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Collect collect collect!
Collectibles. Things sold in sets.
I must admit to a bit of a weakness to such things. Once upon a long ago I collected a full set of plates with cat pictures on them. “Why?” I hear you ask. Because they were there. I think they’re currently in my parents’ attic.
The local supermarket is currently doing a promotion on knives. You get vouchers when you spend a certain amount of money, and then 5 vouchers saves you around 70% per knife. I don’t collect by mail order any more – you can get trapped into those things and never get out. But picking stuff up in a supermarket and handing over vouchers, that’s nice and safe and under my control.
Well, vaguely under my control.
Now, it’s pretty much impossible for me to walk around with a wallet full of money-saving vouchers in my pocket and not use them. It doesn’t really matter whether or not I particularly need the items. Don’t get me wrong, I no longer buy stuff I’ll never use, but take these knives. It’s pretty much a case of “Well they’re sure to come in handy one day”.
I don’t really cook, you see. I’m thinking that maybe now’s the time to start, now that I can get hold of some really cool knives. Up until now I’ve only needed two sharp knives – a little one to cut the cheese to put on top of my pizza and a bigger one to cut the pizza. Now I’ve got knives capable of cutting all sorts of food!
All six knives present and correct, officer!
I now own a total of six, yes SIX steak knives! I haven’t had steak at home for years. So why six steak knives? Obviously I had to get two (they come in sets of two) as they’re part of the collection. There’s also one of those wooden blocks for putting the knives in. And it holds six. So six I had to have. Not only would gaps in the block annoy the hell out of me every time I looked at it, but I’ve seen a bunch of crime shows. If there’s a stabbing and I’ve got a knife missing I’d be well in the frame. Are the police really going to believe that I ran out of vouchers?
I’m currently thinking of buying a massive cabbage, just so I can take my recently acquired cleaver-style knife and hack the living hell out of it.
I guess if nothing else, they’ll look good on the kitchen worktop.
Where’s that horn?
Now, where was that horn again?
The car horn – it’s a strange beast. It might be found on one of the steering column stalks, in the centre of the steering wheel or between the centre of the steering wheel and the wheel itself. What’s it for? Its only legitimate purpose is to let other road users know you’re there. Is it ever used for such a purpose?
Nope.
Well, I’ve used it for that purpose once in my life. Someone began reversing towards me and I gave a little honk to let him know he ought to stop before he dinged me.
Its common usage is twofold:
“Oy! You cut me up, you little shit! Learn to drive!”
and
“Boy, I’ve been stuck in this queue for ever. I think I’ll vent my frustration by honking my horn.”
The first I can understand, the second would wind me up except that I’ve never been exposed to it. In fact I’ve only ever seen it happen on TV. I don’t know if it even happens in real life. I was stuck in traffic for 8 hours on the M25 London Orbital once and not a single person used their horn.
In TV and films, horns are used just before an accident to add a little something to the scene. What happens next depends on the plot, of course. Sometimes the accident is averted, sometimes the oncoming vehicle seems to have time to honk their horn but fails to slow down before plowing into the hapless pedestrian!
Finding the horn in real life is a bit more of a problem. I’m usually too busy braking and swerving to honk at the offending vehicle. In the past couple of years I’ve tried it twice. The first time nothing happened due to technical problems (the garage couldn’t find anything wrong, probably water got in). The second happened last week.
There I was on the roundabout, minding my own business. I saw lights to the left, but being on the roundabout it was my right of way. Suddenly there was a flash of silver in front of me, then it was gone. The car approaching was going so fast, not only did he have no chance of stopping but I barely even saw him cross in front of me. It wasn’t exactly a near miss, he was a good couple of metres away. There was a car parked just off the roundabout with someone in it (he’d just dropped someone off) – I saw the guy’s jaw drop and he was pointing incredulously at the speeding car. If I’d been going any faster probably both my car and the speeder’s would have been written off, the speed he was going.
So I decided, I’m going to give him a good beep. I’m going to give him both barrels, big time. OK, it’s after 10pm and it’s illegal to sound my horn in a built-up area, but I just don’t care. I rammed my hand at the steering column, and viciously changed the car computer readout from “trip” to “distance until empty”. Bollocks.
Where’s that horn?
When Routine Goes Bad
Ah, routine. My life is ruled by it. Many people’s are. Wake up, make up the lunch box, have a shave, have a shower, go to work.
