Elevated section

This is the elevated section of the M4 between the M25 and the Chiswick turn off with the North Circular. As you can see it is quite high up.


For background information this stretch of road was designed and built in the 1960s with a design speed of 33mph. The speed limit is an unenforced and frequently flouted (including by me) 40mph with a high accident rate.

The route is populated by numerous massive advert hoardings as you can see in my pictures below (sorry for the wonkiness of them, I was trying to drive at the same time).






I don’t think these pictures adequately illustrate the scale of these hoardings but by way of comparison, look again. Compare it to the size of the nearby 10 to 15 storey buildings. Yes 10-15 stories; they are of a similar height.

Now I am led to believe (but am not going to say it out-right because that may considered slanderous) that these hoardings are predominantly unauthorised. Even if they are not they are pretty awful. They can be removed either through direct action by the Council (LB Hounslow) or prosecution or, if authorised, through the issue of a discontinuance notice.

These beauties really do need some attention in my humble (yet chartered) opinion.

(There is more to this story but I can't put details of that on the internet because it really could be massively slanderous).

Hows your arse?

A delightfully chauvinistic and low-brow post to mark this shot of some random girls arse crack that I captured over the weekend which I thought I would share. It was funny at the time but sticking it on the internet makes it even funnier.


So girls, have you got a good arse? Perhaps you could put it to good use? Feedback welcome (!).

More motoring offences

So amidst my speeding infractions, from 1st March to 19th April my car has been untaxed. I have therefore been operating an illegal vehicle for this time and I only noticed by chance that it was majorly out of date when at some petrol station in Gunnersbury. So this has included driving to work from Amersham and parking on street in Ealing, travelling to my parents house several times, going to Bicester, Windsor, Slough and many other places and included picking my parents up from the airport.

I hadn’t taxed my car because, well, I forgot basically as the papers got filed away in (the ironically titled) ‘Nick’s box of important documents’ while I was packing stuff up at Amersham and were deposited in a cupboard in my new place whilst many more (supposedly) pressing issues were resolved.

So I have had to go through the irritating process of sorting out a retrospective tax disc which apparently involves me writing a grovelling letter to the DVLA requesting that they be nice to me and me offering to pay my ‘tax arrears.’ I have had to make three visits to the post office and endure their predictably poor and antiquated systems and being told because its retrospective I needed something called a log book which was a bugger to find in the aforementioned ‘Nick’s box of important documents’ (and turns out to be neither bookish in nature nor a log of anything, multicoloured confusing form perhaps describing its function better). I finally managed to get my tax disc today to get me road legal again but still have to write my grovelling letter to the DVLA to clear my name.

However, that I haven’t gotten enforced for all of this makes me wonder quite how much I could have got away with and whether I should bother with a grovelling letter to the DVLA at all.

Experience of dealing with people who I have been enforcing planning stuff against generally have some excuse (occasionally quite comical and often pretty weak) as to why they flouted planning regulations and for the majority of the time they abjectly fail to appreciate that they have done anything wrong because they had some ‘really good reason’ to justify it.

Well, not me in this case. I didn’t pay my car tax which was very naughty and I have no excuse other than being busy and forgetting about it which is a crap excuse. So there. It would be nice if I could sort it out more easily though and not have to jump through multiple procedural hoops to sort it out. Especially as I would imagine that a retrospective tax disc is not an uncommon phenomenon. Oh, and yeah, I could have done without disapproving looks from jobsworth post office workers too.

Interim co-team leader

Well, my previous concerns have come to fruition. I have recently been asked to act as ‘interim’ team leader to half a team at work (four people) amidst various reorganisational bits and pieces. Now the clever bit about tagging the words ‘interim co-’ to this means that I don’t actually have team leader authority, nor do I have team leader pay, nor do I have team leader job title but get all the grief for it and I still have to carry a fair proportion of my regular work load on top of ‘interim co-’ team leading. However this is clearly a good addition to my cv (when suitably pimped of course) and puts me on the front line for actual advancement to team leader status (setting aside that I remain unconvinced that this a career direction I wish to pursue at the moment).

Overall I am not sure if I am pleased about this or not. Sure the bossing folks about and throwing my weight around is no doubt going to be a bit of fun for a while but not having ever really done that kind of thing before am not sure how long the appeal of that will last.

Is it just me or…

Are seats on trains about 10% too small to comfortably sit on.
Do big fatties choose to sit next to me on the train because I am not a big fatty.
Do cold, wet shower curtains have special adhesive properties that attract them to skin like magnets to iron.
Is it bizarre that nobody has yet created envelopes that taste nice to lick the adhesive on.

Stuff II

So about six months ago I compiled a list of stuff that I wanted. Here it is again but this time with an update as to how things have moved on (struck out if I got it and commentary in italics):

Flashy digital camera - Got one incorporated as part of my new(ish) mobile phone
Jazzy mobile phone - Erm, see above (?)
Touch screen multi device remote control- Well it’s not touch screen but I got a multi device remote control for Christmas
Big TFT monitor - Check
Car (some sort of coupe) - Scratch this one, I don’t use my car enough any more to justify this
Another pair of white trainers (cos the ones I’ve got are getting a bit mucky) - I can’t find a pair I like so I gave the old ones a wash
Big double bed - Yes still waiting on this one
Sofa (one of the ones that goes round corners) - Not only have I not achieved this one, I actually threw the sofa I did have in the dump
PDA - Not interested in this any more
Laptop - Yup, still want one of these
PSP - Or some other portable media player still needed
X-Box 360 - Lost interest in this
Wireless micro surround sound system - Yeah that would be good
Watch - Forgot about this one
New suit - Yes, er, see the dry cleaning conundrum
Set of good non-stick pans - Well I bought another one recently so now I have two non-stick pans, that’s a set right?
Suede leather bean bag - Not allowed to get this now
Poncy imported beers - Check (of course)

Now my post six months ago was supported with a link to some sage advice from Cat and Girl which, in summary, said stuff can’t buy you happiness (but managed to do so in a way that implied capitalism was fundamentally flawed as a consequence but I am not going into that).

This is, to an extent true, although I have been pretty happy with the purchases I did make. However changing jobs, moving flats and just doing something entirely new and different to what I was doing when I wrote stuff has had a much bigger effect.

Grand designs

So pretty much all the time I have been running this blog I have had some longer-term objectives. Namely find a new job, sort out new job, move jobs, find a new home, move home, change commuting arrangements, etc. However, now I have come to a point where things are starting to settle down into a fairly consistent rhythm and I have no longer term grand designs for the time being.

At the moment my most pressing objectives are how to best manage my work/life time balance, working out what sort of portable media player I want (and then invariably attempting to rationalise the most expensive one) and finding time to get me a new sofa. There is also settling into the new work routine and other work related stuff which I might say something about but don’t want to put anything on the internet that could land me in hot water.

None of these objectives are particularly lofty or wide ranging and all are pretty self explanatory. So this leaves me wondering what the next longer-term challenge is so that I have something to aspire to rather than just existing.

Thus far I have three things which I have been mulling over and thinking about:

1. Buy a house slash flat.
2. Upgrade and rework the blog.
3. Take up some form of life beneficial hobby such as learning how to draw technical plans.

Maybe I will do all of them, maybe none of them, I am still musing about them all. I might do a blog post about all of these individually in more depth at some point if I get anywhere with them.

Micro-traffic

Ever wondered why traffic seems to stop for no apparent reason on a busy motorway and then start off again with no explanation as to what the problem was in the first place.

Have a look at the surprisingly engaging micro-simulation of road traffic.

Repetition

(Almost) every morning I board the 08:15 train from Maidenhead to London Paddington. As a consequence my morning routine has to be pretty ordered and I end up leaving my flat at almost exactly the same time every day in order to complete my eight minute walk (front door to platform edge) to the station.

