Innocent Fugitive from the TV Licence Inspector

Yesterday we got a Red Letter from the TV licencing people.  They wanted to tell us that THEY KNOW we are unlicensed and that they have informed the TV Licence Inspectors of our location and that the TV Licence Inspectors are authorised to use Sophisticated Detecting Equipment and that they may call around at any time during the day or night.  They didn't tell us that when they do call around we don't actually have to let them into the flat.  They also didn't actually ask us if we had a TV and they certainly didn't give us any way of telling them that we don't have one.  Well, on the back there is an address to write to if we don't own a TV and they say that once we've written they will confirm this later.  BUT it's not free-post so I don't see why we should pay for a stamp ourselves, or the paper and envelope to write to them with. 

Better for them to pay for The Inspector to come around and see us with his Sophisticated Detecting Equipment and waste his petrol.  Last year they did send a form saying "Hi, if you have a TV you need a licence... if not then send this part back to declare your TV-less existence", which my dad returned.  12 months later we start getting letters telling us that "as the new tenant" we need to buy a licence - giving no nice declaration form to sent back again.  They must have done some (flawed) maths on the total amount of TVs that have been sold over the last 12 months and calculated that EVERY SINGLE HOUSEHOLD in the UK now owns a TV.

Little Playgirls

Getting off the train the other morning I was walking behind a young girl and her young mother. The girl, maybe ten or eleven years old, was wearing a pink Playboy hoodie and a bag sporting the Playboy bunny logo.

Yesterday, as I was buying my new notebook in WH Smiths there was a whole shelf dedicated to pink Playboy stationary, pencil cases and folders. Pink enough to ensure that young boys wouldn't buy them. Maybe it would be distasteful to merchandise a porn magazine's brand to young boys. Maybe pre-adolescents won't appreciate the bunny logo but despite not knowing or understanding all that it stands for the girls are still attracted to the idea of a cute bunny-rabbit (as adolescent boys, and myself, might be attracted by the idea of a cute Playboy Bunny).

I've never bought anything playboy myself, although my dad has always had (as long as I can remember) a plain black wine-bottle opener with a small white bunny logo on it. I don't remember when I found out about what that small white logo stood for; you'd think perhaps I might. Next time I go into WH Smiths, perhaps I'll take a Playboy magazine from the top shelf and a pink Playboy pencil case from the stationary section. When I get to the till, I'll put them both down and bashfully state, nodding indeterminately at one of my two purchases, "For the kids".

For | Fact | Against

my Fitness Test

I had my first "Fitness Test" at my gym last night and thought I'd share the results. Maybe not as interesting as getting A-level results today but better than nothing...

Blood Pressure: 132/76
Weight: 61.2 Kg
Height: 5' 9"
Body Fat: 4.6%
Body Mass Index: 20.47
Cardio (5 minutes walk at 6.5 KM/Hr, various inclines): 48.1 - "Very Good"
Flexibility: 14 cm

Mean anything to you? It means nothing to me really! Apparently my body fat % was the lowest he'd ever seen. Some people would kill for a % like that he said. He warned me off endurance sports and "survival situations" though - apparently my body would just start eating my internal organs as I don't have enough fat to last. Nice. He did say I'd be good at mid- to long-distance running for some reason, something to do with my height-to-weight ratio. Thought I'd be good at Marathons but I think he must really have mean Snickers'.

I thought the fitness test would involve "putting me thought my paces", although the only physical activity was the 5 minutes walking for the cardio. The most stressful activity was having to stand on the cold metal plates of the body fat %age machine - it sends electrical pulses up through your body! Apparently my cardio rating was "in the top 3" that he's seen lately (although he said he never sees the proper athletes as they sort it all out for themselves). "Very Good" is the second highest bracket - the next is "Elite"! I bet you never imagined I was so fit. Or maybe it's just that the tests are designed for fat people who what to get thin, rather than people "naturally gifted" (his words) like me.

I went swimming this morning though (remembered the padlock) and I have to say I've not felt so un-fit in ages! I couldn't swim more than 60 meters without needing a quick rest, and I kept swallowing water. Oh well, can't have everything I suppose.

When Diaries Die

Where do diaries go when they die?  My notebook has expired.  It's life of pages fully filled with this and that.  I call it a "notebook" although obviously it is more than that, so many things in fact that I have to go with the lowest common denominator.  It has been my diary, journal, sketch-pad, doodle-book, poem book, puzzle-book and general thought catcher for both my left and right brains.  Filled with failed attempts at capturing the beauty of women in magazines, my first ever completed sudoku (both attempts at it), my collection of useless change, images that inspired me, unfinished and un-published draft blog entries, the beginnings of un-ending stories and even a particularly bad hang-over.

