Showing posts with label observations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label observations. Show all posts

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Fairy rings in Battersea Park

On our way back from Battersea Park during the London Open House 2011 I saw what had to be a fairy ring. Closer inspection revealed the fungi responsible.

Fairy ring in Battersea park 1
Fairy ring in Battersea park 1

According to wikipedia they can grow to be several hundred years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring

Fairy ring in Battersea park 2
Fairy ring in Battersea park 2

Easy to spot if you know what they are. We saw several more last weekend on our way through King George's Park when we went for a wander down the Wandle to Merton Abbey Mills. Isn't nature wonderful!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Limitations of iPhone maps

The iPhone resolutely refused to believe that I can walk on water. I was actually on a Thames Clipper en route from London Bridge to Embankment so in the middle of the river.

The normally accurate map claimed not to know my true location as indicated by the wide uncertainty radius of the blue halo. Instead it skulked along the riverbank tracking me as we sailed and refusing to get its feet wet.



Is this a bug or a feature?

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Oobit, woubit

A while back my barber asked, at the end of the cut, if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed. While they are not yet at the hairy caterpillar stage it was a first time to be asked; the "joys" of getting maturer.



It reminded me of one of my favourite pair of definitions from the OED: oobit and woubit. But googling "define oobit" and "define woubit" did not return any definitions. So here to put the record straight are the relevant entries from the Shorter OED (without the etymological bumpf):

Oobit
See Woubit.
Woubit
A hairy caterpillar; a woolly bear.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Mark McLellan - My Year in Status

When I did my Facebook year in status it neatly precised the last twelve months: music, food & drink, cycling, travel.

Mark McLellan - My Year in Status

Music was a rich year with some most entertaining evenings out:
  • Tina Turner at the O2 (brilliant!)
  • Rick Wakeman at Hampton Court Palace
  • New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans (too many artists to list)
  • New Orleans festival at the O2 (John Mooney, Dr John)
  • Neil Young in Hyde Park (also Seasick Steve)
  • James Taylor at the O2
  • Sapphire Bullets in a pub in Kingston on Thames
  • U2 at Wembley
  • Bolan Bop in Golders Green
  • T.Rextasy at Epsom
  • Bill Bailey's Extraordinary Guide to the Orchestra 
  • Bill Posters Will be Band plus Three Bonzos and a Piano at The Bull's Head, Barnes
http://blog.mmenterprises.co.uk/search/label/music

Food and drink to many to mention, see:
Travel is not good for our carbon footprint. The most frequent destination was Scotland to visit Mary's mum and help her with the down-sizing and move to the sheltered accommodation. Of course the Trulli gets a number of hits.
  • Scotland (10) - visiting May
  • Italy (5) - open up, holidays, close down
  • New Orleans (1) - Jazz Fest
  • South Africa (1) - Whale watching in Hermanus
  • Bowness (1) - walking in the lake district
  • France (1) - weekend visiting John and Andrea in Bordeaux
  • Dublin (1) - Valentine's Day weekend

Cycling

One charity ride (London Bikeathon in Aid of Leukaemia Research) and load of miles commuting to work by bike.

Health
I had a cataract operation in March in the left eye which went well. As only the one eye was done that left me with mismatched eyes. I cannot now use glasses as the prescriptions are two disparate - I miss the varifocal lenses. Instead I use a long distance contact lens in the left and reading power in the right - leaving the brain to auto-flip flop between the images; odd but mostly works ok.
Work should get a mention. At the tail end of 2008 I was budget cut out of BT after four years of contract renewals. I then got a contract as "poacher turned gamekeeper" at Wexham Park Hospital. After only two months there the financial axe fell again and, as freelancers are easy meat for the cull, I was out again.

Luckily I obtained a new contract on a really interesting project, with excellent colleagues in a good location (London Bridge) that I cycle to most days that I can. The rate wasn't top of the range but who's complaining with the other plus points.

What is a pain is that the agency through whom I was contracting went into voluntary liquidation owing me three months money. I am unlikely to ever see that but the plus side is that I am now working directly for the client and get the old agency's cut so will gradually claw back the loss. And the work looks set fair to continue for some time.