On my walk every morning I pass walking in the opposite direction people who (I presume) have just left trains arriving at Maidenhead. Of course they, like me, are locked into a routine by train timetables so we pass each other at almost exactly the same point every day. These people are (and generally in this order):

Tall guy with skinny jeans and light jacket.
School kid with broken leg (presuming this will not be a permanent feature) and his two friends.
School kid with no friends.
Chubby girl with dark jacket.
Older guy with blue-grey jacket who looks a bit like a flasher.
Two black guys sitting at Shoppenhangers Road bus stop.

I recognise them and they, I would imagine, recognise me. Its hard not to even after just a few weeks of doing this as it happens at the same time and place every day and we all always wear almost exactly the same thing.

Sometimes I think that perhaps I should start saying ‘hi’ or giving an acknowledging nod to these people (obviously not to the school kids who I try to knock over). Crazier ideas include doing something bizarre one day to keep them on their toes. I can’t help but think that this little routine crossover we have is something that could capitalise on and make life more interesting. Just not sure how to go about it.

LED throwies

LED throwies (via) are LEDs in various colours with integral power supply and magnetic properties thought up by the Graffiti Research Lab. This means you can throw them onto ferrous surfaces in large numbers to create a pretty fun effect like in this video.


I am not too sure whether I really like these or really don’t. On the one hand they do create a quite cool effect and the (relatively) high cost for any meaningful numbers of them I would imagine would prevent them from becoming to be too profuse. On the other hand I don’t agree with the principle of sticking them on other peoples property without their consent, they’re not going to look so cool in daylight and their power source is not going to last for long leaving irritating bits of plastic lying around.

The dry cleaning conundrum

Both of my two suits are in urgent need of a good dry cleaning. However, I presently have virtually no way to actually get this done due to the constraints of wearing them at work and having no access to a dry cleaners when I am not at work as they are all closed (and with Sainsbury’s having been demolished and being re-built in the town centre there aren’t even any supermarket annexe dry-cleaners open later).

To put you in the picture, at the moment I have two suits and six shirts. Three shirts match one suit and three shirts match the other. So it is fairly impracticable to go for an entire week wearing just one suit or the other. Meaning I need to deposit one suit with the dry cleaners mid-week and collect at the weekend (or vice versa).

However, I leave for work at around 8am and am generally not home until around 6pm. So I cannot drop off or pick up suits from dry cleaners in Maidenhead as there are none which are open when I am there during the week. Equally I can’t take a suit with me on the way to work as carrying it on the train would be a nightmare in the morning due to the crowded train and logistics of getting it there and back without it getting damaged or majorly creased.

So far I have four possible solutions, none of which I like.

First one is to leave work extra early one day mid-week so I can be back to Maidenhead before 5pm and get a suit to the dry-cleaners and then pick it up on Saturday (or vice versa). I don’t like this though as it means I would have to leave work extra early mid-week when I like to stay later so I can build up my flexi-time and leave extra early on a Friday and have some residual time left over in case of a ‘I’m hungover so I am going in late this morning’ situation.

A variation on this is to do the going home extra early mid-week thing but take both suits at the same time and then go into work in casuals for the rest of the week (because I don’t actually possess any clothing that could be considered ‘smart casual’). I am allowed to do this but it is seriously frowned upon to be in casuals and see members of the public which is an almost daily occurrence and not being able to do so can seriously impinge on my work schedule (no site visits). This has a slight advantage though as it would be a less frequent occurrence than the above option as I could do both suits in one go and thus have to do it half as often.

The third is to take a day or two off work and take both suits to be dry cleaned at the same time. I really don’t like this idea as it means taking time off work to do dry cleaning which is a ridiculous reason to use up work leave.

Or I could just buy another suit (expensive and time consuming) and thus have the flexibility to drop one of the then three off and leave it at the dry cleaners weekend to weekend.

I haven’t decided which one is the best yet. Any other suggestions are welcomed.

Time

Time is one thing I am very short of at the moment. Not in a bad way, its nice being busy and having things to do and people to do it with. But also it would be nice to have chance to take a step back and have a breather, even just a little one.

I have absolutely no idea how people who are busier than me operate. My busyness is caught up with work, commuting, general life admin (shopping, paying bills, etc.) and that is about it. Everything else is being busy having a good time. I don’t have any kids, a second job or any other such commitments to worry about. I sometimes wonder how these people cope. I don’t think I would make a very good single working parent for this reason alone (ignoring other obvious issues).

And being busy is also the reason why this blog post is constructed somewhat hurriedly at work before I am busy going out and having a good time.

Oh so you blog do you

As I have said before, the folks I work with don’t know about the blog. I haven’t been intentionally not telling them about it, it just hasn’t come up.

Thus far, I think most people have found out about the blog through linky referrals from other web pages, such as Bng’s blog or via an email. Comparably few have actually been told about it face to face. Those who have been told have generally responded with an ‘oh, what’s that all about then? Isn’t that kinda weird?’

Both of these questions could most easily be resolved by reading it in the first place, rather than me telling you all about it face to face, but you can't say that to someone. I have rapidly learned that interpersonal conversation and the blog have a large crossover and I often repeat what I have posted to the blog because people haven’t read it or vice versa.

But sending people an email with a link in it always strikes me as a little self-promotional and disassociated. I mean people might not be interested, or care, or may still not grasp what’s going on. So I have left it at as a none-issue.

So for the folks at work I am not going to tell you about the blog but will respond if you ask, but why would anyone ask?

207

So yesterday I got on a bus. This is a picture of it (and also of my finger over the lens).


This is the first time I have been on a bus (except once when I was drunk and my better judgement failed me and once in Portugal when I didn’t have a choice) since I moved out of Sheffield and I don’t recall getting on a bus in the final year there (but probably did) and you know it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be.

There was the guy who sat next to me who smelled of cigars and kebabs (so a bit like a Saturday night come Sunday morning) and this giant fat guy who really got in the way which wasn’t so great but other than that it was ok. The bus steaming past queuing traffic in the bus lane was kinda handy. Of course it overtook us back when the bus stopped.

It was also a really jazzy high-tech bendy bus and there is none of this pay the driver on entry nonsense. It just stops opens a bank of four doors (I think, but looks like three in the picture) and tilts to the left so it is even with the kerb and folks get on and off (although the lack of paying the driver apparently leads it to be known as a free bus which is a, well, rather massive design flaw).

It was kinda fun, mostly because it was a new experience really rather than being particularly pleasant. My employer has access to a small fleet of electric cars which I am signing up for so hopefully soon I will be able to use those instead of having to use public transport when out and about.

Literature

Some literature I have read over the past few months that I thought was pretty good:

Curious incident of the dog in the night time (find a long journey and read it all in one go, made me want to laugh and cry at the same time).

How to be good (cynically reassuring in a positive way).

High society (a bit trashy and obvious but thoroughly readable).

God’s debris (mildly thought provoking and free, the ending gave me one of those shivers down the back of your spine, first and only time that has happended from reading a pdf document).

What I found a bit too heavy:

The light of other days (the text is too small and the content too clever for my relatively low-brow tastes).

Currently reading:

Life of pi (slow starter and nearly gave up on it but it suddenly gets really good at page 97).

Does anyone have any recomendtaions as I probably will haved finished Life of Pi by the end of the week Tuesday what with my current high-literature-consumption train riding lifestyle.

Phone dump II

Now I have the interface between my phone and pc working again and home internet getting connected I can add some imagery to the recently rather stark appearance of the blog. So, like phone dump, a bunch of stuff I captured on my phone camera over the past month or so with some commentary as appropriate.

My points for speeding endorsed on my license. I thought I would actually get ‘points.’ You know like stars or dots or blips or something. But no, apparently fixed penalty 03 covers it. They could have stamped it straight.


My new flat the day before I moved in. The lamp shades (really the ones that came with the flat were pretty awful) and hoody unceremoniously deposited near the wall were my first mark on the place. It looks a bit different now.


Moving day. This is Graham having a break in the car park to my old place.


This is Gunnersbury, just off the north circular. Guess what is proposed to go here... A replacement telephone booth. Not very exciting but I was all over the enthusiastic about doing the planning of somewhere new at the time.


My old freezer compartment. The nuances of this was formerly going to form a post in its own right before I realised that the contents of my freezer were probably not going to be particularly interesting and thus that blog post idea was ditched (and yes that is two different flavours of ice cream, phish food and Dublin mudslide if you are interested, both very good).


The hoody crew: Me looking like a wonky eyed idiot and Elia looking a little better in a pub in Maidenhead. Kieron was there too but he had gone off to hide in the disabled toilet at the time.


And stuff that didn’t make it: Two photos I had of a massive fire near work that closed down the entirety of The Broadway for a full afternoon. I deleted them accidentally much to my own irritation. They were like the most interesting shots I had. There was like fire and smoke and fire engines and ambulances and stuff and all sorts.

I often wish I took more photos of stuff, especially when people are around. What with digital photography being so easy and disposable, occasionally interesting and with my mobile phone camera being pretty good considering its dinky size and really quite secondary function as a camera.

Its all coming up Nick

Its nice when stuff goes your way, even if it takes a little time and effort. I am presently reaping the rewards of putting a little time and effort into a number of things over the course of the last few weeks and months and feeling rather pleased with myself as a consequence.

1. My internet connection is now working at home. No more sneaky blog posting needs to be done over lunch at work and at least I can access what I want with a degree of speed, unlike the limited and clunky connection from work where they don’t let you look at the really good porn. Also I might now be able to get some bit-torrents running so I can catch the new episodes of Battlestar Gallactica that I missed what with not having sky any more. And I can get some music running from Pandora as my stereo and cds are still mothballed at my parents. And just generally being reconnected is nice. Oh, and I got a new free wireless router out of it for bt’s general incompetence (and worked out why my RSS feed wasn't working but is now).

2. Work is improving. I am settling in much better now and feeling a little more content about the place. The new people who have started since me seem nice and we get along fairly well I think. I also got my first full months pay packet recently which reminded why I took the job in the first place. I don’t know if I have said this before but it’s not all about the money however having good financial security and being able to make relatively indulgent purchases without bothering too much about the cost is comforting.

3. My new flat is pretty great, although with some flaws, I have few complaints. The shower is pretty powerful and kicks out loads of hot water which I like. Being up on the second floor is also brilliant, I really like being elevated above the surrounding world and had actually forgotten quite how much having been marooned on the ground floor at my old place for several years. My new balcony means I can totally take advantage of my elevated position, summer should be great here. Aside from the occasional roar of an intercity 125 the place is also pleasantly free of outside sound.

4. I like Maidenhead. I have lived in cities, towns and villages but never anywhere like Maidenhead which is small enough not to be overly congested and too noisy and busy but large enough to have a decent amount of amenities and facilities which I think strikes a pretty good balance. Being way close to the town centre is also a plus.

I put above average amounts of effort into sorting all these things out and now that it is all working out (almost) like it was supposed to I am feeling quite pleased about things in general.

The great milk crisis

The coffee shop I purchase my morning coffee from in the morning has recently put up a sign that reads as follows:

Due to the increase in the price of milk for the fifth time in a row we are sorry to announce that as of Monday 27th March the price of our milky drinks will be going up.

The already extortionate price of a large coffee (which isn’t exactly that large) is £1.50 and has increased to £1.75.

Now I don’t mind the occasional price rise but what is this ‘fifth increase’ in the price of milk? The milk I have been buying has risen by perhaps 3 pence per pint in the last four years. Beyond that I don’t even recall. So I have come to the conclusion that they have just made this up in order to hike up the price of a coffee.

These five pseudo milk price increases must be pretty massive in order to justify tacking on the price of almost an entire pint of milk on top the existing price. I am certainly not receiving an extra pint of milk in my coffee.

I am pretty unimpressed with these fake increases in the price of milk that is being loaded onto my already extortionate coffee price. So on that basis I am taking my business elsewhere. Hello Starbucks.

Leisure time II

Ok, so I am having new ideas about leisure time. What would be great is to have something like the new I-pod but with a bigger screen and BBC breakfast (or something else like that) to start doing podcasts that I could download and then watch on the train. Reading is ok and I am certainly steaming through my current book but it is a little too involved for the morning. Something more passive like breakfast tv would suit perfectly.

Unfortunately, I think I am a little ahead of the times at the moment with Apple’s I-pod being the only video supporting portable media player with a reasonably large hard disk and the screen still being a little on the small side, BBC breakfast not doing podcasts and all the other ones that update on a daily basis predominantly being audio only, and, of course, my home internet connection actually working.

Still, I think it’s a nice idea and its not like I am relying on technology that isn’t already on the market or doesn’t exist yet. And I am hardly coming up with anything that other people haven’t thought of already. It’s just a question of waiting for everyone else to sort it out.

Customer service

Me: So my broadband isn’t working, still, and your engineers haven’t called me like they said they would.
Operator: I am sorry to hear that, let me just access your records.
Me: Ok.
Operator: I am just going to transfer you to another department.
Me: Why?
Operator: You need to speak to this other department. Do you mind holding while I put you through?
Me: Fine.
*hold*
Next operator: Let me just put you on hold while I speak to the engineers on your behalf.
Me: Sigh, ok.
*hold*
Next operator: I am going to transfer you through to the next department, can you hold please?
Me: Yeah, whatever.
*hold*
Next, next operator: Let me just put you on hold while I obtain your details.
Me: Sure.
*hold*
Next, next operator: I have accessed your records, an engineer will call you in the next two days.
Me: That’s what I was told two days ago, why are you telling me the same thing now?
Next, next operator: Well the engineers have to test the line and arrange for somebody to call you to come out and assess what the problem is and somebody will call you to arrange an appointment in the next two days.
Me: Yes, yes, next two days, that’s what I was told two days ago. Why are you still telling me the same thing?
Next, next operator: Well the engineers have to test the line and arrange for somebody to call you to come out and assess what the problem is and somebody will call you to arrange an appointment in the next two days.
Me: You just repeated the same thing you said before, you haven’t answered my question. Why was I told the same thing two days ago?
Next, next operator: Well the engineers have to test the line and arrange…
*hangs up*
Total call time: 25 minutes.

Technological wasteland

My old flat was technology-tastic. I had broadband, a big tv, sky, sound system, etc. All a boy needs to keep his boy pad, well, boy padish. My new place is not quite so well blessed (aside from the hardware I brought with me, some of which is still mothballed at my parents). My internet troubles have already been documented and suffice it to say that my faith that bt had begun to shed its former status as a massive leviathan of incompetence has been thoroughly trashed. I must have rung them up at least 20 times now to fix this broadband nonsense and got a different answer every time. Wankers.

Meanwhile I am still trying to sort out my tv reception. Like I said, I had sky at my old place and, with the exception of one or two pretty massive thunderstorms, it delivered consistently good quality tv (sound and picture wise, not necessarily program content) into my living room which after three years there, I accepted as the norm.

I don’t have sky at my new place and I am uncertain at the moment whether I can, or indeed will, get it for various reasons. Nevertheless I am finding that projecting grainy, 4:3 aspect ratio analogue onto my 16:9 widescreen tv is far too distressing. However Elia has kindly lent me her terrestrial digital tuner which picks up most of the free to air digital channels, with the exception of the ITVs (no real loss there) and E4, but I still, bizarrely, get E4+1 and this at least allows me to deliver most tv into my living room with reasonable picture quality.

