Little Red Book

Making orange juice with James. Hello weekend.

That's £1050, but you can't come round and steal it from me because I don't have it any more. I gave it to a burly, perspiring man in a tight t-shirt in exchange for services rendered. It was nice while it lasted.

For some, me included, the working day ended when the first plane hit. Early afternoon, UK time. Then it was just switching between Sky News and BBC News 24 (same pictures, different branding) until we could leave the office and get into a pub. I'm glad people came with me, it was the only thing I could think to do. We'd been hoping there would be no telly but the huge screen usually reserved for sports was showing the same pictures we'd just left behind. Here though, lots of people were seeing them for the first time. The mood was certainly hushed, but I don't recall it being overly awkward and I don't recall the conversation at all. I ordered Giunness and started trying to get drunk. On the way home the taxi driver tried to talk to me but I didn't have anything to say. Later, when my mum phoned I still couldn't think of anything, but I muted the telly while she talked and I pretended to listen. I don't remember falling asleep but I remember waking up on the 12th, still in front of the telly with my shoes on. Disorientation, hangover, furry mouth. And they're pulling people out of the rubble.

~

For insights or a less self centered perspective I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere. Move along.

Micheal Elphick. September 1946 - September 2002.

BBC News.

A good strategy, I think, if you're having a bit of an extended afternoon/late night catch up with an old friend is to ensure that empties (bottles, cans, various other paraphernalia) are cleared away as you use them. Just get everything into a big black bag which you can sling in the wheelie bin last thing before collapsing into bed (or on the floor, whatever). That way you can avoid waking up ten hours later - bleary eyed and with a head that feels like it's been barbecued - to find your front room looking like some sort of Terry Gilliam nightmare. You'll even be able to find items like your keys, a lighter or the remote control for the telly without upsetting dozens of empty beercans. Your tired brain will thank you for this while it's trying to sort fractured memories into vague chronological order.

That's what I'm recommending as of today. Also, for Christ's sake open a window.

Is it possible to extract listenable audio from scanned images of vinyl records? Amazingly enough, it might be. Be sure to check the wav files if you can, musical info does make it through the hiss and crackle (Slashdot have had at it).

Update: I don't care if it is a hoax. If it believe it, it is true.

For a while I've had this vague idea that I'd like to go to America, specifically New York but there's plenty of other places I'd like to see as well (I quite fancy, for example, going to New Orleans and eating a vast amount of really unhealthy food). Sure I know lots of people would like that, it's hardly unique, but I'm more often the type that would try to avoid doing anything that would mean even leaving the house, let alone jumping on a plane and flying half way around the world. It's a long term goal too, there's no point just going for a couple of weeks, I want to live there for a while, say six months at least. Maybe even (gasp) work if I have to. I don't want to just do the tourist thing, I'd like to become part of a community for a while, or at least experience what it's like to live there.

All of which is nuts because I'm increasingly finding even small cities like Leeds almost unbearably harsh and unpleasant.

I choose to believe that someone really wanted the wheel keeping safe, I can think of no other reasonable explination (yeah I know the pic is of dubious quality, but it was everso early in the morning).

This is the first and last time I'm going to mention it, promise. I think the the Guardian's Best British Weblog competition is a tad misjudged, and more than a little silly. There is an antidote though (smidgen of irony duly noted).

Of course, it doesn't matter but since when was that important?

A few snaps around LS27. Straight from the camera after a quick detour through iPhoto (in which the lack of a "scale to specific size" option is driving me batty).