5. Expectations – Isaac & Serena

“Is this real?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can I adjust this and will it really happen?”

“You could say that.”

“I just did (say that – that is) – my question was: will it really happen?”

“That depends on you.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.”

“It’s the truth – and I’m sorry about the choice of vocabulary; it really does depend on you.”

“I feel like a character in a film I once saw.”

“Interesting – what was the plot?”

“He was asking for parole after murdering somebody – but each year he’d feed them a line about how he was rehabilitated and each time they turned him down; it wasn’t until he gave up trying to guess what the right thing to say was that he was set free.”

“I’ve seen it”, he flicks the ash from his cigarette, “ – it’s a good film.”

“I didn’t see you light up!?”

“What were we talking about?”, Isaac’s phone went…

“Hold on a mo’… Yes? Right – so without that she doesn’t… and so we… ahhh – right, I should have known that before I came in. OK – damn. I’ll make the change – leave her be. Yes – I know, let’s see what happens.”, he hung up and placed the phone back inside his jacket, breathed in and quietly uttered beneath his breath:

“He relit his cigarette whilst thinking of her emotional state”

“What did you just say?”, silence… he said nothing and looked down at his feet, gently clapping his hands together as if he’d just finished gardening and was rubbing the soil from them.

“You said something about my emotional state… Oh my god! You – you’re changing me.”

“And now you can do it too – to yourself, not me… If you can start to handle this properly you might find that you can do more than read, in the not too distant future. In answer to your first question: No – it would have not ‘really happened’; but if you get through this next stage it might.”

“I can change myself! Fantastic! …but what if I change something that causes me to not remember how to change myself back? I could become someone else and not know how to fix myself.”

“Terrifying, I think, but you’re absolutely right; you could do that very thing and end up going up your own arse hole!”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“It was supposed to be funny.”

“It’s not.”

“Well – ok, ‘that’s what I’m here for, to keep you safe…’”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“Because I’m in a comedic mood and the – oh forget it; just try it out will you?”

4. Traffic Calming Part II – Donaldson & Stevens

“You remember that wireless calming system that you thought may have caused a problem with Karl Bernahrdsson’s pacemaker?”

“Yes, do you want me to come down?”

“It might make more sense – I do hate acting these things out on the phone…”, Donaldson placed the phone back on the receiver and switched on the old black metal electric fan. He started thinking whether the fans electric field was causing interference that the sites systems were picking up; and, if so, were the systems attempting to cancel them out.

“Right, go ahead.”, Stevens had arrived.

“That would be impossible though, right?”

“What would be impossible? – try to include me in any preamble when you want to discuss ideas, you know, just to bring me up to speed.”

“I was wondering if the electric fan here”, he turned it off, “would generate enough of an electromagnetic field to cause the ‘radio calming’ systems to try to cancel it out.”

“Oh…”, Stevens looked less than enthusiastic, having left the problem with Donaldson he’d not given it another thought since.

“But it would be impossible, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know – why?”

“They’d need to pick up the signal of the interference in order to know what to cancel it out with.”

“True – they would. Yes, you’re right – it couldn’t be cancelled out”

“Then how do they expect to cancel out radio hotspots unless they’re actually there experiencing it?”

“Ahhh – right, well, they might then.”

“They might? Another fine answer… please explain!”

“Well”, Stevens continued, “it might just be that the system models the electromagentic spectrum in order to ‘predict’ hot spots; it then transmits similar signals…”

“Yes – I know, to cancel it out…”

“Well, yes, but I should clarify – this is somewhat separate from the standard ‘noise reduction’ as the mechanism to cancel out the noise needs to be delivered to a particular place and is almost always achieved through refraction and reflection of the signals – not a straight forward ‘anti-replication’ of the signal passing through the building.”

“I can’t quite imagine that – although I’ll take your word for it”

“Good – I’d hate to have to explain the code behind the software that models it. What did you want me for – just that?”

“No – something else; although your answer may have helped me on the way. The system seems to never reach a balance. I wouldn’t necessarily expect it to when the areas it is monitoring are occupied although I’ve isolated some sections and it looks as though even when the living quarters are empty the system seems ‘at war’ with itself.”

“OK, I’ll bite, what do you mean?”

“I mean, well, let’s say there’s a hot spot in cabin 1; the system models that – you say – and then provides signals that will cancel out that hot spot.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Then, shortly afterwards there’s a hot spot somewhere else, perhaps – given what you’ve just told me – because the system has just adjusted what it is transmitting”

“OK”

“It then adds it’s ‘new move’ to the model and finds that it must calm that hot spot.”

“Yes – that sounds right too”

“So this loop keeps on progressing and progressing until what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does the antenna burn out – all this signal noise intended to drown out a hotspot surely causes more damage than the one hotspot eventually?”