Of course this is except when it rains when it all goes down the pan and I get nothing. I am not going to ascribe this to Elia’s digi tuner because it picks up some channels absolutely fine (the eminently redundant shopping channels work rain or shine). So I conclude it must be the signal strength that I receive as to where the issue lies. So in an attempt to improve the situation I ventured out to purchase a decent tv aerial this weekend as, thus far, I have taken my signal through my 12 year old portable tv’s wire loop aerial (a glorified coat hanger) so wasn’t expecting miracles from that.

On the highly dubious recommendation of the sleazy salesman in Comet, Slough (Maidenhead is too classy to have anything as trashy as a retail park), I bought the most expensive aerial available. A jazzy looking silver thing with loop and sticky out aerials and light emitting diodes all over it and all manner of self promoting techno-jargon.


Got it home, unpacked it and installed it, to be greeted by reception worse than that delivered by the aerial from my 12 year old portable tv. Yes, worse. To say I was fairly indignant is an understatement. Anyway, the shiny, silver, pile of shit aerial is going back to Comet, Slough, at some point this week.

I am very irritated by being stuck in this technological wasteland. It makes life very inconvenient as my internet dependency is limited to the slightly clunky paraphernalia at work and the terminals available with the nice folks at Apollo video, Maidenhead. Who incidentally are also kindly furnishing me with the DVD collection of 24 (presently on Season 1 at 14:00), which at least my DVD player delivers with consistent high quality.

Cold

My new lifestyle of doing my new job in Ealing and living in Maidenhead is making me cold. There are various reasons for this.

The biggest irk is that my new flat doesn’t have gas central heating (like my old place and everywhere else I have ever lived) but has night storage heaters. These things are fine for bringing the flat up to temperature in the morning but have to be set on a relatively high output in order to bring the place up to any kind of tolerable morning temperature. I like my flat to be hot in the morning and at the moment it is only adequately warm for my tropical tastes. The problem here is that by using all the ‘stored’ heat up in the morning there is nothing left for the evening so I am presently alternating between being cold and burning cash by switching on the standard electric heater function on the heaters.

Then there is getting to work and being at work. I walk to the station and wait on a windy platform, board a generally pleasantly temperate train before walking at the other end to work and vice versa in the evening. At work I have cause to be out of the office more and this is predominantly on foot. When it comes to shopping I am doing this too on foot either on the way home from work or by walking into Maidenhead town centre at the weekend. As a consequence of all this I am spending a lot more time in the harsh outside. I do have layers so my main body, feet and neck are always pretty warm but I don’t have gloves (do guys even wear gloves these days?) and my work trousers are not particularly thick meaning I have cold hands, knees and nose for large chunks of the day.

I don’t like being cold and I now seem to have a permanently runny nose and variably pink slash purple, cracked hands. None of this makes me particularly happy especially coming home in the evening to a cold flat. I am going to address the flat thing this weekend by buying a timeable free standing oil radiator which should overcome my biggest complaint about the flat being cold (subject to making sure that kind of behavious isn’t a fire hazard).

Meanwhile all I can do is wait for spring and summer to bring some milder weather and try not think about next winter for the time being.

There is no I in team see you later loosers

I thought my old place of work had a high staff turnover but compared to my new employer this affliction was mild. I have been with my new employer for nearly a month now and, as of Monday, I will be the second longest person in the team of people I work in with, on average, one person leaving at the end of each week. To put this in perspective, my period of notice appears to be longer than the normal period of time folks work at the place (so clearly my employer is on to a winner hiring me already).

On the one hand this high turnover is a bad thing, as it is difficult to form any kind of meaningful relationship with anyone who is quite so transitory, not that I have really been there long enough do so with anyone anyway. Clearly getting along with the people you work with is a good thing and the rapid turnover of people to date has precluded this.

However on the other hand, the high people turnover means that folks I don’t like also go fairly quickly and I don’t have to deal with arbitrary pleasantries with them in any kind of supposed spirit of cooperation. Two people I can’t say I warmed to (but didn’t really know sufficiently well to actually be able to say I didn’t like them) left recently and the one other person who I can say I don’t think I really get along with is departing imminently which is all good for me.

Meanwhile, although I am pretty new still, for the even newer newcomers I am already part of the furniture (and knowing pretty much everything about the minor-scale piss-easy wank-planning I am dealing with at the moment) already think I am pretty rapidly becoming the oracle of everything and can soon begin to ply the minions to my mighty will of planingness.

Oh, and if this post didn’t tip you off, nobody I work with knows about the blog (which wasn’t intentional its just worked out that way). But that is the subject of one of a number of, what I think should be good posts, that I have up my sleeve for whenever I manage to get internety at home again.

Witch tit cold

I don't know if folks ever follow any of the links I have stuck up at the side but I thought this post from Overheard in New York was kinda funny. Recon I am going to drop 'witch tit cold' into some conversations and see what folks say.

Nose dive

Well my stats on the blog have taken a massive nose dive recently. I guess that is due to the infrequency and eratic nature of my recent posting but until I get my home internet sorted out (which is taking a while) the blog is going to (clearly) suffer.

I just hope I can get my stats back up again once all this moving home stuff settles down.

All points north

This is probably going to sound a little ridiculous but I only realised this weekend that my flat faces north. I mean I looked round it before moving in, looked at it on a map, looked at it using aerial photography and lived in it for a week and it never occurred to me during all this to consider which direction it faced.

The only, but fairly major, implication of this is the amount of direct sunlight the place gets. As in, not a huge amount. My living room balcony windows face north, my kitchen window faces north and my (otherwise pretty pimp) balcony faces north. But none of them ever get any direct sunlight. Thankfully the place has three outside walls with windows so the secondary living room window (east), bedroom (east) and bathroom (west) all get morning slash evening sunshine.

Regardless of this I am still pretty happy with the place… I am just outside of five minutes walk from the train station, ten minutes from the town centre, fantastically elevated above the rest of the world on the second floor and (other than the occasional drone of an intercity 125 and the particularly irritating doo-daa horn thingy that sometimes gets blasted) in a fairly peaceful position. And also not in Slough.

Regular service will resume shortly

I know posting has been patchy this last week, due to a certain telecommunications company not wanting to get me on-line in any particular hurry and internet access at work, aside from being a little erm... patchy, being, well, at work.

So this post comes to you from the jazzy confines of the Apollo video store, Maidenhead.

Leisure time

Thanks to my new commuting arrangement I know have 64 minutes (31 there, 33 back) of time spent just sitting available to me every day, by which I mean time I spend sitting on the train waiting for it to deliver me to my destination.

At the moment I am spending this looking out of the window and thoroughly appreciating that I don’t live in all the places I pass through without exception but most specifically Hayes and Slough which quite frankly look like hell on earth. However, smugly staring out of the window and being condescending about other people’s neighbourhoods is not going to keep me entertained for long.

Now I don’t want to think of this 64 minutes as ‘dead time’ where I have to sit and wait for the train to do its thing, nor do I really want to get into the mindset of ‘this is my commute, deal with it.’ I would rather consider this 64 minutes as additional ‘leisure time’ that I have been blessed with. So what should I do with my new leisure time?

The easiest option is obviously reading. Many of my fellow partakers of leisure time on the train engage in this activity, either in the form of books or the day’s newspaper. I can’t say I am so much up for the newspaper thing as I somewhat resent having to pay for the days news when it is quite freely available and much more personally customisable on the internet. I am open to the option of reading a book though and no doubt will be taking my current choice of literature, Life of Pi by Yann Martell, with me in the foreseeable future.

