Nostalgia

Spending time with my music collection has taken me back to times past, evoking a curious mixture of emotion.

Today was the first snow of winter. This photo taken from my kitchen window.

Pod person

I'm one of them. After being infinitely proud of not having an iPod - my trusty Sony Discman providing me with the only musical pleasure I thought I needed - it's happened. He Who Plays Warcraft, in the guise of Santa, presented me with an iPod for Christmas. An impossibly small black nano. I'm a convert, I can't wait to make it my own. Merry Christmas.

Irreconcilable differences

Gay marriages, or Civil Partnerships, became legal in England today, and subsequently, Elton John got married.

It got me thinking about divorce rates and I wondered if homosexual divorce rates would increase as rapidly as heterosexual divorce rates. Civil Partnerships are ended by dissolution orders, not divorce, but the result is the same: the end of a legal relationship.

As is my wont, I did a little bit of research on how easy it is to get a quickie divorce. Pretty easy, it seems. For £25.99 you can get a DIY Divorce. For those who are status conscious, the services are available in Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. Why should you use their services? Why, because they've handled 30,000 divorces since 2000. Interested? You can download a Divorce Demo. I kid you not.

Adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion - these are a few of the "grounds" you can choose from. I have my very own reason which I cannot seem to find on any of the websites: World Of Warcraft.

Hmm, I might think about petitioning.

Ring-a-Ding Ding

I went to the Savoy Theatre to see The Rat Pack the other night. I know you're thinking they're dead, aren't they? and you're right. Whoever played the parts of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jnr. did so very well.

Now, I love the theatre, but I prefer a proper musical - like with a storyline. People standing around singing is not usually my thing, but I stuck it out. (One of our party actually said "this is not my thing" and left halfway).

It was surprisingly good. The dialogue was excellent, transcripted from actual shows in Las Vegas. The singing was good too. Unexpectedly, I knew all of the songs.

Watching reruns

Today is the first day of my much deserved holiday. I'll not be back in the office until the New Year. How wonderful that sounds. It won't work out that way of course. There will be emails and phone calls, there always are. I expect them, nay, I welcome them. One can never really turn off. If I did, I think I'd be back at square one, another first day at work.

"I'm sorry, you are...?" I'd say, knowing I recognised the face but not quite being able to place it.
"Huh? Are you nuts, I'm Kelly. Your boss?" My boss would say with a worried look.
"Are you asking me, or are you actually my boss?"
"I'm actually your boss. Remember me? I'm the one who pays you."
"Ah yes, it's coming back to me now."

On my days off, I always watch morning TV. It's rerun heaven. A double bill of Will & Grace (love); yet another double bill of Friends (you can't beat that) and a good solid Frasier. That is what I intend to do every single day of my holiday. My TV morning begins at 8.00am and my real life morning begins at 10.30am. It's going to be FAB.

Born under a wandering star

I have spent a great deal of my life dreaming of, and encouraging, change. In my teens, feeling dissatisfied and restless, I would move the furniture around in my bedroom, at least every two weeks, just to experience the change I seem to constantly crave (no, not al la KD).

When my perpetual wanderlust whispers sweet nothings to me, some days I hear them more clearly than others, and I might go away for a long weekend. It helps, at least until the next bout.

So, when today I started to feel like I need a change, and I was pondering the merits of living in yet another country (I've lived in 3), I wasn't too shaken up. Par for the course, I thought, at this time of year. By this time of year, I mean my birthday. It's a big one, and dammit, it deserves big dreams.

Christiania, Copenhagen

Christiania, also known as Freetown Christiania, is a neighbourhood with its own rules, independent of the Danish government. It's a hippy commune of sorts. Christiania was started in an abandoned army barracks in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1971. The government has attempted, without success, to remove the squatters, and is not sympathetic to its existence as soft drugs have always been part of the plan. (The main drag is known as Pusher Street).

Although I found the Christiania experience quite disturbing, I had to laugh (and take a photo) when I saw this message. It's really about bending the rules, just a little bit. Like a STOP sign saying PAUSE AND THEN GO.

