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Thursday, May 17, 2007

me at UFO23 teknoval in France 1995

Here is a pic of yours truly at a free spiral tribe techno festival in France in 1995, it was in the massif centrale area not far from Bourge. I bought that hat in a local village shop.

Anyhow I could write reams and reams about that whole trip,
just getting there from the UK took about 4 days.
You'll have to ask me for further details...

sketched by dweller at 1:37 pm

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adam and eve

This is a photo taken in 1996 in either Greenock, Largs or somewhere like that west of Glasgow. In the picture is Anne Marie Copestake and a Thai bloke. We had gone for a day trip to see the sea.
She was my old flatmate and a posh Glasgow artist. I loved that orange mac she's wearing and I adopted it for a while. For some reason or other I felt cool and attractive when walking down Sauchiehall street with that orange mac on.
Anyhow in the shot here they are both eating apples, hence the adam and eve title.
Despite being unemployed half the time, I really felt at home in Glasgow in those days. More than I feel at home in London now...

sketched by dweller at 12:49 pm

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google stalking can cause pain

Occasionally, I google stalk.
I type in the name of someone I knew years back
to see if I can find out what they're up to.

Today I typed in the name of a girl I knew in the sixth form.
The page I found at the top of the google search is this.

My old schoolmate just stood for the Conservatives as a candidate
for councillor. Who would have thought it, the sweet outdoors loving hiker rock chick would actually want to represent the vile spawn of Thatcher. I mean I wouldn't even want to breathe in the vicinity of the awful New Labour warmongering privatisers let alone the sickening tories.

Anyway, I was shocked, but there you go.
A lot can happen in seventeen years.

Ah well Leanda, I forgive you, lets go walk up the sugarloaf listening to sweetleaf.

sketched by dweller at 12:24 pm

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

sunshine

oh yeah,
let your love fly like a bird on the wing
its the season

sketched by dweller at 1:30 pm

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

you can

you can you can yes you can

I can't I can't no I can't

blessings blessings blessings swing
slow tide and never fail to move and sway
and guide and breakthrough

two dozen in a box
three dozen thrown and crackled
four dozen names checked and confirmed
five dozen famous heroes forgot you existed.

nevermind eh?

sketched by dweller at 10:45 am

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

God Tube

I guess it had to come along,

We had Youtube and then Pornotube,

now its GODTUBE.

The hilarity starts here with
Baby Got Bible

sketched by dweller at 11:26 pm

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Attention without resistance

You know what space is. There is space in this room. The distance between here and your hostel, between the bridge and your home, between this bank of the river and the other—all that is space. Now, is there also space in your mind? Or is it so crowded that there is no space in it at all? If your mind has space, then in that space there is silence—and from that silence everything else comes, for then you can listen, you can pay attention without resistance. That is why it is very important to have space in the mind. If the mind is not overcrowded, not ceaselessly occupied, then it can listen to that dog barking, to the sound of a train crossing the distant bridge, and also be fully aware of what is being said by a person talking here. Then the mind is a living thing, it is not dead.

J Krishnamurti

sketched by dweller at 1:17 am

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Brian Aldiss on childhood

Brian Aldiss once wrote,
"When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay."

sketched by dweller at 10:59 pm

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

mis profesoras de colegio delibes

In 2003 I set off to Spain to learn Spanish.
Before leaving I searched around for a private language school and
discovered one called Colegio Delibes in a small city called Salamanca, more of a town than a city I would say despite its
magnificent Cathedral and University buildings.

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to have chosen an excellent school
with brilliant teachers. This school had developed their own materials and had a great stucture to the daily lessons that worked very well.

My first grammar teacher was Teresa. She started the day's lessons. Tere was a lovely teacher and she gave us a very firm and strong understanding of the basics.
After a break we had Mariajose with the conversation classes which included more vocabulary learning.

Mariajo you can see on the right of the above photo. She was a really sweet woman and very nice with all the students including the younger Chinese ones who were slow to grasp the alphabet and pronunciations. She was also extremely attractive which helped with my class motivation thats for sure.