“Ahh – no, the system should understand when it no longer…. Hmmm, I see your confusion – the signals the ‘wireless calming’ system outputs are not leyered one on top of the other – the whole system is modelled and the best ‘single’ complex blanket pattern is deployed for the ‘imagined’ state of the site.”

“By imagined I guess you mean the model that the computer has calculated”

“Yes”

“But how can it calculate it if it is constantly cocking it up? Schrödinger’s cat comes to mind – how the hell can you tell what state it’s in if your poking away at it every millisecond?”

“You can’t – it guesses.”

“This is getting beyond a joke. So there’s this ‘radio signal noise’ that purveys, no, that surrounds every inch of our life and, in order to keep it under control, we employ a computer to guess where the noise is noisiest so we can attempt to cancel it out with more noise; which, if done incorrectly, could result in fatalities?”

“Pretty much.”

“You must be hiding something from me – otherwise people in Oaklands would be dropping dead every day. Why does it work?”

“Generally speaking the signals are of such low power they’re not really an issue, the whole idea of cancelling them out seems like a publicity stunt for Oaklands anyway – if there was a health hazard we’d be doing it everywhere…”, he stepped over to the water cooler and poured some water, “the system is not constantly in ‘output’ mode, it does stop to listen to what is happening without interfering from time to time. This gives it the opportunity to update the model and send out the correct ‘blanket’ signal that it needs to…”

“Thank god for that! I was waiting for you to tell me you’d discovered that radio waves have a ‘memory’ like water – and you can ‘ask them’ where they’ve got a little bit hot under the collar?”

“No; we’re not quite away with the fairies.”

“Well if that’s true then why the instability – surely the system would vary only when occupants were interfering with the signals by using wireless enabled systems.”

“That would be my expectation, yes.”

“Well that’s not what it happening!”, Donaldson put his feet up on the desk and folded his arms as if to indicate his work was over.

“The idea was to establish why Karl Bernahrdsson’s pacemaker failed to restart his heart; not simply pick holes in the wireless calming system.”, Stevens knew that the best reaction to this was a resignation on his part – let Donaldson lead for a moment, he obviously had more information than he was letting on.

“OK – well I requested an autopsy report. It seems our dearly departed Karl was somewhat cooked from the inside out – judging from his activities leading up to his death he was finding it more and more difficult to get out of the house and so spent time working from home. Hot spots in his apartment are far from regular – but if you put a bag of bones in there (and the accompanying water that goes with it) the ‘imagined system’ that I’ve been informed of contains hotspots in his bed, on the sofa – just about where he watches the TV) and in the bath.”

“Sounds like someone was trying to kill him.”

“I thought that too.”

“Anything odd about the software? Have you asked it why the hot spots are there?”

“I don’t have permission to ‘converse’ with it.”

“I’ll get that changed – and I’ll get you a list of the people who did.”

“Thanks – oh, and just reassure me, we don’t have ‘noise cancellation’ here do we?”

“Funny.”, Stevens raised his eyebrows in disapproval at the joke and left.

3. False Memory Theory – Isaac & Serena

“So how’s it going”, Isaac had been sitting next to Serena for about five minutes before he interrupted her chain of thought…

“How is it going”

“Come on now, there’s no need to get all grammatical on me.”

“I’m sorry – but it would be so simple just to get it right.”, she looked up at him conveying, facially, a level of helplessness and, at the same time, disappointment,

“No need to apologise – we have a lot to sort out and no time for that level of politeness. They’re both right – incidentally… ”

“Not necessarily in written form. OK – I agree about the politeness”, her body contracted down into the chair slightly.

“Are you shaking?”

“Something like that – I think it’s just too much coffee”

“You’ve not had that much have you?”

“I don’t know – I’ve lost track”

“Well, here have some water”

“If you think it will help.”

“Possibly…”

“What do you want?”

“Just to see how you are.”

“Well, how am I?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

There was a pause. The conversation was brisk.

“I don’t quite see what it is you want to tell me; or what you want me to tell you.”

“Good – you’re jumping ahead, but remember, although I want you to be honest, I need you to keep things sequential. There’s no good in jumping ahead of me – although you can read what I’m about to ask there are things I know that you don’t.”

“Then what’s the point in being able to read you?”

“It gives you an opportunity to frame your answer. Choose a good ‘response frame’ into which you can fit your answer”

“And if the answer doesn’t fit your question?”

“Well then you choose a better frame”

“Then what was the point in framing before I knew the answer?”

“It makes your response seem more immediate, more believable to … me.”

She laughed, “This is pointless”

“Why?”

“Everything seems pointless”

“Well let’s give you something to do then”

“OK”, she stared at him, “I’m starting not to trust you”

“But you wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“I’m not allowed to”

“Well if you’re not allowed to then why would you start to not trust me?”

