boreders

The weather seems set to make January 2010 memorable indeed. I can’t recall the last time the snow fell so deeply – though I daresay it has in the past. I have a vague recollection of deep snow in the 70s or early 80s – and trudging through it on the way to school. I know, back then, people just got on with it. You went to school waist deep in snowdrifts and gave thanks for the opportunity to test out your survival skills. These days, people stand outside the doorstep, fall over and lay siege to the Council because they didn’t grit all the pavements.

I had extended my holiday until tomorrow to give me the chance to spend a couple of days with my wife, children safely back at school. Now, I can see that isn’t going to happen. We even have a friend of the boys staying overnight rather than risk driving him home – largely because his school has already posted that it won’t be open. They started building a snow fort in the back garden, so now they’ll be able to add turrets and crenelations come the morning and set about declaring war on the neighbours.

Ah well… I shall hunker down and ward off the cold with blankets and copious hot drinks. I wonder, with a 70+ mile round trip, continued snow fall and crazy drivers on the roads whether I’ll be returning to work this week or the next?!

Went to see Bill Bailey at the Palace Theatre in Manchester last night. Great evening, thoroughly enjoyed. As we managed to secure seats in row BB, we had front row viewing – slightly off to the left of the stage.

It was sort of odd from this angle, as you could actually appreciate that Bill is basically blind on stage – as most performers are – because the theatre lights are pointing straight at him. At the front, my wife managed a few vocal responses to Bill’s questions.

He asked if anyone was from Australia – and Fil replied ‘Yes.’ And that she was from Melbourne. Bill was stumped at this response, no doubt without experience of the city, and announced that he’d gone down a ‘comedy cul-de-sac’ on that one.

Later, while asking what the audience knew about barnacles, a woman near us said they had a penis ten times the size of their body. Bill congratulated the woman on her keen knowledge of the subject and tried to clarify with the rest of the audience whether it really was ten times the size. At this moment Fil interjected that barnacles also lived on the bottom of pirate ships. Bill, at this point, noted that the information provided on barnacles had suddenly become very ‘Wikipediaesque’.

Fil’s highlight was being asked onstage. Bill asked for a woman to come up and help, and Fil jumped at the chance. When Bill asked the name of this mysterious woman coming to help him, she responded Fil – to which Bill responded with signs of confusion that the woman had a man’s name. My wife then assisted Bill creating a rhythm on a Tenori-on, followed by a Bjork-esque song. The lass done good – and got a laugh or two along the way.

So, apart from Fil grabbing her 15 minutes of fame, I was impressed that we got just under 2 hours of quality Bill Bailey. The event information said the show included elements from Tinselworm, which we saw last year at the MEN, but essentially there was so little as to be unnoticeable. Thoroughly recommended, from start to finish – and will certainly make every effort to see him again when next he alights in Manchester.

This morning, I woke to what might best be described as a heavy frost. I’m not sure it warrants the description ’snow’, as it seemed largely to involve rock hard ice with a deceptively thin sprinkling of loose material on top. Having fallen over 6 weeks ago and sprained my foot, I didn’t fancy going anywhere – but, today was my first day back at work and I’m not sure I have an option to not come in because it’s a bit icy.

As it happens, the journey proved largely calamity free. The motorway was pretty loose and free flowing. I spotted a couple of distraught drivers and their ruined cars in the opposite lane, but nothing on my route… until I reached work…

The site I work on has a barrier controlled entrance, but in the morning – to sooth congestion, users of the fourth car park (a temporary gravel affair) can access it from a side entrance through a rusty metal gateway. A small slip road cuts away to the left from the main road, and as I approached I saw a security guard walking over towards the gate, a few scattered orange cones, and a sign warning ‘Icy’. Icy… fur sure. Before the guard could do much to stop me, I drove on to the slip road and proceeded to hit a sheet of ice. Brake and hand brake instantly applied, I slid for a good 9 or 10 yard, before coming to a stop with a cone pressed against the front of the car.

To travel around 35 miles and suffer a nearly accident in the final few yards… How embarrassing is that?!