At first I thought Gemma was tired and couldn't give a shit in class, but I realised that although that may have been the case she allowed us students do most of the talking. We had come great discussions in her class.

Maite was lovely though I think I used to piss her off a bit. I would always be picking out little grammatical oddities that appeared in the homework as we reviewed it first thing in the morning.

I think Maite sensed that I was alone and needed some good old fashioned Spanish loving. She advised me to go south and find an andalusian woman. I went south but didn't find the woman.
What I did find was a less well run language school populated by lazy students and freaky teachers.
Sometimes I wish I'd stayed at Colegio Delibes for longer as I'm sure I would have carried on learning at a great pace.

sketched by dweller at 4:39 pm

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Monday, March 05, 2007

Flogging a dead joke to Newcastle

Tags = Prince Charles - Dodi - Diana - Joke - Photoshop - Sting

sketched by dweller at 8:51 pm

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Sunday, March 04, 2007

the blog in my head

Every day of my life, well most days,
I wander around this group of London Parishes and
a myriad of intersecting perspectives and synchronized dancing synapse domino runs sets my just about still fresh mind a-thinking.
Each one of these choice arrangements of thoughts and conclusions
feels like a nicely arranged insight, much more interesting than the average "lifestyle" pieces that are scattered throughout the
middle class Sundays that I make sure I avoid.

Now with the freedom of Blogging I have the option to make my own Copy. Write with my own shit for ink. At last freedom, avast ye Cornish Pasties - The World Is Yours!!

Yet my plan for global brain infection is fatally flawed,
for these thoughts and ideas and interesting wotnots are like vivid dreams - fucking impossible to remember later on. When you get a chance to plot them down digit to digit its always too late.
Sometimes at work I am in front of a screen - yes! - I have a chance to blog it; But it is the nature of my job that I have duties to the public and I can't say hang on a sec I'm just sketching out the beauty of a sacred insight (yes I know I like to big myself up as no-one else will.)

This frustration has led me to not update this blog so often as
I don't always want to start writing with a blank mind before I write (as I'm doing now).
I'd like to have thoughts whether they are fighting firecrackers or slow intersecting musical harmonics leading to an interesting conclusion leading to instant blog.

Currently not possible - sorry fuckers.
Other blogs are more engaging for the noo.

sketched by dweller at 11:58 am

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Monday, February 19, 2007

Arrest Made As Work Starts At Radley Lakes (from thisisoxfordshire)

Arrest Made As Work Starts At Radley Lakes (from thisisoxfordshire)

A PROTESTER was arrested as workers began cutting down vegetation at Thrupp Lake, near Radley, on Wednesday, ahead of dumping ash at the site.

About 30 protesters arrived after learning the preparatory work had started for the controversial plan to dump spent fuel ash from Didcot Power Station. They were quickly followed by police.

Last week, seven squatters were evicted from Sandles House at the site and one man, calling himself The Ant', set up a camp outside the boundary to continue the protest.

On Wednesday, after workers moved in, he went in to the lakeside area to stop them. After refusing to leave, he was arrested by police on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

Before his arrest, he said: "They have moved in to start work on cutting down trees and vegetation in readiness for bigger work later on.

"It's criminal what this big company is doing to a beautiful lake area. We plan to stop them."

sketched by dweller at 11:01 pm

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Monday, January 29, 2007

Save Radley Lakes

I thought I was just going up to Oxford for some fresh air.
A Sunday stroll by some lovely lakes is what my friend had told me.
Of course when I arrived at his place in Oxford and found the place swarming with "swampies" I knew that something else was afoot.
We were going on a supporting mission to give aid and moral support to a group of ecologically concerned activists who are using direct action to protect a beautiful lake that was created after gravel digging from being ruined by the local polluting Didcot power station. They have squatted a building which sides one of the last remaining lakes under threat. Most of them have already been filled with a horrible ashy byproduct of powerstations called PFA. It is mixed with water and creates a quicksand-like ugly and toxic sludge that cannot be walked upon for decades. This will replace an utterly tranquil home to fish, nesting birds, water voles (and maybe even otters) amongst others. It is also a local amenity that we saw was used as part of many local peoples leisure time. We saw old couples strolling by, kids biking around, horse shoe prints show that its a nice place for a bit of a trot - and this was in January.