Christmas: The previous two Christmases were spent in South Africa so this year it was our turn to host Mary's Mum and stay in the UK. We spent a relaxing time as home in Wandsworth with May mostly knitting in the corner. We were joined by my Mum and Dad for Christmas Day goose and on New Year's Eve our friends Bob and Lynne joined us for a meal at a local restaurant.

No New Year resolutions but if I were to make one it would be "to become older and wiser". That way I am guaranteed at least a 50 percent success :-)

PS [14-Jan-10]
Molly the Morris Minor: How could I have missed that other milestone of the year? After 13 years with us Molly the Morris Minor went off to a new home. http://blog.mmenterprises.co.uk/search/label/cars

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Twitter: over-hyped, information poor, time sponge

I don't get Twitter.

I check once a day more or less. I get hundreds of tweets and I'm only following 50 or so people. Most of it is drivel: replies @somebody who I don't know in response to some tweet I did not see - like hearing only one half of a telephone conversation. Or it is out and out marketing puff dangerously close to spam. Why waste my time sifting through all that dross in order to find the occasional nugget.

I have enough trouble processing my inbox at home and at work and catching up on my Facebook notifications and writing my blog and living my life without allocating more of my scare time to Twitter.

Don't these Twitterers have a life or a job? Unless you are a professional communicator when do these people find the time? Are these people surfing at work? I have a job, stuff to do, I have a life, places to go, a home, chores to do. Something has got to be good to claim some of my precious time and Twitter is not that.

Who are my followers and why are they following me? Till now couple of friends but mostly me doing reciprocal follows. Have they picked up on my witty banter, my contribution to #fqf and #jazzfest? No it looks like they are searching Twitter for certain key words and stalking me as marketing fodder. Looks like spambot work to me. I have now started un-following.

And what is it with all this talk of "promoting your personal brand"? What kind of marketing b*ll**ks is that. I am not a commodity like a packet of soap powder. There seem to be a lot of people out there who think that Twitter is there solely as some kind of monetisable sales channel. Go away you people, I do not want to be CRM-ed.

No, I really don't get Twitter.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Wordle: Gullible's Travels as a Word Cloud

Courtesy of http://www.wordle.net/ the current blog converted to a word cloud:

Wordle: Gullible's Travels as a Word Cloud

It would appear that "weekend", "sunshine", "May" (the MIL) and "lunch" are key 'themes du jour'. That seems fairy nuff to me.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The one eyed man is king

or in my case two separate one eyed men. Another unintended consequence of the cataract operation and opting for the myopia correction. As previously blogged I cannot use glasses alone to correct my vision as the prescriptions in the two eyes are too dissimilar.

Varifocal hard contact lenses was an option but I am still too squeamish about eyes. Mary has worn hard lenses for twenty plus years. I may be too old a dog and watching her trying to retrieve them when they go wandering off into the corner of her eye is more than I can bear to watch let alone contemplate doing it in my own eyes.

Instead, at the optician's suggestion, I am trialling a weird solution using soft daily disposable lenses: long distance in my dominant right eye and reading strength in my left. He assures me that the brain automatically adjusts and uses the relevant image. This is mostly true but feels a bit weird. I can always see both near and far but there is always an out of focus component from the other eye. I feel oddly spacey most of the time but (I hope) that will pass.

I did notice the mono-vision at the cinema the other night watching the excellent Star Trek. You try watching an entire movie with one eye half closed and that will give you a feel for what it is like.

Other side effects are simply those of switching from glasses to lenses such as I do not steam up when I open the door of the oven or dishwasher. Also I miss not being able to take off my glasses to do really close fiddly work.

Another side effect is that my stereo vision may not be as good for judging distances. Safe for normal everyday use - I have not bumped onto anything yet - but not much point in going to the IMAX to see a film in 3D then :-(

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

After effects of cataract operation

Unintended consequences of the cataract operation are various.

I went back to the surgeon on the eve of our New Orleans trip for my four week check up. I was relieved to learn that the eye had healed perfectly and the discomfort was due to an irritation easily cured with a steroidal eye-drops for a few days and not terrible scarring or some such (did I mention I have fevered imagination).

Anyhow several unexpected corollaries follow on from the operation:

1) I was offered the option of correcting my lifetime's short-sightedness by having a powered lens inserted which I opted for. Unfortunately the human body is a natural product and variations will occur - there is an art to guessing the right corrective power.

