6:15 pm
It's a small world, after all. I think we had a lot to learn from little orphan Annie (although if you live in Britain, the sun may not come out tomorrow. It may remain overcast for 3 weeks. I shan't be betting my bottom dollar, if it's all the same).
I decided to indulge in the hotel restaurant last night. Nice, sure, but it did remind me that I'm just not that posh at all. I try, I get the pretentious tea and I've managed to cast off my old accent and regional slang, but it creeps back when I'm not paying attention. But I'm sat happily finishing off the cheese board (not too bad, but more cheese than any man should desire) after the risotto (pretty damned good) and bidding a fond goodbye to the last of a pot of darjeeling when someone comes up to me.
"Capita financial?"
It's happening. I'm becoming my father in every way. My dad has this terrifying ability to be able to find someone he knows wherever he ends up. He found people he knew on his honeymoon.
In Tenerife.
So apparently I can't get 200 miles away from home and still manage to be completely alone, which is sort of nice.
But anyway, it's Wednesday and I'm not too impressed that gaming night is having to go on without me. It hit me a few days ago, though, that this trip isn't entirely unlike an RPG.
I mean, I've travelled far and wide, leaving everything behind with a clear purpose in mind. I've travelled the streets looking for anything of interest, though haven't found any treasure chests yet. I've travelled to underground dungeons, shot through dark and uninviting caves, been presented with a great many scrolls and have consumed a number of healing potions. With shots of mint in them.
I don't know if cider counts there, too, but it does make me feel better. Maybe that restores mana.
The only thing missing here is the ability to carry all my worldly possessions in one backpack, which many RPGs characters seem to be able to do. Unless it's Earthbound, but then that WAS set in the present day. I guess maybe that's a better metaphor for what I'm doing.
So, 'til tomorrow. Wish you were here and all that. Mostly on account of how adventuring parties of 1 never really work for long and I'm not too happy at the thought of dragging all my stuff around alone on Friday. Must admit, I am rather missing MSN and a full sized keyboard. Perhaps we can alleviate this, somehow...
>_>
Ahhh...
Monday, 9 February 2009
BioBlog travel log - 13/01/09
7:10 pm
There's something that's becoming painfully apparent in this city. Nobody looks particularly happy about anything. It's as if the entire outside world exists entirely as a means of getting from point A to B and that this should be done with a minimum of human contact and with no regard paid to your surroundings. I've never seen a town or city so devoid of people actually talking to each other. Sure, there's guys in business suits talking all over the place, but that always looks more like work. There's no concept of a leisurely stroll and a bit of a talk over a cup of tea or anything.
It's not like we're short of tea here, either. Beverages at least. Most places you can navigate by pubs, but here you could navigate by Starbucks. Now I do like Starbucks a LOT, I've been having lunch there all week while I have half an hour of sudoku, but nobody needs that much coffee, surely. It's like fish and chip shops back home that set up 5 minutes apart yet somehow manage to stay in business.
But yeah, thousands of people wander past me every day, none of them looking especially pleased. It's sad, I guess, especially since the architecture around here is really rather impressive. Certainly not pretty unless you've an eye for that kind of thing, but I'm still staring at the skyline constantly as I wander around. I know I'm never going to get over all this. It's like a part of my mind has donned a waxed moustache and started screaming "Homes touching the heavens! And horseless carriages careening through the public! The devil take this addled place from my sight!"
It's really reinforcing my thoughts that nobody here has time for anything. Not for people, not for just having a lay about of a Sunday afternoon, not even for a pot of tea. Everyone just walks around with cardboard cups.
I think the thing that really clinched it was an article I was reading in some financial paper today. You can say that about London, there is NO shortage of reading material, I'm picking up two free newspapers per day and I'm entitled to £5 worth from the hotel. But yeah, something about how the people in the city are experiencing record levels of STDs and generally sleeping around wherever the hell they like to relieve the stress. I dunno, if that ever happened to me... y'know, I'm not sure it could, but if it did I'd be going back up north like a greyhound with it's rear end on fire.
Tomorrow will bring one last jaunt to the city streets in search of entertainment with my charming tour guide. I hope to find something interesting to photograph, because I've been indulging in my old hobby of taking photos that are sort of amusing out of context. It's a good hobby, I think, and writing the captions is fun, but it always leads to my dad asking why I took photos of street signs.
Well, I guess we all see beauty differently. Some people get it from sunsets, some from glamour models, I get it from the inherent madness in humanity, attitudes to living and from heavily industrialised areas. I quite miss pottering around the abandoned production buildings back at Brown's.
Each to their own, aye?
There's something that's becoming painfully apparent in this city. Nobody looks particularly happy about anything. It's as if the entire outside world exists entirely as a means of getting from point A to B and that this should be done with a minimum of human contact and with no regard paid to your surroundings. I've never seen a town or city so devoid of people actually talking to each other. Sure, there's guys in business suits talking all over the place, but that always looks more like work. There's no concept of a leisurely stroll and a bit of a talk over a cup of tea or anything.
It's not like we're short of tea here, either. Beverages at least. Most places you can navigate by pubs, but here you could navigate by Starbucks. Now I do like Starbucks a LOT, I've been having lunch there all week while I have half an hour of sudoku, but nobody needs that much coffee, surely. It's like fish and chip shops back home that set up 5 minutes apart yet somehow manage to stay in business.
But yeah, thousands of people wander past me every day, none of them looking especially pleased. It's sad, I guess, especially since the architecture around here is really rather impressive. Certainly not pretty unless you've an eye for that kind of thing, but I'm still staring at the skyline constantly as I wander around. I know I'm never going to get over all this. It's like a part of my mind has donned a waxed moustache and started screaming "Homes touching the heavens! And horseless carriages careening through the public! The devil take this addled place from my sight!"
