Christmas

Christmas has been good. We've had the snow which the girls really enjoyed - photies up on Facebook if you like that kind of thing. We had hoped to visit my parents the weekend before but the weather put paid to that unfortunately. Hopefully we can go early in the new year.

Broke up from work on the 24th at inbox zero (at least for a few minutes!) and I'm not logging back in for a week. No, really.

Christmas day was nice and relaxing - presents in the morning. The girls got lots. H got me Charlie Brooker's latest book, which I've been reading from the index (mmm Heston Blumenthal what does he have to say about him...) and we managed to get each other a copy of the exact same book: Gustav Dore's London. Basically we watched the Jeremy Paxman series on the Victorians, and both had the same idea what would make a really good present that the other one would never expect! Be warned - this is what happens to you after 10 years together.

Not sure what to make of Christmas Doctor Who. Seems to have had everything thrown into the plot, but I'm not really sure what it all adds up to. The finale is either going to be magnificent or absolute cack.

into December

Finally have the new PC up and running. Mesh completely let me down, and it looks like I may have had a narrow escape: I bought from them because I got my previous (very reliable) PC from them, but when I googled a bit further I found no end of complaints of slow delivery and poor service. That certainly was what I found when I tried to chase up the order, and eventually they tried to tell me that I needed to pay another £50 to get the computer because the spec had changed. Fortunately, I wasn't born yesterday, so I just got a refund instead. I bought a similar spec machine from World of Computers in Milton instead: I had the PC 2 days later, and if it goes wrong they are nearby, and appear to know what they are talking about.

Anyway, it's very nice: I like Win 7, and just generally having a lot more power and memory makes a big difference when using Photoshop for instance.

Other things: my school, Ridgefield Primary, will be looking for a new Head next year, so we as governors have to start planning for the process now: I'm currently drafting the information pack we'll be sending out, while others are looking at the job description and the advert (you have to place a print advert in a national publication, and that basically means the TES). I've also helped the school's IT co-ordinator produce a new website, and he's done a fantastic job.

Friday was H's birthday, but for various reasons we went out for lunch on Saturday instead. We went to Meze on Mill Road and some really nice Turkish food. It was the Winter Fair, so there were lots of people out - we saw the Samba band, but that was about as much as the girls wanted to do (L is a bit under the weather with a cold) so we came home after that.

Next week I may go down to London for work - see how things go.

Oggy and the Cockroaches

The girls love this, and I have to admit I really like the visual humour (or perhaps it just reminds me of Tom and Jerry):

Oggy And The Cockroaches - The most popular videos are here

Staycation?

Not sure I like that term, but it's been a good week all the same - yesterday we went to Anglesey Abbey and walked along by Quy Water in a nice circular route before driving up to Horningsea for lunch at the Crown and Punchbowl.

Today I met up with H in town and we went to Charlie Chan for dim sum, which I've not done before in Cambridge - the last time I had dim sum was in San Francisco over 10 years ago. I also managed to find a Linux magazine with a live CD that I can use to rescue the data from my old Win XP box. I'm hoping the shiny new PC will come soon (please Mesh) and we can get everything transferred. At the moment I'm using my work laptop, which is a bit annoying, as I don't want to start downloading mail or installing non-approved applications.

November holiday

I'm off work for a week and for various reasons we're mostly staying at home and going out for day trips. We had the initial weekend away though - we went down to H's parents, and they kindly looked after the children while H and I went into London for a day out and a night at the Dorset Square Hotel. It was good, but it was expensive too, and there were niggly problems that just took the shine off the experience - notably, no tea and coffee in the room, and room service that weren't up to the job of replacing that facility.

We had a good time though - we saw the Mirsolaw Balka Tate Modern exhibition which looked amazing from the outside, although there were probably too many people to get the full experience when you were inside it. We also had a fantastic meal out at Yming in Soho. The double braised pork in hot pot was amazing.

Back in Cambridge today we went out to Wandlebury Ring, and then drove up to Lammas Land and walked through the botanic garden to Le Gros Franck for lunch. That was very good too - we both had the steak frites, and it was both cheaper and better than Cafe Rouge (yes I know, but we're more often at that end of town, and the childrens' menu is good there).

Just thinking about what to do tomorrow - we may go for another walk somewhere.

Into October

Been quite busy the last couple of weeks. More governor-y stuff for Ridgefield - I'm helping develop a new website (still in beta), and then I was just involved with the Head Teacher review, which was interesting, as I've not been part of that process before. Alas the training is not until next week, but I'm sure it will come in useful over the coming year.

Last weekend I went to the 20th (god I feel old) reunion dinner of my year at Fitzwilliam college. I think H was a little nervous, as she found the maths reunion dinner a couple of years ago quite intimidating. So being on the high table, next to the Master, was a bit of shock.

However it was actually really good - H got on well with the Master's wife, and I caught up with my former Director of Studies. We did see a few people who I remembered specifically from my year, but to be honest there weren't as many as I thought I might remember - probably, when I think about it, most of my friends at Cambridge were not in the same college as me.

Work is continuing to be very busy - we're just putting the finishing touches to the current release, but we also have maintenance releases going on at the same time, so I am being pulled in several directions.

Catch Up

Things have been going pretty well since the last post. I managed to fix the media centre, after slightly more fuss than I'd originally hoped - it turns out that to fit all the power leads, you have to also take out the DVD unit. That in turn led me to take off the front of the unit, only to find it wasn't necessary, but not before I found that I'd managed to unplug the front display and couldn't work out how to get it back on again. I managed after a struggle, and now we have IPlayer goodness again.

Wednesday was our anniversary, so I took the day off. Girls were both at school in the morning, so we made the most of it, and then we went out for lunch after picking Ella up. We went to Loch Fyne which we've not been to for a long time. Food was excellent - especially the mussels I had - really fresh and delicious. Ella liked them too.

Since then I've been fairly hard at work as we're coming up to a release date + I'm also quite busy with governor-y things for the school, which I won't post about here. Looking forward to a quiet weekend.

Back Home

Back home after an overnight stay at H's parents house. Had a nice time there - the girls tested the local playgrounds, and Kathy (H's mum) spoiled us with delicious food. Tomorrow I want to try to fix my media centre PC - I bought an Acer Idea 510 a couple of years ago and it's generally been pretty good - I have a lot of music, photos and video loaded onto it, and it means we can watch IPlayer and other streaming video on the TV rather than on a laptop. However, it apparently has a fairly predictable problem involving the power supply and the external display on the front. I've seen various hackery suggested on the boards but I think the simplest answer looks to be to fit a new power supply. I haven't tried this particular bit of PC surgery before, but it doesn't look too bad - I'm going to take a photo of the cabling before I start, just in case I get in a muddle.

Up to date

We decided we ought to try a new restaurant (as a family I mean) since Pizza Express no longer uses a mozzarella that H can eat, so we decided to give La Tasca a try since we really liked the Tapas place we went to in Weymouth. I'd have to say it wasn't quite up to that standard, but the food was good - particularly the children's meals - and the service was excellent. So we'll have to give that another go.

After that we went to have a look at Kettles Yard's exhibition from the house collection. Not really impressed - out of their setting, a lot of the works looked pretty lifeless, or even amateurish. They have a big chalkboard though, so the girls were happy + they are giving out these museum Top Trumps type cards to children, which they also thought was good. I think H is taking them to the museum of Zoology at some point (or the Skeleton Museum as E describes it).

I've been reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, and finding the characters (especially Gary) and situations altogether too close for comfort. But it's a fantastic book - seems like ages since I read a new novel that I enjoyed.

We also watched Man on Wire the other night - fantastic film, just incredible. Apart from being an interesting story, it's also a kind of poignant memorial to the Twin Towers, before they became known for their terrible end. It's always strange now to see them on screen, particularly having been there almost a year to the day before the attacks.