I just want to buy a melon

I pretty sure I've never had any Malibu, but I adore the TV ads.

There are times when I feel exactly like that: all I want to do is buy a melon and the melon stand owner is either too clueless or too enthusiastic to understand that all I want is a melon.

I love the versatility of that statement. It can apply to so many situations.

SRY PLZ 4GV ME

This is a retraction of sorts. Ref: Savvy?

Having thought more about this issue I have with text messaging, I feel it's necessary to review and update my stance on it. It concerns me more when anyone habitually writes and speaks as if they are using a mobile phone. I heard a story about a woman in someone's office who says LOL instead of laughing. Fucking annoying. I do think that if I don't keep taking handfuls of Valium I could get rather annoyed that no one seems to be too bothered that we have a generation of people who think it's cool to speak and spell poorly. Oh God, I sound so uptight. I'm not really. L8R.

GAP ad

I was taken in today by the idea of Christmas in winter. Wandering around Covent Garden I felt a warm glow sneaking up on me. The tree was up, green and broad in the square, with its star seated regally atop its branches. The shops were lit up with their fairly lights sparkling in the twilight. Chestnusts were a-roasting, wine was a-flowing. Cold air making my eyes water, warm air making my cheekbones ache. Wrapping my scarf around me snugly and grinning fondly, I felt like I was in a GAP ad. Love all that.

Fishism: An Ode

Today I put years of Ally McBeal watching to good use. As a defendant at an employment tribunal hearing, I took the stand, I cross-examined (and was cross-examined) and I prepared a (very) brief summation (I'm believe I'm right, I believe you're wrong). It wasn't glamourous and it wasn't witty. It helps if you are prepared, and more importantly that you are right. I was. The claimant said some hurtful things, however, we won. Bygones.

Red Red Wine

Apparently all dark alcoholic beverages contain large quantities of something called congeners. That sounds harmless doesn't it? Sounds like an instruction to place our hands on the hips of the person in front of us and start meandering around the room with gusto, swinging our own hips to the tune of whatever is playing. I suppose the two are not worlds apart: the imbibing of one undoubtedly sets off a course of events that leads the other.

If that weren't enough, enter the acetaldehydes. Toxic. Suck on a car exhaust while bathing in embalming fluid kind of toxic. The acetaldehydes mess with your brain, and also increase the risk of contracting cirrhosis of the liver, multiple forms of cancer, and alcoholism.

Well, I'm glad my wasted day has an official name. Sounds more scientific than the more socially recognisable hangover which seems far too crass after a night of drinking quality Beaujolais.

All The Queen's Men (and Women)

Every Tuesday and Thursday the Queen's Life Guard, a service provided by the Cavalry Mounted Regiment, trots down our road. At least I think that's who they are. Twenty men (and women) on horses, dragging cannons behind them, stopping traffic.

Even though it's not official - it's exercise for the horses - it's still so fabulously ceremonial, and it reminds me, every time, why I live in London.

The other great thing about the horses (I ignore the poo in the street) is that if I am still at home when I hear them clip clopping past, I know that I'd better leave for work or I'll be late.

Where else in the world can the bi-weekly exercise of the Queen's horse guard be used as an alarm clock? I love London. Eat your heart out NY, NY (though I still would).

Not saying what I mean

I have been spending some stolen time on my novel (see Novel Plan).

On the face of it, a 500 word reduction may not be viewed as progress, however I am quietly confident that those 500 words will be made up elsewhere as the story becomes more sophisticated. Yes, sophisticated.

By sophisticated, I of course mean sex. More specifically, the one and only sex scene. Only one is relevant to the story. Nothing gratuitous about this novel.

Writing this particular scene, however, is proving to be a challenge. I painstakingly review all the euphemisms I know for every part of the body, and 'the act' itself (are you beginning to see my problem?) and when I finally choose a word that is, shall we say, more descriptive than any other, I blush furiously. How does Jackie Collins do it?

Being an avid reader, I do actually know all the words that could be used, having read countless love stories in my time. Actually writing them down into a story of my creation is quite daunting. It's like I'm 15 again writing secretly in my diary, all the while terrified that someone will read it. What will people think of me?

As the whole point of writing a novel is that people will read it, I recognise that I need to overcome, or at least come to terms with, this very weird self-imposed impasse.

It's either:

Mills & Boon-style, a somewhat damp squib effect, however my composure remains intact, or

Non-euphamistic sex (with rude words), but with the whatwillpeoplethinkofme? concern intact.

I know which way this needs to go, so I'm putting my caveat in right now: whatever it is my characters say or do is their business, not mine!


(If you too suffer from a fondness for euphemisms, this book might excite you: How Not To Say What You Mean)

Yugen. Profoundly sublime.

My word of the day came from a surprising source: today's Metro.

I can't say how often someone has expressed amazement over the number of different words the Inuit have for 'snow', pick another language, please. The Metro was no different, and so by the time I got to the bit about the snow, yawn, my interest in the article was winding down, my appreciation of its originality diminishing quickly. Just as my eyes were flicking away, I was drawn back in...

Yugen. It's more than a word: it is a principle, a philosophy. In short, it is described as the beauty of suggestion. Yugen is the response to a sensibility beyond the range of words: it values the power to evoke, rather that the ability to state directly.

The word derives from the sign [yu], meaning deep, dark, clouded, barely visible and [gen], a term originally describing the deep, dark, calm colour of the universe, with reference to the taoistic conception of truth.

Dude, that's deep.

Naming Game

After my rant about linguistic coherence (see Savvy?), I did a bite-size portion of research about how new words become accepted.

I found the following question: What processes can explain how very large populations are able to converge on the use of a particular word or grammatical construction without global coordination?

Now, before I continue, know that this is excerpted and edited from a research paper (credits supplied below) so unless you are interested in words, you may find this a tad tedious.

(Hence 'cool' becomes 'book' per the fabulous Stephen Fry Qi)

The Naming Game is played by a population of agents trying to bootstrap a common vocabulary for a certain number of individual objects present in their environment, so that one agent can draw the attention of another one to an object, e.g. to obtain it or converse further about it.

Each player is characterized by his inventory, two players are picked at random and one of them plays as speaker and the other as hearer.

Their interaction obeys the following rules:
Speaker selects object -- Speaker retrieves word from inventory, or, if inventory empty, invents new word -- Speaker transmits selected word to hearer -- If hearer has the word in inventory, the interaction is successful, both players keep only the winning word, deleting all others -- If hearer does not have the word, the interaction fails and the hearer updates inventory by adding an association between new word and object.


Then there are a few assumptions, some really nifty equations, S-shaped curves and a passing celebratory reference to Zipf's law. (You've made it this far, don't give up on me now!)

Ain't linguistics book?


Credits: Baronchelli et al.
Sharp Transition towards Shared Vocabularies in Multi-Agent Systems

Savvy?

I'm talking about comprehension not Captain Jack Sparrow.

At what age is it acceptable to start ignoring the changes in language that comes with technology? Is it ever acceptable or should we just shut up and embrace it? Another language is emerging, made up almost entirely of letters and emoticons. I have the dubious honour of being listed in the MSN messenger contacts of an 11-year old (not mine). Her messaging technique is utterly infuriating. Conversations with her leave me feeling annoyed, and fucking old. I'm only 29.

(Speak of the devil, she's just popped up to say "Danny iz so sxc.")

Novel plan

Amidst the panic and uncertainty surrounding the desperate cramming of knowledge into my ever-swelling brain in preparation for my exams, which are now upon me, I have been harboring a stealthy desire to revisit my novel.

Yes, my novel. It's hardly the great British novel, but I will continue to pursue the dream of Man Bookers and other such false idols. I wrote it two years ago whilst either unemployed (voluntarily) or semi-employed (again, voluntarily). It poured out of me and I finished it in 7 weeks. I had just read a fabulous 'chicklit' novel that had me in tears of hysterical stomach-cramping laughter, page after page. I had such a good time reading it, I wanted to write one too. So I did.

This is the part where I gloss over the fact that I sent it out to 3 literary agents and had it returned. 3 times. I've kept the rejection letters to frame, just in case (ref Man Booker dream).

