Laziness truly shone through this morning and I didn't arise until twelve. In an attempt to
compensate for my lack of activity, I speedily got up, had some lunch and set about being generally
useful.
The Mother collared me fairly early and managed to to persuade me to help out planting the runner
beans. Not the keenest of gardeners, I reluctantly agreed, but went outside and spent the next hour and a half
developing a range of different sizes of blisters all over my hands.
After getting thoroughly wet and caked in
mud, I came back inside and spent the rest of the daylight before food whipping up some digital versions of the
sketched logos for the MM project. As I hadn't seen much in the way of people in the past few days I organised to
meet up with Liam for a drink. I also tried Tom and John, but both had prior engagements, so our crowd just
consisted of us two and Mike.
Stories were swapped and the usual pub conversations passed - possibly a little
less politics than normal with the two absentees, but I was good to catch up, despite managing to keep Mike waiting
for the best part of forty minutes due to fluid conversation in the Kendrick household beforehand.
Once back,
a bit of culture (Later with Jools Holland) before bed. It couldn't have been any more of an ordinary day. One
thing I have noticed though is people clearly think this place has gone. Ever since the server fireworks
shenanigans of a few days back the visiting rate has certainly dropped. Hopefully people will start to realise it
was only a temporary respite and now have full access to this drivel again.
One last thing; which is more
worth while - a digital camera
upgrade, or an iPod
upgrade? At the moment the former is looking the safer bet, but who knows, that colour screen and
three-times-as-large-capacity is looking all too tempting. Hmm.
I could have written an entry nearly thirteen
hours ago, but due to various reasons this did not occur. I have been wondering all day if it is totally irreverent,
or indeed simply overwhelming repetition to discuss what has happened today but can't help feeling I have to
consider it in some light, one way or another.
It was my usual routine this morning. I swung out of bed at
about 10ish and poked the power button on the WDM with my big toe. I loaded up Firefox and as usual I scanned the
morning headlines (I find Yahoo UK gives good enough a cross between the serious enough issues to the ones that are
more sublime). This is when I found out.
It is really strange to consider that less than 24 hours before hand
I had felt enormous jubilation at the fact London had just picked up the biggest prize of all. At the time I felt
odd that I should be expressing any emotion at all except for some level of excitement, but I was genuinely moved.
Then this morning after reading the initial reports on Yahoo, I immediately attempted to load up BBC News, which for
the second time in 24 hours was overwhelmed and had overloaded. After a few minutes I eventually got the page up,
and it was at this point I gathered my first perspective of the morning's events. I quickly dressed and headed
downstairs to view the Live coverage (the online streams were overstretched).
As with all major news stories
in the UK, the BBC had cancelled the morning schedules and was broadcasting News 24 on BBC One. I felt physically
choked. I watched on my own for a while, then headed back upstairs and really dwelt on what had happened. Although
entirely detached, I wasn't surprised. I think everyone new that some kind of terrorist event was inevitable, and
with hindsight, it was so perfectly timed.
No one else in my house knew until much later. There were plenty of
opportunities for me to mention it as I passed my sister and my parents around the house, but it wasn't until about
11.30am until I actually managed to stomach the resolve to tell my Dad that there had been a number of bombings in
central London and that he ought to see the news. He went downstairs to watch.
I was amazed that I felt so
much emotion about this event, and when I recapped in my mind, similar events in Madrid two years ago had left very
little in the way of an impression on myself. Yet this was the same. This was highlighted even further when this
evening I watched the discussion on QuestionTime, and a Rwandan woman tearfully raised the point, why is the loss of
a Westerner's life any more worthy of public outpouring than a African one? Mindless terrorism, violence and
atrocities are all too common there and in Dafur. Why is it that until now I haven't empathised, and why is it that
this event bears so much on us personally, when yet it carries so little bearing when it happens on another
continent or in another country?
By lunchtime things were clearer in my mind, and I was taking a more
pragmatic approach to what I was seeing. I occupied myself with cutting the new carpet for the downstairs toilet,
taking a couple of drives to the tip to drop off some rubbish, getting a hair cut and then lunch itself. By now most
of the incorrect reports were being discarded and they knew now how many blasts had occurred, where they had happened
and what was being done. I sat down with Dad to watch Blair's emotional first statement, then decided not to watch
any more until there was a reasonable update on the information.
