white powder

Although no one is kicking sand in my face I still worry about it. I have started taking the dreaded white powder to get stronger and fitter to mash heads. I have started taking the odd teas spoon of creatine in the morning. The martial arts club I used to train has folded so I need to get hard on my own. Too much soft living has slowed me down. Even though creatine is legal I like the idea of taking performamce enhancing drugs. My olympic ambitions have been gone for a long time, mostly because of my deep hatred of any kind of competitive sport. I have been doing more pressups, because I spent 14 quid on the big tub of creatine, so I want to get my money's worth. I am sure it is all going to end in tears.

the fall rise again

I first found out about the fall around 1986. There was a video on TV for "Mr Pharmacist" and someone in the room said "Mark E. Smith he never changes". I was just watching the video thinking who the f*ck is Mark E. Smith. I am not a hard core fall fan, but I have been to see them three times. There is so much music to get that I can't afford to get every CD produced by bands I grew up with up. However I was pretty excited by the latest Fall CD, "Imperial Wax Solvent". The first track is called "Allton Towers", so I had to buy the CD just for that. Somehow I really like the sound. I watched some old videos of Mark on the tube in early 80s. He looked handsome, not the rugged shell that he is now.

After the Gym

I went to the Gym this morning. I was feeling pretty good about myself as I walked out of the Stephenson building and turned into University avenue. The sun was bright and people were wearing their summer best to worship the first sighting of the blue sky this year. On the other side of the road I saw a guy with blue sweat pants on and no shirt. His body had taught muscles. He looked almost threatening. He stood on some railings about 1/2 meter in height. He then walked on them for a bit and jumped across the pavement. If I went to the Gym regularly and even hired a personal trainer, there is no way I could do what he did.

Hillhead library on bank holiday Monday

I went to Hillhead public library today to return some books and get some more. I was fumbling with my wallet trying to find my library card. The person dealing with me didn't ask for my library card. I think he was just being helpful, but maybe he just wanted me out of the library as quick possible. The books I was getting were "street fighting years" by Tariq Ali and Krav Maga by David Kahn. Somehow this was an unfortunate choice of books to borrow at the same time. Nowadays Tariq Ali is an intellectual who gets interviewed on channel 4. During the 60s I believe he was a political activist. I don't really know what Krav Maga is, but the quick look at the book shows it is a martial art from Israel. Somehow Krav Maga always comes up quite high in the martial arts book section of Amazon.

dreaming in code

I was pretty depressed after reading "dreaming in code" by Scott Rosenberg. This was the story of a group trying to write an information organizer called Chandler. The book was like a thriller, because it wasn't clear after half the book, that the project produced any working code. In fact it wasn't clear at the end of the book that they were ever going to getting anything working. Before I finished reading it, I did look at the web page to see the status of the software. Ummm The team who were building chandler seemingly did everything right. They used python to write the code. The project was open source. All their programmers and managers were very experienced. Still the project seemed to do very slowly. Scott also included some history of software engineering, with a lot of quotes from the book "Mythical Man Month". So the book also contains a good popular history of software engineering.

The rough guide to the conspiracy theories

People believe the weirdist shit. After reading through "the rough guide to conspiracy theories", I feel unclean intellectually. I was so excited to read that some people feel that Paul McCartney is dead, but was replaced before the Abbey Road album. A very reasonable hypothesis given his recent (last 20 years) work. The book contained all kinds of fantasies. The font on the book was incredibly small, so reading the book strained my eyes. As you may have noticed I am not leading an excited life at the moment. If you see me shambling down the street, I will now grab your hand stare you in eye and say "let me tell you about the Philadelphia Experiment." In my more lucid moments, I suggest you run.

The Poincare conjecture

Over the weekend I read "the Poicare conjecture" by Donal O'Shea. This was a book about the recent proving of the Poincare conjecture. It claimed to have some history about the reclusive Grigori Perelman who recently proved it, however there was little detail about Perelman at all (that is what reclusive means). The did a good job of explaining the history and background to the Poincare conjecture. I was feeling that I should have some idea about what this conjecture is about. What thing I never thought about was that if you continued forever on a journey you would eventually return to your starting point. Perhaps there is some subtle topological strangeness in the Universe. Given that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, this is a totally impractical insight. Such is the use of topology.

Adam Green gig

Last week I went out to see Adam Green play at the Oran Mor venue in the fabulous venue in Glasgow. Adam Green was supported by Noah and the Whale. I was excited to see "Noah and the whale" because they get played a lot on radio 6. However, their set didn't do too much for me. Adam Green is a crooner. At the start of his set I thought his voice was going to get lost in the instruments. I like his songs and singing style. At the end of the set, there was a little mosh pit near the front of the stage. Adam Green was part of a band called "The Moldy Peaches". There is a new film, called Juno, out that uses some Moldy Peaches songs. This has made them more famous. The sound track for the film made number 1 in some US chart. Unfortunately, the filthy critic really hates both the film Juno and soundtrack by the Moldy Peaches. What am I to think? The filthy critic is like my style guru. I am so confused.

the under cover economist

I have just read "the under cover economist" by Tim Harford. This book is about the economics of everyday living. It deals a lot with the price of coffee, an important issue if you spend your life in dire need of hot caffeine fuel. He made some good points about the price of goods in a supermarket. He claimed that the price of basic things at a fancy supermarket (Marks and Spencer or Waitrose) were pretty similar to those in a more basic supermarket such as Morrisons. However, in Waitrose the basic food is hidden by the more expensive stuff (freshly squeezed mango juice e.c.t.). This example was used to illustrate the idea of "scarcity".

Nuclear Energy in the 21st century

Last week I finished reading "Nuclear Energy in the 21st century". This book is a popular level book about nuclear power. It deals with all aspects of nuclear power, including mining the ore, transporting material, and the all important getting rid of the waste. It is clearly written by an enthusiast for nuclear power. The explanation of the science is brief but clear. In this age, where the LHC is sold as a telescope or a black hole factory, by Brian Cox and his merry band of publicists, it is pleasant to read something basic but clear. If feel slightly bad about even thinking about working in the nuclear industry, but it is not clear what else is going to power the modern world. Wind farms spoil the view from people's houses, so bring down property prices, hence are clearly no longer an option in the middle England. As for bio fuels, well what can I say.

swinging

I have just read "the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker" by Suzanne Portnoy. This is a book about "swinging". At 39, she finds she wants more sex, so leaves her loveless marriage, and start to sleep around in a very serious and dedicated way. This kind of book is advertised at "adult", but I didn't read it for arousal. A huge part of her life was dedicated to picking up men. She was raising a family and running a PR firm at the same time. I don't see how she had the time. Perhaps being the boss of a PR firm is pretty easy (a couple of hours a day). It was interesting to watch her rate men. I now know that giving someone a meal on a paper plate is a reason to break up. Also watching her thoughts as she went back to a man's flat, made me much more motivated to Hoover the carpet in the next (month or so). Also, she had a great comment about the advantage of dating geeky web guys: "they are so happy to be with anyone, that they are happy to please their partners". Good to know. Anyway I got more out of this book than "women are from Venus and men are from Mars". In that book I learnt that women like sharp knives

More books ..........

I like buying books too much some time. Two recent orders are: Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century: World Nuclear University Press Fun with Hypnosis: The Complete How-To Guide by Svengali

A balloon murder mystery.

On Sunday I saw a woman, wearing a black suit, leave the card shop on Maryhill Rd. She was carrying a large number of red balloons of various sizes and shapes. She walked to her small car that was 30 yards from the shop. One of the little red balloons broke free and started to follow the wind down the road. The balloon was close enough to me that I thought perhaps I should go running after it, to give it back her, and perhaps get a reward. However, frankly I couldn't be bothered. I didn't feel guilty, even if the balloons were for a shattered shaven headed little girl, sick in a white sterile bed. Losing one balloon out of ten could not make a difference to her life Run free little balloon, I thought, you too need to be happy. And the balloon followed the the eddies of the wind to a land free of grasping little hands. I suddenly thought that this was the mechanism that produced the white balloon rolling down the road that greeted me on Saturday morning. Run free little balloon, I thought as I headed to my flat to sip tea and forget the fate of balloons. I then heard a short bang. I turned to see the exploded little balloon "asleep" on the road. The car didn't even stop to check its tires.

introduction to the personal software process

I have just finished reading "introduction to the personal software process" by Watts Humphrey. I have owned this book for a long time, but since I have not read a book on software development for a while, so this weekend was a good time to read it. My understanding is that Humphrey was a manager at IBM when they first produced mainframes. When he started his job, many of the projects he inherited were not completing on time, so he introduced processes to improve that. In the book he is very big on timing the amount of time people spend doing things during the week. This provides data that can be used to estimate the amount of time it would take to complete a task in the future. He also likes programmers to review their code before they even try to compile it. There was a lot of discussion about "defect" (known as bugs) removal. This is an old fashioned book. It used software metrics such as LOC (lines of code), but he talked about the c++ language. Also his discussion of diagrams involved flow charts, with no mention of UML. However, I think the book was clearer for not introducing more modern terms. Some of the basic ideas, such as using measurements to estimate time to do things are basically sound.

