I’ve worked out why I don’t blog daily. Because if I do, it turns into a simple pedestrian record of daily drear, rather than the set of thought-provoking, incisive observations that I fail to record at other times.
Ok so I’ve proven my utter ineptitude at a daily blog. This is related to the reason I only have certain types of houseplants in the home - I’ve killed all the ones that require any consistency in their care. Saturday was spent in a zombified state until about 4pm, by which time it was far too late to get to the bank or post office. A few hours on the life laundry then into town for Lossie & Gareth’s part of the Dance Week celebrations: salsa in an open-sided marquee in the town centre. By late evening there was no shortage of fascinated drunkards, some of whom joined in. The guys invariably got kicked off by the bouncers while the girls were left to dance round their handbags. Unfair!
After the dancing the best hen party I’ve ever seen came out of the nearby Mana restaurant and swarmed into the street. There must’ve been over 20 of them, all in their early twenties, and wearing hula skirts, flip flops and flowers in their hair. They somehow managed to carry off being utterly pizzled without losing (too much of) their ladylike poise. Two guys on motorbikes were descended upon. They obligingly revved their engines and got a chorus of “woo!” from the gels. Then the girls discovered the marquee and annexed it. First a couple of them, then a dozen, then what seemed like 60 of them… no there must’ve been less than 35… we left them chanting
“we are the huuuu-la girls
we wear our haaaair in curls
la la la BOOM sha-la
la la la BOOM sha-la
la la la BOOM sha-la
la la la BOOM sha-la
la la la BOOM sha-la
la la la BOOM sha-la…”
I think I got the words right…
City Of York Council
Parking Office
9 St. Leonards Place
YORK
YO1 7ET
18/06/04
Dear Sir or Madam,
I received PCN YC32023836 on Tuesday having parked my car, a convertible, in the marked bays and placed a visitor permit in the windscreen. I can only surmise that the visitor permit was removed or blew out of the car during that particularly blustery day. In fact I had had a discussion about this with a parking attendant in the previous few days and shown them one of the many permits littering the parcel shelf. The reason for the need of a visitor permit was that I had sold my previous car and inadvertently left the Resident permit in it, and was awaiting its return by the car’s new owner. Ironically, it arrived that evening.
I hope you agree that this, in combination with the £84 annual charge and the occasional fine due to lack of available parking in legitimate spaces (a situation which is thankfully under review and remedial action) is driving the cost of parking far above what might be considered reasonable for a resident household keeping only one vehicle at the property. I believe I took all reasonable steps to comply with the regulations and that this notice came about through what you might term an act of God. If you still consider a penalty is appropriate please contact me and I will pay it.
Faithfully,
Steve Carter
I keep meaning to do my blog at the end of the day, but ending up forgetting. So this is yesterday’s blog and I still owe ya today’s.
I started the dreaded life laundry last night with Kate’s help. I was a little spiky and defensive at first, but when I decided to throw away a rucksack but cut off all the buckles and fasteners and save them in a jar, and she wholeheartedly agreed with this decision, I decided THIS was the kind of taskmaster I could happily work under. Only really sorted the alcove in the lounge, but that has lifted my mood somewhat. I have to stay on this though before it goes off the boil, as otherwise I’ll end up with a half-sorted life, and four big piles (keep, sell, charity, throw) in the middle of the lounge floor. Those who have seen my lounge floor will understand that the middle of the floor is the same as all of the floor, so this could become a long term impediment to levels of joy around the home.
A Big Hammer. Judicious use of which, and some grease, has loosened the handbrake off the cinquecento thus saving probably over £100 of what the garage want to charge for the MOT-dictated repairs.
Tonight I was going to have a go at doing a “life laundry” but it’s too scary to face alone. Thus I’ll be missing “list it free on ebay day” today. Ho hum. But I DID prune the bonsai and trim the thyme, clean all the windows and get some way towards having my accounts on my computer. What a dull blog. I’m sure something interesting happened today, but durned if I can remember it now…
Those of you who’ve been either curious or patient enough to be following my anguished languishings over the subject of a trip to america will be happy to know I finally worked out which way was up. Every time I pulled at it, other factors came with it, until finally I think I found its root. The root was:
“Seven months is not long enough to justify a full uprooting”
So therefore #1 is to make sure my life in dear old Blighty continues in the direction I intended, and Americaland should be regarded as a series of diverting jaunts with added work. This will make the work more challenging but at the same time it will force a better focus since every visit will be “OK, what can we do do make sure you’re productive next time you go back home”.
From trip #1 I’ve discovered that (a) insurance ppl don’t like a car / house being left alone for more than 30 days and (b) royal mail’s forwarding service is bloody appaling. So this says #2 4-5 weeks away, one week back should be workable and #3 deal with post at home.
Other plans are paid for thus I’ll need compensation if they want me for those periods. I really want this project to succeed but at the same time it’s not worth the destruction of Kate’s and my relationship, or the loss of my place in York or the investment I’ve made into the Spitfire.
So I’ve offered 2 weeks jun-jul then 3 weeks aug then most of oct nov dec jan feb with a return home every few weeks. Let’s see what they think.
Yesterday round about close of business I got invited back to Americaland. They’re waiting for me to let them know what I think I can manage out of tomorrow to the end of Feb. The response goes something like:
Yay!
I’ll get to see the grand canyon, death valley, monument valley, petrified forest, meteor craters, dinosaur footprints, yosemite, goblin valley utah.
Boo!
I’m booked for the whole of September in Australia and a week in July in France. This isn’t a problem in terms of time off, but the aus trip will end up being preposterous: about 36 hours’ flying the long way round most of the world.
Yay!
Living is great over there
Boo!
The cost of property / rent is immense. So I’d better get assistance.
What do I do with my stuff? I have the cinquecento - better sell that I guess - the spitfire - I’d rather not sell it but where do I put it? I could take it with, which might be more cost effective than renting a car over there, but highly unlikely given that I’d still have to rent a car for longer journeys. If I mothball it - where? Plus, that’s a complex job the like of which I am very good at cocking up. Perhaps I should sell the spitty? But I just (January) spent £500 on exhaust, carpets and tonneau, which I was JUST getting round to fitting after the last US trip.
The last trip was 10 weeks and Sam very kindly visited my place to check on it and water the plants. I couldn’t ask her to do that for 6 months or more.
There’s a Kate on the scene, who is invited but probably wouldn’t be allowed to work there. So I’d be asking her to give up allotment, home and job (possibly in that order) to hang out all day watching 72 channels of crap and making crafts to sell (possibly illegally) on the sunday craft market.
Though I want to own a place, the rental place I have in york is great value for now and I don’t really want to lose it. That said the landlord might decide to move in a housemate any time so it’s not a given.
I have a roomful of junk which needs to be jettisoned or stored. I need to do a “life laundry” ASAP. Especially since ebay are apparently having free listing day this thursday.
The “new opportunities” offered by ETAS are passing me by and I’m missing out on all the training / indoctrination into the corporate culture. This sounds like so much horsefeathers but I really do need to get my salary caught up with avarages. I keep selling myself low in job interviews which works great but then I fail to negotiate later. So doing all this gadding about the world ought to count for some interpretation of “commitment” but I don’t have that much faith in our new highly proceduralised management engine to notice and reward that. If in the meantime I’ve lost chances to learn the rules of the new game, and to take true opportunities, then it’s going to end up costing me big style in the long run.
When it’s gobbledygook. This month I am mostly reading about diagnostic systems standards with a view to implementing one. There seemed to be lots of UML in the document. UML is a “language” which is represented in diagrams rather than words, but which nevertheless has defined meaning attached to the various arrows boxes and labels. So I begged and borrowed books on UML and now I “parlay voo” UML to some degree. Enough to know that the complex and subtle points this document seeks to make are lost in a wash of shoddy diagrams. Here I try to give a flavour of the quality of their UML by way of a description of a car in English.