In a worldly kind of way I have considered perhaps investing in some self-improvement tools. Using the time to learn another language maybe or study up on history or professional development however, lets face it, I am not going to be in the mood for this kind of thing in the early morning or immediately after work so no matter how good my intentions, its probably not going to happen.

What I really want is to pursue the high tech route. I would like a PSP and an I-pod or other similar music playing device both of which I think are pretty self explanatory. However the Holy Grail probably has to be a laptop computer; something nice and small and light and functional (and would supersede the desire for a PSP or I-pod device).

For example, I have done, but generally don’t, spend around an hour constructing blog posts. With a laptop I could, mood permitting, use my new leisure time to construct posts for the blog which I think would be a fantastic use of the time. It is something I enjoy doing anyway and slotting it into leisure time seems to be a perfect match. The laptop also has the added bonus of being usable for other things such as regular work, planning aid work, computer games or offending fellow passengers by viewing porn (ok not really) etc. The laptop does of course require a rather large and self indulgent chunk of cash though. One I can’t really justify at the moment, particularly given my current rash spending on lunch and breakfast (now generally a large coffee and a chocolate croissant or bagel) as well as other essential house moving items.

So for the time being I think I am going to be restricted to the book option which is fine… for now.

Disconnected

Having no internet access or phone line for the time being at (new) home (and a consequent inability to make blog posts as I would like), living in a new and relatively unfamiliar town, work email being about as reliable as a circa 1980 communist Russian Trabant, work internet blocking access to my personal email account and my mobile phone being misplaced slash stolen I am feeling a little lost and disassociated at the moment.

Over the past few weeks my entire life has been turned on its head like it has only three times before. Namely, moving out of London and changing schools in 1996, moving to Sheffield and starting University in 1998 and moving to Amersham and starting work with my former employer in 2002.

Moving out of London and starting at my old job I did with and slash or in the presence of my family which at least afforded a degree of consistency. However starting University and moving to Maidenhead I have done slash did almost completely by myself (although of course everyone who helped me physically move flats last weekend is way appreciated).

I remember the feeling of being slightly lost and overwhelmed by everything in the first week at University but this was at least shared by everyone else I was with at the time pretty much being in the same boat and quickly slid away, lubricated with large amounts of alcohol.

This time it is different insofar as it just me to whom everything is new to now. It all feels totally new and slightly alien, and indeed is, ranging from ‘where is the bloody exit to the train station?’ and ‘is it you I talk to about getting additional consultations on this planning application?’ to ‘aha, this new oven will cook slash burn my dinner much faster than my old one’ and ‘how the hell do I get this bastard night storage heating system to work?’ Almost every single action is experimental or prompts a question.

This all makes life more interesting and the challenge is certainly welcome after my seemingly pedestrian former existence which ceased (still less than) a month ago now. However it would be nice to have something I could fall back upon as being reliant and consistent so it is not all change however it appears that, given events, (like I said at the start of this post) I am not going to be afforded this luxury, at least for the time being.

Hello *person type 19*

Well this apparently is my new neighbourhood profile.

Family income: High.
Interest in current affairs: Very high.
Housing - with mortgage: Medium.
Educated - to degree: Very high.
Couples with children: Very low.

If you read the full profile (link) it pretty much describes me, or at least how I like to see me (which are hopefully not too divergent). All I have to do now is start liking sport and I would be pretty much 100% accurately pigeon-holed by my post code. I am unique, just like everybody else.

Deconstruction

Moving day is this Saturday. I have spent the last few weeks gently disassembling my little flat and packing all non-essential items into boxes, some of which are already stored at my parents for the time being. Today was the final pack up and everything I own has been pretty much either deconstructed to its component parts or committed to cardboard boxes (with the exception of my pc, monitor, keyboard and mouse, bed, kettle and a mug with a tea bag in it, oh and some things to make myself clean in the morning).

I pick up keys to my new place tomorrow morning and then have to go sort out meter readings, inspection etc. and check out any other issues that come to light. The previous tenants seemed pretty sanitary and I doubt the place will need much of a serious clean before I move my stuff in but its going to get one anyway. Expunging the former tenant’s existence from the place just seems like a sensible ritual that is necessary before I can take proper possession.

Like I said, moving into the new place on Saturday, then depositing the stuff that I don’t need (as it comes kitted out with white goods etc. which I have already) at my parents on the Sunday and then stripping out and cleaning my old place up followed by handing back keys on the Monday whereafter I will hopefully have some opportunity to sort the new place out before being back in work on Tuesday. At the moment, getting all this done seems like a real uphill challenge, its taken me all day to order my old place and I am still not done yet. I will be glad when it is all over. Actually, getting back to the, at least consistent, mentalism of my new job and working environment (the intended subject of a forthcoming post) should be somewhat of a welcome relief.

Of course the reason for the move is twofold. One, because my old flat was linked to my old job and I couldn’t stay there indefinitely and two, to make my commute a little easier into work as, I can tell you, spending up to and hour and half on the horribly unpredictable A40 and then fighting for on street parking before walking a variable distance to work was starting to do my nut. Although, not so much for the doing it, more for the unsettling uncertainty of how long it was actually going take. So pretty much regardless of reason one, reason two is sufficient grounds to want to move in my opinion. A near door-to-door train ride of thirty minutes seems like a much more civilised prospect despite that other people are apparently going to be getting on this train thing.

I thought I would be a little more (hmm, what’s the word) nostalgic (?) about leaving my old flat but it seems that, as it was with my old job, I am more looking forward to what’s in store in my new place and living somewhere new, rather than reminiscing about the memories from the old place. Maybe that will come later when I have a little more time to actually think about it.

Anyhow, bye bye to Amersham (smell you later), hello to Maidenhead.

Opposite side of the sun

Well it has been six months since I started this blog and lots of stuff has happened including getting a new job, finding a new flat, going to a wedding, getting a speeding ticket, going on holiday, getting up early (more than once), serving a stop notice with a police escort and how could I forget, getting threatened by agents of the North Korean Government.

I think it has taken a little while to settle into a blog rhythm and reading back I do cringe at some of my earlier posts which I think were, on occasion, pretty cruddy (and no I don’t want confirmation of that). However I think I have settled into a reasonable pattern now and for the most part can come up with something at most times that at worst passes a few moments of dullness when reading at work and at best is something folks like to keep up with.

I have some objectives for the future, including a few fairly ‘grand posts’ that I am keeping quiet for the time being as I don’t know if they will come to fruition because they involve more effort on my part than I have had to commit to any other post thus far.

Meanwhile I am happy my blog has got this far and that people keep reading. I think if I stopped getting any readership the blog would close down pretty sharpish. I wonder if I will make it to a year...

Hell is other people at breakfast

I came across this article today which struck a chord with me (via). In a roundabout way I think it part explains why I like doing this blog. I get social interaction through it but on my own terms.

I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.

Fix me

So my phone to USB connectivity thingy or something isn’t working. Or to clarify in a sentence constructed using English, I can’t transfer photos from my phone to my computer for the time being until I work out how to fix whatever is wrong or I come up with another solution. This is irritating as not only can pictures from my phone be used to jazz up some posts, they form the focal point of some of them. For the time being this little situation has blown like five posts worth of stuff that I was going to do including ‘phone dump II’ and the long overdue ‘crimes against pd’ as well as a number of other ideas I have. So, erm… here’s a picture of some cute bunnies in cups instead.

And on the subject of things being broken, I know the Nick101 RSS/Atom feed isn’t working at the moment and haven’t managed to work out why as of yet. I will try to sort it as soon as I have the chance. As my somewhat ham-fisted efforts haven't worked so far I suspect a nice email to those folks at blogger may be in order.

