The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20040505095650/http://www.frizzylogic.org:80/archives/2003_09.html

September 30, 2003

Coffee cleared in chemical court - that's a relief then. I shall continue having coffee during the tea break...
Posted by qB at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)

Specialized

I've just bought a new bike. It matches my trainers. Silver and black. This definitely means: a) penury b) extreme expenditure guilt It probably means: a) a sore arse b) fewer busTop pictures It might mean: a) exercise b) fitness...
Posted by qB at 02:07 PM | Comments (2)

September 29, 2003

busTop #8

A single pic, for M, who has now left after creating his usual maelstrom. A lovely person, witty, clever, kind to a fault, but with the intuition, sensitivity and insight of... well... a rather insensitive thing. This is the person...
Posted by qB at 08:49 PM | Comments (6)

September 28, 2003

Pulling out the fireman's hose

One of the people who makes me laugh most in the world sent me an e-mail some time ago which made mention of the fact that if he'd taken up every kind offer he received to enlarge the part he...
Posted by qB at 11:13 PM | Comments (4)

September 27, 2003

Fleshly folds

Another look at yesterday's tiles The cyber/meat worlds are showing signs of overlapping. My friend Swiss M (hereinafter referred to as simply "M") is staying for a few days while over in London for work. I showed him some...
Posted by qB at 03:58 PM | Comments (3)

September 26, 2003

Two tesserae

I'm finding it really difficult to stop taking pictures. I have a teetering stack of busTop snaps awaiting mounting and display. More would overbalance the tenuous equilibrium. So this morning on my usual journey to work I made sure my...
Posted by qB at 11:57 PM | Comments (1)

September 25, 2003

busTop #7

Yet more views from 14 feet up. The traffic was very slow this morning so there was a greater than usual number of stationary photo-ops. I'm really pleased the first one came out - the battery in the camera died...
Posted by qB at 11:07 PM | Comments (1)

Searching - a tale of today

The smell of the sea is in my memory, she sighed, as she pulled her cat coats closer around her shoulders, tortoishell tails nestling along her prominent clavicle. It must be something about me, perhaps my empathetic explanation, my lyric...
Posted by qB at 01:23 PM | Comments (3)

Hectic turbulence

Everything has been a bit much recently. I suppose it might be slightly like bipolar people feel like on the up cycle. Suddenly, and quite without prior calculation, I was catapulted from the safety of desk-bound routine out to a...
Posted by qB at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2003

Patchwork

He folds the bedding with such scrupulous attention to detail. First the blanket. In half lengthways, smoothing out every crinkle. Reaches with long arms, brushes with stroking hands. Makes sure the edges are precisely aligned. Then the more exacting task...
Posted by qB at 11:11 PM | Comments (2)

Picalilli*

Moments of permanent present. First spam comment. Hair products. *small pieces of various vegetables preserved in a hot yellow sauce....
Posted by qB at 02:40 PM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2003

busTop #6

I travelled on no less than three different buses today. The weather conditions made me notice windows, so here's a (rather large, sorry to dial-uppers) selection of London windows. Mad angles throughout. But before the pictures, I met a fascinating...
Posted by qB at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2003

Reading

It's Banned Books Week, in the US at least. It reminds me of one of my favourite posters. It was designed by Zimbabwean artist Chaz Maviyane-Davies for the British Council Library. I put it on the wall by b1's bed...
Posted by qB at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

Who are we?

Acute difficulty with reason, purpose. Trite, derivative, ill-informed. So why bother. Why indeed. Just that it's itching and chafing and won't go away. When I went to the oft-mentioned seminar about blogging there was a man there in a wheel...
Posted by qB at 01:16 PM | Comments (1)

September 19, 2003

Sucked dry by superglue

Liberia's still there, if anyone is interested, but only just: Charles Taylor, for six years the warlord president of Liberia, stole or diverted nearly $100 million of his country's wealth, leaving it the poorest nation on earth, a review of...
Posted by qB at 10:54 AM | Comments (1)

In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen *

Here is a wonderful poem (two, in fact) by Tom Leonard, over at Languagehat. The rest of this post won't make much sense unless you read at least the first poem. Yesterday I was talking with a colleague about the...
Posted by qB at 08:05 AM | Comments (3)

September 18, 2003

Flowing

There was an up-side to my otherwise disheartening "wither blogging" experience. The experience too was withering, come to think of it. Anyway. Firstly I took an entirely different bus, new to me, to get there, one which came south down...
Posted by qB at 10:27 PM | Comments (11)

Stormy

Now I think I understand why people are sometimes described as being “centred”. The closer you are to the axis of spin of the maelstrom the less the danger of random bits flying off, beyond control. If you’re lucky I...
Posted by qB at 01:03 PM | Comments (1)

