30 Jan 2012
Posted in Life, People, Travel at 12:21 pm by alby
We went on a little jaunt last weekend. The four of us in a car up into the Peaks to a place called Cressbrook.
The ominous weather didn’t stop us. Didn’t even cause us pause. We parked up near’t mill and got ourselves ready in a howling gale. The walk started well with a small hill and tarmac. Eventually we ended up near some old lead mining houses and passed onwards into a dark wood.
The main issue seemed to be that it was muddy. Then J started howling.
He was sat in a kiddie backpack thing behind me. Turns out I was passing under tree branches but he wasn’t managing to avoid the odd snagging. Poor thing got very upset.
Then we headed upwards to a ridge and exposure to the wind (which had been nicely minimal under the cover of the woods). The gusts nearly blew N off a ledge at one point and then J just kept howling every time a heavy gust came his way.
Would you believe that we picked now to have our lovingly prepared picnic? Well we did. Exposed to the wind and rain. Was great fun.
But should we return and carry on. Carrying on meant miles further in the exposed wind and rain. Returning meant getting J through the thorney trees. We went back in the end but it wasn’t without incident involving mud and loss of balance. But we all got back in one piece.
Might do it again on a better day.
Permalink
Posted in People at 12:12 pm by alby
See this: here
Ultra-nerds! And good for them.
Permalink
Posted in Life, Self-indulgence, Work at 12:09 pm by alby
I have just this few minutes back finished my first ever tax return.
I could have had an accountant do it but the amount of money I earn away from my main (and already taxed) job isn’t massive so I expect I’d end up paying more than I’d save in tax paid.
Now just to worry about whether I’ve ballsed something up and actually owe an awful lot more. Fingers crossed.
Permalink
16 Jan 2012
Posted in Rants at 12:26 pm by alby
Was out at R’s parents’ last night. Her mum has a Kindle and downloads a goodish number of books for it. She reads a variety of genres but something odd had happened to the search function on the thing.
She bought a book called “The Sisters Brothers“. A proper book by a proper author done properly.
Now the “suggested searches” thingy seems to have been programmed by someone a little bit inept.
She keeps getting suggestions NOT based on content, genre, author or theme. However she is getting suggestions based on the title. What this means in practice is that she’s getting quite a lot of suggested incestuous pornography. Fine you can skip it but it does give a bad taste when it just keeps on being suggested. Not nice. The somewhat unsubtle hint of paedophilia isn’t really wanted either. Surprised that Amazon and Kindle are pushing this stuff without people having to ask for an opt-in. Surely the “suggested reads” search shouldn’t send this stuff to people who haven’t asked for it.
Permalink
03 Jan 2012
Posted in Life, Self-indulgence at 11:04 pm by alby
It’s the end of the world as we know it!
And I feel fine. Except for my toe.
I managed to maim myself at a child’s soft play centre yesterday. Carpet burn on my elbow and wrist and then a nastily bruised middle toe on my left foot. I went in to see a podiatrist at work today who was very reassuring. Looks like I haven’t done in another nail just banged a joint somewhat.
Photo here if you’re interested.
Permalink
21 Dec 2011
Posted in Blog, Reviews at 12:18 pm by alby
Seems I’m not the only one who wants to see people do well (as per here):
Lovely article in the Grauniad.
Permalink
19 Dec 2011
Posted in Life at 12:32 pm by alby
I finished my jury service on Monday last week. It did overrun but only by a day.
The second jury I was picked for was for a case of robbery. Someone claimed a nasty case of kidnap and theft. The trial looked like it would be a really interesting one but collapsed a day in as we discovered that the main prosecution witness was so unreliable that even his barrister gave up and refused to continue with the case. Nice.
Then I was picked for another robbery case. This was almost the opposite of the case in my first week. Then I was worried that basically decent people did something stupid and ended up with a record. This guy was someone clearly not decent but had managed to hide his tracks well. Was very tricky for the prosecution but they got there in the end.
The deliberations were tricky. We even had to ask the judge to clarify a point for us which mightily irritated the court staff as they’d already got cracking on another case. But what can you do? You want things to be right.
