02-24T20:27:00.002Z

I have just returned from the SCM conference, and I have some plans for forthcoming posts.

I wish to post in response to the conference, the ideas are connected but complicated, so that I may make a handful of short posts, rather than attempt one great rambling one. Expect tales of mime, merriment and marshmallows.

I have also been awarded a book in the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme, In Search of Adam. This will be the second Early Reviewer book I will receive, the first being Boy A, which I discussed last year.

The eagle eyed may notice a new link on the left: For all the Saints. I hope to be contributing very soon, generally speaking I recommend it as an interesting blog.

Dissapointed with Ekklesia

2008-02-22T11:21:00.002Z

Recently, as a result of all the fuss about the ABC's comments re: Sharia law, Ekklesia has run a series of articles regarding the establishment of the Church of England.

There are a couple of elements about this that annoy me, Ekklesia has always been a bit worthy, but usually contains good, well measured stuff. Unfortunately the recent spate of articles have been very much beneath them.

Yes, Ekklesia is disestablishmentarianist, which is fine. I'm not particularly, I just think there are bigger things to worry about, and don't think it hurts to have a handful of bishops in the House of Lords. However, I appreciate that there are good reasons to oppose the establishment of the Church of England. Perhaps a more "national church" model would be better? Anyway, these good reasons are not that ++ Cantaur has been attacked by the media. Any more than Prince Charles is a good reason for the abolition of the monastery. If you object to the Establishment of the CofE you should do so quod rem. Making cheap mileage out of the ABCs poor media reception is below a news source which pretends to advocate "open" discussion of faith in society.

The strategy is flawed in several ways.

1) As the leader of the historic national church the ABC would be an object of media scrutiny, established or otherwise.

2) The fuss about the ABCs comments was absolute bollocks, and it reflects poorly on Ekklesia that they wish to make mileage out of that fuss. The ABC should be praised for his original speech, if not for his poor media management (he was naive to think that the BBC was beyond over simplification and leading headlines).

3) If there is an argument to be made about establishment it should be made on principle, not on poor individual cases, doing so just cheapens the point being made.

This post has been by way of a rant, I am annoyed that an otherwise good news source has debased itself so much, by jumping on a horrific media bandwagon in order to beat a worn drum.