Instead of perfect driving vision I had a far point of about six foot. As the eye healed this halved to about three foot. Fine for the dinner table but not good for driving or general outdoor life. So I will still need some optical correction - glasses or contact lenses.

2) I cannot correct my vision by glasses alone. The prescription difference between the two eyes is so great that the brain cannot accommodate for the differing images. I either have to go for contact lenses in both eyes or one contact (to even them up) and a pair of glasses on top.

3) There is a visible colour difference in what I see between the clear right eye, whites are white, and the left natural eye in which the whites have a subtle hint of yellow.

4) I have a strange glint in my eye. Every now and the Mary catches an odd reflection in the eye with the lens implant. It is now official - I am a cyborg.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

My First Spin Class

Sunday morning Mary and I went to a Spin class at the local gym. It would appear that I was born without the "gung ho" gene. Phrases like "give it your best shot", "give it 100%" are just not in my vocabulary. And "no pain, no gain" is especially not. Just plain stupid. Like there is something virtuous about discomfort. "Satisficing" is a key word in my lexicon.

[Flame on] In my view all this macho, b*******t about exercise is a throwback to some hair shirt, Victorian attitude of "if it is unpleasant it must be good for you", the other side of the pernicious coin "if it is pleasurable it must be bad for you". The credo of miserable, kill joy, religious fundamentalists through the ages from the Puritans to the Taliban. [Flame off]

There are people who say they feel so much better under a fitness regimen; more alert and full of energy. I guess they must be telling the truth, I can hardly accuse them of lying, but for me I have never noticed any such benefit. Maybe I never got fit enough to notice it.

When I started cycling to work after years of no exercise I noticed none of these supposed benefits. After a year it still took me the same time to do the journey, I was just as breathless, my heart rate was just as high. The only difference was that I was less sweaty after my shower. At the start of the year I had to have it as cool as I could bear by the end of the year I could have a warm shower. That was it!

I can see the point of pedalling hard to get up a hill but doing it on a static bike is like being a hamster in wheel. No, I shall stick by the motto "if you feel like exercise lie down until the feeling passes"

Saturday, March 07, 2009

25 Things About Me

Friends on Facebook will have already seen this but what the heck it took me a while to rack my brains so I thought I would get maximum mileage out of it.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right-hand corner of the page), then click Publish.)

1. Sometimes I claim to be Cockney as I was born in the old Charing Cross Hospital. If the wind was in the right direction you might just have been able to hear the sound of Bow bells.

2. I have sworn never to wear blazers with brass buttons. Have me committed if I do as it will be a sure sign I have gone middle aged, middle England.

3. Mary and I were married in *the* St Paul's cathedral. Mary would have preferred low-key registry and send friends a postcard from honeymoon. However courtesy of Dad's MBE we had the option of the chapel in the crypt. It cost me an antique hand cut solitaire. Worth every penny.

4. I never suffer navel fluff. My navel is almost completely flat due to minor post partum surgical intervention when it everted.

5. My uncle was a one-armed paperhanger and a most unsuitable, picaresque role model for an impressionable young man. Excellent :-)

6. I can juggle and ride a unicycle badly and certainly not at the same time. I have even juggled flaming torches and only slightly singed my fingers.

7. At school I guess I was a bit of a swot. What the Americans might call a straight A student. I pretty much used to be top of the class every year in every subject except when Nigel or Daphne were there when we split the honours. After three grade A's at A level it all kind of went downhill and I scraped a third at Oxford.

8. My signature dishes are peppers with capers and creme brulee.

9. I have had hair variously half way down my back, permed, blonde highlights, and short gelled spiky. I was all set for the purple dyed phase when the need for professional appearance at work got in the way.

10. I used to run the school archaeological society and arranged some serious speakers to present. Looking back they were all very gracious to have done so in exchange for a free school dinner.

11. I cannot abide the Middle Lane Owners Club. Those plonkers who refuse to pull back into lane one when the overtaking manoeuvre is complete.

12. I have never "bunked off" school. It would never have occurred to me to do such a thing. Just call me "Mr Goody Two Shoes".

13. I consider myself omnivorous but I am not a great fan of raw celery, okra (aka ladies fingers), tripe or seafood with suckers.