So in between revision, meals and the rest of my life, I sneak in a re-read and make some edits: chunks here, words there. It's heady.

Here's to idolatry.

NY, NY

Blues and greys.

My learned friend

I sat in the back row of a hearing at an employment tribunal yesterday, trying to appear inconspicuous. Before you ask, observe was all I was there to do. In a room the size of my lounge it wasn't that easy to blend in unnoticed. Every nostril flare and eyebrow flicker of each of the 3 wise men up front was clearly visible.

The thing that I thoroughly enjoyed was the legal eagle representatives who take themselves ever so seriously.

Definition: legal eagle noun: 1. successful, young, bright, dynamic lawyer

I have assumed they are all of those things.

It's fabulous the way they call each other 'my learned friend', and almost always enveloped in a tone of implicit derision and suppressed wit - very worthy of a TV drama.

"It appears to me that my learned friend is attempting trial by ambush."

Priceless.

The man for the job

There is something indescribably attractive about a man who is good at his job. Although indescribably doesn't sound like a proper word, I assure you that it is.

It's the kind of quality that, if removed, that same man would be rendered nondescript. That's not to say that this can be applied indiscriminately to all men who score well on their performance evaluations.

There does seems to be something else I have yet to define, which transforms someone from being nondescript to sexy, if - and this is the key - if the undefined something and the job expertise are present at the same time. At least in my experience. It sounds complicated but it's not really. In practice.

Having declared that theory, I actually am not in the habit of assessing men in this way, however sometimes it does occur to me in a blinding flash.

Association

I love song lyrics.

Sometimes I can listen to a song at least 20 times and it will be no more than an enjoyable tune to which I can mime the words.

Then one day, like today, I'll be sitting on the train home, listening on my Sony Discman – no, I don't have an iPod, not in any colour, no iPod – and suddenly the words will take on a particular meaning. Whatever is on my mind will dictate which words become instantly significant to me at any given time.

So what is it that made me feel sad and guilty, though I have not done anything (in particular) to arouse either emotion directly? Whatever is on my mind, probably shouldn't be. Or maybe I should address it.

Interview dilemma

Today I interviewed someone for a position and he mentioned that he had a blog. Then, surprisingly, he offered to give me the address. That's a first, but I was instantly curious. It's a good technique, to offer up something that could give an impression either way and not knowing which. Although I probably wouldn't have pursued it had I not enjoyed the interview. I was intrigued!

I had a look. Didn't know what to expect: something fun and creative definitely...what I did not expect to see was a posting by him about the interview, and a greeting, "Hello Alannah." I giggled. So, "Hello Peter!"

Oporto, Portugal

Povoa de Varzim is an old fishing village on the Costa Verde in northern Portugal. It's been developed into a beach resort. Awesome weather, but the sand is a bit gritty under the toes.

Porto on the River Douro, taken from the Vila Nova de Gaia side where the port lodges are situated.

Exams: taking or writing?

Yesterday a colleague of mine laughed out loud when I mentioned that I was to write exams at the end of the month.

"Write an exam!" he scoffed. " You don't say 'write an exam', you say 'take an exam'."
"Huh?"
"You write the answers, sure, but you take the exam."

Really? Unless this is absolutely the only correct way to say it, I'm not sure I care.

Katrina Raging ©

Cars up the highways and beyond, tail lights winking goodbye
The Mother in me urged them away from my path
Your towns, streets, houses would be mercifully empty
I am a woman with a power, so awesome –
predictable, but not controllable

Sweeping across the sea, I travelled overland
New Orleans: people, people everywhere!
Rows of yellow: stationary buses: your people could not leave!
Lives, lives lost!
Nature’s shoulders shrug with my sorrow: I am what I am
My rage grows. Your people!
Some more important than others?
No water, no food – survival is rewarded with fire power
Shoot to kill! Shoot to kill?

People: a slow second to policy -
My power is awesome and devastating
predictable but not controllable –
My chaos will be re-ordered: rebuilt and rejuvenated
Will yours?