Meme House

I have just been tagged by Rob of Eine Kleine Nichtmusik with a meme, that originated with the wonderful Clare Sudbury of Boob Pencil.

1. Tell your readers three things about you that would make you the Ideal Housemate if you were imprisoned in a house with ten random strangers for weeks on end. Then three things that'd make you the Housemate From Hell.

Three Things on the Good Side



1. I can converse. I can converse about the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star and other shoes. I can converse about almost anything except pop trivia and biology. And one of those statements is a lie.


2. I have patience. But can you spend your whole life hanging around with arseholes? If I can take in several books I won't pester anyone. I'll be no bother. Honest.


3. I can cook a mean Bolognese (either veggie or meaty)



Three Things on the Bad Side



1. I can converse. I can converse about the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star and other shoes. I can converse about almost anything except pop trivia and biology. And one of those statements is a lie.


2. I have patience. But can you spend your whole life hanging around with arseholes? If I can take in several books I won't pester anyone. I'll be no bother. Honest.


3. I hate people who just witter on about nothing in particular without pausing for breath and who don't know how to carry a conversation so it includes other people and even when what they start off saying is vaguely interesting by the time they've reached what should be the end, the end my only friend, of their train of thought you have long since factored every number from here to 1729 into sums of cubes and started to wish that someone in a cloak and twirly moustache had abducted you and tied you to a railway track with great thick rope so a heroine in red and black 1950s style dress could come to the rescue but then you're disturbed by a thought that you chose to go in with these complete strangers who'd all chosen to go in to this charnel house so you have actually got something in common but then you stop and find yourself at war and watch waterfalls of pity fall and find yourself not paying a damm jot of attention to what is going on with life all around you and you stop to think that yes life is carrying on all around you with punctuation but you drift in and out of picking up words drifting across the ether from your housemates and you start to sing half remembered lyrics and then you start thinking that don't you know gazing into the vastness of it that G_d is Pooh Bear only to stop right now and know that when you gaze into abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Oh and I'm sometimes not a social being.

Yes I will vote for the wonderful Clare. In fact I'll vote early and vote often to quote Tony Banks quoting someone else.

I'll tag anyone who reads this. Go on. Just do it.

Blogging At Work

Well, in the public sector. Some of us do work and we do it in the public sector. Research (and good honest to goodness academic research) shows that public sector bodies are using blogs to communicate with each other and the public.

The research was done by David Wyld at South Eastern Louisiana University who reasons that any body funded by the tax payer is a public body. As an old fashioned lefty I'd say that a public body is almost any body funded by the tax payer that is not part of the military. But he's an academic.

In looking at bloggers and blog readers, Wyld said they tend to be better educated, more diverse and more urban than the American population as a whole. In addition, from a political perspective, they are more civically involved and politically engaged in both the online and offline worlds.

The report includes tables detailing Wyld’s research, which is baseline data identifying blogs initiated by members of Congress, Congressional committees, governors and lieutenant governors, state legislators and other officials throughout the nation and in places as far away as Scotland and India.

The public sector body most eager to use blogging is U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM). That means that the global war on terror is being run and fought by bloggers.

A Logician's Dilemma

There's a classic logical puzzle about a cell, two doors and two guards. A bit like this from the brilliant xkcd.



But not.


(Via Norm)

Lichfield Jazz and Blues Festival

Sunday we went to Lichfield Jazz and Blues festival and saw some great acts.

First up we saw John Etheridge a great guitarist but a bit too rocky for jazz guitar.

Then the amazing Gareth Roberts, his fantatstic trombone and his quintet.

We also caught the excellent pianist Zoe Rahman.

The best band on was definitely Empirical.

Four of them are past members of Tomorrows Jazz Warriors namely, Jay Phelps trumpet (here last year with Dennis Rollins) Nathaniel Facey saxes, Neil Charles double bass, Shane Forbes drums with outstanding pianist Kit Downes completing the quintet.

Here's a performance from the Vortex Jazz Club



If you like jazz then these are your cup of tea. They have an album out shortly.

Dickie Attenborough's Crockery

I went with Rullsenberg to Leicester to pick up our Summer Sundae tickets and to see the exhibition of Picasso ceramics donated to the city museum and gallery by Richard and Sheila Attenborough.

The exhibition is brilliant. The pieces are well displayed. They are all of a quality you would expect of Picasso. The back story as to how the Attenborough's came to own a collection of Picasso ceramics is on the Times's site.

Before visiting the gallery we had a glorious lunch at The Quarter. That was a glorious lunch at The Quarter.

The link between Amin and Hussein

It's all down to money.



As seen in a shop off St Martins Lane, London, last week.

Gratuitous Use of the word rooster

Or, how to use a thesaurus and get things totally wrong.



As seen in a shop window off St Martin's Lane last week in London.

Hello, Goodbye

I've just been in London for a week on a course. Managed to meet up with an old friend. We talked. We drank. We ate and drank and talked some more. We walked and we drank. And we talked some more. Then it came to that time when you have to go your separate ways. You say goodbye. And realise there has to be a better way of parting. There are things you didn't say. They'll have to wait for next time.

Anyway, here's a link to a cool cartoon about goodbyes.



I recommend xkcd, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.