 

So what is it's next state of existence?  Now that I can no longer write or draw or think in it.  I have a fantasy of leaving it behind on a park-bench somewhere for some stranger to find and glimpse into my soul.  After all, what is the point of "art" if it is not seen, or writing if it is not read?  But then would this person be able to decipher my spidery scrawl or appreciate my poor sketches?  And what if they just threw it away, or it may get wet in the rainy British summer and decay and decompose before it's time. 

 

You hear of people auctioning their worthless personal possessions on eBay - old smelly socks or knickers - maybe I could auction off my notebook to the highest bidder.  But what price can I put on my thoughts?  What if the bidder believes that in winning the book they have also won ownership of the ideas within the book?  Of my thoughts and not just their physical representations.

 

Or I could just keep it, for future reference.  Some sort of higgledy-piggledy record of "me" between the dates on the first and last pages.  I could look back one day when I've learnt how to draw properly and see how bad I was; when I've perfected writing and see my poorest attempts; when my mind is clearer and see how muddled it was; when my life is fuller and see how empty it was.

 

I'm caught between my natural instinct to keep and to own what is, maybe more than any of my other possessions, "mine", or to pass it on to some stranger just to share something of myself with a small piece of the world.  

#@?$£%& Padlock!

It's 08.35 and I'm in the office sat at my computer.  "Why's that?"  you may well ask (actually, knowing you, it's more likely to be "what's so strange about that?").  Is it that I'm so dedicated to my work that I'll be in the office from 8.30am til probably gone 7pm tonight (got some training after work today too)?  That the project's going so badly that I have to come in an hour earlier?  Well, it is going pretty badly, but not so badly as to induce me to get up at half six in the morning.  No, the reason I'm here writing to you now when I should be waiting for a delayed train into London is, as you may have guessed by my subject, something to do with a padlock.

 

You see, I had planned on going swimming this morning before work.  I get up half an hour earlier (7am), don't need to have a shower and come into London to my gym.  All I need is 3 things:  Swimming shorts; hair stuff (even this is not a necessity as they have some horrible complimentry gel there); padlock for the locker.  As I was halfway to the station I realised that I didn't have the 3rd crucial item.  You see, it's just not the sort of thing I associate with going to the gym.  £1 maybe for the lockers, but not a whole lock of your own!  I alreay have two - the last time I forgot mine they made me buy one as they'd stopped lending them out.  So I have my nice big one from Woolworths and their crappy one they made me buy.  I even keep one in the office as a spare, just in case.  

 

I could have gone and pleaded with the girls at reception to let me borrow one, some of the nicer (cuter) ones might have let me.  But there was a high chance of one of the bossy ones being there and I didn't want to look stupid and certainly didn't want to end up buying a 3rd padlock.  So instead I set off to work, taking as many detours as I could, gettin in an hour early.  And possibly smelling due to the fact I don't have showers on "swimming mornings" as there's no point and I save enough time to actually allow me to go swimming withough geting up un-reasonably early.

 

But do you know what's really unjust about it all?  If I was a woman, I wouldn't have this problem as they don't even need padlocks for lockers, they have propper lockers with keys and wrist bands and everything.  Maybe The Management decided they wouldn't remeber to bring their padlocks?  Maybe lugging a padlock around is too much effort for them?  Maybe they should let me use the womens changing rooms and showers too?  Yes, I think that's what I'll ask for next time I forget my padlock if they don't let me borrow one :o)

Firefox Compliant(ish)

Thought I'd download Firefox to see what all the fuss was about. Too tired really to play with it now so will have to see tomorrow. Did see that it put nasty horizontal scroll bars on my sidebar div boxes though. Fixed that eye-sore so it almost (but not quite) looks "normal" in said browser.

I had been trying to move my bookshelf and jukebox into their own blogs using #includes (as explained in the blogger help section) but I got to the bottom of the instructions page and it turns out it's pretty useless if blogger hosts your blogs for you. Pity, it would have made it so much easier to update them, just an send an email and voila (2nd time this week I've written that word I think) there it is. Instead I will have to put up with the inconvenience of updating the template every time. Speaking of which I've not added Flatlanders yet...

Colourisation

[I just found this un-published post I'd forgotten about....]
Some people organise their CD collection alphabetically, some by genre, others chronologically - either by date published or date purchased. Many people have a roughly FILO (first in, lsat out) structure where by the most recently bought or listned to CD resides at the top of the pile with the less in-vogue albums slowly filtering to the bottom. My CDs are arranged by colour.

The colour of the spines of their cases that is. All the blacks together, all the whites together, all the reds together, all the blues together. That is the first aspect to my filing system. The second is that albums by the same artist must reside next to each other.

The only acceptable sharp change in "direction" of the spine colours is to have two albums by the same artist side-by-side, allowing the contrast of a light cover next to a dark one. It is, however, acceptable for a change of colour to take place by slowly blending the colours together. In this way, for example, yellows blend into browns into blacks.

