New Job-itis

My Mrs has a theory, I usually roll my eyes at her theories but this one might have legs - New jobs bring illness. I started a new job/contract last Tuesday at this weekend I’ve got a nasty coldy/fluey thing (ive tried to ramp it up to Meningitis/ME, but I’m only being allowed to call it a “slight flu”).

The theory goes that people get ill on their first week at a new job because they are exposed to a range of new germs around a new office. Or at least, that’s one explanation to of the phenomena … a phenomena I’m not yet accepting, I must say.

Any one else experienced/heard of this?

I’m originally from

A very subtle moment occurred in my life this morning, so subtle that it passed me by. I met a new person in my new job and upon hearing my accent he asked where I was from. My automatic answer was ‘Bristol’, then followed by ‘but originally from Belfast’. I think the moment when an ex-pat starts saying the phrase ‘…originally from…’ is a moment of transition from long term visitor to resident. This status has crept up on me.

Women arn’t up to being world leaders

BBC Newsnight are running a weekly feature visiting various families in a little Virginian town called Culpepper. It will follow their views and opinion on the run-up to November’s US Elections. 

It’s not the most interesting thing in the world, I must be honest but one thing did strike me. One of the ladies, a democrat, was asked if she would vote for Hillary Clinton. She replied that she probably wouldn’t because she thinks that it’s a job that requires a man, simple as that. She continued that there are just some jobs and decisions that she would rather see a man making.

It’s important to understand that this woman wasn’t a weak and submissive bonnet wearing 50s throwback, she was a smart professional go-getter. On further investigation they found this view to be not unrepresentative. I was very surprised, but then it hit me… they never had Mrs Thatcher. I just can’t imagine even the most misogynistic Briton or even European saying those things and the reason is surely Thatcher. It’s a whorey old cliché, but the best thing she ever did for women was becoming PM and then being a war-mongering tough-talking union-bashing battle-axe. No women in this country ever need to worry about being labelled weak and emotional just because of their sex… or at least you’d think.

Rockin Robin

This is nothing other than a ‘look what i did!’ post.

picture of a Robin Redbreast, named Tony i believe… captured in mid flight by my photographic luck skills

A bold new Vista?

Sorry - this is a bit of techy geekiness.

I’d been running Windows Vista for about the last year and to be honest, I quite liked it. Nothing major or life changing… it did what it said on the tin (CD). Now that I no longer have a shinny work laptop I’m back to XP. Here’s what I’ve realised - XP is a LOT faster and in reality the only things I missed are the flashiness and the ease of the interface in Vista (which IS important) and the application/document search facilities (on the start menu) … BUT I down loaded Windows Desktop Search for XP which does pretty much the same.

Given that I’m not the kinda person who sticks with what I know, and slags-off the new tech for not doing things in the same way the old tech did, and I’m used to… I’m not sure it’s a good sign for Vista that people like me aren’t inclined to re-install it.

 

Normal service is hard to resume

In the wake of the decision i made on my 12345 birthday, I’m now in a job where i actually have to …well, work. Hence the lack of Monkey Chat. This is what i get for leaving the cosy public sector to join the real world. I promise get back in the game as soon as humanly possible.

{Listening to U2 Zooropa at the moment, by the way… nostalgiaville!  that and the new Elbow}

 

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.
  - Stephen Hawking

What’s in a species?

Just a Monday morning nugget really. During a drunkin chat with a mate last week he brought up the (surprisingly) interesting topic of what makes a species.I would have assumed that these things are set in stone, but apparently no, different cultures have different rules on what differentiates a species.

In our culture we say that all creatures with sweat glands and give birth to live young are mammals (is that right?) , so therefore a whale and a dolphin are mammals. In other cultures they say, no, don’t be silly whales and dolphins are fish because they live 100% of the time in the water and have fins (say).

Just one of those things I thought was set in stone, only to find out that its not.

Interesting? Maybe not.

Humbled? Really?

“I’m humbled by the blog hits I’m getting”

What does the above sentence make you think?
That I’m getting a lot of hits? Or that I’m not getting very many?

I never understand what people mean when they say this, it seems to be that it’s a phrase used in exactly the wrong circumstances. “Thank you for voting me footballer of the year, I’m humbled”, “It’s lovely to receive this Nobel Prize for the third time, I’m really humbled by your affection”.

Surely it would be more correct to say “I’ve be voted ugliest no-hoper in college, I’m humbled”, “I’m humbled by the courts decision to brand me a pervert” etc.

“It’s humbling to think of how many people bought my records” etc, I hear it all the time and think, humbled? My arse.

The tragic comedy of the bouncing washing machine

Act 1: Washing machine breaks down. A day or two passes before we confront that fact that we need to get a new one quick smart. Order one from Comet which is due to arrive in 5 days. In the mean time we had to do shuttle runs to the laundrette (like it’s the dark ages!). Costing us nearly £20, mad.

