Wow, its taken me all evening to repair my CPAN setup to the point where I can bring it up to date. Howcome these things rot so badly so quickly – its only been a few months since I ran a days worth of updates on it….all I wanted to do was some simple proxy prototyping and I’ve spent all evening faffing, the moment is lost now.
Neil Hopcroft
A digital misfit
Japanese reinvent throwing bouquets at weddings, with potential for hilarious explanations to the staff in the casualty department.
Lightships – awful website, interesting product
(no subject)
(posted by email since I’ve hit some kind of routing issue that means I can’t post direct)
Sunday saw me heading to the Classic Car show at Shuttleworth. I love these events, seeing some of the old cars out there reminds me of some of the passion I felt for cars when I was young. Of course modern cars just don’t have the same appeal as some of these classics, everything is too snug-fitting and quiet these days, theres no character.
There was an arena with commentator describing cars as they showed themselves – it seemed everyone could take their classic in for praise or abuse by the over opinionated motor journalist on the microphone. He had watched the British car industry implode and wasn’t going to forgive the Japanese for it, despite the fact that we never really got the hang of making reliable cars. The poor guy who’d taken along his near pristine early 80s Datsun was treated to a diatribe about how the only positive thing about his car was its reliability, while the SD1 was spoken of in glowing terms comparing it with Ferraris and Maseratis. And while its true that I largely agree with him that we lost something fabulous when we let Rover decay I don’t think its entirely fair to push such strong views at an event like this.
Unfortunately his voice was pervasive across the entire grounds – he was on little tannoy speakers dotted throughout the exhibits.
There were, of course, a few stars in the vehicles themselves. Including a small collection of Allegros, which are now considered classics, and only one estate, albeit in a nicer colour than mine was. There was quite an array of Triumphs, too, TR2 through TR7 I think, all softtops showing its evolution.
The plan
such as it is so far, is that I finish work in Fen Drayton this week – four more days there. After that I shall be starting in London. For the first week I’ll be commuting down from Cambridge, which is going to be heavy going, but necessary since I’m planning on going to the Dresden Dolls gig on wednesday week.
I’ll still be around in Cambridge from time to time after that, I have the house here until late June and I’m not really packed yet.
If you would like to meet up in Cambridge, or indeed London, over the next few weeks, leave me a comment here and we’ll figure something out.
I met simonsatori and we had a bit of a wander around the fair and grabbed some food before heading to the Man in the Moon.
We got to the gig to find that there were four bands due to play not the two I had expected, and that the first were on stage already. They were passably good generic metal support band material, give a few months to tighten up and they could be really storming.
The crowd seemed a little polar – there were quite a collection of young girls, all playing fangirl down the front by the band, and there were a bunch of old guys hanging out toward the back of the venue.
Next up were a band trying to be Soundgarden, but not really succeeding, then there was something of a pause in proceedings while the singer of the next band was shoehorned into his rubber shirt – there is a time to give up with the rubber and I suspect that when it becomes difficult to put on that time has come.
Finally Kruezdammer came on, to a shout of ‘7 minutes’ from the sound desk. Just as things were getting rolling the band disappeared, looking not their most happy. We got two songs, which was something of a disappointment.
The slouch started with an abortive run to a pub near the station – so we ended up milling around at the station, allegedly the site of the biscuit incident, for a while, awaiting the arrival of anyone unfortunate enough to have been trying to use the trains from Stanstead or beyond…they’d been replaced with buses.
Eventually we decided that everyone was too late if they weren’t here yet and headed off around the sights of Cambridge. First stop was the birthplace of Douglas Adams, now an old peoples home with no commemorative marking.
Next was a check on reality, which proved inconclusive, so we headed to Wetherspoons to see if they had a better answer. After a somewhat confused lunch the slouch performed some kind of weird four way split with shopping variously for support, suit, books and sweets. It is indeed dangerous to take Doug anywhere a sweetshop, luckily we managed to pry him away after purchasing only 4 kilos of sweets.
We paused briefly to watch Sarah watch Dave miss his bus, which culminated in an unexpected stepping in front of a cyclist nearly leading to a bus/car/cycle/pedestrian congruence.
Finally, once it was established that Dave had actually managed to catch the bus (albeit with a little more running than really necessary), we adjourned to the Midsummer Fair, which was looking a little sorrowful in the corner of Midsummer Common.
Then in the evening I left the party to head off to the Kruezdammer gig at the Man in the Moon, everyone else retired to play games back at Bar Hill.
“Jay’s hair is so unbelievably stupid, even the world of comic books could offer nothing close to the abomination occuring on his head. But if he did have a super hero alter-ego, we assume its origins would involve Boy George mating with a Magic Coral Garden”
Response to the Great Lucas Cruft Purge
“I think he just grabbed the first thing he could and it happened to be the chainsaw”
Psycho kitty (HK gets analytical)
A blindness that touches perfection
…and sometimes, mixed up in the memories, theres a feeling of being a bad person, letting things lapse that shouldn’t be let lapse, walking away when thats the safe option.
I bought a card to write to someone I care about, but then I realised I didn’t have a pen. Even if I did, I don’t know where she lives now. And I don’t know what I’d say anyway.
I hate being this useless.
Nice unusual photos (worksafe, surreal)