OpenTech 2009

I went to OpenTech last weekend, which was a very interesting day. I'm still looking for a way to somehow balance doing some work for a group like ORG, No2ID, or MySociety with the other commitments on my time. At the moment I have, as one of the ORG people put it, "outsourced my activism".

But I'm convinced this is the direction democracy should be going in - transparent communication of as much government data as possible, in open formats, and allow external groups to use that data to provide accountability, new services, whatever is needed. And conversely, the government needs to start taking seriously the problems of collecting masses of personal data and think about how to design systems that are more opt-in for data-sharing, while allowing criminal investigations to take place with appropriate authorisation.

Anyway, there were loads of interesting talks - from the journalist who did all the FoI legwork to get MPs expenses into the public domain, to an interesting session on using Open Source software in schools (particularly relevant to me as school governor, currently looking at rebuilding a school website), to the extremely disturbing talk on Intercept Modernization from ORG and No2ID, which was preceded by this wonderfully deadpan introduction by Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom:

Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom: "Three Pillars of Digital Britain", OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.

(there are some more videos on that site too from Bill Thompson, and Ben Goldacre - both worth a look).

After the conference, I went out with my old friend Kath, and we had several pints of what turned out to be very strong lager (or maybe I'm just not used to drinking so much lately) so it was a good evening, but I was not feeling at my best by the time I got on the train back to Cambridge.

Back from holiday

It seems to have taken most of the last week to recover from going on holiday - I've just felt really tired until the weekend. Still Weymouth was great - we had fantastic weather so we went on the beach quite a bit, which the girls really liked. We did a walk along the coast, from Durdle Door to Lulworth Cove - quite a steep hill, so I was impressed Ella managed the whole distance with no problem (and very little complaint). Lulworth Cove is beautiful - I'd like to go back there sometime.

I also took the girls to MonkeyWorld (Mrs F declined to come) which was really good - it's a rescue centre, so there is a good reason for the apes to be there, and the girls really enjoyed seeing the chimps (who were equally fascinated by the crowds) and the Capuchins. However the thing they really enjoyed was the enormous aerial playground, with big climbing nets and slides.

We ate out far too much - I'd particularly recommend the Statue House Tapas Bar on the seafront - great view, nice food, and pretty reasonably priced. There were some very nice looking expensive restaurants by the harbour, but it didn't seem fair to the girls to drag them out there in the evening, and not fair to us to rush through a meal. On the last evening we went to Rossinis, near where we were staying and had a really nice meal. Lizzie drew a portrait of H on the tablecloth, which was so good we've kept it.

Back in Cambridge, we went to a party on the Saturday at Guy and Susie's house, which was really good fun. I stayed quite late, and drank too much red wine. Didn't feel ill, but I was pretty groggy and slow on Sunday. Then on Tuesday we'd arranged a babysitter, and so we decided we'd go out while we had the chance! We were going to go to The Bridge at Waterbeach, but the service was pretty surly, and we were promised a delay of up to an hour for food, so we skipped it, and went back to the Crown and Punchbowl, where the waitress was incredibly friendly and helpful, and we had a really nice meal (albeit a somewhat more expensive one than we were anticipating).

This week I'm probably working in London one day, and then maybe back in London on Saturday for OpenTech.

European Elections

I went to the hustings in Cambridge on Monday organised by the local Amnesty, NO2ID, and Oxfam groups. Since I've been inactive in both the AI and NO2ID groups for a while, it was good to see quite a few people I know but haven't met up with for a while.

The panel was quite interesting - they had UKIP, LibDem, Labour, Green and Conservative candidates and there was a good selection of questions. UKIP fell at the first fence when David Campbell-Bannerman said that he wasn't convinced of the case for climate change. To me, this kind of statement now puts you outside sensible political discourse.

The Conservative candidate suffered from the problem set by the UK party to leave the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament and start a new one with various loony and disturbing groups. I can't take their positions on Europe seriously while they are taking this stance.

That leaves Labour, LibDem and Green. To be honest, I could potentially have voted for any of them. I thought the chap from the Green party was very articulate, although unfortunately he isn't the candidate for the EU election. The Labour guy seemed very genuine, and certainly seemed to have a record of achievements. I didn't take to him personally though, and to be honest, I just can't bring myself to vote Labour in this election*.

So Andrew Duff for the LibDems gets my vote. I am pretty much a natural LibDem anyway, but his answers to the questions on climate change, data retention (which Labour weaseled on), and the position of Britain in the EU were by far the closest to my own views.

Overall a good evening, and I hope we'll have a good turnout tomorrow, and that the extremist groups don't profit from the venality of some mainstream politicians.

* I'm making an exception for the council elections, for various reasons.

Caught Up again

I feel like I've managed to finally catch up with all my ideas about what I want to do. This seems to happen periodically - everything will get in a big mess, then I finally decide to sort it out, get back on the GTD wagon, and review it all. Of course the trouble is that knowing what you want to do isn't the same thing as actually doing it, and I have terrible trouble getting my non-work projects started, or sticking to them over time. Anyway this time, the main ones are to re-start learning Hindi, to write some kind of web project to learn more about Javascript and PHP, and to do some more swimming practice before I try to have any more lessons.

The weekend has been really nice - beautiful weather (although I have to be very careful in the sun). I took the girls to Cherry Hinton playground and we all had a nice paddle in the pool there. E met one of her friends from nursery, so that was good.

L has been out on her new bike a couple of times - I'm still just holding onto the back, but she is really close to being able to ride independently now. Annoyingly the front tyre has a puncture already, although it seems to be a slow one.

Went out for a bike ride this afternoon - round through Fulbourn, Wilbrahams, then up to Teversham and back through Cherry Hinton. It was good, although a bit too hot, and I finally remembered where I found a little path which I walked a couple of years ago, and which I then completely lost.

Morrissey at Cambridge Corn Exchange

Went to see Morrissey last night with my friends Ian and Clare. It was a really good gig, and we managed to get very near to the front (with all the squashing and jostling that entails). There's a set list here - pleased to see quite a few Smiths songs in there + quite a few more recent crowdpleasers.

There was a little incident when someone heckled Julia Riley after Moz gave her a birthday shout-out. Moz asked him to leave, and when he didn't really want to, Boz Boorer came over and gave him what looked like a pretty good line in verbal abuse, after which he went. To be honest I don't see how he could have done otherwise really - I doubt Morrissey fans are quite up to the standards of the Hell's Angels at the Isle of Wight festival, but I don't think I'd want to be surrounded by them when you've just pissed off the main man and his biggest fan in the middle of a concert.

May Update

Looks like it's quite a while since I wrote anything, so here goes with a quick update:

• swimming - I had another lesson, and I was able to do some full lengths swimming independently. I think a couple more should do it, and I need to work on being able to float and try going in a pool where I'm out of my depth.
• running - I've been doing gentle runs with walk breaks (1 min in 5 or so) every weekend, and so far no problems, so I'm going to start doing a run in the morning during the week again.
• last week or so I've had a nasty cold - felt quite grim + sinus pain - ugh. Seem to be over it now, but it was annoying to get it just when I was having a day off. Still I managed to go out with E and visit the Museum of Zoology, which I'd never managed to do before. They have a fantastic collection of skeletons of all kinds of animals - including whales, elephant, rhino etc. Went back to work on Friday to discover over 200 unread mails.
• I'm going to see Morrissey next week at the Corn Exchange. I saw him last year at the O2 festival in Hyde Park, which was great, so I'm really looking forward to it. As luck would have it, I just completed 5 years at my current job, so they gave me some Amazon vouchers, which I've used to buy the last two albums (among other things). Ringleader... didn't do that much for me, but I really like Years of Refusal - particularly All You Need is Me.
  

