It’s been a little mothy in the house recently – I guess it’s just that time of year. This little guy was chilling on the inside of the kitchen window.
The photo was taken with a Canon PowerShot SX260 HS and lightly massaged using the GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Since not being able to run, I have taken up baking. Mainly on Fridays, but occasionally a cake or a batch of biscuits sneaks through on other days as well. It all started when I got Paul Hollywood’s How To Bake for christmas, possibly from the lean and hungry Dr Pockless with an eye to future holiday rental cottages in the Peak District. While it has been agreed that that man (Mr Hollywood, not The Doctor) has creepy eyes, his baking recipes are enticing. Continue reading
Are you living in the same place as in 2004/05? 2004 was a year of considerable change. At the beginning of the year, I was still living in Chichester, in an old pub. This abode was notable for the fact that, once every fifteen minutes, a bus would attempt to drive through the front door as it took the corner into Chapel Street. But I had just got engaged to Hels and was commuting to her flat in Tunbridge Wells and living half the week there. By August, my flat was sold and I was living full time in Tunbridge Wells – this flat was notable for the huge bath by the window that looked out over the old town (ridiculously and pretentiously known as the Village) and towards the Common – anyone with a decent pair of binoculars (or possibly even the naked eye) would have been able to enjoy a fine view of a bottom had they been looking in the right direction at the right time. We subsequently spent vast sums of money trying to sell that flat (which has put me off leasehold property for life). We ended up here in Ruralville at the very end of the year, just after our wedding. Hels famously leapt up and down when she saw this house and immediately told the agent how much we could afford as a maximum price. Strangely, I found we were somewhat disadvantaged in the price negotiations after that. Hels is very easy to beat at poker.Ladies and gentlemen, please take your pews in the Church of Uborka, for a service celebrating faith, which is officially defined in your prayer books as the triumph of hope over rational thought. One of the main tenets of Uborkanism is tolerance of diversity combined with a cheeky disrespect of everyone and everything. You have been warned.
We will start today’s service with a hymn called “We’re sorry about the weather,” interpreted in very irreverent ballet by Mademoiselle Lori Smith, and accompanied by a round of Pimms with frozen raspberries, as these have been recommended for just about everything today. This will be followed by an umbrella demonstration from Clair, since having faith in British weather does mean always carrying a brolly.
How fortunate that this is not a Methodist chapel, since the overwhelming majority of faithful attenders today have professed an absolute belief in the healing power of booze. This includes Absolutely Lyle, Lisa, Gert in her pretty scotch bonnet (how fetching), and krissa. Consider yourselves duly annointed with lots and lots of gin and other alcoholic delights.
Next we will have a short sermon from Pete about love and beer and good women, and the blessing, from asta, will also be about love. And in an unexpected twist, it’s Tom who brings the tone down today, with his remarks about having had Faith.
Now we have a prayer, from Pixeldiva, about having faith in oneself, which seems to me to be a good starting point for all of us; I suggest you take a moment to reflect silently on just how bloody awesome you all are.
The profoundly faithful and never-crumpled Dr Pockless will read from a text of his choice. This is the point at which the rest of us can snatch forty winks on the assumption that it will be deep but not in any way meaningful.
Graybo will lead the next hymn, which is They Might Be Giants’ Science Is Real. Listen out for a lovely solo by our chorister Mark, bearing a tray of lemon fondant fancies and a pitcher of Prohibition Punch. During this hymn the collection tray will be passed along; please leave a tip or suggestion for the faithless among us.
I’m drinking raspberry martini with washed ice, and I have faith in the Mighty and Ineffable Pete, from whose neat mind all mortgage papers flow.
Amen.
In all areas of my life I follow the edict never to argue about religion or politics. All areas except uborka, it seems ((there was also a small amount of pro-life embroilment on twitter)). I’m grateful for everyone’s input yesterday; I’ve finished the form and ticked the boxes to say he can go to church. In myself I am happy to have explored the options, and this was his preference.
So we’re going deep. To get your cocktail today, tell us what you have absolute faith in.
Bernard starts junior school in September (I know, how did that happen, etc). The school he will go to is separate from but on the same site as his infant school. It’s five minutes’ walk away, right at the bottom of our road. It’s the best school in a town full of excellent schools, and I’ve just read the OFSTED report where the inspectors clearly struggled to think of any “improvements” they could suggest. It’s also a Church school. Continue reading
My only progress this week is to have started physiotherapy for my ankle; it’s really hard to guess how long this is going to take, but it’s now 8 weeks since I sprained it. What have you managed to achieve this week?
This week’s question is really for people who are doing or have done C25K, and inspired by a question from Tom:
If you’re near the beginning: how do you feel about encountering Week 5 Day 3, the first uninterrupted run?
If you’ve done W5D3, how did it feel to achieve it?
This evening I attended half of a meeting at the local council offices. A friend, who is very passionate about local politics, likes to video these meetings, and he has been getting some resistance from the establishment who are, understandably, worried that it’ll be easier for them to be held to account if the evidence is out there on the internet. Plus, they quite like the current arrangement where only a dozen people are party to their shenanigans – it makes it easier to cover up.
So my friend asked me to come along tonight to give a bit of support. The whole thing was as soul-destroying as I thought it would be.
Most of the time is taken up with various slick middle-aged dudes bragging about how brilliant all these new things that they are doing are going to be. They brag and brag and brag and brag for twenty minutes, and then open up the floor for five minutes of questions at the end. A number of pensioners’ hands go up. They point out that there’s been no consultation on the things that are going on, and raise some concerns. Slick middle-aged dudes then say:
1. There’s been some consultation. Maybe not enough. But it’s moot, because it’s too late to back out now.
2. But you can still be involved! We’re inviting members of the public to decide what colour of brick to use for the new pavements! Yay!
3. We also had the same concerns as you, but we talked about it at a previous meeting, and all agreed that it’s fiiiiine, so don’t worry.
4. We’re short for time this evening so let’s move right along.
The great thing is that the video of this meeting will be available online, so I can post it and prove to you that I’m really not exaggerating.
The downside is that this meeting was scheduled to be 1h45m long, and when I left after about 1h15m it was already running 20m over, so I expect that the final video will be well over 2 hours long. Most of this is the well-dressed middle-aged dudes telling us about how great everything is. Who, in their right mind, would watch that?
As one of the nicely-groomed middle-aged dudes pointed out, we voted for all of these councillors.
I recently read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. It’s written, and set, about a hundred years ago, when socialism is just starting to become a thing. It’s heavily political, and very critical of both the wealthy elite who run things, and the working classes who buy into the myth that this is the way that it must always be. The workers have their right to vote, and they defend it passionately, while closing their minds to the truth that it really makes no difference. The wealthy capitalists leverage their positions on the council to line their own pockets. Competition between them leads to lowered prices, yes, but this is achieved by paying the workers as little as possible, and doing a half-assed job. One of the most saddening things is that Robert Tressell clearly believed that socialism would be England’s saviour, but it took less than a hundred years for Labour to go from feisty underdog to just another panel of slick middle-aged dudes telling us about how great things are.
The harder I try to engage, the more disillusioned I become.