open dog skating

March 6, 2006

alright? ere. don’t let on to dave, but I just got this lot from a bloke in cheam an e reckons that there’s sumfin abaht nuffin going on dahn dagenham so I’s got to shift a bladdersworth before croaky gets back from the costa del sol an sees that blart from penge who’ll doubtless be on the case, right, so I’m gettin dahn the lockup later and we got a transit and a couple of befords gonna shift it down to stretford where graham can stick it in the warehouse until it all quietens down like. I mean, I ain’t got nuffin against that nonce bu e’s a liability ain’t e? I mean, you wos there right, when e ad that motor up from croydon an e was all makin out like it was like he’d won the bleedin lottery or suffin and dave was like ‘oi, you nonce, ave you won the bleedin lottery or suffin?’ and you know, well, that’s just like it is innit, so we ave to offload this load of rubbish or all hell breaks loose. its not like barry even took it up to luton like e was supposed to and so we’re all stuck waitin for the transport to shift it all nice an clean like, so nobody gets caught aht an noone gets clobbered, I mean you’d think it was common sense right to just lay one dahn ere so it just gets avoided but no, there’s alway some runt somewhere who’s gonna stick their foot right in it a spread it around all over the bleedin place an thas where the likes of you an me get the short end of it and ave to get the proverbial shovel aht and sort the bleedin mess aht. I mean, a bit of brains don’t cost nuffin, do they, so why’s e so short bleedin changed, eh? blimey, its freezin aht ere, ave you got one of them hats we were keepin? lovely.

james blunt toolbar

March 3, 2006

nothing happens in your town even though the windmill looks grand I went there a few times a while ago when I was running from a mad person and often we’re back there stamping through the clouds while we’re negotiating dykes and sluices and wondering how the hell we get to the deli on the blind corner and we find ourselves in the living room of a mother and son cafe society with fluffy cushions and bad rugs and we have to use their own bathroom which is just too strange so we’ll just get some fish and press our noses up against the pottery and we’ll head to the car should we? yes, that’s the windmill, let’s go now

if I were you I’d just drop a few letters so you get more sticky and then with a couple of plums and a shooting stick it’s off to the smoke for a good drubbing with a pointy stick and standard issue boot polish I’ll spit in your eye get over it but whatever got it to the point where you become acceptable then I’ve got nothing left to lose so we’ll all go missing for a while and when the sails creak around on the empty shell and there’s nothing left to stop us then maybe we’ll take the s-class down to brighton and crash the imperial hotel with our caps and scarves. you must be about version 3 by now and I know there’s a version 4 coming so don’t say no I wish I knew because that would just be lying and in that horrible dream where our lips met and daley thompson was doing back flips on the settee we remebered that there was always something more than this but we’d forgotten what it was even though I have that buzzing in my ear and a blister on my finger. I can’t be clearer that than, you know the way it goes.

look, a panda!

super 8

March 2, 2006

thaas that loomoo 63 — thass that loomoo 63 by Tim Caynes

he’s got a good hat an its got red and grey on it split dahn the middle but standing face to face e’s got nuthin to say and the lights dahn here won’t take you away but you could be a million miles away cos over there its those 3 with the bikes and we know they don’t mean it, but, I mean, there’s no harm in just keeping it dahn is there while she’s pinging in those strings and once e’s off the lead you know it’ll be a short person that will weave through those nice little piles up to the red bricks of the deco. but left undercover, man, it’s the free spirit trainers and an undiscovered patio but rest easy guv, its only him what knows how to take it, and it ain’t draggin you down so don’t get started before you’re halfway there cos left to its own devices it’ll probably sniff arahnd the lockup and everything will be sorted innit?

left for dead in the haymarket we just piled all that crap right into the back of the mercedes and the blond one from the black horse came out with her bottles and before you can say c-class estate she’s lobbing them over the lip of charlotte church who makes you want to really try and get over it but anyway, it’s stupid in these city lights to think that without getting you back it’s all gonna be alright. if you’re leaving then thaas alright but take it with you won’t you cos if we’re taking the time to just get this place straight then you might ave to lend us a hand cos it’s not like its a four star place you’ll barely scratch by with 2 and a wet pavement in whitby. I tell you what though, this ain’t bad, you oughta try it. mind you, I can’t think of a good place to put it so I guess it’ll end up with all the rest and it’ll just be a bit random like but it don’t take much to get it sorted does it, but then you don’t want to sort it do ya?