It's really reinforcing my thoughts that nobody here has time for anything. Not for people, not for just having a lay about of a Sunday afternoon, not even for a pot of tea. Everyone just walks around with cardboard cups.
I think the thing that really clinched it was an article I was reading in some financial paper today. You can say that about London, there is NO shortage of reading material, I'm picking up two free newspapers per day and I'm entitled to £5 worth from the hotel. But yeah, something about how the people in the city are experiencing record levels of STDs and generally sleeping around wherever the hell they like to relieve the stress. I dunno, if that ever happened to me... y'know, I'm not sure it could, but if it did I'd be going back up north like a greyhound with it's rear end on fire.
Tomorrow will bring one last jaunt to the city streets in search of entertainment with my charming tour guide. I hope to find something interesting to photograph, because I've been indulging in my old hobby of taking photos that are sort of amusing out of context. It's a good hobby, I think, and writing the captions is fun, but it always leads to my dad asking why I took photos of street signs.
Well, I guess we all see beauty differently. Some people get it from sunsets, some from glamour models, I get it from the inherent madness in humanity, attitudes to living and from heavily industrialised areas. I quite miss pottering around the abandoned production buildings back at Brown's.
Each to their own, aye?
BioBlog travel log - 12/01/09
BioBlog travel log - 12/01/09
8:15am
This place isn't quite real. I met up with an old friend from my course last night and we took in a few of the sights. Seriously, this place is like walking into a postcard, it's wall to wall landmarks and it's all so ridiculously gorgeous. It's lit up like a Christmas tree at night, skyscrapers line the horizon during the day and everywhere I look reminds me constantly that this is maybe the pinnacle of British achievement. This insane hive of activity, never resting, never stopping.
If I were a more energetic kind of person, I think I could deal with living here. I'd be leaving for too much behind, though, and I really don't think I could deal with living here without at least a few friends. It's funny, the more people you put in a place, the more you get a curious sense of isolation from it all. Still, people here that I've spoken to seem largely friendly (alright, they're being paid to help direct people and provide hotel services, but even so), so I can't complain there.
Last night was a hoot. Piccadilly circus, King's Cross, Whitehall, Nelson's column, Downing Street, the eye and the Thames. And probably some others that I can't recall just now, but it WAS 11 in the evening in my defence. Never thought I'd catch myself wandering the streets of London at midnight. The tube is an experience I'd recommend to most, unless you get nervous in crowds.
It's a funny city. You go to Leeds and the inner city looks like a city, the outlying areas look like large towns. You come here and there's the big industrial areas, the entertainment areas where all the fancy film premiers go on and the residential looking places that look... well, like smaller cities. This place doesn't do ANYTHING by halves. It's like it's been split (albeit seamlessly) into dozens of different areas. Hopping off the tube at any given station will take you to what looks like a completely different city. It's quite confusing, but there's still a reasonable sense of consistency and it's really quite exciting along with it.
This room has a bath. I shall certainly be indulging in that, s'been over two years. Two bloody years. That's criminal, that is. Quite a nice little room, really, reminds me a little bit of campus living, but a much larger room. I don't know why it's a twin, though. My original idea of "the person in the company who booked the rooms is flirting with me" seems to have failed, but that's just fine.
I mean, I think it was a dude, anyway.
10:00 pm
This city thought it had defeated me. Today was a day for exploration and poor decisions.
See, the plan was to finish the course for the day then hit up the Thames and ride the eye. It seemed like a good plan, especially as they also run a cruise service from the same location. It has to be mentioned at this point that I enjoy travelling on boats more than... really, more than almost anything. So down to the eye, which involves me finally experiencing the horror of the tube in full force. I thought I'd seen it on Sunday, people milling about all over like sheeps, bustling, moving far too quickly in big metal bullets. But no. No, today I experienced something which I've only ever seen in video footage from Japan. Cars literally filled to capacity with people, with yet more people trying to get on. Etiquette gets thrown out the window as people pile their way on without any kind of regard for me being stood right in front of the goddamned door.
This place also seems to have sapped my powers. What little charisma I had seems useless here. I suppose it was my own fault for trying to do something as misguided as starting an idle conversation in the middle of a 10 minute queue where nobody could have conceivably had anything else to do but stare at the walls. I'm used to folk not noticing I'm there, it's entertaining sometimes, but to be completely blanked like that was, honestly, pretty draining.
To Waterloo station, which was at least large and quite interesting to wander around. At least the people running the information desks around here are genuinely wonderful, I'd probably still be at Picadilly now if it weren't for them. Shiny new map in hand, I set off to the eye.
The eye is not running. Not for this week. Neither is the cruise ferry, just the commuter ferry. At the very least, I got to take some pictures of the Thames, which is rather nice, but couldn't quite work out the camera. It was largely a collection of blur and darkness with some coherence, apart from the one shot I took of myself which clearly shows my acne. Which has now magically vanished within 3 hours. I check the timetable for the next boat, only to realise that my phone is out of power and that I've not worn a watch in over 2 months. Then I notice Big Ben after 20 minutes, which makes me feel like an idiot. Actually, that's sort of funny now.
But no, I'll fight this thing, I think. I'm near the playhouse or something like that, this might be a classier end of town. Let's try that. Passing a couple of places that seemed vaguely famous (some Chinese place particularly. Mama... something. Mamagawa?) I was sort of impressed and watching the joggers was fun. Maybe you have to get good at running in this city. It CERTAINLY couldn't hurt. Then came a huge display of grafitti. Now I'm naive, I'll be the first to admit, so I figured that it was some urban art thing. I quite like that stuff. The gang of hoodies that emerged from the darkness suggested otherwise.
Time for a very hasty retreat, because I can hear some meaningful rumblings from their direction, despite my headphones and I'm suddenly very, very alone. With a camera.
It's at this point that there was a bit of a Douglas Adamas moment. He described how he wrote the hitchhiker's guide when he wrote my omnibus edition, about how he was hitching through Europe and an impossible sequence of events nearly drove him mad. I was starting to really understand, being stuck 200 miles in hostile territory, far from my bed and fridge, friends and family...
Back to the hotel, anyway. Forget dinner, I'll sort that after... oh, right. There's a bath here.
I don't know what to say, now. I can heartily recommend taking nothing but showers for 2 years, if only for the experience of getting back into the cauldron of searing heat, because every part of my body seems to think I've just been taking ecstasy like bags of skittles. Hot DAMN.
Hotel food's good. Standard English breakfast, but a "make your own muesli" option, too, which I find quite amusing when there's pig bits on offer. Still haven't tried the fancy restaurant, but I think I'll go make a tit of myself tomorrow and order something really common like a true Yorkshireman. And cider as well.
And so, with a cup of sweet tea, little to no feeling in my limbs and the thoughts of a big ol' breakfast tomorrow, things aren't so very bad. This place isn't too bad, now that I've been here a while, but it's just so busy. Nobody's ever allowed to stop for anything, you charge from one end of town to get to work, then charge the other way for your leisure and finally dash home for bed.
It must be just cities. Everywhere else I've been in the south has been really quite nice, decent people, a lot of entertaining things but nothing being shoved in your face on billboard ads, pretty much like Yorkshire with funny accents and better scenery. This city's so impersonal.
Quite looking forward to the return trip, really. Get a good night's sleep, maybe some comfort food, say some hellos and then more sleep. Yeah.
Incidentally, I'm reading the list of services the hotel offers and trying to convince myself that yes, a massage would be amazing right now, but I'd rather have the £30. There's something here about some makeover you can have if you're pregnant that's supposed to make you beautiful for your big day or something.
2 things occur, here.
1. I thought that women were generally supposed to get more attractive to some extent when they were pregnant. Some genetic thing to do with the body trying to keep the male interested in hanging around. Anyway, people always seem to say things about pregnant women glowing, which suggests either a boost in outward appearance or health. Either that, or babies probably register on Geiger counters.
2. Right, I don't care who you are, when your "big day" comes, you're going to be laid on a table in stirrups with complete strangers staring at your crotch. There will be crying, bleeding, screaming, cursing, projectile pooing. You will not, in any way, shape or form be winning any beauty contests.
The way I see it, you might as well just slum around in jogsuits and tshirts until the baby's due. Then at least you won't stretch out any fancy clothes. But then, I might have a vague idea about this "new man" concept, but I've barely evolved further than thinking that a shower and a shave are impressive displays of preparation for an evening out.
8:15am
This place isn't quite real. I met up with an old friend from my course last night and we took in a few of the sights. Seriously, this place is like walking into a postcard, it's wall to wall landmarks and it's all so ridiculously gorgeous. It's lit up like a Christmas tree at night, skyscrapers line the horizon during the day and everywhere I look reminds me constantly that this is maybe the pinnacle of British achievement. This insane hive of activity, never resting, never stopping.
If I were a more energetic kind of person, I think I could deal with living here. I'd be leaving for too much behind, though, and I really don't think I could deal with living here without at least a few friends. It's funny, the more people you put in a place, the more you get a curious sense of isolation from it all. Still, people here that I've spoken to seem largely friendly (alright, they're being paid to help direct people and provide hotel services, but even so), so I can't complain there.
Last night was a hoot. Piccadilly circus, King's Cross, Whitehall, Nelson's column, Downing Street, the eye and the Thames. And probably some others that I can't recall just now, but it WAS 11 in the evening in my defence. Never thought I'd catch myself wandering the streets of London at midnight. The tube is an experience I'd recommend to most, unless you get nervous in crowds.
It's a funny city. You go to Leeds and the inner city looks like a city, the outlying areas look like large towns. You come here and there's the big industrial areas, the entertainment areas where all the fancy film premiers go on and the residential looking places that look... well, like smaller cities. This place doesn't do ANYTHING by halves. It's like it's been split (albeit seamlessly) into dozens of different areas. Hopping off the tube at any given station will take you to what looks like a completely different city. It's quite confusing, but there's still a reasonable sense of consistency and it's really quite exciting along with it.
This room has a bath. I shall certainly be indulging in that, s'been over two years. Two bloody years. That's criminal, that is. Quite a nice little room, really, reminds me a little bit of campus living, but a much larger room. I don't know why it's a twin, though. My original idea of "the person in the company who booked the rooms is flirting with me" seems to have failed, but that's just fine.
I mean, I think it was a dude, anyway.
10:00 pm
This city thought it had defeated me. Today was a day for exploration and poor decisions.
See, the plan was to finish the course for the day then hit up the Thames and ride the eye. It seemed like a good plan, especially as they also run a cruise service from the same location. It has to be mentioned at this point that I enjoy travelling on boats more than... really, more than almost anything. So down to the eye, which involves me finally experiencing the horror of the tube in full force. I thought I'd seen it on Sunday, people milling about all over like sheeps, bustling, moving far too quickly in big metal bullets. But no. No, today I experienced something which I've only ever seen in video footage from Japan. Cars literally filled to capacity with people, with yet more people trying to get on. Etiquette gets thrown out the window as people pile their way on without any kind of regard for me being stood right in front of the goddamned door.
This place also seems to have sapped my powers. What little charisma I had seems useless here. I suppose it was my own fault for trying to do something as misguided as starting an idle conversation in the middle of a 10 minute queue where nobody could have conceivably had anything else to do but stare at the walls. I'm used to folk not noticing I'm there, it's entertaining sometimes, but to be completely blanked like that was, honestly, pretty draining.