“It’s an expression – I… ‘like’ you.”, she moved the lighter to a 45 degree angle and turned it over to hide the starfish; a green and black cartoon crab stared back;

“Well, I’m glad to hear it, I like you too – remember, we did know it each other very well for a time.”

“I’m starting to doubt that.”

“Oh – so you think that might be a false memory? Been reading up on your Freud have you.”

“Something like that”

“Well if you haven’t then look into it – Freud had a take on that sort…”

“I CAN’T LIE TO YOU…!”, it was shouted, she crossed her arms. Isaac was taken aback:

“OK, ok, it’s just conversation… It seemed like a non-committal answer, if you ask me – now Freud, a take… er on that – ah here we are – sort …of thing and it might prove useful when you’re trying to express yourself.”

She visibly shook as if in anger or hatred; as if she found her self stuck somewhere, tied down; Iasaac lent forward and touched her arm – for the first time with any sort of empathy, “OK?”

“Thank you”, she visibly relaxed and took a sip of the water in front of her.

A long pause… Serena watched him as if observing a long lost memory, watching him survey the surroundings as though they were of some consequence and then she moved her attention to the cartoon ’emerald crab’. One half-leg of a star fish from the table-side of the lighter wrapped around it’s edge into her view and she began to feel as though she missed them dearly.

“Still smoking then?”, he leaned back on his chair

“Yes – for the moment… it doesn’t seem to matter any more.”

“Well – yes, I can see that point of view, but I’d be inclined to give up for the sake of it; if it doesn’t matter there’s no point doing it is there?”

“If you say so.”, annoyance returned.

“Why would you be annoyed about that?”

“You’re always telling me what to do…”

“You used to like that!”

“That was different – I enjoyed what we were doing then”

“Hmmm – I remember… Maybe we should try some role reversal and you tell me what to do next time”

“You sound like a bad book”

“Like a bad dog? A book that has done a bad thing? …or a badly written book. I mean, really, you were bad in bed – but I never complained. It was good.”

“You’ve made your point.”, she stopped and seemed truly confused. “It’ll never happen – let’s stick to work… Please – if this is important, as you suggest, I don’t think it’s a good idea to get confused as to what’s real and what’s not.”

“It’s all real – don’t you remember?”

“I mean – if you’re going to pretend to love me then I’d rather not do it…”

“OK – I won’t pretend to love you”

“Do I tell you what to do now?”

“If you want. I’m all ears.”

Silence… “Why?”

“Not quite there yet then. ‘Why?’ is not an instruction by the way. I’ll let you read some more.”

2. Traffic Calming Part I – Donaldson & Stevens

“He was ‘found dead’ this morning at 08:15”

“Who by?”

“His heart monitoring software – it alerted the local hospital and a couple of medics were dispatched arriving at approximately 08:22; they confirmed that the heart had stopped.”

“So was he resuscitated?”

“Yes – sort of, there was a miss-understanding concerning the diagnosis which led to the victim being resuscitated and subsequently lost”

“Go on…”

“On arrival the medics found that the victim’s pacemaker was malfunctioning and did not provide the boost required to restart his heart. In these cases pacemakers can normally be induced to restart the heart without any surgery; this procedure was carried out and the heart appeared to start momentarily, along with the victims breathing through ventilation”

“Which didn’t last long, I presume – I think I can see where this is going…”

“Yes – it was short lived; as was a brief moment of consciousness for the victim”

“Can we stop using the words ‘the victim’ it’s taking too long – what was his name?”

“Karl Bernahrdsson”

“Interesting – go on, let’s here the grand finale”

“During consciousness the deceased… Karl Bernahrdsson…”

“For god’s sake…”

“Attempted to communicate with the medics – he was recorded as saying, ‘shot’ whilst seemingly attempting to point to his chest”

“Implying he thought he was shot?”

“I don’t know, sir”

“You know I don’t like that – Ow, my damn hand… why the hell is it hurting – that never happens”

“What don’t you like?”

“That ‘sir’ business…”

There was a long pause.

“Well?”, Donaldson looked up from his sketch pad waiting for more…

“You want me to go on?”

“Well of course I do – do you think I’m just going to sit here and wait for the world to go by when you’ve just told me something needs to be fixed?”, no reaction, “Let’s take a quick look at the video feed – I want to check the… flat, house whatever it is…”

“A flat sir, in the Oakland Village”

“What floor”, Donaldson span his chair round and pulled himself towards his work desk,

“241”

“Let’s take a look; for a supposedly tech-free society they do like their gadgets… Yes – is this a glasses feed or an implant?”