Finally Done...

I've finally finished re-posting all the material from Furthermore, except for a few bits and bobs I want to re-work, so hopefully I can get onto writing some new material here, and also taking down the old blog so I can do something new on that site.

What else is new: dining room is done, and everything is re-arranged - I'm now working at my new desk in the corner. Just got to put up my picture.

After last week's disappointment, swimming went well this week - my teacher was away, but he arranged for me to get a pass to Quy Mill, so I just practiced on my own. The thing I realised during the week was that I needed to get over my fear of going under the water when I started to swim. So I found a way to trick myself: I practiced quite a bit with just putting my face into the water and holding it - I don't like it so much, but I can do it if I feel prepared. So then the trick is kind of obvious: to overcome my fear of going under the water when I start swimming, I just start with my face in the water, and then I have nothing to worry about but getting it out! This worked really well, and I was able to swim several metres independently. I thought that was a good point to leave it, and I hope to pick up from there with Ed next week.

I also saw the physio again on Friday, and that went well. I cycled in with no problems, but annoyingly, I found cycling home triggered some knee pain again. Still I think I'm on the right track, so I did a short run this morning - some twinges but nothing major. I think I just have to take it gently and be more conscious of how I control my leg from the hip.

Furthermore: November 2008

November 19, 2008

ORG Founding Thousand Badge

Hey, it’s nice to be recognised. I will eventually get this pasted into the sidebar when I get round to fettling the blog a bit.

November 9, 2008

Long Past Time

Not sure what makes me want to post again after so long. I find myself remembering quite a few things I’ve done, but not blogged or recorded, so it seems like I’ll forget about them. One of the things I like about the blog is looking back to see what I was doing at different points in the past.

So on Saturday I took the girls to Ely fireworks in the evening. H was feeling a bit ill so didn’t come along. We were going to meet up with some friends but a combination of bad mobile reception, darkness, and crowds meant we couldn’t find each other. Ella found the evening a bit wearing - too long stood around before the fireworks started. She did enjoy them - and her descriptions of the sounds were very impressive - she said some sounded like bubble wrap, or people crunching on gravel. L enjoyed them too, and it was a good evening generally.

Working back in time a bit, let me think - we had half term week off and went up to Lincoln to visit my parents. We stayed at the Hillcrest Hotel again for 2 nights. It’s friendly, the food was good, and you can borrow a baby-listener to just keep tabs on the girls so we could eat dinner as a couple - the hotel dining room is at the top of a hill looking out onto a park and the city, so it’s a beatiful place to eat.

Before that, hmm, I went to India for a week - I was in Pune for work. Very interesting trip - the most jarring thing in some ways was the way the city seems not to be planned to any great extent, with different types of business and residential use thrown together without the largely invisible guiding hand that makes British cities look coherent.

Anything else - I went to see Morrissey play at Hyde Park. It was a one day mini-festival, so there were lots of bands. I managed to get right to the front for Morrissey himself - it was a fantastic gig. I do feel it rather made up for the very poor concert I went to of his when I was around 18 - only had to wait till my thirties for another chance.

That’ll do for now - I’m going to go and watch Stephen Fry in a few minutes.

Furthermore: June 2008

June 14, 2008

General Catch Up

Seems like a long time since I wrote anything, what have I been up to?

I just finished Season 3 of The Wire - in some ways the best yet I think. Almost anything I say about it will spoil some aspect, so just go and watch it.

Running - not much happening. I’m doing 2-3 shortish runs, and I’m still trying to get my time down on the Cherry Hinton circuit. I seem to be able to get to about 26.30 and struggle to get beyond that.

Just got a new bike through the cycle scheme - there’s some sort of tax break if you use your bike to commute, so you can effectively get about 40% off the cost. I got a decent road bike with dynamo and hub gears, so if anyone wants my old bike (still serviceable) I’m open to offers.

I also just had a big clear out of books and old stuff - I’m fairly good at getting rid of clutter, but I just felt the urge to make a clean break with a load of old things I’m never going to look at again. I do feel better for it too, although possibly it was just a kind of work avoidance scheme so I don’t actually have to get on with any new projects. I’m currently trying to get back up to speed with some more advanced maths, and I want to learn more about web programming. Oh and I started learning Devanagari script.

We’ve also been on holiday, to Weymouth, but I think I’ll save blogging that for another time.

April 20, 2008

Not Dead

Only the blog is a bit moribund. Everything else is going fine. Work is keeping me very busy trying to get up to speed with my new role, which I’m really enjoying so far. At home I’ve finally finished laying the path I started 2 months ago. I’m hoping it will give the girls a bit more opportunity to practice with bikes and scooters than going across the patio could.

Furthermore: March 2008

March 5, 2008

Latest News

Lots going on, so I’ve not really been blogging. I’m very busy at work - I’ve started a new role managing all the maintenance development on our product. We’re currently testing the latest release, so plenty busy with that really.

Running is going okay - I got back down to 28.22 on Tuesday, but my knees are still not quite right, and I just seem to be in maintenance mode for running at the moment anyway, which is okay.

We downloaded our first bit of TV the other day (I know this makes me positively medieval compared to some) using the BBC iPlayer. The interface is a bit shonky, and it’s a bit crap they don’t make it clearer that the p2p stuff keeps running even when you’re not using the iPlayer. Still it did remind me of the first time I used a video - suddenly a whole different way of using the TV opened up. What did we watch you say? Being Human - a BBC3 one off/pilot about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a flat. I thought it was really good and well-written. Knocked spots off Torchwood anyway.

Last weekend I filled a 6 yard skip with garden rubbish and rubble from breaking up the old concrete path. The girls helped a bit, but I did it nearly all myself, which I found quite therapeutic. Now I’ve got to get the new path laid - need to get some boards first to edge it.

Tomorrow I’m taking the car to have the cam belt replaced, before I go up to visit my parents on Saturday. It will be good to see them again - I’d like to go more often, but it is hard to fit it in with everything else.

Furthermore: February 2008

February 17, 2008

Weekend

Quick catch up as I’ve not written anything for a while. I finally started running again this week - I did my normal circuit on Thursday (29.50), and a somewhat truncated run at the weekend. I seem to have lost a lot of fitness, or at least oomph while I’ve had a little break. I stopped partly because I seemed to be getting some knee pain, and I wanted to try to strengthen the muscles up a bit, and also get some new trainers. See how it goes I guess.

H had her Latin OU tutorial on Saturday, so we met up afterwards at the Fitzwilliam museum, as L had been saying she wanted to go (although I think she actually just wanted to go for lunch!).

Today I’ve just been fettling the car and bike a bit. I’ve also got a book on PHP web projects, so I want to have a play with that (if it’s any good I’ll talk a bit more about it). I’m still waiting for Amazon to send me my MP3 -> cassette adapter for the car, but that’s another story.

Also just got the first disc of The Wire season 3, which is already shaping up to be a classic. Go get season 1 now - you can still beat the crowds. Season 5 is underway in the US, so I’m assiduously trying not to hear anything about it.

L has lost her first tooth - apparently the tooth fairy’s going rate is now £1 per tooth. This could ruin me…

February 3, 2008

It’s my birthday…

Unfortunately H is ill, so I’ve also been looking after the girls (so they got quite a bit of TV - they were watching Laputa - Castle in the Sky as we’re working through the Miyazaki films).

It hasn’t been very birthday-ish, but it’s been quite satisfying.

Furthermore: January 2008

January 20, 2008

More Music

More tracks from my ancient past:

• Cud - Only a Prawn in Whitby - there’s lots more on that site btw, it’s a real treasure trove of old indie stuff.


• Madder Rose - Beautiful John [YT] - another very good example of the twee genre. This was in the 1993 Festive 50 at number 36. The one I really want to find from the same year is Attagirl by Heavenly. So far no joy.


• StereoLab - French Disko - from the small sample I’ve heard, this seems to be the only StereoLab track I like.



• Palace Brothers - Ohio River Boat Song - beautiful melancholy American folk music.

I think that’s about it. If anyone’s ever heard of a song by Mighty Mighty called Imaginary Girlfriend then I’d love to hear that again. Oh, and somewhere there’s a really eerie recording of Ghost Riders… at about half normal speed.

January 16, 2008

Running

I seem to have been a bit slack since the start of the year. Still I’ve managed one midweek run this week and last week as well as the weekend run. As a baseline for the year I seem to be doing the weekend circuit in 55 mins (I think it’s about 6.5 miles) and the midweek one in 27m30. That’s a lot slower than my best times of just over 25 minutes last year, but at least I haven’t gone right back to 30 mins or so. So the goal is to get that down under 25 minutes, and then to work on distance.

January 12, 2008

Music History

I recently had a final clear out of audio tapes (well, nearly final - the car still has a tape player, so there are a few there). The only things I had left were a few compilation tapes from the early 90’s, mostly consisting of John Peel’s Festive 50.

I went through them to extract things I still liked, and came up with a few bands I’d like to get “Best Of” compilations for - Billy Bragg, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Nick Cave. There were also various one-off tracks I liked, and I’ve been trying to look some of those up on-line.

Apparently there was a defined genre which covers most of what I liked C86 or “twee pop” - strangely I’d never heard either term until I started looking for some of these. But there’s a blog devoted to the genre and it’s descendants.


Anyway, I found a few oldies that I enjoyed, and tantalising references to some others that I couldn’t quite pin down. So here’s what I turned up:

Bob - Convenience - Myspace page plays the track as background. An perfect example of the indie-pop genre. There’s a podcast that includes the track as part of it. They actually play the same recording from the Peel show that I have.

I, Ludicrous - Preposterous Tales - once heard, never forgotten comedy song, quite similar to Half Man, Half Biscuit. Alas, the site merely allows you to buy the music, you can’t hear the track there.

Field Mice - Sensitive - covered by the C86 All Stars (so the scene even has a covers band).

Eggs - Government Administrator - I like this one a lot. Quirky.

Hmm, I think there’s quite a lot more still, so I’m going to leave you with those and do another post later. Enjoy!

January 5, 2008

Over Christmas

I eased back into work this week - I took an extra day off after new year, so I only had to go in for two days. I think I’m mostly back into the swing of things now, and it’s now official that I’m taking on a new role: from March I will be managing bug fixes for our product. I’m looking forward to it.

Christmas and New Year were both good - we had Christmas at home with the girls, and they both now have a mountain of new stuff. I went to see my parents on the 27th, which was good fun, and dad was in good spirits. Then the 28th was the little one’s birthday, so we had a few people over for a small party. 29th we went round to Guy and Susie’s so Lizzie could play over there. Then New Years Eve we went over to Stevenage to see Neil and Justine - this was all in the afternoon, as everyone present had small children. Finally New Years Day some friends of ours from Japan came round - they were in Cambridge for a few days and their daughter had been in Lizzie’s class for a while when they were staying in Cambridge for a year.

Running has been a bit slack, but I’ve been managing to go out once a week for a leisurely run round the city. I think I may need some new shoes though - my current ones are the same ones that got me through the marathon, so I think they’re nearly a year old now.

Good Friday... eh, not so much

Well okay, it wasn't bad, but I ended up fiddling with an idea I had about a work problem, which sucked up time, but didn't prove anything conclusive, so it was a bit annoying.

I think I'm also a bit annoyed with myself for not making more progress at swimming too. I had the lesson, but I just sort of froze up when I had to get rid of the float. It's weird - I know that it isn't really supporting me as I'm only holding it with one hand, but I just panic if I don't have it.

Partly I think I put too much pressure on myself to improve in that lesson though, and so I didn't want to mess it up when I had to try to set off solo because it would make it more of a block to doing it again. Naturally that meant I couldn't do it at all.

That and certain work issues just make me feel like I'm kind of stuck, or blocked, and it's generally quite disagreeable feeling that way.

Oh well, we have a nice weekend to look forward to - it's the new Doctor Who tomorrow, which L is very excited about, and on Sunday we're going to visit some friends. Plus Monday off as well... what's not to like?

Pre-Easter

Various stuff happening lately:

• finally finished the dining room - H did the painting, I did the lifting and carrying, and building the new Besta units, which I'm very happy with. So we now both have desks downstairs + enough storage for our stuff. The new colour is much better too.
• I'm still learning to swim - I have another lesson tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finally get over some of my hang-ups about the water. I've narrowed it down to quite a small thing: I have a mental block about going forward into the water without something to hold onto. With a token float to hold I'm quite happy, but without it I tend to freeze up, which then means I sink! Getting close though I think.
• We've now got a Wii + balance board and Wii Fit. Mainly for H, but I'm enjoying having a go on it too. I like the Wii Sports Golf, and the skiing on the Wii Fit. H has progressed to a snowboarding game, but I haven't logged enough time yet.
  

Furthermore: December 2007

December 17, 2007

Busy Week

I managed to go out a few times last week - I met Chris on Monday evening for a quick drink in The Brook - I’ve lent him our stair-gates as he was about to buy one.

Thursday was our work Christmas meal. We went to the University Arms for lunch, which was good, then onto Revolution, which was bad in my opinion, particularly as we ended up on the roof (sorry, Vodka Terrace) which was freezing cold. After that the party split, and I ended up going to The Maypole, and then a curry at The Maharajah (which I don’t think I’ve been to since 199x.

Friday I met up with Ian and we went to The Blue, and then The Salisbury, where we met Clare and some of her work colleagues. I felt fine after the work do, but I was a bit rough on Saturday morning.

I finally managed to fit my new car battery on Sunday, after Ian had tipped me off to the existence of socket sets with extension arms. For some reason this idea had never occurred to me, so I had no idea what to try to buy to undo the retaining nut.

I’ve had today off, so H and I went to The Wrestlers for lunch (E tried a bit of the mild Panang curry, and liked it). I’ve been working in the garden and trying to cut back the wild growth of the summer. Unfortunately that means I now have a huge pile of branches and thorny stuff. Bonfire maybe? It would be a big one!

Back to work for a final burst tomorrow. I’m feeling a bit frustrated with my current project - ie, the last bit isn’t going very well. Oh well, perhaps I’ll have more luck this week.

Furthermore: November 2007

November 26, 2007

Fitz and that

My old college had a reunion for mathematics on Saturday. There were some short lectures in the afternoon, so I went on my own for that bit - my old Director of Studies, Michael Potter gave a talk about some of the philosophical problems in maths which I found pretty interesting. I was very interested in this area at one time but it seems to have worn off - Dr P lent me a book of essays on the topic, but I just don’t find the issues of much moment one way or the other.

H joined me for the dinner, as Jay came over to babysit. The food was not bad, although they were a bit stingy with the wine (I’d forgotten how colleges are the last places that have those tiny glasses for everything). It was good to see a few people from my era (3 of the chaps from the year above me were there) and I got to talk to some others too.

November 13, 2007

Capturing Mary

I quite liked Joe’s Palace last week, so I thought I’d give this one a go as well. I really wish I hadn’t bothered. The main problem seemed to be that there was no real drama in the present, and the story in the past was all at one remove, so you never felt there was much at stake. Plus it was one-note - Mary and Greville, and how he (pretty much) showed her something nasty in the woodshed and she never got over it.