Do work.
Come home, make tea, watch a DVD while eating tea. Watch some more telly. Go to bed.
Simple? Safe, certainly. But it’s a lot of work, in my own head. There are certain programmes to watch on certain days. The same food is eaten on each day each week. And I don’t like this to change.
Pizza and Dr Who - the perfect Saturday night combination
For example, Saturday night is pizza night. Pizza and (currently) an episode of Dr Who. The Dr Who is important. I know the episodes really well. That means I can look down at my pizza to sprinkle on the Tabasco without missing anything.
I think of it as my weekly treat. If I “have” to do something else on Saturday night I get mildly irritated. My brain immediately screams “But, but, it’s pizza night!”. I need to designate another night to be pizza night. That mucks up my routine for the alternate night. The sky falls and the world comes to an end. I can’t help thinking this isn’t entirely “normal” (whatever that is).
Oops
Routine has its up side, of course. When I leave home, I check various plug-sockets, electrical equipment, the windows and so on in the same order every single time. That way nothing gets missed. I know nothing’s been left on. No worries, no “rushing back home to check”.
On the negative side, I’ve noticed that some things I do are so automatic, they cease to be “things to do” and become instead “the correct number of things to do”. I once had a pair of trousers with an extra button. More than once I left the house with the fly unzipped. My brain insisted I’d done the correct number of things in order to fasten those trousers – the extra button took the place of the fly.
Batman doesn't have this problem - he just locks up and goes
Where do things deteriorate to the point of the ridiculous? When I lock a door I always give the handle a tug to check – normal enough. I then need to leave the immediate vicinity within 4-5 seconds, or I’ll check the door again. Just in case it has magically unlocked itself in the meantime. And I’ll keep checking it until I leave. The absolute knowledge that it’s locked doesn’t help.
Some people describe routine as “boring”. I prefer “predictable”. I’m sure there’s a line there somewhere, I’m just not sure I’m on the right side of it.
Here we go again
The chap on the left has no use for money. Not so the chap on the right.
Well, we’re well into 2012 and Christmas is but a distant memory. However, it’s not time for me, personally, to hit the yearly reset button just yet (financially speaking, that is).
Christmas is, of course, is an expensive time for many people (by “many”, I mean pretty much everyone who celebrates Christmas). So now that it’s a distant memory, surely that’s a good time to start your own financial year afresh?
I have a massive clump of expenses, starting near the start of December and lasting until the end of January. There’s Christmas, of course. Then there are the membership dues for the two professional organisations I’m a member of. It’s not even as if I still work in the same field as these two organisations, but I still like to keep up with events and advances in my old field. Plus, of course, my ego likes the associated letters after my name. Then there’s the car. For some reason, whenever I decide to change cars I always do it in the first couple of months of the year, which means that the service is always due just after Christmas. Good timing, huh.
So my yearly reset currently lies in February. I can’t help feeling that I work all the year before in order to pay for all this stuff. Or, considering that I pay for it all courtesy of Mr MasterCard and Mr Visa, I guess I work all the year after in order to pay it back.
Star Trek has an interesting take on money – they don’t have any. Captain Picard explains this at some point during “ST- The Next Generation”. This is a great idea, but I certainly don’t see it happening even by the 24th Century (the century in which I believe it is set). It would require a quantum leap in thinking, and the whole world would need to do it at once. And some races still love money in the show – where would the Ferengi be without their gold-pressed latinum?
Well, I started off moaning about money and ended up showing my geekiness. Christmas may be over, but Easter eggs are already hitting the shops (whhhhhaaaat!). Yes, it’s true! So we have that to look forward to.
Still here!
Yes, I’m still here.
It has been pointed out to me that I haven’t actually posted anything for a while, and indeed I haven’t. So this is something in the nature of a holding post.
I’ve actually been working on an “Epic Poem”. Well, in my head it was going to be an “Epic Poem”. It was going to be a serious poem, full of epic adventure. There was going to be an awesome hero performing deeds of great importance. I saw myself as an aspiring modern-day Homer.