To Waterloo station, which was at least large and quite interesting to wander around. At least the people running the information desks around here are genuinely wonderful, I'd probably still be at Picadilly now if it weren't for them. Shiny new map in hand, I set off to the eye.
The eye is not running. Not for this week. Neither is the cruise ferry, just the commuter ferry. At the very least, I got to take some pictures of the Thames, which is rather nice, but couldn't quite work out the camera. It was largely a collection of blur and darkness with some coherence, apart from the one shot I took of myself which clearly shows my acne. Which has now magically vanished within 3 hours. I check the timetable for the next boat, only to realise that my phone is out of power and that I've not worn a watch in over 2 months. Then I notice Big Ben after 20 minutes, which makes me feel like an idiot. Actually, that's sort of funny now.
But no, I'll fight this thing, I think. I'm near the playhouse or something like that, this might be a classier end of town. Let's try that. Passing a couple of places that seemed vaguely famous (some Chinese place particularly. Mama... something. Mamagawa?) I was sort of impressed and watching the joggers was fun. Maybe you have to get good at running in this city. It CERTAINLY couldn't hurt. Then came a huge display of grafitti. Now I'm naive, I'll be the first to admit, so I figured that it was some urban art thing. I quite like that stuff. The gang of hoodies that emerged from the darkness suggested otherwise.
Time for a very hasty retreat, because I can hear some meaningful rumblings from their direction, despite my headphones and I'm suddenly very, very alone. With a camera.
It's at this point that there was a bit of a Douglas Adamas moment. He described how he wrote the hitchhiker's guide when he wrote my omnibus edition, about how he was hitching through Europe and an impossible sequence of events nearly drove him mad. I was starting to really understand, being stuck 200 miles in hostile territory, far from my bed and fridge, friends and family...
Back to the hotel, anyway. Forget dinner, I'll sort that after... oh, right. There's a bath here.
I don't know what to say, now. I can heartily recommend taking nothing but showers for 2 years, if only for the experience of getting back into the cauldron of searing heat, because every part of my body seems to think I've just been taking ecstasy like bags of skittles. Hot DAMN.
Hotel food's good. Standard English breakfast, but a "make your own muesli" option, too, which I find quite amusing when there's pig bits on offer. Still haven't tried the fancy restaurant, but I think I'll go make a tit of myself tomorrow and order something really common like a true Yorkshireman. And cider as well.
And so, with a cup of sweet tea, little to no feeling in my limbs and the thoughts of a big ol' breakfast tomorrow, things aren't so very bad. This place isn't too bad, now that I've been here a while, but it's just so busy. Nobody's ever allowed to stop for anything, you charge from one end of town to get to work, then charge the other way for your leisure and finally dash home for bed.
It must be just cities. Everywhere else I've been in the south has been really quite nice, decent people, a lot of entertaining things but nothing being shoved in your face on billboard ads, pretty much like Yorkshire with funny accents and better scenery. This city's so impersonal.
Quite looking forward to the return trip, really. Get a good night's sleep, maybe some comfort food, say some hellos and then more sleep. Yeah.
Incidentally, I'm reading the list of services the hotel offers and trying to convince myself that yes, a massage would be amazing right now, but I'd rather have the £30. There's something here about some makeover you can have if you're pregnant that's supposed to make you beautiful for your big day or something.
2 things occur, here.
1. I thought that women were generally supposed to get more attractive to some extent when they were pregnant. Some genetic thing to do with the body trying to keep the male interested in hanging around. Anyway, people always seem to say things about pregnant women glowing, which suggests either a boost in outward appearance or health. Either that, or babies probably register on Geiger counters.
2. Right, I don't care who you are, when your "big day" comes, you're going to be laid on a table in stirrups with complete strangers staring at your crotch. There will be crying, bleeding, screaming, cursing, projectile pooing. You will not, in any way, shape or form be winning any beauty contests.
The way I see it, you might as well just slum around in jogsuits and tshirts until the baby's due. Then at least you won't stretch out any fancy clothes. But then, I might have a vague idea about this "new man" concept, but I've barely evolved further than thinking that a shower and a shave are impressive displays of preparation for an evening out.
BioBlog travel log - 11/01/09
So, I figured that since I'll be on the train for a while, so let's take a book or something.
But hello! This train has a plug for laptops and phones! So, rather than a story or a peculiar little observation on life, let's write this as I'm experiencing things. Innovation, redefining the idea of what a blog is, that's the ticket!
So here I am, sat in Leeds city station on the 17:05 to King's Cross with my good friends laptop and Starbucks. I'm finally going to the big city for the first time in my life and I must admit to being a little excited. I mean, I've been away from home before, sure, but I've never done it completely alone. I've always either known someone I was with or have been on my way to meet someone I knew.
Trains are an amusing idea. I haven't been on one in some 16 years but I'm happy about the concept. It's not quite the same as the car, sure, but that's perhaps not a bad thing. It reminds me of travelling to Europe in a lot of ways. Dark night, bright lights...
This is really nostalgic.
Life really has been taking some amusing turns of late. This is certainly quite a laugh, listening to the kid in the next aisle. Not entirely unlike the kids in Paris. There was something impossibly charming about hearing rapid French being spoken by a 3 year old girl.
But life's been a fairly rapid string of adventures, lately. I guess that's the nature of life, really, you have more experiences, you meet more people, it all opens doors. Gives you the confidence to wander out on a whim, to go and see the world. I could get used to travelling, in many ways. It's crazy addictive, that's the trouble. I mean, I've had the wanderlust now since I got back from my last trip to the south. I guess we need this kind of thing sometimes. To get out there, escape from the predictability of our comfort zones and such, but it's intimidating at the same time. The knowledge that you're so very far from everything you know, your own bed, a predictable kettle and the corner shop, you get used to all the old home comforts. Maybe that's why travel is tiring, it's something of an emotional drain. Heaven knows it's not too physically gruelling, once you've found a way to shift the luggage around. This place is pretty comfy, Got to hand them that. Shame I can't take a nap.