September 17, 2003

Long day

I'm increasingly frustrated by my inability to write anything. There's no time left. Home-work-home-bed and still exhausted. Added to which I went after work today to a seminar about blogging. Which I read about over at plasticbag and I assume...
Posted by qB at 10:37 PM | Comments (5)

September 16, 2003

Live like it's heaven on earth *

There's a new addition to the drunks' bench. Prim. Knees and ankles neatly held together, skirt - cheap but smart, clean, pleated, incongruously cheerful deep cherry red - smoothed down over her knees, handbag parallel parked next to the plastic...
Posted by qB at 01:03 PM | Comments (3)

September 14, 2003

I love my plumber

I do, I really do. The brush with flood danger has passed. This morning, while I was snoring like a hog who went to bed in the early hours, B approached the affected sanitary appliance, rolled up his sleeve, took...
Posted by qB at 01:02 PM | Comments (2)

busTop gallery

At least one person has mentioned the lack of autobus organisation. So I've made a proper gallery (and look at the time... this is ridiculous). It's also reachable by the rather handsome bus picture in the sidebar over to the...
Posted by qB at 02:53 AM | Comments (1)

September 13, 2003

Metamaunderings

I suspect WeWantYourSoul is a very clever marketing ploy. You don't get the hype unless you persist - I did, and then began wondering if it was also an ingenious information harvester. (My soul, by the way, is worth £14000...
Posted by qB at 01:37 PM | Comments (4)

September 12, 2003

Plumbing problem

This is how it happened. b2 had a pee, in his usual trainee-firefighter mode, inaccuracy exacerbated by the fact that he has to stand on tip-toes to have any chance of his equipment even reaching the rim. In an effort...
Posted by qB at 10:51 AM | Comments (3)

September 11, 2003

Holey helpless

What does a (recovering?) depressive, an0rexic, working mother of two need like the proverbial botched trepannation? A new au pair with a severe case of compu1sive eating and bulim1a. (I have to disguise those three words since already the bulk...
Posted by qB at 11:10 PM | Comments (8)

Anna Lindh

This is shocking and sad: Swedish minister dies after stabbing. Her death has shocked a nation that has long prided itself on the accessibility of its politicians. Like many officials, Lindh did not use a bodyguard. An active politician since...
Posted by qB at 09:27 AM | Comments (3)

September 10, 2003

Chick dick

I thought this would be an existing term, a companion to "chick lit" and "chick flick". To describe the posse of fictional female detectives, sleuths, private eyes and other investigators. Not to mention all those male investigators conjured up by...
Posted by qB at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

Feeling overworked and underpaid?

Have a quick trip here: Global Rich List...
Posted by qB at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

On how a cucumber is better than, oh, you know

Yes, it’s actress and bishop time. The subject at hand is the firm and delicious flesh of the cucumber, or, as it is known in Hungarian, uborka. Here are my five favourite cucalicious lines: A cucumber stays hard even when...
Posted by qB at 11:58 AM | Comments (1)

September 09, 2003

Facing the day

On the bus the woman held her compact in one hand, peered into the mirror and dabbed her face with colour. Her mobile, into which she chattered ceaselessly, was hunched in place with one shoulder. A carefully highlighted curtain of...
Posted by qB at 12:45 PM | Comments (2)

September 08, 2003

Disturbing image of the day

This, to me, is very disturbing. A whole head of hair extensions, complete with pony-tail band, laid out on the front garden wall of a suburban house. Who was attached to it? How and why did they become detached...
Posted by qB at 12:54 PM | Comments (6)

September 04, 2003

One word

I saw a woman today having a quick fag while waiting at the bus stop, in her sixties probably, and she had a badge on her raincoat lapel which simply had the word "DEAF" in white letters on a dark...
Posted by qB at 10:32 PM | Comments (13)

September 03, 2003

busTop #5

Time for another busTop, I thought. I'm struggling to resist the urge to comment on them, so all I shall say is that the one with the black horse (presumably an old "logo" for Lloyds bank) has golden bees round...
Posted by qB at 07:27 PM | Comments (4)

September 01, 2003

Fabric - tie-dye

Since it was fond thoughts about my friend H which prompted this venture, his cloth is first. This is a hand tie-dyed length of cotton from Gambia, in the standard "wrapper" size of about six feet by three-and-a-half feet....
Posted by qB at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

Fabric - an explanation

I'm a great fan of the metaphor of weaving, or of fabric. It's nothing new of course, quite the reverse. In a randomised scratching of the web some choice flakes emerged, such as this essay which gives a fascinating insight...
Posted by qB at 09:36 PM | Comments (3)