“I’d guess an ‘bio-enhancement’, sir, given the poor colour quality…”

“It’s clear as a bell apart from the colour – so, I’ve got his last moments right here – drinking coffee after coffee…”, Donaldon fast forwarded the video feed,

“…he must have been dehydrated; …or felt like he was… looking for something… remote control for the pacemaker perhaps – yep, bingo, there it is. Nope – not interested in that – different ideas? Hmmm – seems to be looking for… his watch?”

“He’s collapsing there…”

“Yes – not sure he’s thinking too much about calling someone…”

“Maybe he thought his pacemaker would let somebody know”

“Maybe – but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to rely on it… look, there, he’s gone for his computer pad now; watch not good enough for you, eh?”

“I suppose not – what’s he doing?”

“A signal diagnostic…”

The feed stopped; Donaldson slowly turned his chair in Stevens’ direction. They smiled at each other.

“I don’t suppose you’d ever consider testing the intensity of signal noise as you were taking your last breaths, would you…”

“Not sure sir, not yet taken my last breaths as far as I recall…”

“Oh god… OK – drop the policeman façade, it was a crap idea anyway”

“Thank god for that… it was annoying the hell out of me, sir…”

“Very funny… Did anyone want him dead?”

“Possibly – he led the review team for work processes at Oakland and Silversand; basically he attempted to find ways of reducing the manual labour”

“So we have a list of those that prefer not to have their day to day lives reviewed from above?”

“Unlikely that they were directly involved, sir.”

“Yes – it seemed unlikely that they would kill somebody for that… I presume we’re talking another round of over excited egos?”

“Well, there’s been increased access to the Oakland communications hub.”

“Internal or external?”

“Both actually, although most of the ‘work’ seems to have been carried out on the internal node”

“Great. Is there enough power to injure somebody with the internal node wireless system?”

“No – well, perhaps…”

“’No, perhaps?’ What sort of answer is that?”

“Well they’re trialling a new system at Oakland – similar to the systems we use on the external hubs”

“Don’t tell me they’ve boosted their power supply enough to cause someone’s pacemaker to backfire? Open and shut case!”

“Not exactly, sir, Oakland has, as you know, been developed as a place of tranquillity – something akin to being in the countryside; it has various flora and fauna planted throughout all it’s floors – with the central atrium containing a sort of ‘vertically planted forest’ – if that makes sense to you?”

“Not really – but what was the point”

“It was considered that some occupants who resist the temptation to use technology in their day to day lives might want to live in a substantially electromagnetic wave free environment”

“Yes – and so…?”

“And so systems were developed to cancel out the electromagnetic radiation that was either man made or otherwise”

“I hope they drew the line at sun-light?”

“Yes, yes – of course it was targeted primarily at lower frequencies such as radio and microwave – but also there were attempts in the pipeline to calm x-ray and gamma ray frequencies as well.”

“Sounds like a formidable idea – calm those frequencies down and we can all live quietly and happily until somebody accidentally fails to cancel and through some slip of the technology enhances those little old gamma rays…”

“Yes – sorry about that sir”

“Don’t apologise it’s not your fault is it?”

“No sir.”

“Oh god – back to the policeman impersonation. Go on…”

“No X-ray or gamma ray cancellation has been attempted.”

“Good – so at least we can cross off radioactive radiation as a cause of death”

“Yes sir… but, not entirely, perhaps.”

“Please do go on – you sound like you’ve found the solution already.”

“I think I may have done – although I’m not sure what the course of action might be. The electromagnetic noise cancelling works much the same way as headphone noise cancelling products. The system listens for electromagnetic waves and, in order to ‘calm’ them an equal and opposite wave is created to cancel the original wave’s effect. There are a number of problems to this compared with the rather simplistic sound cancelling solutions; number 1: the electromagnetic waves…”, Donaldson winced with the repetition,

“..sorry sir – I’ll refer to them as radio waves from now on – radio waves operate in many ‘planes’ and in some instances can even be ‘twisted’ if the transmitter is rotating, for instance. Each signal that is received, therefore, must be understood in amplitude as well as orientation and direction (as attempting to calm the frequency back towards the originating transmitter of a twisted signal will require a counter rotation or the calmer’s transmission antenna).”

“…is this level of detail required Stevens?”

“I think so sir; anyway, because the nature of calming has additional attributes to sound and is also intended to work within a multi-storey environment in ‘3D’ the reception apparatus is complex as is the transmission apparatus. In addition any calculations required must be pretty much instantaneous as we are dealing with signals travelling at the speed of light.”

“OK, so down to brass tacks as they say – does it work?”

“Yes – mostly.”

“Which bits don’t work?”

“Twisted or rotational signals are still not particularly well understood when they interfere with obstacles.”

“That doesn’t sound like an answer to me. If it doesn’t work could it cause an injury?”

“I think so.”

