Older than me, fitter than me, funnier than me. His views on officialdom & yobs is a master-class of how the hard working and thrifty are sneered at and not supported in our “society”. To the point, brutal and politically incorrect, in a perfect world he’d have his own TV show – Fred Dibnah with jokes.
You don’t mess with John!
Cycling is becoming a pleasant addiction so I jumped at the chance to wander down to the huts at Bulverhythe for a “business meeting” with Kim. Next week-end is the first week-end of Coastal Currents Open Studios, this is where artists throw open their studios, homes, dog kennels or beach chalets to display their work and Kim, having a chalet, wants to show his paintings and engraved glass. I’m going to be producing printed material as well as a web site for Kim hence the urgent need for a meeting. So there we were, relaxing and having a laugh whilst drinking tea and fruit juice (really), then suddenly an angel appeared. That was the good news, the bad news was she was a real person with a name; Jenny, a teacher, with a nice husband and the proud new owner of a chalet. Whilst Kim engaged her in conversation I was busily plotting a way to work the fact that Kim had a partner (and I did not) into the verbal flow without my motives being suspected. Kim himself mentioned this letting me off the hook.
As a strange coincidence on the way home I bumped into Teresa, the only woman I was ever engaged to (she tells me), who is also a teacher. We hadn’t seen each other for nearly a year so was nice to catch up over a coffee. At the back of my mind was something Patrick said this morning; “you should never get on with ex’s”. When I start to think Pat talks sense it takes a dumb remark like that to remind me of how wrong he is about almost everything!
Jenny and some bloke I’ve never met…
Cycling back from a meeting with Kim Thrower, the glass guru and his lovely but no-nonsense partner Catherine when, on the cycle path by the pier, a voice emerges from a group of cyclists going the other way encouraging me to follow them. I recognise Anton Hack in the group and take up the invitation as he’s always good company. After half a mile I realise that I’m now a co-opted member of a revolutionary group of pro-cycling guerillas and am involved in reclaiming the world as a two wheeled habitat. Oh dear, my street credibility is oozing down my trousers and into the ground. Thankfully they all turn out to be pleasant people and fail to spot an former Thatcherite amongst their number. The wonderful glide down the length of the cycle lane only slightly marred by one of our party being an incessant bell ringer; I’ve always considered tooting horns or ringing bells as a sign of social disconnect and have generally found the power of a smile or just patience can smooth a path, but it takes all sorts.
Fresh from the cycle paths around the Afghani training camps.
A rare social night out at the birthday party of the awesomely beautiful Cher Chevalier. I meet what appears to be a new man in her life – the one thing that must be said about Cher, her men are always “lookers” and this one, John, is no exception, brainy as well. Cher is a Medium, animal rights person & vegetarian, in fact you could not find a person I disagree with more on this earth – but still, she’s great company and amusingly tolerates me being “wrong” about everything. My main task of the evening, at the request of the birthday girl I hasten to add, was to make sure she “didn’t pop out” of her little black dress. It was a tough assignment but in the interests of friendship I kept my eye on the situation, after all that’s what pals are for!
The event took place at the Gurkha Palace on the St Leonards sea front, food was good (though I’m not a great judge of that), service slightly chaotic but enthusiastic, atmosphere friendly.
Chers’ nearly finished the book she’s been working on for ages. She won’t tell me what it’s about or the title so I’ll have to make that stuff up; “Voodoo Vixens from Space” must surely be the title and I think you can guess what I’m hoping the content will be. Anyway as long as I get an autographed copy I’ll be a happy bunny.
Cher’s sister protecting family assets from fire damage.
It’s war, you hate your team mates for giving dumb answers even if they turn out to be right, the competing teams are just cannon fodder who by some amazing stroke of luck seem to have smuggled in a “ringer”; the bored ex-teacher with too many books and too much time on their hands. The quiz master has a vendetta against you and though they keep mentioning it’s all for charity you know their real game is as the devils representative on earth. And then there’s the pale girl with the black dress and Stevie Nicks aura wafting within inches as she floats around the pub shoving a cattle prod into long dormant hormones, obviously in the pay of another team jealous of your talent. It’s pub quiz night and we loose again, genius is never rewarded in it’s lifetime!
Many digital photographers use viewing/cataloguing software to keep track of their collections, Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom being a couple of the “big boys”. What follows is not a review but my short take on Lightroom (based on a post I made on the Ars Technica forums), for a decent review I suggest Ars Technica here: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/apps/adobe-photoshop-lightroom-2-review.ars
I’m afraid my personal major concern is speed; I have over 140,000 digital photos starting with a Kodak 1.3meg camera (awful quality) in 1998 through to the present day where I have a Canon 5D that I shoot exclusively in RAW. I use ACDSee Pro to view my pictures and I must admit that’s all; I don’t use any other of it features so I can’t really say if it’s good or bad. What I do know is it’s fast and only produces thumbnails of files as I view the folders they are in (though I do know it can be set up to scan a whole library at once).
I really wanted to like Lightroom, I use Photoshop CS3 to edit pictures, and make my living – it’s a fabulous application, rock solid stability, lightning fast – even on file sizes approaching 2gig (posters; lots of smart objects & layers). I downloaded Lightroom and started it off cataloguing my collection, 24 hours or more later it finished, there followed another 24 hours of Vista disc thrashing whilst it indexed the stored thumbnails, Lightroom saving these as individual files. When this was finished it was still half the speed of ACDSee. That’s as far as it got, I have customers to keep happy (just) and a life to live (again, just), so it was un-installed at this point.
I know this is just my particular needs and it’s probably right for many people but initial impressions matter, attention spans are short and time is a precious thing so it had to go.
I should have guessed though, Adobe Bridge, bundled with CS3 has the speed of a rather bored snail also making it unusable…
This fish was no bigger than a shrimp when Lightroom started to catalogue his photo collection
Partner in “crime” John is back for a few days so it’s goodbye to the diet and sobriety. We caught up with each other over a very pleasant sea food platter at Whites in George Street. The big question was should he ask Moritzia (his partner) to marry him. I thought this was a great idea as it supplies another friends wife for me to lust after but he’s afraid she’ll say no, oh well, what will be will be.
On to the Cinque Ports where Sheila’s advice is short on the subject, a resounding no from her meant, in my eyes at least it’s still a great idea: Sheila with her absolutism and insistence in viewing emotional subtlety with a Meccano mind is always a good guide to what not to do.
Ended up in the Hastings arms listening to John Crampton, a cross between Link Wray & Phil Spector; a blues wall of sound. But it was well past my bed time and the world was getting blurry so it was back to the hill with a bag of chocolate Brazils in hand, a perfect end to any evening!
This pictures a bit indistinct, so, an accurate reflection of what I was seeing then.
Drinking and driving, ain’t it great. Or at least it’s a huge plus point for the new cyclists. In the seventies we drunk like fishes and drove. I passed my motorcycle test fuelled by three pints of beer. I once rode a 250cc Honda from Hastings to London thrashing it every inch on the way after having numerous pints and many bottles and to be honest next day I remembered nothing of the trip. Nowadays I’m very much in the “hang, draw and quarter” them school when it comes to drink driving; hypocrisy being one of the many pleasures of age. I won’t get on my motorcycle or in the car if I even have a whiff of alcohol.
But now I’ve just returned from my evening bicycle ride having had a very enjoyable two and a half pints down the Cinque Ports in All Saints Street. Now I know I can still be “done”, but the only one likely to get hurt by this action is me, and to be honest, most of the trip back up the West Hill the bike was used as a crutch as I staggered up “heart attack hill”; a very steep footpath indeed. So I’m back in the seventies in an intoxicated haze, wallowing in youthful selfishness, living in a squalid flat, er, no change there then.
One of the things I’ve noticed as a new cyclist is that, at least on the Hastings promenade cycle route, very few people nod or acknowledge each other. I’m used to motorcycles where a huge number of us at least nod to each other and when walking on the prom when it’s not busy many walkers grunt “morning”. But cyclist make a production of looking everywhere except at the oncoming rider and their faces take on the façade of a stone mask. I’ve had more walkers say “morning” as I pass. What’s going on?
Stuck in a shelter near Bulverhythe this morning.
I do a little bit of basic IT as part of earning a living, sometimes it can be rewarding (in the emotional sense), especially when you can walk away leaving something that will work without problem for ages allowing people just to get on with their business. Some times it can be the most depressing experience.
One of the problems is that, at the level I’m at, you’re often working in the dark being asked about applications that you have no experience of but knowing you’re advice will be used to pin any responsibility for problems on your tail.
The reality is that, for small businesses, computers and their software are just too complex, being run as they are by people who have learnt to do what they need to do by rote and on a “wing and a prayer”, without the prayer.
The brutal truth is that owning and using computers means that the total responsibility for what happens is down to you, this cannot be off-shored by the occasional bit of support, it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand “this shit”, that’s your choice and problem.
Computers are still at the stage of an experimental money pit that require a coterie of magicians surrounding them to do anything useful. The sad fact is that most of us magicians are more Tommy Cooper than Merlin.
A whole business balancing on this mess.