14. I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

15. I weighed 9 1/4 stone at 23; now I weigh 11st. People say I don't need to lose weight I beg to differ.

16. I have dreadful teeth. I must have had over 100 fillings in my teens. Now I have 13 crowns including several gold posts and two titanium implants.

17. When I fill out forms that ask my religion I put Jedi. Me and 390,000 other Brits can't be wrong.

18. About the only thing I really learned at college was that I learn by specific examples but understand and remember by general principles. Apart from that I have nothing but contempt for Oxford as a seat of learning.

19. I hate waste. I get great satisfaction from meals that use an assortment of leftovers in the fridge. I have cavalier attitude toward 'use by' dates.

20. I can't work with background music. I find myself sucked into the music and can no longer concentrate on the task in hand. Conversely I happily work with Radio 4 talking to me all day, be productive and remember and recount what I heard. Who says boys cannot multi-task.

21. I really dislike it when people eat with their mouth open. It must have been drummed into me as a child "it's rude to eat with your mouth open".

22. I once made a New Year's Resolution to drink more French White wine. I kept that one up.

23. One Christmas I decorated the underground with Tinsel. Commuting on the northern line one December I decided people were looking too glum. So for several weeks I would fill the pockets of my pinstripe suit with tinsel and decorate the straphangers over several carriages each morning.

24. www.mmenterprises.co.uk has one of the oldest Marc Bolan pages on the Internet - since 27 November 1996 in fact. That is postively pre-historic in world wide web terms.

25. I don't do memes. Well to be specific if tagged I do the meme but do not pass it on. So this one ends here.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Sainsbury's line caught Haddock fillets

extra trimmed
a succulent flakey white fish


So says the label on tonight's supper and on the back label the legend:

food label
Ingredients
Haddock.

(!) Allergy advice
Contains fish


Well I suppose it would! Another gem from the labelling geniuses.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Jury Service

It has been such a hectic week that I have not had time to write about the jury service. Mary prudently suggests that I do not identify the specific trials nor am I allowed, by law, to discuss the jury's private deliberations.

What I will say is that I sat on two panels: one trial each week and the jury acquitted in both cases.

In the first trial my personal view was that both complainant and defendants were lying but for different reasons. A "not guilty" verdict was not difficult to arrive at.

In the second case I was sure the accused was guilty but based purely on the evidence presented by The Crown we could not be *sure* - tafka "beyond reasonable doubt". In the end it went to a majority verdict based on some good defence work and the poor quality evidence put forward by the prosecution. Bit of an own goal by the police and CPS.

There were various instructive and entertaining aspects to the whole business. One of which was hearing Mi'lud and learned counsel utter the F-word and other demotic English phrases in their best BBC English.

Another item was the little ritual exchange as each police-person gave evidence:
Counsel "Did you make notes?"
Police person "I did."
Counsel "And were those notes made within two hours of the events?"
Police person "They were."
Counsel "And were the events still fresh in your mind when you made those notes?"
Police person "They were."
Counsel "Would you like to consult those notes?"
Police person, turning to the bench "If I may Mi'lud."
Mi'lud "You may"
Counsel "Thank you Mi'lud."

At the end of the evidence the usher swears an oath to conduct us to a "private and convenient place" where we deliberate our verdict. I have to say that in both trials we, as a group, took our responsibility seriously and a good quality discussion, based on the evidence, lead to the verdict.

Wikipedia on: Jury (England and Wales)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Firewall blues

Well it had to happen I guess. Ever since working at the current client site their company firewall has banned access to inappropriate sites. Fair enough. Their definition of inappropriate has always included web mail, so no catching up on your correspondance even at lunchtime.

Now the inevitable has happened and they have added blog sites, discussion forums and photo-sharing sites to that list :-(

That means no blog-surfing at lunchtime to catch up on the blogroll; no more quick posts from work; no more commenting on others blogs. Oh well. Apologies to my regular reads.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Innocent Drinks Label

It would be unfair to mention Tom Bihn's Care Label without giving a mention to our very own Innocent Drinks fruit smoothie labels which keep Mary and I amused on a regular basis.