Fingers crossed I don’t end up on any more juries again. Was horrible.
Permalink
16 Dec 2011
Posted in Reviews at 10:57 am by alby
I’ve mentioned before my approval of the show “America’s Next Top Model”. This does surprise people who know me (and probably disappoints others). I wasn’t sure quite why I liked it for a while but I figured it out yesterday.
People have assumed that I like it because of young and pretty girls being involved but that’s absolutely not it. There’s no creepy voyeurism involved at all, there’s just not that kind of content. What there IS is a group of young women who want to be models and then they have challenges, support and photo shoots. At the end of each episode one is voted off until there’s only one left at the end of the series. Through a series the remaining contenders get more and more input to their careers with advice from photographers, agents, magazine editors, designers, catwalk trainers and the like. In other words it guides them (a little, it’s not a school for aspirational girls). At the end the last 5 or so get some serious prizes such as travel abroad, challenges that win them shoots and campaigns across the world, one girl won herself a car this year as well as becoming the face of some bag designer’s new ads. So they are supported and the stuff that is created through the series’s photoshoots is some wonderful art and photography.
What is conspicuously missing is the leering theatre of idiocy that so infects stuff like “The X Factor” and “Britons Have Talent” (edited for grammar). There are no episodes of laughing at the deluded. This is what buggered up this year’s Britain’s Next Top Model. The producers clearly thought “Ha the X Factor is very popular therefore we will copy it”. And it was rubbish. I don’t want to point and laugh; I want to be impressed and see people doing well.
What happened last night was the final of “Masterchef: The Professionals”. It was wonderful. In fact since the semi-finals it’s been some of the best TV I’ve seen in ages. Technically the editing was spot on, the judges know their stuff and the contenders have bags of skill. The final was stuffed full of amazing skill and it was a shame that there had to be a “winner”. But there was and he was a very worthy winner. I want to eat some of his food. But then again I’d have been happy with eating food from any of the contestants. Again what we didn’t have was some deluded folks being laughed at. These were skilled people doing damn well and stretching themselves. Wonderful.
Can we have more like this please?
Permalink
07 Dec 2011
Posted in Life, Self-indulgence, Work at 6:50 pm by alby
Possibly the worst result I could have managed. The OU thing I hated and was extremely tedious (here) has concluded with me getting 2 percent off a pass on the final end of year essay. This has left me with a fail but an entitlement to “re-submit”. Not sure yet what I have to re-submit but …
If I’d failed by loads then I’d be done with it. And 2 percent more would have meant I was done with it too.
I suppose I should be happy that I get another go at the last essay but I really could have done without the extra work. Time’s at a major premium at the mo and this won’t help.
The really annoying thing is that my average scores give me a pass but students have to pass the final essay to pass the module. It was my lowest scored essay and even then it was only marginally under the bar.
Sigh.
Permalink
03 Dec 2011
Posted in Life, People at 11:38 am by alby
I’m in the middle of 2 weeks jury service. The first week saw me narrowly miss getting a case that was expected to last 3 weeks. Thankfully I cried “NHS clinic is full for the 3rd week and patients won’t get seen til January if I get that case” and they accepted that.
But then I’m picked for a week long case of assault.
I’m not going to go into any details but blimey it was so banal. Tedious male ego thing that should either have been ignored or dealt with by a handshake and a “that’s the end of it”. And it ended up in court. Actually the second court as they’ve already been through the civil courts with this. What a waste of money and now 2 people’s lives. Two previous decent folk now have criminal records. They weren’t underclass scum, just ordinary folk who over-reacted. Over-reacted quite badly it must be said but still.
So they’ve now blotted their copybooks to say the least. One of them was just about to start his adult life and this is now hanging over him. Just awful.
And how guilty do I feel sitting there and proclaiming them “guilty” knowing that the experience of being dragged through the courts would probably be enough to stop either of them doing anything even remotely dodgy again; and then making it worse for them? Just a hideous feeling. But then they did, quite nastily, beat a bloke up. Sentencing’s not til January though and they are generally decent folk so I’d be surprised if either of them get too long a stretch in choky. I think that’s the right outcome.
Urgh. Wonder what the second week will bring…
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »