Pyjama Club no more

Throgmorton has been "between contracts" since the beginning of July. Ugh. I've had a couple of close calls at finding that four letter word "work" but, at 38, I was deemed too old* for one job and "over qualified" for another.

For goodness sake!!!

But humanity has smiled on me: sent CV to Pan Galactic Corporate Bank on Friday, phone interview on Monday, three face-to-face inna-row today and I'm gainfully employed in their Krellian Relays department (all bar the paperwork).

Woohoo.

Of course it's always a shame to actually have to work for a living - no more duvet-days 5 days a week** listening to the rather excellent Radio 4***. Though I have of course jinxed it all by writing about it so soon...

Ps.

It's completely impossible to be grumpy while listening to Hayseed Dixie :-)


* "line manager" straight out of nappies who felt intimidated by the possibility of a team member with actual experience...

** no I'm not a chav scrounger: being a Ltd Company service contractor means I can claim absolutely no benefits what-so-ever (as fas as I've known) - that really, really means zero income between jobs!

** Andrew Marr is a particularly fine example of super-hero geekdom

Squeak squeak

It's science Thursday. Let's talk about the subconscious.

I was given a plant cutting. No idea what it's called but it's a water-grass, which means it has to be kept constantly wet. Not just damp like a normal plant, but soaked. Constantly.

Which was a problem 'cos I'm forgetful. The chances of me remembering to water it every day were roughly zero. Ok, actually zero.

So I tried to figure out a solution. Wracked my brain I did.

And all I could think of was hamsters.

Hamster, hamsters, hamsters! I'd apply myself to water and plants and all I'd get was hamsters.

For three days! Bloody hamsters!

So "bugger this" I thought and just stood and watched the little scamps. Jumping and frollicking amongst my lobes, scratching in the sawdust, snuffling their little hamstery noses, drinking from the water bottle.

AH!!!

Drinking from the upside-downey water bottle thingies!

So now the plant has an extra large saucer with a stone and an upside-down bottle that only needs filling once a fortnight.

And that, Dear Reader, is the creative power of the subconscious.

Some may think messages like that are the word of a god, the touching of His Noodly Appendages, or the effects of a highly powerful pattern-matching network.

But I know it's my inner Hamster.

Do you want noodles with that?

Throgmorton is getting hungry. "Mmmmmm, steak, jacket spuds and veg."

Looks in fridge. No spuds.

Looks in freezer. No chips.

Throgmorton stands in the middle of the kitchen wishing he'd been to the shops more often.

Ah! Noodles!

Finds preserved gingers in the fridge - "Best before 1999" but they still look and smell ok. Tomatoes, well some of them aren't mouldy and some red pepper that's not too squidgy.

Red onions, ooh they're actually fresh!

Stir-fry Beef with Ginger and Peppers is born, yay...

Must go to the shops...

You believe in WHAT?!

Hell in a handbasket

Radio 4 yesterday included giving air-time to people protesting the new play Paul at the National Theatre. While I support people's right the their opinion, I feel I must object to this one.

There's a difficult balance to be drawn here. While Trust-me-Tony is encouraging the UN to ban all incitements of terrorism, which may or may not be a good thing, invoking the spectre of blasphemy outlaws any critique or analysis at all of any belief! This must be wrong - if any belief, proof, truth or whatever is worth anything then it can only be strengthened by inspection...

I think I'm going to try to make Thursdays "Science and Philosophy" day - which is really just an excuse to dust off my full-blown, number 3 soap box...


In the beginning

"But atheism is just a belief too which makes it a religion" they say with the self satisfied, smug sneer of the ignorant who think they've just made A Really Good Point.

As a strong atheist I have to disagree with this - science is the search for truth and proof after all, there's no space for belief (well, not as a proof anyway even though lots of hypotheses start out as hunches of course). Besides, it's not belief I object to just super-natural explanations.

But, unable to ignore a puzzle, a lot of sitting on the toilet, having showers and other good thinking times were spent on the problem: "What is the one irreducible belief an atheist needs?"

I think it's this:

The constancy of nature.

I don't mean that nature is unchanging, just that the way it behaves doesn't alter for no, or other supernatural, reason. If the apple falls from the tree today then it fell the same way yesterday and will fall the same way tomorrow.

This follows Occams razor nicely and all the other observations and laws of science seem to fall out from it. Newton's First Law of Motion is this constancy of Nature in a nutshell.

But that doesn't give us much moral guidance, so how about:

Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.

Great, the smallest assumption possible and just one rule. We'll see how that works out in future posts...

Things I've learnt while being a passenger:

1. I get more queasy than I used to

2. I make comments like "ohh, I'm seeing a lot more out of the windows now"...

3. ...while my chums make helpful comments like "well perhaps if you hadn't been driving so fast"

4. and at least half of my friends go la la la tiddly um te tum while they're parking

amazing, I wonder if I ever did that.

Go buy tickets

I've joined the Southgate College Opera. They (we) are putting on Die Fledermaus on 17 November - Saturday 19 November 2005 at Wyllyotts Centre, Potters Bar.

Great fun.

Go buy tickets it will be superb even if I say so myself:-)

This, that and the other

A friend was giving me a lift to dancing.

yap

She's extremely intelligent and I really like her

yap yappity

particularly her ability

yap yap yap

to entertain us both

yappity yap

all the way there

"yappity yappity yap yap yappity ooh, what's this" she says confused at a road junction we've done dozens of times before...

Which we agreed proved that, despite the myth, women cannot multitask.

What they do do though, in computing terms, is Rapid Context Switching which just looks like multitasking *

It's true, human beings really can only pay attention to one thing at a time no matter what the gender.

Men, on the other hand, can sometimes get so highly focused that only the Non Maskable Interrupts of beer, nooky or telly can distract them.

Well, that's not strictly true. Men think about sex every 6 seconds yes (heh, real men can do it quicker!) so that, plus what ever else they're doing at the time... now that's real multitasking!


* for extra flame-bait we could conjecture how well you can do anything if you're that easily interrupted... :-)

All Hail His Noodly Appendages

Two posts in one day?

Well I'm so in debt to Scary Duck for pointing me at this theory of Intelligent Design that I couldn't wait!

This site would be the funniest thing ever if the Kansas school board and President Forest Gump weren't so scary...

More info on Wikipedia

Driving

Sage Throgmorton Wallop-Wallop II (aka Dad the magistrate) sent me the following in response to my original email about getting banned from driving.

Dear Throgmorton Jnr,

Three weeks gone already. It will soon be the end of January.

I liked your letter re the case. I can picture it exactly. For most of the defendants, such as yourself, it is the first time they have been in court. For the magistrates, they have seen it hundreds of times. Mind you, we don't see what goes on outside the courtroom.

'Grey' is the court Clerk or Legal Advisor, and was there to help you as you were not represented.

Would you have got off the ban if you were represented? I doubt it. It would have been a £250 gamble and the points would have stayed with you until they became three years old. As it is, although your new licence will show the points you have already, they will not be relevant for 'totting' purposes. Remember to apply for a new licence one month before the ban ends. You are not allowed to drive legally until you have your new licence. Now is the time when you find who your real friends are.

Seriously, though, do not be tempted to drive whilst disqualified. The penalties are not as severe as they were three or four years ago. Then, it was prison nearly every time. Now, unless it is linked with another offence e.g. drink driving, you will get a Community Penalty which will probably be unpaid work but may include a curfew or be made to attend a course on driving. It is likely your ban will be extended. In your case, if you commit any offence within three months of the court appearance, you will be liable to be punished for the speeding offence as well.

Just to remind you, your car must be insured even if remains parked in the road for the next six months. Otherwise you are liable for a £200 fixed penalty fine and six points on your licence, and these points will stay with you after the ban is over.

Trying to sign of in a lighter vein, you could become a drug dealer and drive a stolen car with new plates and a false address but, when you are caught, Severe and Portly will be replaced by a man in fancy dress with a wig and he will neither apologise nor smile as he sends you down for five years.

Now you know where I get my sense of humour from :-)

Does my bum look big in this?

7 words that no man ever wants to hear! Even the strongest is reduced to sphincter clenching paralysis by that phrase.

So when I heard it I tried to be clever:

Me: "I really hate that question 'cos I know there's no right answer, so I'm not saying anything."

gf of the time: "What? You mean it's that bad!"

AAARGHH!!!

I'm in trouble for SAYING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL!

What is it with you women and bums anyway? I heard on the TV the other day that "curves are in this season" which was a surprise to me as I thought they'd always been in!

The Women's and gossip mags aren't unanimous about this yet though. It does seem that, for some of them at least, skinny is the new missing septum but the rest are still sporting the usual crop of shapeless stick figures that drive a million teenage girls to anorexia.

Do you want a hint? Just look upwards and along a bit to the "Adult" section... Great big piles of T&A* everywhere! By real women with big curves (who can earn stacks of cash just for getting their kit off) for, err, men (and some other women too).
That's why you can get porn mags called Hooters, Butts and Big Mamas but never Skinny Bitch Monthly!


So back to the real world. When faced with the Question Of Death:

"Does my bum look big in this?"

the correct manly-man answer is of course:

"Phwoor yeah I'll say. Yum."

(and then beg for mercy :-)


* "Teeth and Attitude" obviously. What else?

A daytrip to Portsmouth...

...Magistrate Court (a play in 3 acts - and only exaggerated a little bit, honest)

Intro

Ok so I often drive, how shall I say, um, swiftly. But safely. I reckon. Two second gap, stop in the distance you can see and all that. Never had any problems - ok OK! so a close encounter with just ONE gatepost, but that was 17 years ago and due to youthful enthusiasm (stupidity) so, hem yes well we've all done that eh? - and very few comments from friends and other trusted opinions and I'd even slowed done a lot in recent years. So no worries. Sue me. Which, after the fourth camera flash, H.M.Gov decided to do. In Portsmouth no less.

Nuts.

Act 1: Bodes not well.

I'd only got back from a Jive holiday 2 days earlier so the body clock was, ah, well I didn't have one any more... The nearly 4 hour journey to Portsmouth for the 9:30 appointment ("Don't drive there" is the sage advice from Dad the Magistrate...) means setting alarm clocks for 4am!

Though can't sleep until 2am. Ugh.

I miss the train I wanted by ONE MINUTE! GODAMMIT! and sit dejected on the platform. This is NOT going well. Chances of "getting let off due to winning smile and all-round decentness" fading into "contempt of court for showing up late you oik". But then I remember that I know I'm useless and had tricked myself into aiming for a train before the one I actually needed (if you follow). Woohoo, all smiles again!

Hauling ones carcase about the country seems supremely pointless though some of the views are nice. Thank the Lords of all Nerds (Page, Brin and Berners-Lee) for iPods and the light reading of Terry Pratchett is all I can say...

Arriving in Portsmouth I yomp over to Anglesea Road, the scene of my latest indiscretion, with 20 minutes to go. H.M.Police had sent me a delightful portrait earlier - "it's a goddam dual-carriage way" I'd thought calmly (yeah right) at the time "what the &^%&**^! is that doing a 30MPH!!!" - so I wanted to check it out.

Ok, so it is in the middle of town, but there's a central fence for goodness sake! But behind the HUGE 10-line directions sign, and the even HUGER illuminated, parking-spaces sign are the two itsy-wincy teeny weeny itty bitty 30mph & camera signs - all perfectly conforming to road specs.

Bollocks*

As a previous research fellow in usability I know they couldn't have hidden the speed stuff more effectively if they'd tried!!!

Double bollocks!!! Argh! Fiddlesticks! Fudge.

Despondent I trudge off...


2. Department of Information Retrieval

I get to H.M. Court bang on time - it's easy to spot for the gaggle of shifty guys taking their last nervous drag on a cigarette outside...

There's a queue to get in as we're searched and X-rayed and then sign in. The yoof in front of of me couldn't be more cocky.

"What's your solicitor's name" says the guard

"Oh, dunno, Sophie something" says yoof.

"Yes, I know" says guard "court number 6 it's..." he trails off to the back of yoof as he swaggers off mid instruction.

Guard mutters under breath and regains composure to direct me. I'm inna-suit so he smiles.

"That was court 7 you said yeah" butts in the returning yoof.

"What? No, court 6, it's just down..." but yoof has swaggered off again.

The guard doesn't swear. I'm impressed. He just suggests to me that yoof is welcome to wait at court 7 "'cos there isn't one" and grins at the prospect of a regular customer getting banged up soon...

I'm directed to court 8 and the waiting starts.

And continues.

And continues.

I'm thinking the suit is overkill. I'm the only one apart from the lawyers. Everyone else is cheap shirts or black jumpers (do you WANT to look like a burgler) earings and chewing gum and, I'm truly sorry, but the guy with the wife and girlfriend pushing a pram really does look like an ape. I'm sorry, it's just true.

The waiting room is just the corridor outside the courts. I'm sure it was majestic once what with the globe chandelier and marble insets, but nearly all the hands and some the numbers being missing from the clocks and the addition of "Pay your fine or else" posters blue-tacked to the walls has spoilt it somewhat. Also the cafe is a hole in the wall selling crisps, "squash 15p" and cuppa-soups.

It's not actually horrible, which the word "unpleasant" would imply, it just has the complete lack of anything nice...

As my brain is starting to swim from the shear tedium of it all I'm raised from my slumber by the booming intercom "THROGMORTON WALLOP-WALLOP TO COURT EIGHT"...

3. Whoosh

Panic. Argh. Need-to-make-good-impression - Stuff book into briefcase, rip battery out of phone, push on door clearly marked pull and crash into courtroom.

It's barren.

Except for the HUGE Kubrick-esq slablike table confronting me with a grey (he can only be described as grey) guy opposite and the two Lord High Executioners perched vulture like atop his shoulders.

Ok, an old geezer and biddy on a raised platform, but hey first impressions...

I don't have a clue what to do.

I guess it showed.

"Please put down your briefcase and remain standing" said Grey. Ohh, so he's the important one. Great. Now I know who to talk to, though the vultures are eyeing me up keenly - hmm, to see where the juicy bits are I guess.

After a quick confirmation of name and address un-noticed Blue Suited Woman on the right of Slab Table just starts burbling on in an dreary, utterly, utterly dreary dreary monotone. I guess she's the prosecution. "February" Mmm, young and quite nice too "Calibra" though with the makings "36" of a wart on her nose (I'm not making this up) "excess". The room's surprisingly nice as well "slightly above" formal but nicely kept wood paneling etc. "speed limit".

BOLLOCKS! She's talking about me! Eek. Oops. Replay monotone speech in head. Err, yeah, ok Guv, got me bang to rights really.

Grey man comments that I've already indicated a guilty plea and does that still stand? "Err, yeah, yes that's correct". Me? Flustered? Ptchaw.

So we move on to Mitigating Circumstance and Grey reads out what I'd written (without my tongue sticking out or anything!) on H.M.Gov's original threatening forms.

Hmm, only slightly feeble. Not too bad. I can tell what's going on but still don't have a clue what to do.

Prosecution wants to "clarify some points".

Err, righto.

Grey gets me in the dock and I swear an oath and everything. Coo. I declare I'm an atheist so I don't get a bible - boo hiss this isn't like the films at all...

Grey turns to Vultures and starts Explaining Stuff. AH! THOSE are the magistrates - formal and severe old woman and also severe portly ex-colonel avuncular port-and-brandy type! Couldn't be more of a caricature, where do they get them from**! And Grey seems to be on my side after all. Cool, I'm warming to him. It turns out he's the Clerk - or "legal expert" as Severe and Portly call him - and, having recognised my lack of, well anything really, he's taking on the job of keeping everything straight. Groovy.

Lots of questions all round about current lack of employment - and prosecution very pleasantly and gently cuts me off at the knees by spotting that I'm not that badly off actually, oh well. Grey explains to Severe and Portly the law and the difference between "hardship" and "undue hardship"...

Severe and Portly actually take on a slightly despaired mood while whispering to each other. I can overhear phrases like "reduced sentence", and "three months" etc. while Grey takes away my license with two hands and the utmost deference of a Japanese businessman accepting a card.

But I know the end is nigh.

All four of them almost apologise to me. But phrases like "hands are tied" are offered and I'm banned for 6 months.

Fuck fuck fuck bollocks fuck***

Oh well.

Being in the pyjama club brings one benefit. They execute a nifty legal fudge so I get a 3 month conditional discharge or some such in lieu of any fine and costs! Cool, silver lining and all that.

Nods all round and I'm out.

Probably took 10-15 mins, felt like two.

I'm not sticking around, back on the train as quick as poss. and escape into the gentle sarcasm of Prophet Terence...

On another thought I was reading a Donal MacIntyre interview about teenage drug dealers "They all drive without licenses, insurance, tax, anything. If they get stopped they give a false name and address and it rarely gets followed up..." but because I'm mostly law abiding I can't drive for 6 months.

And getting banned for doing 36 in a 30 zone seems fucking harsh.

And if anyone feels like giving me a lift to dancing I'd be grateful...

* Hmm, my Mum's reading this...

** Hi Dad

*** Hi Mum ;-)

Postscript

Would I have done anything different?****

Yes, get a solicitor. In my case I'm sure it wouldn't have made a blind bit of different - I could have argued a case about the signs being effectively hidden but it would have been a very difficult argue and no doubt the signs conformed to rules and regs and that was that - but I might have had more piece of mind knowing that all the right things were said at the right time.

**** well apart from speeding that is, as an old colleague said "won't take long to collect more points" %-> %-> Maybe I'll book up another Silverstone Ferrari day for the 2nd Feb 2006... ;-) ;-)

Post-postscript

This is a slightly edited version of an email I sent to a bunch of chums. They read it and several urged me to start writing a book "The Musings of Throgmorton" or some such!!! Well, I'm too lazy for that (and I don't have a story) but since then I've seen or done several things and thought "that'd make a good blog rant"! I have several in mind to begin with and then we'll see...

My friends might not realise quite what they've created...