1) 100 words, no more – no less. Numbers written “27” are one, punctuation/bullet-points don’t count. Hyphenation is 2 words
2) Topic “1st place I’d go in a Time Machine”
3) No clichés/changing time – no standing on a grassy knoll in Dallas, 1963 and yelling “Duck!”
4) Deviation allowed, but not deviants!
5) You can use Word to count for you
6) As many people as possible
My entry includes these rules, giving me less time – so straight to the point:
I’d go see Talking Heads on Stop Making Sense tour. Why? Looks like a damn fine concert from the DVD!
Friday, 11 April 2008
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
The Revenge Of The Scientists
One of the main jokes I make about the seemingly random nature of life is that I sometimes feel that it’s all the work of some scientist somewhere, watching me through an extremely long telescope and throwing all kinds of weird situations at me in an attempt to see how long it will take me to go mad with an axe.
In the past I always thought that the boring and pointless nature of some of the jobs I had done was something akin to sending the mouse down the maze to find that someone had moved the cheese (someone always moves the cheese – even in my fridge it won’t stay still)
However, my main gripe with the scientists these days is Public Transport. As previously stated it takes me 35 minutes to cycle to work and anywhere from an hour to two hours on the bus. Add to this the fact that they constantly put on single-deckers at rush hour and pay teenagers to swear profusely whilst playing loud rap-songs on their mobile phones about gunning people down (with no headphones) and the bus can soon seem to be on the road to hell.
By swearing profusely I mean swearing as punctuation. Here is a cleaned up version: “Flip me, I went out down the flipping pub with that flipping winker Rod the other day, flip me, he’s a flipping todd-pot’ – only with a few more flips.
Just when my tolerance of this route had reached an all time low they changed the route – adding 10 mins to my journey and meaning I had to leave home earlier to catch my connection. I wonder what kind of notes the scientists made about that one (or maybe it was the cats that secretly rule the world??)
Anyway – the other day I was on the bus and it was in heavy traffic. There was a woman sitting at the front of the bus, talking to an extremely deaf man. She clearly had some kind of learning difficulty, because she was constantly repeating the same thing again and again:
“Well, I’ve got to get home, do you understand? Because I was in town and they called me and said they would pick me up, only I’m not there, do you understand me? So I don’t want them to have a wasted journey, do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’ Very occasionally the deaf man would interject some comment and the woman would repeat the whole process again.
After about fifteen minutes of this my mind was divided into two clear halves – the half that felt a bit sorry for her and felt guilty for finding her annoying and the half that wanted to walk over and scream in her face to shut the flip up.
It so happened that the lady sitting next to me on this day was a kindly little-old lady who put me in mind of Miss Marple from the Agatha Christie novels – blue-rinsed hair, prim and proper, about 90 years old – the kind of woman who takes in stray animals and nurses them back to health.
Just as we came over a big hill and saw another endless row of traffic in front of us this kindly old dear leaned over to me and whispered, ‘If she doesn’t shut up soon I’ll go over there and bloody well make her understand me!’
It was all I could do to stop myself from laughing out loud.
In the past I always thought that the boring and pointless nature of some of the jobs I had done was something akin to sending the mouse down the maze to find that someone had moved the cheese (someone always moves the cheese – even in my fridge it won’t stay still)
However, my main gripe with the scientists these days is Public Transport. As previously stated it takes me 35 minutes to cycle to work and anywhere from an hour to two hours on the bus. Add to this the fact that they constantly put on single-deckers at rush hour and pay teenagers to swear profusely whilst playing loud rap-songs on their mobile phones about gunning people down (with no headphones) and the bus can soon seem to be on the road to hell.
By swearing profusely I mean swearing as punctuation. Here is a cleaned up version: “Flip me, I went out down the flipping pub with that flipping winker Rod the other day, flip me, he’s a flipping todd-pot’ – only with a few more flips.
Just when my tolerance of this route had reached an all time low they changed the route – adding 10 mins to my journey and meaning I had to leave home earlier to catch my connection. I wonder what kind of notes the scientists made about that one (or maybe it was the cats that secretly rule the world??)