So I escaped and made a few phone calls to
clients, dealt with my mail and drafted some new logos in The Big Red Ideas Book for a new project that I've been
commissioned to produce some branding on called 'MM'. Sister One and Sister Two both had some art work up and on
display at their school exhibition, so after I'd completed all my odds and ends, I took the car out for another
spin, and me, Sister Two and the Mother went to inspect the work. It was fairly mixed stuff (One & Two's work
was amongst the best) but there were some nice sculptural and textile based pieces on display.
Upon arriving
home (and Sister Two leaving us to go and fraternise with the boyfriend), The Mother decided it would be a good idea
to eat out as we were both looking to avoid cooking. Enter the third trip of day (I've really been clocking up the
mileage) to the OK Diner for some American-style eating.
And back to the TV. I don't know why it is, but for
some reason the Breaking News ticker on the BBC is to me like a luminous purple light to a fly, and I compulsively
have to watch until I realise I've been watching the same regurgitated rubbish several times over. I then take a
break, and within the hour I'm back checking for more news. Same thing happened when the Queen Mum died and on
9/11.
And that led to an evening of television. I wasn't actively seeking analysis of the week's
extraordinary events, but that's what I got - QuestionTime from Johannesburg then This Week. Quite a few
perspectives were banded about. One was that this is a sign that we are "Winning the war on
terror", by virtue of the fact nothing on the scale of the New York attacks has occurred since. On the
other hand it was also suggested that it would have been possible to have experienced so many giant events this
week, from the Live 8 concert, to the VE day celebrations, to the Olympic bid victory to the tragedy today, and the
possibility that there may be people who have been in the midst of all these events. This certainly is going to be
remembered as The Week That Was.
You may have noticed one or
two things about the blog (in fact the whole site) recently. The first is obvious, and that is that if you checked
here in the past two days, well you wouldn't have seen much at all. Secondly you might notice that this page is a
couple of paragraphs short of a weblog.
To say I'm a little annoyed would be an understatement. It turns out
my trusted web
hosts managed to burn out the server my website, and the Echos website was hosted on during an upgrade, and for three
days failed to get any replacement up and going. At the moment I am still encountering some technical difficulties
while they reconfigure everything to the way it was before the apocolypse.
Number two, which you may have to
be slightly more observant to spot is that the last couple of entries have totally dissappeared. In fact, before I
did my little salvage job (I love you Google cache), I nearly had lost a weeks worth of entries when I discovered that the entire database
was corrupt. The only non-image file that was corrupted by the whole process.
I have spent the best part of
the afternoon downloading then re-uploading the files that were not corrupted on to a new server (hopefully
'Bishop' is going to be a bit more reliable than old 'Fantomex' was), then then replacing all the images I
lost.
This next bit of this is going like the part of Blue Peter when they sit the dog down next to the
Totaliser and tell you what you have to do to help some poor helpless soul. If you, or anyone you know, reads this,
can you just check that you haven't got a cached version of this page on your computer somewhere please. If you
know a way of online data retrieval aside from the Way Back Machine (I tried it to no avail) please could you get in
touch. I would really appreciate picking up the missing entries - all I need is the text and the date. If not, those
fabled verses are consigned to the great infinite internet dustbin. Truly rubbish.
As I wasn't able to post
my usual communique for three days, I will do my best to recap the events with as much detail as I can muster
following this prolonged period of idleness.
First thing's first with an update on the house, which I
slavishly worked away at on Monday. After playing the ISP version of musical chairs, Jono and I finally settled on ordering all our multimedia services from NTL. Despite my
better judgement (which says it's a bad idea) they do in fact offer the best value for money, and we are not
ordering the cheapest of their services so we may just be alright. We have opted for the full works as far as
digital televisual entertainment goes; 70 channels plus the sports package. Then for the internet connection, a 2MB
broadband link which has to be split between five and is capped at 30Gb a month, but should do us provided we don't
get obsessed with too many US TV series. Finally we get a
phone line thrown in with some deal on evening and weekend calls. Should be good, could be expensive, but should be
good.
It looks like I will be heading up there on the 25th July for a couple of days. We have ordered
everything to be installed on the 26th, so someone's got to be in to let the man in, and with Jono doing all his
coaching malarkey, it's going to be muggins. I had hoped The
Swan could join me, but alas, he informs me today that it's not going to happen. he can only do weekends and
it's not going to be the ones either end of that week. Oh well, life once again poos into my pencil case of
destiny.
Which brings me swiftly onto the state of the room. After considerable talks and some international
intervention (The Father) I have manoeuvred the majority of boxes, books, files, folders, papers, documents
(assorted), spare stationary supplies (hence the link) and childhood memories into the loft. Finally I can see some
carpet which I now remember is green. There is still an A3 printer, a 3ft inflatable VK bottle, a scanner, two
boxes, a large bag and a the entire collection of my university works obscuring my entry to the wardrobe, but
progress is being made and Rome wasn't built in a day.