Arthur C Clarke

Although I was sad to hear about the death of Arthur C Clarke, I have not read much of his work for over twenty years. If you have been following closely, I have been reading a lot of science fiction recently, but I have no interest in (re)reading the work of the old masters. I did used to read a lot of science fiction when I was in late teens. Then I used to read Clarke and Asimov, and Michael Moorcock. I moved away from science fiction, to try more literary fare. Also at that time I didn't know how to get hold of the stuff of more modern writers. I might have been a bit ashamed of my nerdy past. When I started living in Liverpool I got into Philip H. Dick, and the weirder outlaw side of science fiction. I am still fond of the work of Michael Moorcock, but I saw him on TV a couple of weeks ago. He was wearing a bow tie. I know he is old, but in my experience, only wa*kers wear bow ties. Look Michael, you used to play with Hawkwind! I remember a radio interview with Arthur C Clarke, where he said something like: "some day in the future everyone will have a portable power supply as powerful as a nuclear reactor". Frank Close was also in the same interview and he said "there has to be some evidence for that type of claim." Those black obelisks!

Eels and the multiverse

Before I got went away and got sick, I watched a documentary called "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives" via the BBC Iplayer. This was a strange documentary about Hugh Everett III who invented the many world interpretation of quantum mechanics. The documentary was narrated by Hugh's son Mark Everett (known by some as E). The documentary was weird in some sense, because it was both a celebration of his father's life, as well as a settling of scores. There was not a lot of love in Mark's life. The only time he held his father was when he picked up his father when he died. There was a lot of sarcasm in the way the family talked. Mark hadn't done well (as in flunked) in maths or science. So part of the trip was him traveling to famous physics places such as Princeton to ask about quantum mechanics and his father's work. Everett did the work on the many Universe theory iof quantum mechanics when he was a graduate student. This interpratation of quantum mechanics was not popular, so he left academia to join industry. As time passed the many universes theory of quantum mechanics gained in popularity (not with me though of course), so before he died Hugh started to get invited to conferences. Reading between the lines, it was clear that Hugh was a bit bitter that his revolutionary theory had not taken off. However, he also seemed the classic Prof. type who was not very talkative. Some part of the documentary was sad. One of Hugh's daughters committed sucide. In her sucide note she said that "she would meet her father in a parallel Universe." Mark Everett is a singer and musician in the band called the Eels. The Eels are an alternative country band, who are famous enough to make the soundtrack for one of the Shrek movies. They are famous enough to have their CDs in the discount section of fopp. As part of my research I bourght a copy of the eels CD "beautiful freak". I didn't like it as much as some of the live tracks I saw on the documentary. The one problem I did see with the documentary was that it didn't mention that many physicists still feel that the multi universe interpratation of quantum mechanics is bollocks (and that includes the multiverse that the stringers like).

Isaac Newton

I have just read a biography of Isaac Newton by Peter Ackroyd. I had read "Hawksmoor" by Ackroyd, that led me to expect that the book would focus on Newton's interest in alchemy and his nonstandard view on Jesus. However, the book gave a good overview of all aspect of Newton's life, from his development of mechanics and calculus, to him leaving Cambridge to become Master of the Mint. I didn't pick up on connection of Newton's story about thinking about gravity after watching an apple fall, to "the fall" due to an apple in the Garden of Eden, until I read this book.

I lose my telekinetic powers

When I got up today I looked out of the front window to the road below. I saw a piece of paper blown by the wind straight along the dead center of the road. When I put my full attention to it, the paper stopped moving. I very naturally assumed that I was telekinetic. Before lunch I looked at the road again. This time there was a white balloon blown by wind. I stared at the balloon with all my might, but it kept on moving. So I am just normal, the paper in the morning stopped by chance. Similar to the same random coincidence that I thought about telekinetic powers after watching the "The Medusa Touch" DVD (with Richard Burton in) last night.

Cronus

Normally, like many people I look at DVDs that cost 15 pounds and say what kind of loser spends that much money for a new DVD. Normally I don't pay over 5 pounds for a DVD. However, last Tuesday I was in fopp on Byers Rd and I saw looking to give myself a birthday treat. Also I was sick with some kind of plague, so watching a DVD from my warm front room was going to be the height of excitement for me. What I decided to buy was "Cronus" directed by Guillermo Del Toro (This cost me 8 pounds, so I am almost half a DVD loser). Del Torro directed the fantastic "Pans Labyrinth", and also did blade II and Hellboy. The film "Cronus" is a vampire movie with a new family twist. An antique seller finds a mechanical beatle built by an alchemist. His life goes down hill from there.

The birth of consumer quantum mechanics

I am starting to think that my greatest contribution to science will be the flu-flight connection. If I take a quick trip to the US, I spend a week and half in brain dead flue mode, while I try to recover. It was my birthday on Tuesday and I wanted to go out and party. However, I was so sensitive to cold that I couldn't travel far. I went to Oddbins to buy a bottle of sake. The staff at the Byers Rd store told me they didn't have any in, but phoned a close by store to reserve me a bottle. I got the time and space thing mixed up, partly because I can't remember exactly the name of every off license in a 3 mile radius. The store with the bottle of sake with my name on it turned out to be a lot further down Great Western Rd than I thought. But I dragged my shivering flu wrecked body in search of rice wine. In the Oddbins store on Great Western Rd, the staff were very friendly. When they gave me my bottle, I clutched it to my chest. They told me that they usually don't sell any sake for months. But today as soon as my bottle was reserved, two other people came in to buy sake. "Did I know why that was?". I started to mumble something about wave function collapse, and that there was an amplitude for various people to buy bottles of sake. One person decides he needs sake, so the wave function collapses, and two more have to buy sake. But then I thought I haven't told them I am a physicist, so I can get away with saying "f*ck knows why. It is weird though". Of course the sake buying choices of the people of Glasgow may be further evidence that I am being followed and studied. As I walked back up the great western Road I saw a Chinese restaurant appear before by cough racked body. Its my birthday I thought, must have fun. I ordered chicken in a pot, because someone had told me this was authentic in someway. The food was nice, but the chicken just came in a saucepan. At the end of the meal I was given a fortune cookie. This is my fortune: "Eat something you have never tried before". Anyway not love and wealth again. The fortune cookie knows how to humble one. If I hadn't been sick, I might have wanted to try here. A nice bit of caviar and a cocktail of some kind. (If I had been well I would have gone to the barfly to watch a female Japanese drone metal band). Still I think this shows that you don't need a party (or your health) to have a good time on your birthday.

Potted plants at dawn.

I always thought it was rude to stare. As I walked into work this morning, I saw a man in a battered denim jacket carrying a large pink stuffed dinosaur with garish green eyes. In his other hand he carried a large potted plant about a meter high. He walked unsteadily with a degree of quiet despair. He looked to be over 40 with a face that had seen many pint pots of beer. As he walked out of door of the shop all eyes followed him.

Market Forces

While travelling somewhere I read Market Forces by Richard Morgan. This novel was set in the not too distant future. Wars and rebellions are traded as we trade stocks and shares. When executives have big arguments they fight duels in their cars on the highway. The story was based on a new junior executive joining a company. He became more aggressive and wild as the corporate culture sucked him in. There was a bit too much action for a good novel with a strong philosophical core, if I may make such a pompous statement. On a similar theme. I watched a documentary over the weekend about corporations. Everything went crooked, when corporations got the same rights as human beings under antislavery laws. The documentary had commentary by left figures such as Noam Chomsky. I liked the part where some anarchist had a demo at the house of the CEO of shell. His wife told them off, and later served them tea and biscuits.

tales From Earthsea

Many weeks ago I rented the DVD "tales From Earthsea" from blockbuster. I had another incoherent conversation with the clerk at the Blockbuster about anime, mostly because I was full of after work Friday night beer. The same people who were involved in the wonderful (my parents are greedy pigs) "spirited away" did this film as well. I had read The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K. Le Guin and this is what attracted me to the film. I read the book some time ago, so I couldn't remember exactly what happened. However, this film seemed very different to that book. Looks like it was based on a book she wrote much later. Some of the film was about the "balance", which is some hippy sh*t for loving nature. The boy hero of the book murders his father for some unspecified reason, perhaps he was possessed, or perhaps his father was evil as many are. The history of these earthsea novels looks interesting, at least from the amazon reviews. Le Guin seemed to have a problem with the world she created. Ummm.

saw

I watched the DVD for the film "Saw" a couple of nights. This was a a violent horror film with a good deal of torturing on it. On the other hand it was well made and had some philosophical core idea behind it. Of course if you find nothing of merit in the writings of Marquis De Sade, then you will not enjoy the film. The film was popular enough to have them create a number of sequels. I think I have seen enough of the jigsaw killer.