wait up, here comes barry. oi, barry, what do you reckon?

i say go!team, you say net!beans

March 1, 2006

truthfulness is next to godliness or something by Tim Caynes

having spent the previous evening in the company of a few suzi quattroalikes who were ‘a bit disappointed actually’ with the reincarnation of the early 80s that is editors and passed up the chance to get intimate in the arts centre with gemma hayes and about 200 other guardian readers who knew it was happening only the night before that because 3 nights out in a row for me would probably cause an earthquake or something, I took to the megane scenic in the rain and headed out to that lovliest of lovely venues the uea lower common room with a face on like a slapped arse and half a mind to just not bother because the day hadn’t really gone well with kids off sick and a bunch of other conspiratorial coincidences that pretty much just left me wanting to go to bed but hey, I got this ticket months ago and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised and anyway I don’t have to go galavanting about down the front like an old gibbon on acid, I’ll just stand around the edge stroking my chin and tapping my foot like a lecturer who read a review in the independent that said they were the living embodiment of 70s pastiche mangled with a rock-hop sensibility and oozing intelligence and wit or something like that which I just made up

after the usual 2.70 please for the plastic stella I hung around the edge a bit watching half a woman shriek into the microphone while playing a modern bontempi and accompanied by a person I just could not see at all who was presumably banging a drum or something and as I only caught the last two numbers I couldn’t really decide if they were rubbish or not so I kind of just let them off and surveyed the scene as the lights went up to see how we’re doing tonight. ooh. lots of space down there. still, someone will fill it and have nice time, I’m sure. not me though. not tonight. I think I’ve got a headache. mind you, there’s a lot of space down there. it would be churlish of me not to fill it up a bit so that the place doesn’t look quite so empty. nah. I’ll stay here. hmm hm hmm. daa de dum. <tumbleweed> aah, go on then. plop.

no sooner have I drawn an imaginary chalk mark around my feet than another mad collective of people dribble onto the stage and I can tell from the hand-written scrawl on the drum kit that they are in fact the grates and as they launch into the first of a few, we’re struck by the singer who looks like a derenaged liz from blue peter on speed and is bouncing up and down and twirling around like an embarrassing mum after a couple too many guaranga teas at the green party toddler club disco and she is ably supported by something that looks like mo tucker but sounds like john bonham and some other bloke. they do songs I can’t understand and shout a lot but they’re all so bizarre that by the end of it they get the biggest reception that norwich can muster which isn’t a lot but it was more than editors got and so everyone is happy and we all go home. well, not yet. by this time I’ve even taken my trusty replay top off and tied it around my enormous waist in anticipation of some invigorating bouncing around as the whole place is now full and the pit that had breathing space a while ago is now the usual too-close-for-comfort layer of hell that we all know and love except there’s an unheathly number of stoners prowling about tonight so something is bound to kick off.

they never even tuned the lights after the grates, so we’ve been in the dark for a good half hour when mr fatman shines the torch and the place goes mental. it’s only the Go! Team for chissake. don’t you lot go out much? I wasn’t really expecting much but in the end they were a running jumping dancing tripping bundle of bedroom tinkering gone global and all the better for that I say with a suitably cheesy 70s backdrop projection and ninja shaking everyone up in the house the whole thing went off like an entire humungous box of fireworks had gone up by mistake and the sky was filled with swizzle sticks and public information monkeys flying by on magic raleigh choppers during the silver jubilee as a million samplers were blasting out the theme from grandstand mashed up with the flaming lips and salt and peppa and the ghost of chrismas future came down with a brand new super flight deck and a dx50 wrapped up in 3d wallpaper at least that’s how I remember it. they were brilliant. I danced like I’m only allowed out once a month and nobody cared because they were all doing the same and even all the tall people magically disappeared from the crowd so that all the short people could see the stage for once so there was indeed some kind of divine intervention going on and I saw people going back to the car park saying things like ‘aaw, that was amaaaazing’ even though it was pissing down.

