Torture!

see more Engrish
Boggle, what on earth do they mean?

Doing it wrong

This mug appeals to my sense of humour, some other interesting ones on that site..

Teaser Tuesday - 16 June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Qaaf averted her eyes from Alif's disgusting habit. "They found him unconscious at the site"

From Gerald Weinberg's The Aremac Project - science fiction, software and terrorism...

Three shires head

Three shires head
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Walked from Wildboarclough to Three Shires Head yesterday afternoon, warm, sunny and very quiet and arrived at this isolated spot.

An orchestral evening out

Out last night to hear the last Wilmslow Symphony Orchestra's last concert of the season (and the first we'd been to this year!)
Started with the Nicolai Merry Wives of Windsor overture. I used to hear this more often on the radio, I guess it was more popular a few years ago. The programme notes writer had the bit between his teeth at German opera between Weber and Wagner being ignored in the UK and I was thinking as they played that you could see where Wagner's Rienzi came from - maybe this was due the the boom-ching-ching of the cymbals and drum - (though not all!) but I see that this Nicolai performed in 1849 came well before Rienzi - but maybe the same milieu?
Then the Brahms Double Concerto - much enjoyed though I thought the violin section was having ensemble problems, again those cello solos I had logged as very much in Elgar's mind.
After the interval came the Martinů 6th Symphony - I used to have a tape of this and often listened to it, but not for many years and my memory was that it was a non-too-difficult work - wasn't how it came over last night - widespread incomprehension in the audience around me, so either my memory is faulty, my ears were more accepting then or they made a right hash of it?! Again worries about the strings in terms of ensemble and force though the 1st violin solo came over well. But the glassy (presumably) Copland inspired wide open space string sounds just didn't carry.
They finished with 3 delightful Dvorak Slavonic dances - though I do prefer the piano duet originals!
Seats and platform have changed since we last attended - I guess we blame the now non existent Macclesfield council - or is it East Cheshire striking early - don't think they've changed for the better!

100 books

Via Dave Mock on Facebook:

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?"

I've augmented the commenting slightly with these instructions:

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen x
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien x+
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee x+
6. The Bible x+
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell x
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman x
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien x
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks x
    
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger x
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger x
20. Middlemarch- George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens *
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy x
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy -
    Douglas Adams x
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh *
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky x
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck x
29. Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll x
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth
    Grahame x
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy x
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens x
33. Chronicles of Narnia -CS Lewis x
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion- Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe -CS Lewis x
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini x
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden x (mostly)
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne x
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell x
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown x
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez x
44. A Prayerfor Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White -Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood x
49. Lord of theFlies - William Golding x
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan *
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert x
    
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram
    Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huley x
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon x*
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men -John Steinbeck x
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely
    Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary
    - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie *
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens x
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes FromA Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome x
78. Germinal - Emile Zola x
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt x
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of theDay - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *


92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Eupery x
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks *
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams x
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three
    Musketeers - Aleandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare x
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I make that 41 out of the 100.
I must look at the css for this blogger style it removes numbers from ordered html lists, which (IMHO) is just perverse!

Mutterings - 14 June

This week's word associations from Unconscious Mutterings

1. Nudity :: flagrant (or maybe flagrante)
2. Domestic :: bliss
3. Burp :: Pardon!
4. Baby :: Milk
5. Dateline :: International
6. Retract :: apologise
7. Suppose :: Moses
8. Surreal :: Magritte
9. Infidelity :: dishonesty
10. Token :: male

Duck Islands

Lookin back through the blog - attempting to find an old post, I see I linked to this page on duck islands around a year ago. Was it a scoop? - though I did borrow the link from Andrew Brown..

Covet the t-shirt!

A picture from this morning's Inclusive Church meeting in Macclesfield. A short meeting but thanks to Clare and Clive's enabling (and other people's interjections!!) lots to think about.

Currently, the Church's role seems to be to mete out bits of punishment to people.

Sorry about the fuzzy photo!

very Breton

very Breton
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

This memorial in the churchyard of St Lawrence, Over Peover (in the grounds of Peover Hall) always seems very Breton to me. Looking at the base, it is in memory of one of the Mainwaring family and erected in the early 20th Century. If it wasn't in such an obscure spot it would, no doubt have had some crying Romish!

Peover Hall grounds

leaving Peover Hall grounds
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Thursday's walk was to Peover Hall well, through the grounds, a little later than we've been in previous years, so there weren't as many flowers out as last year (for example here).

