| (no subject) |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|11:15 am] |
My parents' garden is absolutely beautiful this month. It was redone by a professional landscaper five or six years ago but this is the first year of its maturity. Moss and grass have started growing through the patios, the little ponds are overhung with bulrushes and loquat, and a mass of raspberry bushes is dripping red fruits over the lawn.
I wish I had my new camera-phone with me, but I still haven't insured it. That's going to the top of my To Do as of now. I wish I had more time this weekend to go out and see the river, but a big pile of revision is leering at me. Exams and organising myself all week this week. I'm off for a coffee and the tube home. |
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| Life imitates satire imitates life |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|11:19 pm] |
In 2008 Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe predicted, with tongue in cheek, the inevitable destination of the celebrity/reality TV genre: ten celebrities living as pigs in a muddy pen for competitive purposes.
This week, complete with fatuous 'what I learned' musings on the BBC News website, this satire became reality TV in My Life As An Animal.
The celebrities aren't present yet - this is still only a hybrid between Countryfile/It Isn't Easy Being Green and I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! - but it is eerily close to Charlie Brooker's prediction. I dare not talk any further lest some TV researcher hack stumbles on this blog and finds further inspiration. |
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| Daily diet |
[Apr. 16th, 2009|08:32 pm] |
Lolo's recent post on her boss's hilariously deluded eating habits reminded me that during December I actually kept a food journal. I was having bad gastric times and wanted to get to the bottom of it all (findings: milk, fried foods and pulses disagree quite forcefully with me). I haven't changed my diet for the last eight months or so; I've been eating, fairly consistently:
Breakfast:
- oat porridge with a spoonful of jam or cornflakes with rice milk
- two pieces of fruit
Morning snack:
- three pieces of toast or three biscuits
- black tea with sugar
Lunch:
- boiled rice, dal (fried lentils, onions, garlic and sometimes peas and chopped carrots & spices), green salad
- occasionally curry (egg, chicken or lamb bhuna - ie fried with lots of oil, garlic, onion & spices), occasionally a fried desert (sort of sweet samosas)
Afternoon snack:
- piece of fruit or three or four biscuits
Dinner:
- pasta, rice or potatoes boiled or roasted
- fish, chicken, or sometimes lamb
- tomato- and mushroom-based sauce, sometimes with carrots, peppers and other veg
- two pieces of fruit
- piece of chocolate
I hate writing these things: they show how much sugar I eat. Never wanna give it up, never wanna let it go. Although actually I did cut it back a lot this month, taking out all the biscuits and sugared tea during the day. As a testament to my good lifestyle, today I ate Cheerios and rice milk, tangerines, matzo pancakes with sugar, sugary almond balls and chocolate - and one full, sugarless meal.
*mewls pathetically*
Speaking of mewling, last night I had the most terrible dream. One of those repeated dreams, it was a nightmare of some kind of global disaster which required me to hide in various bunkers, constantly running from an ever moving threat. Either the atmosphere was sucking away into space or nukes were going off left-right-and-centre or the stars were falling in on Earth. Students of dreaming, what does this all mean? |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|01:52 am] |
My flatmate and I were eating a Chinese takeaway and we came at last to the fortune cookies. Hers read, and I paraphrase a bit, 'Stick with your man'. Mine was more mysterious, promising that happiness would come to me on Wednesday. She asked if I was expecting anything to happen on Wednesday. I didn't think so, so we carried on eating.
After dinner, as I was scraping some leftovers into our new composting box, it suddenly came to me: Wednesday was the day that Hounslow's new, improved recycling regimen began!
"Of course!" I exclaimed, and joyfully told my flatmate of my revelation.
"Wonderful," she deadpanned, and turned back to the washing up. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 7th, 2009|11:58 pm] |
I just saw a Garnier advert for a moisturiser. Halfway through, my ears pricked up as I heard them boasting of the presence in this moisturiser of 'hydro-urea'.
Isn't urea the main non-water component of urine? Is Garnier trying to say that it wants to you to rub urine on your skin? |
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| SNOW DAY!!! |
[Feb. 2nd, 2009|10:00 pm] |
It was so snowy today that Chiswick turned into a gingerbread suburb and little children ate themselves to death on all the marzipan.
It was so snowy today the snow came over the top of my walking boots and froze my calves. The vet tried to resuscitate them but it was no good, so we butchered them and had fresh steak for tea.
It was so snowy today that I didn't even have to go to work.
It was so snowy today that the buses drowned and the trains snapped off their tracks. Only the brave Piccadilly Line had enough vim and pep to get through the cold. London Underground would never have had today's problems if it had invested heavily in Vimto and Pepsi like the MacPherson Report recommended.
It was so snowy today that we made two snowmen in the yard and still had snow to spare. I gave mine a proper face and called him Winston.