Silly to think that less than 6 years ago I was scared to even go on the motorway. But then, I guess the only thing I've retained from those days is a strange taste in music.
This world's amazing, the more I see of it. People get seperated by landmasses, oceans and such to the point where you can take one person from two different countries and be able to see next to no similarities. That's crazy, if you think about it, we're all the same species, we all function the same, but yet here we are eating different foods, having different standard of behaviour and different methods of communication. Different cultural taboos, different religions, different attitudes and approaches to fulfilling the most absolutely base human needs. I suppose that explains racism, it's just people doing things in a way you can't understand and don't much care to accept. Not that that justifies racism (although admittedly I'm in favour of it on a good-natured ribbing level. Like how we tend to poke a little fun at Americans and they give us a little back. Nothing mean spirited), but I suppose you have to feel sorry for people that aren't able to let themselves even be civil to people just because they were brought up in a different kind of environment. But yeah, you stick 200 miles of countryside between people and all of a sudden they start doing crazy things like wrapping eggs up in sausages and coating them in breadcrumbs. I mean I'm sorry, I like scotch eggs a lot, but if you stuck some bacon in that sucker, you'd have something pretending to be a full english breakfast.
Actually... that's a bloody good idea. Anyone reading this who's feeling like a kitchen adventure, please consider it. I'll love you forever if it actually works and we can get the world to accept it. Or I'll buy you a pint or something. Bacon treats are perhaps not a suitable foundation for any kind of relationship. They're not a bad start, though.
And now darkness has fallen, my ipod has decided to dispense Japanese lounge music and it's really striking my how ridiculously beautiful this land is at night. Thousands of twinkling lights, each one with a story behind them. Each one someone living their life, a set of hopes, fears and achievements that I'll never know of. Y'know, this world really is far too large. I'm not sure what's better, really, to go and meet as many people as you can, to bomb around the world at a frenzied pace and see everything you can or to sit back and try to do a few things PROPERLY. Make really good friends, settle down, make a nice home for yourself, get a proper career and just be comfortable. People ask about the meaning of life as if they need one singular purpose, one goal to dedicate themselves to, but I don't reckon such a thing exists. Life doesn't have to be justified, it's too unpredictable to direct like that. Always thought myself that the only thing anyone should ever strive for is to find what they really love, what makes them the happiest and just do it.
I guess that's my calling then, if you will. I've got a job now, a little place to call my own, good friends and the drive and means to do most anything now, with a little planning. Perhaps I'll spend the next few years thinking on what makes us tick, writing about why I find human nature so compelling but simultaneously very peculiar. Maybe nobody will ever really read this stuff outside of the few of you who browse these pages on occasion, but that hardly matters. If I've amused anybody, maybe altered someone's perspective on life at all, I'm pretty happy.
I wonder if this thing would have read any differently if I'd been listening to, say, radio shows or trance music as I wrote it. Looks like the slow slushy stuff makes me feel at peace with everything. I guess I'd better listen to speed metal when I finally get around to rigging up the blueprints for my vast robot horde.
That sorta guarantees that I'll never conquer the world, at least not that way. I can't abide speed metal, sometimes.
We're now about an hour away from London. The coffee is but a distant, creamy memory, but at least my tickets have apparently worked. And they've been stamped with pretty stars, too.
But hello! This train has a plug for laptops and phones! So, rather than a story or a peculiar little observation on life, let's write this as I'm experiencing things. Innovation, redefining the idea of what a blog is, that's the ticket!
So here I am, sat in Leeds city station on the 17:05 to King's Cross with my good friends laptop and Starbucks. I'm finally going to the big city for the first time in my life and I must admit to being a little excited. I mean, I've been away from home before, sure, but I've never done it completely alone. I've always either known someone I was with or have been on my way to meet someone I knew.
Trains are an amusing idea. I haven't been on one in some 16 years but I'm happy about the concept. It's not quite the same as the car, sure, but that's perhaps not a bad thing. It reminds me of travelling to Europe in a lot of ways. Dark night, bright lights...
This is really nostalgic.
Life really has been taking some amusing turns of late. This is certainly quite a laugh, listening to the kid in the next aisle. Not entirely unlike the kids in Paris. There was something impossibly charming about hearing rapid French being spoken by a 3 year old girl.
But life's been a fairly rapid string of adventures, lately. I guess that's the nature of life, really, you have more experiences, you meet more people, it all opens doors. Gives you the confidence to wander out on a whim, to go and see the world. I could get used to travelling, in many ways. It's crazy addictive, that's the trouble. I mean, I've had the wanderlust now since I got back from my last trip to the south. I guess we need this kind of thing sometimes. To get out there, escape from the predictability of our comfort zones and such, but it's intimidating at the same time. The knowledge that you're so very far from everything you know, your own bed, a predictable kettle and the corner shop, you get used to all the old home comforts. Maybe that's why travel is tiring, it's something of an emotional drain. Heaven knows it's not too physically gruelling, once you've found a way to shift the luggage around. This place is pretty comfy, Got to hand them that. Shame I can't take a nap.
Silly to think that less than 6 years ago I was scared to even go on the motorway. But then, I guess the only thing I've retained from those days is a strange taste in music.
