Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had

Maybe “Wonderful way to go” wasn’t the best choice of music for my journey home tonight.

“Tell me your story, tell me no lies; we touch each other – but only with our eyes.
Some kind of game, to play with desire; it’s just beneath the skin that I’m alive.”

Today I feel stupid. She’s probably got a point, I shouldn’t’ve turned into one of those ‘scary guys with stalker tendancies’. But thats just the kind of thing that happens when the emotional blindness kicks in and theres no feedback, good or bad.

It was time to be moving along anyway, all things considered. The hope has been fun, but its gone now. Thank you. Next time, I don’t fall for the wrong one[0].

(and this isn’t actually as morose as it might seem – its more of an awakening to something that someone has been trying to tell me for a while, I knew she was right, of course, but its all been confirmed today)

I feel the wanderlust returning.

[0] if anyones got any hints about how to achieve this I’d like to hear them


I’ve finally gotten an MT blog set up for some of the software development thoughts I’m thinking and need to get out of my head to somewhere where they might be useful. To go with it I’d like to make a media gallery, primarily photos at the moment but ideally something that’ll handle other media types too. Anyone got any ideas? What do you use?

(I’m already on flickr, but thats not quite the kind of thing I’m after, maybe a personal version of it, if you like)


Given that its gone rainy, its time to head home now. Just one final castle. Blackness.
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Uhoh. I think i ate too much breakfast again. Yesterday it took me through to 5pm, when i needed a snack to last the rest of the day.

And the radio has just had someone advertising rocks, nice comfortable rocks for christmas. They’re a strange bunch these scots.


smells like snow

… Except i’m not sure i can remember what snow smells like. Aviemore. There’s a chill in the air and its got the right mix of cloudy and clear to drop the temperature for snow. Will it happen? Doubt it. And if it does it won’t be serious, just enough of a dusting to make everything pretty for a couple of hours.

Today i went to the hollow mountain where, after a ride like slartibartfasts, they allowed us to look down upon Dr Evils underground lair from the safety of a plexiglass viewing chamber. One day i want to own one of these places, but i suspect they haven’t started decommissioning them yet.

Then i stopped briefly at Fort William, a grim coastal town without any apparent means of support, except for being the only town for miles. There is something quite, i don’t know how to explain it, i feel at home in places like this, the people are real, they’re not trying to pretend, like everyone in london is, that they’re richer than everyone else, or more well travelled, or more cultured, or less cultured, or whatever is this weeks fashion in the gossip rags. Here, its cold so everyone wears warm clothes and doesn’t much care about anything else.


Gratuitous post from the middle of nowhere. I’m only posting this because i shouldn’t have coverage here but i’ve got 7 bars.

Eta: of course the cell, for all its bars, didn’t support gprs, did it?
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