The remaining mystery of why he said “help me” the last time she saw him was not at all satisfactorily resolved by the encounter she has in the present day when she sees him again, unaged. Is he a ghost (she says not), or perhaps a hallucination? We never find out, and by then I, at least, was past caring.

The only way it makes any sense to me was if he was really some kind of projected aspect of the unconscious - we see him at the start telling everyone they’re not as good as they think they are. Perhaps he just represents those negative parts of our psyche that we must fight against. Still doesn’t make it a good story.

November 11, 2007

Behind the times

Still seem to have a cold dragging on. Good run time on Thursday though - 25.30. At the weekend I felt quite tired by my normal circuit round town, I sort of feel like I’ve lost the cushion of being able to run much further. Maybe I need to try to extend that run out a bit more - trouble is then it eats up so much of my Saturday morning.

November 7, 2007

Cold Crow

Still have the cold, which I think accounts for me slipping back to 26.45 on Tuesday. Still, I seem to be mostly fighting it off. Tomorrow I’m going to Joel Spolsky’s talk in Cambridge - you can still try to sign up here if you’re interested (may be full by now though). Quite a few of the guys from work are going, so I get to call it training.

At lunchtime I was sitting outside for a few minutes (I figure while it’s still mild I should make the best of it) when I saw a crow hopping around the grass. I haven’t seen one around the Vision Park before, but it seemed quite tame. It was croaking in a fairly pitiful way though, so I looked in the bin next to the bench and found a big apple core. I threw it down on the grass, and after a couple of exploratory pecks, the crow picked the whole thing up in its beak and flew up to the roof of the nearest building, thus proving its superior intelligence to the ducks who invariably chase each other round and round after finding the smallest crumb of food. It improved my day quite a bit to feel I’d done something for the crow.

November 5, 2007

Fireworks

I seem to be coming down with the cold Mrs F has had all weekend. Hope I shall feel better tomorrow.

We decided to skip the Cambridge Fireworks this year as it was on a Monday, and we’d have to take both the girls (E has been too young up to now, and so I’ve taken L on the bike) in the car, which would mean a very late night right at the start of the school week. Instead we went to the Histon and Impington fireworks on Saturday, which were excellent - I thought it might be a bit feeble, but the range of fireworks was excellent, and there were even some types I’d not seen before, as well as some kind of controlled fuel explosion that caused an impressive fireball.

Running went well too last week - after my 25.53 time on Tuesday, I got it down to 25.45 on Thursday. I’ll try to get down to 25mins and then see.

Friday I went to London for work, and then met up with my friend Kath for her birthday at Ruby Grand in Hammersmith. It was a good night out, but I don’t think it did much for my run on Saturday. I cut the circuit a bit short and did 50 minutes or so.

This week I feel quite lethargic - maybe it’s just the cold, but it’s difficult to settle down to actually doing anything.

Furthermore: October 2007

October 30, 2007

Paris with Children

I thought I’d write a bit about our experience of staying in Paris with our two young daughters (now 6 and nearly 3) as it was the first time we’d taken them abroad and we didn’t know how it would work out.

We went on Eurostar and I think it was the right choice - you can turn up less than an hour before the train goes, and despite saying you can only take two bags each (although that was plenty) they don’t seem to enforce that rigidly. There was no problem getting the push chair on, and there’s enough room that the girls could draw and play with toys in their seats. Taxis were no problem at Gare du Nord.

We rented an apartment in the 16th, just off Rue de Passy. I found it on paris.craigslist.com, and it was just what we needed. The street was nice and quiet, the area similar, and we were right near a supermarket and a chinese takeaway, so dinner was sorted. Rue de Passy also has loads of shops, including some toyshops, which L and E both love (of course), and we were able to get L some nice boots, which she was very pleased with.

We did try going out one evening, but it wasn’t ideal - restaurants were happy to accomodate children, but few places were open before 7.30 by which time both girls are flagging (particularly after a day out). Eating out at lunch generally worked better. In the evenings we just ate picnic style, and the girls watched Mary Poppins before bedtime.

We were quite close to two metro stations and the RER. We found ourselves using the RER most often as it went along the river, and also out to Versailles. Mrs Furthermore and I both bought Cartes Orange for unlimited travel. We bought a carnet of half-fares for L and E is still young enough to ride free.

So where did we go - I think I mentioned Versailles. We only went round the gardens (and we didn’t do nearly all of that) - the queue for tickets to the Palace was still gigantic, even in October, and I don’t think the girls would have enjoyed a long tour. They liked the gardens and statues though, and we found a nice open-air cafe in the grounds for lunch.

The Eiffel Tower was close enough to the apartment that we could walk there, so we got the view across the river from the Trocadero as we approached. We didn’t go up - again big queues and neither L nor E were particularly keen. We took the Batobus (L decided the scenery en route was of no interest compared to the leaflet she’d found) from there to Notre Dame to get some lunch, and then looked at Sainte Chapelle.

As for more child-oriented activities - we went to the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois du Boulogne which was great. There’s a miniature railway to take you in, and there are loads of things to do - a little fair, lots of slides and climbing frames. There are quite a few cafes, but we found everything was full when we went on Sunday - I think we just arrived at a bad time, and also the weather was good and everyone had come out for the day.

We also went to the menagerie in the Jardin des Plantes. It’s a good little zoo, although a bit expensive to get in. The reptiles and spiders were a particular favourite. Nearer to home, we found a little park near Muette with a playground (with a train exactly like the one in the Jesus Green playground here in Cambridge). There were also slides and climbing frames in the park at Place des Vosges, which was quite welcome as it meant we could admire the Place and the girls could have fun.

Overall it was nice to have a holiday which was a bit more of a balance between what Mrs F and I enjoy, and what the girls like, and there are still loads more things we didn’t get to see in Paris. The travelling was more stressful - particularly the journey back as we did it all in one day, and the girls got very overtired. The overall cost was also much higher than staying in the UK, mainly because of the cost of Eurostar tickets (where we’d otherwise just have driven within the UK). I recommend the apartment, both for the facilities and the location - if we go back to Paris, I’d certainly consider staying there again.

teh quick

I managed my run in 25.53 this morning, thus smashing through the 26 minute barrier in style. Seems quite strange to me, as I haven’t really been making much progress for ages, and even seemed to be getting slower before I went on holiday. That’s about 7m30 mile pace, so I’m pleased with that.

I’m aiming to get down to 25 minutes, then I’ll maybe extend the run out a bit.

October 26, 2007

Do Gooder

I went to the Cambridge City Amnesty letter writing meeting in The Castle (Castle Hill one) last night. It was pretty well attended as these thing go, and I think we did about 30 or so letters. I brought some on Shi Tao who I also campaigned for when I did the London Marathon. There’s an AI page on him here if you’d like to help - basically he wrote an email which the Chinese authorities didn’t like, and Yahoo shopped him so now he’s doing 10 years in prison.


The other thing I’ve been following is the campaign to get asylum for Iraqi employees of British forces (some of whom may be being Black-and-Deckered to death even as we speak). The pressure on the government does seem to have had some effect, but the current position is apparently that Iraqis have to show 12 months continuous employment to be eligible for any help. So more letters to MPs are required. David Howarth has been pretty good on this so far, but if you feel moved to help, check out Dan Hardie’s latest post.

October 25, 2007

Running to Catch Up

I’ve done 3 runs since we got back from holiday - all on the same shortish circuit round Cherry Hinton. Saturday I think I did about 27.50, Tuesday it was 27.25, and today I got it back down to 26.40. I can’t remember what my best time was so far - somewhere around 26 mins I think, so still a way to go to get back there. I was pleased with 26.40 though - I didn’t feel like I’d really run faster than I did on Tuesday (plus I had to stop for a cyclist), and I had the minor triumph of getting past the Cherry Hinton level crossing just before the barrier warning started going. It’s a right pain if you have to wait for the train to pass.

