where art collides philosoperontap

Thursday is the new Friday, especially when tomorrow is Good Friday. Good name Good Friday. Whoever came up with it did a good job. An enduring brand.

Thursday is also the new Friday if your weekend starts on a Thursday. Always assuming that people celebrate Fridays as the end of their working week. Never done that myself, at least not for years.

Good Friday is not a good day to travel. Nor is the Thursday before Good Friday. Unless you consider long traffic jams and queues at airports to be a good thing which I don’t. 

A few years ago I had the idea of consolidating a year’s worth of BBC radio travel alerts to text so that all roads mentioned in the year were covered. It would show a gridlocked nation. Would have been a great piece for philosopherontap.

Didn’t happen because I couldn’t be bothered to listen to and transcribe every bulletin and didn’t come up with an automated process to do the job. I would also have had to listen to Radio 2 every afternoon which wouldn’t have worked. The project is not dead, just delayed, in keeping with the folk sat in traffic jams.

We are staying put for Easter although we might head to the coast or somewhere on Sunday. Take a nice picnic. The picnic will inevitably be eaten in the car, washed down with a flask of tea as many places will still be shut and the weather will be inclement, as the Brits like to put it.

Sitting eating a picnic in the car with food items spread out on the dashboard is a very traditional thing to do. Ideally with the rain lashing down on the windscreen or a freezing wind blasting in from the North Sea. This is after a brief five minute walk on the beach spent mostly bent over holding the hood of your coat down over your face and quickly coming to a mutual decision to return to the car.

Will have to give some consideration to our destination this Sunday. Haven’t been to the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Museum for years. That could work, although Grimsby is a bit grim, knowworramean.

Any ideas/suggestions for a day out (afternoon more likely) within striking distance of Lincoln on Sunday will be considered. In the meantime I’m off to make the tea.

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The sun has emerged from behind a cloud that had held much water which this morning was emptied on the good burghers of Lincoln. There is now optimism in the air that the lawn may this afternoon be the subject of scarification and aeration. If the lawn isn’t dry enough then it will get done over the weekend, definitely 😉 You already know that we are at home for the Passover feast, mostly.

The burghers themselves will also have emerged, from their refuges where they will have rushed to take shelter at the time of the deluge. Those caught out in the open will themselves now be drying off in the sun in the manner, no doubt, of spread-wing cormorants at the seashore. Soak up that sunshine!

Silence now reigns in the shed.

The light has gone. Having a new consumer unit put in so the power has just gone off to the house. I can tell because the screens in front of me have just died and I am now on a fully charged macbook pro hooked up to a fully charged phone.

Outside is a beautiful spring day that started with a frost. Ne’er cast a clout until May is out and it is only at the start of April. I am wearing a thick woolly jumper particularly as the heating is now off in the shed. In theory I was going to scarify the lawn and plant onion sets today but the combination of no electricity and the cold may delay that.

The concept of not having two 27” 4k screens in front of me is a little strange. Nowadays I don’t feel as if I am sat anywhere productive without the real estate to play with. Even the two screens have to be supplemented with windows that need to be swiped into view to be seen.

Sometimes when using the laptop in the house I have to move to the shed for productivity reasons. It is also quieter there and I am less prone to being disturbed. A good separation between home and work life.

In one sense the switching off of power to the shed is like the beginning of armageddon. How it all started. If the shed represented life, humanity, it would now be all about what happens next. I would have to adapt. Move away from my cosseted twenty first century  existence. Obvs I know the power is coming back sometime later today but if I didn’t know that it would affect my behaviour.

We do have some candles in the house. Some are there for decorative purposes and I believe there is a box somewhere with a mixed bunch of wax sticks. One year, aeons ago, there was a short power cut during our Christmas Party, the one where we sing carols. Out came the candles and we had the most atmospheric sing song that we had ever had, the glow from the log fire keeping us nice and warm.

That is in the past. In the present the washing is being hung out to dry. Must have just beaten the switch off.

I am looking forwards to an April largely spent at home. I have already resisted the urge to go to UKNOF in Manchester this week and to a VON Evolution conference in New York City later in the month. Mostly due to diary clashes but the attraction of giving the body a rest from travel did play a part. I do need to arrange a trip to Antwerp at some stage and have a pleasant lunch arranged in London in the last week of the month. 

I like leisurely London lunches. Wotslifeallabout? If anyone would like to book me for a leisurely London lunch during the summer feel free to get in touch.

Sitting with my headphones on avoiding having to hear cheery chappie TV chef Jamie Oliver. Bloody annoys the hell out of me. Carnival of The Animals. Will keep me going until University Challenge 🙂I realise this might be a shocking overreaction but I must be in that sort of mood. Not sure there are any TV chefs that particularly interest me. Call me a miserable so and so.

I do like cooking. I remember one evening years ago when I was the only person in the house. I was dropping Hannah off at a party and before leaving the house I opened a particularly nice bottle of Pauillac to breathe.

Driving back home I had the car windows in order to take in what was a beautiful summer’s evening. There was a smell to it. When I got home the wine had breathed and I cooked a simple rib eye steak on the griddle and rustled up a green salad. Didn’t need a TV chef to tell me how to cook it. Must have been one of those memorable meals for that evening to have specifically stayed in my memory. 

We have over the years collected innumerable recipe books. I started off with Delia’s ‘how to cook’ or similar during my bachelor days and soon added more including a cheapo Mexican cookbook from Sainsburys or simlar that we still refer to today.

More likely to google a recipe nowadays. Typically I’ll check out a number of sources for the same dish and opt for what seems the right one for me.

Gotta go. UC is on. Starter for ten.

Just paid the staff. Now have thirty mins or so to play with before heading for my stretch and flex class at Yarborough. I am in desperate need of stretching and flexing.

Tis a lovely sunny day out there and the first of the season where I am in shorts. Longs would be a backwards step from hereon although I don’t preclude them on occasion. Summer is short. Wear shorts. Life is short. I’ve turned the shed heating down a couple of notches and the door is open. Won’t be long before the heating will be switched off until Octoberish.

Today is a mixed day of campervan prep, doing my accounts and some Netaxis stuff. First hire of the season goes out tomorrow. We have reduced expectations for this season due to the economic s&^te going on in general but surprisingly the first couple of months are ahead of last season so it may turn out ok. 

…

Back from stretch and flex. Boy is it a tough class.

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Interesting discovery this pm. I recently adjusted my monitors to what I thought was the appropriate height which is top of the monitor level with eyes. However because my specs are varifocal I find myself lifting my head up a bit so that I view the upper half of the monitor through the lower bit of the specs. If I don’t do this then I’m looking through the long distance viewing bit of the specs.

I need to decide whether to lower the monitors further to accommodate this. Not going to rush into this one especially as it would result in the gap between monitor and desk being too small to slide my deskphone under. I don’t use the deskphone that often and normally have it unplugged and pushed to the side of the desk behind the right hand monitor.

…

This evening I have the house to myself and have a relaxing bath in prospect. I’m still working my way through my book on New Orleans’ history: Empire of Sin. NoLa has always been a happening spot 🙂

After yesterday’s hectic boozy day out at the races a quiet night is just the right thing. Off to Caadiff tomoz so will be back to being hectic. Need to check out the Oriel Canfas exhibit. Still plenty of time to get there if you haven’t yet been 🙂

Have an hour to kill before prep is underway for racing at Market Rasen. When I say prep I really just mean sticking on a shirt and jacket, maybe even a bow tie. I don’t do normal ties. Symbols of enslavement to the system. The machine. Same with suits, mostly although I do recognise that in the right place a suit can be good. Otherwise it is the uniform of the modern office bound factory fodder.

So I’m sat in the shed listening to tunes and scribbling. I do occasionally think of work  related stuff but just stick it down as a calendar reminder to do in the morning. Will be a busy day tomorrow.

In the meantime, en route to the course, we will need a visit to the cashpoint to ensure we have enough stake to make the winnings of the day appreciable. By tonight we could be rich, rich I tell you.

Playing some Deep Purple. This morning is not about relaxing background music. It is about loud, uptempo tunes that get the adrenaline going.

Not been to the races for years. It’s a good day out every now and again. Will need to source some info on the runners and riders. Sporting Life? Not a v responsive website. They need to sort out a CDN. BBC was straight in.

The first race has only three runners and racing expert Tim tells me the fave is 1-12 on so hardly worth the effort.

There is another big decision to be made and that is which hat to wear? Some have feathers, some don’t. Feels as if feathers would be appropriate today. Mustard maybe. V shall c. So will you.

I invested in some binocs for this trip. Been thinking of buying some for years but not really had an occasion to use them. They will come in handy for other uses such as bird watching and, well, bird watching 🙂

Bird watching is a noble activity although it has the drawback that you need to be able to identify the avian objects in the lens. I have the Collins Book of British Birds or similar which is supposed to be the authoritative text. The problem is that there are so many birds covered within its pages that it would take me ages to flick through and find the particular bird I was looking at by which time it would have gone. 