tandem

I have been trying to encourage everyone at work to buy a high definition TV. I will be looking for a job soon, and the economy is not very healthy. Frankly now that Blue ray has won the high definition video format war (go Sony), I feel that people should also get a PS/3 just to be sure the wheels of UK consumerism don't stop turning. As I walked to work down Queen Margret Drive, I saw a tandem bike with a man at the front and a little girl about 6 years old in a pink coat at the rear. They were peddling hard and the girls pigtails were almost left behind. The silvery bike sparkled in the frosty air. Given, how fast children grow, I am not sure how long they would ride together on that particular bike. Still I should have told the little girl that if her dad is so cheap not to buy her a bike for herself, then he should get a TV for herself. Unfortunately, the happy family were cycling too fast for me to infect them with my cynicism.

stag

I went on a stag night out yesterday. I had some pleasant drinks in the counting house pub in the center of Glasgow. I bailed when the group decided to go to a casino. I don't really like gambling so much. I did enjoy putting quarters in slot machines when I was in the US (for the crashing sounding and crazy colours), but I don't have the patience to play cards or watch the roulette wheel spin. Playing cards requires skill and knowledge that I don't have. Most British casinos don't allow Russian roulette, so they really are no fun. After the casino there was talk of going to a strip bar. I don't have a moral problem with strip bars, but I have never gone to one. Part of the reason was that I worry that I would get the fear and sweats, and not in a positive erotic way, more in a crazy emotional problem way. I could barely breath when I was taken to see a belly dancer. Actually it was before a meal in a Greek restaurant. But as the flesh gyrated and wobbled, my own flesh became icy and pale. I tried to hide the shakes from the relatively normal couple I was with. Since Richard Feynman sometimes did calculations in a strip bar, I don't think that there would be any professional problems if anyone found out. Although I have had some association with the catholic faith, I don't think that traditional guilt is causing me problems. In that case I would have gone to the strip bar had a great time, but then felt a bit guilty the morning afterwards. Anyway after browsing on Amazon I have bourght the book by Belle de Jour. My path to mental health is assured.

steam boy

On Friday night I went into Blockbusters to rent a video. I have been waiting to see "Eastern Promises", but either it is not out yet, or they don't have it at blockbusters on Byers Rd. So instead I decided to rent "Steam Boy" a Japanese anime film. As everyone know anime is totally different to cartoons, because even though it is animated it is made in Japan, and hence counts as world cinema. The clerk asked me "do you like anime?" I panicked a bit, because the question "do you like anime?" could also actually mean "do you like cartoons". He was just being friendly, and recommended some new titles. I was full of post work beer so was less than coherenet in my replies. The next day I was wondering around Tesco I saw two things that interested me. One was a DVD of the trasnformers film for 3 pounds. The other was a blond woman, perhaps in the early 30s, in a jean dress. She looked sensible and in command of local reality, but not the kind of person you could invite around for some world cinema. I whispered "I like cartoons" to the cashier as I payed for my DVD, and walked out alone. I would like to point out that the steam boy DVD was very clever, and had Stephenson of steam engine fame in it (not a sympathetic character though). I am not sure that science came out well from the film.

cloverfield

I went out to see the film cloverfield last night. A bunch of annoying New Yorkers get attacked by a giant monster. The film is shot from the perspective of a dorky camera man. Perhaps not as profound as Godzilla, but a good way to spend the evening.

Death in the Afternoon

While travelling to Ohio I read "Death in the Afternoon" by Ernest Hemingway. This was a book about bull fighting. One time I was in Spain and another time I was in Mexico, I watched a bull fight on TV. Frankly I had no idea what was going on, whether that was a bad thing is open to debate. Ernest's book is a history about bull fighting and a guide to the spectacle. I now know the cowardly way t kill a bull. Hemingway got the nobel prize for literature, but he is not the kind of writer who uses big words. His writing always floats in a lot of alcohol. Eevn in this book, you can feel the pull of death and suicide, but somehow Hemingway makes it very sociable.

days between stations

I think I bought "days between stations" in the Oxfam book shop on Byers Rd in the fabulous West End of Glasgow. The book had very good blurbs on the back (Thomas Pynchon), so it wasn't your normal science fiction novel. I started reading it, but then stopped for maybe a year. It was a confusing novel, even with out the long lay off of reading the book. Somehow there was a black and white film that was never released. Also the desert was seeping everywhere. Various people were in and out love. What was it all about? Good question, I think somehow the film was reborn into reality. It was very well written, but it was not clear what he theme was. Anyway a sweet piece of literary fiction.

Another Valentine's day, another evening alone. I would feel sorry for myself, but my entire system is feeling diseased and wasted. Hopefully this is just due to the change on time zones and not all the people sneezing on the plane. I awoke with a splitting headache. I had to sleep more to get the pain from my head. I went to the post office to pick up two parcels: a shiny new tanto and a book on sexual technique. It would have been hard to explain the coincidence of the contents of the two parcels. I did order them at different times, but fate and the hand of God does strange things. As I said difficult to explain. Since I went to the post office, I tried walking down the Kelvin Way to Botanical gardens. There is an entrance to the park behind Tesco. It is a pleasant walk by the river. The vegetation is grey and partly rotting. The Kelvin way is a slice of country through the modern city. It is so quiet, in fact too quiet. Somehow people look happier on Valentines day. There is an air of expectancy in people's faces. The hippies have won, everyone carries flowers. I just limp and slink along. I finished off reading "Grave Peril" by Jim Butcher. These tales of a wizard in Chicago are slightly better for me than the steady diet of violence I watch on TV. Although various people get eaten and burnt, the words "I love you" are important to character growth, so it was a good book to close the final pages on, on Valentines day.

Ohio

I have been at a meeting in Columbus Ohio. I am staying in the Holiday Inn just opposite the campus of the Ohio State University. There is a 7-11 just outside the hotel. This is where I have been having breakfast and buying my late night beer. It has been really cold with a wind chill factor. When we walked out to lunch and dinner, I have not been so cold for a long time. At meal two days at a really nice restaurant my share was 51 dollars. When I lived in he US, I would have jumped out of the restaurant window if a food bill had come close to 50 dollars. However, given the good exchange rate, the bill was only about 25 pounds. This is not a big deal for a nice meal with beers. I have been feeling like a millionaire. Hello American have a dollar, it is worth nothing to me.

Good to great

This weekend I finished reading a book called "Good to great" by Jim Collins. This was a book about why some companies suddenly start to become very successful, compared to others in the same industry. The front of the book claims that two million copies have been sold. I would guess that a large fraction of the sales have been as gifts to Richard Branson. Collins is very down on superstar CEOs who spend more time getting publicity than running the company. Also he doesn't like firms just randomly buying other assets without any competence in the new business. (Painting them red and putting a V on them doesn't count) Collins doesn't mention Richard Branson, but writing this review, I have found that I hate him. Oh well, he can join the club.

Bay of Souls

I have just read "Bay of Souls" by Robert Stone. I stopped reading recent literary fiction, because I got tired of reading about the problems facing people working in English literature departments. So this novel didn't start too well dealing with the problems of a Professor of English. It was well written I admit. However, things heat up when he goes with his lover to an Island in the Caribbean.

No Country for Old Men

I went to see "No Country for Old Men" on Wednesday. What a great film! Trouble is now I know the the good guys don't always win. In fact the crazy and insane prosper, while the good either die or retire. It feels as though the Universe has changed. My head has been turned.

A test of my moral fiber.

I was siting down when I heard scraping sounds. I suddenly thought, there is a bird trapped in the chimney. How did it get there? There was a lot of scratching and what sounded like the flapping of wings. There is fitted fire in fireplace so there is no easy access to the chimney. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Ring the landlord or the fire service for them to pull the bird out I have various tools that I don't know how to use. so perhaps I could have freed the little bird with my trusty hammer. The other option would have been to ignore the sound and spend the next two days listening to the poor bird die. We are not talking about a beautiful song bird, whose song fills the listeners with delight, or a mighty eagle that soars above us. I doubted whether it was a wise owl. It was more likely a pigeon and I was expected to free it so it could sh*t on my windows again. The sound died after a 30 seconds, so my moral character was not tested (probably a good thing). Perhaps I am going insane. It would be cool to see a colourful warped reality.

Recalled to life

I read Recalled to Life by Robert Silverberg while I was in Spain (that blue sky). This is a science fiction novel about a lab that discovers a way to bring people back to life who have recently died. An ex-governor is hired to do the press for the lab. It was clearly a clever philosophical novel, about the reaction of the church and other groups to this new procedure. There were number of loose ends like a Senator who is accidently murdered. Still you have to admire the book for dealing with the fear of death.