I phoned up Apple to try and get my iPod battery replaced for free, but after speaking
to the Aussie on the end of the phone (WTF? Turns out Apple Tech Support is no longer in Ireland, but has moved an
entire 180 degrees around the pole. Surely you have to turn spin the touchpad in the other direction on that side of
the globe... how useful are they going to be?) I discovered that they didn't know much about it, except that it had
happened in the US, and if it was going to happen there (here) we would be emailed about it. Hmm. Great. I can't
believe I'm going to be seeing a new battery for a long while. Not like it actually matters; I've run out of space
on my little 20 Gigger so the minute I get some touchable dollar, that's getting an upgrade.
I've been a
busy bee while the website has been offline, sending emails here there and everywhere in attempt to grab funds from
every pocket available. My latest venture has been enquiring as to when the student accommodation deposit refund
will be put back in our accounts, as today was the day The Cheque went out,
and my credit now has more digits on the left hand side of the decimal point than on the right. No reply as of
yet.
Yesterday I took a phone message from a friend of the Parents. Rona sounds like a thoroughly nice lady
(in the most aristocratic sense of the verbiage) who would probably give the Queen a run for her money at an Awfully
Well Spoken contest. She informed me that she would be serving cocktails by the pool starting between seven and ten
past seven on Saturday, that Mother and Father were graciously invited, and that I sounded "...the most
deliciously dependable chap..." and she was sure that the message would be passed on in due course.
Deliciously dependable. I mustn't forget to put that on my CV.
In an attempt to amuse myself last night I did
a search on Technorati for
"Lufbra", to see who else the in 'Burra blogs. Turns out that I am representing the educated masses
of the town, as this is the incredibly
common drivel that turned up. Just because you can txt talk doesn't mean you should avoid use of any vowel
except for the letter O, which is probably worn out on their keyboard with the mass of LOLling and OMFGing in your
blog. I would suggest to the authors "ritten by sophie n nikki" [sic] that they might like to
reed a buk or summit. These sort of people should be ignored until they start using the net properly, like searching
for porn.
I was bemused this morning, and it wasn't the first time. No, My Hero hadn't been commissioned for a new series, it was in fact a hygiene related issue. My hair needs a cut
and so I took myself to the bathroom mid-morning in order to wash the wax out of it. Now the same thing strikes me
every time I go to wash my hair in our house, but until now I had just accepted it; I use the red bottle of shampoo.
After taking a few moment to read the front of the bottle this morning it suddenly occurred to me that I have been
washing my hair in Revitalising Anti-Aging shampoo for over a week now. Clearly something that belongs to one or
both of the Parents. Therefore I had a look around for the plain shampoo. You know, like it washes your hair and
stuff. It's green or red or blue, a bit see through and is definitely called shampoo. Apparently not. All I wanted
to do was wash my bloody hair and all I bloody got was 'NutriCerimide R', Original Lavendar Source Conditioner,
Tea Tree Extract Conditioner, V05 Moisture Soak (would have, but it was empty), Dove Revitalising Conditioner, St.
Ive's Apricot Scrub, Pure Zone for Continuous Purity (I think that one is for your hands, but for a while it looked
like an option), Brilliant Brunette Volumising Shine Release, Linco Beer Extra Cremey (?), Sunsilk Silky and Smooth
and a bottle of Cif. The Cif was the closest thing I could find to friggin' straight forward plain hair washing
shampoo. I would have used it as well if the thought of smelling like bathroom furnishings for a month hadn't
stopped me.
I watched the Olympic decision this morning. I kept half an
eye on it as I flitted in and out of the lounge trying to get the wireless internet kick started again. Eventually,
link re-established, I sat down to watch the final announcement. Paris vs. London. Who is is going to be? Turns out
we pulled off a little coup (to steal something else French, sorry chaps). It'll be awesome to see the Olympics on
British soil for the first time in over fifty years. There are cynics out there,
but this will be good for British Sport, and despite you thinking my total lack of prowess and fairly strong
disinterest in sport would indicate that I don't advocate such funds being wasted, but come on, it doesn't happen
very often, and it'll all be good fun. My favourite part of the whole thing has to be the bid video,
which is a really nice piece of publicity. Probably didn't do any bad thing for Heather Small's career reinvention either, but that
aside, I'm genuinely happy. It's a bit strange to think however, I'm going to be 27 before it actually happens.