i say editors, you say netbeans

February 28, 2006

I’ll just do a quick story although that will probably be a whole chapter as they’re quite short and we need to see whether there’s anything useful in justice strauss’ extensive library which might tell us something about inheritance law and then I really have to go as there’s probably at least 1 other bunch of geordies or something to squeeze in before we get to what seems to be the unofficial official time of around 9:50 when they’ll flash that torch from the front so that the serious looking pair on the mixing desk know when to dim the lights and crank it up to 11 by which time there’s already a few pairs of feet in the air which will get hauled out by the efficient security staff behind the barrier and get chucked out into to night where the ice cream van that’s been modded to flog burgers and ecoli will gather them up and they’ll never be seen again at least not by me

everyone’s feeling a bit sunday night as its sunday night but we’re kind of kind to the guys on stage from newcastle who I have no idea about although they shout nicely and we all cheer when the bass player jumps down from the stage to confront an annoying troglodite from swaffham who’s been heckling throughout but we don’t get a fight although we do get a pointy finger in the face and a look of thunder and then he gets back on stage and starts playing again and the whole band crack up and he grins for the rest of the set which is funny but no sooner have they gone than the snake trail to the dance pit begins as we’re making early territorial claims on bits of floor that will be covered in plastic and beer in an hour anyway but if you don’t make a move now the only way to do it later is to get ubersweaty and take your shirt off so you slime past people and they clear a path to the front which is particularly effective if you smell real bad and look like you’re stoned past the point of coherence and probably uncontrollably violent but I haven’t done that for years and before you know it there’s a band called brakes on who look like they met in a youth hostel in the brecons via quebec and do 30 seconds songs about picking up the phone blair blair blair and cheney stop being such a dick and a few slightly longer ones about having a life and love and after a good 40 minutes we all think they’re marvellous and when the lights come on we take a quick look at the posters on the pillars about their album which we ignored before

and then said flashlight occurs and suddenly its the 1980s and I’m watching echo and the bunnymen at the ipswich gaumont and u2 at the uea and a whole bunch of 4ad artists who like to play guitars using only 1 string but really loud except that actually its editors and fancy that, someone’s come to the uea and put on a proper show like what they used to with projectors and backlit hanging sheets and those white lights that look like stars and shine in your face and a healthy collection of strobe lights that nearly go for a full unbroken 10 seconds at one point while we’re all catatonic down the front shouting “as the FIN-GERS-BLEED in the FAC-TO-RIES” and “youdon’tneedthisdiseaseyoudon’tyoudon’tyouDON’T” and “I still love the LIGHT on BABY” in a really horrible high-pitched squeal but we’re loving it and even though tom’s guitar is mixed so far down you can bearly hear it and a significant amount of the stage lights point toward the crowd meaning we’re lit up for a lot of the time which means we can actually see each other which is quite off-putting and really kills the atmosphere we have a rather nice time. aah, there’s nothing like a healthy nostalgia trip and if you’re old enough to have been there the first time but can still do it 25 years later without looking like you just there to do some kind of sociology study or something then its bonus time. did someone say big country? ooh, that’s a bit harsh…

daddy, my daddy

February 23, 2006

what day is it today? saturday. what are we doing today? we’re going for the rest of that walk we did the other day. what walk? the one we didn’t finish because it started to rain and you were banging on about some stuffed chicken in that shop up the hill for one pound fifty so we had to go up there in just as everything was closing and bother that woman again and pull everything off the shelves and pushing them back on again in a space about 10 feet square with 6 of us in it when she really just wanted to go home and show her mates the one that goes boing when you slap it on the counter and you really wanted another one of those stuffed things but you’ve got a hundred already but we said we would go back if you were still interested which obviously you were because you moaned for about 2 hours and growled at everyone so that’s it. oh.