Anyway – the other day I was on the bus and it was in heavy traffic. There was a woman sitting at the front of the bus, talking to an extremely deaf man. She clearly had some kind of learning difficulty, because she was constantly repeating the same thing again and again:
“Well, I’ve got to get home, do you understand? Because I was in town and they called me and said they would pick me up, only I’m not there, do you understand me? So I don’t want them to have a wasted journey, do you understand? DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?’ Very occasionally the deaf man would interject some comment and the woman would repeat the whole process again.
After about fifteen minutes of this my mind was divided into two clear halves – the half that felt a bit sorry for her and felt guilty for finding her annoying and the half that wanted to walk over and scream in her face to shut the flip up.
It so happened that the lady sitting next to me on this day was a kindly little-old lady who put me in mind of Miss Marple from the Agatha Christie novels – blue-rinsed hair, prim and proper, about 90 years old – the kind of woman who takes in stray animals and nurses them back to health.
Just as we came over a big hill and saw another endless row of traffic in front of us this kindly old dear leaned over to me and whispered, ‘If she doesn’t shut up soon I’ll go over there and bloody well make her understand me!’
It was all I could do to stop myself from laughing out loud.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Give My Regards To Kevin
About 5 years ago I was wondering through my local low-price everything-under-the-sun shop when I came to the Art section. They had lots of pens, pencils, paper and, most importantly, a book called “How To Draw Anything”
Now I’m a lifelong scribbler. Give me a pen or pencil and it’s only a matter of time before I start doodling lines, funny faces, whatever – though I had never become very good at art for a couple of reasons.
The main one was that, back in the pre-history of the planet when the monkeys were banging sticks together and grunting at strange obelisks in awe and I was at school (OK, so it wasn’t that long ago – though sometimes it feels it), I was basically told by my Art Teacher that I was useless at art and should never draw again.
For the purposes of this story we shall call this teacher Trevor – though his real name was Kevin.
Trevor was the old style of teacher who was only interested in his best students, the ones whose results would make him look good – anyone else didn’t really get a look in.
For nearly four years I learned next-to-nothing in his class until, for a glorious period of 1 term, I was transferred to another teacher who we shall call David – though his real name was Andrew
David was more of a 60’s hippy child, who called everyone “people”, insisted we all sat in a circle so no one would be deemed leader and cared more about encouraging people to express themselves than actual end-result talent. As a result of which my art improved a hundred fold.
Anyway, Trevor and David aside – there was this book in the shop and it was only about £2 (don’t ask me what that is in dollars or euros, but it’s cheap in any currency) and I thought – why not?
So I bought this little book “How To Draw Anything” – though on reflection it should have been called “How To Draw Anything, Especially Sheep” and worked my way through it.
Now I’m not going to claim that five years on I’m suddenly some Van Gough, or Pablo Picasso – in fact I’d do well to be Van Gough’s Van Driver, but the thing is that I discovered something along the way, via occasional art classes with mad Penguin-obsessed Dutch women, elderly teachers who were deaf in one ear so you had to stand on the correct side of them and students who produced miracles of art just by dabs of colour in the right places.
Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.
One day, in the not too distant future, I think it would be a good idea to arrange a showing of amateur art at a local museum. I’m not going to look for world-shattering precision, or avant-guard artwork – I’m going to look for people who have a passion for creativity regardless of the end result
And I’m going to call the show Give My Regards To Kevin.
My novel may never get finished or published, my paintings may never hang in the Louvre, but sometimes the pleasure of creating something is its own reward
Now I’m a lifelong scribbler. Give me a pen or pencil and it’s only a matter of time before I start doodling lines, funny faces, whatever – though I had never become very good at art for a couple of reasons.
The main one was that, back in the pre-history of the planet when the monkeys were banging sticks together and grunting at strange obelisks in awe and I was at school (OK, so it wasn’t that long ago – though sometimes it feels it), I was basically told by my Art Teacher that I was useless at art and should never draw again.
For the purposes of this story we shall call this teacher Trevor – though his real name was Kevin.
Trevor was the old style of teacher who was only interested in his best students, the ones whose results would make him look good – anyone else didn’t really get a look in.
For nearly four years I learned next-to-nothing in his class until, for a glorious period of 1 term, I was transferred to another teacher who we shall call David – though his real name was Andrew
David was more of a 60’s hippy child, who called everyone “people”, insisted we all sat in a circle so no one would be deemed leader and cared more about encouraging people to express themselves than actual end-result talent. As a result of which my art improved a hundred fold.