Anyhow there has been a local campaign to save these lakes which has sadly proved unsuccessful over the last few years. The new occupying 'accountable citizens' are not part of that local organisation and have not occupied the building at their behest. However this new group are committed, peaceful, well organised and well informed.
They need as much support as they can get.
Food, money, physical help and/or equipment to protect the site from bailiffs, people to come and help stop any attempted eviction. Campaigning scientists to come and record the species present and make the environmental case that the council failed to do.

Even though some of the Sunday afternoon visitors to the site may not have contributed a great deal to the work going onsite (ie me) they helped with building moral support and will hopefully go off and tell all of their friends - and those with media and publicity spreading powers - what is going on here.

It is important to note that at another powerstation in Britain,
this waste material is built up as a dry mound where it is less polluting and can be grown over with vegetation. The material can later be dug out and used by the building trade if the demand is there. The wet sludge cannot be re-used in this way.
The amount of this ash that is going to be put into this shallow lake would make only a small mound if deposited elsewhere locally. It could also help to disguise the eyesore that is Didcot power station.

Go along to the house and pay a visit. They have a very informative display inside. This is a last ditch battle as the council has already given permission for this beautiful lake to be destroyed by the already filthy polluting greenhouse gas emitting profiteers NPOWER.

Forget about booing Jade,
come and boo the bailiffs when they try and do NPOWER's dirty work.

For more details you can visit these websites:

Save Radley Lakes

Radley Village News

BBC

A final word - It was refreshing to get out of the big smoke and
all the trendy vain vacuous bollocks associated therewith and be with some proper principled getting-involved and doing something folk - quite humbling and shaming too cause I'm such a lazy websurfing fucktard ;-)

sketched by dweller at 10:31 pm

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Thursday, January 25, 2007

and it burns burns burns

hoots mon,
dinae dochno doo
hipknee hopknee hoo
cracken crocken croo
glacker glocker gloo
tamm bant spillyon tichter greet tochen
garbulls gorbals tramway scottiedog

blanket snae snow

ode tae a haggis

slithny yr sharp yon knifey
in tee that there fusty lookin
bag ae meaty bits there and
watch yon chunks ae wotnot spill oot
all oer yer grannies platter

a whiff nae less o the ancients
o dour ancestor ae oors
we are grateful tae be sniffin yr
old ways ae deein thangs once again
each year we dee this and it geez us a
chance tae eat some old mountain stew
and alsee drink some ae that old mountain dew

thanks pal

sketched by dweller at 4:01 pm

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

British Mating Rituals Part 1

Q:
Why don't guys get hints??
If you like them, they don't get it...If you don't (which is mostly the case and a polite smile is not a sex invite), they don't get it...

WHY????

A:
If a woman acts in a way that indicates "no" then we're programmed to take that as a maybe.

If a woman acts in a way that indicates a "maybe" then we're programmed to take that as a yes.

It's because we're wired up to have sex with as many women as possible, as frequently as possible - there's no advantage, biologically, in acknowledging a no.

As for why men never get it when you *do* like them - our higher brain (our more evolved self) is often in conflict with our more primative self. We've learnt that following our normal "no", "maybe" rules often gets us a slap. So those more sensitive members of the male population wait until it's absolutely spelt out for them - for fear of...well...getting a slap.

Add on top of that all your usual insecurities and self-esteem issues.

I've also noticed that women don't always follow the accepted mating ritual. Like it or not, we *are* animals...and we're wired up to approach courtship in a specific way - just like every other species. This courtship begins with the woman showing interest by performing a few certain actions, then it's the mans turn, then it's the womans and so on and so on and so on...and eventually you end up in bed.