“Under what circumstances”

“Part of the systems’ proposed requirements were to aid in the cancellation of radio ‘hotspots’ brought about by independently run electronic systems throughout the home, whilst still allowing through some wireless signals that were deemed ‘required’ for emergency systems. Hot spots were sometimes known to be created due to refraction and reflection of radio or micro waves around the building – much in the same way that light is reflected and refracted as it travels through water or glass, longer wavelengths such as microwave and radio waves are affected as they pass through walls and, say, people. Occasionally, completely separate signals would converge in a space and ‘amplify’ one another. In most unusual circumstances plastics were known to melt in some steel structured buildings that focused radio signals inappropriately.”

“Frightening – please give me a list of the problem areas so that I can avoid them.”

“There are none – nowadays sir, due to various building regulations and calming systems such as the new one at Oaklands. It uses an array of signal receivers and transmitters to ensure that wireless communications are sent to only where they are needed and are mostly cancelled out from those areas where they are not. The ‘cancelling’ is only in the Oakland facility, however, Silversand and Upton are still ‘au naturale’, if you will…”

“OK – so what you’re saying is that the radio calming system may have a) been tampered with to produce an attack on a member of the Oakland community or b) is failing to work correctly (possibly in the realm of ‘rotational signals’) and, perhaps, some interference from a pacemaker caused a ‘pocket’ of high energy that caused an accidental death?”

“That sounds like a reasonable assessment sir”

“OK, good… that sounds like we have a case to work with… I’ll monitor it.”

“Good – thank you sir.”

“Anything else?”

“No – that’s all for the moment.”

“I’ll call you.”

1. A Wide Open Space (We’ve Started)…

“It’s like being used over and over again to do the same thing… I hate it.”

“How long has it been going on for?”

“About ten or fifteen years, depending on how you think about it.”

“And how do you think about it?”

“I try not to – if I do it feels like my life is just an excuse to waste time.”

He stopped for a moment, took a cigarette from the pack on the table and started searching for a light.

“Have you got a light?”

She smiled: “I thought you were going to ask me something else…”

“I can do – just as soon as I light this cigarette”, she threw him her lighter; he took a glance at it before quickly lifting it to light up.

“Starfish – I like it… on a beach, I presume.”

“I don’t know – it just seemed to make me happy when I saw it”

“Is there much happiness in your life?”

“That’s what I thought you were going to ask me; before, I mean…”

Isaac placed the lighter onto the table in front of them, equidistantly between their two cups of coffee, starfish side up:

“So you’re intelligent; you can quickly see the rules of life and see what might happen next”

“It’s not interesting though”

“Perhaps, Serena, the interest comes from understanding what to do with the talent”

“I only ever think of bad things to do – I get angry with people…”

“The situation…”

“What?”

“It’s better to get annoyed – or angry as you put it – with the situation, rather than with a person or persons.”, he turned the lighter over hiding the image.

“What difference does it make?”

“It makes a big difference – it can be the difference between doing something useful with your talent and getting annoyed with everybody and yourself. Try it… if you like.”

“OK – I might do… once I get ‘annoyed’ I find myself less likely to ‘help’.”

He paused and looked at her, trying to gauge whether she was still thinking – she was looking down at her hands. The odd car drifted by, another drag on the cigarette and he drank some of the cold black coffee that had been untouched on the table for about 10 minutes. He winced:

“I don’t know why I drink coffee – I’m not convinced I actually like it.”

“You’re just the same, aren’t you…”, not a question – more of a statement, a gradual realisation, “you’re trapped too – aren’t you?”

“If you mean I’m trapped by my romantic 1950’s Hollywood vision of the world and that I believe that at moments like these I should smoke a cigarette and drink black coffee whilst I talk to my beautiful ex-girlfriend then, yes, I’m trapped… I drink coffee because I think it fits the part I’m playing.”

“Why do you play it if you don’t like it?”

“It’s not that much of a hardship to drink black coffee, smoke too many cigarettes and spend some time with the only girl I ever loved…”

“Stop!”

“I’m afraid you can’t switch me off – that bit of my life was real – I did love you. It’s the rest of it that seems a bit mad… otherwise I’m just hanging around waiting for the rest of my consciousness to return.”

“Sorry – I didn’t mean to do that. I mean, I didn’t mean to say ‘stop’.”

“It’s OK, no harm done. I’m in a wide open space…”

She smiled – and shook a little with a suggestion of laughter; by way of explanation:

“Just a song I used to like – in fact I still like it… reminds me of long drives…”

“Sounds good. So how does life feel now?”

“OK. Thanks. I know you’ve helped – although I’m not quite sure how.”

“Nor am I. It might be that I haven’t.”

“Well thanks anyway. Thanks for your time.”