Dork

This post makes me a big dork. Why? Because of the link I am going to post at the end.

Not only do I have a blog, have a pretty geeky job, like the new series of Battlestar Gallactica, abjectly fail to grow any meaningful facial hair and spend too much time on the internet; I actually found this link, watched it three five times with a giant grin on my face and then posted it and professed it to be one of the most fun things I had seen in ages.

My only consolation is that I don’t live with my parents and haven’t converted my bedroom into a replica of the Starship Enterprise (and have no intention of doing either of these things).

So what’s this all about then? Watch here.

Rude goldberg machine

I am very tired this evening so here are some links instead.

If you liked the Honda advert where the bits of the car set each other off in a big sequence you’ll probably also appreciate a similar kind of thing done in a Halflife 2 mod.

Or you can read K8's blog.

The microfiche connection

I had a little routine at my old work where I would come in in the morning and make myself a mug of instant black coffee at some point during the first hour using the free hot water machine. Hardly a grand indulgence and it kept me reasonably content for a part of the morning.

My new work doesn’t have quite the same hot drink making facilities. For starters the kitchenette unit is located one flight of stairs up at the opposite end of the building. Once there the facilities leave much to be desired; being a rather dubious looking wall mounted hot water unit which appears to heat the water to somewhere in the region of slightly above room temperature. Additionally the kitchenette appears to have the hygiene standards of a student hall of residence. So suffice to say my previous morning coffee routine has been axed much to my disappointment.

Meanwhile, at old work, if I wanted to view historical records which was a relatively frequent occurrence I would get up from my desk and walk to the filing bays and get whatever I wanted when-so-ever I happened to choose.

At my new work, instead of walking round to the filing bays I have to either request them specially from a dedicated records store five miles up the road for delivery in the afternoon or the following day or leave the building I work in, walk three minutes down the road and into another building to inspect the records along with joe public.

So from here we conclude that I miss my morning coffee and have to go a lot further to fetch historical records. Of course in fetching historical records I have to walk past a rather nice cafe selling a fine array of fresh coffee, croissants, pastries, baguettes and really everything the hungry slash thirsty office worker could ever want.

You can probably see where this is going.

I have already become quite the patron of this rather canny little establishment (spending nearly £7 there yesterday in two visits) and I really don’t want to make a habit of it as it will cost me dearly (with a large, fresh coffee setting me back £1.50). However the promise of a very good cup of fresh coffee after a suckish commute and with no real alternative I am struggling to resist.

Being nice

Responses to people in and around my new place of work that hopefully convey my feelings in a polite manner:

You’re from Australia, really. Perhaps you should go entertain somebody else with that now?

It’s nice the way that you stand so close, it makes me feel like we are special friends.

I am sure your turning up for work at 11am has very little to do with your disproportionately large case load.

Flowers bought from a highway verge on the north circular, what could be more romantic?

Perhaps before coming here you should have considered whether you had the 90 pence bus fare home?

Thank you for shouting at me down the phone. Given your well elucidated comments I will personally request that Parliament considers repealing the Planning Acts on your behalf.

Sea-less-land

This wikipedia article on the Aral Sea came up on popular del.icio.us a few weeks ago. An interesting and slightly scary piece on how if you fuck with your environment it will fuck you back twice as hard.

You can always see my del.icio.us for other linky stuff that I thought was intersting and maybe get a sneak preview of some of the stuff that I link to on the blog.

Week one

Well the first week at my new job was interesting. Not all in a good way but it certainly wasn’t all bad either.

My first day wasn’t so great but it did improve over the course of the week. I have been put, for the time being, in one of the area based teams dealing with small scale stuff that I can do with my eyes closed. Were it not for the antiquated computer systems (Windows 2000 etc.) that I am having a little trouble getting to grips with I could probably polish off my entire case load in an afternoon however I am spinning my work out for the time being so I actually have something to do. I doubt this will be my permanent position as, to be completely blunt, they are paying me too much to do the kind of stuff I am doing at the moment, and that really wouldn’t be a very sensible use of resources.

The people I am working with seem pleasant enough for the most part. The majority of them do seem a little distant from me and the other new principal I started with. I get the impression there is a slight ‘them and us’ thing going on what with me being one of the very few contracted staff, which I wasn’t expecting. Speaking English without a foreign accent, and actually in some cases speaking English at all, does seem to set me apart a little from the majority of my colleagues. Regardless, I didn’t take this job as a social event so whilst it would certainly be nice to make friends with people there I don’t think I am going to loose too much sleep if it turns out they all hate me.

Actually working in Ealing is good. The place is pretty buzzing with activity and has a great London vibe to it without being too in your face overcrowded like I find parts of central London can be. Lunch times are excellent as I have gone from having like a choice of three eateries in Amersham to an as of yet uncounted number in Ealing ranging from Subway and M&S to cute little corner places which I have not yet tried.

The commute from Amersham sucks royally, especially the hideous uncertainty of trying to find a free on street parking space in the morning which can be anything up to twenty minutes walk from the office. Still, this is better than paying £12 a day for the NCP car park opposite the office. This should improve greatly when I move to Maidenhead and can jump on the train as it should be both faster and less stressful than fighting for road space in London rush hour. However, that some parking space is available near(ish) the office is good too as this will allow me to drive in occasionally so I don’t have to do too many site visits using something called a bus.

The highlight of the week was getting my first pay cheque on Thursday for the month. I was feeling a bit low about the place at the time but opening up my pay packet I remembered why I had done this move (aside from career advancement) and a self congratulatory steak (from the aforementioned M&S) and chips dinner that evening left me feeling a whole lot better. It’s not all about the money by a longshot but it can certainly negate some objections I may have.

Now you may notice that I have stuck this post up on Sunday evening as opposed to my regular morning posting time. I am sticking with evening posting for the time being because of the necessity to get out early in the morning to beat the traffic before it gets majorly heavy. Like I said, posting may become a little inconsistent for the next few weeks.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. You can send me email at my new work (and I promise nice fluffy responses for the time being) at [withdrawn].

A date for the diary

Now I’ve always thought that your average mid-20s male (such as my good self) was under-represented in the arena of having ‘special days.’ Dads have fathers day, mums have mothers day, Christmas is for kids really, halloween is for the ugly and valentines day is one to make the girls feel special. So it’s nice to see that now guys have their own special day too. March 20 is now officially (apparently) steak and blow job day which is, well, pretty self explanatory really. Probably for the best that i didn't insert multiple images to annotate this post.

Traffic

So on Monday I left home at 7:45 and arrived at work (well, outside it) at just after 8:30 (45 minutes). On Tuesday I left home 10 minutes later at 7:55 and arrived at work at 9:00 (65 minutes). Yesterday I left home at 8:05 and arrived at work at 9:30 (85 minutes).

So for every 10 minutes later I leave after 7:45, it costs me an extra 20 minutes in commuting time.

This is due to getting stuck in less traffic earlier and of course this meaning you get farther along the journey before getting caught in heavier traffic and then finding a parking space nearer work as (obviously) the best free spaces are taken first and the later you are the farther away you are meaning it takes longer to walk from the car. Suffice to say that I am not messing around at home this morning.

This little statistic in itself is pushing me to consider adjusting my posting time to evenings as opposed to mornings, at least until I move flats.

New toy

My crudy old monitor which is about eight years old now has gone on the blink (literally). So I took that as a sign that a new monitor was required. A trip to PC World, some drooling over a variety of technology with some (really very) gentle coaxing from Mark and I now have a very nice 19 inch widescreen tft monitor with a yummy screen resolution of 1440 x 900.


The only problem with it is that I cannot find any porn big enough to fit the whole screen.