The recent addition of X&Y to the collection thus necessitated a re-shuffle. Previously, A Rush Of Blood To The Head was adrift in a sea of fellow white-spined albums, eventually ending with The Master Plan and then (What's The Story) Morning Glory turning the pattern black. Now Coldplay must act as a border too between light and dark. And so, adding one CD can mean moving several others, giving them new neighbours or moving whole blocks together; thus changing the whole look of the collection. [Competition: guess the neighbours of White Teeth]

"It must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays"

High visibility Police jackets were everywhere this morning. Always in pairs or more; I counted at least 6 at East Croydon station alone and then when I got into London Bridge I was almost blinded by the masses of florescent bobbies everywhere. The usual morning pep-talk from our train driver was slightly different too. "Un-attended luggage WILL be removed and MAY be destroyed" instead of "May be removed and may be destroyed". A small change but a big difference. Off the train, the police were even giving out leaflets, although I can only guess what about as I didn't get one. The police were there to reassure rather than protect. After all, how could they possibly protect everyone? Or anyone for that matter.

Later on in the morning my heart skipped a beat as the red BBC News Alert appeared ominously in the bottom right corner of my monitor. It was four weeks ago today that I installed the program to get reports as the terrible truths of that day unfolded. The news report window finally appeared - it was OK, something about some guy in India being given the death sentence. The next news story worthy of being pushed onto my desk-top was of a statement by Al-Qeada's #2 Crazy. Not worthy of going into here.

So far the pattern (Thursday 1 - attacks at morning rush-hour; Thursday 2 - nothing but The Silence; Thursday 3 - attempted attacks at lunch-time...) has not been followed today. PM rush-hour is almost though and nothing has happened of note. Maybe they are still trying to work out how to make bombs that work. I suppose the day is still not over yet though.

The Eye of a Needle

Thought I'd try and find the time to write a proper email, though it is a little out of date. Been soo busy lately, or rather, going out for lunch (to the pub or a nice little church-yard by the office) instead of sitting at my desk...

My White Band finally came (well, a few weeks ago now actually!). Over three weeks since I texted "BAND" to 87099 on 28th June, I came home from work to find a letter from Oxfam with a circular shape protruding from the front. It was my Make Poverty History 2005 arm band and I put it on immediately with glee.

By the afternoon of the following day, Saturday, I still hadn't filled out the petition card to send to the Prime Minister let alone posted it. I went shopping in Croydon, my mission (a guy has to have a mission to go shopping, something specific to buy and usually the shop to purchase it from already in mind): some toiletries and to buy Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince for the cheapest price possible from a non-supermarket.

Why not from a supermarket? Perhaps because they're oppressive, stifling, bullies of organisations? No, because they were probably selling it as a loss-leader for marketing purposes anyway. It's just neither of the two cheap-Potter-selling supermarkets are within walking distance.

I found my toiletries in Superdrug and my book in Woolworths for "only" £9.99. Mission accomplished, I crossed over for Vrgn Megastores. It was then that, in the middle of the pedestrianised street, I was accosted by an Australian chugger in a Care International t-shirt. "Do you want to help make poverty history?" she asked after her initial ice-breaking compliment. Had she seen my wrist band? She didn't mention it though, so neither did I. As she gave me her brief spiel I thought of a conversation I'd had with G. in the pub after work on Thursday. I'd talked of how I often felt guilty that I never stopped (to busy rushing to somewhere) to give money to people collecting in the train station in the mornings, even if I thought I believed strongly in their cause, but I had happily waited to be given a free "stress pig" from some website marketing campaign. I thought of how I'd still not filled in the petition form that came with my White Band. I remembered another encounter with a chugger in Nottingham.

I'd been on my pay to P.'s flat and a girl stopped me to tell me about her charity and what they did. She was much more enthusiastic than this one I was listening to now, she told me about her boss and what he was doing in Afghanistan, but I was still a student and couldn't make any regular financial commitment to anything except the local pub at the time. I asked her for some information to take away with me, but she said she couldn't give me anything as I'd just throw it away when I got home and they couldn't afford that.

With these thoughts in my mind I decided to resist the pattern of walking on by and and sign up, hoping that it was the same charity that as the girl who had made such an impression me (more so than the agency-paid chugger standing before me now) many month's earlier. I now (well, from September) donate the minimum per month to Care International - perhaps not quite enough to get into heaven (Remember: "it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven"?) but it's a start.

To reward my kind heart I proceeded to Vrgn and bought In Utero for cheap in the sale and the new NIN album - I'd been curious about the NIN from seeing their loyal teenaged fans with their logo inked into their school bags.

And then the other day, i was stopped by another chugger from Amnesty International to make me feel guilty (he wasn't impressed when I told him about Care) for not giving any money to them every month too. I really cannot win! At least not while still having enough money to by new CDs.