Gummitch's Journal

10:51am: Poor Man's Aircon
Given the weather conditions, I thought promoting the recipe for Poor Man's Aircon might be appropriate.

1. Take one bath, part-fill with luke-warm water.
2. Get in the bath and add cold water until it's quite cool enough, thank you.
3. Luxuriate (you did bring reading matter and a cold drink, didn't you?) until just before your lips turn blue and/or you start shivering.
4. Get out and dry yourself.

You won't start to feel uncomfortably hot again until your body temperature starts getting out of whack again, so this is a particularly good thing to do before bedtime. The filled bath will take quite a while to warm to room temperature, so you should consider not draining the bath to save water (a quick shower beforehand will help).

3:25pm: Twice a day...
I looked at the office clock to see the time was 25 past 3. Then I remembered that that particular clock had a flat battery. So I looked at the clock behind me to see that it was... 25 past 3.

12:03pm: OMG!!!!
Guillermo del Toro is doing a signing at Forbidden Planet (London) tomorrow. Details here: http://forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html

(And yes, it's definitely the del Toro.)

11:08am: Another Weekend
The weekend was enlivened by disaster (Manchester United losing to Liverpool) and triumph (England thrashing France at rugby). I cared only about the latter; t'other half was philosophical about the former ("Still top and got a game in hand").

Reached another milestone in the Vast Project to Re-Rip Everything with EAC, and finished the contemporary music. All that remains is the classical and spoken word. (If you're in the habit of listening to audiobooks on an MP3 player, let me know and I'll pass you a list of what I've got when I'm done.)

Managed to get some spring cleaning done, and finally replaced all the tap washers, and fixed the toilet. None of which fixed the washbasin cold tap in the bathroom, which dries up whenever the bath cold tap is running or the toilet cistern is filling. I suspect an airlock, but have no idea what I can do about it. The cleaning came about because A's parents confirmed they will be visiting the house next weekend, which also meant we had to cancel Sunday's planned visit to London Zoo, which is a damn shame, given the weather.

Brother arrived back from Thailand on Friday, resynchronised to the local day-night cycle, caught up on Top Gear (he has an eerie ability to find a cable channel showing TG at any time of day or night, usually by tuning to Dave), ate me out of house and home, will get checked up by doctors today, and hopefully be out of our hair by lunchtime.

The good weather continues. It must be spring.

3:20pm: Aargh
I'm not averse to neologisms. I can even usually stand to be in the same room as a portmanteau. But Webinar is an abomination. It trips off the tongue with all the grace of a suitcase falling down stairs. And I've had two emails today inviting me to 'attend' one. I'd rather parachute naked into a cactus patch.

Rant over. I feel much better now.

9:04pm: Do Not Miss - John Adams
Really. Really, really, really do not miss this. Arguably the very best thing on TV (in the UK) over this Xmas is the start of John Adams (Channel 4 Saturday 27 December 5pm). Astoundingly good historical drama, and possibly Laura Linney's finest hour, which alone would be enough to recommend it, if you ask me.

8:10am: Party (Not)
Some time ago, I mentioned to a few people that I was planning a party for Saturday 20 December. I hope that this does not inconvenience anyone, but due to circumstances there will be no party.

(Said circumstances are partly financial, and partly due to a new medication which is making me Not Much Fun around large numbers of people. That said, I am intending to be at the Xmas Tun for as long as I can stand it.)

9:57pm: Livy



This is Livy, some of you will have met her. Livy died at about 6:30 yesterday morning. She had been ill and appeared to be recovering, but suddenly took a turn for the worse. It's a small consolation that she died at home, and did not appear to suffer greatly. It's no exaggeration when I say that she was the sweetest, gentlest cat I've ever known, and I miss her terribly.

8:48am: Gollancz
Has anyone else had an invitation to the Gollancz Quiz Night tonight?

3:20pm: Sibling Amity
My brother and I haven't always got on very well, and until recently I didn't see him enough to do much to correct that. But over the last few years, we've reached a state of something better than mutual respect. He visited last weekend, partly in order to visit the Thai embassy, and partly to dispose of some well-gotten gains. One of the things he bought was a camera (a Nikon D40X), and to my considerable surprise, as an early birthday present, he bought me one too.

I had been planning to upgrade to a digital SLR as my next camera, probably some time next year, but I'm not about to complain. And having a camera that has proper manual focus, allowed me to take the below (click through for a larger version), which would have been impossible with my old Fuji.



Manual focus was theoretically possible with my old Fuji (a Finepix s5000), but given that it involved a lot of fiddling with buttons (so was slow), and had to be done while looking at a LCD screen (which made it impossible to determine when the focus was exactly right), it was impossible in practice to do something like taking a photo of a hoverfly in flight. Now, how soon can I get close enough to a dragonfly?

9:50am: Kurt Vonnegut is Dead...
So it goes.

(I can't believe I'm the first one on my FL to post it like that.)

2:43pm: There's something not quite right here, but I can't put my finger on it...