Teaser Tuesday - 9 June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

In the theological scheme to which Rowan felt increasingly drawn, liberals tended to err through saying too little, while many conservatives overlooked the dangers of saying too much. The most credible stance was based on a balance between two sorts of awareness - that religious truth (as opposed to the truth revealed in a test tube) can never be simple or slick, because it lies at a depth where things are often murky; but the burrowing process must be engaged in with unflagging commitment nonetheless.

Rupert Shortt's Rowan's Rule a biography (though the cover says 'the biography') of Rowan Williams. I nearly foundered in the preface(!), but it is worth persisting - at least so far. As promised last week, another study - maybe I'm prejudging it - of compromise.

deconstruction - i

..during..
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Well the shed has gone and the cat looks suitably disgusted at the removal of her shelter. More brick to go as some of that which remains is missing any foundation! At least the rain is holding off.

Before..

Before..
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

We'll have been in this house for 25 years next Spring and the garden has remained substantially the same as when we moved in. Well if you ignore the subtraction of rose bushes and a clematis covered tree stump. However, this week, radical things are afoot! (not being done by me - I hasten to add)

Wishful thinking?

I'm sure I heard the speaker in the service this morning say:

Jesus sent his disciples out to [a] mission in Paris

He thinks he said 'pairs', so maybe it was wishful thinking on my part?

Mutterings - 7 June

This week's word associations from Unconscious Mutterings are:

1. Hockey :: sticks (jolly)
2. Twirling :: give us a ....
3. Montreal :: Jesus of
4. Better :: Best
5. New :: car!
6. Rally :: car! (recover)
7. Stanley :: knife (Baxter)
8. USB :: port
9. Scouted :: Powell
10. Cough :: wheeze

spooky, we bought a new (to us) car yesterday and, in the last 12 hours I asthmatic and wheezing like mad - so some of the above came naturally.

It's only the truth

The most distasteful aspect of Silvio Berlusconi's behaviour is not that he is a chauvinist buffoon, nor is it that he cavorts with women more than 50 years younger than himself, abusing his position to offer them jobs as models, personal assistants or even, absurdly, candidates for the European Parliament. What is most shocking is the utter contempt with which he treats the Italian public.

for some reason Berlusconi didn't like this Times leader, here quoted from the Guardian

..and for tomorrow

hat tip to Bishop Alan

Ending like this

This picture seems to ring a political bell today!

Dropping off a generator

How not to upgrade a sub-station. Off the Northern news last night.

Great heights

Just got the itinerary for the summer holiday walks today where we'll be passing the highest wooden bridge in Europe. The route says that if you don't suffer from vertigo you should go to the middle and look down into the gorge. If you really don't suffer from vertigo there's always the Spanish Camino del Rey walk:

I posted a link to a film of this walk here some time ago, but that link appears to have gone, so the above is a different film of the same route - so you can be scared differently. The original film is - I see - also on you tube - in the related at the end of this!

Teaser Tuesday - 2 June

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Mother had all but stopped playing the piano. Her take on the general situation boiled down to the following: 'I have my doubts.'

Günter Grass Peeling the Onion, a story of groping growing(!) up under the Third Reich and its compromises. Only just started it but it is clearly going to be a disturbing read.
Last night I finished Dava Sobel's 'Galileo's Daughter' another book about compromise, here's another teaser!

Here are some cakes I made a few days ago, hoping to give them to you when you came to bid us adieu, I see that this will not happen quite as soon as I feared, and so I want you to have them before they turn hard.

A letter from the daughter to her father before a summons to Rome.
I have another biography waiting which I guess will also be a study in compromise - but that will be for next week!

Every company should have one

see more Engrish

Some Sunday Night Music

about as far from the previous blog entry as it is possible to go?
Hans Werner Henze: Ein Kleines Potpourri, dall'Opera "Boulevard Solitude"
Abstract and spare and I marvel at it - not to everyone's taste though. Hat tip to Opera Chic The poster of that video, Wellesz, has some interesting uploads.

How to humiliate your dog

Get it to wear a Hello Kitty dog hip dysplasia orthopedic brace. Arrgh!! There seems to be the market for the strangest branded things.

Mutterings - 31 May

This week's word associations from Unconscious Mutterings are:

1. Nursery :: Rhymes
2. Side effect :: medical (computing comes a close second!)
3. Heart to heart :: conversation
4. Try :: Catch
5. Hog :: Wart
6. Symptom :: medical
7. Collide :: billiards
8. Fury :: rage
9. Incorporated :: company
10. Summer :: Time (chorus, Porgy....)

Felix!