The ingredients often include spurious items with matching footnote, such as Rubber duck (* Pass the soap) or Double-decker bus (* Hold very tight please, ting, ting!). Here is a typical label (click on it for larger version):

innocent smoothie label

They also make An Innocent Promise such as "We promise that anything innocent will always taste good and do you good. We promise that we'll never use concentrates, preservatives, stabilisers, or any weird stuff in our drinks. And we promise we'll never cheat at cards."

Or "... And we promise always to wipe our feet" or "... And if we do you can tell our mums" and so on.

More at "The Label Museum"

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Tom Bihn Care Label

Tom Bihn Care LabelThanks to Paris Parfait for this one, nice to see companies with a sense of humour. Tom Bihn make travel bags. They have produced a novel care label:

<quote>
The inside label carries instructions on washing and caring for the bags. Because the bags are sold in Canada, the instructions are also printed in French. The French version, however, contains an additional phrase: "NOUS SOMMES DESOLES QUE NOTRE PRESIDENT SOIT UN IDIOT. NOUS N'AVONS PAS VOTE POUR LUI." Translated to English, the phrase reads, "We are sorry that our President is an idiot. We did not vote for him."
</quote>
source="http://www.tombihn.com/"

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Suitable for Vegetarians

I have friend, let's call her - say - Danielle Byrne, who is a vegetarian. On flights her veggie meal is usually accompanied by some kind of tisane or herbal infusion. Her reaction is along the lines of "What is this? Bring me red wine!" Just because one might be vegetarian that does not mean one is also TT.

Last night I was finishing off a bottle of 2004 Saint Joseph when my attention wandered to the back label. There I spotted a large "V" and the legend "Suitable for Vegetarians". Phew. that's a relief then!

As if any dead animals went into the making of wine, honestly what an egregious bit of labelling. See also [Full of Fruit Goodness]

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

ICE: In Case of Emergency

Chatting to JohnP over lunch I mentioned ICE and since he had not heard of it I thought many others might not have either. Very simple idea:

In your mobile phone book include an entry with the name ICE and the number of someone you would want to be contacted in case of emergency e.g. when the paramedic scrapes you off the road after an RTA.

The original idea came from a Cambridge paramedic [full story / further tips]. I have two programmed into my phone: "ICE Mary" and "ICE Parents".

Friday, December 22, 2006

Three pearls of wisdom

There is much advice out there in the world, some wise, some helpful, some complete tosh. These are three pieces of advice I have been given over the years that have stuck with me:

Think general

When trying to solve a problem, aim for a solution that is flexible and adaptable. An adjustable wrench not a spanner.

Never go out without money

You never know when you might need it. At the very least have your bus fare home.

Always button your cardigan from the bottom

Then you can see what you are doing and don't end up a button out at the top.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Rich Beyond the Dreams of Avarice

When I was a child I used to wonder "So who is this bloke Avarice and why is he so greedy?".

* Samuel Johnson. 1709-1784.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

If you can afford a Maserati

[FLAME ON]
What is wrong with these drivers? Are they brain-dead from the steering wheel up? Yesterday lunchtime I encountered not one, not two but three incidents of thoughtless and illegal driving.

First was the lady in the Mercedes who stopped her car two-thirds of the way over a Zebra crossing (US: crosswalk). I glared and walked round.

Then there was the smartly dressed lady in a silver Maserati dialling a number on her hand-held mobile (US: cell phone*). As a frequent urban cyclist I am particularly sensitive to drivers who are not in full control of their vehicles. Before I could react the lights changed and off she drove phone still in hand.

As luck would have it I met her again several blocks later as she was feeding a parking meter. I introduced myself and in my best über-polite manner pointed out the nature of my concerns, observed that if she could afford a Maserati she could certainly afford a hands-free car kit and suggested she treat herself to one.

Finally there was the Volvo driver who decided that stopping at red lights was optional. I was at a junction, the lights had changed fully to red and as I started to cross this driver, half a block away, decided stopping was not for him. I narrowly missed having my toes run over and I gave the side of his car a good thwack with the flat of my hand as it whistled by.

Mary says I shouldn't do this as some drivers are very protective of their vehicles. If he had stopped to remonstrate with me I would be polite but am quite prepared to engage the 'very loud shouty circuit' if needed and go verbally postal. This is the kind of driving up with which I will not put.
[FLAME OFF]

* I love the Italian use of the diminutive for these: telefonino - little telephone.