October 24, 2007

O Superman

I was playing an ancient compilation tape in the car this morning, and I heard Laurie Anderson’s O Superman for the first time in many years. It obviously made some impression on me before or I wouldn’t have taped it, but hearing it again it seemed much more powerful than I remember it. Partly I suppose I can now hear the influence of people like Glass on the music so the repetition doesn’t seem so weird, but whatever the reason I found it quite moving.

October 20, 2007

General Catch up

I see I haven’t written anything for ages. Well, let’s see:

The kitchen is finally finished and it looks really good. Induction hob, dishwasher (originally against my better judgement, but I’ve come round to it), and all drawers and cupboards have soft-close, which always seems like magic to me. More cupboard space than we had before, although perhaps not quite as much more as we anticipated. Anyway, I’m very happy and I’m happy to recommend the guys who worked on it (with one exception). Feel free to get in touch if you want phone numbers etc.

We’ve been away on holiday to Paris. I’m going to post on that separately so I won’t say much here, except that it was fun, but it seems to have left me completely tired out all this week. That may have been the drive home, which was rather stressful, as we missed the turn from Mrs F’s parent’s house onto the M25 and ended up travelling a long way down the A3 heading further and further away from home.

Haven’t done much running - I did one shortish run in Paris, which was fun, and then nothing last week until today, when I did my normal early-morning circuit (3.5ish miles) as a way of easing back into the routine. Next week hopefully back to normal.

I’ve finally finished Gene Wolfe’s The Wizard which I have rather mixed feelings about. I’ll try to post about that separately too. I see I’m now two books behind Wolfe again - the long awaited Soldier of Sidon is available, and there’s also the shiny new Pirate Freedom (of which I again hear mixed reports).

We’re meeting some friends for lunch a bit later - it’s L’s 6th birthday, so she’s very excited today.

Furthermore: September 2007

September 26, 2007

Burma March in Cambridge on Thursday 27th

via WheeliebinLand:

Hello

You have probably heard that Burma is at a pivotal point: thousands of Burmese monks are marching peacefully for democratic reform, and the military junta have started clamping down with violence, with several people killed already.

I would like to show support for the monks by having a silent march through town to the Guildhall, with press coverage. Time is critical, so it will happen tomorrow, Thursday lunchtime.

We will gather at the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, 38 Newmarket Road, CB5 8DT, at 12.45, to leave promptly at 1pm. We will walk in a silent, dignified column through town to the Guildhall, where we will probably arrive at about 1.30. People can remain if they want for a while to meditate in the market square, hand out leaflets, and have petitions to sign.

If you would like to meditate, you might want to bring something to sit on. It may also help to show some visual cohesion if there’s a dominant colour clothing: so wear blue if you have it. I will leave it to you if you want to carry a banner. My main request is that the Junta does not use force to squash the Burmese demonstrations. But of course there’s 101 things on the wish list for the Burmese people. Please respect the peaceful, respectful nature of the march, both in action and any slogans on banners.

While this is being organised by Buddhists, anyone is welcome to show their support for the peaceful demonstrations by Burmese monks. Foreign pressure is probably the only thing that has any chance of stopping the military junta from cracking down with extreme brutality. I hope you feel able and enthusiastic to show your support in this way.

Best wishes

Vajrapriya

PS Please forward this email to anyone you know in the area if you feel inclined.

September 2, 2007

Catch Up

H and I drove up to Dunstable on Saturday for one of H’s aunt’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Bit of nightmare drive unfortunately, but it was nice to go out as a couple during the day. H’s parents came up to stay with us rather than drive straight back to London. The girls were thrilled to see them - especially as they brought presents with them.

Kitchen is going well - lintels are in, the loo is plastered - hopefully this week most of the heavy work will be finished, and then the fitting can begin.

Haven’t been running during the week - I’ve had a cold and haven’t felt up to it. I did go running on Saturday as I’m feeling somewhat better - although I’m still very blocked up (parental aside - I blew my nose last night and E said “can I see your snot, daddy?”). I’m in the Metafilter running challenge on Runnerplus - I’m crocomancer on there.

Moving Earth and Being Human

I am now the proud possessor of a raised bed, having spent most of the afternoon filling it with soil. Annoyingly, I overestimated how much I needed, and now have about a third of a tonne-bag left over, although I can probably use it in other parts of the garden. Finally we can start planting - the girls have been keen to help with the construction, and I think they will like helping with picking things to grow too.

Just re-read William Gibson's Neuromancer after a very long time (my booklist says I read Count Zero in April 87, so it was before that). Oddly, I could remember hardly any of the plot - the things that stuck with me were really the mental images of cyberspace, the AIs, and Molly of course. The description of cyberspace still seems quite contemporary, provided you think of it as a "cinematic" way of portraying the actual experience of interacting with computer networks. The parts that seem more futuristic are the bio-tech modifications - something that I don't think I noticed much at the time.

Anyway, I'm off to watch the last bit of Being Human on IPlayer. I've really enjoyed the series, and I think it's something of a tribute to the writers that it survived the cast changes and transition from one-off to series. It's also managed to steer clear of huge morass of cliches just waiting for any series that mixes ghosts, vampires and werewolves. Although I still don't believe Mitchell would not have realised what Herrick's plan implied for humanity.

Nearly done

I'm nearly up to date with transferring posts from Furthermore - just the end of 07 and 08 to go + a few longer pieces that I want to maybe re-work a bit. I seem to be quite busy at the moment with work and home projects - I'm building a raised bed so we can grow some veggies, and we're just starting work on packing stuff up so we can re-do the dining room.

Running is on hold again due to more knee problems, but I have finally booked a swimming lesson, so I'm hoping that with a bit of help I can get some confidence in the water and then I can mix and match swimming in with running so I can do some exercise when my knee needs a break.

I've been fiddling with various tasks on the PC this morning, and surfing youtube while I'm doing it. I stumbled on various covers of Smiths songs - there are a couple by Jeff Buckley, which were interesting, but the recording quality is bad. Muse have done Please Let Me Get What I Want but while it's quite original, I can only agree with the commenter who labelled it an unpleasant surprise. My favourite of the day is this Radiohead cover of The Headmaster Ritual. I wasn't a big fan of Meat is Murder but seeing someone else do this song with a little bit of a harder edge really makes it stand out for me:

Furthermore: August 2007

August 24, 2007

Kitchen Update

It’s progressing, albeit more slowly than we’d like. To be fair, it’s not the builder’s fault - he’s been very good about getting on with things - it’s more to do with needing a steel lintel to support the bit of wall we want knocked out, and arranging to get the structural engineer to tell us how thick that has to be.

However, we’ve now got the new room built for the toilet, and the new back door and windows are in place at the back (giving us a temporary open-plan toilet back there). Hopefully at the weekend the toilet can be plastered and then that can be fitted out. Then next week the lintel should come and the kitchen should finally move forward.

Running

I skipped last weekend’s run, but on the Thursday before I did 26.02 which is another best time. Interestingly this Thursday I did 28.40 - partly because the weather was terrible, but also just general tiredness I think. It was quite amazing just how the change in mental approach slowed me down - by the corner of Cherry Hinton Road I was already 30 seconds behind the 3.30 I’d expect to get there.

August 13, 2007

Ian and Clare’s Wedding

Had a really good time at Ian and Clare’s wedding on Saturday. Weather was great, the college was a beautiful setting, and the food and drink were excellent. Too much of a good thing for our younger daughter, who ate a whole adult portion of chocolate mousse and then had to throw it all up afterwards - fortunately H had decided to take her outside as she didn’t like the clapping during the speeches. Also fortunately, someone lent us some clothes for her. Ella’s comment “I ate too much chocolate”. I don’t think it will put her off somehow.