“A car is a certain type of vehicle. It has four whales, a diver and a fool tank. Fool goes into the tank and the engine runs. Exhaust goes in the exhaust pipe and the engine runs. When the engine breaks the diver press the breaks. When the diver press the pedal apart from the breaks, the car goes. The four whales fills with air through the blow-holes and are made of blubber treads. Blubber treads is worn when the pedal no longer breaks. A passenger is a type of seat, which is related to a diver by attachment to the bottom.”
Thankfully this document specifies diagnostic equipment, not the software that runs our cars.
I’ve now had a few requests to enable comments in this blog so here’s another attempt. I don’t know why it didn’t work the first time I tried but… blah anyway I needed to post to make it work so here you go.
I had occasion to show remorse this morning. I normally get into work around 10a.m. whereas today it was much closer to 9. The traffic is very different at the ‘rush hour’ than the usual time of my commute. On the way into work is an interesting new layout: A dual carriageway with a roundabout on it. They recently changed the layout so that although the exit to the roundabout is also a dual carriageway, the left lane of it is now a filter into the petrol station so there is a brief bottleneck for traffic wishing to continue down the dual carriageway. I have developed a habit for this obstacle: on the first bit of dual carriageway I will pass lots of traffic, then I’ll check the roundabout way ahead (it’s nice and visible) and simply not slow down for it. The car in the left lane invariably does, and I’m usually leaving the roundabout at about the time it is entering it. Occasionally there will be a car coming and I’ll have to wait. In that case I need to lap the roundabout to get back into the flow of traffic but on balance it’s worth it.
That’s at the 10a.m. slot. At 9a.m. the traffic is very much more dense, and to cut a long story short, I ended up slightly cutting up a colleague on his motorbike. OOPS.
Of course I apologised at the first opportunity and he was very gallant about it all. But that got me to thinking about the nature of apology. There are a few dimensions to saying sorry: A politician will “Express Regret” which is tantamount to saying “It’s a pity about that” - it says you’d rather it didn’t happen again, but does not admit any blame. An ex of mine would issue a justification rather than an apology - “… and anyway it would’ve been alright if YOU hadn’t blah blah” trying to foist blame elsewhere. Children will “say sorry” because they are being blackmailed. It often says nothing more than “I want to get on with playing and you seem to want me to go through this formality first”.
The person receiving the apology nearly always wants one thing, however: the feeling that the transgressor knows what he/she did wrong and will try to amend his/her ways - that he/she repents. There are a couple of obstacles to this kind of genuine heartfelt apology: (1) it’s hard to admit guilt to yourself and (2) sometimes it’s foolish to admit guilt to others, like in the politician’s case. A politician can’t afford to let guilt stick or the mob will stick a wedge in there and bay for resignation etc.
This is also true in car accidents. You insurer probably forbids you from saying sorry in a car accident. This is a great pity because it makes it harder to diffuse the emotions that run through such a situation, and anyay it’s a non-sequitur that saying sorry admits guilt: If you said you were sorry someone’s gran had died, you’d hardly be hauled up for murder. The car accident is a special case because blame is costly and will have to be decided: I guess the trick here is to express sympathy without giving an opening for blame to adhere.
For me, when I am guilty I try always to ackowledge it to myself, even if the situation prevents me from admitting it to others. But to genuinely feel sympathy and regret, and to repent if applicable, adds so much to an apology. Except with the guy from Tesco.
The out-of-town Tesco near to me had one-way arrows all over the car park aisles, alternating except for the end two which were both the same way. Having headed down one of them and spied a space in the adjacent aisle, I rounded the end and nipped in the end against the arrow. As I was parking up I spied a security guy walking with that peculiar gait reserved for police constables and security people who are about to talk to a suspect - I believe it’s called “proceeding”. As I was finishing up my manuoevre I realised he was proceeding to speak to me. A quick check of my situation. What authority do the signs have? Er it’s not the public highway… What authority does HE have? None unless I do something stupid like assault him. What’s the most he can hope for? An apology. I wound down the window.
“You do realise you were going the wrong way just then?”
“Sorry.” I said, not showing a shred of remorse.
“You went the wrong way and…”
“Sorry” I interrupted and gave him a look that dared him to try again.
He went away.