It was so snowy today that pigs flew, storks delivered babies and the Hogwarts Express took the wrong line out of King's Cross, winding up in Brussels an hour late. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 26th, 2009|02:42 am] |
I am so not in the mood for writing essays lately. L asked if we could do a really detailed diary for one day of the month, then send it to each other. I promised I'd do one for last Wednesday, as he did, but here I am on Sunday night and I just don't feel like doing it. It feels too much like homework and I don't think I'll ever get round to it. Sorry, L. That said, here's a contradictory few hundred words on my week.
I took to drink again this week. I had a date on Monday night, at which I drank two pints of lager and a brandy. Then there were four glasses of wine on Wednesday with A. And finally five brandies on Friday, whilst out in Shoreditch with workmates. Shoreditch is a very blurry place after five brandies, but before that it was extremely, almost painfully trendy. So very many beautiful little clubs and bars and young people.
After a very stressful return to work, where I had to deal with all the exasperating, hilarious mistakes of my colleagues, I decided this weekend should be quiet and relaxing. Yesterday I deliberately gave myself the day off completely from all responsibility and sat at home, watching TV and snacking.
Today needed a little bit extra to make the weekend feel complete, so I did some light housework and grocery shopping. This afternoon I went with K to see the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, on Piccadilly. I blanched when the woman at the ticket desk told me tickets would cost £12, but inside I realised that the money had been well spent. There were some absolutely fantastic pieces of Byzantine painting, iconography, sculpture and jewellery.
My favourite was the last piece before the end, a painting depicting Orthodox monks climbing a ladder of 30 moral 'steps' to Heaven. All around the ladder, spiky ink-black demons hook and pull weaker monks off the ladder and throw them down towards Hell. At the top of the ladder, St Peter greets a successful monk onto his heavenly cloud with open arms. Against a gold leaf sky, the monks still climbing the ladder have decidedly tense expressions.
After all that iconry we decided we needed a restorative coffee. K dallied too long over his coffee to make a church service at Liverpool Street so we decided on dinner together over in Chinatown.
As we turned off Shaftesbury Avenue, our eyes flew upwards. A red ceiling of Chinese lanterns covered the whole of Chinatown. K threw anti-tourist snobbery to the winds and pulled out his camera. After capturing the scene from both artistic and Facebook perspectives, we selected a little Korean restaurant. Two sets of reasonable food, good prices and excellent service brought our trip to an end.
And now at home is where you find me, one slice of bread and a bunch of grapes fatter (but no wiser). |
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| A formula for procrastination |
[Jan. 5th, 2009|01:07 am] |
If only this article had been written when I was doing my dissertation. I could have spent time reading it instead of doing work. Tsh!
Steel's formula, called the Temporal Motivation Theory, calculates procrastination... It factors the person's expectancy for succeeding at a given task (E) or self-confidence; the value of completing the task (V); its immediacy or availability (Gamma); and the person's sensitivity to delay (D) to come up with the desirability of the task (Utility).
The equation reads: Utility = E x V / (Gamma) x D.
Or, to help me understand it:
Likelihood of starting on a task = (belief that you can complete the task) x (importance of completing the task) / (how urgently the task needs completing) x (how easily you are distracted from the task)
Seeing as you'd have to give arbitrary values to each of those figures in order to test this formula, that's just what I'll do. Here's a couple of scenarios, with each figure given a value of 1-5 (1 meaning 'very low' and 5 meaning 'very high'.
( 1. Completing now an essay of 3,000 words which is due in two months' time, for an undergraduate arts degree. )
( 2. Getting out of bed right now, at 7.15 a.m., on a workday. )
( 3. Going to the hospital to have a stab wound looked at. )
I'm not sure quite what U is meant to mean. As it goes higher, it becomes more likely that you will perform the task immediately?
( Perhaps a few more scenarios: ) |
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| Winter solstice |
[Dec. 23rd, 2008|02:09 am] |
The longest night left an unworldly stain on today. M gave us an extra hour away from work for Christmas week, so I took it off in the morning and came in an hour late. At the train station, at 9.00 in the morning, the sun had only just risen. The air was balmy, the wind was restless, the sky was streaked with white and gold paint. The light on the station and over the roofs of Chiswick was so delicate and warm - it was almost the colour of fine butter.
I didn't need my hat, so I took it off and let the wind do what it would with my hair. I stood near the edge of the platform as a Piccadilly Line train thundered past and let the tremors thrill into my chest. I strolled from one end of the platform to the other and stood, watching where the train tracks bent into the horizon for a train to appear. It didn't matter, really, if one ever came. Just to stand in that delicious light was all I wanted this morning.
But I got to work on time anyway. Why is it that the reliability of trains is inversely proportional to your reliance on them? Feh! |
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| Westfield London |
[Nov. 7th, 2008|12:43 am] |
Had it put to me that I analyse things too much. This got me thinking...
(A joke!)
Went on Saturday to Westfield, the new mall down the road in Shepherd's Bush.( Step inside )
And they said I analyse things too much? |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2008|12:13 am] |
A near-perfect guy mailed me on a dating website.