Hell of a day

Well I always expected my first day to be a little mental and chaotic. I was expecting uncoordinated messiness but I really wasn’t prepared for the way the day panned out.

I got up super early to beat the morning rush down the A40 (or at least allow plenty of time to sit in it) and make sure I was well in time for my 9:30 expected arrival. So I left at 7:45 and arrived at around 8:30 and found a free parking space fairly nearby which was all good. I wandered around the (predominantly closed) shops for a little while before getting cold and deciding that I would rather sit and wait inside than walk around the cold and particularly windy streets.

This is where it started to go a bit wrong. I apparently wasn’t expected at all, not least at the wrong building which I had been told to go to. Anyway, a bit of wrangling for about 20 minutes and I was directed to the right building where I still was a pretty unexpected arrival, despite now being in the right place and bang on time. After some delicate negotiations with a very large security guard I got inside and found my way to the planning department where I was (thankfully) expected although their provisions for helping me get this far left something to be desired.

Ok, fine, I'm in. Brief tour of the department, this is where you are sitting (window seat, w00t) in the east team (again, w00t, not the unreasonably ethnic end of the Borough). Computer, check, log-on, check. Here’s another new guy so you’re not the only one. Ok, things were starting to pick up.

However, the team has no team leader and hasn’t done for three weeks whilst the team leader’s boss is on leave (and has bigger troubles) and that’s where the chain of command appears to stop. So no team leader means no work allocated or any other kind of introductory niceties for the new folks. Having said that, my arrival along with the other new guy pretty much doubled the size of the team (albeit it still less than half staffed with our contribution) so its not like there is much to lead.

So I spent the rest of the day acquainting myself with the computer systems. Not least email which whilst, erm… clunky, works so succeeded in firing off a couple of emails to folks addresses what I could remember and getting some back (thanks folks, much needed) and trying to fathom the really fairly incomprehensible database and mapping systems. Of course I found out later that many of the functions I was trying to access didn’t exist, for example, any kind of meaningful electronic records. That should prove interesting for somewhere that was billed to be paperless.

So a slightly inauspicious start to the proceedings.

Good news is that the commute is way shorter than I expected, free on street parking is available, albeit limited, and there is chance that I could get a coveted parking pass. The people (mostly) seem pleasant enough and I would imagine it is certainly going to be a challenging job to say the least.

I’d like to go at the place with a bit more of a jackhammer today but get the impression that nobody seems to actually know that I am not just some temp, and really don’t want to go pissing my new colleagues off too much by appearing like an overly authoritative jerk. Perhaps I should do a memo?

Look what I got

So I got a nice little haul of leaving pressies from the folks at my old work. I got a really jazzy looking clock which is way cool (it’s staying in the box for the time being to keep it safe while I move flats).

I got salt and pepper mills which I have wanted for ages.

A really nice address book which I have also been wanting for ages together with a pen with my name on it.

I also got two giant bars of chocolate, one box of chocolates and a bottle of Guinness.

I was really chuffed with these rather nice gifts and whilst I did expect some trinkets to mark my departure (because everyone who leaves gets something) I was a little taken aback by the niceness and generosity of the gifts. I also got a really nice card too which (almost) everyone had signed and said nice things in.

So for those of you who read Nick101 at my old work, thanks everyone.

Departure lounge

So today is my last day at my current job and you know I really thought I would have more to say about that. Turns out I haven’t got much to say about it all.

It feels very weird though. I think I will probably do a debrief post on it at some point when it is all over.

Have a good weekend and I will see you on, what is for me, a fairly major and distinctly uncertain Monday.

Playing it cool

So starting off at a new job with entirely new people in a new environment presents me with the very rare opportunity of creating a unique first impression to numerous new people. I am unsure how I should approach this and have been toying with a couple of approaches:

Mysterious stranger: Stay quiet and only chime in when I have something sage or insightful to say. Drawbacks being I would probably never say anything, not being particularly sage or insightful.

Hawaiian: Buy pairs of sunglasses to match every shirt I own and wear them all the time. Of course I can’t afford that many decent pairs of sunglasses so would probably end up looking like Timmy Mallet and I probably wouldn’t be able to see where I was going most of the time although that might be a good thing.

Innuendo: Turn everything into a sex joke, could be funny if I was in a sit-com. Folks would probably think I was just a sleazy jerk though.

Yoda: Speak like Yoda I would. Construct without planning permission and enforcement notice receive you will. Think like twat I would sound.

Refined: Maybe sport a curly pipe like Sherlock Homes’ sidekick, get a monocle like Patrick Moore and a pocket watch too. Actually I think that would be like way fun to do. I wonder where you could buy a pipe, a monocle and a pocket watch. Ebay has got to have some stuff like that surely?

Present and future

Next Monday I begin my new job. To start with this is going to involve a fair chunk of commuting by car and then (hopefully) as of 13 March, should be a short(ish) train ride from Maidenhead to Ealing Broadway. In either instance this is going to be a big change from my amazingly short commute of around five minutes and available free time as a consequence of that. Also moving home is going to create some (again, hopefully) short term uncertainty about internet access (although I certainly will have access to the internet, the speed of it I am as of yet uncertain).

All this, I suspect, is going to affect blog posting although at the moment I am not sure how. I have every intention of keeping the blog going because I like doing it. So please, if stuff gets erratic over the next month or so, stick with me, I am hoping that it will be temporary. Fingers crossed, a new routine and blog post rhythm will sort itself out.

Back in the present, I am feeling increasingly weird about leaving my job at the end of this week. I have been doing it for a pretty long time and until fairly recently derived quite a bit of satisfaction from it. Also I have made friends there and whilst I doubt I am going to keep in touch with everyone I met there I am still going to miss the place a bit.

I am actually a little confused as how I am supposed to feel about leaving. Half of me wants to tell everyone how much I am going to miss them and how I will genuinely have fond memories of the place and perhaps everyone could come with me if that would be ok and maybe shed an uncharacteristic tear. The other half of me wants to shout ‘see you later losers’ whilst flicking v-signs before doing a donut in the car park and blazing off in an unnecessarily dramatic manner without a backward glance. I am not too sure how to reconcile these two things. Perhaps I could do both?

Meanwhile, it appears that Bng’s blog has been reawakened which is good to see. I have to say I was starting to feel a little blog-lonely recently what with not really being part of a blog ring or anything like that. I am still looking forward to those others who have said they are going to start blogs to get them up and running (you know who you are).

You're in the way

I came across this on Flickr (of all places) and, well, it’s funny.

I think I would end up issuing an unreasonable amount of these, given the opportunity, probably most often in the supermarket.

The plane on the moving runway

This little puzzle befuddled me for quite some time and whilst it didn’t quite keep me awake at night I did go to bed for a few days thinking about it. This is the question:

A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?

Stop reading here. Go and think about it (unless you are a physics master) as after this I am going to go through my lines of thinking and give the answer.

My conclusions:

1. The plane remains in the same position as any forward propulsion achieved by its (say) jet engines is immediately negated by the opposing motion of the runway. The plane therefore remains stationary. Whilst the forward motion of the plane is achieved by the force of the jet on the air, not on the ground, until the plane has gained sufficient velocity to gain lift from moving through the air it is inextricably linked to the ground by gravity and thus the inverse speed of the runway drags the plane backwards meaning it can’t make any forward progress and thus gain any lift. This was my initial conclusion that I stuck with for quite some time but it doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny as, unlike a car, the forward motion of the plane is created by the force of the jet on the air not by the wheels on the ground.

2. The plane remains stationary but rises. Ok so I never thought this one would apply but am going through it anyway. This can’t work because the plane requires the lift of the air passing its wings in order to become airborne. No amount of thrusting from the jets will make it rise if the plane can’t make any forward progress. It would be like having a plane on a stick stuck in the ground (I like the imagery of that). Besides if this did work surely it would be employed on aircraft carriers and other stuff with short runway constraints.