Anyway, Trevor and David aside – there was this book in the shop and it was only about £2 (don’t ask me what that is in dollars or euros, but it’s cheap in any currency) and I thought – why not?
So I bought this little book “How To Draw Anything” – though on reflection it should have been called “How To Draw Anything, Especially Sheep” and worked my way through it.
Now I’m not going to claim that five years on I’m suddenly some Van Gough, or Pablo Picasso – in fact I’d do well to be Van Gough’s Van Driver, but the thing is that I discovered something along the way, via occasional art classes with mad Penguin-obsessed Dutch women, elderly teachers who were deaf in one ear so you had to stand on the correct side of them and students who produced miracles of art just by dabs of colour in the right places.
Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.
One day, in the not too distant future, I think it would be a good idea to arrange a showing of amateur art at a local museum. I’m not going to look for world-shattering precision, or avant-guard artwork – I’m going to look for people who have a passion for creativity regardless of the end result
And I’m going to call the show Give My Regards To Kevin.
My novel may never get finished or published, my paintings may never hang in the Louvre, but sometimes the pleasure of creating something is its own reward
Friday, 4 April 2008
Ironic
Let’s face it – many people get confused by Irony. A lot of people don’t really know what it is – some have been heard to say that they think it’s like Gold-y and Bronze-y, only made of Iron. For me Irony is something I do on a Sunday morning to my work-shirts (groan)
Alanis Morissette famously showed that she had no understanding of the word in her song “Ironic” (itself quite ironic, i suppose):
It's like rain on your wedding day – no, that’s just bad luck
It's a free ride when you've already paid – no that’s just stupid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take – again, with the stupid
A lot of people get confused between Irony – “the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is said and what is meant; or between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens” and sarcasm – “stating the opposite of an intended meaning especially in order to sneeringly, slyly, jest or mock a person, situation or thing.”
For example King Charles 1st England probably regretted his moment of sarcasm when, responding to Oliver Cromwell’s question about wanting to spend the rest of the life in the Tower of London, he replied, “No actually, I’d rather have my head chopped off”
Take my example – a few years ago I moved into my current home. On the very first day I saw the place there was a big black cat in the garden and ever since that day he has been sneaking into the house, demanding to be fed with his friend the little white cat – both mysteriously popping up (as previously mentioned) and getting in the way when I was convinced they had been thrown out.
However, the other day my neighbour (whose cats they are), came round and asked me if, as he was away from home so much these days, would I mind taking in the cats and considering them mine. Being very fond of both cats, and secretly having let the black one sleep over more than once, I said “yes, no problem”
That was three days ago and I haven’t seen either cat since, despite frequent nightly calls for them to come in and be fed.
Now that’s ironic.
Alanis Morissette famously showed that she had no understanding of the word in her song “Ironic” (itself quite ironic, i suppose):
It's like rain on your wedding day – no, that’s just bad luck
It's a free ride when you've already paid – no that’s just stupid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take – again, with the stupid
A lot of people get confused between Irony – “the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is said and what is meant; or between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens” and sarcasm – “stating the opposite of an intended meaning especially in order to sneeringly, slyly, jest or mock a person, situation or thing.”
For example King Charles 1st England probably regretted his moment of sarcasm when, responding to Oliver Cromwell’s question about wanting to spend the rest of the life in the Tower of London, he replied, “No actually, I’d rather have my head chopped off”
Take my example – a few years ago I moved into my current home. On the very first day I saw the place there was a big black cat in the garden and ever since that day he has been sneaking into the house, demanding to be fed with his friend the little white cat – both mysteriously popping up (as previously mentioned) and getting in the way when I was convinced they had been thrown out.
However, the other day my neighbour (whose cats they are), came round and asked me if, as he was away from home so much these days, would I mind taking in the cats and considering them mine. Being very fond of both cats, and secretly having let the black one sleep over more than once, I said “yes, no problem”
That was three days ago and I haven’t seen either cat since, despite frequent nightly calls for them to come in and be fed.
Now that’s ironic.
Wednesday, 2 April 2008
The Inner Voice
Here’s an interesting fact for you.
As you are reading this piece of text you are automatically sounding out the words in your head. You are making sense of the language by transferring the written to sound. Most of you won’t have to use your lips to do so!