If you were in Cambridge in the early 70's and involved in Chapel or Musical circles you're didn't need the surname:

This is Felix Watts whose obituary I blogged about a couple of years ago. Here is a picture of the Dominican in full combat gear - with many, many thanks to Tony Nixon for unearthing this picture.
If you haven't read the obituary extract go and do so!

Take aim

This week's cat picture:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Another cafe to cross off the list

Obviously the message is - don't become too eminent a scientist - Matthew Norman the Guardian's restaurant critic eats at Time & Space at the Royal Institution and reviews it in today's paper. 1/10:

By any other catering standard operated throughout time and space - and that includes the convict ship USS Scurvy orbiting Emetic Majora in the Intergalactic Famine Wars of the 39th century - it is an abomination of a very rare order indeed.

They seem to be finding the bad ones this year!

Inclusive Church Meeting in Macclesfield

.. some local news, foreigners can go to the Inclusive Church website and see if there's a meeting nearer them.
Sat 13th June - Church of the Resurrection, Upton Priory Macclesfield, speakers Clare Herbert and Clive Larsen. I'm intending to be there!

Henbury Hall

Henbury Hall
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Another Thursday, another evening walk, this time to Henbury Hall, not often open to the public. Beautiful gardens, the walks sequence is here, and I will upload more from tonight at the weekend!

(Later) Maybe I should have added that Henbury is the residence of the de Ferranti's. I've now added more photos and added a tag so that this link just picks out last night's photos.

Teaser Tuesday - 26 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

He heard the sound of footsteps in the shadows and stopped breathing for a few moments. It had to be Tita, her distinctive fragrance wafted towards him on the breeze, a mixture of jasmine and cooking odours that was hers alone.

Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate, that fragment sums up the book very well,desire and cooking! You might go off the book if you don't like pork!

I don't think I have a big enough wall

..for this poster of the history of Unix. Looks very nice though!

From the garden yesterday

Summer weekends and the laburnum.

Mutterings - 24 May

This weeks word associations from Unconscious mutterings

1. Lisa :: Mona (I went completely blank here)
2. Hope :: Faith (..of good)
3. Irene :: Chester
4. Tony :: Morris
5. Anna :: a-Boleyn
6. Dolly :: Hello
7. Laura :: Ashley
8. Debbie :: Smithers
9. Wilson :: Harold
10. Paula :: Radcliffe

Ohhh, numbers to make sure I can copy and paste! I found this tricky, maybe because I often go blank on names of people I know!

A little bit of Eastern European culture

thanks to b3ta

A crying shame

(not reall!) A French morning - seeing (again) The Class (Entre Les Murs). This is the trailer - unfortunately no subtitles - but it's worth watching - there are trailers with subtitles on youtube but with less good extracts!

It is very much a reflection on communication, the different ways the adults and 14 year-olds (from particular cultures) interpret various words - shame, respect,'petasse' - divided by a - more of less common - language. Definitely worth re-watching!

Across the fields

Across the fields
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Got to my first summer walk on Thursday - just as well as I was leading it! The intention was to walk from Alderley Edge to Harehill and return. We decided to skip the last bit over the fields and take a short cut back to a drink at the Wizard - the Wizard now also functions as a pub as well s a restaurant and a very nice end of the walk it made! Photos of the walks so far are here

Teaser Tuesday - 19 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

As he walked back top his office which issued ration cards to the population of their town, he looked about him vaguely but with hunger, his eyes resting not on the things on which people's eyes normally rest - signboards, the traffic, the number of an approaching bus - but on such things normally considered nondescript and unimportant, as the paving stones on which their feet momentarily pressed, the length of a wire in a railing at the side of the road, a pattern of grime on the window pane of a disused print press... Amongst such things his eyes roved and hunted and, when he was seated at his desk in the office, his eyes continued to slide about - that was Sheila's phrase later: 'slide about' - in a musing calculating way, over the surface of the crowded desk, about the corners of the room, even across the ceiling.

Anita Desai's 'Games at Twilight' a collection of short stories. I was finding it uninvolving, but I'm gradually being drawn in, maybe I wasn't giving it enough concentration - look at those sentence lengths!

Mutterings - 17 May

Word associations from Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Vex :: annoy
2. Relapse :: sick-bed
3. Twinkle :: little star
4. Crawls :: 'umility
5. Optimistic moment :: of truth
6. Cage :: 4'33"
7. Superwoman :: Linda wossername
8. Personal :: space
9. Vapor :: steam (tries to ignore American spelling)
10. Grocery store :: treasure trove

Seem to have been missing two items until a few moments ago, I've no idea why I did a copy and paste and the two missing are in the middle!? Can I blame firefox?

Sunday lunch approaches

Sunday lunch approaches
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

I was in Sussex last weekend visiting my mother and the local game was volunteering to be caught. We were unadventurous and went to the Squire and Horse in Bury again - very nice though!

if only they could hear themselves

From One News Now

Christians of all traditions are called to transform the culture -- not conform to it," he says in reference to Romans 12:2. "But the evangelical left repeats arguments from The New York Times' editorial page and seems to think such cultural conformity will win applause. History shows that accommodationist Christians are ultimately irrelevant Christians.

Can I mantion right-wing Christian views on Ronald Reagan, George Bush and as for Rush Limbaugh! The right needs to look at itself before criticising others for 'cultural conformity' and accommodationism!

'otpot

Blackpool tourist board strikes! But where are the 'ippets?

Might be of interest?!

Clearly a closely related review to Couperin's 3re Ordre
I assume it is triggering on Volume 3...I'm playing (Couperin's!) Les Rozeaux at the Alderley Edge Festival on Saturday and was looking some something written on the work but google is not being helpful!
I'm also playing the Poulenc 3rd Novelette - with the Couperin two almost barcarolle'ish works - I should be putting a Faure Barcarolle in for another class! I'm currently reading (on the train to and from work) the Richard Burton book on Poulenc very good on the religious, sexual background of what made the man.

Round and round

Some lol-cattery

Teaser Tuesday - 12 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Bit of cheating today as this isn't a very random selection!

Learning the Queen's English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had.

From Chris Cleave's 'the other hand' a review is here as well as lots of links on his website. The book is strongly recommended (by me!)
I wanted to place that quote alongside this one from Salley Vickers 'Instances of the Number 3' which I finished today:

Something sharp attacked her toe. Frances looked down to see a tortoise nibbling at her feet. 'Hey!'
'It's your red nail varnish - thinks you're a tomato!

'the other hand' is our current book group book, I'm looking forward to the discussion!

Industrial Archeology

I first had a job in computing back in 1970 - back then it was punched cards as a means of creating programs. The old cards tended to be thrown away - no recycling then - and i saved some of them to use for record cards and I passed some of them to my parents for use as shopping lists or recipe cards. On a visit to my mother's last weekend I spotted one:

I think this is a line of S1 - the language used to design the ICL 2900 series of computers

I = CURRPINST(PROCESS)<<8>>24

no lower case then, and the << operators are shift left and shift-right.
There's an interesting (pdf) article by Martin Campbell-Kelly on the history of mainframe development at ICL here
Maybe the recipe on the other side of the card was more interesting?

Mutterings a little late!

Unconscious Mutterings - bit late this week, I've been away.

1. Again :: late
2. Shower :: curtain
3. Flirting :: eyes
4. Moving on :: job change
5. Rachel :: Leah
6. Chips :: Mr
7. Texting :: Tedium
8. Feel better :: for it
9. Cashmere :: sweater
10. Sucked :: under

On the hills

young lamb
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

We had a trip to WIldboarclough last weekend with lunch at the Crag and then a shorter than intended walk over the hills. Bluebells are just coming out and then there were some lambs. Here's one with Shutlingsloe in the background.

Good news on the SSG/SPCK front

Dave Walker who was the subject of a gagging order has posted on the SPCK saga. The Brewer's bookshop is also being evicted, at last, from Durham Cathedral. The wheels of justice may turn very slowly, but they are turning!

The Engineers guide to cat yodelling

and annoying..

via The Wardman Wire

Kestrel Webcam

Webcam of a kestrel nest - at Muttenz near Basel. Thanks to Ursi. The inline pictures don't work for me with Firefox (and Linux) but the buttons beneath are fine!
Here - slightly closer to home are some peregrines nesting on Derby Cathedral with recorded sequences from youTube and live links at the top left..oh go on - here's one of the sequences

recorded on Bank holiday weekend, as you can hear from the background jazz band.
There are also some peregrines on Manchester town hall (even closer) but, at the moment, I can't find a link to the webcam.

Teaser Tuesday - 5 May

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The air was at first steamy as a bathroom with the door closed; then the earth dried out and it began to feel like another climate had come to visit. Seattle reacted predictably. It called in sick to work, took off its shoes and sweaters and hit the glorious outdoors with sunglasses and fast tanning lotion.

Barbara Wilson 'Murder in the Collective - politics (mostly of the left) and crime.
I havered over including that extra sentence but decided that otherwise it was too much of a cliffhanger!

Biology revision

Remember basic biology... Helpless laughter!