just as the sun arcs over the moors and the mist is still cloaked on the tracks we scuttle down to the start of part two, just crossing over to brow hill as the 9:15 blows through and we’re lucky enough to be crossing the bridge as it goes underneath which is terribly exciting and so we all stick our heads over the tunnel exit and wait for it to emerge forgetting that its not an electric one or even a diesel one which would have been alright but its a chunking great steam one straining to get up the first hill and so as we all look over the edge and it passes underneath we are totally whited out in an explosion of combustion and half of us are shrieking and running around in circles of panic while the rest are just are laughing maniacally and also shrieking a bit but in a strange idiotic way that we haven’t done since we were about six years old and after a couple of seconds the steam begins to clear and we’re saying things like ‘wasn’t that exciting?’ to small children who are clinging onto our legs like petrified koalas and we watch as the thing lumbers up the hill to the next station which is probably about 30 seconds away as the whole line is only about 2 miles long or something and coicidentally that’s where we’re headed so we can get the train back, isn’t that exciting? it’s the one from the railway children, you know the one at the end where their dad who isn’t a spy arrives and we all burst into wails of tears.

what day is it today? what?

yes, this one

February 22, 2006

I’m thinking that we’d thought about that one but you know, I just can’t remember so we should probably think about it as open unless you find what you were looking for but wait, that’s it, it was there all the time I’m sorry it must have just slipped through the net somehow like a lot of things do. anyway its the same problem as the other problem and I do know what we’re doing about that one so if you don’t mind waiting until 2008 then I think we’ll be about ready to deploy the first phase of many phases which might not happen after the first phase becomes the last phase and we change the business model and decide we actually don’t need to build it ourselves but hmm we can’t work out who else might build it for us and look its 2007 so I think I might just slip out this door and change my job title so actually if you look closely I’m not actually remotely accountable for that anymore because now I do this instead, see? but I do understand the problem, of course I do. its just that, er, I have to go now

we’ve set the implementation date already so even if you don’t know what I’m talking about it’ll happen anyway and I know you’re all interested to know exactly how we came up with that decision but I can assure you that it was based on a very long list of important things in my head which were relevant and critical at some point and we also happen to have someone there who happens to be doing something else with a similar sounding name so we should expect to be able to leverage some of that groundwork and at least excuse ourselves in the knowledge when it comes to it we really couldn’t forsee the confusion that would have been caused by overlapping programs with the same name happening at the same time in the same place being resourced and managed by completely different business units in the same company who are actually in the office next door but I don’t talk to them because, well, I don’t really like the way they look at me.

I’ll put some kind of agenda together. and then go on holiday.

at least we know we don’t know

February 21, 2006

you’re not supposed to know anything anyway regardless of whether you actually know everything I mean, it don’t cost nuthin to be polite about it, right? you could pull it all over yer face and never a no-nobody should know about it like it’s that’s always the way innit. I can’t help it if they put that stuff out there and I mean, they say they know what they want but do they actually ever bovver to find out whether that’s really true, I mean you done all that stuff right? that’s not your job right? hang on, pass that little plastic knife, I can’t get this milk open and she’s coming back for the little plastic cup in a minute and she’ll let me keep it but what do I want with a plastic cup right? I mean, its not like up here its any different to down there, and across there even though its a bit mental and they carry bags full of cash around when they’re down the arches checking out prices on plumage and stuff so what’s it all that abaht then? listen. I’ll tell you what, gis a bit of that there cheesecake and we’ll call it quits.

aah. see? I knew that would happen. I just dint know she was there thas all so it ain’t my fault if it gets all mashed up when it escalates. I mean, you gotta be reasonable about it but when they come here with their bits and pieces and expect us to just pick em up, box em and ship em out to japan well it’s no wonder that the graph is like that is it? hang on. now. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a place down there that has sandwiches. yeah, I know

you liking support sir?

February 16, 2006

you stay loyal to a company and you like a little in return, I mean, any company wants a dependable repeatable revenue stream even if it’s just the kind that comes in once a year because the product just failed outside the warranty or I’d broken it myself by being a clumsy arse. so then ideally you’d expect a technology company to provide support services to individuals who buy their products via integrated and intelligent web venues because we all know that people who buy technology products can’t speak to real people on the phone. especially if the people on the other end of the phone are girls.

having added a couple of bits to my ever-expanding brushed aluminium sony garage sale recently I figured I might register these things online like the registration docs tell you to in order to get the extra benefits of indirect marketing campaigns you didn’t realize you’d agreed to by clicking the submit button. this will be easy because I’m already registered with the MySony and SonyStyle web sites so they know all about me.

if I have to explain how painful the next 3 hours of my life were, you probably use the phone instead. if I didn’t even need to tell you that the next 3 hours were painful then you’re probably working in a techology company wondering why its taken 10 years to do single signon and it still isn’t there yet.

1 + 1 = 870

February 14, 2006

a week away and a small panic. we’ll be wisping across the west yorkshire moors searching for pieces of cathy and heathcliff in bits of dead sheep that were knocked over by porsche cayennes on the way to leeds and naturally we’ll be without the tadpole which is alright because who needs it I never really use it until I need to create an entire collabspace of presentation materials in about 3 hours in a hotel in colorado and so the unconnected electricals will just have to fend for themselves on a kind of week’s worth of self-discovery away from the mothership. I think they can make it. but hang on, what’s up here? that was working perfectly until I stuck the usb hub into it and now I’m only getting gemma hayes in my right ear and I don’t have the guarantee of course and anyway I dropped this thing straight after I got it and broke the battery compartment and now it’s held together with one of madeleine’s pink hairbands so if I stride into the sony centre in the mall they’ll just think I’m having a laugh which I try anyway only to find the sony centre is now closed down and the nearest one is in cambridge or something anyway so that’s that.

so, that’s 1 sony network walkman I’ll be without next week then because I can’t possibly justify buying another one when I really need to buy some food this month and so I face the prospect of a couple of weeks or even a couple of months without the waxy foam plugs clamped in my ears wherever I go which isn’t far but its always with the walkman so dammit I’m just going to have to buy another and not tell anyone and hope the new one looks like the one enough to get away with it which it won’t but I’ll justify it buy never buying any more shoes as long as I live or something. that was easy. after skulking around the mediocre electrical outlet selection in norwich for a couple of hours, having to listen to real people’s conversations in the street for the first time in about 20 years I head back to john lewis for the 4th time because actually they’ve got all the network walkmans and so why didn’t I just buy one there in the first place and end up thinking that the link might be an option. I mean, honestly.

so 120 quid lighter, I’m out of there with a shiny new NM407 which even has screensavers for a screen it doesn’t have an a flashable prom which must be good but most importantly has 1gb of flash memory and 50 hours battery life which is perfect for the northern jaunt and will afford me the luxury of around 450 tracks using atrac3 which is fine with me even if you do have to use sonicstage to get them on there but hell, it’s a sony and I’ll put up with anything for a sony.

but now I’m thinking that I have another problem with the absence of the tadpole for regular docking. the w1 only has a 256mb memory stick and if there’s any half-decent weather at all I’ll use 256mb up in about a day with around 101 shots of decomposing brontëesque sheep, closeups of bits of grass and dilapidated sheds and stuff which I think will make art but will just make placemats and so I’m thinking more along the lines of a 1gb memory stick and a couple of cloudy days. except that I remember that last time Iooked at those on amazon they were about 200 quid and so that’s probably less likely than getting a new walkman. which I’ve just done. sooo, let’s take a quick look then. a m a z o n . c o . u . k. right, let’s see. ooh. recommendations for you, mr tim. not now. search shops for “sony memory stick 1gb” including the double quotes, natch, and I see that although it doesn’t come direct from amazon but via one of their dodgy storefronts for some bloke who usually has a carpet laid out on oxford street (a model we might actually consider for our new ecommerce global storefronts incidentally) I see that a 1gb card is now only 40 quid. genius. there you are mr unknown quantity maybe reputable but I doubt it I’ve probably just lost 40 quid etrader, a sum of money. please let me have one of your lovely sony 5 year guaranteed 1 gb memory sticks and I shall be on my way good man.

it arrives on time and it’s even a nice shade of black – a ‘pro’ stick no less – complete with a handy explanation of their odd postage charge set by amazon and offset by the trader but who cares about that its a 1gb memory stick dammit. and look here, I can now take 420 ultrafine 5.1mp shots without having to delete anything. except I won’t have enough battery to look at them all, but it’ll be just like having my 35mm film camera again and not knowing how bad all my shots are until I get home. excellent.

Things what I writ