Having breathed a sigh of relief in my last post that Manchester didn’t get the snow reported at the time, I can say we did get a bit on Tuesday. I know, because the first footstep I took outside met with a surface like glass, and I ended up crashing to the floor, twisting my ankle and doing something painful to my big toe. I now hobble around the house looking mournful and pathetic, unable to do much other than potter. I can carry on doing work, so I’m not a complete loss to society.

I think, as I fell, I had it in mind to concentrate on using my ass to cushion me, because a work associate did something seriously painful to her elbow last year falling with arms outstretched. When I informed a friend of my predicament, he exclaimed – “Isn’t that something old people do?”. Oh yeah… I feel the healing waves of compassion and concern washing over me.

Current reading:

Looking at the news, I’m glad that snow didn’t hit Manchester. Mind you, that’s not to say I might not have to content with it tomorrow if I start heading off away from Stockport. Which I will. Mind, I have checked the Internet and the only reference I can find about ’snow’ in respect of Liverpool is a bit about Snow Patrol appearing at a concert there next year. There’s a relief.

Current listening:

I can’t believe we’ve come around to that time of year again when the days grow short and the driving grows dark. I hate driving headlit, ploughing through the gloom and darkness. Hard enough keeping track of all the idiots on the road when you can see them clearly.

In the UK, you should drive with headlights an hour before sunset and an hour after sunrise. Yet again, people fail miserably to remember anything they learnt while they had a test to pass. So, I found myself driving home at the beginning of the week gazing in disbelief at the three drivers I saw who persisted in keeping their lights off well into the late gloom period. I mean, I even flashed one of these idiots and nothing seemed to register. The motorway was filled with cars, all lit up – and yet it didn’t seem to phase these guys. It’d be like turning up at a fancy dress party dressed in shirt and jeans to find everyone else dressed in Halloween costumes… and then spending the entire evening utterly oblivious to the funny looks you’re getting.

I realise I should be concentrating on my own driving, but sometimes as I overtake on the motorway I glance across into the car next to me and I might as well be seeing something from a Romero movie. Drivers with vacant eyes, gripping the steering wheel with stiff fingers, focus unmoving. You might as well remove the mirrors and indicators from these cars, cause once they settle into the middle lane, that’s it until they get home.

Anyway… on the upside, I just went to the garage to get something from the fridge – and I found myself with a shadow. A moon shadow. I looked up to find the dark sky lit by a brilliant crescent moon, a scattering of bright stars dotted around the heavens between wisps of thin cloud. You can get a sky like that any time, but somehow I like them best in the autumn. Autumn and I get on just fine, because I’m not allergic to anything at this time of year and it isn’t so cold your extremities fall off after 5 minutes outside. Perfect.

Until I have to get behind the wheel of the car again…

Once upon a time, possibly in or around 2004, I set up a site relating to my efforts in the world of web design. I have always swayed towards simple web design, because I grasp HTML and CSS fine, but have never used any of the fancy tools. I even use Notepad for my coding, never venturing to use FrontPage or Dreamweaver until recent pressures have demanded I become familiar with them. I use a little JavaScript, have dabbled in PHP, Perl and XML. I can set up a database and retrieve information from it, creating dynamic content. I can handle Server Side Includes and Webbots to insert content from one place into another, and even recently had a poke around with AJAX and ASP. I can manage just fine, knowing enough, but certainly not so much as to make me an expert in anything.

So, Back to Basics Web came about – and with the assistance of co-coder and marketeer Richard we put together web sites for Meeker Aviation and Apical. You can see a few samples of the work we’ve done, and that I’ve done since, on the Back to Basics Web site. I intend to continue with my web work on a restrained and moderate level – it can be tough channelling creatives juices in multiple directions at the same time. When I work on an advance with a focussed project scope, I need to be certain that I deliver.

Back to Basics Web uses the _base_ theme for Wordpress, which I intend to customise for the time being… A simple base, for a simple web site, offering a simple service – until I have a moment to create a theme from scratch myself!

