moosifer jones' grouching

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, adieu!

2008-08-04T12:04:00.003+01:00

After many months half-hearted poking about with things, I have finally got my website installed under wordpress. I've also imported the grouch over to it and am in the process of fixing all the categories. So new posts will be over on http://magslhalliday.co.uk/. I'm not going to delete the blogger archive, although I may end putting up a redirect (if blogger allows that).

Subscribers:
Live Journal
I'll get the syndication changed but it may be a few days.

Other subs.
Change the sub to http://magslhalliday.co.uk/?feed=rss2

I've been with blogger for a long time, since November 2003, but it's time is up. The changes that came in with blogger 2 meant I had to fiddle about a lot more to create my own style at which point it became obvious I should go for a more complex and geeky CMS like Wordpress. Ah well.

The Melancholy of Mags L Halliday

2008-07-29T20:39:00.003+01:00

I had to take this afternoon off sick, since mere caffeine and working did not give me any focus. I hate that with colds: the muzzy head which prevents you really getting on with things. You've not really ill, no fever or vomiting or pain, but you're not going to actually achieve anything. And I never know what to do when the medical advise would be "take it easy" but I don't actually need to lie down in a darkened room like a Pre-Raphaelite heroine with a laudenum habit.

I have therefore sat on the sofa drinking Lemsip and watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Again.

I blame the Chap: you can't go around giving me a new UST with season 2 nowhere in sight. Now I'm reduced to watching fanvids, which aren't even about Kyon/Haruhi, and trawling google for rumours of the next season. I've even agreed that, as the Chap owns the DVDs, I'll buy the translated light novels when they come out, just to get myself more of the Kyon/Haruhi tension.

Part 1 of episode 1 on YouTube (subbed, not dubbed: I prefer the dubbed version - heresy! - because Kyon sounds more like a sixth former and less than a grown man).

Conjure the wandering stars

2008-07-20T22:22:00.005+01:00

So, Tennant's Hamlet. The press are already writing of it, and Jonathan Miller sneered at it for 'celebrity casting'. Last week, I saw the PR shot for it, and it instantly brought to mind another image.

Friedrich's The Wanderer Above the Mists (or The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog). It's an arresting image, from the Romanticism period in art (painted around 1817). The same period which saw the rise of the sublime as a form of beauty, and concepts of nature v nuture emerge from post-Revolutionary France. It was also around the time when Shakespeare went through a massive revival, led in part by the Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare (1807), and Hamlet became a tragic hero (rather than a whiny emo boy back from gap year to find 'Uncle' Claude has moved in with mum). All this suggests the tone the production intends to take with the play: a Romantic who ends up caught up in that fog that he looks down on.

The military coat (as well as making me go "Captain Jack!"), also recalls Branagh's Hamlet, which looked to create a strong sense of both the political/military forces waiting on the borders, and the idea of a Germanic stoicism - Hamlet having studied in Wittenberg - in the face of the threats Hamlet faces (real and imagined).

It opens next week, and I shall read the reviews with no end of trepidation. Naturally, I have tickets for September but I can't work out if I'm more excited by seeing Tennant as Hamlet, or by seeing what looks like it'll be a smart production of Hamlet with Tennant as the icing.

I picked a quote from Hamlet over the other possible title for this piece, which suggests the latter reason for the excitement. The other title? "Don't cry, emo Dane prince!"

Le Tour de Exe

2008-07-19T11:10:00.003+01:00

I made myself get up just after 7am, so I could cycle down to Starcross before the day really started. Naturally, my chain slipped off at one point (due to messing about with the gears) and I shall spend the rest of the weekend scrubbing bike oil out of my fingers.

As you pass the Turf Locks, you go from riding alongside the ship canal, fairly sheltered, to riding along a seawall with no protection from the wind. But that bit also brings the smell of salt air and the clack of cordage on masts, so you really feel you're a long way from the city.

It took 90 minutes to cover the 9 mile route (nb - I actually start somewhere else in Exeter but I'm not going to pinpoint my house here). Around 2 miles were along the seawall - which is not a metalled path - that made me glad I still have my off-road tyres on. The train back? 9 minutes.

Getting back into the city, and the rain is threatening, so I'm going to settle down to watch Mark 'the cock' Cavendish take another Tour de France stage.

Transmission starts

2008-07-13T13:01:00.003+01:00

Doctor Who: Short Trips - Transmissions, which you may vaguely recall me writing about, is available now and contains a story by myself as well as many others. I've had reports of it being in ~~Forbidding Prices~~ Forbidden Planet.

A Cat Called Malice

2008-07-12T12:44:00.002+01:00

I just discovered Polydor records have taken the very sane step of becoming a YouTube channel. Specifically, Polydor classics puts up high quality classic music videos. One of my favourite uses of YouTube is to track down old pop videos - you get onto a seam of a band or year and lose hours clicking on the 'related'. This morning I watched an old Aztec Camera clip Alistair posted, which led me to Ever Changing Moods, then Long Hot Summer and finally this:

I can watch the young Paul Weller for hours, although I'm a bit bothered by his current Bradley Wiggins style haircut.

Meanwhile, Sébastian's new kill count is:

Rodents:
Rats - 1 2
Mice - 40
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Ringed pigeon - 3
Uncertain - 9
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Yes, there's a rat in my rose bed, what am I gonna do? Actually, I picked it up and sealed it in a plastic bag till bin day. Séba has a new collar with a quieter bell, and within days he's killed a rat. Which is both good (less rats) and bad (rats bite when cornered).

There was also a young hedgehog under my kitchen table, which had got in through the open back door, got itself confused in amongst the boxes of tools etc. and was sounding distressed. I moved things and used gardening gloves to pick it up and put it under some foliage in the garden. You'd really not believe I'm in an urban area, would you?

Cute, in a stupid arsed way

2008-07-10T00:30:00.000+01:00

It's already been noted that I am loving The Last of the Shadow Puppets. The first thing they reminded me of was Tenament Symphony era Marc Almond, mixed with a large dose of The Divine Comedy circa Casanova (e.g. Something for the Weekend) and a dash of Lee Hazelwood. A cocktail recipe of music almost bound to make me love them. I love the combination of torch songs and guitars. The opening bass-laden intro on the first track of the album reminds me of Valerie, as well, but then I'm nearly as obsessed with Mark Ronson's arrangements as the trailer editors on the BBC.

I've just put the Shadow Puppets album on again, whilst updating my swipe file (a posh phrase for ripping out good headlines from Glamour). And a slight worry resurfaces. I have fleetingly wondered if there was something a bit Space about The Last Shadow Puppets, but I've also just been reminded of The La's.

Hmmm. I'm starting to suspect this is an album I will adore for six months then neglect for years.

Also cute, in a stupid arsed way:

And, yes, I have also favourited the 'learn the dance' versions.

The big four oh

2008-07-09T23:26:00.003+01:00

Not mine: his.

Sébastian's new kill count is:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 39 40
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Ringed pigeon - 2 3
Uncertain - 9
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

The pigeons have been downgraded from wood to ringed - smaller and a softer grey, in keeping with what I've been finding. The mouse was brought in still struggling. Which is, actually, horrible.

Pigeon Detectives

2008-07-05T12:11:00.003+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count is:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 39
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1 2
Uncertain - 8 9
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

One bird was just a handful of feathers - I'm starting to think the black and white feathers with a yellow edge might be siskins. The other was a pigeon of some sort, as Sébastian very kindly left the guts and the feet to allow for identification. I'm hoping it was a wood pigeon as it wasn't a flying rat style urban one. I'm hoping this because last week there was a poster up on the gates of the St Thomas Pleasure Gardens about a lost pet collar pigeon who "can't really take care of itself".

Living with colour

2008-06-24T19:27:00.003+01:00

As a kid, I used to spend many hours flicking through the household encyclopedias. The ones with the vaguely Edwardian line drawings kept me entertained but I really loved the late 50s guide to decorating (aka "the orange book"). The colour plates had that awesome acid palette of lemon and lime, and the food was bizarrely coloured. I've since collected a small shelf of such books, such as the Conran 'House Book' of the 70s (all murky orange and brown) or a recent 1950s 'Guide to Modern Marriage' (right - click through for the full glory of that cover).

As part of the whole M-process, I'm trying to declutter my attic enough that the chap can fill it with his ~~junk~~belongings. Today, I started following unclutterer's advice and scanning papers I no longer need. The scanned images will go to flickr or be burnt to a CD and the paper will got to recycling (via the shredder if necessary). The first thing I found to scan was this clipping from 1995 (left). It rather neatly indicates that the things that you read as a child will dictate your tastes as an adult. I grew up absorbing the wonders of late 50s futurism, and now I love Mad Men, spend too much time on design*sponge, buy retro and am having a 1958 wedding suit made. When I opened that Sunday Times clipping, I instantly thought "I'd still love that room".

I did the initial paperwork at the registrar's today, which was surprisingly painless. Bored Exeter readers will be able to see the notice pinned up for the next fortnight.

This is a local shop, for local people

2008-06-23T22:45:00.003+01:00

I've been meaning to try this for weeks. The exciting excel spreadsheet below indicates what I bought at Stokes, my sometimes blogged favourite local greengrocers where the eggs are from five miles away and almost no food is wrapped in plastic. It compares the prices I paid on Saturday against the online prices you'd pay tonight to buy those same goods (or as near as possible) in two well-known supermarkets in the UK.

I've helpfully used conditional formatting to show if the supermarket prices per item are higher (red) or lower (green) than my local greengrocers. Yes, geeky. For eggs, I compared Stokes' supply against large free range eggs from the West Country (one specified Devon, the other is Woodland, which is IIRC a West Country brand). Some of the maths involved division and multiplication as some items are not sold loose in supermarkets. Like flat mushrooms, which I bought loose whereas in the supermarket you can only buy in 250g plastic cartons wrapped in cellophane. Stokes sells aubergines by the kilogram, whereas supermarkets price them per fruit. Or vegetable. I've never really been sure about aubergines.

The final trigger for this was watching a somewhat patchy Dispatches on the rising price of food* which highlighted the fact that I didn't feel the price had risen that much. It turns out that's because I'm already saving money by walking down to the local greengrocers on a Saturday morning. So when the middle class media are chattering about how shocking the cost of large free range eggs are, wonder where they are shopping.

---

*my problem, aside from finding Jay Raynor a more irritating food critic than Giles Coren (who at least willingly dons Elizabethan gear to wander around Southwark and Borough), was that a part of the piece talking about the wholesale price of rice mentioned that it had doubled in six months. It also mentioned that some rice-producing countries have brought in controls on exports to the West. Yet it neglected to point out that these controls were to protect the internal food supply i.e. prevent their own people starving.

Things to make and do

2008-06-01T12:46:00.004+01:00

It took me several weeks to plan and organise, then three weekends of work to do it, but I've revamped my attic workspace.

Before and after:

I still need to put all my books back on the actual shelves, clean and put down the rugs, and get more magnets so I can put more things on the wall, but I'm pleased.

The desk really triggered the whole thing. My old desk (barely visible) cost £35 from PC World or some similar chain in 1996. It was MDF with a flimsy black veneer and, within two years, the cupboard space on the left was being held up by the PC tower and the drawers on the right were held up with my first year notes from uni. The problem, even as I looked for a better one, is that to get into my attic furniture needs to be flat-packed or able to be disassembled. It's just not possible to get a solid desk up two flights of narrow stairs which turn through 180 degrees four times. Every modern flatpack desk I saw, I loathed as they lacked soul. Every old desk I saw was solid.

Then I spotted an old oak leather-topped desk in the PDSA charity shop near my house. Everyone was looking at it, but dismissing it because there were rips in the bottom of one drawer and sellotape covering the crossbar. I looked. I tried lifting a corner and realised the top part came off, leaving two pedestals of drawers. At £35 including delivery, I decided it was worth the TLC required.

Here it is in the garden as I fixed it up:

Initially, I considered sanding it down and painting it but I decided I liked the scruffiness of the ink stains and worn black handles. I protected the old leather top with newspaper, sanded down the rough bits on the surface, scraped off the old sellotape and sanded down the rough edges of the cross bar, revarnished the top and used olive oil to repair a minor scratch to the leather. The middle drawer has been temporarily repaired using mounting card and superglue. At some point I'll find some balsa wood and do a proper job on it.

Knowing I had a new desk to get upstairs, and knowing that would be quite disruptive, I decided the time had come to sort out the rest of the workspace.

Not least the minor worry about the ceiling. One of the joys of a listed house is that it tends to list. Given this was originally a farm worker's cottage, and is as vernacular as architecture can get, I have never expected to have any straight lines. However one ceiling panel in the attic had bowed, cracking the paint and plaster around it and leaving a thin gap between the ceiling and the wall. I rather nervously hit it with a hammer and discovered - to my relief - that the board was sound, just bent. So I pulled away all the loose paint and plaster, used an old piece of quarter-circle dowling to push the panel back up on the wall and trusted to polyfilla to fix the rest and reseal the wall/ceiling joint. Well, polyfilla and some great plaster board tape which is like netting. Looking at the before photos, I'm slightly surprised by how bad it actually looked.

The existing shelves, bowing under the weight of the books, were made from MDF recovered from a skip in 1994, along with some bricks liberated from a building site around the same time. They've done a sterling job over the last decade but the time had come to get something a little more grown-up. Having realised that IKEA now deliver in the UK, I picked some heavy dark wood shelves called Markör which would fit A4 folders as well as books and got a delivery date just before the last bank holiday. Thus setting the timescale for all the work.

At the Open House London day last year, the chap and I visited RIBA to see their mix of retro and modern. We ended up having a long and interesting conversation with an architecture student in a library workspace they have. One thing that wowed me was their magnetic wall. This is done using a primer paint with ferrous material suspended in it. You then paint over with whatever colour you want. And use magnets to hold everything to the wall. Given that I always use the wall behind my desk as an ideas/inspiration space, I loved the notion of making it magnetic. No blu tack marks, no pin holes damaging the plaster. I got the magnetic paint from Shaw Magnets via Rapid Electronics, which was the best value (a full litre for under £30, compared to £35 for 900ml for a different brand). And it works!

Unlike my wifi router, which had become increasingly unreliable. As the PC had to come down to the lounge whilst I was renovating, I took the opportunity to send the wifi router off to Belkin under warranty and use a CAT5 for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, I cycled over to the courier depot to collect the new router and today I brought the desk contents and the chair back upstairs.

The chair was made over a few nights ago. I'd got it from my old office and Moosifer Jones used to love sitting on it. And dribbling. Look closely at the photo of the old workspace and you can see the stain on the rather drab grey wool. I'd bought the fabric back in the winter from the Exeter Fabric Centre knowing it would be for this chair. Initially, I planned a full rebuild, then I considered using drawstrings to keep the new covers loosely in place. Finally, I discovered I could use an old set of blunted scissors as a bradle and tightly force the material in the gap between the cushions and the back. Not perfect, but workable. With the scraps, I made a little matching cushion for Sébastian and put it in one of the spaces on the new shelves. We'll see if he takes to it.

So, there it all is. There are minor other things to do (not least repainting the rest of the attic, and updating the lights) but I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out. Especially at a total cost of around £230. I'm sitting at my new old desk, on my elderly but snazzy chair, looking out over the gardens of the neighbourhood and I'm glad I took the time to do all the work.

Straying

2008-05-26T12:58:00.002+01:00

Strays, a comic strip I wrote for the Girly Comic a few years back, is their featured web comic for the next few weeks. Lee Kennedy did the artwork, and I certainly found writing it a massive learning curve. Page 1 is up today, with the rest to follow. Hope you enjoy.

Benny, the Vampire Slayer

2008-05-23T09:17:00.002+01:00

I first started emailing my latte sister Kelly Hale because we both loved Buffy. There were a lot of emails about whether Spike was better than Angel (well, d'oh) and how lovely Willow was, except when she wasn't. We both loved Buffy and Doctor Who: she'd written Grimm Reality, which is one of my favourite characterisations of Anji. And now we, along with the super-smart Phil Pursar-Hallard, are writing a collection of Benny long stories all about vampires: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire Curse.

PPH writes very engaging high concept stuff with an excellent dry wit. Kel writes super-sexy stuff with high emotional intelligence and an eye for the absurdities which makes you laugh out loud. So, no pressure then. The collection of novellas will be out in December this year.

In the meantime, Doctor Who: Transmissions is out next month. Plug plug.

Have you tired turning it off and on again?

2008-05-18T12:17:00.002+01:00

I'm in the midst of finally turning my attic space from a spare room with office set-up to a proper workspace with sleeping facilities. Over the decade since I moved in, success unclutterings of downstairs and the bedroom have left the attic laden with lots of boxes, a sagging bit of ceiling panel and the shelves I found in a skip 15 years ago. Next weekend is a long one, so I'm planning to refit the difficult end of the room (the bit with the sagging panel), but I'll still need my PC. So this morning has been spent shoving sofas around downstairs and setting up the PC in the corner on the new desk.

All went well till the final stage. I successfully moved sofas without finding extra kills under them. I got the PC downstairs and didn't drop the heavy monitor. I disconnected the wifi bits as the temporary workspace is about 2m from the network router box and I've a CAT5 that will reach. I connected everything up...and got 'local connection only' on the network connection. A call to a 25p/min helpline produced the following answer: switch the router off and back on again. And it works!

The IT crowd were right.

Wiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

2008-04-22T23:16:00.000+01:00

I'm writing this via the Wiimote, the Chap having enabled the interweb channel so we can get the BBC iPlayer through the TV. This means I can read my google reader via my TV - woo!

What hoe!

2008-04-20T14:34:00.002+01:00

In a burst of Spring-ish enthusiasm, I bought a hoe today and have already cleared the path of unwanted plants as far as Kuan Yin. I also planted a scabious in the long narrow border and am planning to restart my gardening notes so I stop repeating mistakes.

Whilst clearing the patio, I also found one of Sébastian's kills which had been left. Lovely. So, Sébastian's new kill count is:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 37 39
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

as there was also one on the rug this morning.

I'm actually very glad to be getting presents again. He's been being fussy about food, drinking more water than he used to and losing weight, so I naturally worried. Despite him being overweight by any definition. Two weeks on vet-prescribed "sensitive" cat food and he's back to normal, and the weight is slinking back on. A couple of kills is rather reassuring.

Crank up the cocktail shaker!

2008-04-16T23:14:00.005+01:00

The story I proofed the other morning has now been announced: Doctor Who: Short Trips - Transmissions. I've a short piece in it (well, duh, it's a collection of short stories after all) featuring my favourite companion combo of Tegan and Turlough. Technically, I've not returned the contract yet, but I think it's probably not going to be jinxed at this late stage. I mean, it's been approved by the high heid yins now and typeset and stuff.

It's set in Imperial Russia in 1905, starting in Vladivostok. I know: it's such a departure from writing a story about a haunted Russian treasure, or a war in the far East at the turn of the twentieth century. At least this time there's no Russian bloke called Sasha in i...oh. Anyway, I'm starting to see why historical authors end up wedded to a period. After the initial germ of the idea, I immediately knew where to go to find the necessary historical research. I was a bit flummoxed to find the travel section in the local library has been creeping along the shelves, so books on Russia and Siberia weren't quite where I was expecting them. Hopefully I'm not going to end up as the Who equivilant of Jean Plaidy.

I went to see 'The Other Boleyn Girl' a few weeks back with someone who has read all of Jean Plaidy's books. Our opinion, when we stopped laughing hysterically, was that it was worse than Plaidy. The only way I can sum up why not just us but half the audience was cracking up is to mention that it's a film set when Henry VIII's lusts meant he split with Rome, established the Church of England and abolished the monestaries (i.e. the Reformation). And yet they didn't even have a speaking role for Cardinal Wolsey. Now I'll bend the historical truth for the sake of the story (Gudok starts in Vladivostok even though, during the Sino-Russian war, the trans-Siberia railway started in Port Arthur because Vladivostok sounds so wonderfully Russian and Port Arthur doesn't*). However, even I would think twice about cutting out Wolsey entirely in a story about Henry's decision to split with Rome. There was a bloke in red robes who scowled at one point, but that's your lot.

*railway historians may, in fact, find some other inaccuracies in the story. However, I grew up on the railways and rail-geeks do not scare me.

Kuan Yin in the snow 2008

2008-04-06T23:10:00.004+01:00

I woke with the hail hitting the bedroom window. Weather rarely hits the glass, so the noise meant the wind was from the North. The thunder meant I didn't go back to sleep fully, and then the chap suggested I look out the window. It was early, but the snow was falling like fat feathers and the road was covered. I was excited but by the time I realised I had to get up to take photographs, the snow was slowing and the sun was starting to appear. And my camera batteries were nearly dead. I hauled on boots and got this shot, and one of the painted buddha, off before the camera shut itself down.

I do have more, taken with my new phone, but by the time the camera was recharged and I was back outside the snow had gone. At 8am this morning, though, kids in the St Thomas Pleasure Gardens were making their first ever snowmen.

Martha Jones, M.D.

2008-03-30T12:56:00.004+01:00

Yes, making Doctor Who Sims and then trying to get them onto their perfect career path is an epic waste of time. I know that. So my Captain Jack is an adventurer, my Fitz is a musician, my Sam Jones is a political lobbyist and my Martha just became a doctor (having previously been fined for inappropriate behaviour with a patient - probably all that snogging the Doctor business).

I know I should be doing other things but I already cycled five miles, did some laundry and tidied the garden this morning*...and I need to get Anji onto the business woman career path...

*ETA: oh, and proof read a short story before it goes up to the BBC high heid yins for approval.

Meanwhile: Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 36 37
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Scissors, paper, rock

2008-03-29T17:02:00.004Z

I may be facing a unique dilemma: how do you pick between two good hairdressers. Not how do you find a good stylist: every woman knows that is done through demanding to know who cuts a friend's hair and then switching to them. And switching hairdressers is normally easy: you go to the new one, the one you've poached from a friend, and forget the previous one existed. I'm in the different position of having to chose between two equally good - but different - hairdressers at the same salon.

I've been with K for a while, having loved their work on a friend. A few weeks ago I had to have a cut and K was on holiday. With massive amounts of trepidation, I accepted the salon's suggestion of J. When you have a thickcut fringe bang on your eyebrows, a new stylist is terrifying: they're going to put scissors right next to your eyes. And a new stylist also means explaining your current cut instead of saying "about an inch off". K and J are very different personalities. K is that most blissful of things: a silent stylist. J is camper than John Barrowman. K knows my cut and dries it messy or neat depending on my need. J changed the style a bit but did a lovely job of drying it so it was pure Manga cartoon. I sort of want to continue with J but I also want to stay with K. I need my hair cutting this week, and Tuesday is the only free day. But both J and K work on Tuesdays so I have to choose between them....argh!

Meanwhile: Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 35 36
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Is that from 'Accessorize'?

2008-03-19T20:06:00.002Z

The chap and I dashed along Holborn last week in order to pick up the ring (or "the bling", or "the thing", depending how freaked I was at any given moment) during our lunch break. After two visits to Hatton Garden, including one with appointments at a very nice attic studio recommended by someone at work and at the place we eventually went with, I had overcome my shyness around expensive jewelery. So we ordered this art deco ring from The London Victorian Ring Company, fitted with a square cut ruby that I chose myself. It's shiny! In some kind of automatic learned action from my mother, when I got back home I immediately cleaned out a dish to sit on the window sill and hold it whilst I'm doing the washing up.

Continuing the red theme, progress has started on the outfit. I know, there's a year to go and minor details like a venue should really be a priority, but Kel will be handmaking this suit for me. In a ruby red, natch, but without that hat.

I'm still a bit 'eep' about things, and convinced that too much online chatter will jinx things, but when something has happened I guess it is safe to blog about it...

2008-03-18T21:49:00.002Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 34 35
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

I am stupidly busy, but I have (probably) sold a short story and got around to tagging all my photos from Berlin. I will get around to writing it up, at some point, but it already seems an age ago.

What's your problem, pussycat?

2008-03-01T12:05:00.003Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 34
Voles - 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 4 5
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Séba seems to have an objection with his food bowl, despite it being in exactly the same bowls in the same position since he arrived a couple of years ago. So he's being the kind of fussy eater who will only eat if I'm in the kitchen with him. Despite this new-found pickyness, he's not bothering to eat his kills. I do wonder if he's attempting to explain that he wants this kind of food instead, so he's on a chickeny flavour cat food this weekend.

I'll be back

2008-02-25T23:25:00.003Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 33 34
Voles - 10 11
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

There I was trying to watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles and wondering why on earth the focus of the narrative is on Sarah Connor, and her monomaniacal maternal instinct, rather than giving John Connor something to do other than pout and whine and feel the burden of his Slayerness* when my very own cute Terminator stomped in. Not only was he determined to take the mouse right up close to the drying laundry but it was still kicking. Thank you.

There was also the remains of a vole last week, but I was busy with the being away etc.

*It probably doesn't help The Sarah Connor Chronicles that the protective terminator is Summer Glau aka River the chosen one in Whedon's Firefly. As with Torchwood the other night (BBC3), I don't think I should keep being reminded of how well Whedon did modern horror/scifi when watching something else.

Musical Interlude

2008-02-18T18:50:00.002Z

I have a small mountain of images from Berlin and Brussels to tag, title etc. Here are a tiny handful as a sample. They make it look like Berlin was all 1960s utopian futurism whilst Brussels was all fin de sicle art nouveau, which was not true:

In the meantime, here is a video of people dancing at Exeter Goes Pop!
Click to see dancing

Vote early and vote often

2008-02-05T23:03:00.000Z

Not in those primary thingies, but for a new font for the grouch (and associated sites):

Here It Goes Again!

2008-02-03T14:32:00.000Z

I've started building my wordpress version of magslhalliday.co.uk (see the test site here). The idea is that, by migrating my old skool html pages, the grouch and the long-languishing moosifer jones reads blogs onto wordpress I end up with a single cohesive site containing everything you might ever need. Except fluff-friends on facebook. The design will remain similar as I still love the background pattern (I got a shock the other month on seeing the original pattern design on a postcard in Paperchase). I'm going to tweak about with fonts, having just spent a few minutes reinstalling paint shop pro and downloading free fonts from dafont. And I'll be sorting out a good tagging system. It'll be a while before it goes live, and then it won't be where the test site is (so don't bother bookmarking it). But it's something I'm looking forward to sorting out.

In the meantime, here is Here It Goes Again by OK Go. Yeah, it's old, but it's still compelling:

Cooking like a grown up: wrap lunch

2008-01-26T12:03:00.000Z

Two friends, Laura and Kelly, are putting up recipes of healthy foods. And I suspect that Ladylark and I's plan to write a cookbook - based on how she taught me to cook like a grown up - is on indefinite hold, so I'm going to start putting some recipes online.

This hot wrap lunch was the sort of idea that comes from the need to use things up, and my liking for warm lunches in winter. After making it for myself one weekend, I tried it out on the chap and he liked it. It is rather calorific (400), but hits a spot so you don't find yourself munching on bread or biscuits a hour later. It is also a one-pan meal (specifically my small fryer), which is what you want at lunchtime. You can either make it with spinach thrown in at the cooking stage, or with rocket salad added at the final construction stage.

For one person:
1 x soft corn tortilla
1 x large flat mushroom, chopped
1oz cashew or pine nuts
2 x handfuls of spinach (or rocket salad)
1oz soft goat's cheese
0.5oz unsalted butter

1. Warm the tortilla as per packet instructions whilst preparing the filling.
2. Toast the nuts in a dry pan then set aside.
3. Melt the butter in the pan and add the mushrooms.
Fry till they start giving up their juices.
4. Add the spinach and stir as it wilts.
(If using the rocket salad, leave it till you construct the tortilla).
5. Mix in the toasted nuts and put the filling into one half of the warmed tortilla.
6. Add the goat's cheese (and the rocket salad, if using that).
7. Fold over the tortilla.