Act 2: New washing machine arrives. I decided to install it myself, which shouldn’t have been a big deal, I had already extended the water pipe from the kitchen into the outside ‘laundry room’ as well as wiring it up for electricity (I say this as a statement of capability, in defence of what happens next).

Act 3: New washing machine bouncing around the laundry room, and dramatically breaking through the door, and coming to rest half off and half on the step.

Act 3: Instead of taking a step back and thinking why such a thing would have happened, I put it on again on a less manic spin setting. Washing machine blows up and blows the fuses in the house.

Act 4: Anyone ever heard of Carriage Bolts? Apparently they are things which need removed from the back of a washing machine, to stop it bouncing around the room then blowing up.

Act 5: Remove carriage bolts, phone the nice man from Comet to come and look at it, swear blind that you removed the carriage bolts, and have no idea why what’s happened happened.

Act 6: Comet man knows your lying, but decides not to care, and tells you that the new washing machine will arrive in 5 days. Back to the laundrette.

The Undercover Diplomat

As the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, Jonathan Powell tells the extraordinary story of his secret role in the peace process. Narrated by Barbara Flynn.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b009v6fc.shtml?src=ip_ra

Interesting, if you are interested in N. Ireland, Politics, Diplomacy etc etc

Another interesting read is this…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

always amazes me how balanced and factual Wikipedia ends up being, its bourne out in the tacking of this uber controversial topic

The Perfect Library

The Daily Telegraph has compiled a list of what it calls The Perfect Library

have a look and let me know how many you’ve read. My number is emabrrasingly, 3.

I’m not going to tell you which ones, so you might beleive that its The Illiad and The Odyssey, rather than Alan Clark Diaries.

The End is Neigh!

Scientists at CERN are getting to the final stages of constructing the Large Hadron Colider. Forty years ago scientist Peter Higgs theorised about a boson particle which existed at the time of the big bang, the Large Hadron Colider is something to do with that…. that’s right specifically SOMETHING to do with that :).

No idea what all thats about. What im thinking is though, surely there’s a decent change than when they actually turn this baby on , that we’re all gonna disappear in a big bang (ala Debbie Magee). OK, I know that people always worry about things like that, and there was a decent chance of that happening at the time of the first thermo nuclear reaction tests. Always nice to have things to worry about.

Istanbul not Constantinople

I feel like i’ve made this point before in a post, maybe im getting blog amnesia but… why do we english speakers insist on changing our names for foreign cities.

That’s not rhetorical, I’m genuinely confused.

E.g. Peking, why did we suddenly start calling it Beijing, it’s not like its pronounced Beijing in Chinese. The French still call it Pekin.

Bombay – Mumbia, Madras – Chenni etc.  Why?

It’s not like theres some rule or etequite that we should name a city as near to what the inhabitants call it. The French call London, Londres. Why do we call Torino, Turin? Firenze, Florence.

There’s gotta be some rule out there.

no reason

REM Accelerate

I’m getting my first listen to the much hyped REM album this morning… I’ll give it my “outta 5″ rating after each listen It’s only a half hour long so I’ll probably have listened to 3 or 4 times before lunch.

I haven’t really enjoyed an REM album since New Adventures in Hi-Fi, but I’m hopeful about this one.

 

9:30 Definitly some rasping tracks in there. A little bit Monstor, a little bit Document. Quite short, no messing about, more angry and urgent than intense and meaningfull.

Fly me to the moon

One tragedy of the drive for a low carbon economy is the emphasis (whether right or wrong) on less travel. I’m not sure there has been an open debate on the cost versus benefit of encouraging the inhabitants of earth to travel less.

First of all, my personal view is that there is way too much talk about air travel being a premier league environmental evil. The best estimates are that air travel accounts for between 2% and 5% of carbon emissions. Does it really feel like air travel gets 2-5% of our environmental indignation?

I worry that there is a lot of self righteousness at work, and not a little reverse snobbery. The guy who sits beside me in work has a bit of an SUV, not exactly a Chelsea tractor, but enough of a ‘gas guzzler’ that he gets a lot of banter and jibes from my more eco work colleagues. He recently took the time to investigate on t’internet and found that his SUV, over its life cycle was more environmentally friendly as eco colleague’s 20 year old VW camper, which she drives to Cornwall every other weekend. I can’t help feeling that she just doesn’t like the fact that he can afford to, and chooses to buy himself a nice big car. Is it anti capitalism in another guise?

Arguments are never advanced by tagging opponents with easy uber-insults. Support Palestine? You must be anti-Semitic. Want to control immigration? Must be racist. Want more air travel? Must be a global warming denier.

I worry that this sentiment is evident in the demonising of air travel. My (rambling) point is I think, that we need to prioritise. Ambulances have a carbon footprint, but I’d rather we keep using them as opposed to having the paramedics arrive on a hemp powered bicycle. Similarly travel, whether business or pleasure is a massive addition and enricher to the human experience, global warming is going to happen, and we need to reduce our carbon emissions, but we need an adult debate about whether we should accept 2-5% more global warming and keep our foreign holidays, youthful exploration and inter-continental business trips.