He stood and stretched, arching his back: “It’s always my pleasure. …and if you feel the urge to ‘put out’ as our American cousins would put it – do get in touch.”

“You’re starting to sound like a film now. I don’t like it…”

“Too late. You’re stuck with it – we’ve started.”

Squiddling Around Salisbury

Squiddling around Salisbury tomorrow I found that I had missed something quite astonishing about the town in the subsequent 15 visits over the next so-many-years.

It’s an easy thought to conjure – but when I looked about at my life, in those years to come, I couldn’t help but think: ‘Goodness gracious me – where is the Lotus garage that once I held in such high esteem?’

Clearly, it’s still there – but, I find, it remains far less interesting than it ever used to be. Not too dissimilar to the rest of my life – a problem I have been battling with since my return from India; an endless chain of tainted love, boredom and waiting.

I wonder, then, lonely as a luxo lamp, that jumps on high and squashes small colourful balls at the start of films. Or was it Luxor – a distant land somehow reminiscent of Egypt’s greatest Kings and Queens – or, perhaps, gamblers? …as I was saying: I wonder, not wander, WONDER at the sheer size of the world these days – not that geographically it’s extended itself that much – but, more importantly, how small it has got; I mean, I can write this unfeasibly meaningless pseudo-article and some idiot makes the electricity to transmit it with the assumption that it might just be as important as a piece of news; what’s more, I look out from the computer screen and wonder why you are actually reading it…  Hmmmmmm…

Have you truly not got anything better to do with your life than consume other people’s writings? Perhaps it is time to start again and leave the house, leave the phone where it is, visit a neighbour/friend/associate and talk about doing something different – something you have yet to do; something that is outside the general pattern of your life – avoid the news, avoid the TV, avoid the settee… 

Or: you could go to the pub. I hear it’s quite nice there. 

Here – something new – a new word:

bliesfelt [ˈblys-felt] Brit Slang

adj

1. weary; tired out

2. weary of food; overly full, esp after an interview and too much pasta the previous night

This is how I will be mostly feeling tomorrow. See if you can remember it and use it…  If you can’t what went wrong with your brain?

Windows 8 and The Beach

OK, let’s get one thing straight from the off – I am not referring to ‘The Beach’, the well known book-to-film creation by Alex Garland. Incidentally, it was directed by Danny Boyle, the same guy that designed the opening to the London Olympic games – just after completing a film where someone gnaws their arm off in disappointment. I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before.

Anyway, not that beach. But I digress, you’re far more interested in the whole Windows 8 thing, eh? Aren’t you? I mean that’s what you searched for when you got here, right? Good – then I’ll begin:

It’s installed. I partitioned away a little side alley of hard disk space to allow me to start up in Windows 7 or Windows 8 – a neat little trick which gives me a fancy blue menu with icons (none of this text based rubbish we’ve been used to in the past). Nothing particularly clever required – simply bought Windows 8 online, downloaded it, burned it to a CD (all of which it did without me having to intervene – Windows 7 will burn DVDs; although, I was told that Windows XP and Vista may require additional ISO to DVD burning software for this bit).

Once burned a reboot caused my PC to start from the DVD and after about half an hour I had a dual boot hard disk with Windows 8 unable to connect to the internet. Obviously, had I not bothered to create this state of dualistic preposterousness, the upgrade of my existing Windows 7 would have been a breeze and my network connection intact.

So, having got over feeling somewhat preposterated, I thought I’d try using the thing (Windows 8 that is). First things first, I connected my Windows login to a Hotmail account which made everything fantastic – I won’t tell you why, I just wrote it down and it was the most tedious sentence I have ever written – so find out for yourself.

I’m playing music, writing software, writing a blog post, browsing Wiki (honestly, I actually ended up reading about Azure Damsel Flies and then the colour Azure blue – the page was so enticingly rendered before me); Skype’s running in the background and from time to time I have asked Google (with my microphone) to search for ‘Penn Treebank tags’. The latter was a pain in the backside – and not just because of my seated position, but, more importantly, because I had to put on an American accent for it to understand me properly.

A fantastic old book ‘I Seem To Be A Verb’ caught my eye during my web travels within Windows 8. I tried to search for more information with Google – but Google insisted I was looking for a book called ‘I seem to be a…’: ‘phone’, ‘fun’, ‘above’, ‘B of A’, ‘availab’ or a myriad of other quite reasonably abstract things (given the content of the book). Apparently, it’s going around that ‘I seem to be an idiot for not typing the request in the first place’. Which, I have to say, I tend to agree with.

It’s by this chap who seemed to be interested in ‘the sustainable planet’ long before it caught on – if you can’t be bothered to do anything else go to Amazon and request it on Kindle – just to annoy them, who knows, they may do it. Remember, if every trim-tab does it the Queen Mary will change direction – or something like that; although I think it’s just wishful thinking.