Ta-da. You need to eat it over a plate with a kitchen towel, as the juices may run out. My camera's battery died before I got the final photo.

This means nothing to me.....

2008-01-22T20:55:00.000Z

"Do you remember a guy that's been
In such an early song?
I've heard a rumour from ground control
Oh no, don't say it's true."

I know, silent for an age and then just tv spam. Ignore the second half - someone is just poor at editing:

See also:
less interesting trailer
original Bowie Ashes to Ashes video
original Vienna video
Play 80s reference bingo with this video (demonstrating my lack of petrol-head knowledge, when Gene Hunt says "fire up the Quattro", I thought of the drink).

At a more serious level, I'm rather curious about this. Life on Mars, whilst following many of the tropes of 70s stereotyping and design, managed to suggest that period which was on a cusp between post-war austerity and Thatcherite plenty. 1981 bling doesn't inspire the same sort of nostalgic recognition in me: it's not a lost world, it was a place where I was joining CND, playing 2-tone records and riding my mate's cross-trail bike. It's not hazy memories of childhood summers and winters of discontent, it's a mere year before I first bought some red hair-dye. It's hard to be nostalgic about a period when you were starting to shape your identity against the rising culture of conspicuous consumption. So I have no idea if Ashes to Ashes can work. I'm sure Gene Hunt will - the Sweeney were still going strong in 1981, after all - but the neat hook of Sam Tyler is gone, and the ending of Life on Mars seems to remove the possibility of repeating that trick. Unless they are suggesting Hunt and his pals are Jungian archetypes lurking in the shared mind of all coppers...

I love it when a plan comes together

2008-01-06T17:41:00.000Z

Ages ago, I messed about with both twitter and facebook. Two of the new social web-apps (programs like Gmail which run on a server and you access via the web) which were generating a lot of buzz at the time. Twitter is popular with Web 2.0 geeks but not with Real People, whilst facebook is the opposite. There was a twitter plug-in for facebook, but all it did was add a twitter box to your profile. So, due to the social weight of it, my facebook expanded and my twitter lapsed. Until last week.

Before I start explaining, here is a quick glossary.

web-apps: software you run on the web, via your browser e.g. GMail.
GMail: a email web-app with Web 2.0 functionality (i.e. tagging).
Firefox 2: a web browser which everyone should be on. Unless you have a Mac.
Facebook: a web-app - the bete du jour of social networking.
Twitter: a web-app - shows a status message, limited to 140 characters, which you update via the web or via SMS.
SMS: Short Message Service or text message to you and me (or txt msg, if u like).
Remember the Milk: a web-app 'to do' list. RTM for short.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication, a means of automatically feeding information from one website to another (hello anyone reading via LiveJournal - you're reading via RSS!)

Phew. Trust me, that's the hard bit.

Last week I was reading Micropersuasion's guide to setting up a Portable Personal Nerve Center. Which sounded waaaay more than I need in life. But a link led me to this post which has a section on how to add a 'to do' list to Gmail. Why would I even want a 'to do' list in Gmail? What's wrong with my notebook, or scraps of paper, or the back of my hand? Mainly, the fact that I forget to look in/on them whereas I log into Gmail all the time (except at work, obviously, hem hem). I use Google Calander, but I can't see that from work. There's no point looking at it in the evening only to realise I should have done something on the way home.

The short of it is that I did the following:

Signed up for Remember the Milk and added a few tasks.
Installed the RTM Gmail plug-in for Firefox 2.
This is one of the joys of Firefox (as expounded on by Mr Fry): the open source software means you can add on functions as you desire.
Switched my Gmail settings from 'English (UK)' to 'English (US)'. This is due to the fact you need the latest version of Gmail in order to see the RTM 'to do' list in your Gmail. I'm going to find out when I can switch back to real English.
Spotted that RTM also has a Twitter command option.

What this means is that I can also access my RTM 'to do' lists via SMS from my mobile using twitter commands sent to the rtm account (full details of how to do that here). So I can add something to the list whilst on the train, or download my list for the day when nowhere near a computer. If I send the SMS "d rtm !tod" to my twitter account, I get a text back with the list of things scheduled for today. So I dug up my twitter sign-in and set that up to. If I send a text saying "d rtm buy cat food" then the task "buy cat food" appears both in my RTM webpage list and in the Gmail one. So I've killed two web apps with one SMS.

Exciting, huh? No? Oh.

Having re-enabled my twitter account, I decided to see if the twitter app in Facebook now updates the facebook status as well as the flickr one. It does. You need to click on a button which says something like 'Update my Facebook Status' but it does. So now I can send a text like "on train, reading Bauderlaire and eating crisps" to twitter and it'll update both my twitter and facebook statuses (stati?). And when I saw the twitter status has an RSS, I used Feed Digest to pick up my twitter status and display it in the side bar here.

So, what have I achieved? Apart from upping my geekiness? I've now interconnected various web-apps (GMail, RTM, Facebook and Twitter) and a website (this blog), so that I can maintain all of them via text messages from my phone. As I get a bundle of texts included in my contract each month, this is cheaper and far less frustrating than needing to find free wifi spots (not that I have a laptop) or trying to browse the web on my lovely old moto pebl phone (which I have no desire to upgrade).

I am so excited by this, I did a diagram (click to enlarge). Highlighted things are automatic actions which were previously done by hand (via the web) and which are now done via a single text from my phone. The one thing I would recommend if you're doing this is to switch off twitter's notification system before you get driven mad by txt alerts in the night.

Profiles:
Twitter: magslhalliday
Facebook: Mags L Halliday
This obviously, is just delaying the day I start work on the wordpress version of the blog.

the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs

2008-01-02T09:47:00.000Z

And I'm gonna quit these ramblin' ways
One of these days soon
And I'll sing...

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs....
The Be Good Tanyas

I was quiet in December in part because I'd decided to make the majority of the presents I was going to give. I saw something in a magazine and thought "I could make those!". So I went to the Exeter Fabric Centre to grab some offcuts of thin patterned cotton, ribbons and black sequins, and bought 500g of lavender from Daisy gifts. Then I got out the 1927 Singer machine and sewed.

With the outlines sewn, I sat with Cranford on the TV, stuffed each bird with lavender and finished them off with the ribbons and sequin eyes. Then I gave them away in pairs. Naturally, I couldn't blog about them whilst I was making them, on account of giving them as pressies. I still have about 300g of the lavender, so I may end up making more and selling them just to use the stuff up!

The review linked to above about the Fabric Centre is spot on: after describing what I was making with the cottons, they said I had to bring them in to show them, so I will later in the month.

Wanna medal

2007-12-06T23:44:00.000Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 33
Voles - 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Wood-pigeon - 1 (new!)
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Unlike Muttley, Sébastian catched that pigeon.

Losing the Plot

2007-12-05T11:20:00.000Z

I've just finished code monkeying issue 03 of lost luggage, the Doctor Who fanzine that even non-fanfic lovers enjoy. It was going to come out in November, but we were both too busy running about with other stuff (Kelly with her excellent crafty stuff and Thanskgiving, and me with work and diamonds).

When moosifer 2 fell over forever it took with it the Book, my notes on how to run the archive. Most of it I can redo but I just wasted half an hour because I'd lost the note that said "tick the box marked 'run PHP code?' to enable this function". Still, I got there in the end.

There's a heap of stories about love and/or sex as well as a revamp of an article I first wrote in SKARO in 1996 on why it's OK for the Doctor to snog people. It's surprisingly hard to find stories involving love and/or sex and fit the raison d'etre of the archive - to showcase the best writing out there. But we've some fun ones (Precious Little Dumplings and At Last cause me to giggle and snort with laughter), some surprisingly romantic ones (And Hate the Idle Pleasures... is lovely) and some darker stuff (including the classic Best of Enemies).

Now we have to pick a theme for a future issue...

Dork Talk

2007-11-25T12:21:00.000Z

Just when I start wondering if the Guardian on Saturday is worth the £1.50 price tag, it gives me a supplement on Baking (I happily admit Dan Lepard, their weekly baking columnist, is prone to causing me to cook far more cakes than I should) and a such an excellent review on a new piece of technology that I actually want to buy it. I'm not going to, mind. I have a long history of never quite loving portable music players even if they are the bestest thing ever.

My Sony Walkman was primary used on trains (where its batteries always ran out somewhere near Four Oaks, the radio never got a signal and you always needed a pen in case you had to respool a tape). It did give me an abiding memory of being huddled up in many layers as the train juddered its way into Birmingham in the snow, with 'A New England' by Kirsty MacColl playing. My CD walkman was cheap and never liked doing anything very much. I only have an iPod because the chap gave me his Mk1 when he got a Mk-whatever-it-is: I'd not got one before because a) I'd have had to hack it to work with the old Win98 PC and b) years of never loving portable music players meant I doubted I'd find this new thing any more fun. I still only take it with me about 1/3 of the time: its primary function is playing mp3s from my PC in the attic downstairs in the lounge/kitchen via the little iPod docking speakers and thus saving me from burning CDs.

However, the Guardian did a rather smart thing during their sly revamp of the Weekend magazine: they've employed Stephen 'luvvie' Fry as their tech writer. His Dork Talk column is a delight because he cares not only about the specs of a bit of technology but about how we interact with it physically and emotionally. He's a Mac fan (the only reason he bought the second ever Mac sold in Europe is because Douglas Adams beat him to the first) but isn't too evangelical about it. This week, he tried a Windows only Eco Player by Trevor Bayliss. And adored it. He writes so enthusiastically that my gut response by the end is "want one!". I don't need it but it sounds fun. Also, that pesky "running out of juice" thing which has always annoyed me about portable players is resolved as you just have to spend a minute winding it up again. How smart is that? No need to drag around power leads or spare batteries, and when the oil and electricity run out in the future and we all revert to Survivors-style living, I'll still be able to listen to the Pipettes.

Fry, like Ben Goldacre (another good Saturday columnist), publishes his Guardian columns on his blog, so you can read them - and comment on them - for free. Although not, as I do with the magazine, in the bath.

ETA: ooooh! My web-host has wordpress 2.3.1. available for install! Geeky joy ahoy!!

Brrrrr

2007-11-24T10:25:00.000Z

Last night, the temperature in Devon fell to -5C (that's 23F for the colonials). Naturally, it was yesterday that I managed to forget my keys and found myself locked out of my house come the evening.

That's OK, I think. C has a spare key. Except she's in London. As is the chap with his key. I sort it so that I can crash on a friend's sofa (her 5 year old girl's primary concern on hearing I was locked out in sub-zero temperatures was who would feed Sébastian). The chap smartly points out that the catsitter company has a key. So I call and leave a voice mail. The woman gets back to me and gives me a long set of instructions on how to find her flat. Given all I memorised was "well lit, past kalendar klub then a car hire place, big arch, double garage" and her flat number, it was pretty easy to find. It turns out she cycles everywhere, hence giving me instructions which make sense for pedestrians/cyclists.

In total, it was only two hours from realising I'd locked myself out to regaining access to my house. But two hours in sub zero temperature.

Still, it means I got some good frost-rimmed photos in the garden this morning.

Cat kill counts: the new blogging craze!

2007-11-22T20:19:00.000Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 31 33
Voles - 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Two more down over the last week or so. The site What Jeff Killed is also keeping a tally of kills, albeit in photographic form (warning to the easily upset - contains bunnies). A quick check suggests Jeff's tally since starting in May 2006 is: 13 rodents (some of unusual size), 7 bunnies, 5 reptiles, 3 birds, 3 unidentifiables and 2 squirrels. Séba's kill in the same time is: 29 rodents (inc 1 rat), 2 identifiable birds, and 10 unidentifiable remains. So the scorecard is Séba 41 - Jeff 33. What the contender lacks in quantity he makes up for in variety. I mean, squirrels. I'm sure there'd be more large kills if I took Séba's collar (and bell*) off.

This weekend, as well as sleeping (when you add 30 hours credit to your flexi in 3 weeks, you're working long days), I intend to blog about other stuff.

*I must get a good shot of his collar one day, just to do the Bell & Sebastian title.

But we don't care about the Young Folks

2007-11-10T22:41:00.000Z

Things are hectic. Not because of The Wedding Monster, but just a massive list of stuff to do combined with growing responsibilities at work. This morning, ignoring the list of stuff to do for a bit, I woke early and headed out on Woah Mule. The plan was to do my normal 10K ride to the end of the canal path and back. The light was the sort of pearly grey dawn that can turn fabulous as the morning burns off. As I'd hoped, there were some good autumn/winter shots to take on the path.

Instead of turning around at the end of the canal path, though, I decided to carry on to Topsham as there are some fabulously big reed beds near there which could have been looking good. I reached the village around 9am: it's a route I used to take fifteen years back but now there is a cycleway for most of the run. I didn't get good shots of the reed beds - I think I need to be at the Swan's Rest or Turf Locks to get that. But it was still pretty.
I then got the train back, partially because I was feeling leg-tired from the steeper roads near Topsham, and partially because I'd forgotten about the ancient rule about Never Wear Jeans When Cycling and was therefore saddlesore.

Last Saturday, I was footsore instead: we spent several hours looking in every window in Hatton Gardens (London's diamond market) for the bling ring. It is rather strange to try on a two grand ring and wander out into the street with it because the entire area has its own security. In one stall in a traders market, the chap behind the counter gave me a very effective lesson in gemstones which explains why I think diamond-only rings look like cheap paste on me. He got me to hold out my hand, palm-down, and placed different gems against my fingers. Seeing the coloured gems, the rubies and garnets and sapphires, against my skin tone made it obvious I need the colour. An awful lot of the jewellery in the shops looked, as I put it, "a bit Elizabeth Duke". I just genuinely don't get why some of the stuff is seen as attractive: it's all too shiny and bright and over-eager. So we're still deciding on a ring.