However, when I started writing, it didn’t quite work out that way, despite my best intentions. It features a rather clumsy, idiotic chap by the name of Eric Thane who bumbles through the poem – things generally turn out well by accident rather than design. And it’s in no way going to be “Epic”, either in content or length. Although some of the best poems don’t rhyme, and I think they’re great, I don’t seem to be able to write like that. So it’s taking me ages to get it right, and despite my best efforts it’s turning out rather cheesy. Ho hum.
I’ve managed to write some poems which, though they won’t win any prizes, have made me proud of the achievement. However, telling an actual story using words which rhyme and lines which scan is a lot harder than it looks.
So, part one of my Epic Poem coming soon, though it’s likely to be more Pam Ayres than Homer.
Life, the Universe and the Nature of Time
The answer to the Ultimate Question. And my age.
Forty-two. According to the late great Douglas Adams in his amazing “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, this is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.
It’s also my age, as from today (Happy Birthday to me)! As my age is now the answer to the Ultimate Question, I’m expecting great things from the coming year. Everything’s going to fall into place, oh yes.
The nature of time
So that got me thinking about time. It’s an established scientific fact that time moves more slowly when you’re waiting for something to happen, as evidenced by Clive Giggletrousers’ “boiling kettle experiment” of 1975 (no link available).
Half an hour later, still not boiled!
Widely televised, the kettle failed to boil during the eight hour show, due, it has been proposed, to the sheer number of people watching. Further anecdotal evidence has been reported in the case of terminally lazy Mirabelle Jiff of Milton Keynes, UK, who, according to witnesses, waited for something to happen to her for so long she lived to the grand old age of 723 (unsubstantiated).
However, little has been reported regarding an increased rate of the passing of time. Recently, I discovered this phenomenon in my own life! It was the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor which brought it home to me. The news reader mentioned “the death of Michael Jackson in June 2009”.
2009? 2009?
Blimey. I thought it was just a few months ago. So, with the aid of a calculator, I estimate that time for me is running at around six times “normal”. This is a bit worrying, to be honest. Even if I live until I’m eighty (is that even possible on a diet of pizza, ice cream and Marmite sandwiches?), I’ll be dead by fifty. Yoinks! Maybe if I speak nicely to my pension company, I can cash it in early.
So, please join me next year for my 70th birthday and I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.
When I grow up
Grad Ball 1992 - young and full of hope
“When I grow up, I want to be a train driver.”
That was my number one choice when I was little. Every year we went to Scotland on holiday to stay with my gran, and we went by train. The MotorRail to be exact. That’s the one where they put the car on a trailer at the back of the train. And I really wanted to drive that train.
Then, for a brief period, I wanted to be a football (soccer) player. Well, which little boy didn’t? Unfortunately, I had no talent. I sat on the sidelines, watched the game and helped with the half-time oranges.
“School days are the best days of your life”, they say. Who are “they”? People who never went to school, evidently. Because it’s bullshit. I hated school. University’s where it’s at. Now that was fun. Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again. Meeting friends in the Students’ Union for a couple of pints, rushing around to friends in the middle of the night to get help on an assignment…
Well, now those days are gone – time to grow up.
When I as at school we did one of those tests which is supposed to tell you the kind of job you might be suited to. That was one of the most hilarious balls-ups of all time. I decided that it was more important to get on well with co-workers than the work environment, and working outside might be good. The result?
“Youth club leader” or “Pig farmer”.
Picture courtesy of Stephen McKay
Excuse me? Pig farmer? What in the names of the Gods of Olympus were they thinking? I mean, I’m all for pigs but after their conversion to bacon, thank you very much indeed.
There’s nothing wrong with pig farming, it’s just not for me. I’m more of the academic type. So these tests should be taken with a pinch of salt.
So I spent some time as a laser physicist and now I’m a website programmer. A job which didn’t even exist when I was at school. There was no web until well into my university life.
So, thank you for inventing the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Without you, I’d be coming home every night smelling of pig poopies.
Sounds wrong, tastes great!
Ah, lovely!
This is my tribute to the spread known as Marmite…
“You love it or hate it”. That’s been the crux of the advertising campaign for Marmite for a good while. In case you’re not familiar with this wonderful spread (clearly I’m in the “love it” camp), it’s basically yeast extract with added vitamins and minerals. And it’s brown. Doesn’t sounds very appetising, does it? Well, I find it delicious.