27. That's nearly thirty. Wow, that's a way off.
I watched Bill Bailey's Part Troll yesterday, and was once
again impressed. The guy produces another great routine. Admittedly I couldn't understand the regurgitation of
material from Bewilderness, but on the whole a positive vibe.
I then went on to watch an episode of
the A-Team. Now despite the whole "cult classic" thang with this programme, I'd never actually watched a
whole episode (or at least not while I can remember). UKTV Gold is such a wealth of entertainment. Last night
however, my world was changed forever. It was superb. I love the lack of a valid story line, the quality of acting
and the relationships between the characters. Also the fact that Hannibal's disguises might trick anyone at
all.
Right now that's out of my system, I can get on with life and you can have a look at this, which is a brilliant demonstration of music and
animation. It's worth reading the about page too (cheers to Scott Wills for posting this ages ago, despite the fact I totally
overlooked it).
At 5am I was woken by Sister One. We said
goodbye and off she went to Canada. Right now she is somewhere mid-Atlantic eating something vaguely distinguishable
as reheated rice and meat from a little polythene tray. Lovely.
This is the start of her five week trek around
the best bits of the Canadian provinces. It's not quite as adventurous as James and my trip a couple of years ago - most of it has been preplanned - but it
should be a really good experience for her and her friend (Hannah). I think their general plan is something along
the lines of flying into Toronto, staying with Auntie Kiki for a week or so and exploring the city, then flying
internally to Alberta. Here they will land in Calgary and then travel down into B.C. eventually coming out of the
Rockies into Vancouver and then Vancouver Island. Sounds splendid.
From my time I was out there the best bits
were mostly at either end, but one place I loved that all the guide books said we shouldn't was Winnipeg. I think
it was mostly due to the Fringe Festival and the amount of entertainment we drained
from that, but it was the only place that we stayed two nights in a major city anywhere between Ontario and Alberta.
They won't be seeing that, but I think they may be getting a better deal on Vancouver Island. We only got as far as
Victoria (we were only on the island for a day), but they are staying for around a week taking part in various
activities, mostly water based I think. Something I've never done, but would love to do. Sometime I will.
I
could have written a blog entry yesterday; I was sitting in front of the WDM all day. However, when it came to spending another minute sat in front of the damn screen I
simply couldn't take it any longer. I spent most of the day trying to sort out a new payment system for the StudentXtra site. It drove me mad. It's
mostly in place now but there are still a few holes I need to patch before I can set it live.
This is my first
true e-commerce site - the concept being that people will be able to buy their cards and renewals online, but
you try to get the damn thing to work. Oh well. I really need to start earning some hard cash as there
still has been little in the way of money progress. Even going down the pub is going to be a struggle at this rate.
Grrr. It's not even like their aren't any projects lined up, it's just getting around to finding the list which I
wrote down, or tracking down elusive clients. It'll all fall into place soon. I hope.
The night before last I
indulged myself in one of my great passions when I am at home. Most people would rather stick pins in their own eyes
than actually have this passion themselves, but I do get a bit addicted to spectating on politics and things, so sat
down to watch QuestionTime and This Week for the first time in ages. Everything seems in check, so thats me done.
One
thing that did catch me by surprise this week was the death of Richard Whiteley. Not
that I'm a Countdown
viewer or anything, just I thought if there was any man with true stamina and who would outlive us all it was him.
The guy seemed to have persevered for decades and the only thing that had changed was his tie. I think I heard an
audible gasp of air when they said they might not be making any more episodes of Countdown, which unfortunately due
to the age of the audience might be the last thing most of them did. R.I.P. Richard. You truly left a legacy, even
if it's the best part of Britain's (remaining) elderly population kicking cans around in the streets and spraying
vowels on public toilet walls for a lack of anything else to do.
State of the Room: Still a state. The mother
has just come in and berated me about it. Something has to be done. I still can't see the floor and I was informed
yesterday I'm having the carpets changed. Ok.
Right, I need some lunch.
I'm quite pleased that I've finally got around to posting some new work on DeviantART. I used to live and
breathe that place a couple of years ago, but ever since the Great Apocalypse (where all the good artists got
swamped out by the not-so-good ones, I have very rarely done much than spectate on the main articles and Daily Deviations. Despite
my lack of involvement I have always remained proud that I was there from pretty much straight after the start - I
remember coming across it when looking for a new wallpaper. It was just about the time that I had discovered
Photoshop, and afterwards began submitting my own digital creations. That was in 2001.