Upgrading Mandriva to 2009.1

(Beware, this is fairly hardcore geekery, but do read the link to the Mandriva release!)
Since my last upgrade a newer version of Mandriva has been released - last week - and this time I decided to be less conservative and do an early upgrade - I normally wait at least a month for the bugs to be ironed out!
Again I tried it on another machine before upgrading the email server - so I found out that it would be good to remove kdelibs-common

urpme kdelibs-common

which gets rid of any remaining traces of kde3, before starting the upgrade - where I largely followed this procedure adding a --noclean to the urpmi command to prevent deletion of the downloaded files so that I could use them to upgrade machine two. Note, those are the instructions for a 2008 to 2009 upgrade, but the procedure is the same.
Once complete I had two issues, googling solved them, but let me quote them here, with links to the helpful pages:

• Initially the X server would not start and I had to reboot into safe mode as I couldn't switch to a dumb virtual terminal. I disabled the nvidia driver and ignored that for the moment
• Once I got to the login screen I found that neither the mouse nor the keyboard worked! Fortunately I had another machine to websearch and found this, so these two commands and a reboot (not really necessary but just to check:

  chkconfig --del messagebus
  chkconfig --add messagebus

  gets the messagebus running at the correct point in the boot process.
• I then tried getting the nvidia graphics card working - with the default driver various fancy graphics apps fail to run. I'd been getting the following:

  
  (II) NVIDIA(0): Initialized GART.
  
  Backtrace:
  0: /etc/X11/X(xorg_backtrace+0x37) [0x8135f97]
  1: /etc/X11/X(xf86SigHandler+0x56) [0x80cca26]
  2: [0xffffe400]
  3: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//nvidia_drv.so [0xb7074c48]
  
  Fatal server error:
  Caught signal 11. Server aborting

  
  Again I found a bug report here. Adding 'nopat' to the options in /boot/grub/menu.lst also solved the problem for me

Mutterings - 3 May

This week's free association set of words from Unconscious mutterings

1. Avoid :: swerve
2. Castle :: Howard (closely followed by Dracula - that might be a UK political joke!)
3. Episode :: Dr Who
4. Limited :: company
5. Nail polish :: red
6. Dip :: bathe
7. Share :: open-handed
8. Damage :: Irons (Jeremy)
9. Improper :: conduct
10. Handle :: pan

Somehow I appeared to lose two words (from the middle of the list) when doing a copy/paste?! I think everything is there now.

That 'one' piece of software I need

Wise words from tante:

But let us look at the people claiming that they need Photoshop on Linux and they'd switch. From my experience those people often don't really use the power of Photoshop, it's just the tool they use for rather simple tasks. Why? Cause it's free. When "a friend" sets a new computer up for someone they'll more often than not slap all kinds of pirated software on there, just cause Windows doesn't really come with a lot of software: You will get a pirated MS Office, pirated Photoshop and all kinds of other "expensive" software. Why? Because when something is expensive, it's also "good". It's a very common perception that a software that you have to pay 300 Euro for is better than one that's free. Not cause you know why or cause you need some feature, it's just cause those programs feel like they are worth something.

Having spent some time talking to someone who 'really needed' multiple copies of Microsoft project this week and free alternatives just weren't the same because they were free. Go and read the whole article!

John Sentanu at St Michaels's

introduction
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The Archbishop of York paid a visit to St Michael's Macclesfield this afternoon, I took a break to hear him and take a few
pictures

How not to apply computer techniques

.. particularly Microsoft ones. Hat tip to MaggiDawn

curtains for Sid

curtains for Sid
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Sid enjoying the replaced curtains.

Teaser Tuesday - 28 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

This is our current book group selection:

As he trudged through the new snow cover, tuning out the low grumbling of the Leitwolf's engine, Raclin glanced up at the rock buttresses above him. Not a nice way to go, he decided, swept off a mountain or buried in an avalanche.

From Jack Drummond's Avalanche I'm keen on climbing and skiing - these days as a spectator - so I shall be keeping an educated eye on this one!

the rockery

the rockery
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Our garden rockery coming into life after a week's sunshine and the recent rain.

Coming EU election

Thanks to this profiler it looks as if my voting mind is made up (assuming you can trust the profiler!)
Hat tip to Elizaphanian

Preferring to live in darkness

David Keen reports that the Brewers owners of the ex-SPCK bookshops are still skulking around trying to hide things - getting google to remove a blog post containing questions they'd rather not answer. Unfortunately google have caved in to these playground bullies.