I know I shouldn't get my hopes up. It's late; I'm feeling lucky because my judgement is all skewed by tiredness; the real chances of anything working out are slim. But the feeling of possibility is so... sexy. |
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| You heard it here first |
[Oct. 16th, 2008|01:12 am] |
Obama's going to win the election.
That aside, hello. Getting online has been difficult recently as I am in a new flat and I am working flat out (boom boom) to pay for it. But I am continuing to think and do things and the like.
I have been following the election on www.fivethirtyeight.com rather obsessively.
I read Terry Pratchett's latest book, Nation. It was rubbish; don't bother with it. Not as bad as Monstrous Regiment, and really quite imaginative in some respects, but it's basically the same old rehashings as the last five or six Discworld novels.
Our flat's appliances and fittings are rebelling against our tyrannical occupation of the property. The locks, the taps, the boiler have all so far gone bad, and I'm becoming suspicious of the sofas.
Getting up five minutes earlier than usual to go to work makes my day really, really good! I get my chores done, get breakfast and get a seat on the train within three stops - wonderful.
Come January, I plan on seeing A, B and C in Berlin. Possibly I will try to hunt down ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) imomus, whose blog has inspired a lust in me for the city over the last several years.
I haven't got into the new series of Heroes yet. I'm getting kind of sick of all the grim whininess of the Petrelli set. We'll see how that pans out.
I don't think I have enough moneys to pay all my honeys at the moment. How can I afford a subscription to The Economist and buy seasons 3 and 4 of The Wire when I am in such dire straits?
And three haikus:
"Spits and spots of rain,"
Bring the Thames to our doorstep.
Sodding weatherman!
Dogs exchange greetings
Between honking ranks of cars:
Civilisation
Rusted iron tracks
Through dreaming pink eaves
White vapour trails above |
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| Waves - a must-see play |
[Sep. 7th, 2008|06:35 pm] |
I went out with C last night to the theatre and it was pretty goshdarned amazing. It was this play called Waves, about a group of six schoolfriends growing up together, except you only hear what they're thinking in their heads, and for the most part they're thinking Virginia Woolf-stylee poetry.
It was done a bit like a live radio show: mostly you could only hear voiceovers and sound effects, with occasional illustrative clips of film projected onto a screen at the back of the stage.
Except except except - they were doing all the sound effects, voices and filming in front of you on stage! And every element was prepared separately and live. So every time they performed a shot of someone stirring their tea, one actor would prepare a table cloth, cups, teaspoons etc, a second would position a camera above the table, and a third would don a pair of shirt sleeves - just enough props and costumery to fill the shot and no more - and do the physical act of stirring on camera, while a fourth actor would chink some metal against crockery by a microphone to fill in the sound effects, a fifth actor would voice the character's train of thought into another microphone, and a sixth actor would play music to accompany them.
Amazing shit. It was a complete education in radio and film production, yet also contemplative and complex in its storyline.
It was called Waves and written by Katie Mitchell, and I totally recommend that you see it. Its last performance in London is on Tuesday at the National Theatre, so you'd need to get tickets on the day to see it there. Otherwise you can see it in Leeds, Salford or Bath over the next month. And do! |
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| Des. res. London |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|09:53 am] |
Right, here is a map of London which I have marked for its desirable, affordable and easily reachable areas - areas which I am considering trying to find a house in, in other words. Purple areas are the best ones for all three criteria; lilac areas are within about 25 minutes' travel time of Tottenham Court Road (site of the well-named Centrepoint building). More information at the Google Maps site; click below for more fun.
If you have any comments about the suitability of any area, please tell and I will be very, very glad to adjust.
My thanks,
Your friendly neighbourhood cartographer. |
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| Funeral March for Queen Mary |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|12:13 am] |
A reminder mostly to myself: I discovered the title to a great piece of synthesised classical music. I heard it on a TV programme a while back and was desperately hunting for it, thinking it was the theme to an '80s sci-fi film. Thanks to my brother, I found out it is 'Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary II' by Henry Purcell, the intro to A Clockwork Orange.
Classsssiiiiiiiic:
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| Night out |
[Jun. 20th, 2008|01:47 am] |
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in vino tmi |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 15th, 2008|05:00 pm] |
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God, cooking is such an effort. I already made pancakes today. Do I really have to make two more meals? Oy oy-oy oy-oy. |
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| Dear Boris |
[May. 26th, 2008|04:22 am] |
I'm back in London. I was surprised to find myself seated in First Class on the train home today. Surprised but pleased as there was a comfy chair, a table all to myself and free tea and biscuits. What more could an Englishman want? Except perhaps his empire back...
Boris, watch out, I'm coming to London today (it is today again, isn't it, and not tomorrow?). Shopping and strolling are likely to be pursued. I think I should stop by City Hall and gawk a bit at our new surrealist mayor. Maybe this could be combined with a shop-and-stroll through Borough.
Hmmm... |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 1st, 2008|02:58 pm] |
Hehe, one of the articles I was bitching about yesterday was actually an April Fool's! Giggety giggety giggety.
In other news: boo! |
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