10:46am: Off soon
Not sure what chance I'll have to see LJ from now until 13 January. I'm packing now, and charging things (batteries, MP3 player) and will be heading towards Heathrow this afternoon for my flight to Jo'burg (at 7:55pm, nominally). Hope everyone has a good New Year, and I'll see you in 2007!

12:27pm: God(s) Bless Us, Every One!
Vector 250 was completed at the last moment, and sent off to the printers.

Family (both of them) are down the pub, the oven is set to Goose mark 4, and I've cracked open the first bottle of the day, a Pinot Grigio cheeky enough to need a good spanking. The first of several. Very shortly, I'll be putting in the Yorkshire puddings (which won't, hopefully, turn out to be Yorkshire Puddles).

All is well with the world (relatively). All is well with my friends (I dearly hope), and I'm looking forward to a splendid feast.

Discovery of the weekend is that Bob Cratchit lived in Camden Town. Indeed, at no. 24 Camden Road according to Patrick Stewart, though I don't think that's canonical.

Merry Christmas (or whatever you prefer) to everyone. And because I won't be on this continent at the time, I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

9:24am: Twelve Days of Xmas Meme
Hmmm, it almost works. But you gotta love 'Five Iain Banks'.

11:43am: OMG!
Apologies if this is old news...

The people who made the Masters of Horror TV series in the US, specifically the people who made and wrote the excellent 'Homecoming' episode – Joe Dante and Sam Hamm – have made an episode for the new season of MoH.

And it's an adaptation of Raccoona Sheldon's The Screwfly Solution.

Avedon Carol has an interview with the writer, the wonderfully named Sam Hamm, here.

The episode airs on Friday 8 December. In the USA. But we know ways round that...

1:11pm: Philosophical Transactions
Lovely! The Royal Society has put online an archive of it's journal, Philosophical Transactions, back to 1665. It's wonderful stuff, even the subtitle: 'Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World.'

It all seems to be in PDF format, too, which implies they're pages scanned from the original. (Modern OCR, I suspect, would have conniptions.)

It's all here (scroll to the bottom for the really old stuff). Alas, it looks very much as though access is free only until November.

A taste, from Volume 1 (1665):

An Account of a very odd Monstrous Calf

By the same Noble person was lately communicated to the Royal Society an Account of a very Odd Monstrous Birth, produced at Limmington in Hampshire, where a Butcher, having caused a Cow (which cast her Calf the year before) to be covered, that she might the sooner be fatted, killed her when fat, and opening the Womb, which he found heavy to admiration, saw in it a Calf, which had begun to have hair, whose hinder Leggs had no Joynts, and whose Tongue was, Cerberus-like, triple, to each side of his Mouth one, and one in the midst: Between the Fore leggs and the Hinder-leggs was a great Stone, on which the Calf rid: The Sternum, or that part of the Breast, where the ribs lye, was also perfect Stone; and the Stone, on which it rid, weighed twenty pounds and a half; the outside of the Stone was of Grenish colour, but some small parts being broken off, it appeared a perfect Free-stone. The Stone, according to the Letter of Mr. David Thomas, who sent his account to Mr. Boyle, is with Doctor Haughteyn of Salisbury, to whom he also referreth for further Information.

(Very long sentences, I suspect this was before editors had been invented.)

9:29am: Bother!
I managed to download a torrent of episode 2 of Studio 60 this morning. And then had to go to work before I could watch it. I suppose, with new BSG and Veronica Mars in the offing, I'd better get used to it.

12:33pm: Useless Information...
I've just discovered that the height of A4 paper is approximately* one light-nanosecond.

Can you tell I'm bored?

*About 1% less

1:45pm: Oh no!
What with all the other happenings over the weekend, I missed the news that Raymond Baxter had died.

May his herafter be filled with gadgets.

10:44pm: WTF is Going On?
I'm not remotely within a stones throw of being a legal expert, but would I be right in assuming that the only reason that it isn't sub judice for BBC news to quote 'unofficial police sources' about alleged 'martyr videos' is because no-one's been charged yet?

(I'm being sceptical here, but mostly my reaction is as the title says.)

11:25pm:

OMG! An utterly speculative picture, made by pointing a camera at the sky and clicking a lot and getting lucky. Nevertheless, my very first photo of lightning. (Thumbnail above, click for a bigger version.)

1:04pm:

A Proud Day For British Democracy Police have removed Brian Haws' protest signs from outside Parliament. (Picture taken at about 7am this morning.)

Removed, I should add, because Mr Haws was in breach of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Mr Haws himself has not been removed, but eviction proceedings happen later this week.

1:10pm: Strange Happenings in London

	The capsule has a window... but any view of the interior is masked by red curtains.
	The object has pierced the roadway... ...to a depth of several feet.
	One might suspect this to be the work of Martians... ...were it not for the fact that the capsule appears to be largely composed of timber rather than metal.
	The populace appear unconcerned... ...by the phenomenon which has fallen into their midst, and carry on with their daily business.

(Thumbnails above, click (and click again) for larger versions)

11:19am: Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars fans who haven't yet seen season 2 might like to know that Living TV will be showing season 2 from 8 June, details here (includes season 1 spoilers).