Mutterings - 26 April

And this week's Unconscious Muttering word associations:

1. Soul :: friend
2. Fold :: origami
3. Breakup :: tragedy
4. Will :: Shakespeare
5. Fond :: affection
6. Powers :: Super
7. Ho-hum :: Hi-Ho
8. Hustle :: Propel
9. Avenue :: trees/France
10. Tower :: Mordor/Twin

The apostrophe as a lifestyle

Some time ago I put my name on one of the American Family Association petitions - just to register my opposition to something they were proposing, that act signed me up to their newsletter, I try to skip over the parts of content I don't like but what I find interesting is the 'recurrent' 'use' of 'a' particular item of typography. Mostly it's around 'gay' particularly with reference to 'marriage', 'bisexual' is another good one. What sparked this post was this which has as a headline (you may need to scroll down at the link if you really want to see it):

Dems caught in 'lie' during hate crimes debate

either it is a lie or it isn't, don't these folk believe it in plain speaking? Or is the hope just to fling around accusations and hope some mud sticks!

One with no apostrophes which I did like

Take the pledge not to vote for any politician who votes to raise taxes or increase spending

I would guess that rules most of them out at some time or other!

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty

Went to the Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope party at the BBC in Manchester.
We had some debate as to whether the cake was going to have 9.04 candles (picture in this flickr tag set)
I had a bizarre experience trying to run Jaunty on the laptop during the evening. Tony had a bootable USB stick with Jaunty which he had just demonstrated. I tried it on mine, it got to the Ubuntu splash screen and just sat there never getting to the booting progress bar, lots of flashing the wireless and disk lights but no reading of the USB at all (except initially). Eventually I got some cryptic error message (sorry can't remember!) tried a couple of things but then tried again and got the same issue. I then tried the Jaunty cd they had around and that wouldn't boot either!?
I then tried booting off the hard disk (Ubuntu Intrepid) and that also failed with some weird gdm error - I use this version on a daily basis, so it normally works. Laptop battery then died (it is not lasting well) so when I found a mains socket I think I then tried a Jaunty DVD which someone else had used which didn't work either, then I managed to boot my hard disk Ubuntu - much to my relief! - tried again with the USB and the same failure, refusing to read the USB stick.
On the way home on the train the cd which didn't work at the BBC put me into Ubuntu Jaunty with no problems - bizarre - I'll blame too many laptops too much wireless network or something!
Jaunty has a very impressive review here and I will be installing it on the laptop - but not that one - I hope a new machine will be delivered early next week!

La Mort et L'Amour

Just had a very pleasant meal at the local college catering training department (yes, this does link with the subject!) with a poetry evening and the Macclesfield and Alderley Francophiles(facebook group). Ended with recitations of poetry, I was tempted to read Peguy's Heureux ceux qui sont mort - but decided we'd still be there at closing time and so I settled for Desnos final poem to his wife:

J’ai rêvé tellement fort de toi,
J’ai tellement marché, tellement parlé,
Tellement aimé ton ombre,
Qu’il ne me reste plus rien de toi.

Il me reste d’être l’ombre parmi les ombres
D’être cent fois plus ombre que l’ombre
D’être l’ombre qui viendra et reviendra dans ta vie ensoleillée

Flying penguins

.. via Slashdot

About sums it up

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
I'm sure things will improve!

I've plunged

The blog roll is missing a bit at the moment, but things will gradually get back to normal! Have patience!

Teaser Tuesday - 21 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

When they had gone, the helicopters rose from their waiting grounds along the highway. Trabert looked up as the sky was filled with these insane machines. Yet in the contours of his wife's thighs, in the dune-filled eyes of Karen Novotny, he saw the assuaged time of the astronauts, the serene face of the president's widow.

Provoked into re-reading and posting this teaser by the death of J G Ballard yesterday, from his The Atrocity Exhibition, strong meat! not for the timid! As I quoted yesterday:

You need to be well hard.

J G Ballard

Following the news of J G Ballard's death, let me post a few disorganised thoughts:
I first read Ballard back in the 60's I think introduced through an early evening programme on The Third Programme on contemporary SF writing, at the time I was familiar with Bradbury (and English master's enthousiasm) so it wasn't a big leap. Drowned World seemed to resonate with my end of teen years, I read his short stories many times over the years - recently acquiring the two volumes. For a long time I was convinced that I'd nicked part of a plot idea of his for my Cambridge entrance exam - but the device I remember isn't in any of his works, I think now it was a self invented extension inspired by the claustrophobia of his writing.
I've taken longer to get to his later works - some are still unread, maybe I don't want to meet another Ballard style which I might not like!
I'm puzzled that searching this weblog for Ballard gives no hits when I know I've posted at least two items which refer to him, it looks as if Ballard doesn't match Ballard's I think this is a bug, but this post will ensure at least on hit!
From a summary of his work posted last year linked by the Guardian bookblog tribute

A warning: Don't start with Crash or The Atrocity Exhibition, unless you're feeling well hard. They will do serious damage to your head. (Either you will throw the book across the room, or the book will throw you across the room.) Work up to them.(Yes, I know some of you ARE well hard. Fair enough, OK, go for it.)