Not that I wasn't as
bad as all the other 15 year olds now, just it wasn't so busy, and people were a bit more generous with their time.
But things change, so that's that. I'm not going to abandon the place, but I think I'll be lucky to get more than
two or three comments on any of the work I've just submitted.
I had Subway for lunch; the first visit to the
new and fabled Stourbridge shop. It was lush. It always is. One of my friends tryed to pollute my mind with
propaganda the other day that the bread contains nothing but reconstituted potato starch, but even if that is true,
my ears have been sealed from the start. Give me another.
Another great food re-discovery I made the other day
was GrapeNuts. Not the most tasty sounding of
breakfast cereals, but it has to be my number one - right up there with Lucky Charms. Trying to come by
either of these is usually stopped by the prohitive price tag, the fact they stopped importing them, or simply in
the case of the GrapeNuts - the box is too small to notice in a supermarket.
I ran into Brian Carpenter this morning. This is the first
realisation the year is over - now two years on after I departed OSH. He seems to be doing well, and Neil, his youngest, has just finished up at OSH. It
won't be long before he decides to retire I would have thought. It's funny that in just the two years since I left
there has been a distinct shift in staff. The Old Guard are handing over to the new. Quite strange to think about it
really. By the time I'm twenty five most of them will have hung up their Dry-Wipe markers.
Nothing really has
moved on the work front today as Mike called to cancel our lunch appointment and move it to tomorrow. I
spent this afternoon browsing through my photo collection and holding casual conversation with Gwyz over MSN. Lazy
days, but it's sooo nice.
I still haven't replied to all those emails in my inbox. If you are waiting on a
reply, please give me a kick. I wan't to get on. The only ones I seem to jump to are the ones involving amusing
conversations with people e.g. Emily and Waddle. Despite my inertia, everyone else seems to have a bit of the same
too, so I can't totally be blamed. The number of emails and phone calls I'm waiting on is innumerable. That's what
the summer does to us all.
Once again I woke late and got on with things digital. So far I
have dabbled in Tongy's website,
some stuff for French cricket and am now just about to do a little on Matthew Ball's. Mike Lewis also phoned me today regarding some updates on his, so it
looks like I'm getting a free pub lunch tomorrow which will should break up the day nicely.
Also
electronically related I had a couple of phone calls from Jono
regarding the internet/TV/phone deal for the house. I spent a good hour surfing the sites of all the main providers
but getting frustrated with the amount of different angles they take the way they provide their own service.
Eventually I stumbled on USwitch
which I found to be a brilliant way of solving all my problems. I can't work out who runs it, but this should
definitely be publicised more to students as by just typing in your needs and location it provides an instant
direction to which providers and packages suit you best, right down to the exact channels you want. Very impressed
& pleased that I've now got that all sorted. Looks like it's only going to cost and extra 10 quid per month,
which is much better than it could have been.
Devito
MSN'd again today. They seem to be having very sparkly weather out there which is a rubbish as ours was terminated
by a storm last night. Not being such a nice day today, I decided to tidy my room, which has only resulted in me not
being able to get into bed again. I'm going to have to start shifting some boxes.
This morning I went into town. Today is the day The Grandma
gets her hair done, so a day is made of it as The Grandma doesn't go so quick any more. After some lunch at The Well
I paid a visit to a few shops, picking up odds and ends and ideas for things for the house. I'd forgotten what a
wealth of dangerous electrical goods and shockingly awful DVDs that Cash Converters can offer to the unsuspecting low-cost
buyer.
I also had a perusal around the Live and Let Live exhibition in the Crown Centre. It is put on by
Stourbridge College each year to showcase the final year major projects. There were one or two names I recognised on
the boards; ex-primary school types who I haven't heard of in years. The quality on the whole was good. A few made
me smile, a few made me cringe and a few I still can't understand now.
There was quite a good standard of
book illustration, sculpture and photography, although I did wonder about choice of shooting locations, but the
artists had done very well considering. I was a little disappointed that the descriptions were too vague with no
actual information on the processes followed/tool used etc etc, however I can't complain, I like free exhibits and
I haven't been to one in ages.
When I got back home (walk, via the park) I set about Tongy's website again. Progress has been substantial and the CMS is complete bar the control panel which is a bit fiddly but shouldn't take too
long. I also managed to complete my first piece of layered portrait vector art. I used Photoshop, but there is no
reason why it can't be ported to Illustrator as all the paths are intact. Quite pleased really. It's for the front
page of the website and I think it sits well.
Tomorrow I should be able to wrap up here and move on. Good
stuff.