The problem is that as well as being animals, we've evolved higher brain functions...and these get in the way. If the female doesn't make the first move, then that confuses the male - and the female might not make the accepted first move because her social programming is comflicting with her biological. Inevitably those situations end up with her at her mates house crying with a glass of wine and saying that nobody fanices her - and him at home watching pornography.

sketched by dweller at 5:12 pm

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Friday, January 12, 2007

Acoustic Energy Wi-Fi Internet Radio

Hey folks,
I got a very generous gift voucher for John Lewis for christmas and decided not to buy new sheets, fluffy white towels or other such sensibles. No I went in for the gadget kill.

Ok so I was limited in choice. Usually JLewis don't have a large variety of each "type" of electronic item apart from DAB radios. The fifth floor Oxford Street is infested with ugly DABS.
But when I saw the Acoustic Energy Internet Radio I was almost instantly convinced. To be honest, I'd been waiting a while for this.

I was aware mainly due to shoutcast that there are literally thousands of streaming advert free radios playing perfectly honed playlists to the discerning listener out here in infranet land.
But to be honest my PC is not my media centre. I like a radio to look like a radio. It should sit in the kitchen and be on while I'm cooking, eating, digesting, crosswording or whatnot. I don't want to be dilly dallying with a mouse whilst cooking up cheap quick wok fodder.

These internet radios mean you don't even need to switch on a PC at all. Just get in from work, dump the coat get the shopping out and press "on". It connects straight to your router/modem. This model is Wi-Fi but there are also ethernet RJ45 versions.

The radio uses a downloaded list of radio stations that it shares with other manufacturers radios at reciva.com. There are several thousand channels that are categorised by country and genre. If you know of a channel that isn't on their lists you can register at reciva and submit your choice of radio channel to either "my streams" a list of your favourites that will only show up on your radio but they show up instantly or you can submit to the overall reciva directory and reciva staff manually add your choice to the overall directory ie for all radios that connect via reciva (I haven't tried this option yet - don't see the point).

I've added shoutcast and live365 radios successfully.
With live365 radio just get the radio to open using winamp, then get file info and copy the URL up to the ID number just after play
eg. http://www.lwhhive365.com/play/326347

For shoutcast the URL should look something like this:
eg. http://207.218.250.55:8800

So what else can this baby do?
Well it has links to virtually all the BBC radios and you can choose which programme from the past week you would like to hear and you can scan back and forth and pause it. Wonderful.
I'd done this on the BBC website before, but doing it with this unit just feels so much better (no mouse and keyboard malarkey).

Furthermore if you have a PC switched on in the house you can play all your mp3 albums from the Acoustic Energy radio unit.
It has a built in bit of software which scans for your windows shared folders and it creates a databas file which is placed in that shared folder. You can then choose whole albums or individual songs which are added to a playlist. Choices can be pushed to the front of the list or you can have it repeat or shuffle.
Unfortunately this little gizmo couldn't handle the vast size of my mp3 storehouse.

So I had to try plan B. I upgraded the firmware of my AE unit and the upgrade includes the ability to access a UPNP server on the network. I downloaded a lovely bit of free software called
TVERSITY MEDIA SERVER.
It was able to read my giant store of files and happily connected to my radio. I can see all the files in various different data filters. Album/artist/folders/etc . It includes recently added and view by year of album release. Nice touches.
Unfortunately the playlists that you then build up when accessing the tversity links don't seem to give you the option to put a file to the front of the queue as was possible if you used the built in "window share" option. Hopefully this will be rectified in future firmware upgrades.

Which brings us on to the faults and problems.

1. I find that when accessing the files on my PC you need to press the "select" button s l o w l y. What I mean is that you must wait for it to load up the initial directories fully. If you steam in quickly it will get confused and the unit will just reboot.
A bit niggly and something that probably wouldn't have happened with an ethernet connected, yes wi fi isn't a perfect technology yet. I would have liked an ethernet option.