Marmite saw me through university, and is one of my staples even today (spot the bachelor). Years ago I discovered that cheese and Marmite sandwiches were really great, although the combination doesn’t immediately present itself as the best of ideas (although Marmite is marketed in combination with a number of foodstuffs). The solidness of the cheese plus the tang of the Marmite – lovely!
It’s not for everyone. The “love it or hate it” advertising campaign is bang on. Marmite has such a strong taste, there really isn’t a halfway position. Years ago, when I was living in Stuttgart, we managed to get hold of some. There was an “English shop” on the other side of the city – it was run by an English couple who imported such delicacies as Prawn Cocktail flavour crisps and, yes, Marmite. We gave some to a German friend, who, seeing its brown colour, leapt to the immediate conclusion that it must be chocolate and dove straight in. What a baby! Screaming, cursing, clawing at his mouth. He came down on the “hate it” side.
If you’re on the “love it” side of the fence, I’ve discovered a new variation for my sandwiches. Four words – egg mayonnaise sandwich filler. There’s something about the solidness of the cheese, the tang of the Marmite and the, well, the “egginess” of the egg which just – works. I suggested it to fellow Marmite and cheese lovers and they turned up their noses, but promised to try it. We’ll see, but to my palate – lovely!
Cheese, Marmite and egg mayonnaise – sounds gross, tastes great!
Diversions and Bad Choices
I was driving home around 10pm last night and got a bit caught out. I’d just done my shopping and decided to go home the long way, as I knew there was resurfacing work in town and didn’t want to get caught. Three miles out of town I encountered what I assume was an accident, judging by the police cars. In any case, the road was closed and I had to turn back, forcing me to drive all the way back into town (I say “all the way”, it was actually only a couple of miles, but with my shopping slowly defrosting in the boot of the car, it felt further). Once there, of course, I had to sit at the traffic lights while the road resurfacing crew did their thing.
That reminded me of an (after the fact) amusing incident from many years ago. I was driving home from Surrey to Hampshire (where I was living at the time) on the main road just after dark when I encountered a police diversion, sending a whole queue of us off down a road I’d never seen before. Figuring most of the traffic would be attempting to rejoin the main road, I picked the car ahead and followed it. Now I’m switching to “story mode”, properly overdone and with associated poetic licence…
“Storm clouds gathered ominously overhead as I drove deeper and deeper into the unknown. The queue of cars ahead and behind me began to thin out as the rain began to fall, a few drops at first, then harder and harder until the wipers, frantically sweeping across the windscreen, could no longer cope and visibility fell to almost nothing. Sweat trickled down my brow as I clung to the red rear lights ahead of me. Deeper and deeper into the wilderness we drove, as more and more cars left the queue. A sharp stab of fear shot through me as we passed a sign – “Welcome to West Sussex”. I knew this was all wrong – wrong road, wrong county, wrong night for this. The last of the cars disappeared, leaving only myself and the car ahead – my guide, my last hope. In a sudden flash of lightening my worst fears were realised as the car ahead pulled into a driveway. He was home, I was lost.”
I can’t remember how I got home from there. I guess I kept going until I saw a sign to a town I recognised and followed my nose from there. The moral of the story? Don’t follow a random car in the hopes they’re going the same way as you. Because they’re not.
Dishwashers, mugs and Quantum Tunnelling
A few weeks ago I arrived at work to be told that my coffee mug had suffered an unfortunate dishwasher accident. Apparently the force of the water in the dishwasher had blown my mug apart! This mug had been with me for years, so understandably, the sight of the broken handle was almost too much to bear. But, accidents happen. Half of the handle was missing, and when the dishwasher broke down that very evening, everyone assumed that the handle was stuck inside somewhere.
The dishwasher was fixed and the incident forgotten. The handle was never found.
A couple of weeks later the handle turned up – in the mug cupboard opposite the dishwasher.
Now it’s Nobel Prize time – quantum tunnelling of a mug handle through two large barriers!
Quantum tunnelling involves teensy-weensy particles (for example electrons) tunnelling through a barrier, which classically, would be impossible.
We now see evidence of a large object, billions of times more massive than an electron, tunnelling through both the dishwasher door and the cupboard door! The probability of this, while finite, is so small to be mathematically impossible.
So I’ll write a paper on it and get famous.
Although, thinking about it, I guess the probability of someone telling a little fib after accidentally breaking the mug while putting it away in the cupboard it a bit higher, I suppose.
Hold the paper. More research required.
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