This world's amazing, the more I see of it. People get seperated by landmasses, oceans and such to the point where you can take one person from two different countries and be able to see next to no similarities. That's crazy, if you think about it, we're all the same species, we all function the same, but yet here we are eating different foods, having different standard of behaviour and different methods of communication. Different cultural taboos, different religions, different attitudes and approaches to fulfilling the most absolutely base human needs. I suppose that explains racism, it's just people doing things in a way you can't understand and don't much care to accept. Not that that justifies racism (although admittedly I'm in favour of it on a good-natured ribbing level. Like how we tend to poke a little fun at Americans and they give us a little back. Nothing mean spirited), but I suppose you have to feel sorry for people that aren't able to let themselves even be civil to people just because they were brought up in a different kind of environment. But yeah, you stick 200 miles of countryside between people and all of a sudden they start doing crazy things like wrapping eggs up in sausages and coating them in breadcrumbs. I mean I'm sorry, I like scotch eggs a lot, but if you stuck some bacon in that sucker, you'd have something pretending to be a full english breakfast.
Actually... that's a bloody good idea. Anyone reading this who's feeling like a kitchen adventure, please consider it. I'll love you forever if it actually works and we can get the world to accept it. Or I'll buy you a pint or something. Bacon treats are perhaps not a suitable foundation for any kind of relationship. They're not a bad start, though.
And now darkness has fallen, my ipod has decided to dispense Japanese lounge music and it's really striking my how ridiculously beautiful this land is at night. Thousands of twinkling lights, each one with a story behind them. Each one someone living their life, a set of hopes, fears and achievements that I'll never know of. Y'know, this world really is far too large. I'm not sure what's better, really, to go and meet as many people as you can, to bomb around the world at a frenzied pace and see everything you can or to sit back and try to do a few things PROPERLY. Make really good friends, settle down, make a nice home for yourself, get a proper career and just be comfortable. People ask about the meaning of life as if they need one singular purpose, one goal to dedicate themselves to, but I don't reckon such a thing exists. Life doesn't have to be justified, it's too unpredictable to direct like that. Always thought myself that the only thing anyone should ever strive for is to find what they really love, what makes them the happiest and just do it.
I guess that's my calling then, if you will. I've got a job now, a little place to call my own, good friends and the drive and means to do most anything now, with a little planning. Perhaps I'll spend the next few years thinking on what makes us tick, writing about why I find human nature so compelling but simultaneously very peculiar. Maybe nobody will ever really read this stuff outside of the few of you who browse these pages on occasion, but that hardly matters. If I've amused anybody, maybe altered someone's perspective on life at all, I'm pretty happy.
I wonder if this thing would have read any differently if I'd been listening to, say, radio shows or trance music as I wrote it. Looks like the slow slushy stuff makes me feel at peace with everything. I guess I'd better listen to speed metal when I finally get around to rigging up the blueprints for my vast robot horde.
That sorta guarantees that I'll never conquer the world, at least not that way. I can't abide speed metal, sometimes.
We're now about an hour away from London. The coffee is but a distant, creamy memory, but at least my tickets have apparently worked. And they've been stamped with pretty stars, too.
Our future
Children are invincible. This is a plain, simple fact. You see them on TV, they can be involved in some quite spectacular crashes on their bikes and swings, but still come out with nothing but a few scratches and a cheesy grin.
Y'know what'd happen if I fell off a bike? Straight down to A&E, half a day off work, people around asking if I wanted to consider sueing the council as part of an accident and injury lawsuit.
I would not trundle off down the road within 2 minutes.
This might be because I'm a bloke.
This intruiges me, though. Children heal pretty quickly, too. Like, REALLY quickly. They root around in the muck and sludge, catch all kinds of diseases and life the hell out of life.
Y'know how cyborgs are always adults? Why is that? If I were to make a race of unstoppable metal men, I wouldn't go for adults. For one thing, partially robot kiddies would be hard to stop on a psychological level. Especially if they tried to hug you. For another, there's the natural invincibility thing.
It's a shame that a lot of us lose the ability to thumb our noses at death (and common sense). I say some, because if it were all of us then we wouldn't have stuntmen and Jade Goody wouldn't have PAs. I wonder if there's a little switch in the back of your mind that gets switched from "that looks fun!" to "but pain is painful...".
But yeah, children: frikkin' HARDCORE. Rock on, little dudes.
Y'know what'd happen if I fell off a bike? Straight down to A&E, half a day off work, people around asking if I wanted to consider sueing the council as part of an accident and injury lawsuit.
I would not trundle off down the road within 2 minutes.
This might be because I'm a bloke.
This intruiges me, though. Children heal pretty quickly, too. Like, REALLY quickly. They root around in the muck and sludge, catch all kinds of diseases and life the hell out of life.
Y'know how cyborgs are always adults? Why is that? If I were to make a race of unstoppable metal men, I wouldn't go for adults. For one thing, partially robot kiddies would be hard to stop on a psychological level. Especially if they tried to hug you. For another, there's the natural invincibility thing.
It's a shame that a lot of us lose the ability to thumb our noses at death (and common sense). I say some, because if it were all of us then we wouldn't have stuntmen and Jade Goody wouldn't have PAs. I wonder if there's a little switch in the back of your mind that gets switched from "that looks fun!" to "but pain is painful...".
But yeah, children: frikkin' HARDCORE. Rock on, little dudes.
Backlog Blog the first
So, I've been writing a little recently. Problem is, I wrote... quite a lot. I've been doing the blog every week, but I haven't been uploading the backlog, I've just been saving them.
The upshot of this is that I have 3 months of material to post. I'd get a pot of coffee.
Contained here is a number of musings written around the new year's period as well as my London travel logs.
-
I have a plan. It is a grand and noble plan, one that cannot, in my eyes, fail.
I'm going to save the world.
This doesn't mean that I've turned my back on the idea of total, unquestioned world domination, but I'm not too happy with the state of the world as it stands. I don't want a world like this. We're in a little trouble, what with the economic crisis and I simply can't ignore that any longer.
And I'm trying to, but the TV just won't let me.