Anyway – Windows 8, seems pretty good; and this whole ‘mobile technology’ thing that they have going on with their apps is saving memory and processor time something extraordinary (when apps are not directly in use they pretty much drop down to no CPU usage – so, I guess I’ll use less electricity and I won’t memory-fault – or something) – it’s also seemingly much easier to understand what’s going on without having to resize windows (everything is full screen by default).

Right – must get on as ‘Time is a Jailer’ and with the music on this loud the ‘Sound of the Suburbs’ will be disturbed despite my double glazing (‘Right Through You’). Finally, in Total Contrast to all that: ‘Takes a little time to get it right, Don’t you believe in love at first sight…’; reminds me of a weird pub in Oslo – or does it?  And on that note…

I’ll be utterly bedgasmed in just a few minutes – and no, that has nothing to do with living in Essex – thank goodness; oh and damn, I was planning to go to the beach today and stand on a groin… Maybe next week.

Something About You

As I sit ‘virtually’ thumbing through the albums of my past on YouTube.com I find myself following an interesting pattern – those tunes made all too familiar to me by way of 6^th form ‘ghetto blasters’ of my past are now strewn across you-tube by uploaders all over the world – and I can’t help but mentally revisit almost every 6^th form party I ever attended through the memory of these songs.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – but as I rejoice in the happiness of my past, looking through the wondrous annals of 1980’s pop: Level 42, Erasure, Bronski Beat, Visage, Ultravox and, dare I say it, Curiosity Killed the Cat; I find my inner technologist briefly considering how all these pop videos have become ‘related’ on You-Tube.

The videos are linked because of the order in which other users have played them – caused by recollections of similar experiences to mine; which is a comforting thought as I pass into my 42^nd year – there are other sad idiots like myself wasting time on a Saturday night having only just recovered from a massive 3 pints of Grolsch (such is the heavy-weight I am in the world of championship drinking) from the previous night (OK – there may have been a few glasses of wine too).

This may all be interesting enough to some (I doubt it), but then it occurred to me, on the upside, that there must, equally, be numerous people out there that have happily thrown a party and gathered their favourite 80’s pop to play on a full screen projector and rejoiced en masse at songs that had more to say than your standard Danish/Norwegian pop band of the 1990’s: I think, primarily, of ‘Barbie Girl’ which seems nowadays to have more in common with CBeebies ‘Lazy Town’ – yes we took the format and saw that it was fit for pre-school children audiences only; let’s face it, it’s Sawadee Krahp! Thankfully, I hear it’s becoming common knowledge that, if you speed date, “Did you buy ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’” is a good time saving question to ask if you don’t like the look of someone…

Anyway, I digress, which isn’t unusual for me, so back to the 80’s: as I thought more and more about those happy days of teenage pop bliss, cycling from party to party with my cheap Sony imitation personal tape player, with handlebar clutched in one hand and a small bottle of Captain Morgan clutched in the other, I started to imagine all those less than happy people ‘Fading to Grey’ as they were drunkenly propped up against a luxury flat wall, vodka bottle in one hand life in the other, pouring their heart out about how unhappy their lives are now they find themselves in the ‘future’ and no longer in the happy heady days of 1980’s innocence…

Ahh well, sod ‘em – at least I know why the videos are related…

Oompa Loompas, Royal Weddings and Coca-Cola

It seems to have been an age since I last updated this blog; mainly because there wasn’t that much to say (not unusual, life sometimes throws these long repetitive streaks at you, during which the most interesting thing is that the spider that is oft seen crawling eastwards across the floor decides to crawl in another direction; incidentally: if you are really stuck for something to do you can catch that spider and make it crawl Westwards using a thin piece of thread – if you feel so inclined – but you would, indeed, have to be extra-ordinarily sadistic and bored to the point of brain death).

So: many months through the work, home, beer, TV cigarettes and peanuts routine, I ventured out onto the London Underground (that’s a capital ‘U’ there as it seems, now, to be a ‘brand’ – with T-shirts, mugs and maps – lots of maps) and I ran into some Oompa Loompas, as one would prior to coming home to write about it. Picture embedded.

I also notice that there’s been a Royal Wedding (I presume with a capital R & W, although not because of it’s capitalist tendencies… although???). Yes, sitting peacefully on my own throne reading the paper it appears I missed ‘the moment of the century’ – something I was quite shocked about. When did it happen???  Aaaah – I slept through it, I hope it held as much promise and joi-de-vivre as the last one – if not more…

Anyway – this brought me on to the next weird episode, something I had completely forgotten about; something to do with some terrorist – anyway, apparently he’s been caught or shot; not sure which; but it turned out that the president of America is very happy; no, relieved (I think is the official line).