Problems problems. I bet they don’t have the same problems on the lower Serengetti wetlands, assuming there is such a place. I imagine it will be teeming with wildlife.

One more tune and then I must away. Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends. Great cover version. Do you need anybody? I just need someone to lurve.

I find the notion of writing lyrics like this difficult. I already have someone to lurve so if I was writing a song it couldn’t be about anything like that. I have a few ideas though. Stay tuned, so to speak…

Noise, noise, noise. I have some sounds blasting away in the shed. Have to be careful not to have it on so loud that the neighbours can hear. Obvs it could also affect my hearing when I’m older.

Now playing Street Life by the Crusaders. Stuck my vinyl version on at some point but I’d played it so much that the sound quality was rubbish it was so worn out. I’ll probs go in the hoose once this has finished. Bean chilli for tea tonight. Yum.

…

I was awake from 3.45 until 5.01am afaik. Sometimes when you are awake in the night you drift off and then wake up every now and then without realising that you’ve been asleep in betweentimes. 

I finally awoke at 07.36 and sounded the alarm. One of us usually nips down to make the tea at 06.30 but we had both slept through.

Had a busy morning of it and at 11.40 got ready to nip to the barbers down the road until I remembered I was expecting a delivery. Nobody else in to sign for it so I’ve postponed haircut. The barber isn’t expecting me anyway.

Woken up in Lincoln. Yay. We do like our trips but there is no place like home. We are lucky to have a nice place to live.

Breakfast was some granary sourdough toast with half an avocado and some chopped walnuts and a balsamic drizzle. Lunch is going to be an omelette and bean chilli for dinner. All good.

Now chillin’ on a sofa with a cup of tea contemplating the day ahead. A few days at home to get the campervans ready for the season with the first hire going out on Friday. 

Great few days in God’s country and will be pointing the car east after a leisurely breakfast. Fortunately it is served until ten on a Sunday. The only drawback is the long drive home which on this occasion will be broken by a stop on the Wirral. I’ll have the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. My annual pass has expired so I’ll have to dig deep and fork out another twenty quid for 2023 and beyond. Rewind. Just checked and it expires today so I’ll be ok. Result, yay. These little victories in life all add up.

I started at number eleven but am now number four in the queue, after eleven minutes and forty seconds. I’ve been number four in the queue for a while. I wonder how much time I’ve spent on hold during my lifetime. Probs wouldn’t really want to know tbh. I should have brought my book with me but it is in the house and I am on the phone in the shed that I only use for making calls where I think I might be on hold for ages.

The main issue when on hold for a long time is when you decide you need to go to the loo but have no idea how much longer you will have to wait before the phone is answered. Currently I am working on my second cup of tea. There was enough left in the pot 🙂 . On previous occasions I’ve turned the volume on the speakerphone up to max and nipped out quickly.

Twenty minutes in I am now number three. I budgeted some time for this call but now have used up half the allocated amount. I have a conf call in twenty four minutes.

Thirty two minutes and have been answered but I’m on hold again as the person needs to ask something to someone else. Sounds like they are new on the job. All sorted, I’m sure you are glad to hear.

A perfectly damp spring day in the shire. Wet but not miserable. The garden is starting to grow again. Unfortunately it is the forest of sycamore seedlings that is most apparent but the apricot has been in flower a few days now and there is evidence of the waking of the apple and plum trees from their deep winter slumber.

The sycamores will be cruelly terminated on the first suitably dry day which will coincide with scarification and aeration of the lawn.

At the time of scarification and aeration. Sounds very dramatic, as if out of the Lord of The Rings. Trollen blade wielding horde marching in ranks across the lawn in front of the kitchen.

I was born in sixty one and am sixty one years old. I think 🙂. Couple of things spring to mind. I’m a lot stiffer nowadays and I have to scroll a long way down when inserting birth year online. The two are unrelated apart from the age link. 

Just looked and apparently a pint of beer was 2s 1/2d in 1961. That would have been of no interest to me at the time, particularly as my birth month was December as regulars at trefbash will know. Presumably we are talking ordinary bitter here. A pint of beer nowadays is a lot more and is very much dependant on where you are.

A pint of milk was 8d, something a lot more relevant to me at the time, I’d guess although I’m pretty sure I was breast fed.

The scrolling down might be annoying had I not had 61 years to get used to it and it has crept up on me over time. It does however annoy me when I have to scroll down to select ‘United Kingdom’ when the country at the top is ‘United States’.  Tossers. There, you can see I’m annoyed.