We took the girls home in the afternoon, and then I went back for the evening do, which was also good fun - met several people I hadn’t seen for quite a while, and generally had fun drinking and dancing to the indie hits of my youth.

While I remember - Thursday’s run went really well - I did 26m05, and I would have been quicker if I hadn’t stopped to warn a cyclist about an eye level thorny bit of hedge sticking right out across the footpath.

August 7, 2007

Stag Weekend

I went up to Sheffield last weekend for Ian’s stag do. It was good fun, and good to see some old friends. I felt slightly strange going out in a big group of “lads” - clubs and pubs are not keen on you, and since nearly everyone already has a wife/partner, the point of the game is less clear than it used to be. Also, once you get past 30 or so, the attractions of being in a loud, over-priced club seem to pall somewhat compared to sitting in a quiet pub where you can talk to your friends (about house prices or something

I got back to Cambridge on Sunday to find that summer had arrived. I went over to Jay’s boat to have a look round (it was the boaties open day, and I hadn’t seen inside Jay’s boat before). Ended up staying for most of the afternoon, drinking wine and chatting to Jay and Al while a steady stream of visitors came by. Very relaxing.

Running seems to have suffered a bit - I skipped a couple of Tuesdays for reasons I won’t go into here, and my times have slipped back to around 27.15. Hopefully I can get it back down again. I’ve just binned my London Marathon magazine for 08 - I may do another in a couple of years, but I don’t feel the urge to just do it again for the sake of it.

Furthermore: July 2007

July 19, 2007

Kitchen

After many false starts, it looks like our new kitchen is finally going ahead next week. We were originally going to do a big extension, but we eventually decided against it after finding it wouldn’t add any value to the house (and we might want to move to get more space at some point, or if they put bus lanes on Perne Road). So now we’re just moving the loo from the back of the house to be off the hall, and the kitchen to the back so it will face into the garden. Builders should be coming next Wednesday or Thursday - I’ll let you know how we get on.

Another good run this morning btw - 26.29.

July 17, 2007

Things

Went up to visit my parents over the weekend - we were all going to go, but then dad had a fall and broke his pubic bone (very painful apparently, although you can still move about). Since he’s a bit frail now anyway he had to spend some time in a home before mum could get him back to their house (hopefully he’s back today). Anyway, it didn’t seem fair on the girls for them to have to just sit with me and mum and dad all Saturday and Sunday, so I went up on my own. It was nice to be able to spend some time with them both - just a shame about the circumstances. I’ve brought back a big load of their old photos which I’m going to try to put into some kind of order.


This was also the first time on a long journey in the new car - ahh, so much easier to drive. Faster, much more powerful - the kickdown is really good fun. For some reason, this was also the first time I missed the turn-off towards Newark and Lincoln so I had to go on a bit of a loop to get back to where I should have been.

I took Monday off, which was a good break. I ran this morning before work - 26.40, so that’s another best time.

July 13, 2007

Bit of a catch up

Let’s think, last weekend I took the girls to the Big Day Out - great fun. L went on the bouncy slide and bouncy castle. E tried to have a go on the bouncy castle but it was too big for her. We had ice cream, and then the girls had a go on the roundabout. H was feeling poorly that day, so I went out in the evening (instead of her I mean) to meet Jay for her birthday. Met some interesting people.

Started running again in the week after feeling ill with colds and general blocked-up nose stuff. Thursday I got back to 26.49 so hopefully I can get that down further next week.

This weekend I’m off to see my parents in Lincoln. Dad’s not well after a fall, so hopefully I can cheer him up a bit with some stuff from the girls - I have a very cute video of E saying “hello Grandpa”. It’s my first chance to take the new car on a long journey too.

Furthermore: June 2007

June 21, 2007

Runs this week

Tuesday - 27.10

Thursday - 26.45 - below 27 minutes for the first time.

June 14, 2007

Runs this week

Tuesday - 28.30 - not bad, particularly as I had to stop for a minute to check something.

Thursday - 27.16 - best time yet. Maybe next week I can beat the 27 min barrier.

Mrs F has also started running again, and seems to be enjoying it so far.

June 13, 2007

I can has a car?

(sorry). We’ve bought a shiny new-to-us Skoda Octavia. It’s a real joy to drive compared to the Citroen - much quieter (petrol rather than diesel), more powerful, and oh yes it’s an automatic. Neither of us had tried one before, but we both immediately took to it - I feel like driving a manual is a peculiar kind of practical joke that’s been played on me - why would I want to be constantly fiddling with the clutch and gears when the car can do it all for me?

June 10, 2007

Looking for a new car

The Citroen has finally reached the point of being more expensive to fix than to replace, so I went out on Saturday to look at some potential replacements. I saw two Mondeos, and a Skoda Octavia - the latter looks promising, so I brought Mrs F along today to have a go. I’m going to take tomorrow off and we’ll check out a couple more Octavias before we make a decision.

If anyone wants a K reg Citroen ZX to run into the ground (it still goes okay) then get in touch.

June 5, 2007

Tuesday Run

27m30 - I think that’s about a minute better than last week.

June 4, 2007

Le Weekend

Quick roundup on running - didn’t go Thursday as I played 5-a-side at work on Wednesday and it pulled muscles I don’t normally use. Saturday I seemed to be a bit off form - I started off well but I was well over 1h08 by the time I got home. I think I was a bit distracted by various things, and also it was a lot hotter than it has been lately, so maybe I was getting a bit dehydrated.

Apart from that it was a pretty good weekend - I managed to do some good work in the garden edging and weeding, I started looking at my new book (Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance) - so far it seems much more user-friendly than Hull, and I played with the girls and generally had a good time.

Annoyingly, the car now seems to be slightly broken - the rear suspension isn’t right, so that’s yet another thing to add to the list of stuff that must be fixed, along with dripping taps and leaking roofs.

Furthermore: May 2007

May 12, 2007

Endless Things

I just got my copy of John Crowley’s Endless Things today. The booklist shows I read the first part of the AEgypt quartet at the start of 1989, so that makes it over 18 years to get to read the last part. There aren’t many authors I’d have this much patience for.

Shiny New Blog

I’ve found a WP theme I’m reasonably happy with (AndyBlue if you were wondering) so I’ve made the switch to WP and also demoted the blog from the root - I have vague plans to do some other projects on this site as well as the blog.

Furthermore: April 2007

April 24, 2007

Valedictory

I think that just about wraps it up for Furthermore in its current incarnation. I shall leave the current pages up for a while, but then I think I’m going to move the site and its archives (yes, I know, a blogging sin - so shoot me) and start using Wordpress. There will be occasional updates, but I doubt it will be more often than monthly.

I’m also thinking about posting to my LiveJournal. I use it for private posts and commenting at the moment, but I’d like to have somewhere to be able to blog some more personal stuff without having it easily linked to me by anyone who cares to google my name. So if you want to see that (I’m not promising how much there’ll be yet) and you don’t know where my LJ is then mail me.

post Marathon

I did it! I ran the London Marathon in 4.43 and finished 19,360th! It was a hot day - I remembered to bring a hat, but I forgot suncream. I think the hat was a lifesaver in actually allowing me to get round - I was very worried I’d get heat exhaustion. The suncream would have been nice though - I’m quite burnt on my arms, neck, and backs of my legs.

I felt pretty good through the first half. The low point was at around mile 17 when I somehow lost track of how far I’d gone and was expecting mile 18 to be coming up. Big disappointment when I saw the marker.

Fortunately I got a lift soon after when I saw my friends Alison and Chris - it definitely helped to see some friendly faces on route. If I do another then I will get my name printed on my shirt - I hadn’t realised people gave shout-outs as they saw names pass by.