Lastly, I’ve found a new place to live – a little sad as the old place (this place) is still great – but the new place is nearer to the things I love the most. Food and beer, mainly. Which can make an awfully big impact on one’s belly. SO I had better be careful and get fit – it had to happen sooner or later; I would have preferred later.

So, all in all, a good week – except for those Oompa Loompas, where were they going? Why was there only one female and, more to the point, since when has there been female Oompa Loompas anyway, at the last incarnation of them they were all clones of the one Oompa (and had a very unstable relationship with the world of pop music) – which all seemed rather surreal; I presume the underlying message behind the latest ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ ‘Drugs – just say no!’, which I sort of remember from my days playing arcade machines in the late 1980’s. Astonishingly, though, Coca-cola (despite the rumours one way and the other) does still contain ingredients from the Coca plant (albeit, I stress, a cocaine-free ingredient). Don’t believe me? Well here’s the extract from the Wikipedia entry:

In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant,[34] which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.

Cocaine itself was dropped from the secret formulae back in 1900 according to this article: ‘Coca Kick in drinks spurs export fears‘. Amazing! Well – on a different topic, my photograph of the Oompas leaves a lot to be desired, I’m obviously not quite at the paparazzi level; but that’s a different story. Instead to finish with here’s some recently married Esso people – they’re living very happily together in a shop window not far from here. I missed their wedding too.

Oh – incidentally, the piano graveyard picture really has nothing to do with this post – but as I didn’t get off my arse to take the picture of the spider running across the carpet recently I thought I’d add my favourite picture of the moment. Who knows, this may become a running feature. But probably not.

Technorati Tags: Coca-cola,Oompa-loompa,London Undeground,Esso

Has Bournemouth gone fitness mad?

“Now hold on a minute”, I hear you say, “I live in Bournemouth and there’s absolutely no way I could be confused with an adrenalin junky”. “…and fair play to you”, I would say, however, it does seem that the Borough of Bournemouth (which, for those finickity types out there, includes Boscombe) is starting to take on a ‘wellness of the populous’ stance in their city planning.

First there was the Boscombe ‘rejuvenation’ project that included a new pier approach, The Overstrand (with it’s endless kayak, surf board rentals and Urban Reef) and the artificial reef – a transformation of the beach front itself. Not so much geared towards fitness, but on a clear day who could refrain from a quick surf lesson with somebody from the local Sorted Surf Shop. Before you know it your abs too could look, well, different.

Then came ‘Pavilion Dance’ hot on it’s heals – just moments away from Bournemouth Pier. A veritable cornucopia of dance lessons and performances scheduled in to take us to Christmas and beyond, already. If you ever had an inclination to try Krumping, Waacking or Lindy Hop (the latter I hear is popular with some) then take a look. It’s only just opened (in September); and, if the above all sounds too run of the mill, why not try Appalachian Clog – if nothing else, an excellent way to add a little something new to your sex life. There are performances galore as well – with up to three performances a night in some circumstances. Go there – try it out, I say!

So we have surfing, kayaking, dancing (and not just the standard drunken experience that some remember from university years) and now…  Ice Staking. Yes – some twenty years or so since the Bournemouth Ice Rink closed on Westover Road finally someone with some sense has realised that this is quite a fun way to spend an afternoon – especially if it’s raining and you’re in Bournemouth on a brief summer break (obviously, this never happens, the sun always shines – and, no, Bournemouth Tourist Board aren’t paying me, not yet anyway).

“So where is this ice rink going to be”, I hear you cry out with exultation! OK, ok, calm down, it’s only an ice rink – and more to the point it’s not built yet. I do hear, though, that the new rink will be in Kings Park and should look something like that which is pictured inset.

If you’re a Facebook fan take a look here. It looks big, you might think, and you’d be right – it’s an Olympic sized Ice Rink with, by the looks of things, plenty of other facilities including: 5000 seats (for spectators, not just for tired shoppers – although?), climbing wall, standing surf wave (to get your practice in before doing the real thing down at Boscombe Pier), synthetic turf pitches for football, netball, tennis and hockey.

…and what do we lose – a couple of football pitches, I never liked the game anyway so I’m not fussed. Actually, they aren’t lost, they’re merely relocated to elsewhere within the park. The real impact is losing green open spaces – but if done well, perhaps more people will think to go and enjoy the green open space before and after their skating. Regardless of your stance on all this you can still have your say here: the Online Planning Applications Register – and remember, if you haven’t got a complaint about it – praise it, if you want that rink for your kids (well, for you really, but who’d admit to that)…

P.S. On the Pavilion Dance situation: if anyone can find out how they teach Parkour in a dance studio, please get back to me (visions of Matrix style sequences on entering the studio, surely aren’t possible, are they?).