I didn't really believe in the recession at first. I'll admit, I shouldn't really talk about this since I'm from something of a... comparitively privileged background, I suppose. I've got a job supporting an agency that works pretty heavily with the government, I've got a degree, in all honesty I can't see being laid off. I'm not trying to sound like a pompous ass, but I really was planning on ducking my head under the sand until this thing blew over and I thought it was doable, too. Thing is, now that shops are going out of business, places I used to actually patronise, I really can't dodge it.
For some people, the first sign was money getting tight. For me, it was losing Woolies.
But the plan. Oh lord, the plan.
I was watching TV at home this afternoon. I do a lot of that, mostly on account of not having Sky back home, it's rather compelling. An advert came on. Ocean Finance now has its own TV channel.
This GENUINELY scares me. We're largely in this mess because of lending too much, as far as I can gather, so now that there's a channel dedicated to pumping out heartwarming stories about how loans changed a family's life...
They're always the same, too. The family is deep in debt, they take out this magic loan and then for some reason buy a new family car. Or an extension to their home. Somehow that original debt seems to get absorbed by the debt consolidation fairy.
So here's what I propose we do. All of us, and I do mean all of us, apply for a loan. Simultaneously.
Well, not ACTUALLY simultaneously. I don't want to inadvertently launch a DDOS attack against anybody.
The main virtue of these companies, we are told, is that they will lend to anyone regardless of their circumstances or their history. The people on the ads look to have some pretty colourful backgrounds, so I reckon we could pull this off. I consider most of my friends to be fairly trustworthy, credit-wise.
So yeah, we put all these applications in. This will have one of two effects:
- It'll shut the companies down for a while to give them time to see who the serious applicants actually are.
- The companies will honour many, many applications before they notice that something funny is going on. It'll make us all fabulously wealthy.
So suppose that second one happens. Then the loan companies need to find the money from somewhere. This'll either mean that WE have to lend them the money, or it'll completely destabilise the world economy, reducing us to rioting in the streets, anarchic reign of loosely assembled street gangs and general chaos.
And then I'll break out the robots or something. Y'know, try to stand out as a clear leader above the throng and reduce all opposition to a greasy vapour.
Alright, so it's not a perfect plan, but work with me, here. For the glory of BioCorp!
The upshot of this is that I have 3 months of material to post. I'd get a pot of coffee.
Contained here is a number of musings written around the new year's period as well as my London travel logs.
-
I have a plan. It is a grand and noble plan, one that cannot, in my eyes, fail.
I'm going to save the world.
This doesn't mean that I've turned my back on the idea of total, unquestioned world domination, but I'm not too happy with the state of the world as it stands. I don't want a world like this. We're in a little trouble, what with the economic crisis and I simply can't ignore that any longer.
And I'm trying to, but the TV just won't let me.
I didn't really believe in the recession at first. I'll admit, I shouldn't really talk about this since I'm from something of a... comparitively privileged background, I suppose. I've got a job supporting an agency that works pretty heavily with the government, I've got a degree, in all honesty I can't see being laid off. I'm not trying to sound like a pompous ass, but I really was planning on ducking my head under the sand until this thing blew over and I thought it was doable, too. Thing is, now that shops are going out of business, places I used to actually patronise, I really can't dodge it.
For some people, the first sign was money getting tight. For me, it was losing Woolies.
But the plan. Oh lord, the plan.
I was watching TV at home this afternoon. I do a lot of that, mostly on account of not having Sky back home, it's rather compelling. An advert came on. Ocean Finance now has its own TV channel.
This GENUINELY scares me. We're largely in this mess because of lending too much, as far as I can gather, so now that there's a channel dedicated to pumping out heartwarming stories about how loans changed a family's life...
They're always the same, too. The family is deep in debt, they take out this magic loan and then for some reason buy a new family car. Or an extension to their home. Somehow that original debt seems to get absorbed by the debt consolidation fairy.
So here's what I propose we do. All of us, and I do mean all of us, apply for a loan. Simultaneously.
Well, not ACTUALLY simultaneously. I don't want to inadvertently launch a DDOS attack against anybody.
The main virtue of these companies, we are told, is that they will lend to anyone regardless of their circumstances or their history. The people on the ads look to have some pretty colourful backgrounds, so I reckon we could pull this off. I consider most of my friends to be fairly trustworthy, credit-wise.
So yeah, we put all these applications in. This will have one of two effects:
- It'll shut the companies down for a while to give them time to see who the serious applicants actually are.
- The companies will honour many, many applications before they notice that something funny is going on. It'll make us all fabulously wealthy.
So suppose that second one happens. Then the loan companies need to find the money from somewhere. This'll either mean that WE have to lend them the money, or it'll completely destabilise the world economy, reducing us to rioting in the streets, anarchic reign of loosely assembled street gangs and general chaos.
And then I'll break out the robots or something. Y'know, try to stand out as a clear leader above the throng and reduce all opposition to a greasy vapour.
Alright, so it's not a perfect plan, but work with me, here. For the glory of BioCorp!
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
From pollution to evolution
Today, we're going on an adventure. One of the little adventures that make up my daily life. Hopefully this'll be amusing, because now that I think on it, it is sort of funny.
My toilet broke last week. Wouldn't fill at all, I was chucking buckets into the cistern. Awward. However, some nice men came to fix it on Friday morning, which was good, but when I asked how they told me that they had, and I quote, the magic touch. Fine, I approve of magic and... touching... um...
What?
But I did kind of want to know what they did, fearing this might happen again. Sure enough, Friday evening I notice that while my toilet was full, it was also filling constantly at a very slow pace.
At around about this point, I get a phonecall asking if I'd like to come to dinner, which was a very kind offer that I did little justice to by having a small drink and seriously believing I'd become the living embodiment of rock.
Saturday morning tried to freeze me as I wandered to my lonely little car, but I fought back and made it home. The fog was rather pretty on the way back. Stumbling in at 9 in the morning and preparing for a shower, I notice the slight hissing from the toilet.