Why I joined the church of Scientology

I joined the Scientology movement for a day when I was 16. The clinching argument was that it payed better than picking strawberries. Unfortunately, as way to recruit people into Scientology there is some kind of personality test. I managed to fail this test. It was a very complicated test and involved running about and doing errands. It seems very unfair that Tom Cruise was allowed to join, but not me. I would have fought the decision to kick me out if I had known that William Burroughs went "clear". Over the holiday I enjoyed reading "The bare-faced messiah" by Russell Miller. This is the story of L Ron Hubbard who founded Scientology. Hubbard was a science fiction author who claimed to have found new insight into mental health (dianetics). The first part of the story was boring because it wall about him as a child who was loved by a large family. As he got older he started to start telling bolder and bolder lies. From the book it did sound that he had manic depressive qualities. He sounded immensely charismatic, and was a good confident speaker. Anyway just in case anyone from the Church of Scientology wants to sue me, you can read the book yourself and judge for yourself. There is track by Mike Skinner from the Streets who complain about camera phones making it hard to do drugs. Because if you are famous than there is always someone ready to take a video or picture to put it on youtube, or sell it to the papers. In a similar vein, it is hard to found a religion these days, because everyone's life is so well documentated. I also thought this when I read Joseph Smith founding the church of the latter day saints. It could be that the Internet and the camera phone will stop any further religions from being started, because there will always be ways to rubbish the founder. I payed 13 pounds for the book from Amazon. I knew it was secondhand, but it had a stamp in it that it was withdraw for sale from a London library. The stamp also told me the book was sold off for 1 pound. Even the anti-Scientology groups rip you off.

CDs

One part of "the lay guide" involved asking a woman around to look at your CD collection. There was a right and wrong way to do this. Umm, I am glad I read that because if I invite someone round to look at my CDs, then they are going to looks at my CDs. If I hear any negative comments, they get thrown out of the flat. Below is a list of CDs in my room with the computer, that a poor unfortunate visitor who be forced to listen to. Anthony and the Johnsons "secretly Canadian" (anguished singing). Elbow -- a cast of thousands (famous Manchester band) Jolie Holland -- Escondia (new country / folk) Violent Femmes -- Permanant Record: the very best of Gallows -- Orchestra of Wolves (new punk band) Can -- Tago-Mago (Kraut Rock) The lovers -- The lovers. french music Regina Spektor -- Soviet kitsch (distorted female singer) Blue cheer -- Vincebus eruption (Loud 60s blues / heavy band)

The lay guide

This week I finished reading "The layguide -- the rules of the game, how to become the ultimate pick up artist". In my defense of reading a book on picking women up, I would like to point out terms such as "the neg" or "wingman" are now part of the common culture. So a well read person needs to know them. I can rememeber exactly when I started reading this, but I dimly rememeber that I bourght it in Liverpool. Anyway I think it has taken over a year for me to finish this book. Given that the book is all about getting more sex, that tells that I didn't enjoy the book. I had the most problems with the first part, where the woman is approached. I would read a couple of pages and then I would get up and say "I am not saying that." However after reading the book I have decided that I am not going to use my favourite chat up line: "who is youir favourite singer out of Kevin Coyne and Phil Ochs?", anymore. Even after reading the book I still like so I am a lost cause. I enjoyed the second part of the book more. Somehow this seemed more useful. Are the women of Glasgow ready for the new confident me. Probably.

the naked Jape

The culture show on TV had Jimmy Carr do a segment on jokes. I found out that Jimmy had written a book with Lucy Greeves, called "the naked Jape." The book contained a history and analysis of jokes. There were also quite a large collection of jokes in the book. Jimmy Carr is more of a joke comedian, as he just tells many very short jokes. Many modern comedians, now tell longer stories. Armed with this new theoretical knowledge of jokes, I can finally add GSOH to my myspace and facebook accounts.

streaming media

I got a copy of "streaming media" by Tobias Kunkel from Amazon fairly cheaply. This was first published in 2003, so is a bit dated in these internet times. I now have a better idea of the streaming software that is used to play radio via the internet. I mostly read the book, because I keep having problems with firefox playing radio 6 via listen again. If I make any changes to firefox, all the settings that let me do "listen again" stop working. The book didn't take about firefox at all, but now I sought of know what a codec is. Also, I guess that this kind of technological information is required to provide movies on the web. So I now know how to set up a po*n channel, given the exciting way the job situation is going, this may be an option.

a brief history of the middle east

My holiday in Spain was a reading holiday. I also read "a brief history of the middle east" by Christopher Catherwood. This was interesting, but I felt I should know more about the British empire's role in the destruction of the Ottoman empire. I know that I should be embarrassed by the "Suez crisis", but I am still unsure what that was all about -- apart from something about canals.

Flashman

Before I went on holiday there were many obituaries for George Macdonald Fraser. I had never heard of the dude, but he was famous for writing the Flashman series of books. While I was in Borders in the center of Glasgow, I saw a single copy of Flashman so since fate willed it I layed out some silver and got some holiday reading. The book was set at the height of the British Empire. Flashman gets expelled from the Rugby public school and joins the army. He ends up fighting in Afghanistan. However, the main joke is that Flashman is a bully, coward, and a womanizer (the kind of person I have always wanted to be). So whenever there is any fighting he always tries to run away, but somehow things always end up with him being viewed as a hero, and all the real heros dead.

Bob Dylan and me

While I was in Spain I finally got around to reading "Chronicles" by Bob Dylan. I had been putting off reading it, because for some reason I thought it was going to be a tedious "kiss and tell" type book. Well frankly I had lost faith in Bob Dylan many years ago. I grew up listening to Bob Dylan. In the early 80s this was uncool for many reasons. At the time the charts were full of Duran Duran. If I had been cool then, I would have been listening to some arty post punk music, but I wasn't. Dylan was viewed as a spent force. Although he had put the fantastic infidels album, after a period of born again Christian music (that I actually quite liked). I didn't like the other albums he released in the rest of the 80s and 90s. Over the holiday period there was an article in Guardian about various artists who were washed up, but still put albums out. The examples were Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney (who has been crap for over 30 years now). The author of the article used Dylan as an example of an artist who was washed up, but somehow managed to move back into the fore front of music/art. I wasn't convinced by this, much as a like his albums after "Time Out Of Mind". The book is really fantastic. It jumps between various periods of his life. There are some scenes when he is just starting out in New York. Also there are parts about when he was recording "Self Portrait" and "Oh Mercy", neither of which are great albums. The stories he tells about making the records are more interesting than the finished music. When he was making "self portrait" he was hounded by people and was missing a normal life. When he was working on "Oh Mercy" he was feeling washed up as an artist. It is so cleverly written. Of course I don't think you get to see the real Dylan. There is still a lot of smoke and mirrors around, but I would't have wanted it any other way. Hey Bob Dylan you are back for me.

Head on

I think I am allergic to Doris Lessing's books. I almost ran out of books while I was in Spain. Luckily I found a good second hand book store in Nerja, thanks to the tourist office. On the dusty well filled shelves, I found two books by Doris Lessing, but somehow I wasn't ready. OK, she won the Nobel prize this year, but I just couldn't face it. Instead I bought "Head on" by Julian Cope. This was the history of the Liverpool punk scene, as seen through Julian's eyes. He was in the "tear drop explodes" and the book ends up about Julian's experiences in the band. Although Julian Cope is now the "elder" statesman of cool and underground music, he sounded like an annoying twat when he was young. There was a lot of pages about him having temper tantrums. He seemed to really hate "echo and the bunymen." I now know a bit more about Eric's club in Liverpool where the punk bands used to play around 79. Somehow when he started taking drugs, he became an easier person to be with, even when he did things like rip up a carpet in a hotel.

bull fight

Last night I watched a bullfight. OK, it was on TV, but this is the twenty first century. There was a horseman who stuck spears into the back of the bull. The bull´s neck was covered in blood. The horse ride would taunt the bull by reading close and trying to stroke its head as it charged. I watched two fights one by a man and another by a woman. When they showed the audience it was clear that the bull ring was nearly empty, (much like an athletic event in the UK), but there were enough people to cheer and throw down leather gourds of wine. The woman bull fighter wasn´t very good at sticking the spear into the bulls neck. Either it would come out or it wouldn´t stick. AS more spears entered the bull, it got slower and slower. At some stage the bull collapsed and died. The matator circled the ring and proudly begged applause from the crowd. There was some other kind of attack on the bull. One person on foot would provoke the bull. It would charge him. He would than grab the horns of the bull and other people would pull the bull of them. I don´t think that this was an accident. (Although one time the bull shook the guy off and bashed him on the ground. I don´t think that was meant to happen.) There was some charging at capes, but that didn´t seem the main part of the show. Even though that little TV screen has shown me much blood letting, it still didn´t feel right to see the bull get slaughtered in the ring.

Rain in Spain

How does the saying go, the rain in Spain stays mostly in the plane. Well I think not. Today it has been raining very heavily in the costal town of Nerja. I couldn´t tell from CNN whether the wheather was worse in Glasgow (otherwise how else am I going to enjoy the remaining day of my holiday). The rain makes it difficult to read outside. I am also running out of books, so I am going to have to look at the bookshop up the road to see what English language offerings that they have.

creative tension (not)

I was hoping that this holiday would be more relaxing than previous ones. All I do is sit on benches read my book and then eat. So far it has not rained and has been fairly warm. Since I have not tried to do anything, nothing has gone wrong so far. I feel that I may be relaxing a little too much. A bit of stress helps progress. The only English language show on TV is CNN. This seems to repeat so much that it does my head in. They are still playing a segment about two brothers in Afghanistan who have drug problems. I saw the same segment last year in a hotel room in Germany. I am trying to cultivate an image as a gangster. I am reading a book on streaming video, just so that people think I am so kind of technical porn king. The technical stuff on streaming video looks fairly complicated, not like they show on the CSI TV program. At home I spend a lot of time trying to get realplayer to work with firefox under linux. It work, then I may some minor change to firefox and I lose access to the BBC radio shows. Perhaps I will have some adventures in the afternoon. But first a spot of lunch.

Holiday in Spain

My last two trips out of Glasgow seemed to involve a lot of rain. I don´t want to complain, but I do see a lot of rain in Glasgow, so sometimes it is nice to go somewhere where I can see the sun. (Actually it is nice to see the blue sky). I am taking a couple of days in Nerja in Spain. This is a small town near Malga. I really came here because it is cheap at this time of year. My mum pointed out (somewhat bitterly) that it is one of her favourite places. We had a family holiday here, over 20 years ago. After I worked how to use cheap airlines I have been to Madrin and Barcelona, but I have tried to stay away from the hard core tourist areas that the British invade to get drunk in the sunshine. I felt I needed a break. Nerja is a smaller town, so it is not one of the main tourist areas for British holiday makers. I have heard a lot of English in the sreets. It is an older crowd who are the tourists. So much less drunkardness, but a lot of stopping in doorways. I did laugh when I walked 5 yards outside my hotel and found places where I could get an English breakfast. A pub close by had the Tennants T sign. (I actully drink more San Miguel when I am in Glasgow so drinking tennents would be a bit of change). After spending the day lazing around in the sun and just looking at the sea, I now kmow why British gangsters come here. I have mostly just been reading all day.

Africa

Tesco has been selling Tusker beer from Kenya. Being an international kind of dude, I bought a couple of Tusker beers. Particularly after I noticed that the brewers of Tusker beer were running a promotion where you could win a trip to Kenya. I kept buying the Tusker beer to help win the competition, because sometimes you need a lot of product to enter the competition, but in fact you only needed one bottle of beer. So far so good. There is now major unrest in Kenya because of the problems with elections. I posted off my application, on Saturday, in some kind of hope that the trouble would be over, when I would get my trip. I was watching TV. The police fired live rounds on a demonstration. The people fled very quickly. I just can't imagine how scared I would be running from automatic weapons.

white bicycles

I have just finished a great book called "white bicycles" by Joe Boyd. Joe was a record producer in the 60s and ran the famous UFO club in London (early hippy hang out). He produced the first Pink Floyd single. He also discovered / produced Nick Drake. So this guy has been around. Boyd did the sound for Bob Dylan's famous performance at the Newport folk festival in 1966. It was at that performance than Dylan went electric. Poor old grumpy Pete Seeger got very angry and kept asking for the volume to be turned down. Dylan and his band only played 3 songs. Boyd started out helping to promote traditional blues and jazz bands, so although he was excited by what Dylan was doing, he also felt sad because the Newport folk festival was meant to preserve folk traditions, and Dylan helped destroy that a little bit. Although Boyd didn't like people to be too traditional, because in some sense it make the artists pander to audience expectations too much.

The stake holding society

I finally finished reading "the stake holding society" by Will Hutton. This was a collection of his essays, that were published up to the first year that the nasty new labour people came to power. Will Hutton is a famous journalist and the essays cover a lot of ground. Hutton is part of the new left in that he believe in higher taxation and wealth redistribution that were concepts that disappeared when the labour and conservative parties became just two different factions of the global tory party. It was slightly depressing to read about the early years of Blair's rule, because everyone was still optimistic about the future. Hutton is pretty smart, but sometimes I wondered whether a royal divorce could be linked to the economic problems in the UK.

tradition

What is this thing called tradition? Is all human behaviour relative, or are there universal rules? I don't know. After over a decade of dragging my mum to the pub on Christmas day for a beer, this year she described this pub outing as a "tradition". Result! My other tradition is to drink sake on new years eve. I am not sure how many years, I have been doing that. On reflection is has only been two years, so that is clearly not long enough to call that ritual a tradition. Particularly as this year my bottle of sake was actually from California. Next year, I will be more traditional with sake from Japan.

The lost room

A couple of weeks ago I watched a DVD called "the lost room". This was a box set for a TV series. The lost room refers to a motel room that no longer exists. There were a series of objects in the room that have special powers, such as a key that could open any door, or a pair of scissors that could rotate things. There were groups of people, known as collectors, trying to get the objects. Some people thing the room and objects were part of God. Now that I look at the synopsis above it all looks a bit nerdy, ok it looks very nerdy. But I think I would enjoy life a lot more if I was searching for every day objects that had magical powers. If you see me wistfully clicking a new pen, then I am actually testing its magical properties, so I suggest you step back. There were very few episode (approx 6), so I was disappointed when it ended. I was talking to some people about DVDs in the pub. I noted that box sets were worse than cocaine, because they soak up so much time. (I would like to point out that I have never taken cocaine, just in case some nasty human resource person is reading this).

Can't stop Won't stop

I have just finished reading a book called "Can't stop. Won't stop" by Jeff Chang. This book is a history of hip-hop, mostly before 2000. It is one of the best music books I have ever read, because it also deals with racism and being creative in a corporate world. I now know who Afrika Bambaataa is and the importance of Grand master Flash. The book contains a lot of interesting material on political organization and compromises. When I read about the million man march in Washington, I kept thinking that I lived in the US then. My recollection of that event was through the prism of the media.

Christmas wishes (not)

I can't say I am A great fan of Christianity. The links my family have had with the church have never been a positive thing. I have always regarded Christmas as a holiday from the cold of winter. I usually send blank Christmas cards, where I write "happy holidays". (Ok sometimes I forget to write peoples names as well, because I am always in a rush). Thanks to Dawkins I now know that I should wish people "a happy Newton's day". Bah humbug!

Last year's resolutions

It is nearly the new year, so it is time to make some new years resolutions. I pulled myself from my lethargy on the couch, limped to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. My blood shot eyes, and beer destroyed body, shimmered with stress, and told me in the no uncertain terms that my dreams of a modelling career were finally over. But I thought what new years resolution could improve my elagantly wasted appearance. Last year my new years resolution was "going more mainstream". Instead of snorting when someone mentions that they like the killers or snow patrol, I was going to try smile and fake some interest in that person, even though they didn't deserve my attention. Anyway somehow hating the killers is hardwired into my brain, so that resolution lasted about 5 seconds. Also after reading Cope's last book on underground Japanese bands, I had to buy the CD Satori by the flower travellin band. When I heard the first track, I was disappointed because I thought it would make my head explode. After the second listen I think it is incredible. Even better, the CD cover for Satori claim that only 1000 copies were made. I have copy number 188. Fu*k mainstream music!

Vodka from Liverpool

Someone told me that there was a brand of vodka from Liverpool. Seemed unlikely, but it may have been true. I tried to order it in a Russian restaurant in Liverpool, much to the disgust of the waiter. Even the mighty google let me down, because I couldn't track vodka from Liverpool down. I found a bottle of Imperial Vodka, distilled in Liverpool, in an off license in Glasgow. The evidence is above. Now I need to search for something else. It passes the time.

TV

I have spent the last 5 days at my mum's house relaxing and doing the Christmas holiday thing. I was talking to my mum and brother about various technological things about TV. In particular the merits of digital TV recorders. I learnt how to use the joost internet TV while I was at home. Nice, but the interface needs more work. One of my other questions is what the f*ck is smileTV. It is one of the freeview channels, but is only on from 3am to 7am. As I get older I can't stay awake until 3am, but I am taunted by the TV page when I switch channels. Umm now I know.

Physics under attack

Although this is not a science blog, I feel moved to comment on the attack by the funding agency (STFC) on fundamental research into particle physics in the UK. Apart from the cuts in funding, what is also particularly annoying is that STFC have a number of "big questions" that are meant to focus research on important areas. The older funding agency called PPARC had questions such as "what are the basic properties of the fundamental particles and forces?", that can be potentially answered. With a new funding agency comes new big questions, the only one that is potentially relevant to particle physics is "why is there a Universe?" What sort of question is that? If you are nine years old then this is perhaps a reasonable question, but it is hard to even know how to start answering such a question. Who wrote that crappy STFC delivery document? If you put "why is there a Universe" into google scholar (that searches books and journals), then you only find that phrase in books on theology, philosophy of science, and one entry in "Nursing Administration Quarterly, 2000". If you search for the phrase "why is there a Universe" using google you find hits from Hawking and string theory people. So this question has nothing to do with physics, reality or experiment. Things would be much simpler in the US, where I would sue STFC because they broke the separation between church and state. In the UK I can only complain to that nice Richard Dawkins bloke, and let him spew some polemic at STFC. Things don't seem and better in the US, where the accelerator I have been focussing most of my phenomenological studies on has just been cancelled. However the funding for a new machine has almost been approved.

blood music

I know I keep promising to read at least one book by Doris Lessing (from the two I already own). As a warm up, I read "blood music" by Greg Bear. This is a great science fiction novel about a scientist creating intelligent cells. He injected the cells into himself, which frankly was a bit stupid. The novel works on many levels and is full of ideas. If you are wondering why reading "blood music" is a warm up to reading Doris Lessing, I would like to point out that Lessing is quoted on the wikipedia page about her as mentioning "blood music" as evidence that science fiction is an important literary form.

six the mark unleashed

I watched a fairly strange DVD called "six the mark unleashed". I thought that this was an action movie. There was a resistance movement who were fighting a supreme leader (by stealing cars). Normally action movies such as this one, end with the leader being overthrown, and everyone going off into the sunset. This film was different. It seemed to involve a lot of Christians, who were rebelling against the system by happily geting their heads chopped off. Looking at the reviews I think I would have got more out of the film, if I knew more about the bible, than that Jesus turned water into wine. Anyway this is what happens when you rent DVDs from the local library at Hillhead. There was an offer on, that if you checked out 6 books, you could rent a DVD for free. Given that I hardly read at the moment, this didn't seem like a good idea. (The cute librarian didn't look pleased).

Mountain Goats

When I lived in Lexington Kentucky during the early part of the 90s, I used to buy a lot of tapes from the Shrimper Record label. The tapes were mostly by lo fi folk bands. One of the bands I really liked were called the Mountain Goats. Tonight, I am going to see the Mountain Goats play at he Oran Mor venue that is just down the road from me! I am so excited. Emmy the great is playing support as well, so that will be cool. When I was in Lexington I think I was hoping that I could put one over John Peel by listening to stuff he had never heard of. When I came back to the UK, I heard that he played the mountain goats and Simon Joyner, so there was really no way to beat the man. Of the bands signed to Shrimper, I really liked "paste". Paste were some intense singer and complaining guitar. I was happy to see that the Shrimper Record label lives on (in a sense).

Fool moon

I keep meaning to read something by Doris Lessing, mostly because I bought some of her books, so I should make an attempt to read them now that she is a Nobel prize winner. However instead I spent part of the weekend reading Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. The book was part of the Dresden files series. The story is about wizard versus werewolves in modern Chicago. The book is not great literature, but is well written with a lot of hooks that occur at the end of chapters. It is good to be reading fiction again. I will get around to reading some books by Lessing soon.

Janis Joplin

A couple of nights ago I had a dream where Janis Joplin was not dead. In the dream I was reading a WIKIPEDIA article about Joplin. She made some records with Led Zeppelin during the 70s. I used to listen to a tape by Janis when I was 17 or 18. We also taped a documentary about Janis and used to watch that in rotation with a documentary about Phil Ochs. Anyway I was pretty sure that Janis Joplin overdosed, but I used to be fairly drunk when I watchd the film about Joplin, so perhaps I missed something. The last time I thought about Janis Joplin was when I heard Cohen say that his Chelsea hotel song was about Janis Joplin. In fact, it looks like all my information about Janis Joplin comes from the TV. This is what used to happen in the days before the internet. I can feel a quest coming on to find Janis Joplin.

Are you ready for the LHC?

Are you ready for the LHC? Hey, forget about tuning your Monte Carlo, what you should be reading is the book "keeping it real" by Justina Robson. In 2015 the quantum bomb opened up the world to the realm of Elves, demons and some other things. The quantum bomb was caused by the explosion of the superconducting supercollider in Texas. Umm, yes, perhaps if she had done a little more web surfing she would have found that that accelerator had been cancelled in the early 90s. I don't see any acknowledgements, but perhaps Brian Cox was involved as a consultant, and he was able to help with his legendary grasp of particle physics. The book was a mixture of fantasy and cyberpunk. The heroine is a cyborg. Science fiction is very different to fantasy (please don't get the two confused). This cross-genre was good, because it mixed scifi with fantasy elements such as magic and elves.

Japrocksampler

When I made my new years resolutions this year, I decided to try and move my interests more into the main stream of culture. For example when I am talking with an attractive woman and she happens to mention that she likes James Blunt, I was hoping to move way from snorting "you like the bland music that fu*king w*nker makes"? I thought that kind of outburst would hurt any potential relationship. Somehow the Satan tempted me to buy the book "Japrockersampler" by Julian Cope. Julian's book is about the Japanese underground music scene, in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Julian claimed that the Japanese music scene was less influenced by drugs, than what happened in the US/UK. It was interesting to read how the Japanese bands were influenced by the music coming from the US. Anyway, rather helpfully Cope provided a list of the top 50 albums by Japanese bands. Top of the list is a CD called Satori by Flower Travelling' Band. Well I have saved money by not buying CDs by Blunt so I deserve a treat,

metal machine

I have decided I am an atonal type of guy. On the freakzone radio show last week, the featured album was Metal Machine by Zeitkratzer. This was an orchestral version of Lou Reed's Metal Machine, that he released in the mid 70s. Many people view the original metal machine as unlistenable, including me (although I didn't try). However the orchestral version sounded so fantastic that I have just bought a copy. However, the new version of metal machine will still clear rooms.

emmy the great

I went out to see "Emmy the great" play at King Tuts in Glasgow last Friday. I don't go out to gigs that much these days, so I couldn't decide whether to go or not. I did decide that an evening of mucic and beer would do me good. The other times I have been to King Tuts it has been packed out, but it was fairly empty when I got there. (Most people were in the bar downstairs and slowly drifted up as the support acts played). One of the support acts was ballboy. I bought one of their CDs, maybe about 5 years ago, because it was championed a lot by John Peel. Also the CD had a song about a big fat stupid Manchester United fan, so the Gods of Liverpool forced me to buy it. I had thought that Ballboy was a band, but last Friday, it was just one guy strumming his guitar. I really enjoyed his set thought, because is was full of word filled songs. Emmy the great were great. I had heard them play a session on Marc Riley's Rocket Science. She sings controlled, sweet, and intense songs. She is Chinese, but the music is not Chinese traditional (I had to explain that too a number of people this week). There is a review of the same gig by someone at the Guardian. A bit wordy and pretentious for my taste. You can listen to Emmy the Great and decide for your self. Interestingly enough Emmy the great are playing a venue close to my flat tonight. More importantly she is playing Glasgow with the "mountain goats" on 10th December. I used to buy low-fi tapes by the mountain goats.

too pretty

I kept hearing about a new folk singer called Fionn Regan. I think he got nominated for a music award. I saw he was playing in Glasgow, but I didn't go and see him, because frankly he looked too pretty. I don't really think of "pretty" boys playing folk music. One of the radio 6 presenters played a track of his CD. The song was about him ringing someone up (ex-girlfriend ?) to apologize for stealing some books and things from their house. It was such a great song, that I regretted not going to see him play. Of course Dylan was pretty when he toured the UK in the last 60s. He was so feminine that a woman plays him in an up and coming film biography.

die hard 4.0

I watched Die Hard 4.0 on DVD on Thursday night. It was entertaining enough. They do all this fancy stunt work, but then there was a scene in the car that was clearly done with a blue screen. Other scenes were done in a real car. I payed 2.50 to rent that DVD, I don't expect to see blatant blue screen filming.

books about wizards

Last week I read a book called Storm Front by Jim Butcher. The book was about the adventures of Harry Dresden, a wizard in the Chicago area who solves occult murder mysteries. This is not high art, but the book was well written in an addictive way. (I don't think the book was a Harry Potter rip off, because I am too cool to read such stuff). Trouble is there is a whole series of these books. I am reading so few books at the moment to get involved in reading a series of books for mere enjoyment. I should really make a start on one of the Doris Lessing books I own. Perhaps I will just order one more book by Dresden.