I was just gathering up the recycling this morning (around half an hour ago), on an otherwise ordinary day. I had sat down with a pile of unread newspapers and made sure I hadn’t missed anything obvious to keep for a more detailed read later. Then, I dropped the papers all in a plastic bag, grabbed a soup can for the metal recycling box, and stepped out into the cul-de-sac… to see a black car, with a very large roof ornament, making a turn and pulling away. On the back of the car, a small logo proclaimed ‘Google’. I had witnessed the passing of the Google Street View Car, continuing an extended roam around Britain (and Europe).

It would seem spotting this elusive vehicle has become a bit of a sport. In America, Street View has raised privacy fears, catching fleeting visions of our streets, homes, gardens – and just what might be happening through the window when the car passes. In the UK, despite some initial concerns, the Information Commissioner’s Office approved Street View back in July.

So, that leaves me wondering now whether I’ll make an appearance myself, a vague shape in the porch gathering up the newspaper recycling bag, or just opening the door to step out into my drive way. Thankfully, I wasn’t doing anything too embarrassing – something others cannot claim across the Internet, like the Aussie drunk.

Sometimes you have to wonder how the heck life gets quite as strange as it does. On Saturday, we had a tapas party with friends. Everyone brings round something appropriately nibbly (and some beer), and by early evening we have a table growning with goodies. Simple. Very little organisation or cooking involved, but enough to feed people and have spares for a week or three.

Anyway, with a couple of dozen people in and outside the house, conversation was the evening’s primary pursuit. We’d eaten and drank, the warm, relatively sunny, day fading into an equally pleasant evening. As we stood in the garden chatting, somewhere in the distance we heard sirens. Several of them. Living on the outskirts of Manchester in 2008, this isn’t so out of the usual. However, as we continued chatting there was a sound like something hitting a fence, or possibly someone being hit with a fence, rather closer to home. Curiousity rose somewhat, especially as the sirens continued to persist and get just a little louder and clearer. Falling back into conversation, a russle at the back of the garden drew attention to someone making an entrance. Staggering from the rear, amidst the trees and bushes, came a guy in dark trousers and a green top, with blood streaming down the side of his face. He muttered something along the lines of ‘Sorry… I’ve been in a fight.’, before heading off along the garden path, round the side of the house, and off up the street.

The evening rapidly descended into some bizarre co-mingling of ‘The Bill’ and ‘Scooby Doo’, as various members of the party went off to find the guy or see what that crash was, while others recounted the tale of ‘the man in the garden’. Police with dogs and police in helicopters followed, the latter particularly noisy, with searching beams flashing in the night sky. We were told later that the police caught the guy. He’d hit another driver, at considerable speed, and one or more of the cars had gone off the road – tearing up fences. ‘The man in the garden’ had exited his vehicle, leaving the other driver for dead, to make his escape across the back gardens – and the police had tried to follow him that way, explaining some more fence banging rather reminiscent of ‘Hot Fuzz’.

So… from simple tapas and friends, the evening turned into something very different. By the end of the evening, enough had happened to ensure the whole event would be discussed for weeks and months to come. Good food, however tasty, might not have made the event so memorable!

Relevant viewing:

Isn’t it heart-warming to know that the Cabinet will be in Birmingham today rather than London, in what may be an ongoing feature of their meetings. As well as holding the meeting itself, they’ll be meeting local people, councillors and doing the whole bit to bolster failing support in the government. In pursuit of popularity, however, they’ll create all sorts of other upheaval. Rather than meeting in 10 Downing Street, already secured to the Nth-degree and within a stone’s throw, no doubt, of each cabinet member’s London residence, this change will mean:

• An extra journey of about 150 miles by car, plane or helicopter for each and every cabinet member (and then doesn’t count the return journey!)
• Pressure on local Police (and no doubt the hush-hush security services) to monitor and protect the attendees and the event locations, taking away law enforcement for local duties; and
• Added pressure on the Birmingham transit system due to the control and diversion of traffic during the visit – and the system is, to be honest, already a tough one

I’m sure I’ll have missed something, but if they plan to make this a regular event, then the same pressures and costs will mount up. Thousands of miles extra travel and fuel consumption, while most of us struggle to keep our tanks full just to make it into work.

And this should improve Brown’s waning ratings? Yeah, right.

Relevant reading: