Carnival

 Carnival time

So were big procession in Cologne and Dusseldorf today. So it is time to remember past Carnivals. Last year, i didn't go either. I watch on TV, but I don't feel the need to wear a big bunny costume, drink lots of beer, and collect sweets from the floats.

I always have great plans for work, but after lunch I start to get bitter, because I keep thinking everyone else is wearing bunny suits and drinking lots of beer. Last year I went out and purchased a coffee maker and kettle -- that seemed very important at the time, but I have only used the coffee maker once. This year I went shopping to ALDI -- more for the walk, but also to try out my shopping basket.

Shopping basket blues

On shopping

There are a lot of budget supermarkets in Germany. For example there is an ADLI sort of close to my flat. One thing that annoys me about these shops is that they don't provide hand baskets. Fucking why?  I am a single man -- I refuse to push around a shopping trolley. They get in the way. I like the feel of the weight of the shopping as I push it around.

In Netto - another cheap German supermarket I saw that they were selling hand baskets, so I laid out 5 Euros and got one. I would feel a bit uncool walking around the city with it, so I keep it in my rucksack outside the shop, because of the shame. Look without a basket I can only buy 3 beers at one time.

I hate cleaning

 On cleaning

When I lived with some friends in Salt lake City,  my flat mates once told me there were scared when I cleaned the bathroom. This always seemed to me outrageous because I could never remember cleaning the bathroom at all. My attitude to cleaning is usually summed up by a quote from Quentin Crisp  that the dirt reaches equilibrium, so why bother to clean.

However, at some stage, even I can't stare at flat full of papers. So I have slowly tidied up  the last two weeks, so my flat is a bit more ordered. Although no doubt if you were to visit my flat of solitude you could swipe a finger in your while glove over the wall and find some dust (I would then throw you out).

Some people may be thinking -- we clean our house every week, so what is the big deal? Interesting question, as I think I am really cleaning my flat rather than studying for my German exam.

Dream goals

On better dreams

At some stage I was scared of sleeping. I was worried about the dreams, and also not waking up.
But now I should embrace my fear. I want better dreams. My imagination is broken, so it needs to be grown.

I read in a book about the history of the literature of vampires. To write better stories, a group of friends, ate rotten meat before they slept. This seems a bit extreme to me.

So how can I get better dreams. What to do? Well I looked on the web and I found this link. I like the idea of controlling my dreams. Why pay for renting a new film, when I can dream myself into new places.  Perhaps I will not bother to get up, just spend all day in bend dreaming. Better still, I could run new particle physics simulations in my mind.

But I also remember a film by Wim Wenders called " Until The End Of The World", where they film dreams and they claim it makes them go insane.

Sill not thin

More about this weight business

Boohoo. My life sucks. I weighed myself on Saturday and I was exactly the same weight as last week. It is so unfair I was hoping to be pass the 90 kg barrier, but no. I have been walking up the big hill to the University and when there is light, I have been going up the 8 flights of stairs to my flat.
Also I had stopped my chocolate fix at 11:00 -- replacing it with an apple.

But it did no good whatever. Of course I did eat a chocolate bar on Friday, but I needed something to settle my stomach for the duration of my German class. Of course my stomach was a little bit upset from the beer from the previous evening.

Perhaps I will have to give something else up to meet my goals.

 Flashpoint

Yesterday I watched a great film called Flashpoint on Itunes. It was a standard police action film set in Hong Kong, however the fighting sequences were very impressive. The main star was not really using kung fu. but more Thai. He had some great moves, one of which made me wince. He threw a person over his shoulder  and them on their head

You can see that the lead actor is very skillful from the "making of the film" video below.
I wish I could do that.




I should mention that I might have seen the film before. There is a scene where there is bomb in a roof top flat that seemed very familar.

A boring dream

Last night I dreamed that I was walking to work. I was naked, but I was carrying a T-shirt. I decided to  have more time for work that I would just put the T-shirt on and not go home to get my trousers. After breakfast at a cafe, I felt confused and decided that I would go home and get my trousers. At the end of the dream I was trying to understand an email from a physicist in the US.

What would Freud made of the dream? My sexual needs are not being made. I don't need a dream to tell me that. It is coming up to Valentimes day and I have no date. Frankly, If I have a dream about my sexual repression and emotional coldness, I would rather have other  people naked in the dream.  I can't even turen to Jung to find some hidden racial  memory from ancient times.

More worryingly perhaps my dream is about my future. In 20 years I will already be senile, wandering around the nursing home wearing no trousers....

On death and pop music

My formative years were in the 80s. I really used to hate pop music. This was the time before the internet, so it much harder to find new music, and we were all force fed pop music. (Of course there was John Peel and fanzines). I didn't wish anyone harm. Certainly any rumours that I keep a little black book with a list of 80s pop stars  that I wish vengeance on, is untrue (its all in my head: Bono, Duran Duran, ...).

I was sorry to hear of  Whitney Houston's death. Perhaps I could have saved her. Even after the drugs and booze, she was still attractive. I could have been her new manager. We would have started slowly.
Perhaps working the Liverpool karaoke scene. There is good money of you can win on one of those nights. I could have helped with the rehab. I would get off champagne and onto something more healthy such as pints of Stella lager. Then I would make my master stroke. Who would be your idol, if you were a sex symbol, but then had problems with drugs. Well obviously, it would be Nico from the
velvet underground. Yes an album of covers of songs sung by Nico would have put her career on a new path.

Dreams of flying and lenohard Cohen

So last night I had a dream where I was flying -- in an airplane. The strange thing was that Lenohard Cohen was in the coach area as well. He seemed happy and relaxed. As the plane took off, he started singing Suzzane (one of his famous songs). Best of all the seat next to me was empty, so I could lie down. I was surprised that Cohen was not in first class. What does it all mean? I think my body was trying to award me for not drinking any beer on a Saturday night.

On Soup

On soup fascism

When I was growing up my mother tried to teach me how to eat soup in the correct manner. Some how  I didn't like tilting the spoon away from me to get the soup into the spoon. It always seemed more geometrically natural to tilt the spoon towards me, so that when the spoon left the soup it went in a smooth arc to me mouth.

Now that I look into this I see that there is plenty of advice on the correct way to eat soup on the web.
In fact in the good olde USA they claim that it is better to eat soup from a mug rather than a soup bowl. There is a video that shows the way my mum wanted me to eat the soup.

I was going to end the post, by saying that I am adult now, so I can eat my soup any fucking way I want to. However, it is coming up to valentines day, and perhaps my soup eating skills will be used as a way to judge my skills as in the bed room.

How fat are you

I was happy to see that my scales told me today that I am 92 kg. There is still a long way to go , but things are slowly moving in the correct direction for my health.

There are various ways to work out what your correct weight is for your height. There is a famous number called the BMI index that tells you what range your weight should be. After looking at the wikipedia page I see that I am now overweight rather than  Obese Class I.

However in my reading -- particularly in weight training , many people don't like to just use the weight, because they are trying to increase their muscle mass. So my own measure is looking to see whether I can see my penis under my beer gut. At the moment this measure tells me I still need to lose
10 kgs or enlarge the size of my penis in some way.

On will power (or lack there of)

I am trying to lose weight. I have had no problems eating less food in general. I don't eat chocolate or crisps in my flat. I don't miss eating half a pack of pringles in an evening. You perhaps will not believe that I eating less food, if you see me in the Mensa. The standard meal is pretty hearty. However, I have replaced pudding with fruit.

Everyday I was eating just one bar of chocolate at 11:00. This week I managed to replace the chocolate with an apple -- but it was so hard. The vending machine kept winking at me. The twix looked so tasty and that mars bar!

There was an article in guardian about a new book on will power. In the interview one of the authors says that will power is like a muscle. You have to train it, but also using too much will power can  tire you out (that is my excuse for buying 4 rather than 3 beers yesterday).

Later in the review he suggests that some sugar can be a good quick fix to improve will power. So I am not sure, whether I should go back to the chocolate bar at 11:00. Anyway the main thing is to stop thinking about food.

Or what about it being deep fried?

Yummy!

The priest

I watched The Priest on Itunes. This film was about a band of super warriors who were priests fighting   vampires in a bleak future. I enjoyed the film -- although it was standard action fare.  I was expecting the bishop at the end to be the bad person behind the scenes. But he wasn't -- he was just annoying.

The cold is starting to get to me

It was a fairly warm winter up until the start of this month. In February it suddendly turned bitterly cold. Every time I walk to or from work, my poor little fingers freeze, even with the gloves. I am beginning to feel bitter myself.

Last night I saw a toy's pistol lying on the road. I thought, some poor child has lost their toy. I was going to pick the gun up, but then I thought, I don't want the little kind learning to use weapons. In 10 years time the little shit will probably shoot me, while trying to rob a bank. Or perhaps with the Euro crisis, the Daily Mail newspaper will get its wish and we will be back at war. The man (or woman) will shoot me when I am heroically hiding in a cave with a bad leg. The kid is crying now, but it will help him become a man (or woman). Anyway it was too cold to do anything but run to the warm embrace of the supermarket.

Tinker tailor soldier spy

So I have just watched the film. It is a difficult film to watch, because I kept thinking about the famous TV series. The film was so much shorter than the series, so everything was very stripped down. I know that I should be able ti get past the series, but I can't. The time of the series is also a history lesson because it shows the time before Thatcher's evil influence started the final major decline of the UK.

Ip Man 2

Well I tunes were renting "Ip man 2" for 99p, so how could I resist? This time Ip man is Hong Kong and starting a martial arts school. The plot was fairly standard, with a big tournament fight at the end, where he beats a nasty English man.

What did make me laugh was that his wife was almost ready to give birth, but she moved out so he could train on the wooden dummy in preparation for his big fight. In fact she gave birth, but didn't tell him so that he wouldn't lose focus. Why can't I find someone like that for a relationship? Not that I fight in many competitions. In fact I dimly remember that something similar happened in one of the
Rocky movies, but that didn't seem as natural as in Ip man 2.

There is a WingTsun school in Wuppertal -- that I wouldn't mind training at. However, they may not be happy to train someone so unfit with a dodgy ankle. I did train a little bit at a JDK club and I liked all the sticky hands. However, some of the classical martial arts have problems. I like the video below, however no one attacks like the way they use in the drill. Still the defence is robust.

On getting fucked up

Like many people I have an  urge for self destruction that is balanced by my cowardice. Sometime I liked to get a bit messed up. For example I was going to buy a coffee maker, but instead I got some sachets of instant coffee and milk. I drink a lot of tea, so sometimes I like to drink something different.

So I drink my instant coffee, but it makes me fell like shit. Still I will persevere. It is a nice way to feel bad. Hopefully the coffee is just bad, rather than dangerous.

On gloves

I don't have a fever at the moment, so
I can tolerate a normal amount of cold.
However, it is now -4 C and even though
I wear gloves, my fingers were cold when
I got to work. It takes a while for my fingers
to warm up. I just have to wander about
my office crying about frost bite, until
I feel human again.

For many Christmases I have got gifts of
gloves and socks. I have to admit I am sometimes
a little bit disappointed with the gloves. It is a sad fact that
women, don't really understand what is important
for a man's gloves. They think that the colour, style and warmth
are important, but a man knows that the most important
things is that the glove properly protects the
knuckles in case you need to hit anybody. It has to be
east to slap someone with the gloves if you want to
challenge a person to a duel. Black leather works for me.
Man amazon in Germany even sells some gloves that have
sand in them to protect the hand. Wow!

Cohen and me

One way to tell whether you are listening too
much to one particular singer too much, is if
your mum knows all the tunes too. When I was at
studying at University, I would come home, open
a can of beer, and put a  Leonard Cohen record
on the record player. And thus the holiday would
pass.

I liked the early stuff best of course, but
I liked the 80s sounds as well. For a long time
he hardly ever made records. I think I only
got the second to last album, but I remember being
disappointed in it.

The Guardian streamed his latest record:
"New ideas". On the strength of that I downloaded
it from itunes. I think it is a great record.
People say he is depressing, but I would say he
is more realisti. He started singing later in life,
so he missed the teanage angst faze.

Last night's dreams

I started the dream in a bar. I threw one of my friends over a table. I did that a couple of times. The last time he spun over and hit a pillar. As I woke up I wondered why I did that. One reason was that I was strong enough, and also I was a bit mad because I wasn't drinking.




Later in the night. I was a detective in an office. I had some weird disease that made my body produce bluetack (this is something that can be used to stick paper to a door). I was hanging out with a cat, who I kept forgetting to feed. (Look it wasn't my cat). Later my body produced a lot of bluetack. I managed to pull it off and the floor was covered with bloody bluetack. Later I saw the cat. I thought, I have forgotten to feed it, but it it looked fat. No I thought, it has eaten the bluetack. The cat tried to bite me and I woke up.

On being fat

I sometimes meet people at conferences just once every one or two years. A number of peple had helpfully told me that I am fat now. This is of course true.
I could explain the reasons, but I wasn't working out and I was easting and drinking too much -- all the usual stuff.

Around October of last year I cut down on what I was eating. Only fruit for desert. Nothing hard core. I was 104 kg. Now if i believe my scales I am 94 kg. I feel better, but I am still have a big beer gut. I am a bit paranoid, because I had a lot of problems taking my first weight. I am worried that someone is sneaking into my flat and changing the scales so that I think I am losing weight -- and then one day I am back at 104 kg.

No one has said to me, gosh Craig you look as though you have lost weight. I know everyone hates me and wants me dead, but somebody could pretend to care about my health. Perhaps I am just fooling myself.

I was going to post a phot of my belly so we would have a record of what i look like, if I reach my target of 84 kg weight, but frankly that would be cruel to you dear reader.

In fact I should have done some press ups rather than  write this post. You have really destroyed my fitness regime, I am now going to have a couple of beers. I will never weigh below 90 kg....

Cowboys and aliens

I watched Cowboys and aliens pver the weekend. Well why wouldn't I want to watch such a film?  The film was nearly a great film, but it felt as though it had
something missing. Although the film had one of the best recent performances from Harrison Ford.

I miss Sherlock Holmes

So one of thebig downsides of living outside the UK is that I miss many good TV programs. I know that sounds a little sad, but an Englisman needs to watch dr Who sometimes -- just for a bit of reallity and sanity.

Today I am missing the new TV series about Sherlock Holmes that is set in modern times. Ok I actually got the first series from Itunes, but not all th second series is there. I will  just have to wait and watch some old episodes on youtube.

Woochi the demon slayer

Last weekend I watched a great film from Korea called  Woochi - The Demon Slayer .
This was a really great film, with wizards and goblins. The action moved from ancient to modern Korea

At this rate, I will soon have seen all the Korean actions films from Itunes. I now want to visit Korea.

I dream of Salt Lake City

I slept badly last night. I dreamed that I was working at the University of Utah. The Institute of Physics arranged me fro me to meet a salesman to talk about their books. The appointment was early, around 10:00 after the new year and I was worried that I wouldn't make it, because the meeting was arranged specially for me.

At the meeting there were two other people. He started the meeting by giving me some pamphlets about Mormonism.  This was shocking to me, but I tried to follow him around the building, so as not be rude. However I lost him, because I followed someone else in the group, who went to a cafe in the building.

Later someone told me that the IOP will not give out religious material again to me anyway.

What does it all mean? Perhaps I am worried that Mitt \Rommey will become the president of America.

A drinking story for a sober night  

I enjoyed reading this newspaper article about drinking. Ok well enjoyed may put it too strongly.
Although making the gay bar his local it taking drinking a bit too far.
 Although it is not so easy to drink in the US in bars because of the car issue, it is possible to buy booze from a liquor store and watch it at home. In Kentucky there were even drive in liquor stores. To celebrate the 6 pack and TV life style I embed black flag playing "6 pack". The singer Henry Rollins doesn't drink beer I believe, so the post can end on a high point of irony.

On the shoe question

When I was at high school, my shoes were falling apart.
So I glued the bottom to the top. However, I was out walking
near the family home and the bottom of one of my shoes
fell off. I had to go home and get my mother to go
out and buy some new shoes.

About four years ago, some family members kidnapped me and
forced me into a shoe store to buy a new pair of shoes.
At first I thought the shoes and me would be friends, but the
bastard things started to rub and they drew blood. Unfortunately,
the blood stained the bedroom carpet. I was charged 100 pounds to
clean the carpet by my landlord when I left. Not that I am bitter.

The first time I looked in the shoe store in Wuppertal,
I staggered a little bit, because the cost of a pair of shoes was 100 Euros
or more. I did find one store that sold shoes at a reasonable cost.
However yesterday I found the store closed, with a sign on the door,
saying it would reopen in mid February. So I wondered around
Wuppertal looking for cheap shoes. I finally went to TK Max.
I now have a nice pair of brown boot like shoes. I think my feet love my new shoes, at least there isn't any blood.

As well as complicated things such as the Euro, I have to get used
to shoes sizes in the 40s.

Ip man

Over the weekend I watched "Ip Man" from Itunes. The film was about a small part of life IP Man, a martial arts master in the style of kung fu called Wing Chun. As usual with asian martial arts films, the action is great, but the stories and characters were good as well.

I am a lot more interested in Wing Chun. I din't like one of the Wing Chun stances, because the knees are pointing inward. This makes it a very static stance, although given the speed of my foot work, it may be my stance.

I want a Wing Chun dummy to train with and to impress the girls.

On dreams

I have been awake for 40 minutes, but I am already starting to forget my vivid dreams.

In the first dream, I was in a big house that I might have known. There was lots of white sheets.

In the second dream, I was talking with a Russian spy master. He was upset because one of his friends was dead. He shot some guns onto the windowsill. He was talking to a group of us about the loss. I had a little training about spycraft, but I didn't say anything. I gave him a another gun, so he could shoot up the windowsill.

So I don't need Freud to tell me that I am watching too many action movies.

Dinner and dreams

I had a number of strange dreams last night. In one I was preparing a dinner for a large number of people, but I wasn't clear what had to be done. I opened a big can of soup.

In the next dream I was organizing a dinner party for 4 people. On of the guests actually lives in the US, so I think the plan was for him to join via the internet. I spent more time worrying about setting the table properly, than worrying about the food. I awoke to the alarm and almost sent an email to the guest in the US with the invitation.

On being cool  musically

I like to think that I have fairly wide musical tastes. However, I don't follow what is happening in the charts, mostly because I listen to radio 6, and mostly hate the output of radio 1. I do occasionally see newspaper articles about pop stars, such as lady gaga and various winners of talent shows, but I mostly ignore them.

I did hear about some woman called Adele. because she was having problems with her voice. My mum played me a track over the X-mas break and there is something in that I liked. So I even got her latest album from Itunes. Gosh, I am now finding music from my mum. Where will it end? Perhaps soon you will hear me say, I am really looking forward to Paul McCartney's  latest piece of bilge. So this is middle age. Well perhaps just because something is popular doesn't make it crap.

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So I want to be willfully obscure. The freakzone on radio 6 last week had the featured album of  

Don Bradshaw-Leather

that was never released as a CD. Also no one really knows who the guy is. The album has the scariest cover ever. It sounds a bit weird.

 The Saint and Mr Teal

While on holiday I read  "The Saint and Mr Teal" by Leslie Charters. I really enjoyed this book. One of things that I perhaps misremembered about the TV series of the Saint was that Simon Templar never carried a gun, because he didn't like them. In the book he actually doesn't carry a gun, because he is in trouble with the police so much, it is too dangerous for him to carry a gun, in case he is arrested. But he does carry some knives. In facts guns feature in most of the stories.

There is a lot of violence in the book. One time he actually kills a Professor by accident, but he didn't care in the least. He also lies in the high court of London. Still he is amusing.

The back of the books says that 8 million Saint books have been sold. But now on Amazon the books are
almost disappearing

Conclusion to my holiday

So I am back from my holiday in Tenerife. So what I have learned.?

Every time I go to a Spanish speaking country I keep wishing I had spent more time learning to speak the language. I only know a few words. A couple of times I almost ordered a full English breakfast, but I didn't know how to ask that they didn't include eggs in the meal.

I should stop these resort holidays, because I do too much reading. I am  not reading any great literature, but its gets my imagination going again. If I can't be bothered to visit a volcano, what else could tempt me to put down the book (ok kindle)

I flew into Dusseldorf/Weeze airport. This airport is famous for being 1 hour by train from Dusseldorf. I got the buss from the airport to the Weeze train station. I was happy to see a train in -- I just had to buy a ticket. Unfortunately, there was only one ticket machine and a group of use from the bus. One guy seemed to be ordering a season ticket. It took him nearly ten minutes to buy the ticket. After he had finally  convinced the machine to release his ticket, he then had problems opening the train door. Press the fucking green button I thought, for it would be ironic that after he stopped us buying tickets, that he wouldn't get the train. After he managed to master the technology of the door -- the train departed and a group of us were left in the rain.  Obviously in Germany we all obey the law, so we don't get on a train with no ticket. (As it happened two of the people spoke English, but not as their mother tongue),
It was only a short wait of half an hour for the next train. Of course no one checked my ticket all the way to Wuppertal.


 

I managed to finish reading:

The Bones of Avalon

by Phil Rickman while on holiday.

This books was set in Tudor times. It was a clever story - set in Glastonbury. John Dee was asked by the queen to find the bones of King Arthur to give legitimacy to the Tudor kings. It was a very clever atmospheric novel, that tried to mix magic with realism. In fact although John Dee was looking for magic, he found none, except when he had a trip from some natural herb LSD substance.

The northern monkey survival guide

My cousin got me a great little book called "The Northern Monkey survival guide" for X-mas. The book was an amusing comparison between the North and South of the UK. At the heart of the book, it is much nicer to live in the North  rather than the South. I was impressed that he had noticed that people in the North can actually go home and change before a night out. In London say many people have to commute, so he claimed people went out after work. It looks like he lives in London.

The Road to Serfdom

There is a rule of undergraduate arguments in the UK that states that the argument end with both sides declaring that the other side is a Nazi. I thought this as I read The Road to Serfdom bu Hayek. I believe that the ideas of Hayek were important to the evil ideology that is Thatcherism.

In fact you can see all the conservative ideas in this book. Hayek is against planning of any kind. He is vary much against the public sector. He even states he is against a policy that aims for full employment. One of the main ironies of Thatcher's government that they got in on with a slogan "Labour isn't working" and promptly unemployment went up to 3 million.

You can also see the seeds of the ideas of the EU sceptics.

The book was written in 1944 and I think the arguments were reasonable then. However, experience with his ideas, since the 80s, is that don't really work for the bulk of the population. His ideas are good for the elites, as they get more wealthy. I think the book was good on the criticism of  socialism, particularly those systems that were influenced by Marxism. However, I don't think any body believes those systems any more.

He looks back at the nineteenth century as a golden age, but never mentions the help the British Empire
on trade. \The book is short of data and facts

I guess I am now ready for reading a book by the anti-Christ himself:  Milton Friedman.

One of the books I read on holiday was

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer [

This was a great book. The "hero" Johannes had no redeeming features at all. His task was to get 100 souls for the devil with the aid of a crazy carnival in the space of 1 year.

I eat rabbit and the guilt washes over me ...

So I decided today was going to be rabbit eating day. I found another restaurant that serves rabbit. I was ready at 18:00 in the restaurant with one other diner.

I ordered the rabbit. I also thought rather than have the salad for starter that the waiter tried to suggest, that I would have an aperitif. La st night I realized that I didn't actually know what an aperitif was, but after looking it up on wikipedia -- it seemed like a good idea. I ordered a Pernod, but apparently I misprounced it, because he corrected me. I will have to reread the wikipedia entry on aperitif, because the pernod came with ice and a bottle of mineral water that made it into a long drink. I thought I was going to get a shot.

The rabbit turned up, Fuck I thought it looks like rabbit too. I am actually going to be eating  Fiver from Watership Down.  After messing around with a knife and fork, the waiter came up and told me I was wrong again, that the way to eat rabbit is with your fingers. That made it easier. The rabbit essentially tasted like chicken. Of course when I eat chicken I feel no guilt at all, that I am eating a family pet.

What can I do to get some relief from the terrible guilt. A couple of cans of beer should do the trick.

More booze and a little sand

I have spent the day just wandering around and reading in he sun. I would say that I hear much more German than English on the streets. I found one pub that claims to have an English atmosphere. It is full of old English people drinking beer watching football. One time I passed the bar two women were arguing in loud voices that I could hear half way up the street. I was going to go i for a drink, but I looked at the customers and thought "no".

There are two small  beaches within a reasonable walk from my hotel. one of the  beaches is rocks, but the other has black sand. A bit weird, but an interesting change.

Yet another failed attempt to eat rabbit

So this rabbit business is getting on my nerves. I went to one of the restaurants that claims to serve rabbit. I sat at an outside table. I waited and waited until someone asked me I wanted. This seemed a bit weird, because I assumed it was a restaurant that would probably have a good guess at what I wanted. It was not a place to just drink beer. Anyway he helpfully said that I wanted a menu.

15 minutes later he turned up with a menu, but told me that they didn't have any rabbit. Wot I thought. Why does God hate me so? I want to eat rabbit. I want to eat rabbit. I ordered a selection of Tapas and a beer. 30 minutes later the beer turned up,  and then some bread turned up with salad cream as a sauce. 30 minutes later my 7 Tapas showed up and I ate them in 10 minutes. so I could go to the mini-market for some beer for my hotel room.

Tomorrow I could try the other restaurant that serves rabbit, but perhaps I should cut my losses, and just give up and feel bitter.

On booze

There is a cocktail bar close to the hotel that I am staying in Tenerife. I poped in for a dry Martini about 17:30 a day ago. However, the guy who served me didn't really know what he was doing. At some stage I nearly got Martini out of a bottle rather than Gin and Vermouth (and Vodka if you are a James Bond fan). He was looking around the bottles in a confused way. The final Martini was OK, but it tasted too much of
Vermouth.  I once read that the perfect Martin should be made with Gin, but with a ray of sunlight passing through the vermouth into the dry Martini.

At Bonn/Cologne airport I had a vodka absolut in a little bottle that was ice cold in a cold glass. It was a pleasure to drink. At Manchester airport I had a vodka from one of those nasty bottles on the wall. The vodka was at room temperature and not too nice. I can see why they wanted me to put ice or mixers with it

So I am getting a little bit sophisticated with drinks that are simple and many people don't know much about.  Now that I think about it, both the drinks above were drunk by James Bond in the Casino Royal book.

English wine

For a long time I have wanted to try some English wine. It is not very easy to get English wine, but Amazon sell one brand. My mum managed to get some other bottles from Liddle, so we ended up with a little collection of English wine. As it happened I only tried one bottle of  wine, because I am really a beer man.

First night in Tenerife

My flight was meant to get into Tenerife about midnight, so I booked a hotel very close to the airport. The flight was a bit late, but by only half an hour. I got to the hotel OK, but as I showed him the confirmation sheet from the booking, he seemed to turn very pale. He said, "please wait one moment" and then he started
making phone calls. After a while he explained that the hotel was fully booked and there was no place for me to stay, but that they were going to put me in another hotel.

It was 1 O Clock in the morning, so I didn't really need that, but what can you do. After a short Taxi ride
I ended up at a new hotel. This was actually a better hotel than the one I had booked. It was by the ocean, although that is not so important at 2 in the morning.

The next day I had a pleasant stroll by the beach. The beach was close to what looked like a pyramid.

Thoughts on the UK -- X-mas 2011

So I spent about a week in the UK at my mum's house.  What impressions did I have? Well not many. As I took the bus from Manchester to Burnley, I noticed that a pub in Manchester called Napoleons. Wellington must be turning in his grave (good thing too, we remember Peterloo you murdering shit).


I watched a lot of TV when I was home. I still seem obsessed by Agatha Christie mysteries, so I watched a lot of Peirot episodes -- most of which I had seen before.

It is a 4 hour flight from Manchester to Tenerife, so it is understandable that a young lade should have a quick smoke before he got on the plane. However, as the official said it is not  very sensible to have a smoke outside a plane where there is a lot of aircraft fuel.

So I learnt essentially nothing about the state of the UK, while I was there, but I did enjoy the Dr Who Christmas special on TV, so that was alright.

I still want my rabbit dinner!

My cunning plan of getting to the restaurant early for my rabbit has been thwarted. I even found a second restaurant that serves rabbit. However at 18:00 I was ready and hungry for my rabbit. Unfortunately both restaurants were closed. Not fair. Why does God hate me so. Other restaurants were open and I ate some
Mussels, sausage, and grilled Tuna. It was delicious,  but I am totally stuffed.

We had a family rabbit when I lived with my mother. It used to escape and run around our neighbours garden. I used to get a knock on the door after I had been to the pub late at night, and I was asked to catch
it. I always felt guilty that we didn't look after it well enough.

Why I want to eat rabbit

There is a speciality in Tenerife of rabbit with a spicy sauce. There is a restaurant close to the hotel that serves this dish. I was ready for my food, but when I went into the restaurant it was full of people speaking German. Given that the service in Spain is not quick I decided to not to wait. But I will get my rabbit one day, I just have to get to the restaurant before anyone else.

How I spent New years eve....

There was a great quote from a friend of Thorou (perhaps Emerson) about travelling. The gist of the quote was you are the same person when you travel. Travel doesn't broaden the mind.

Last new years eve I was drinking beer and watching TV on my own. I thought that next year, I will go away and things would be different. So in a period of deep stress, when I booked a holiday in Tenerife, I thought I would be partying hard on New years eve. However I booked my hotel in Puerto de la Cruz
in the North of Tenerife. Unfortunately all the hard core drinking resorts are in the south of the Island. As wikipedia says Puerto de la Cruz is the a city for the more mature traveler, where mature means ancient.

This is not really a bad thing. I hope (and my liver does too) that my wild years are behind me. Puerto de la Cruz has some interesting things and there are many places to read outside, so I am happy enough. Don't get me wrong there are enough bars around, but so far I have only seen one English pub since I have been here. At the table there was an old guy with 6 cans of John Smiths on the his table -- not bad for 14:00 in the afternoon. All the people in the bar looked like sun (the famous fascist newspaper) readers, so I didn't fancy a chat.

There was a stage in a square close to the hotel. However, around 21:00 I didn't really fancy staying out late watching a band I probably wouldn't like, so I got some cans of beer and went back to my cheap hotel room. I watched a  Korean film called "the sword with no name" on Itunes. So essentially I spent exactly the same type of new years eve as last year - just in a different place.

When I woke up at 4:00 in the morning I could hear sounds from the party. When I went out for breakfast, I saw some people holding cans of beer,

On the Saint

The "Saint" is a popular TV program with the famous actor Roger Moore, who later starred in the James Bond films. The Saint, or Simon Templar was always very smart. He never seemed to use guns. I was watching the repeats. The Saint was always a kindly hero who was always helping attractive women who had family members kidnapped .

Apart from the fairly recent film about the Saint in the 90s or 200s that starred Van Kilmer most of the films of the Saint were similar to the TV series. However, in one black and white film the Saint was almost vicious, while he was still a dandy.

There were a series of 3 adaptations of the Saint on BBC radio, that I listened to recently. There was a hardness to Saint character that was missing in the TV series.

On holiday I have just read "Enter the Saint" by Leslie Charters. These books are not available on kindle, so I had to use a real paperback book. I am not sure if I can use a kindle on a plane so I have to use a real book to pass the time. The Saint in the original books is a dandy, but is also capable of  extreme violence. In the book a number of people were killed by people in the Saint's gang

So perhaps as usual the TV series was a watered down version of the character in the books.

Many of the Saint books are out of print -- at least according to Amazon. Even the books say that Templar is not a man of this time -- when the time was the 30s to 60s. Now it is very hard to have any positive feelings about the tweed dressed public school educated men, who know how to box and give their word of honour.

On being a God

About a month ago I was reading a scathing review of the new film about Tintin -- the boy reporter. The reviewer was clearly obsessed by Tintin and was a bit of a freak because he had read all the Tintin books.
He claimed that the original author of the Tintin had hidden he idea in his books that he was the king of Belgium. This struck me as insane in a grand way. I tried to think of a central theme about this blog.




What I decided was that the hidden theme of this blog is that I an in fact a God. Not the single sky God, because that would be insane and weird. But I like the idea of being a God.


In particular it would solve one of the problems that I have in winning the Templeton prize for corrupting science with religion. I don't see how they couldn't give me the prize, if was both a God and had a PhD in physics. What more could I do to get my hands on the million pound prize, One of the main problems with me winning the Templeton prize, apart from the fact that I don't deserve it, is my deep hatred of priests and vicars. I can see the fat bishop trying to shake my hand as he handed me my cheque, and me giving a gentle slap with my fist.




Of course if I was a God, I could happily punch a couple of vicars and not been censored, and more importantly still get the cash.




Of course you may be thinking Craig has finally lost his mind. However, I remember that an old Greek philosopher, who thought he was God. To prove he was he jumped into a Volcano. Where you might ask will I find a Volcano. Funny you should ask that, because there is a friendly Volcano on Tenerife.
Luckily it is quite a walk to the Volcano.

Stress and holidays

Tenerife

So here I sit in a hotel room in Tenerife, trying to think of some content for a blog post. This year I decided to spend the new year on holiday-- mostly because the last two winters were so harsh in Wuppertal.  I seem to be spending more time in these englishfied holiday resorts. In my defense you need reasonable weather, if you want to read outside.

So far it ha rained a little bit here but perhaps rain is not the right word, for only a small amount of
water fell from the sky. I do like to see the black clouds swirling in the night sky.




I should say that I tried to push myself to do many things at work  before I left work for the holidays. I was unable to complete anything, and the stress meant that I could not write any blog posts.

 The dead list

Last night I watched The Dead List
a film with Jean Reno in it.
It was a strange film with action mixed
in with some father versus son conflict.



I feel slightly guilty because the film
was set in France and I know from the Daily
Mail newspaper that the UK is almost at war with
France. That sneaky French president using
an underhand tactic called negotiating that
no proper English gentleman, such Cameron
would bother to use or understand. Doesn't Sarkozy
know that Cameron went to Eton and that his demands
should automatically be granted.

On the importance of goofing off

I have so much to do at the moment. I wanted to spend most of the weekend working on the backlog. Although I do a reasonable amount over the weekend, I did laze around after dinner for a while. I watched an episode of the "13 Warehouse" This is an american fantasy series.

I felt guilty, but somehow relaxed as well. If I wasn't working perhaps I should have been reading. If you are thinking, what is the guy talking about, because the last 4 posts have been on films. I normally watch films after 10:30 at night, when my brain is dead, and I have worked up a beer thurst. It was relaxing to do nothing for 2 hours and just watch TV.

We have been doing the theme of free time in my German class. Every essay I read said that watching TV is bad, but is passes the etime. In fact "supernatural" is on TV now, so I must finish this post.

Attack the block

Over the weeken I watched "attack the block" from Itunes. As I am sure many people have written it was really hoodies versus Aliens. I enjoyed it, it was fairly inventive. The killer aliens looked like cuddly toys with teeth, but they were scary.

Being cold is to be a man

On thinking warm

I feel so ashamed! Today I switched the heating on for the first time this winter. I am getting weaker -- I could have held out for a few more weeks, but I get cold when I am sitting down at the computer.

I have been going around the campus just wearing a T-shirt. This has been remarked apon by many people, so I am going to have to keep this up the entire winter. So because of my pride I will probably freeze to death this winter.

X-mas market in Wuppertal

Last night we hit the Christmass markets of Wuppertal. The Christmas market in Wuppertal is clearly a close copy of the famous Manchester Christmas markets.

First we drank a mug of Gluwein, after a problematic German conversation, about whether there was a deposit on the mug with the hot wine in. We them moved onto another Gluwin stand, where I had taste of mead. For a long time I have wanted to try mead, because it was the drink of the vikings. I was disappointed with the mead -- it was too sweet and tasted of honey.

There is a lot of food stalls at the market, but I just had the greasiest Wurst in some bread. My faith in the German sausage was restored. There is also a little area with animals close to the C&A. What you don't see, is the big goat trying to mount the little goat, that it spent about 15 minutes. An interesting way to end a short evening of drinking.

Call me Chilli

My chili diet is not going well. I eat the chillies and my mouth burns. Then maybe one hour later I can feel my stomach bubbling. I am not sure that I am losing any weight.

Book reading jealousy

On literature

I like to think I am a little bit well read,
however when I read the list of the best books
in 2011 compiled by writers in the guardian, not
only had I not read any of those books, but
I had also not heard of them.

It doesn't help that they don't mention any science fiction books at all, I am cut off from literary culture - perhaps I should cut down on the 99p books from kindle.

Last night I watched Detective Dee - Mystery Of The Phantom Flame
via Itunes. This was a great martial arts film set in
ancient china -- with great wire and CGI stunts. Somehow
the acting in Asian films are better than in western films,
which somehow mix ultra-violence with cheesy emotion.



The amusing things is that there is some
propaganda message in the film. At the end
of the film -- the detective swears allegiance
to the Empress -- even though he had been a
rebel in the past.

13 assassins

So continuug our theme of movie reviews,
I watched the film "13 Assassins" over the
weekend. THis was directed by Takashi Miike,
who famously directed "Iche the killer" -- one
sick fuck of a film.




The film is about 13 Samurai who are ordered
to assassinate an insane Lord. Although I may tell
people it is world cinema, it is actually more
of an action film. The fight scenes are fantastic,
but the acting is good as well. The Hollywood action
thrillers annoy me with their cheesy emotion, but
this had more honest feelings, in a made up fantasy kind of
way.

The box

I am in fine ranting mode at the moment. I also watched "the box" by I think the same director who made Donny Darko. It was not the film I expected. A couple get a box with a button. If they press it, they get a million dollars, but someone that don't know dies.

Normally I like a bit of alien stuff thrown into a film, but it was not clear it helped this film. The acting was very good and real, but the story was so confusing to the point of randomness.

The green Lantern

Since I am in DVD reviewing mode, I also rented "The Green Lantern" from Itunes. The trailers for the film looked so good on TV, but what a pile of crap the film turned out to be.

Somehow it is annoying to hear an American saying "we are a young race". The film was trying to tell high school jocks that they are the future of the planet - rather than annoying bullies. I don't have much time to work up a lot of bile and rage for high school jocks, when I have worthier targets for my hate, such as Etonians.

When I used to live in Glasgow I would quite often rent DVDs from blockbusters, I used to actually buy DVDs when I lived in Liverpool. There was no shop close to me that would rent DVDs and at some stage DVDs became fairly cheap.

Although there is a shop in the center of Wuppertal that rents DVDs, but it is not so convenient to return DVDs. So I just rent films from Itunes -- which is a lot more convenient.

Last night I watched Devil's Rock a great she-devil film with Nazis. What more could a person want from a film?

Fallen leaves means sadness

As I have pointed out many times. I live on the edge of forest. Normally, the view is great, but when the leaves fall from the trees it looks very bleak. I see a road and some small buildings that look like garden sheds in allotments. Ironically, I can see the blue of an outdoor swimming pool.

I have tried to complain to people about this, but they keep talking about how beautiful it is with the colored leaves. No I say, fuck beauty, I want the green leaves back. They make me feel so peaceful and tranquil. I am now feeling stressed and angry. I wonder If I could use the excuse of "leaf rage", to explain any future random acts violence.

Reality 36

As part of my back lash at wimpy fantasy books, I have just read Reality 36 (A Richards & Klein Investigation) by Guy Haley.

This was a story about a crime agency with an AI and cyborg. Well I liked it - plenty of action.

Final days

I started to read a novel that started with a scene with an Unicorn. I got through chapter 1, but I thought "fuck fantasy -- I need some hard science fiction."

So I started reading Final Days by Gary Gibson. Actually I thought the book was by William Gibson, an easy mistake to make. Anyway the book was great - with time travel and the end of the world. Unfortuantely, I wasted an entire Sunday on. No work done at all. Now that I look at his wikipedia page I see that there is a Glasgow science fiction group. Umm, what would have happened if I was still living there.

On dreams and project management

Although I don't sleep particularly well, I have learned that it is fatal to worry about work. There is usual nothing you can do and the next day I would be tired that would slow me down, so I would do even less work. So a vicious cycle would begin. So now when I worry about work in bed, I try to move my thoughts in a more sexual direction.

So I was surprised, when I woke up and started thinking about what I had to do today. I remembered that I had to rerun some computer program on one data set. But then I thought, who ordered that? Given that the runs were done on Saturday. As I thought about it more, I suddenly thought that the project was from a dream.

Of course there is a history of people making scientific discoveries in dreams. For example the chemist who discovered the structure of the benzene molecule. But perhaps I have been brainwashed like in the film inception.

Zombie Diaries 2

Last night I watched "World of the Dead: Zombie Diaries 2" via itunes. Why, well it was a 1 pound rent. It was one of those films where it is meant to look as though it was filmed on a camcorder. This was a fresh idea with the cloverfeld film

The thing that really made me mad was that at some stage they were in a safe compound. The zombies got in because someone had left the gate open. But the film never explained who opened the gate? Then there were some nasty torture scenes.

When I looked on Amazon I see that the reviews for the first Zombie Diaries film are mostly poor. Perhaps I should not watch any more films about zombies.

I still have to red the Jane Austin and zombie mash up I have on my kindle. I will not be well read unless I have read this.

dreams and kickboxing

I had a strange dream last week. I was with a friend looking for something -- but what? I was in a pub looking for what ever I wanted. I think it was a photograph of some kind.

Then I was in a pub. The landlady of the pub was someone I knew in Knutsford, when I was growing up and starting to succumb to demon that is drink. The pub had a Thai kick boxing demonstration.

What does it all mean? I have eaten two Thai dinners in the last week and unfortunately I have not had any further dreams of kickboxing.

Spinning elbow shots are cool!

kindle and walking

I love my kindle. I have nearly 100 books on it -- obviously I have not read them all! It is so small and compact. Soon there will be no problems with carrying the weight of books on trips.

Of course some people take their love of kindle too far. I assume that there is less of risk of street crime for kindles, than there is for smart phones, partly because I don't think that crooks are too keen on reading, but mostly because kindles need to be registered.

Casino Royal

When I was a teenager I used to collect the James Bond books by Ian Fleming from second hand shops. I am not sure why. I don't think I actually read that many of them. I was forced to sell them when we moved to the first of the ever smaller houses we used to live in.

The only story by Fleming I remember was a man who kidnapped a Gypsy women for some reason. He chained her somewhere and fed her red meat. When he unchained her, she didn't want to leave him. In the few times that I have an intimate conversation with a women, they often say "tell me what you are thinking." I am mostly think that it is not wise to tell them about the Fleming story.

Anyway a week ago I read "Casino Royal" by the Ian Fleming. The book has a certain power, even without knowing the prehistory of the films. I had forgotten about how big a viscous shit he was.

Mystery man

Last week I finished reading "Mystery Man" by by Bateman. THis was a amusing detective story set in Belfast. An owner of a bookshop -- who has some cute mental health issues and is a big coward solves some minor and one big crime.

Not that it mattter but it was a real physical book as wel.

Vinegar addict in Germany

I don't want to criticize German people but sometimes I find what they do a bit strange. Today I was in the queue at the Mensa to pay for my lunch. A student in front of me had two bowls of french fries and one bowl of raw carrots. He picked up a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar and poured it over the carrots only!

What the fuck I thought. I have noticed that I am the only person who puts vinegar on their french fries. I pour it on, point to it and say "lovely" in loud commanding English voice. I will introduce the joys of Anglo Saxon cuisine to this country.

Some time in Heidelberg

I have wanted to visit Heidelberg for a long time. Essentially I want to grow a big black mustache and get some dueling scars that women like. I payed more money than I normally do for a hotel, so that I was staying in the interesting bit. So since Darmstad is fairly close to Heidelberg, I thought it was time to visit. I took a slow local train so that I would have more time for reading my Parker book. I was expecting that Heidelberg was old fashioned but the view from the train station was the standard concrete that greets every visitor by train While I was waiting for the tram I saw a modern sculpture.

As I go I got off the tram and saw a Woolworths shop, and after some confusion I found the hotel. So Woolworths lives on in parts of Germany, I didn't buy any pick and mix sweets for old times sake. I didn't get to the hotel until about 5, so I didn't have much time to explore in the light. There is a huge main street that stretches for miles and miles. All the good bars were a long way from my hotel. There was a shop that sold many different types of absinthe, but I decided to buy any, because they were all expensive, but I wanted to buy a lot.

I went for meal in a Korean restaurant. The food was really great -- with 8 vegetable side dishes. As far as I could tell all the other people in the restaurant were Americans. Somehow Korean restaurant attracts Americans.

Sandman Slim

In the last couple of days I read Sandman Slim: A Novel: by Richard Kadrey. This was an urban fantasy book, that starts with a man coming back from Hell to seek revenge on the magicians who had sent him to hell and later killed his girl friend. Well I enjoyed it. Do I need to read the next novel in the series. Hell yeah.

A quick tour of Darmstadt

After the workshop at GSI I thought I would explore a couple of close by German cities. I walked from my hotel in Darmstadt to the railway station. It is a fairly long walk from the hotel to the railway station, but I missed a turn and I walked too far down a long road. My rucksack seemed heavy, but perhaps I was weak.

When I got to the railway station, I thought I would give Darmstadt a better look over. I left my rucksack in a coin operated locker in the railway station. It amazed me that such things still existed. In UK train stations there are no rubbish bins and it costs close to ten pounds to leave luggage in left luggage, because they want to Xray everything and market efficiency means that customers get ripped off. But enough complaints about the UK. There was a coin operated locker and I left my rucksack in it

I walked into the center of the city. My body got tired, but luckily I found a nice park. It was threatening rain, but I the bench seats were dry enough to sit on. I started reading "Point Blank" by Richard Stark. This was the basis of the great film: Point Blank

It started to rain so that stopped my reading. I walked around the city center a bit and had fries for lunch. I took the bus back to the railway station, where I worried that my rucksack had been stolen. At the station I took the train to Heidelberg.

I dream of clean windows....

I had a strange dream a couple of nights ago. I was talking to a woman and then we kissed. That felt good. She was a friend or the partner of a friend (sorry, but desire took me). However later I was in a shower with a naked man very close in front of me in a non-sexual way. The shower took a long time.

Last night I dreamed I found a good tool to clean windows. This made me happy.

According to Freud we should be able to learn something about me from my dreams. The dirty windows in my flat are starting to get me down a little bit. They spoil the view of the forest. On the inside of the windows there are the corpses of many dead flies. I did buy a tool from a Euro shop, but the window still ends up streaky. Perhaps I will have another go at cleaning the windows. I should listen to my dreams.

A visit to Darmstadt

This week I have been at a workshop at Darmstadt.

So what are my impression of the city? Well frankly not much. I stayed at the Ibis hotel, but got bussed to the conference site. In the evening I would work on my talk and then at 23:00, I would pop out for a few drinks. On the first night I went for a beer in the bar next door. I was lookingt at the drinks menu and noticed that with some horror that the first choice was some nasty brew called "Fosters". I tried to order Pilsner, but compromised on Newcastle Brown.

After the conference on Friday night, I watched the Germany Turkey football game in a bar. I was interested to see that most of the bar were supporting Turkey. In fact all the coffee drinkers cheered for Turkey, but the beer drinkers supported Germany.

China shakes the world

When over lunch or dinner the conversation turns to the future of the West, or lack there of, there is the specter of the East. As the West is driven down by our right wing politicians and so called business men, so China rises.

I have recently read "China shakes the world" by James Kynge. This is a very interesting book about modern China. It touches on corruption, and the worrying rise of nationalism.

On tomatoes and class

I am trying to change my eating habits so that the dreaded calories going into my mouth are reduced. To succeed in this I need to add more variety in my diet. So I have been slightly more "adventurous" in the food I buy in the supermarket.

So in the supermarket I saw a box of red shriveled things. So those must be "sun dried tomatoes", I speculated. Will I be able to eat them without turning into a middle class person I thought. Luckily the current Tory government is trying to destroy the middle class by their management of the economy. Cameron and Osborne will only stop when there are two classes CEO and hedge fund traders and everyone else working in Tesco. I didn't realize that Hugh Osborne was the MP for my home town Knutsford. Yeah what a surprise.

I sort of liked the sun dried tomatoes, but I still prefer the fresh kind.

11

I am a man of steady habits. I have cut chocolate out of most of my life, except for a bar of chocolate from a vending machine, close to my office, at 11:00. I could get the chocolate bar from the cafe in front of the vending machine and save 15 cents, but the chocolate from the machine is colder, and I like machines.

There is a great film called "the Repo man", that has a song that goes something like "when the shit hits the fan." One of the crazy characters, perhaps a scientist, has a long speech where he claims he only eats food from vending machine, because he likes the surprise that when he orders something, he might get something completely different. It was that kind of film.

I have been eating a twix (two double bars) at 11. There is now a white twix. Cunning;y they mix the white twixes in with the standard boring milk chocolate twixes in the same line. It is revolutionary! I never know whether I will get a magical white or boring milc chocolate twix from the vending machine -- it just depends on what is at the front of the rail. Sometimes I hang around the vending machine, waiting for someone else to come along and buy the milk chocolate so I can rush in and buy the white chocolate. It is like big game hunting, or like being in the secret police., when I stalk the vending machine.

I am easily pleased.

Smile or die

When I was young and unfortunate enough to live in a village in the south of England, a baker tried to make me smile more, by giving me sugary things. I am not a great smiler Smiling is a cultural thing as well. I remember an American radio program, where a person tried smiling at people in Paris. They were avoided as crazy people.

I have just finished reading "smile or die" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Barbara is an author with progressive politics (that is probably the worst bio she will ever get -- sorry). When she was close to 50, she got cancer. Luckily she recovered, but while she was taking chemical therapy, she found the world of positive thinking. There was a lot of pressure to think positive, however she was angry.

After this experience and when she got well again, she investigated the "positive thinking movement." I have read a number of positive thinking books. What I didn't realize was that the positive thinking movement is a very powerful way f brain washing people. For example the advantage of positive thinking for people with cancer is that they complain less to people around them. A similar situation occurs when a person loses their job. Companies are now using life coaches to tell people getting fired the challenge of finding a job is the best thing that could have append to them.

Barbara reviews the literature on whether positive thinking actually helps recovery from illness. It was not clear that it did help.

Now that you know that smiling and being positive is wrong, you are ready to listen to my worries.

On death and forests

I have been thinking a lot about death recently. Well once you get to certain age, death does seem to matter more. Especially as you start to lose friends and relatives. I am not getting too depressed about "the end", so that I just sit in a room drinking whisky, but ...

I was walking to work two days ago. I looked at the ground ans saw dead leaves. No, I screamed, all the trees are going to lose their leaves. I am going to sit on my balcony and stare out on a wasteland of empty trees. It is like waiting for the second coming. I will look out onto a road and see some allotments. Why do the trees have to lose their leaves?

Well some people may say that I should be enjoying the forest while the leaves are green. I should takes walks through it, trying to avoid the many dogs and dog shit. I should marvel as the leaves change color. Even when the leaves are gone, I only have to wait a few months, before they start to grow back. To these people I say "fuck you." I love the leaves and the forest. Why does it have to die every year?

This is what happens when you live in Germany. It is not enough that I have the daily challenge of finding a decent sausage, but I also worry about the forests.

1000th post

So dear readers my google account tells me that this is my thousandth post. I can feel your sense of excitement. What will he write about for this special occasion. Vague rumors may have reached you of me switching from Vodka to absinthe for light night cocktails, to pour green fire on my creativity. Strange stories tell of a man limping into many bars of Wuppertal, and saying in a loud voice "I will take a Gin Gimlet" and "has anyone seen my friend Terry."

Perhaps he will talk about special trip abroad. Some adventure in a foreign land, involving exotic fruit, veiled women, and some tassle with a taxi driver.

Maybe Craig will review this blog. He will try and make some sense of reallity through the prism of old blog posts. He might stress some lesson he has learnt.

Or perhaps he will review some special book, such as the Necronomicon, written by "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred. You will read with amazement, and then dread, as I rant on about "old ones", before I finally disintegrate into THE MADNESS OF CAPITAL LETTERS.

Suddenly I reveal the word hypnosis. My experiments with blog hypothesis have revealed the importance of the power word "tipple". When we meet again, I will say the power word. You will awake 2 hours latter, with your clothes in disarray, your money gone, but me smirking in front of you.

But as your eyes reach this part of the text, a sudden fear grips you. Could it be that Craig will write a post about "nothing at all". Sure it was funny when Seinfeld did a TV series about nothing, but the joke gets a bit dull after a while. I have read enough about literature to know that is more important to write about the process of writing and the difficulties of being an American teacher of creative writing, rather than anything as quaint and old fashioned as a story, or rational information.

So dear reader, I feel your pain and disappointment. (But I don't really care.) This post has been about nothing. And in your rage, you notice that the comments section is blocked. You will have to vent your frustration in the more traditional manner of going out and slapping someone.

Of course rather than writing a 1000 posts, I could have writen a 200 page novel instead. I could be looking at the reviews on Amazon of the kindle version: "a novel about nothing is not worth 20p." Still I would be cooler, and separate me from the twitter and facebook crowd.

Jeeves and me

I am often asked questions about the philosophy, history and culture of the Anglo Saxon world. A bit scary, because I know nothing about any of that. I do my best to wave the flag for the UK. People around me now know the importance of hating Manchester United and Etonians.

Currently the UK is being ruled by a bunch of ex-public school men. They are asset stripping the country. I want to put a horse whip to the dam blighters.

Why this sudden blast of posh, but weird threatening language? I have been reading a number of books P.J Wodehouse.

On holiday I read:

• Carry On, Jeeves,
• Very Good, Jeeves,
• The Inimitable Jeeves

I am sure I have read them all before. I also watch the old ITV series with Fry and Laurie. I recently purchased series 3 of that TV show. Also the BBC radio Iplayer is playing an old radio series of the stories by Bertie and friends.

I am not sure why I like the Jeeves stuff. I know nothing of their world. The upper class has declared "class war" on the rest of the country and are destroying it before they move to the US top work at a Hedge fund. So why then do I like reading and watching the exploits of a bunch of rich idiots running around?

They make me laugh anyway.

Doctor Who and the Daleks

I have never been so shocked by a book, before I had read: Doctor Who and the Daleks. This was the book of the first ever episode of Dr Who! What shocked me was that the Dr deliberately hid a piece of the Tardis, so he could explore the city of the Daleks. This was mean, and he looked even more stupid, when they all got radiation sickness.

Is this the same Dr, we have come to love and fear?

On bathing

The eternal question is shower or bath. There never seems to be enough time for a bath, although somehow there is always time to goof off and stare at the cartoons flickering on the TV.

I have not had a bath since I have been in Germany. It is such an effort. People used to say that a famous Archbishop in the middle ages was so clean that he took a bath twice yearly -- whether he needed it or not.

I do shower of course, but I suddenly noticed that the bottom of my legs looked a bit grimy. The idea of starting Sunday with a next hot bath grew and grew.

Well today, I thought, is bath day. I started the water and it flew into the bath. But it was not so hot. My past memories were of bathwater being so hot that it was almost scalding. It taking me 15 minutes to actually acclimatise my body to the sub-boiling liquid.

But sitting in tepid water is no challenge. My body is so stiff, that it was non-trivial for me to get in and sit in the bath. I did wonder whether I could get out. What a way to die - he starved to death in his bath, because he was too weak to get out.

My abdominal muscles have faded away, so I don't feel comfortable lying on my back, because I find it hard to breath. This was a problem when I was doing ground work in martial arts clubs. It make it hard to relax in the bath.

So after 5 minutes I got out of my tepid bath and dried myself down. I have scheduled my next bath for when I leave Germany. I am not looking forward to it.

On being fat

For some time now I have been feeling a "little" over weight. I thought I should quantify this, so I purchased some scales to weigh myself.

So I stripped naked and looked at the scales. I was a bit nervous as to what I might find. I stepped onto the scales and the little needle swung to 80 kg. I thought that seems a little unlikely, because the average weight of men in Germany is about 80 kg. Although a diet of sausages, spuds and beer does take its toll -- many of the students are rake thin.

So I entered the weight into an android app. Then I discovered that I had not been standing on the scales properly. The shitty little needle moved up to 90 kg -- bad but not super bad. As I was moving the scales below my bed for storage, I found that there were bits of cardboard stopping the scales moving correctly. I removed them, stepped on the scales, and the evil little needle spun up to 104 kg.

I was thinking "fuck man" do I have to calibrate these scales. So I have three measurements and I have to assign a central value and an error. After the last PRL referee's report I saw, I know they want me to quote the absolute value for the errors.

So my weight is 92 +/- 12 kg

I am only one sigma from a normal weight!

more on Steven Segal

Although I know many physicists who tell proudly tell me that they don't own a TV -- I still like to watch TV -- mostly because it fills my lonely room with sound. Also it helps me relax before I go to sleep.

Last night I was waiting some incredibly crap German reality show that I translate as "the meadow". I was waiting for an action movie to start, but I must have got the time wrong, because this crappy "meadow" TV program refused to stop. Everyone was wearing country Alpine like cloths. One woman had to do the challenge of eating 6 hard boiled eggs -- which she did very slow, while the woman in charge kept saying "schnell".

I turned over and later flipped back to see if the action film had started. It was a Steven Segal film I had never seen. It was dubbed into German, but it is so weird to not hear his cocky American Italian voice. Although Segal was a legitimate martial artist when he was a young man, he got very big as he got older. When I was training in martial arts, I used to say, that although I am crap, at least I don't need stunt man to do a basic thing like a kick, as Segal does. (I should say I really like his first films such as Nico.)

Anyway the film last night featured him doing a number of Aikido moves -- that looked good.