Sunday, and we went to see Peter, Bjorn and John at the Forum in Kentish Town. You probably know them through the irritatingly catchy Young Folks song. So did the most London yehyehyeh media tartlets in the audience, who buggered off after they played it part way through the set. So for once we weren't rammed in. Live, PB&J are noodling, rambling, shambling rock muso types with an utterly different vibe to their album. I'd been wondering if the Forum - a vomit-smelling* bear pit of a venue which also hosts School Reunion and the Church - was the right place for the expected fey Swedish pop types, but my fears were totally misplaced. Best gig of the year so far (I liked Lucky Soul more, but the media bores stuck around in that one). Recommended.

*this is the downside of the smoking ban: the smell of gigs has changed.

Radio Tweet

2007-10-28T13:56:00.000Z

I'm trying to unclutter the attic, which is a somewhat epic task. There are boxes up here which have yet to be fully unpacked even though I moved in eleven years ago. The starting point was the realisation that, with two PC corpses littering the place (their respective monitors having thrown themselves onto the funeral pyre as well), there was just no room any more. I did try to offload the dead PCs on freecycle but it seems to be full of time-wasting idiots who say they want it then never get back in touch to arrange collection. So Carrie and I took them to the council tip this morning. The HDDs are missing, naturally, but it means I have more space.

Digging into one corner, I found boxes containing stuff that really should have gone years back...

This is my first radio cassette player. I got this second hand for £1. When I left home, it came with me before winding up in my studio space at art college. You can probably tell that from the paint job. Sadly, it gave up working years back, what with the aerial coming off, then the function button no longer locking into place. Now I have a digital camera and therefore don't feel foolish wasting film on it, I'm taking the photos and junking the radio.

This was on my wall when I was a teenager and doubtless contributed to my love of Tegan/Turlough fanfic. Pedants muttering about the Doctor's trousers in the new Children in Need thingy, can take note. Original costume there, boys. This is not going in the junk pile, but has already been carefully folded back up and filed with the Doctor Who annuals.

Modern Love

2007-10-24T08:23:00.000+01:00

These days, having the banns read out doesn't really work. Especially if you're atheists with no intention of setting foot inside your parish church. Based on the fact that the chap and I got engaged on Monday, modern 'banns' consist of:

telling the parents via the traditional medium of the phone
emailing a friend in the States
texting various friends in the UK
(at which point the text messages goes mad as they reply and the chap's mates - who he just told in the pub - start texting to say "don't do it!")
updating your Facebook status
blogging about it

I still have to write to my siblings but there we go. The initial reaction has given me a tiny terrifying insight into why weddings become scary monsters but I think I'll be stubborn enough to ensure we get what we want rather than what the wedding hooha pressures people into getting.

Eep.

Death doesn't take a holiday

2007-10-08T22:06:00.001+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 30 31
Voles - 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Could have been a vole, I didn't really check.

I'm a fan of working smarter, not harder. This is like the cat's hunting technique of stuffing his greedy face with meow mix then hanging around in the garden waiting to kill any poor creature passing by and leaving the uneaten corpse for me. The problem with working smarter not harder is forcing yourself to go slower. I'm trying to make myself actually read things magazine, rather than skim it for the first random item which catches my eye. I'm trying to print off research work to read on the trains rather than stay late reading it at my desk (tricky that, printing is bad for the planet, m'kay? But reading on a PC screen is also bad...).

Rereading some of the stuff I've flagged in del.icio.us, I've realised I have started implementing them. I always did make notes in a single pad, but now I draw up my to do list at the end of the day: it means I can round up all my thoughts, like penning sheep for the night, and be ready come the morning. My work inbox is under control (although googlemail is a bit more of a struggle). Admittedly, I set myself foolish evening tasks (still working on those 1900 mp3s to be sorted out), but it feels rather nice to have the time to potentially fill with sorting hundreds of mp3s, or catch up with the book reading. Like Séba, I'm hanging around waiting to pounce on things.

I tawt I taw a putty tat

2007-10-07T17:47:00.000+01:00

I tawt I taw a putty tat!

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 30
Voles - 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 7 8
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Another feathery rug. He always seems to eat the same type of bird, leaving only some very fluffy grey chest feathers and some black, white and yellow trimmed wing/tail feathers. No idea what species of bird it is but hopefully not something rare.

Musical chairs

2007-10-02T19:18:00.000+01:00

After some umming and ahhing, I've decided to stick to just iTunes. This means giving up a player I've used for ten years or thereabouts but iTunes has a trick Winamp doesn't*. ITunes's smart playlists mean I can use the 'comments' field like a tag. So last night I wrote "garage, lo fi, j-garage, covers" in the comments field for Long Tall Sally by The 5,6,7,8's, and the track was instantly added to a playlist of all tracks with "covers" in the comment field. Along with Marc Almond's Like A Prayer and The Delgados' Mr Blue Sky. Admittedly, that is a strange playlist but the key thing is that it is automatic: I add the comments and the playlists are built in the background. Web 2.0 functionality, oh yes.

*or, at least, I haven't found it yet.

Annoying Things About Vista #1

2007-10-01T18:48:00.000+01:00

Yes, I did mean to click on the application and yes, I do trust the source: please just install iTunes.

So far:
Firefox downloaded and made default (so no more IE).
Firefox drag de go add-on added.
Firefox greasemonkey added (but no scripts yet).
ipodRip downloaded (install required installing an earlier .NET).
Bitorrent downloaded (hem hem).
VLC all format video player downloaded as Windows Media Player didn't like *.avi.
iTunes downloaded.
Audio Grabber downloaded.

There's a slight snafu with ipodRip in that all the music has been ripped using the five digit code as the file name, which means some time spent double checking things. I'm debating Winamp: I've been using it for the best part of a decade, but I'd have to maintain playlists in both it and iTunes. I had a workround tool for the Win98 PC which enabled me to transfer Winamp playlists straight over to the ipod. ETA: winamp allegedly talks to first gen ipods now...

Still to do:
Filezilla (ftp program).
HTML-Kit (website coding program).
Flickr uploadr (plus various greasemonkey scripts).
Last.fm (inc ipod widget)
Paint Shop Pro install disk to be found.
AVG-Free installed and Norton removed - could be a bugger, this.
Old MS Office CD to be found as one glance at the wp in MS Works means I'll be digging out the older software.

I'm not sure if I need the Nikon software: I've been treating my camera as a normal external drive for ages so I'm not sure I really need fancy sofware when I have explorer and flickr uploadr.

I reformatted moosifer 2* six months ago, so I am worryingly pulling the list of software needs straight out of my memory. The chap claims I have a rubbish memory, but knowing all the software to install to restore your preferences is pretty damn good, I think.

*this is a retro naming. My first PC was called 'alien workshop'. The second had no name and this new one is moosifer 3. I think I may need to work on the naming convention there.

In other geekery news, Wordpress 2.3 is out. I've been planning to use that as a reason to do version 4.1 of the site (same design, better coding, integrated blog and static pages all on magslhalliday.co.uk. I'll need to migrate nearly four years of blogging, but it looks like it'll be a wet winter anyway.

Dead mices

2007-09-30T18:25:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 28 30
Voles - 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 6 7
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

One reversed a recent trend for being beheaded by having an intact head but no sign of the body. The other was exceedingly plump and curiously intact. Carrie kindly suggested it was pregnant, which is a bit horrible.

Another dead mouse was my PC. Well, actually the main power supply died. As it was quite an elderly PC which had things such as a special workround to enable me to talk to an ipod via Win98 etc, it was sad to acknowledge it was truly gone. But now I have a shiny new one using a "buy now pay later" scheme from the chap. After an hour I'd convinced Vista that there is a wifi link, downloaded Firefox, downloaded my favourite add-ons for firefox and generally started the rebuilding. My music should be simple, once I can get ipodRip to work under Vista, but the floppy disk backups of all my writing may take longer. What with not having a floppy disk drive.

Crafty Business

2007-09-10T19:10:00.000+01:00

or, why I love Etsy.

I got home today to find the first of the two stationery orders I have in at etsy had arrived. Satsuma Press is a letterpress run by Lynn in Portland OR. A lot of the stuff I love on Etsy is from Portland, including Kelly's fabulous baby things and other letterpresses.

From Satsuma Press I got a set of 5 spring green flowering rush design cards for $15. Most UK readers will do the maths and realise that this is quite a bargain compared to buying a pack of notelet cards in a stationers here even after factoring in the airmail cost (financial and environmental). There's a tiny bit of me which loves Etsy for the price, but the main reason I love it is because it allows me to find and support designers whose work is individualistic and lovely.

If you look around a card shop - either a specialist or a large branch of WH Smiths - what you find is prepackaged designs in fixed genres: the dire unfunny funny ones; the square photos of things in Magnum detail; the "we stuck on a bit of gauze with a glue gun so it is 'hand-finished'" ones; the terrifying 'for my darling relation' ones only ever sent by lily-of-the-valley wearing grannies. Admittedly, you can also get Far Side ones but there's only so many times a recipient can laugh at the one about the cows in the field. So Etsy provides a freedom from those narrow confines. Want a card with batik patterns and a bird? It's here. Something bold and typographical, like a frame of a Saul Bass title sequence? Try Green Chair Press. Something with bees? Pearls and Marmalade. Bold and sassily retro? Pepperina press.

And it's not just letterpress stuff, no. There are badges. Kung Fu Cowgirl badges. Crafty birdhouse badges. Retro badges.

The biggest problem is knowing how to pick your way through the choices. To a large extent, I rely on the judgement of design*sponge, as she has an eye for design similar to my own. Except all her sneak peaks into designers' homes makes me think my own place is so scruffy. However, she has got a fab d*s letterpress guide which serves as a useful starting point. Why bother buying lots of little bits from many small presses? If you're going to buy stationery anyway, you might as well spend the money on cards which are outside of the categories defined by card shops, at the same time as cutting out the middle man and ensuring the designer gets all the profit.

/whispers/ ...and, er, it's actually cheaper... /whispers/

'Feathers' Halliday strikes again

2007-09-09T17:07:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 28
Voles - 9 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 6 7
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

There was just a pile of feathers on the rug: small; black, white and yellow; fluffy-edged.

I'm planning to draw up a to do list of things I've still not got around to writing up here: the best museums/galleries in Barcelona this spring; the combined joys of design*sponge and etsy; where I am with various writings... but I seem to only get time to post the kill count. I suspect this is because the new job, ironically, gives me more free time. Once you're not living on caffeine and nerves, it's a lot easier to fill the evenings with other things.

The House of Hale

2007-08-31T23:42:00.000+01:00

You may recall that an age back, Kelly made me a shopping bag. She's also made me an apron, which I got a while back but had failed to get any good photos of until tonight. I was trying to pull the whole Katy Hepburn look (wide-legged trousers and cream vintage silk blouse) and thought the apron must be looking super fine with it. And it is:
I'm a bit blurry, but you get the general idea. It's a super 1950s pattern, flaring out at the waist to go over a New Look skirt, but made with a print of Chinese Cultural Reveolutionary children and tough red and white striped pockets/ties to cope with the wear and tear. And all trimmed with dark blue ric rac (a trim that I always found fascinating as a kid).

Click through to see the whole photo complete with notes.

I've tagged it with kelly hale made this!, so if you have something Kelly made, add a photo of it to flickr and tag it up so we end up with a gallery of her work.

...but the mouse came back...

2007-08-29T23:32:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 28
Voles - 9 10
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 6
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3

Another headless vole* corpse, followed whilst I was out at work by puked up Meow Mix. Ah, cats. They's so cute.

*yes, I know I say "mouse" in the title when it's a vole. It's just there are too many good mouse lines (The Cat Came Back on YouTube). Séba doesn't eat Meow Mix either, I just call it that as I like the song. Bloggers...we just warp the truth for laughs.

The Mouse That Was Raw*

2007-08-28T23:46:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 27 28
Voles - 8 9
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 5 6
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 3 2

*being a pun on The Mouse that Roared. This mouse (or rather, a vole) couldn't raw, due to being missing his head. And indeed half of his body. There was another mouse under one of the sofas, and something sticky on the rug. Clearly, my suggestion he was wuss has provoked a killing spree.

Don't. Blink.

2007-08-27T23:25:00.000+01:00

It is Stephen Moffat's fault that I have taken to scouting out cemeteries when travelling. Or, indeed, when at home. Not directly, obviously. But someone on flickr started a group called Don't Blink, with the remit that the photos had to be scary human sculptures. This is a fine flickr tradition: I already belong to Dalek!, Battersea Power Station[1] and Dalek Cakes and other (Doctor Who) monsters. That's before we get onto the many, many London groups[2], or the many, stupid, cat groups[3]. Geeks, social networking and Doctor Who: truly, these things are made for each other.

The result of joining Don't Blink is a new interest in wandering about graveyards, the spookier the better. I got told off by the chap for cheerfully nipping into my local churchyard at 2am in order to get a night shot of an angel which is never sufficiently spooky by day. Today, with a few hours spare, I decided the afternoon walk would be around Highgate East cememtery (official site / unofficial site), which was indeed wonderfully spooky even on a bright summer's day with many other people wandering around. We're now planning to go back for the tour of the West cemetery.

Despite this new urge, I may not have suggested the trip if I'd not recently read Falling Angels, by Tracy Chevalier. It's the first of her novels I've read which does not include, in some way, a romantic love element, but it does revolve around the inner lives of women and is rather good. She plays with the use of voice very well, and creates a natural framework around the notion of death. It opens with the death of Queen Victoria, closes with the death of Edward and is centred upon two households in Dartmouth Park and their relationships with each other (symbolised in the closeness of their familial plots in Highgate cemetery). As with Girl With a Pearl Earring, it was a novel I had to finish. And, just like Girl with a Pearl..., I found myself rereading it within weeks. Recommended.

Over the last fortnight I have also read Wetworld, by floral shirt wearer Mark Michalowski. It has hand-holding otters and the tenth Doctor in spectacles.

***
[1] "There's Battersea Power Station! But three of its chimneys are missing..." (Ian Chesterton, Dalek Invasion of Earth)

[2]Guess Where London, London Lettering, A London Beastiary, Finisterre (and Geoffrey Fletcher's London) and London After Midnight to name a few.

[3] Cats in Bags/Boxes, Your Cat Nose, Somebody Else's Cat and Solar Powered Cats are just a fraction of the cat fun to be had on flickr.

Catch That Pigeon!

2007-08-07T20:39:00.000+01:00

My cat is rubbish.

What is the point of having a killer cat if, when faced with a wood pigeon in the bedroom*, he goes and hides?

With much flapping (from me, the pigeon and my chinese sunshade) it was shooed out. Amazingly, the room is unscathed although several succulant plants were damaged during flight. Séba hid by the sofa downstairs and, when the bird had panicked itself down into the kicthen, fled into the garden to hide under a bush. He then crept back in after the bird was gone and looked all-big-eyed at me. Still, it's better than blood and feathers everywhere.

*there's an open fireplace. Too open. I need to get it capped.

Summer in the City

2007-08-05T23:28:00.000+01:00

Everyone else heads away from the city in August. Not me. Just back from two days and nights baking in London and so sleepy-headed that all I'm doing is flagging up the latest edition of Lost Luggage. This issue, it's all about mythology and fairytales, with a bunch of stories to suit most tastes, plus a non-fiction essay by Lance Parkin.

I still have to retcon issue 01, as we've changed the way we head up the stories, but I'm still so grittily sticky from London that I'm going to have a cool bath and an early night.

This is the Age of the Train

2007-07-28T14:05:00.000+01:00

I travel by train a lot. I was, if not actually born, raised on the railways. Childhood holidays included Camping Coaches in Marizion, and trips through the Alps. So as well as doing things like the trenhotel to Barcelona, I also use the train nearly weekly, often to get up to London. Exeter has two routes up to town: the old Great Western to London Paddington and the old London & South Western to London Waterloo. I mostly use the Paddington route. First Great Western, who now run the route (and Exeter St Davids station - see fulminate's architectures of control blog for my thoughts on that), have taken to advertising their cheap fares. When I first saw the advertising campaign they ran from winter 06 till summer 07, I burst out laughing. Here's an example of one of the posters, along with what it instantly reminded me of:

~

Saul Bass is one of my favourite graphic designers, who produced many fabulous title sequences as iconic as the Hitchcock films they introduce. For example, the title sequences to Vertigo, North by Northwest and Pyscho. Bass tended to favour a limited set of bold colours (like the FGW adverts) and reduce forms to shapes (like the FGW adverts). The image is often tilted to induce a sense of being off-balance (like the FGW adverts).

The problem here is that the advertisement designed by FGW wants to entice us to use their online booking in order to get cheap fares, but it uses iconographic images which suggest the nightmarish world of Hitchcockian chaos where the everyman is confused, bewildered and caught up in a system they do not understand. A world in which Jimmy Stewart is conned and sent insane. A world in which a simple error results in Cary Grant being forced to flee on a train before being attacked by a crop-spraying plane and eventually dangled off a cliff. A world in which strangers on a train plot murders. Is that really want FGW want their potential customers to be reminded of when trying to get them to use a train booking system?

The campaign seems to be being replaced with a rather more boring set of posters which lack the same accidental subtext but also any visual flair.

Some other random train advertising fun:
The National Rail Musuem's History of British Railway Posters
Screenonline's history of British Transport films

You tube finds - WARNING! once you start watching old adverts on you tube, forever will you be in their thrall (due to the "similar videos" listing):
This is the Age of the Train (late 1970s)
British Rail - Relax (1980s)
British Rail - The Night Mail (1980s)
GPO Film Unit - The Night Mail (1936 - music by Britten, words by Auden)
Intercity brings something good (pre-decimalisation)
British Rail Weekend Away advert (very Benny Hill - BR appears to be a cheap date)
Cyclists' Specials 1 Cyclists' Specials 2

I'm not the only person to notice Hitchcock had a thing about trains.

Another Bird Done Gone

2007-07-15T18:13:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 27
Voles - 8
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 5 6
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2 3

Sébastian 'Feathers' Halliday strikes again.

Meanwhile...I visited a couple of new (or new to me) things in Exeter in the last couple of weeks.

Yesterday I wanted to take a look at the rennovation of the old mill down by the quay. It's at the back of the Bishop's Blaize pub, and when I'd cycled past last weekend I'd noticed serious work was underway and the various wheels and cogs were on display. Like the mouse mill in Bagpuss, although it shows no sign of turning butterbeans into chocolate digestives. More's the pity. So, walking over to the Bon Gout deli yesterday, I diverted us via the old mill area. For ages there has been an old house down there, wrapped in scaffold. The scaffolding is off and the building is revealed as a branch of the eyestorm art gallery, selling contemporary prints. Unlike the Spacex (too 80s and never fails to disappoint) or the Triton (too prone to Athena-style Vettriano-esque triteness), this gallery actually had work which I was attracted to and which I thought would engage on a long term basis - which is the key to artwork you might buy. Not that I can afford to buy any of it, but I wasn't made to feel like I shouldn't walk in to look. One artist in particular caught my eye for producing large-scale pencil drawings which captured how I saw characters from Daniel O'Mahoney's new novel Force Majeure. I just wish I could remember the artist's name (it was something like Mark Beswick but he's not listed on the eyestorm site and google is blank).

The week before, I signed up to join a new cult film rental place. Brazil, named after my favourite film, was bound to catch my eye as it is on Fore Street in what the council insist on calling Exeter's West Quarter. This means I walk past every night on the way home. For those of you who live in Exeter, it's where Langham's News used to be, opposite Kitsch-U-Like (the retro shop which isn't as good as Otto's further down the hill). It's got a wide selection of films on DVD and VHS and works on the old-skool model of membership and nightly rental fees. This appeals partially as I've realised Lovefilm, whilst good on paper, doesn't allow for if you don't fancy watching Guerrilla - The Taking Of Patty Hearst tonight. Moreover the guy who runs it clearly loves his films. There's a section devoted to Ghibli, another to early British horror, another to John Waters. So popping in to pick a movie means getting some cineste film chatting in as well. Highly recommended.

My Ever Changing Moods

2007-07-08T12:11:00.000+01:00

One of the things getting woah mule! last year meant was getting to grips with modern bike valves and pumps.

I learnt to ride and service bikes in the early 1980s. I wasn't allowed a racer as they were too dangerous, but still, think of this Jam video for an idea of when I could last strip a bike and rebuild it. (Also, for Talbot's frankly wussy helmet which wouldn't have stopped anything.)

But I went down Halfords and bought a stirrup pump because they look soooo cool. Also, a hand pump to stuff in a bag so I could fix tyres in transit. I just couldn't get the hang of them. No matter what I did it wouldn't fix on right. The value would just start venting, or the valve wouldn't open and the pump attachment bit would fly off the valve. So I'd been going down friendly bike hire places and getting a pump up. Today, watching packs of cyclists going through London, I decided I would get to grips with the damn pump. And I have! Hurrah! I am no longer afeared of long rides in case I need to pump the tyres!

What with one thing and another (i.e. the chap, new job etc) I've not been on the bike much, and certainly haven't got around to fixing up faster mule yah yah! as I planned. But the bike holding bay (i.e. an odd bit of the hallway where I can lean them) is now tidied up and I'm ready to whizz around to the supermarket again.

ETA: Alistair, who is a proper bike nut (see his Grande Depart post), will be hosting another Exeter Goes Pop! night this Thursday at the Phoenix in Exeter. If you're around, pop in. It's free and laid back.

[For some reason, blogger doesn't like me putting titles in unless I'm in Preview mode - this is very annoying]

This Charming Man

2007-06-21T23:10:00.000+01:00

Hee. Hee hee hee.

John Simm. Doctor Who. Hee hee hee.

Way back, when the return of Doctor Who was a mysterious enigma (would it be any good? would it be on Saturdays? would Paul McGann count?), I was asked who might be the Doctor. Naturally, having already taken a look at the potentials, I said "Bill Nighy or Christopher Eccleston...or John Simm."*

I had to rewind Saturday's episode and watch it over and over again just because it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. I already knew he was in it, and who he was liklely to be, but still...

Simm isn't an actor I go all girly about because he's pretty: it's that he convinces me. Whether he is a Russian murderer, a journalist betraying a friend for a scoop, a time-travelling copper or the Doctor's nemesis. You imagine his characters fighting like cornered terriers, doggedly determined to keep going against any odds. This is what makes the idea of him as the Master - the charming nutter, the schemer let down by his irrationalities and paranoia - so filled with potential. Somewhere on my C drive is a short story started for a fanthology which has long since vanished (made redundant when the BBC announced their Spring 2005 season), which casts Simm as a steampunk Doctor. Hee hee hee.

PS: For anyone wondering, I've been at a wedding and working away but have now restored Lost Luggage to working order.

Make Do and Mend

2007-06-13T00:51:00.000+01:00

There's a piece in this week's Graniad weekend about the commericialisation of weddings in the last century. Although it focuses on the bride because, of course, that's what the focus of weddings is. No one mentions the need of the guests to not merely get together a wedding outfit but to get together several so that you're not always in the same party frock at all the weddings.

I'm off to a classic English job at the weekend and have spent the evening - when not being disrupted by all the noises out front* - altering a dress so that it fits in the bodice. Not one alterations person in the city would even countenence taking on a dress with boning in the bodice, so I am taking a crash course in modern corsetry. After an initial bout of uncertainty, the 1927 Singer machine has behaved and I've got two of the four seams done. I'll have to keep my head down for the next two evenings to get it ready in time though.

* It's worse than normal tonight: lots of incoherent moaning and crashing about. It used to be that you could set your clock by the 11.20 post-pub leariness but this didn't start till just after midnight. Maybe someone's launched a particularly strong cider: you always get the worst pub drunks on cider. Ooh, yep. Sirens. Must be a punch up somewhere.

Springwatch

2007-06-11T22:30:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 27
Voles - 8
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1
Uncertain - 3 5
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

The BBC's Springwatch has been delighting in bringing cannabalistic reality television to our screens before the watershed. And the late night live stream from their webcams is thrashing the same from Channel 4 in the ratings.

Meanwhile, Séba has been spitting feathers.

More web pimpage & music

2007-06-10T17:15:00.000+01:00

Lost Luggage's first 24 hours has been pretty hectic, with hundreds of unique visitors, many spending time there and many returning. We've also had various little hiccups with the code which I spent time fixing. I'm pleased, though, that it is doing its job and introducing great new fiction to people.

Meanwhile, Carrie's Years 8 and 9 are reviewing 2007 Carnegie Medal Nominees at the moment, giving anyone who is interested in children's fiction a good idea of what 13 and 14 year olds really want to read.

---

Up in town for work, I tagged along with the chap and a friend to see The Concretes at the Luminaire in Kilburn. Although the others swear their album is good, I found them rather generic Swedish pop with songs which fell into two broad categories: long pieces of feedback crescendos or shorter numbers in which a key phrase was repeated often. The support act, however, were the short of band which grabs you by the throat and makes you think you should maybe get to the venue on time. In this case it was a band called Lawrence Arabia who had a certain garage rock feel to them despite/because of their lead singer looking like Julian Rhind-Tutt in The Rotters' Club.

Lost Luggage and Lost Souls

2007-06-09T16:37:00.000+01:00

Late last night, we finally made Lost Luggage live.

This is the Doctor Who ezine on which I am code monkey. There are still things I need to do (not least as I made a mistake last night and had to rebuild four pages from scratch) but it is available for all to read. If you register, then you can leave comments on the stories and essays. We've started with a lovely intro from Paul Cornell and an issue themed around the certainty of chance.

Hiding Under the Sofa

2007-05-26T18:08:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 27
Voles - 7 8
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Robin - 1 (new!)
Uncertain - 3
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

The other night, watching tv, the chap pointed out a mouse on the floor. It was, indeed, a live mouse and at our exclamations headed back out of sight. Sébastian naturally slept through this excitement. Some mouser.

So yesterday I decided to check the live mouse was not hiding out under the sofa. It wasn't, but my investigating did uncover a dead vole and a dead robin which at least explains why the cat is so interested in the sofa. Clearly he accidentally stashes stuff under there.

Out, out brief shadow...

2007-05-23T23:00:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 25 27
Voles - 7
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Uncertain - 3
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

One beheaded (head next to the body) last week and one intact this evening.

They say it isn't possible to train cats, but when I say "NO! OUT!" at Séba when he has a mouse in his mouth, he does actually head back outside. I suspect it is more because he knows I will take his toy away before he's had all the gooey fun from it than from some understanding. I dread to think what goes on in the undergrowth of my garden.

Choose Life

2007-05-22T19:03:00.000+01:00

I can't have been the only one to have been ~~oogling~~ browsing the new photos of Tennant, opened this one and thought
"...but I choose not to choose life..."

Someone with better photo manipulation skills than me can doubtless do a better job.

Did I mention I am a bit excited about the up-coming two-parter?

Cowbell!

2007-05-19T11:13:00.000+01:00

There are times when the indie music scene confuses me. Normally this is when I go to a gig where the headline act plays some seriously good music for dancing but the crowd is far too cool to move in any way from their studied poses of indie cool distance gazing. Thus it was at Lucky Soul, as it has been at some Pipettes gigs. Get Outta Town! is the kind of song which calls for, insistantly and with some serious rhythm, for some good frugging*. I think there were perhaps a score in the crowd actually moving though, and half of them were the Swedes with Montt Mardie.