Rashomon

I have just finished reading Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. This was a collection of short stories by a famous Japanese writer. There is a great film called Rashomon, that starts with a man walking in some trees. The book makes an appearance in the film "ghost dog" as well. A good piece of writing can warm my soul for a long time. I could feel the influence of a story called "hell screen" for a couple of days. There was a lot of ambiguity about the story, which describes a terrible but fascinating event. Ryunosuke changed writing styles later on his life. He started by writing historical stories, but later the stories were more autobiographical (set in the early part of the twentieth century). The last story was called "spinning gears". It involved him just jotting down things he felt and saw, some of which may have been real. He was so sensitive and depressed. I feel the same way when I have not talked to anyone for a couple of days.

I speak out on world music

I speak out on World music. There was a record fare in Hillhead library. This was an execuse for some people to sell second hand CDs and records in an upstairs room. I just happened to be browsing. I ddn't see anything I really needed, but I did buy a CD called "Cafe Instanbul". This a sampler of the music of Istanbul and I like it a lot. I remember listening to a radio program about music called "arabesque". The music was about doomed love and terrible sadness. Taxi drivers would listen to it while they drove around and they thought what heros they were. There is a popular dance like band called Beirut, who made a really fantastic CD called "Gulag Orkestar". The CD is described as Balkan folk music, which is a bit strange because it was made by a teenager in the US. A track was played on the freakzone radio show, but Stuart worried about integrity because it was not made in the Balkans. The Cafe Istanbul CD sounds like Beirut, but is more authentic. I feel I must speak out about integrity in world music, but I am not sure what to say. So I have thought up an action plan: 1) demonstrate for authenticity in world music by buying the latest CD by Beirut called The Flying Club Cup, because God told me it was OK. 2) visit Istanbul to hang out. This is a bit expensive though. 3) Buy more arabesque CDs from the record fair in the Glasgow library. Let my voice be heard! Some people think that listening to CDs is easy, but it can be stressful.

holiday reading

I managed to do some reading while I was on my travels. I read double vision by Tricia Sullivan. I didn't realize when I bought it, but I had also read one of her other books called Maul (yeah well this happens when you buy books based on liking the cover). This was a strange book. A woman had a job that involved watching a battle on far away planet that may not be happening. The company she worked for used her information to market products in some unspecified away. At some stage she stopped eating. After work she was also going to karate classes. She gave one of the best descriptions about being in the lower levels of a martial arts club. She was sparring some senior student who was "injured", so she didn't allow the weaker student to hit many targets. I know how to have fun when I am on holiday, because I also finished "concepts of mass" by Max Jammer. This was a historical and philosophical to the concept of mass in physics. I enjoyed the historical parts more than the parts on the concept of mass after relativity had been introduced. Some of the contemporary stuff Jammer thought was interesting is now viewed as crap (by me at least). I also read "Rim" by Alexander Besher while I was on my Polish trip. This was about virtual reality with a bit of Tibetan mysticism thrown in. Neo-Tokyo disappeared every night after some big earthquake. A big virtual reality system crashed and put a lot of people in a coma. Yep, lots of good geeky stuff.

Polish vodka

I was on a vodka quest. I wanted to try some Polish vodka. There was none in Tesco. I deaded going to oddbins and asking for Polish Vodka. Then they would ask "what brand?", and I would ask for the cheapest bottle. Anyway I found that the Somerfields supermarket sells Polish vodka I am so classy sometimes, I surprise myself.

conclusion to Warsaw trip

So to conclude my tale of my trip to Warsaw. Have I learnt anything? Am I a better person for seeing a small section of Poland? Of course I have not changed one little bit. I am now more interested in vodka. I am not sure I will be able to drink Smirnoff (not that I did that much anyway). I like the idea of becoming a vodka snob in the land of whisky. I did buy a bottle of absolute citrus vodka in Tesco. Tesco don't sell any Polish vodka. I will have to try odbins for vodka from Eastern Europe. In the past, I have had some bad experiences drinking spirits at home. Now I have some small shot glasses, things may go better this time. I like the idea of drinking a shot of icy Polish vodka with a sausage. Some people may not regard my trip to Poland as a success.

Warsaw IV

On Saturday I didn't feel like doing the tourist thing. It wasn't raining. There are some nice parks and palaces in Warsaw, but I didn't feel like seeing some green trees and sh*t. I wandered around where the hotel was. I found a big shopping mall. There were a surprising large number of bike paths around. In the evening I had a traditional Polish meal of sushi and sake at a restaurant in the Mall. I watched a dubbed kung fu movie at night. The film had an American comedian who inserted himself an old style kung fu movie from China. This was then dubbed into Polish, so it was a bit weird. When I waiting for the Taxi at 5:00 in the morning, I watched a Samurai movie. At the end of the film a Samurai cut a tree with blossom with his sword. A perfect (if somewhat strange) way to end a holiday.

Warsaw III

On Friday I went into Warsaw to do some sightseeing. The hotel was about 5 km from the center of Warsaw. I asked at reception and they told me some information about a good bus to get me to the action. It rained fairly steadily on Friday, so that is not optimal weather to wonder around a city. I got on the bus OK, and payed by the traditional way, when you can't speak any of the local language, of offering the driver some coins and letting him give me a ticket. I looked at the rainy city out of the bus window. At some stage, the view looked centerish, so I decided to get off. I wondered around for a couple of hours. I was aiming to go the old town, but somehow I kept getting my left and right mixed up. Warsaw is a big city. The main part is not ugly, but it is not particularly interesting. There were obviously "MacDondalds", but I didn't see the standard Boots, Waterstones, and Tesco stores, that stain every single British town. At lunch I had a kebab. The old town is meant to be the more interesting part of the city. The map I was given at the tourist information site started playing mind games with me and I just couldn't find the old time. The rain was getting on my nerves as well. Normally I would have gone to a mesuem or something, but when I went to what looked like a museum, it was actually an IMAX cinema. (Damm that map of Warsaw). Eventually, I had to seek inspration from a glas of Polish beer in a local bar Just I was about to go and find a taxi, I suddenly found that I was moving into an older area. Warsaw was largely destroyed during the second world war, so the old section of the city is largely rebuild in the style of the old city. It has lots of cobbled streets where no nasty cars are allowed. This is the area where the British stag nights happen I believe. I had a meat and potato type meal in a bar. Apparently, flavored Vodka is a Polish specialty. I tried a shot of Cherry vodka. It tasted like cough medicine. (I had a sudden vision of the man throwing up what looked like cough medicine onto the streets of Glasgow at the start of this trip). I banged my hand onto the table to keep the flow of time forward and flash back free. I got a taxi back to the hotel. I went to the garage over the road from the hotel to get beer. Many Poles were doing the same. Later on I did hear, what sounded like wolves howling outside, but I never let a minor thing like that get in way of buying beer. The next day I saw black crows circulating the garage. I am considered a hero by many people.

Warsaw II

My flight was scheduled to land in Warsaw at 18:00. When I booked my hotel from Expedia, I found that they had an option to get driven to the hotel from the Airport. It seemed a bit expensive, but as I was only going to be in Warsaw for 3 nights, I didn't want the stress of trying to figure how to get to my hotel, and the self loathing from getting ripped off by the taxi ride.. When I got into departures, there was a guy with my name on it. I almost stood up and shouted, "that mcneile is such a hot shot" to the hot Polish babes. In the car, I missed the feeling of quiet despair as you wait in an unfamilar taxi, hoping that you will be taken to the hotel, rather to some dark alley for a good kicking. At least if I got murdered in a car ride purchased from Expedia, I could at least sue. I booked to stay at the Atos hotel in Warsaw. This seemed like a good idea when I was saw the price was 24 pounds a night, but it is really a hotel at the edge of the city. There is no wireless Internet access. The information claimed that there was a bistro and a bar. I couldn't find the bar or bistro. I had not eaten all day, so I needed food. Being a skilled traveller I had noticed a steady stream of people walking over to the garage over the road. So I followed them and found beer, chocolate, and hot dogs, so I will not starve during my visit here. I did find the bar eventually that was in a separate building There were 3 people in the bar. I ordered beer, but I wanted vodka. Baring in mind that this hotel complex has 3 buildings each of which has 10 floors with 20 rooms, then just having 3 people in the bar, says something about the Polish pub culture. There is nothing much around here. If I wanted to buy a car, I would be OK. I think I saw a Macdonalds 1 km away. So ended my first day in Warsaw.

Warsaw I

After almost hitting a number of deadlines at work, my body decided to hit the exhaustion button. So I needed a break outside Glasgow. Whizz air fly from Prestwick airport to Warsaw, so since I have never been to Poland, here I am. I had to do some chores in Glasgow before I left. I walking behind some guy who was casually throwing up all over the street. This was at 10:00 in the morning. What worried me the most was that his puke looked green and purple, like some cough or methadone medicine. He was not bothering anyone, but was walking in the same direction as me. Anyway he got on a bus going to the city center. I didn't view this as a good omen for the start of a holiday, where the temptation of Polish vodka will be ever present. I the went for a hair cut. The woman who was cutting my hair was complaining a little bit about her boyfriend who had fallen off his motor bike for the fifth time. As I am the kind of person who can fall over in the street and hurt themselves just walking about, I doubted that I would be much of an improvement (apart from not having to pay for the bike repairs). I am not good around happy people. She was telling me about a holiday in Paris. I have been to Paris for a conference, but I was depressed on my day off, because of what had happened at the conference. I decided that this wasn't going to help the faltering conversation along. Anyway I got to the airport with no problems, and I ended up in Warsaw.