Well, being a modern man, I'm going to have to learn to fend for myself, aren't I? And I'm a university graduate, after all, so I'm at least a little intelligent, surely something like highly skilled, highly paid labour in which I have no training shouldn't be difficult?
I discovered, that day, that I am no plumber. I should never, ever plumb. I should not, in fact, ever attempt anything more complicated than applying Toilet Duck to my porcelain throne.
Once I'd gone downstairs and turned the water off, stopping the gushing torrent that was spewing forth, I decided it was time to drive home, have a bit of a shout at the motorway and feel thoroughly embarassed.
But now the water's back, I have tea and I can attend to the giant pile of... washing up...
Damn it.
If you're in the mood for something a little more in the style of the normal blog, I seem to have scrawled this while sitting in the Parish last Wednesday. That's a good place for writing in, I think.
-
You get a unique view of the world from behind a desk. Everything's so much more... ordered. More structured. It makes me think about people a little, I suppose.
Animals. Animals had a pretty good plan. Carry on beneficial traits through selective breeding, carry on living a pretty relaxed existence. They build themselves up to be good at eating plants or animals or people or whatever, then they just roll with it. They know what they're going to be doing from birth, there's the plan right there, there's no thought about what their career aspirations are, what their long term goals are. No. There's the next meal and avoiding predators.
But not people.
In many, many ways, civilisation is the best thing that could have happened to us. We've got medicine and writing and Vodaphone. Thing is, it's made us all completely insane. You're an animal and you're hungry. If you're wild, you hunt or forage. Domesticated, you shout at your owner. People, though, we question it:
And I really that hungry?
What am I in the mood to eat?
Can I be bothered to cook?
Do I have enough calories left today?
We question our most base instincts. I don't think we're too far off of managing to get rid of (or at least suppress) instinct altogether. I mean, it's actually sort of doable with a little mental effort. People go on diets, take vows of celibacy, all sorts of stuff and they actually feel stronger for it. They feel more powerful, morally superior, more... alive for having made that effort. It's like humanity lends itself toward masochism.
We've got all this technology and all these little habits that block out those little signals that come from your head. I don't know how good that is, really. I mean, I'm all for self control and maturity, but maybe it's actually good for you to cut loose every once in a while and just... live life in the way your body was built for. Maybe overindulge every once in a while, laugh a little too hard at something that wasn't really that funny, lounge around and stare at the ceiling for the sheer, unadultered hell of it.
I've stopped listening to a lot of my old inhibitions from back in my college days. It's been terribly liberating.
My toilet broke last week. Wouldn't fill at all, I was chucking buckets into the cistern. Awward. However, some nice men came to fix it on Friday morning, which was good, but when I asked how they told me that they had, and I quote, the magic touch. Fine, I approve of magic and... touching... um...
What?
But I did kind of want to know what they did, fearing this might happen again. Sure enough, Friday evening I notice that while my toilet was full, it was also filling constantly at a very slow pace.
At around about this point, I get a phonecall asking if I'd like to come to dinner, which was a very kind offer that I did little justice to by having a small drink and seriously believing I'd become the living embodiment of rock.
Saturday morning tried to freeze me as I wandered to my lonely little car, but I fought back and made it home. The fog was rather pretty on the way back. Stumbling in at 9 in the morning and preparing for a shower, I notice the slight hissing from the toilet.
Well, being a modern man, I'm going to have to learn to fend for myself, aren't I? And I'm a university graduate, after all, so I'm at least a little intelligent, surely something like highly skilled, highly paid labour in which I have no training shouldn't be difficult?
I discovered, that day, that I am no plumber. I should never, ever plumb. I should not, in fact, ever attempt anything more complicated than applying Toilet Duck to my porcelain throne.
Once I'd gone downstairs and turned the water off, stopping the gushing torrent that was spewing forth, I decided it was time to drive home, have a bit of a shout at the motorway and feel thoroughly embarassed.
But now the water's back, I have tea and I can attend to the giant pile of... washing up...
Damn it.
If you're in the mood for something a little more in the style of the normal blog, I seem to have scrawled this while sitting in the Parish last Wednesday. That's a good place for writing in, I think.
-
You get a unique view of the world from behind a desk. Everything's so much more... ordered. More structured. It makes me think about people a little, I suppose.
Animals. Animals had a pretty good plan. Carry on beneficial traits through selective breeding, carry on living a pretty relaxed existence. They build themselves up to be good at eating plants or animals or people or whatever, then they just roll with it. They know what they're going to be doing from birth, there's the plan right there, there's no thought about what their career aspirations are, what their long term goals are. No. There's the next meal and avoiding predators.
But not people.
In many, many ways, civilisation is the best thing that could have happened to us. We've got medicine and writing and Vodaphone. Thing is, it's made us all completely insane. You're an animal and you're hungry. If you're wild, you hunt or forage. Domesticated, you shout at your owner. People, though, we question it:
And I really that hungry?
What am I in the mood to eat?
Can I be bothered to cook?
Do I have enough calories left today?
We question our most base instincts. I don't think we're too far off of managing to get rid of (or at least suppress) instinct altogether. I mean, it's actually sort of doable with a little mental effort. People go on diets, take vows of celibacy, all sorts of stuff and they actually feel stronger for it. They feel more powerful, morally superior, more... alive for having made that effort. It's like humanity lends itself toward masochism.
We've got all this technology and all these little habits that block out those little signals that come from your head. I don't know how good that is, really. I mean, I'm all for self control and maturity, but maybe it's actually good for you to cut loose every once in a while and just... live life in the way your body was built for. Maybe overindulge every once in a while, laugh a little too hard at something that wasn't really that funny, lounge around and stare at the ceiling for the sheer, unadultered hell of it.
I've stopped listening to a lot of my old inhibitions from back in my college days. It's been terribly liberating.
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