This is something that linguists and researchers call “The inner voice” – we use it all the time: when we are thinking, when we are watching telly, reading, writing to a friend – even when we sleep.
Ok – so here’s the twist:
A profoundly Deaf person has no inner voice.
I’m not talking about your granny, who went deaf in her 60s, or even someone who has a reasonable degree of hearing – we’re talking about (mainly) Sign-Language using, profoundly Deaf (note the capital D) for whom a hearing aid is just a worthless piece of plastic.
This goes someway to explaining why Deaf culture is often at odds with the hearing world.
Try to imagine trying to learn to read without that basic ability to translate the words in your head.
Try to imagine what it must be like to exist silently in a world dominated by sound
Then, when you’ve thought about it for a while, go out and learn Sign Language and Deaf Awareness – it’s the least you can do.
As you are reading this piece of text you are automatically sounding out the words in your head. You are making sense of the language by transferring the written to sound. Most of you won’t have to use your lips to do so!
This is something that linguists and researchers call “The inner voice” – we use it all the time: when we are thinking, when we are watching telly, reading, writing to a friend – even when we sleep.
Ok – so here’s the twist:
A profoundly Deaf person has no inner voice.
I’m not talking about your granny, who went deaf in her 60s, or even someone who has a reasonable degree of hearing – we’re talking about (mainly) Sign-Language using, profoundly Deaf (note the capital D) for whom a hearing aid is just a worthless piece of plastic.
This goes someway to explaining why Deaf culture is often at odds with the hearing world.
Try to imagine trying to learn to read without that basic ability to translate the words in your head.
Try to imagine what it must be like to exist silently in a world dominated by sound
Then, when you’ve thought about it for a while, go out and learn Sign Language and Deaf Awareness – it’s the least you can do.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
A Case Of The Schrodingers
Last night i was awoken by a cat that i was convinced i had put outside - a cat that isn't even mine...and this got me thinking...
A recent survey of cat owners suggested that there are four times more cat owners than there are cats: it also stated that only approximately 25% of cats were purchased by their current owner, whilst the remaining 75% had just spontaneously arrived.
Clearly something strange is going on here, and those who have studied any science at all and are aware of the theoretical experiments of Schrodinger may already suspect why.
Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain Quantum Physics, postulated that if you stick a cat in a box with a radioactive isotope and a bottle of poison and close the lid then the cat now exists only in a state of quantum flux – it could have died from radiation exposure, it could have died from the poison or it could be sitting there, really annoyed and waiting to sink its claws into the laboratory technician.
The point of the experiment is that we don’t know what is happening until we open the box and that the very act of observing something changes it. Clearly Schrodinger never meant for his experiment to be actually carried out, but one suspects that if it ever were then the box would be opened to find no cat there. After a hurried search of the office it would then be found under the table with a nice saucer of milk.
This is because all cats contain 5% Schrodinger and 15% Houdini in their DNA. How else can you explain the fact that each evening you throw them out – on occasions physically padlocking them in the shed – only to find them at the foot of your bed in the morning?
Cats are perfectly able to communicate with, and control, humans – though they prefer to stick to the simple things we can understand. Like reminding us where the fridge is, stopping us from inventing time travel by sitting in front of the computer screen at vital moments and generally using our laps as somewhere warm and comfy to fall asleep.
Some Cats have worked out that they can get fed when it suits them by sitting on human chests when we are trying to sleep, whilst others are apparently too lazy or stupid to saunter through to the kitchen and find that, in fact, food had been laid out on their behalf in the first place.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats – so it must be a bit of a come-down for the modern moggie, having to squeeze through a cat flap and into suburban life.
To get our own back on cats monopolising our time humans have devised a bizarre method of feeding the animals – you can get beef flavoured cat food and pork flavoured cat-food, but realistically when in the wild would your cat chase and kill a cow for sustenance?
Why can’t you buy mouse flavoured cat-food? Or frog? Or small bird cat-food?
Meanwhile the cat that has secretly adopted me and my home is probably sitting on the sofa right now, having a good old-fashioned sleep
A recent survey of cat owners suggested that there are four times more cat owners than there are cats: it also stated that only approximately 25% of cats were purchased by their current owner, whilst the remaining 75% had just spontaneously arrived.
Clearly something strange is going on here, and those who have studied any science at all and are aware of the theoretical experiments of Schrodinger may already suspect why.
Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain Quantum Physics, postulated that if you stick a cat in a box with a radioactive isotope and a bottle of poison and close the lid then the cat now exists only in a state of quantum flux – it could have died from radiation exposure, it could have died from the poison or it could be sitting there, really annoyed and waiting to sink its claws into the laboratory technician.
The point of the experiment is that we don’t know what is happening until we open the box and that the very act of observing something changes it. Clearly Schrodinger never meant for his experiment to be actually carried out, but one suspects that if it ever were then the box would be opened to find no cat there. After a hurried search of the office it would then be found under the table with a nice saucer of milk.
This is because all cats contain 5% Schrodinger and 15% Houdini in their DNA. How else can you explain the fact that each evening you throw them out – on occasions physically padlocking them in the shed – only to find them at the foot of your bed in the morning?
Cats are perfectly able to communicate with, and control, humans – though they prefer to stick to the simple things we can understand. Like reminding us where the fridge is, stopping us from inventing time travel by sitting in front of the computer screen at vital moments and generally using our laps as somewhere warm and comfy to fall asleep.
Some Cats have worked out that they can get fed when it suits them by sitting on human chests when we are trying to sleep, whilst others are apparently too lazy or stupid to saunter through to the kitchen and find that, in fact, food had been laid out on their behalf in the first place.
The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats – so it must be a bit of a come-down for the modern moggie, having to squeeze through a cat flap and into suburban life.
To get our own back on cats monopolising our time humans have devised a bizarre method of feeding the animals – you can get beef flavoured cat food and pork flavoured cat-food, but realistically when in the wild would your cat chase and kill a cow for sustenance?
Why can’t you buy mouse flavoured cat-food? Or frog? Or small bird cat-food?
Meanwhile the cat that has secretly adopted me and my home is probably sitting on the sofa right now, having a good old-fashioned sleep
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Conspiracy Theory #2 – The Annoyance Chip
Why does a printer run out of toner just when you have an urgent print job?
Why does your internet server suddenly fail to connect when you’re waiting for an urgent email?
Why does your laptop take ½ hour to load when it knows full well that you have a bus to catch in five minutes?
The simple explanation to all of the above is that all technology – from your electric can-opener to your air-conditioning – has an in-built “annoyance” chip that is programmed to measure your levels of stress and break down accordingly.
Some photocopiers have in-built scanners that can detect movement two buildings away, assess the likelihood of photocopying being required, count the number of pages marked “urgent” and use this information to calculate the Maximum Impact Moment (or MIM) to cause a paper jam.
Many software packages have an additional stess-ono-meter to detect the urgency of your document. Don’t even bother to save your document as you go if one of these is installed on your computer, as you will return from work to find that your annual training budget has been replaced with a detailed review of flower-arranging in the gobi dessert, or something equally irrelevant.
This is by no means accidental and some computers are programmed to move all your files to new locations as part of their basic start-up procedure. No one is quite sure why this is.
Perhaps computers are intrinsically annoying? Perhaps we are all part of some global anti-Microsoft conspiracy. We may never know.
Why does your internet server suddenly fail to connect when you’re waiting for an urgent email?
Why does your laptop take ½ hour to load when it knows full well that you have a bus to catch in five minutes?
The simple explanation to all of the above is that all technology – from your electric can-opener to your air-conditioning – has an in-built “annoyance” chip that is programmed to measure your levels of stress and break down accordingly.
Some photocopiers have in-built scanners that can detect movement two buildings away, assess the likelihood of photocopying being required, count the number of pages marked “urgent” and use this information to calculate the Maximum Impact Moment (or MIM) to cause a paper jam.
Many software packages have an additional stess-ono-meter to detect the urgency of your document. Don’t even bother to save your document as you go if one of these is installed on your computer, as you will return from work to find that your annual training budget has been replaced with a detailed review of flower-arranging in the gobi dessert, or something equally irrelevant.
This is by no means accidental and some computers are programmed to move all your files to new locations as part of their basic start-up procedure. No one is quite sure why this is.
Perhaps computers are intrinsically annoying? Perhaps we are all part of some global anti-Microsoft conspiracy. We may never know.
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