2 Miike Takashi DVDs

I rented two DVDs directed by Miike Takashi from the library. Takashi is famous for films such as "audition" and "ichi the killer", that are the most violent thing I have ever seen. The first film I watched was Ley Lines. This was a film about three Chinese youths who move to Tokoyo and get involved with gangs. These are clealy Takashi films, but everything is more grimy and real. But you can the beginnings of the weirdness and violence. I liked the start, where one of the youths is trying to get a work permir or something, he gets rejected, so he throws a big potted plant over the counter. The second DVD was called "Rainy Dog". THis was about a hitman, who has a son dropped off with him. The action was set in Taiwan, where it rains a lot. This was probably one of the best action films I have ever seen, even though it was very bleak and cheap. It also contains a scene where a father is shot in front of his child. The killer then says, "if you want you can come after me, when you get older.". Umm, that is strange that is very similar to a scene in Kill Bill volume I. I am sure that Tarrintino meant it as a homage and not a rip off in any way.

wire

I am under underappreciated.

sleepfaring

I finished a book called "sleepfaring" by Jim Horne. This was a book about the science of sleep. The book loops over the research about sleep. I learnt that you don't need to pay back much sleep debt. I probably need an extra 15 to 30 minutes a night to fine tune my sleep habits. At the moment I am dead tired that is more exhaustion that additional hours of sleep will not help. I am going on holiday to Warsaw next weekend, so that should help freshen me up. He doesn't have a lot of time for people who have insomnia. The scary stuff was about people who fall asleep at the wheel and problems with having a fat neck.

Hillhead library

I took the day off today to do normal stuff. For example I joined Hillhead libary. I have always loved libraries. I used to use the library in Knutsford a lot, although I was never a superhuge reader. Part of the problem that that books were not really part of my family experience. My evil father did like books by Wilbur Smith, but the less said about that the better. You need a reading guide sometimes. I found a book by Kafka in Knutsford library, and that warped and mutated by synapses. I can still see the bookshelf where my hand pulled "America" down. The huge University libraries tend to depress me, because there are usually just too many books and I get overwhelmed by my lack of knowledge. Of course, the University libraries still don't always have the books I need so I end up buying my own copy. The contradiction here is removed because some technical books are crap and not useful to me. Anyway Hillhead library is a small library. They have a good selection of fiction books. I have joined and this is what I checked out: Ley Lines (DVD), Rainy Dog (DVD), Rashomon (book). Anyway Hillhead library is a small library. They have a good selection of fiction books. I have joined and this is what I checked out: Ley Lines (DVD), Rainy Dog (DVD), Rashomon (book). OK, so I got two DVD as well, but look the films were directed by Miike Takashi. The book Rashomon I believe was the basis of the Akira Kurosawa film of the same name. The book also featured in the film Ghost dog, although the main book that influences Ghost dog is "book of the Samuri". I was going to buy the Rashomon book from Amazon, so I saved five pounds. Well I would have saved five pounds, but for the 6 pounds I spent on checking out the DVDs. I can also rent a DVD about making cocktails from the library. "Sex on the beach" anyone?. I can see my mind improving, once the bottles of vodka, rum, and gin are in my cupboards.

Capital Ideas and Market Realities

This week I finished the book "Capital Ideas and Market Realities" by Bruce Jacobs. This was a set of essays about modern finance. Bruce was complaining about "Portfolio Insurance". This is a strategy to move from stocks into safer cash or bonds, when the stock market starts to go into decline. This is meant to help stop loses. This is theoretical idea behind automated selling that was a cause of the stock market crash in 1986. I am still learning the financial jargon, but the book was a good introduction to the ideas of financial mathematics

Air by Geoff Ryman

Hey ring the church bells for I have finished reading a book! While I was away somewhere I read Air by Geoff Ryman. This is a book about the effect of a new type of wireless network that plugs into people's brains. The story is about the effect of this new Internet on the lives of a remote village close to China. There was a small amount of science fiction in it, but it was mostly about the effect of the Internet on a small rural village. Although this Internet was easier to use than the one we have. I enjoyed this clever book. The copyright for the book is 2004, so it is post the first dotcom bubble.

some unread books by Doris Lessing

When I tried to follow literature in some way I decided to try and read something by the person who won the Nobel Prize in literature for that year. The first year I tried this I read "A Personal Matter" by Kenzaburo Oe. I thought the book was fantastic, but the review of the book on Amazon makes me feel like a crude guy. The next year a poet won the Nobel prize in literature, so I easily gave up on my quest for self improvement. This year Doris Lessing has won the Nobel prize in Literature. I already own two Lessing books: The good terrorist and the golden notebook. Needless to say I had not read either of them. Now that my half shattered brain is rested enough, I think I can blast through some new books. We shall see. I am pleased that Lessing has won the prize, because she has a streak of science fiction in her. Anyway I just glad that nasty Salmon Rushdie didn't win. He is too loved by the literary establishment, and I didn't get "Midnight's Children"

PJ Harvey and me

PJ Harvey has a new CD out. The CD is called "white chalk". There is no guitar or drums on this new record, she mostly just plays the piano. It is very different from her normal guitar based man hating output. I was frankly stunned by the new sound, although that might have been due to the cans of the 8% Tesco lager. There are some really haunting tunes on this record. PJ looks like some Victorian governess on the photo for the CD. She doesn't look like the cool governess, who reads French novels, but more like a governess in a Henry James novel. I was going to say that secretly that I loved PJ Harvey, but I doubt that it much of a secret. Most men of my age love PJ. Somehow she is beyond style and cool. If I did go up and try and talk to her, I would end up rambling about extra DVD features and pyramids as I do around pretty women. Then the air would get hazy and I would lose sight of PJ as semi-transparent pictures of Picasso would dismiss me from her presence in a cool and educational way.

public enemy versus PJ Harvey

When I was growing up I listend a lot to public enemy. They just had such a fantastic sound, that was both positive and gun related. I don't tend to buy a lot of hiphop or rap, but that is because I never know who to buy. The closest to hiphop I have been recently is Mike Skinner's the streets (that I really love). I don't know why I don't listen to too much hiphop: the guns, drugs, loose women, and guns are so relevant to my life. Anyway I heard a public enemy track on the radio, so I went out and got the new album: How You Sell Soul To A Souless People Who Sold Their Soul I still love their sound. I got PJ Harveys latest CD at the same time, but I put public enemy on first.

Two walks in Ruchill park in Glasgow

Now that I am slowly finishing off various deadlines, I have been trying to take it a bit easy. Behind me there is a big park. I would not have noticed it, until I looked for my flat on google maps.
View Larger Map The name of the park is Ruchill park. I went for a walk there today (and last Sunday too). It is a big park, but it is almost deserted. There are way less people in Ruchill park than there are in Kelvingrove park, or the Botanic gardens. I walked up a hill on my own and looked at unkempt bushes. The first person I met last week, was carrying a bottle of Tennants, but wasn't a tramp. Its a good place to die I thought, there are so few people that muggers can get your cash and slit your veins before anyone notices your screams. There was a good climing frame, that was 4 or 5 m high. There is a good view at the top of the hill. Through the high rise buildings you can see the hills. Also the University of Glasgow looks grand.

Day watch

I went out see the film called "Day Watch" last night. This was a Russian film mostly set in Moscow. What was it about? Good question, I wasn't so clear what was going on. There were forces of good versus the forces of darkness. There was a truce of some kind. Moscow got destroyed, but they turned time back with the 'chalk of destiny'. Anyway it was a reasonable action fantasy film set in Russia. The film is the second part of a trilogy. The first film was called Night watch.

The equation that couldn't be solved

When I was a graduate student at Edinburgh during a seminar by someone in the maths department. He mentioned that he had an 8th order polynomial to solve, so he said "so by an elementary application of Galois theory I factored the polynomial in two quartic equations." Woow. We were all deeply impressed by this. (Of course I would have just used maple to solve the equations numerically). I have always felt that I should be able to solve equations by Galois theory. I have just read the book "The equation that couldn't be solved" by Livio. This is a popular mathematics book about Galois's theory. There was a lot of generic stuff about symmetry in the book. As usual strings make an unwelcome appearance. Galois died young in a duel, so he is a romantic figure as well. There wasn't enough detail for me to understand why there is no closed solution to polynomials with order higher than 4. I should have read the 79 pages of Galois theory by Emil Artin instead. This is a more hard core book on sums.