2. There is no remote control and if there was you wouldn't be able to read what was being played on the radio screen anyhow.
This is something that a rival player SQUEEZEBOX3 does better. It has a clear visible screen and a remote which you can type in a few letters to predict the title of your radio station and then press GO. But I don't think the squeezebox has the same amount of pre-loaded presets (not sure on this one- don't quote me)
Anyhow John Lewis only had AE so my choice was made for me.

3. The AE doesn't work that well with my TVERSITY media server. The media server has the option of adding podcast feeds that it will refresh and download at regular intervals. My radio will not play those files grrrrr.
The Squeezebox has its own designed media server software which you install in your PC thus things like RSS feeds including text RSS feeds work perfectly on the units "visible" screen.
But hell I don't need to read ticker tape blog feeds, I just want easy podcast access. Please acoustic energy add this ability please.

4. Squeezebox with its programmeable flexibility is now able to play your last.fm radio. It can also scrobble the tracks you play.

5. I've saved one of the most fundamental nuisances til last.
In the info about the latest firmware upgrade it says and I quote

'The Radio menu will now display its options and stations in a vertical list which shows 3 stations at a time rather than the old horizontal scrolling single bar display used in the previous firmware versions. This also facilitates "Track Playing" information when listening to some stations using this feature in their data streams (below the chosen station name you will see the information of the current track playing where available).'

Well I've played many many radio stations, the majority of which DO show what track they're playing on my PC, but not one of them will show the track playing when I stream using my lovely new Wi-Fi radio. I hope this is properly implemented ASAP. It really is a fundamental thing that should have been there from the beginning.

Conclusion.

If you love radio and you love the idea of not having blasted computers on all the time, with their knack of turning your friendly house-guests into antisocial websurfing fiddlers, then you have to get one of these babies.
Sure, the inbuilt speaker isn't that hot but plug it into yr hi-fi for better sound.
Sure, some of the channels have very low bitrates and thus sound pretty poor.
But for gods sake you can add ANY radio you find out there with better quality sound.
Try searching shoutcast and live365' directories. There is some awesome shit out there to suit all tastes.
The BBC On Demand service is superb - it bares saying twice.

This is the best thing I've owned since my new sony mobile phone (which granted was only a month and a half back).

Just please add the podcasting, name of track playing and if you can be arsed the last.fm capabilities and I'll be happy.
Especially the track playing.

Three Cheers for Acoustic Energy,
I did think of this device about three or four years back,
but I'm glad you finally made it.

P.S. There are already several other manufacturers producing these Internet Radios so if you are going to invest then do your research first.

sketched by dweller at 8:38 pm

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Sunday, January 07, 2007

freecycle poetry

Whisk, dough hook and K beater. 1 bowl. 2 blenders.
Bit shabby but works well.
I'm just off City Road

freecycle.org

sketched by dweller at 12:58 pm

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Saturday, January 06, 2007

Unhealthy Reading

I just looked at the back of one of our new books on display
at the library.

PRAISE FOR THE QUICKENING:
'Fiona McIntosh is a seductress. I have not moved from the sofa
for three days..'
Sydney Morning Herald

Three days without moving!!
No wonder everyone's getting obese and cholestoroled and tumoured to fuck.

So all ye readers. You may be developing your intellectual abilities and
stimulating the imagination lobes of your brain, but your body is being
screwed by inertia.

I'm going to suggest Health and Safety warning posters at the next staff meeting.

sketched by dweller at 11:56 am

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Wednesday, January 03, 2007

yew neared

Thanks fer the year that will truly be grateful,
and the mermen uncle tumpter
a playlisting sleepwalking skin milker,
I tended and tundered the night away
with Poles and other foreigners
while the monster slept.
We sang we danced and their powdered rises and falls were tides that gave my stable footing buoyancy til the sun shone
bright and I staggered down Camden and Holloway road
singing " all I wanna do is have some fun, blah blah blah,
I'm not the only one"

sketched by dweller at 11:48 pm

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Friday, December 22, 2006

GAG

sketched by dweller at 12:53 am

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