3. The plane proceeds down the runway regardless of what the runway itself is doing. As the jets are acting against the air not the ground the motion of the surface it is on is largely irrelevant. This answer defies my land and car based thinking but really is the only feasible answer. As the engines are thrusting against the air what the plane is doing relative to the air is the important bit. What the ground is doing is largely irrelevant, think for example of a jet plane taking backwards off an aircraft carrier which is moving forward really quickly.

I have to confess this is a bit of a rob from this post (which itself was a rob from this post, but then the internet is like that) and the subsequently confirmed answer here (at least I got the right answer even if it did take me a few days and a bit of coaxing). But it got me thinking and I thought it was sufficiently engaging to warrant blogging.

Someone else to pick up the pieces

The interviews for my job are going on today. I know both Mark and Hannah (who I work with) have applied for the position and I wish them both the best and, personally, I would give them both the job. However, I am not in any kind of job determining position which is a bit of a relief as I am not sure who I would pick put of the two.

Good luck guys.

Picky picky picky

Having done this flat hunting thing for a fair number of weeks now and seen god knows how many places I think have a pretty good grasp of what I like in a flat. A lot of this goes against the grain of what I think you are ‘supposed to like.’ I am of course ignoring obvious stuff like being next to a sewage treatment plant, living in a crack den or being in Slough (all of which are bad).

Like:

1960s flats because they always seem to be well proportioned. I think stemming from when they were designed their internal layout was more important than jamming as much in to as small a space as possible. A lot of the time they are also way ugly on the outside which I think gives them a certain ugly duckling charm.

Wall to wall carpets which are nice and thick and warm and cosy.

Balconies because they are just plain cool. And none of your iron railings and juliet balconies, I mean really big ass ones that you can sit on and stare at your neighbours (the best one I saw was huge and came with an outdoor heater).

Being up high (but not too high) as it has a slightly detached and secure feel to it. You can keep an eye on what’s going on outside without having to let it trouble you because safely elevated.

Big living rooms, because it’s where you spend a lot of time and it’s nice to have some breathing space.

Off street parking, because battling for an on-street parking space is so proletarian and I don’t want to have to walk half a mile from my car to my flat.

Space for a dishwasher, which I think is pretty self explanatory (nowhere seems to have this though despite many places clearly having the space).

Dislike:

Period conversions. Don’t get me wrong I really like character houses, just when they’re subdivided and have flats rammed in it seems to be so badly done. The space is never well proportioned (who wants a living room three metres by three metres in floor area with four metre high ceilings?) and the features that get left behind (if any) look out of place and lost.

Hardwood floors, cold and echoey.

Really pokey modern flats, particularly the ones where two bedrooms have been rammed into an area only really big enough for one bedroom (I saw a few places where the second bedroom was big enough for a single bed but you wouldn’t be able to open slash close the door).

What was it you do again?

Looks like the letting agent for my new flat has been in trouble with the planners. I hope they don't hold that against me.

Maidenhead baby (again)

I have a flat in Maidenhead. And this time I have stuck my rental deposit down on it so it shouldn’t be going anywhere like the last place did, no evil tenants to change their minds and stay this time.


Anyhow, this place is a little smaller then the previous place I thought I had secured and only has one bedroom. However it is up on the second floor, which is great because I like being up high, and has a rather funky balcony (pictured, top left) with funky (in a different sense) views over the London to Bristol mainline and a haulage yard. It is also way close to the train station, being only five minutes walk away (that’s five actual minutes, not five estate agent minutes which appear to be about three times longer than a standard minute). Also it has a buzzer entry phone thingy which means it is classy.

Move in date is scheduled (in draft) for the weekend of 11 March.

I am still a little disappointed that I didn’t get the first place I thought I had secured as it was bigger and as equally well decorated internally. However it was further away from the train station and supposedly in a crumby area (although I still refuse to accept that to a certain degree).

Regardless, I am happy with the place I have got.

Tying up the loose strings

You may recall my post about the mobile home Inquiry and my subsequent (somewhat self congratulatory) post, Inquiry debrief. So I am most pleased to report the appeal was dismissed (meaning we won) (and of course this includes my favourite bit… getting my name on the ‘end credits’ of the decision notice). The decision notice even included a reference to my remark under cross examination about the mobile home park being a little twee for my tastes, sadly it wasn’t worded quite like that.

I am quite pleased that this decision came before I leave my current job as I have plugged a sizeable chunk of time and effort into the case so getting a win is a real plus. Whilst it is by far and away not the end of it in the grand scheme of things it is a major landmark.

Whilst I am happy to be moving on to new things there are a number of cases I still have running that I am going to have to pass on to whoever picks up my post that I kinda would like to find out what goes on. My self imposed rules mean I won’t divulge to much about the cases but I am going to log them in a fairly vague form. So here is a list of the cases I would like to see the outcome of (and in honesty the ones that I think would have made really good blog posts had I had the nerve to write about them):

The marker posts
The ostrich farm
The reality TV building
The water bottles
The landfill site
The worst extension in the world

101 x 1000

Having not deleted an email, read or unread, since 21 June 2004 I can now proudly claim to have an email inbox containing no less than 1000 unread emails (actually now 1007 at the time of this post).

How's that for an entirely redundant achievement? And on a numerical theme, this post also happens to be post number 101, which I couldn't really allow to slip past without some sort of comment.

Nuclear futures

Recently the Government appears to be considering a U-turn on nuclear energy policy and toying with the idea of re-introducing nuclear power as a way of generating electricity. This, if enacted, could result in the construction of a new generation of nuclear power stations to generate the nation’s electricity supply. I can’t say I welcome this as a particularly sustainable and ecologically slash environmentally sound way of generating electricity. Plumbing more investment into the seemingly wide array of renewable energy sources seems to be a much wiser long term solution.

However, renewable energy sources do not, as of yet, appear to be bearing quite as much fruit as could be hoped for (arguably due to a lack of investment and possibly commitment). Additionally given recent concerns about the supplies of traditional hydrocarbon fuels (environmental merits notwithstanding) relating to the practical availability of the stuff and that many of such resources are now caught up in politically unstable locations (by which I mean a bunch of gun totting lunatics, yes that includes the Americans) around the globe I can see why going for the previously tried and tested, and I would hope in this day and age, somewhat more refined, nuclear generation option may be considered preferable.

I doubt picking the nuclear option is going to be anyone’s first choice, especially given that even nuclear fuel sources are not exclusively sourced from nice friendly and stable countries with fluffy western ideals. However, in the grand scheme of things I think I have to list my preferences in terms of how to get electricity as follows:

1. Nice environmentally friendly renewable sources
2. Some possibly slightly messier nuclear option
3. Burning hydrocarbons
4. Using soylent green (although I am unsure of its electricity generating properties)

And then a long way down the list, right at the very bottom in fact…

5. Not having electricity at all.

Say what?

I start my job as Principal Planner with my new employer in three weeks time. As I understood it I will be the deputy to the Team Leader working in one of two area based teams.

So with this in mind I was a little disarmed to read in my professional magazine of choice that my new employer is advertising for two new Team Leaders. So I guess the current Team Leaders are leaving. Where does that leave me?

Eh-oh.

Bloggies

Last chance today to cast your vote in the 2006 Bloggies. I like Cute Overload (for the layout and razor-sharp opinion of course, not the fluffy bunnies), Post Secret, Girl with a one-track mind (for the quality of the narrative, not because is shamelessly unabashed literary porn), Digg (but not Slashdot), Del.icio.us and (somewhat begrudgingly) the self satisfied ramblings of Jason Kottke.