The chap bought the new Montt Mardie album and tells me it is fabulous, filling in where the live act struggled a little due to the reduced number of band members. Johnny Boy were exceptionally tight and had a powerhouse sound which really drives their songs along. I wasn't convinced by the songs' messages (pretty standard smash the system stuff) but the presentation was outstanding. Also, they ended up with a mash up of The Clapping Song ("three, six, nine, the goose drank wine") and Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.

Lucky Soul were good in almost every way (see proper photos here). Some of the more delicate songs work less well live, partially because the ambient noise of a gig disrupts the mood the songs are going for, but the band has an excellent stage presence, with good banter between songs, and the upbeat tracks are wonderful. Thankfully, like my much adored Pipettes, they are a band who don't drown the vocals in the live mix and Ali Howard's voice shouldn't be drowned. Bush Hall was a perfect venue for them, and I suspect it may remain best gig of the year for me.

*in the sense of the dance, the frug, not suspect chugger behaviour. I really need to start dancing more again.

PS: Whenever I start a new tag now, I'll be trying to retro-apply it, so if you are reading this via RSS or LJ sub then apologies for the old posts appearing. I just added lucky soul and you dancing? tags.

Ooh, new toys

2007-05-13T09:09:00.000+01:00

Last.fm have introduced a new widget which produces a playable playlist. It's down there on the left. I am listening to the new Lucky Soul album, which the chap bought last week. It's fabulous: shiny pop with smarts. I'm glad we decided to get tickets to the gig next week (sorry, Alistair) as it sounds like it might be one of the hottest tickets of the indie pop summer. Try out the widget to play their stuff: if you don't like My Darling, Anything, try Get Outta Town!. Two very different tracks but clearly the same band.

Meanwhile, I am now a fully paid up commuter on the Misery Line, having spent a week shimmying my way into busy carriages in order to blearily stare at a space just beyond my nose. Back on Tube Night on BBC4 there was a good documentary about how the Tube is a microcosm of British society: faced with such conditions, we resort to unwritten rules and become silently stoic. I also noticed that the Friday morning rush contained more travellers with larger bags, as people plan to go from their desks to Some Other Life. As I did, racing back here to Devon for a couple of nights. I took some photos for the Guess Where London? flickr group, but left my connecting cable at the chap's, so will have to upload them tonight.

Lucky Soul

2007-05-06T09:11:00.000+01:00

You might think a fortnight of training in London is a bit of a nuisance, but I get to go to Lucky Soul at Bush Hall. Yay!

Also, there is no Who next week, which means I can go to the Bristol Comics Expo without worrying about my digibox resetting and taping 45 minutes of some annoying twonks telling me how to use my digibox. I'm not sure when Human Nature, the two-parter which featured quite heavily in the trailer last night, airs due to my spoilerphobic habits but I am getting a bit excited. The actors cast as the Aubertides look spookily like my mental image of them from back when the novel first came out, and Tennant in a comfy wool dressing gown and tweed is not to be sniffed at.

I'm going to set my Simm excitment to one side: a tiny bit of me is disappointed as he was on my list of "actors I'd love as the Doctor" but he's made it clear that after Life on Mars he won't be signing up for such an intensive schedule again. But still, Simm and Tennant....eep!

I also noticed that last night, Norton's introduction of Barrowman on the current talent show has shifted. Last year, he was "West End leading man and Doctor Who star". This year, until last night, he was "Torchwood star". Last night, after a Jack-tastic trailer, he became "Doctor Who star". I think the BBC might be gearing up for a bit of "Captain Jack is soooooo cooool" hype.

The Long Haul

2007-05-05T13:02:00.000+01:00

I finished at my job this week just gone. I've been there for 10+ years, moving from general assistant to code-monkey to tech writer. It was certaining an interesting job, and I'll miss some of the more crazy elements, but I needed to try my hand at new things. So after the bank holiday, I spend two weeks being trained up for a job in the Civil Service. As before, though, I won't talk about my employed work here, just any writing work I do in my free time.

Moving jobs did throw up one interesting thing. Like most people, I scoff at Noel Edmund's theory of "cosmic ordering". It strikes me as some kind of materialistic misunderstanding of karma and a classic example of dressing up simple pyschology as something mystical in order to sell something. However, once I had decided to look for a new job I wrote down the points a job had to have in order for me to apply for it. I emailed it out to friends, acknowledging that some elements might be unrealistic (a job based in the SW with some London work, f'instance). Within a few weeks, a job which met all the criteria came up. And I got it. Despite, or perhaps because, I used Sarah Jane Smith as the name of a spokesperson in my practical writing test.

According to "cosmic ordering", I dialled up this job like I would a takeaway curry. However, it's fairly obvious to me that, having defined what I wanted, I therefore had a clear checklist to measure all possible jobs against. I got what I wanted because I knew what I wanted. I wasn't rewarded by the cosmos, I was just logical and structured in my search. It's more akin to using google: if you define the terms clearly, you get the answers more quickly.

--

In other news, Sébastian is seeing how many collars he can lose in the garden.

Coding: fun for all

2007-04-22T21:33:00.000+01:00

I am still working on learning Wordpress for the archive. I'm starting to crack PHP and the CSS and HTML elements are the usual stuff so that particular terror is fading. I have some boring stuff involving templates based on category IDs to work out, and the joy of creating descriptions for them. I'm quite enjoying doing the companions' descriptions but it'll still be a long slog.

Katrina: Trojan priestess who didn't see the airlock coming

A universe of terrors

2007-04-17T23:09:00.000+01:00

There are many things which, though perfectly sane when in isolation, appear insane when taken in context. Agreeing to be code-monkey on a fanfic archive when in the midst of changing career paths is probably one on them. I can see my own logic - I like poking about with code to the extent I find it relaxing after a hard day writing about the front ends of code, and as I am about to move away from it being my day job I clearly have an urge to hang on to it - but I can also see how mad it might be.

For reasons long and boring to go into and partially due to the need to make the thing easy to maintain and navigate*, I'm producing the archive via wordpress, which is giving me a fun learning curve. Soon I can add 'php cut'n'pasting code skills' to my CV. So if I'm quiet right now it's because I'm trying to download my brain by day and fill it with new code at night.

-----
Who geekery follows...

*really, just think about it for a moment. A Buffy archive has the ten or so main characters, including one eponymous hero, plus regular guests. That's not counting Angel regulars. Or Harmony. Even if you only include the TV and novels, Who has ten eponymous heroes and forty-one companions**.

Not counting the Brigadier or 'missing adventures' companions like Grant Markham. Nor any Doctors or companions from the audio stories (ah, the Richard E Grant ninth Doctor...wiped history by the Dalek Time War...maybe...). Nor the stage play Doctors. Nor the Cushing Doctor (I simply can't accept Roy Castle as Ian Chesterton, the sexiest science teacher until Doctor John Smith started at Sunnyvale High). Nor anyone from Torchwood.

And that's before you factor in regular guests like the Master, Mike Yates, the Rani, Davros or Sister Hain, or the Boe, or Mickey. If you think a list of the possible pairings for Buffy was long, imagine the possibilites Who raises... and it has to be navigatible. Eep.

**Susan, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Katrina, Sara, Steven, Dodo, Ben, Polly, Jamie, Victoria, Zoe, Liz, Jo, Sarah Jane, Harry, Leela, Romana 1, Romana 2, K9, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion, Peri, Mel, Ace....Benny, Chris, Roz, Grace, Sam, Fitz, Compassion, Anji, Trix...Rose, Jack, Martha... that was from memory. The shame.

Another Sunny Day

2007-04-12T14:26:00.000+01:00

We went to Sidmouth on Sunday. There was ice-cream (with clotted cream) and grockles turning red. Also a shipwreck.

Exeter Goes Pop! / April Dreams England

2007-04-09T13:22:00.000+01:00

The next Exeter Goes Pop night is this coming Friday, 13th, from 8pm in the Phoenix cafe bar. It will include live music from The First Division, a band whose members are also in The Pines and The Visitors, who will be playing tracks from their April Dreams England album. Also the usual electic blend of sounds from the international Pop underground, sixties soft pop, girl groups, Northern soul, Swedish tweelectropop...

It's free and in the bar at the Phoenix. So if you're in town and free, pop in. Alternatively, if you are in town and at the Reginald D Hunter gig at the Phoenix, drop by for a drink afterwards.

There's now an Exeter Goes Pop! last.fm group, which means there is also an Exeter Goes Pop! streaming radio station available which plays tracks loved by the group's members. Click here to play it.

If you're on MySpace, you can also find out more from the Exeter Goes Pop! thingy there.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

2007-04-08T13:20:00.000+01:00

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 24 25
Voles - 7
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Uncertain - 3
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

He also made an excited meep at a female blackbird which is building a nest in the garden but clearly failed to go after it.

drippy girls love bookish boys

2007-03-20T00:15:00.000Z

How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

I am not entirely idling on the writing front: Mansfield Park got me a little bothered.

I also have many thoughts on why I have become addicted to Rebus novels, but
a) that'll go on the reading blog
b) it'll have to wait as the library tells me there is a copy of The Naming of the Dead on the reserve shelf for me.

Scene of Crime

2007-03-16T12:27:00.000Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 24
Voles - 7
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Uncertain - 2 3
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

Back from Liverpool to find my rugs lightly coated with small soft curling feathers and tiny scatterings of wing feathers. It had clearly been a baby bird of some kind.

Meanwhile I have now caught myself up with Rebus in paperback and will be putting in a reservation request for the new hardback from the library.

Work in Progress

2007-03-13T09:21:00.001Z

Work in Progress
Originally uploaded by Mags.

This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices, sans interweb. I have now found a free wifi link. Hurrah.

Primeval

2007-03-10T21:03:00.000Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 23 24
Voles - 6 7
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Uncertain - 2
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

He's not been on a spree, I just fell behind updating the count.

One was an attention seeker the other weekend, with much growling. The other was just now, providing me with more bloodshed and drama than Primeval and serving as a welcome distraction. No, I'm not sure why I watch Primeval either.

Take me to Your Reader

2007-02-27T20:29:00.000Z

I'm not sure why I'm a chronic early adopter: I think it's the lure of new tools with which to fritter away my time. Del.icio.us? I was there. Flickr? Gimmie! Last.fm? Got it and scrobbling away. I consider YouTube as rubbish due to its appalling tagging tool (whilst still having an account so I can favourite Life on Mars fanvids and cat weight-lifting).

The beta-du-jour at the moment is Google Reader. I've been using bloglines for years, but am increasingly unsatisfied with its ability to mess up the feed notifications especially on those from flickr.

What is a RSS reader?
You might have noticed websites increasingly have little orange things saying RSS Feed or XML or Atom or Subscribe!, or the like. What that means is that you can sub to the page: when there's new content, you get a notification. That can be a little notifier beeping on your toolbar which, when you click on it, takes you to your RSS Reader, or it can be some sub-function of your email client (for example, on Thunderbird). You'll see them called RSS Aggregators sometimes.
Here's a definition etc from wikipedia

I need an online RSS reader though, as I like to be able to access it from anywhere in the world. And the chap's, obviously. So I want to go to a single website, log in and see which of the hundreds of websites I read has new content. That where bloglines came in, and where Google Reader seems to be taking over.

I added a cross section of feeds a couple of nights ago (some from flickr, some from blogger, some wordpress and some LJ) and it seemed to handle them happily. Having now played with the beta some more, I'm transferring all my feeds across. Then I'll run them in tamdem during March - a month with lots of travel and so lots of chances to check it on a variety of PCs and browsers - and see which one wins my loyalty. My predilication for betas means I'm leaning towards Google Reader already.

I've got it written down on a piece of paper

2007-02-25T22:59:00.000Z

Bluebottle: What time is it Eccles?
Eccles: Err, just a minute. I've got it written down here on a piece of paper. A nice man wrote the time down for me this morning.

Here is my tweaked Eccles cake recipe. It may require additional tweaking to get right - certainly, I intend to keep fiddling. * indicates things that I need to fiddle with.

makes 4 biiigg Eccles cakes

1/2 oz butter
1 oz light muscovado sugar (I like Billington's)
2 oz mixed dried fruit (currants, mostly but I use a dry mincemeat mix)
1/4 tsp allspice*

1 x pack puff pastry
for a glaze
1 egg white, lightly beaten
a pinch of caster sugar

Melt the butter and sugar together, add the fruit and spices and mix well. Set aside to cool.

Heat the oven to 220C (gas mark 7).

Roll out the puff pastry till it is 1/8th inch or so, maybe less*. Cut out four large circles - I used a bowl rim to mark them, then my little pastry knife to cut them out. You could make 8 or so smaller cakes, obviously.

Put a dollop of the fruit mix in the middle of each circle. Brush the edges of the circle with a little of the egg white and fold them over. I pinch two opposing sides together, then fold the other edges in so that I've used overlapping six folds. Er...I may need to take a photo of that... Make sure the edges of the folds are binding together.

Flip the cakes over so the folds are underneath and put them on a greased (or greaseproof papered) baking tray. Pat them down a little so that the filling has spread. It should feel solid. Cut three slashes into the top. Glaze with the egg white and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden and yummy.

The recipe this was tweaked from also called for 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg.

Un Americano y un cafe amb lait...

2007-02-20T21:01:00.000Z

Or, Barcelona bars & cafes.

An Americano is also un grande cafe solo i.e. a large black coffee. A cafe amb lait (which I pronounce by pretending it is a cafe au lait) is a milky coffee. It's important to get these things sussed early on. Dos cervesa, por favor is easier but also less important. Also, the latter is in Espanol rather than Catalan. Here, in no especial order, are some of the bars and cafes we visited.

