An Exercise in Irrelevance

Got the second Hamish MacBeth DVD today. Bit irritated to find it short one episode; ho hum. Watched Wee Jock’s Lament; excellent episode. It mixes humour and death, killing and repentance, and throws in ghost sub-plot. In lesser hands, it could have been cheesy on a stick; but it’s so lightly done that it worked; the ghost appearances really freaked me out, the pain of the loss touched me, and the laying of Wee Jock’s stone had me in tears. Did the BBC really never repeat these?

Originally published on my old blog site.

I’d totally forgotten about the upcoming John MacLaughlin gig; in got tickets on the day of the gig. Glad I did. He was playing with Shakti — mellow, acoustic (well except for half the instruments), Indian.

If you’d only heard him recorded, you might feel that a John MacLaughlin gig is to be impressed, rather than entertained. The speed, fluency and virtuosity of the performance is astounding; but on record, you wonder whether there is more. This music needs performance, though; live, the flurry of notes blends, the music Star breathes; it’s hypnotic, engrossing, compelling and, frankly, exhausting. I came out with knees hardly working.

I was slightly irritated by the formality of the setting of the music, though: the introductions were Hollywood-gushing; a 2 hour set with no interval was bladder-bursting.

I got the metro home; bought a ticket which I didn’t need as the SAGE tickets count; took till two thirds of the way across the river toward Gateshead, before we realised we were heading in the wrong direction. Senility approachs

Originally published on my old blog site.

I’ve been trying to get the University to fill in a copyright disclaimer for the Free Software Foundation. This was painful at the Manchester and looks like it’s going to be similarly so here. So far no one has any clue about who I should even email; I’m working on the business directorate who are supposed to be in charge of IP. So far, they are ignoring my email; soon, I am going to go and sit on their door in person, till I get a reply.

This doesn’t bode well though. When I tried to get a login for submit.ac.uk, it took about a week and a paper chase of 6 people before I finally got to the one who knew.

Originally published on my old blog site.

Yes, today, I have officially become middle aged; I have reached that time in life where I have had to buy my second can of WD40. For some people, WD40 is a passing thing; mechanics get through tons of the stuff. For most of us, though, it’s that essentially accessory that you can’t do with out, but rarely need. Losing the straw can be a highly traumatic experience, which can leave you scared for minutes afterwards. Your first independent can is a rite of passage, a move to adulthood.

It’s, perhaps, a sobering reflection that at the current rate of usage, I will own two more cans before I leave this mortal coil, or have no further use for the stuff.

Still, bike’s running better, so mustn’t grumble, eh?

Originally published on my old blog site.

"The public sector does not generate wealth for UK plc, only spends the wealth the the PRIVATE sector makes for the country. We the tax payer funds the public sector pensions and therefore I feel that the pensions playing field should be level for all."

Today, UNISON were on strike over changes to their pension rights. The comment above came from the BBC news website. It’s an odd point of view; the private sector magically creates wealth, the public sector spends it. So, someone on tax exempt business lunches is creating wealth — at least if they are private sector. I, on the other hand, when researching new knowledge that enables biologists to do new things, am just a sponger, because I work in the public sector.

At least now I understand the PFI: while the NHS would previously have built hospitals using public sector workers, thereby consuming wealth, now they use private sector workers, thereby creating wealth; this is quite remarkable, given that they are doing the same work, paid from the same source, and achieving the same end. Whoever came up that idea must have been very clever indeed.

Originally published on my old blog site.

I’m a huge fan of Unison, the file synchroniser. I use it religiously; half of my system is based around it. It has a few quirks, however, and today I fell into one of them. I’m sure I’ve been here before, but I couldn’t remember the cause.

Essentially, it gives a cryptic message about the transferred file disappearing. The basic reason is this; Unison can’t cope with a path been included for synchronisiation twice; it twices to synch the file twice, and each time messes with the other.

Originally published on my old blog site.