- he has lots of links to the novels (from Amazon).
If you only know the Ballard of The Empire of the Sun and afterwards, do read The Drowned World, The Crystal World with the early short stories - I will try to reciprocate!

Summer approaches

Summer
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Next door's cat enjoys the sun whilst his housemate tries to ignore the exhibitionism.

Mutterings - 19 April

This week's word associations from Unconscious mutterings

1. Lease :: hold
2. Dead :: wrong
3. Removed :: stolen
4. Broke :: stoney
5. Lips :: sealed
6. Flight :: of the Heron
7. Three hours :: at the Cross
8. Give :: 'n'take
9. Technical :: paper
10. Hurry :: rush

Terragen 2

Back in Spring last year I posted a render produced with a beta of terragen 2 and mentioned that it had taken around 30 hours to produce. Planetside are now nearly at the release point - folks like me who have pre-paid can download - release is waiting for the website and maybe a few other things. I'm running it using Linux and wine and something has definitely speeded up - maybe the betas had some debugging code, maybe it is better at spotting dual cores (though that fix appeared to go in an earlier beta), I've just repeated that render - well same base file, slightly different camera position and it now takes just over 7 hours! I didn't really notice much of a slow down either.

Four times the speed is certainly appreciated!

Harehill

Harehill
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The azaleas are out at Harehill, we walked over from Alderley Edge this afternoon. See here - the first few - for other pictures from the walk

Rachmaninov (lots of)

We went to the Bridgewater Hall on Thursday to hear an all Rachmaninov concert. I wanted mainly to hear the 3rd concerto - never heard it at a live concert (obviously excluding broadcasts) - though I seem to remember the college rehearsal orchestra may have performed it - with Nick Redding in spite of his piano teacher issuing an interdict - but it was a long time ago.
This week's concert consisted of the Vocalise, 3rd concerto and 3rd symphony, a little nervous whether I could handle so much romanticism! Cristian Mandeal, Nikolai Demidenko and the Halle.
No reviews on the internet so far that I've found - let me give a few impressions. Not sure whether it's where we were sitting - side circle - but much of the 1st movement of the concerto descended, as far as the piano part was concerned, into a high-class mush, with at one point a mis-hit A(?) emerging from the gloom. By the time he got to the cadenza, the balance problems - or whatever it was - seemed to have been sorted and the rest of the work was rather more involving - even to the bronchial audience participation which seemed to kick in at that point!
Demidenko played an encore I couldn't identify, Chopin arranged by Rachmaninov? - if it was I couldn't identify the original, lots of hand crossing and much feux-follet style fireworks. Kelvin suggested the Polka de [VW]R but no it wasn't that.
I don't know the 3rd symphony well wasn't too taken my it, lots of SR trademarks recycled, slavic sighing and rather more effect than (I thought) substance. Looks like we'll be walking near the Villa Senar where this was written this summer, I'll try to walk by! Interesting that the programme note highlighted similarities between the finale and that of the Walton 1st - both of which were written in the 30's and in both cases the composer had a block before he was able to complete the finale.
Before the concert, some hurried rearrangement, as our normal pre-concert restaurant appears to have disappeared! We'd arranged to meet outside so a quick move to another eating location!

Design your own motherboards

We're waiting for some laptops to be built for us at work. While we wait, thanks to B3TA comes this.

Lunch!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

How indeed!

'How is it that in the 2000 years since Christ came, we have managed to make generations of gay and lesbian people believe that they are not welcome in our churches?'

said from the platform at Spring Harvest. Go to the Changing Attitude Blog to read the rest. Pebbles beginning to move.

Teaser Tuesday - 14 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Grateful for this temporary relief Bridget took down one of her glasses that she had brought back from Limoges and filled it to the brim; the white milk glowed green behind the thick glass. She poured herself coffee and sat down opposite the boy across the kitchen table. 'I am Mrs Hansome,' she said.

couldn't avoid adding that final sentence!
Salley Vickers, Instances of the Number 3 - reviewed here by Penelope Lively.
Also can't resist adding the classic quote from last weeks teaser Zazie dans le métro:

- Qu'est-ce que c'est un hormosessuel? demanda Zazie
- C'est un homme qui met des bloudjinnzes, dit doucement Marceline.
- Tu me racontes des blagues, dit Zazie

I hope I don't need to translate - best read aloud with conviction!

They always do this in Belgium

well it beats waiting for the train.
I think the auditions office is next to the booking office! Hat tip to uk.rec.humour

An award for promoting cross-cultural understanding?

James Holden has a web page, enabling you to improve the current British transport police campaign.

Hat tip to the Wardman wire, who does a lot better than me in his slogans!

Mutterings - 12 April

This weeks free associations from Unconscious mutterings

1. Animal :: Vegetable
2. Temporary :: /tmp
3. Moan :: grumble
4. Rapid :: flow
5. That’s for me to say :: intolerance
6. City :: subway
7. Bumper :: to bumper
8. Eclipse :: solar
9. Problematic :: challenge
10. If? :: then (I was tempted to respond ':')

A mature debate?

From Blake Morrison on the Edlington and Bulger cases:

In the UK you have to reach 16 legally to have sex or marry, 17 to drive a car, and 18 to drink in a pub, serve on a jury, or vote in a general election. Yet at 10 you can be found guilty of murder or rape.

When are we going to have a mature debate on age, responsibility and crime, it is far easier to demonise young criminals and lock them away...

Well it may be more exciting than preparing tomorrow's talk

over the top
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The local URC minister Marion Tugwood abseiled from the Church tower this morning to raise money. More pictures of the descent on my flickr pages - and on the church's website (in time)

Update - the official pictures are here

Rain coming

Rain coming
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

A Good Friday walk around Bakewell/Chatsworth - around 9 miles in rather wet weather. Here the rain approaches, rest of the photos are here. Ended with a long pull up the hill from Edensor back to Bakewell. Then a restful meal at the Cock and Pullet in Sheldon.

Doty on poetry and silence

Mark Doty on really listening to poetry

At the Zendo, I felt that I was placing the poem into the space in front of me, where it sort of hung for a moment as it was being taken into a deeply receptive listening.

Go and read the whole post!
I need to look up Fanny Howe too!

This week

Rowan Williams thoughts on Easter

Teaser Tuesday - 7 April

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

- Vous êtes un vieux salaud, oui.
- Absolument pas, déclara le type avec une véhémence qui étonna Zazie.

I think I'd better attempt a translation:

'You're a real dirty old man'
'Certainly not, said the guy with a force which astonished Zazie.

As I've blogged here, I'm reading Queneau's 'Zazie dans le métro' - 50 years old this year. I'm currantly finding spotting the buns a little difficult. Knowing the film well has been a great help though!

Connecting arcs

Bond Street
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Spotted these patterns on the way to church on Sunday. The vertical line is the sun but some form of diffraction pattern caused by that building having two grilles has caused that arc of light - I didn't take a very, very long exposure!
And then there's the vapour trails criss-crossing it.

Berlusconi has a sense of humour!

I am tempted to direct and strong actions against the media because of their disinformation about me

Go to boing boing to read the rest of Silvio's latest tantrum.

Blink!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

With gratitude to Niles for hilighting these Dr Who tribute felines.

Mutterings - 5 Apr

This week's free associations from Unconscious Mutterings

1. Log :: cabin
2. Plaything :: toy
3. Broom :: sweep
4. Heels :: dig in your
5. Smoke in :: your eyes
6. Guests :: celebration
7. Attraction :: magnet
8. Shiny:: kde
9. Risked :: gambled
10. Velvet :: underground (-teen rabbit)

Oops

From today's GuardianInsert some meaningless verbiage here to finish off the weblog posting nicely.

Wonderful anarchaic fun

Spent an evening (re-) watching Malle/Queneau's Zazie dans le métro, the book was published 50 years ago this year and the film followed it a year later. Zazie is well into bus-pass territory.
Dangerous, edgy, non-PC, fun, with, in the film, Philippe Noiret (a breakthrough role for him) and Catherine Demongeot (her first and practically only role) giving it verve and off-the wall lunacy. Vittorio Caprioli does a wonderful prophecy of Berlusconi in the final scene...
I don't think the Pythons and the Goodies would have happened without the powerful influence of the film.
I've not read the Queneau book but it is downstairs and I think the challenge will be worth it!
Don't watch the clip if you're scared of heights.

It's a bit late

but I did enjoy it when I got around to reading the email advertising the Swiss keeping their mountains clean

Towards a reopening

News from the Scargill movement site that there will be a day of commemoration to celebrate the completion of the sale this(!) Saturday at the House. I'm considering at least when I recover from the present state of exhaustion, I'm also preaching the next day.
It should be a good day though!

It's that day

Guardian switches to Twitter#