Cafe Zurich
At the top of Las Ramblas, this is an old-school cafe. So old-school that I can't even bring myself to call it "old-skool". This was where we tended to end up when we needed a little pep up mid afternoon/early evening. The coffee is excellent but the real joy are the waiters. We had plenty of fun playing "spot the waiter who is merely in his 30s" as the majority were older. They were all fast, slick and professional. When I ordered dos cafe amb lait, y un torte he ran down a list with practise, doubtless guessing I would go for the chocolat. When it arrived he handed me the slice of cake and gave the chap a small fork as "you may have a little".

Cafe de l'Opera
Another old-schooler, more old time waiters but this time halfway down Las Ramblas. It has some lovely fin-de-sicle interior work and a great chocolate lime green paintjob.

Cafe Schilling
In the Gothic quarter, this place has dark wood furniture and peeling distempered walls along with quite a metro crowd stopping in for a drink or two. The service is variable but the bar snacks are delicious. They did a superbly filling vegetal sandwich with goat's cheese, along with a great hummous option. The beer is Damm, which is fine, and the coffee was good.

Milk
Cocktails with serious punch, and very filling bistro food. They also did good veggie food, happily producing dishes sin pollo for me. Another good interior, dark and mellow, with comic book pages decorating the toilet walls and velvet curtains hiding things. The second visit was a bit let down by an Irish bar bore and his pal but we just moved on.

Govinda
Not a bar or a cafe but an Indian restaurant. This is one of my "known places", somewhere I go back to when I return to a city. That's often on the first night, when we're still settling in and I don't feel like searching out some place in a backstreet. Milk, for example, is up a narrow backstreet and the chap was suspicious of my map-reading until we found the place.
Placa Villa de Madrid, where Govinda is, was all dug up when I was last here in 2001. Now the rennovations are finished part of the square is still excavated, revealing remains of the Roman city beneath.
Govinda does a mighty fine Thali, and the owner will spice the meal up for British diners. A medium here is a mild back home, mind.

Everywhere else we stopped in were just cafes or bars near where we were when we got hungry. As always, I enjoyed a fair few queso bocadillos, which is my default choice when faced with little or no veggie choice. Barcelona is a city which suits grazing: you can wander for hours and nearly always find a place to stop when you have the need. And I love any culture which doesn't eat till 10pm at the earliest. (She says about to go downstairs and start cooking at 9pm.)

At some point, I shall rave about modernista architecture. However, in the meantime here is footage of the Magic Fountain playing up to Rachmananov. I love this thing with a childish glee. You may be able to hear my little squeaks of amusement.

Exeter Goes Pop!

2007-02-18T16:08:00.000Z

Ages ago I made these cushions for the new sofa using some Liberty print wipeable fabric. Today I was giving the bathroom the same sort of minor (and, more importantly, free) revamp that the bedroom got in January. I'd intended just to clean the place thoroughly but ended up putting up some shelves that I'd taken out of the room five years earlier but hadn't got around to putting up elsewhere. They're in a new place, and have new functions but still... I also recovered the bathroom stool:

In amidst the two bins of stuff I cleared out of the room - mainly expired medicines and long forgotten cosmetics - I also found the little booklet which was given out at The Living Room on 11th April 1997.

In the future the Living Room would like to see several things happen. In no particular order these may be:
More nail polish, particularly on male fingers. (Nails obviously, not fingers themselves).
More requests for Country & Western music.
Hats of all descriptions being worn at all times.
The 'Whizz Bang' and the 'California Lemonade' being the drinks of choice.
Belle & Sebastian being warmly embraced in the hearts of all lovers in the world.
The word 'winsome' being used as often as possible.

This manifesto was from Alistair (of Tangents, Plan B etc). I loved the Living Room whilst it ran. We ate little cakes and enjoyed pop of fine quality. Wonderfully, A is back on the decks with a new night in Exeter: Exeter Goes Pop!. I had to miss the first one but the next is on 14th March.

I shall, possibly, wear a winsome hat.

What time is it, Eccles?

2007-02-16T00:24:00.000Z

Meanwhile:

I made my lazy risotto recipe with the proper risotto rice yesterday.

This makes a fabulous difference and made me yum down an entire pot which was meant to be two days' worth.

I just made biiiiig Eccles cakes.

I tweaked a recipe out of this month's Sainsburys magazine* and may have slightly overdone the allspice but I'm wishing the chap was here so that he could physically prevent me from eating another one tonight.

*yes, it is mostly puff pieces and regurgitated press releases but there are perhaps 9 or 10 recipes worth having, and this month it has vouchers for bottled ales so I'll recoup the cost of the thing. I'm more worried that, faced with buying a food mag or this month's Glamour, I did not automatically grab the fashion rag.

What I Did On My Holidays, Part 1

2007-02-15T21:03:00.000Z

Or, there and back again.

We went to Barcelona by train. Not out of some Grauniad-reading eco-smuggity but because it is just much more enjoyable than spending three hours at Gatwick. Also, due to the usual arcane train rules, it worked out cheaper to travel to Paris on Eurostar first class.

We started the journey with the Misery Line, however, getting the Tube from the chap's to Waterloo. Security, even with the patdown I got, is just so much less stressful on the Eurostar. No standing in long snaking queues wondering why the people holding you up hadn't noticed the large multilingual signs telling you to remove your jacket, belt and shoes. Then we were whisked at slow speed past Battersea and at slightly higher speed towards the channel, being given champagne and a pretty good late lunch. The trolley dolly was so camp he should have been in Ugly Betty.

Having once been caught out by the change in timezones, I'd given us lots of time to cross Paris to Gare D'Austerlitz. As the Metro train swooped out onto a bridge crossing the Seine, I could see the Eiffel Tower through the girders. I'm fairly sure my travels with my family, which also entailed many a trip across Paris from Gare D'Nord, have taken me to Gare D'Austerlitz before but it may just be the curious familiarity of major rail terminii at night. There's always an orange sodium fuzz and too much echo in the marble hallways. There was a rather 70s bar, suitable for a beer or two before boarding the Trenhotel aka the Night Sleeper.

I love sleeper trains. Really love them. There's something just too fascinating about falling asleep looking at one world and waking in another. We went Gran Classe, which got us a private ensuite cabin, dinner including drinks and breakfast. Whilst at dinner our beds were made up for us, complete with chocolates with pictures of trains on them left on our pillows. I kept waking in the night and quickly recalled the trick to watching the night landscape: keep the curtain pulled, put your head under and you can see things beyond the glass. I gave out a small squee as we drew into Perpignon, as it was a place I'd used in H101. As we crossed the Pyrannes we went close to the coast, and there was a moonlit view down into a bay. On a sleeper, you can imagine that only you will have seen that moment unlike the shared vistas of daylight travel.

When we got to Estacio Franca (after more H101-related eeping from me), we locked our bags up and strolled into the city ready for more cafe on Las Ramblas.

The journey back was similar yet different. I warn anyone going not to drink the beer in the bar at the Estacio Franca. Really nasty. There's also the sad realisation that you are heading home, so rather less excited midnight wakings to look out of the window. And the drop in temperature was more noticeable, with my toes feeling the cold Northern European air. We breakfasted as the train ran along next to the Seine through, arriving back into Paris with plenty of time to get back for lunch in London with Smith and Robson. Then I got on a train back to Devon and was sitting on my sofa with a bag of chips less than 24 hours after I'd been in a bar in Barcelona.

It's not the fastest or even the cheapest way to travel, but you gain a sense of distance and of change which planes just don't give you. Also, there was champagne included, which always sweetens a journey.

Details of how to travel from London to Barcelona are available on the fabulous Man in Seat 61 site, which provides me with many happy moments of idle speculation ("ooooh, they're opening the silk route..."). We booked via RailEurope.

We did mention at the time of booking that I was veggie but this info didn't appear to reach the actual train companies (something which I'll be sending an email about). The Eurostar always carry a spare veggie meal but I was ticked off for not having mentioned my special dietary requirements. The Trenhotel doesn't carry a spare, but I had the ensalade for a starter and the soup as a main which was yummy. I emailed Elipsos re the meal before we returned and they changed my booking. However, I didn't enjoy the proper veggie options as much as the make-do stuff I'd had on the way down. The starter was a much heavier salad, and the main a plate of grilled aubergine and courgette which I could have done better. The breakfast was different as well, being some heated egg and cheese thing instead of those well known meaty foods of pain au chocolat and fruit. It's possible that the veggie food is lovely - the chap had to send his chicken back as it wasn't heated properly so the crew was definitely less good - but I think in future I'll 'forget' to book veggie and just workaround from the normal menu.

All my photos are now available on flickr: photos tagged barcelona07. I'll do Montserrat and architecture and bars in future posts.

Sorry...where was I?

2007-02-11T23:31:00.000Z

Ah, yes. Barcelona.

Just back from a longish trip. Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the sun on Las Ramblas, sipping sangria. It is a rather gauche thing to do, but very satisfying. We dined in Barcelona, as the train slipped northwards through the suburbs towards the Pyrannes. Breakfasted as the sun rose over the Seine to the south of Paris. Lunched in London and, less then 24 hours after pulling out of Barcelona I was having chips for supper on my own sofa back in Devon. It may not be the fastest way to travel but, by the gods, it's civilised.

Flickr photos to follow.

Cuteness Ahoy!

2007-01-30T08:32:00.000Z

Manga Who girls (safe for work)

OMG! So cute!

Also, very clever with the different fonts for each of the girls. Although I miss Babs.

This is what happens when Who goes all chick-friendly.

It was that or make a cunning jacket out of the receipts

2007-01-29T23:56:00.000Z

Fanfic or taxes?

Fanfic.

I was assuming I was going to have to pay something for the 05/06 year but it looks like I've made a loss still. Hmmm. Some bit of my brain is thinking "They'll get suspicious! Lose some of the receipts down the back of the sofa! Make some profit or they'll come and inspect you!". My last novel was paid in Yankee Dollar, however, so the pitiful income is at least explicable.

Meanwhile, Kelly's wonderful Holmes book is out and is getting the praise it deserves. Sexy, sassy and deeply disturbing. I was listening to an adaptation of The Sign of Four on BBC7 tonight. There's a moment near the start when Holmes takes a watch and deduces the character of its owner, successfully claiming it to have belonged to Watson's dissolute elder brother.

"My dear doctor," said he kindly, "pray accept my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful a thing it might be to you."

This is one of the things Kel captures: that Holmes is so easily lured into a puzzle that he can forget there are people and feelings and love involved. It's great.

My other writing is stalled in a mire of Too Much Else to do, including those pesky tax returns.

Hear Their Clockwork Hearts Whirr

2007-01-24T22:48:00.000Z

Some time, somewhere over that blurry mess which is December, I caught an advert for a new toy on tv. The mystery is quite when I saw this, since I am not prone to watching daytime tv, but I can't believe the advert was at night. It was for a robot pony. I can't find the actual ad online, because naturally the first thing I did was hunt for it. It was so odd that I didn't quite believe it was real. A pony for people who don't want their daughters to smell of horse shit or break any bones, obviously. Here's some youtube footage of someone finding it at a trade fair. And someone's christmas present.

The chap and I naturally wondered what would happen as Robopony went wrong. We grew up watching Terminator, and other tales of implacable machines, so these visions involved glowing red eyes and mechanised demands for carrots and sugar cubes.

Comb their soft and luscious nylon fur
Listen close - hear their clockwork hearts whirr
Laura Barrett, Robot Ponies

Then the other day The Torture Garden posted this fantastic track by Laura Barrett. I downloaded because, well, it's about Robot Ponies. It is, however, a fantastic track. Brittle and sharp and spikey and yet sweet. Go download.

Is Joan Fontaine Alive?

2007-01-22T21:39:00.000Z

Yes, she is.

Recent searches leading people here:

15.38% doctor who love don't roam download
15.38% kelly hale erasing sherlock
7.69% pipettes mp3 winter sky
7.69% viking hordes
7.69% torchwood soundtrack
7.69% blog mp3 london suede
7.69% divine comedy songs of love mp3 blog
7.69% tonight we fly divine comedy
7.69% is joan fountaine alive

Bizarrely, I really am No. 3 in google results for queries into the mortal state of Joan Fontaine, due to this post here.

New Year, New Corpses

2007-01-21T11:56:00.000Z

Sébastian's new kill count:

Rodents:
Rats - 1
Mice - 22 23
Voles - 6
Birds:
Sparrows - 4
Dunnocks - 1
Uncertain - 2
Other:
Frogs - 1
Unidentifiable remains - 2

This one was mostly beheaded.

Too Divine Doctor

2007-01-15T18:17:00.000Z

Remeber how I got all excited over Neil Hannon on the Who OST? The thought of my favourite skinny geeky boys in suits being connected was almost too much for me...

Paul Cornell emailed me today to point out Love Don't Roam, the song from the Runaway Bride, is available to buy on download sites, which means - under the new singles charts rules - that it could make the UK Top 40. Leaving aside the wonders of getting a Who song into the Top 40, this would also return Hannon to it, which can be no bad thing. And for 79p, or thereabouts, you get the rather fabulous bossa stylings of the song as well.

Doubtless in the future it will become a standard at fan weddings.

Miscellaneous Pimpage

2007-01-14T18:26:00.000Z

1. Can't drive, Won't Drive
It's not that I can't drive, more that I can't drive legally. It's not even due to losing my license, more with never actually getting around to gaining it. I've had lessons. I understand the principles. I even quite liked doing 60mph on a dual carriageway. I just reached an impasse where I never seemed to improve and my instructor just kept getting me to book another ten sessions and I started to suspect that I would never actually get to the stage of taking my test.

Maria McCarthy, a writer I know, got over that stage and got her license a little while back. The experience, and the experiences she heard about whilst learning, inspired her new book: The Girls' Guide to Losing Your L-Plates, available now from Pocket Books.

I'm off to raise a cocktail or two at her launch party next weekend. I'll be going by bus.

2. Can Code, Will Code!
I have finally got http://magslhalliday.co.uk up and running. It is identical in every way to the old site, but hosted on a different server, once requires no interaction with Orange to run. I'm still changing links from various places, but if you do link to the old halliday47 site, please change it to the new shiny.

3. Can Blog, Shouldn't Blog?
Shameless hussy and Doctor Who author Mark Michalowski has discovered the joys of blogging: Across the Maps of Heaven. Shouldn't be allowed...;)

WIP

2007-01-10T00:39:00.000Z

Disruption on the Line
on spec short story, much faffed over last year but never actually written:

651 / 4,000
(16.3%)

That's just tonight.

First Footing
on spec fanfic for Kelly's archive:

463 / 3,000
(15.4%)

but I only like 173 of them.

We haven't finished with you yet

2007-01-08T19:52:00.001Z

I have NO MONEY.

This is not true. I have heaps of money. Well, not heaps. Not enough for dragons to nest on, anyway, which is my kind of definition of heaps. But it is all owed to the builders, or going on boring things like bills and food for the month. So I am doing that well-known trick of people who are a) hard up, b) trying to diet, or c) both. I am taking a packed lunch to work. I hauled out my lunchbox last week and started to use it again. It's a relatively tasteful silver and black number, which carries a sandwich, a yoghurt and a small box of nuts/fruit. It can fit a banana, if the banana is the right shape. And, yes, it is a kids' lunchbox. I could either use a bigger handbag and cram it with ugly tupperware, or swing this as I walk to work. Which is cuter/stupider (del as applicable). I always meant to customise it, but could never decide what with, untill...

I remembered I had a Pipettes sticker from one of their gigs in the summer.

I think I maybe need to use a varnish spray on it to protect it a bit...

Sheer boredom induced by lack of good TV and lack of funds also caused me to get all homebuildery yesterday. I took apart an elderly orange velvet curtain which had been made of two lengths sewn together, cut it to size, hemmed it and hung it in my still surprisingly tidy room. If I get enthusiastic tonight, I'm going to use the offcut to make a cushion for the bedroom chair, as that is the only bit still in a blue/green scheme instead of red/orange. (It's true, all women do become their mothers: all that make do and mend as a kid clearly left an impact.)

***

Some new mp3 blogs I am trying out, plus some recs of old favourites:
Another Form of Relief has a top 49 of 2006
I Guess I'm Floating, new to me
I Rock Cleveland, also new.
Skatterbrain is a fabulous as ever (but when will they release the fall/winter 06 mix as a zip?)
Spiked Candy, c'est ci bon!
The Torture Garden, no relation to the BDSM club of the same name (unless BDSM clubs are big on belle & Sebastian?)
Mod-ified Music, still bringing that 60s asian pop

Happiness - We're All In It Together!

2007-01-03T00:15:00.000Z

There's a great moment in Brazil where the camera pulls back to reveal the origin of the "We're all in it together" slogan Tuttle has previously quoted to Sam. Sam is visiting Buttle's widow in her dystopian tower block, a relentlessly grim monochrome world of poverty and deprivation. At the base of the tower is a giant poster: above the smiling parents and their two children, joyously driving through a multicoloured world is the slogan: Happiness - We're All In It Together.

So the first time I saw the poster below on the Tube, I rather unsurprisingly started to laugh:

In fact, unfortunate dystopian echoes aside, Transport for London have done a very smart thing with their poster design. Using the Tube is like facing a battery of information, all desperate for that brief moment of attention. A teacher I had at college told me that returning to London from the then Soviet Union was a sensory overload. There's the service board, the special announcements, the 'do not obstruct the doors' on the lifts (or, if you have the misfortune to use Covent Garden, Lloyd Grossman telling you about his favourite museum^[1]), the 'we are sorry to announce...', the maps, the dot matrix display of trains due. And then there are the adverts: posters outside the station, posters in the lifts, posters on the escalator (including the new moving posters), posters in the corridors, posters along the platform, posters along the wall opposite the platform, posters in the trains...

When the train bursts into a station, there's not only the shock of the light after staring at the grimy walls beyond the window ^[2]] but the shock of colour and image and text. All of it trying to get you to notice it for a moment.

Transport for London have gone retro, borrowing a leaf out of both WW2 iconography and Soviet propaganda of the 1930s.

[all images taken at Tufnell Park]
Each poster uses block colour and simple text in a clear contrast. Several of them highlight the key phrase (move along, mind the gap, take care) and all use either a typographical quirk or a simple graphic, but never both at the same time. There may be smaller print, but the key aim - of arresting the eye - is done with minimum fuss. You can see the reflections of typical adverts in these photos, showing how fussy they seem in comparison.

It's not only a clever visual design in terms of conveying information through the noise of the Tube, it also ties in with the perceived design style of the Tube itself. The Tube is Modernist: the branding in the 1930s overrides the Victorian reality of much of the infrastructure_[3]. Beck is rightly praised for redefining how to map the space, and the various typographical and poster designers of the past are praised_[4] for creating iconographic images. This is canny not only for extending the branding of the Tube and officialising the posters but because, despite the actual reality of the system and its service, there is a vague sense of affection towards the iconography. So despite the alarming phrase and ghosts of WW2 propaganda, the 'It's up to all of us' poster is familiar and curiously comforting.

I actively want them to produce a 'Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases' one.

--
Notes:
[1] Possibly this has stopped, given the museum is closed.
[2] Or trying to follow the mysterious orange cable as it snakes in and out of view
[3] Although the Victorian designers were working pretty radically: see this detail from Tufnell Park.
[4] see Art of the Underground (via Going Underground). A sibling showed me a great one of South Woodford, depicting a hunting lodge in Epping Forest, over Christmas but I can't find it online

Much Ado About Nothing

2007-01-02T16:47:00.000Z

I don't do resolutions as they are a set-up for failure. Here are this year's guidelines, however:

No using the interweb in the lunch hour
Finish short stories started last year and sub them
Start posting more on design etc rather than waffle about cats, shoes and miscellany, although:
- Shoes are allowed if it's about the design of them
- The same goes for handbags

I did fulfil a long cherished shoe dream this weekend, by getting a pair of heels from L. K. Bennett. Ever since I started to wear shoes again, after years in combat or biker boots, I wanted a pair of L K Bennett shoes. I finally have a pair! Lilac suede with brown leather edging and toe caps, round toes and 2" dark brown wood heels (narrow but not stiletto). For special events only but I adore them.

My other sale purchase was a pair of contrasting brown leather shoes from Accessorize, with a 1/2" Victorian heel, round toes and a strap across the foot. I look suspciously like I'm about to dance a foxtrot in them, especially when worn with socks, but they were an emergency buy due to the zip in a boot buggering up. That was embarassing, in part because it happened whilst in the front row of the Novello.

We went, after much pitiful "Can we, huh? Huh? Pleeeeease?" pleading from me, to see the RSC's production of Much Ado About Nothing in its London run. This was based on the fact a) it had Tamsin Grieg as Beatrice, b) it was set in pre-revolutionay Cuba and c) it is my favourite Shakespearian play and the only one I quote from extensively. As always, the allegedly comic scenes involving Dogberry suffer when played to a modern crowd, but the remainder of the production sizzled.

There were readings of lines which hadn't occured to me (noteably Don Pedro's proposal to Beatrice which was played straight by him without her realising). There was exquisite comic timing both verbally, including an ad-lib when someone in the front row got in the way of Benedict, and physically. The relocation worked very well, turning Balthasar into a female Blues singer in a bar who spoke her lines with a patois accent, and making Don John a guerilla fighter at the end. Even Hero and Claudio, the rather wet romantics who contrast with the merrily warring Beatrice and Benedict, came over as plausible and sweet. The whole was painfully funny and moving.

The run ends on the 6th of January and if you can get tickets (we got front row returns by major luck), I recommend it thoroughly.

Still on holiday

2007-01-01T18:46:00.000Z

We spent New Year's Eve at FROG at the Kentish Town Forum. Apart from anything else, it's a walk of just about the right length from the flat. The venue is an old dilapidated cinema, still retaining a warren of back corridors and a balcony where a couple of unfortunate bouncers had to keep people from dancing right by the edge. One little backroom was playing different music to the main hall - at one point it was 60s J-pop (or sounded like it). Someone told me where to find a secret set of female toilets, so I spent zero time stuck in queues for the bog. The bands were The Rumble Strips (decent ska-lite stuff), The Young Knives (er, I don't remember, but I liked them best) and Larrakin Love (Pogues-lite darlings of the NME). The beer was total shite, though.

My bad gig photos continue:

I didn't get any shots at the Pipettes' Xmas party but the chap did, so I shall link when he gets around to posting them (ETA: ta-da!). The support were Misty's Big Adventure (great) and I spent much time marvelling at the expansion of The Pipettes, given that I first saw them in a pub back room. Here they had a full lighting rig, a strings section and a costume change between the main set and the encore (black dresses with sparkly detail). And, when they finished on 'All I Want For Christmas (Is You)' the audience was showered in 'snow'. It was an all ages gig, so I spent a fair bit of time spotting tenny fans, some of whom were not merely wearing the polka dots but had full replicas of Rosay's stage outfit. So cute!

Counting Down

2006-12-22T09:34:00.000Z

I love the countdown on the BBC's Doctor Who page. Never mind the presents at Who minus 9, or the kitchen hackery required to make the meal at Who minus 5. What really matters is how many hours until David Tennant appears and a thousand fangirls sigh and whisper "don't cry, emo Time Lord".

The military campaign for the festivities continues. As with land wars in Russia, a lot of it concerns the food supply. I'm off to do the last shopping down here, although I have checked when the local good off-license closes on the 24th (9pm). A bit of me thinks "what if the shops don't have two pots of double-cream?" before remembering that I am going to be in London for a couple of days and it's quite possible to buy some bits to bring back with us. A bit of me skitters when I think about the journey back down on the 24th, mostly due to news stories about fog closing the airports and trains filling up till people are travelling on the roof, Asian style. I'm surprised no one has done a variation on the old "Fog in Channel; Continent cut off" headline.

Today I just tried using a theory I read in the Guardian a few weeks back: a theory with the unfortunate name of lifehacking. Rather than setting a timer, I just told myself that the kitchen would be clean and tidy by 9am. Amazingly, it was and I even had five minutes spare to sit with the recipe books thinking things like "1lb 1oz of chocolate? That's just freakish...".

I doubt I'll blog again until Boxing Day, so season's greetings and all that.

Last Christmas

2006-12-19T20:50:00.000Z

Exactly a year ago I was sat on the train back to Exeter from London, probably somewhere near Salisbury at this hour, thinking "nah, you're drunk, girl".

An hour before that I was in a pub in Southwark, sitting on a sofa with a gang of the usual post-work drink suspects. I leaned back, away from the main conversation/argument, so that I could continue some side conversation/argument with the chap. Someone was sat between us but I don't remember who, I just remember looking at the chap and thinking "hey, he's fanciable".

Naturally, I dismissed the notion immediately as utter nonsense and totally preposterous. Insanity.

Shows what I know.

Never Start a Land War in Russia

2006-12-16T09:50:00.000Z

Yesterday the boarding came down and the secondary glazing went back up, giving me back my bedroom. The outside is looking so smart that I now have a dreadful urge to revamp the inside. Luckily, the bedroom is the room where all the furniture is already optmally placed, the walls are bare white, etc. So what the room is going to get instead is the kind of spring clean even Victorians may have blanched at. This isn't complex but does require planning: there's no point mopping the floor before cleaning the fireplace, for example.

Like most writers I know, I have a love of A3 sketchpads. Normally, these are used for working out plots, which much scribbling of snippets and arrows connecting them. And arrows to question marks ('but why..?', 'and then what?' or 'damn there's a character missing'). This year, to save me from tears, I'm using it to militarily plan things. There's a page with everything that needs doing and the last date to do it on, the back of which contains today's schedule for cleaning.

There's another page which is just the food shopping list (got the breadcrumbs for the nut loaf today and ordered some bread from the local bakers for next week). I'm going to try to bake several different things, possibly up to wafer thin sweet potato crisps, and not overbuy junk in a blind panic. I'd rather have some very nice things than half a dozen tubes of Pringles. So the list is on the kitchen table and is being added to each time I think of another thing.

I'm mildly worried about my sudden trad leanings this year: I was giving idle thoughts to making some stockings last night which may have just been the result of drinking too much rosé wine to celebrate the builders' finishing. I'm going to blame the chap. Not that he's trad. We're both atheists for starters so technically shouldn't be having any kind of mid-winter celebration. I think it's just I want to make the whole chaotic mess of a holiday - when the UK pretty much shuts down from the 21st to the 3rd of January - sparkly and fun. Fun that requires the kind of military planning Napoleon would consider excessive. Maybe I should buy Risk?

Unwrapping a house

2006-12-14T16:57:00.000Z

The scaffold came down. There still needs to be work done to finish off, but the main work is done:

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Looks like they even fixed the wonky slate above the window.
Note my sneaky use of light to make the new version look warmer than the old one. I watch too much House Doctor on five. Sadly, that is not a crossover show in which Greg House and the Doctor snarl and grr at each other. Because that would be cool. The Doctor could keep calling him Bertie or George in order to wind him up...

You may recall I was going for this colour:

It's not an exact match, but it is thankfully non-dairy, given my fear of ending up ice-cream pink, like this:

I also suspect that if I take a photo in summer, the colour will closer again. Also, six months of traffic fumes should make it darker again.

Although I am amused that the green of my lefthand neighbours and the yellow of my righthand neighbours, combined with the lilac of me, means the terrace matches the background colours of my website.

Hopefully, the board in the top window will go tomorrow and I shall spend the weekend cleaning and reordering my bedroom.

--

In the meantime, I have become obsessed with reading design*sponge, a blog collecting lovely designs from around the globe. I am resisting the urge to buy things for myself right now: all I seem to find in the shops are ideal things for me and common sense suggests waiting for the January sales. So meadering through her recommendations is a safe way of window shopping without the urge to instantly buy that having the actual objects in front of you brings.