The last section was tough. My legs were very tired, but I stuck to my run/walk cycle and it did seem to help stop me seizing up. The feeling when I finished was incredible. I can’t really describe it - just a kind of cathartic wave of emotion. I shall probably look very strange in the photo.

After the race I staggered across the river to meet H (we thought it would be a bit less crowded on the South Bank). We had a snack at the NFT cafe and I got changed. Then we went on to eat at Strada - it was pretty good (though I suspect almost anything would have tasted good) and then back to H’s parents in time to see the girls before they went to bed.

Here’s my official time, and here’s a random picture of me on Flickr - I literally picked it out a big page of thumbnails.

Furthermore: March 2007

March 21, 2007

Marathon Sponsorship

I’m running the marathon for myself primarily, but I wanted to raise some money for charity too, so I’ve chosen Amnesty International, as I’ve been involved with them for a long time now. I’ve got a JustGiving page up here, or the button below should also link to it.

Thanks in advance to anyone that will sponsor me! Amnesty have been campaigning for the human rights of victims of oppressive regimes for many years, and unfortunately there are still many countries that practice torture, arbitrary detention, and “disappearances” - ie state sponsored murder.

March 18, 2007

Marathon Training

Looking out the window now, it looks like I did well to go running yesterday. Still, it was the toughest run I’ve done yet - my body seemed to rebel from the moment I set off. My left foot had been aching a bit in the week and it started playing up almost as soon as I set off. I think a lot of this was also psychological - all the negative parts of my brain trying to make excuses for me not to finish. Normally it wears off after a while but this time it just seemed to be continuous.

Fortunately, after a couple of miles, my foot felt better and I did have a fairly good run for an hour or so. But I wasn’t even up to 2 hours before I started feeling a bit tired - which is quite unusual.

By 3 hours out I was really suffering, and my right leg almost cramped. Fortunately that kind of made me realise that a big part of the problem was dehydration. I stopped at a random stranger’s house and asked them if they’d refill my bottle (thanks, random stranger). Previously I seem to have got round nearly 20 miles with just 500ml of water and whatever I drank before I set off, but yesterday I just needed more - I had to stop and ask again before I finished.

Anyway, I finally struggled home in about 4.13 (predicting a marathon time of just under 5 hours). I’m pretty pleased I did it, and didn’t jack it in - I think it will really help build some mental toughness for the big day. OTOH, I’d really like to do better than 5 hours on the day, so I need to make sure I stay more hydrated.

I got my pack through from the Marathon telling me where I’m starting and such like. And Amnesty have sent me various sponsorship stuff - I’m going to set up a justgiving site, so it should be available in the next few days - I’m just waiting for some Amnesty bits to customise it.

March 6, 2007

Winding Down

ass="storycontent">

I don’t seem to have posted for a month or so, and I think that may be a sign that this blog is going out of commission, at least for a while. There may be a new Furthermore when I have something new to talk about, but don’t expect many more updates here. I will let you know how I get on in the marathon though.

Furthermore: February 2007

February 4, 2007

100 miles

I did 20 miles on Saturday, in just over 3 hours 30. I think that takes me to just over 100 miles run so far this year. Conditions were good on Saturday though - I did the same route as for the 17 mile run, but I just added on a couple of loops of the science park, and a wrong turning to make it up to 20 miles. Definitely more aches and pains on this run though - my right ankle started to twinge, and every walk break I had to stop and rotate it a few times to get it feeling right again.

For some reason the big psychological hurdle for me was the 17 mile run - maybe because I hadn’t run so far before. Ironically that went very well, but this one was much harder. I definitely got some kind of second wind towards the end though - I felt tired, but my form imroved, and I was able to run strongly to the finish.

Next long run though, I have to find some more places for comfort breaks!

Cotto

It was my birthday yesterday, so Mrs F and I went out to Cotto for dinner. It was fantastic. We got off to a slightly shaky start, as we were greeted by a woman who looked at us in a sort of “what do you want?” way, until we said we had reservations, at which she rather directed us upstairs. Anyway, the food was really nice - I had a salad with stilton, and then mackerel with a dhal. H had pork rillette and then a tagine of lamb. All really full of flavour. They were able tweak the dishes slightly to cater for H’s dairy intolerance (always a good sign), and they even had a dessert she could eat. Fairly expensive (~?80) but I’d definitely go again for a special occasion.

Furthermore: January 2007

January 31, 2007

Tuesday

I had an amazingly productive day on Tuesday - I got up about 6.30 and went running, then spent the morning at work fixing a problem that had been bugging me for several days.

I took the afternoon off, did a bit of shopping and then went to CB2 to meet the MySociety people to see what I could help them with. They were very friendly, so we had a good chat, and Tom put me in touch with Richard Pope who’s hopefully going to help me get going with a screenscraper for his planning applications website.

After I left there I bought some food for tea, then headed home to eat and help put the girls to bed. Then back out to the Alexandra Arms to host the Cambridge Amnesty group’s letter writing evening. Fortunately for me I had been given a bunch of template letters by a friend in the Blackheath and Greenwich group, so we were able to use those to write about 20 letters between the five of us.

Still managed to get home in time for a reasonably early night.

January 20, 2007

Not blogging but running

Not a lot to say at the moment I guess. I am thinking of porting this site to Wordpress (that is, I’ve done it, except the style sheets, but I can’t be bothered to finish) so maybe that’s why I’m reluctant to post here - it’s the Furthermore-original-flavour epilogue.

Anyway, running is going well - I did just over 17 miles today, in just under 3 hours, so that’s about a 10m15s per mile. For some reason the 17 mile run had become something of a source of anxiety. I’ve never run that far before, and I was afraid I was going to screw it up I guess. As it was, the weather was nice, and I even managed to get on the road before 8am so I was back just before 11. Here’s the route - the section by the river up to Baits Bite, and then Milton Country Park was very nice. Running back down Milton Road, not so much.

January 6, 2007

Running this morning

I did my longest run ever so far this morning - just under 15 miles. Took me about 2 hours 40, which is a bit slower than I’d like. Conditions were okay when I set off, but my hands started to get really cold after about an hour - I think I need some thin gloves that I can take to prevent it as this has happened a few times now. I find if I take my normal gloves my hands get too hot, and the gloves are too bulky to easily put in my waist bag.

It rained too in the latter half of the run, and I finished the circuit by going round Nine Wells, so there was quite a lot of muddy ground to cover. Bit of a slog to be honest, but I feel good now I’ve done it. I’m going to aim for 17 miles in a couple of weeks time, and that should pull me back just ahead of the schedule in Galloway, and give me some slack in case I lose more time later on in the year.

January 2, 2007

Torchwood

We watched the Torchwood finale last night, and I think that’s it for me and Torchwood. Much as I love Mr Barrowman, the penultimate part jumped the shark during his snog with the doomed airman. We got the point already - can the writers not express a subtle emotion without smacking us over the head with it?

The last one was even worse - pure self indulgence by the writers. There’s a scene where Capt Jack berates his team for all being idiots, and for a moment I thought there might be an explanation why the whiny, hysterical fools had been recruited to their positions of global importance. But no, it was just more emo wank before they brought on the demon that they’d already shown us in the trailer. Then the whole sorry mess finally dragged itself to its obvious conclusion.

What annoys me is that it has moments of brilliance, and that the same people who seem so able in Doctor Who, seem to lose all sense of characterisation and ability to write a good plot as soon as the constraints of a family drama are relaxed.

Furthermore: December 2006

December 30, 2006

More about Today

I wibbled on so much about running and coughing that I forgot to mention that after yesterday’s rather disastrous trip out, and with today being such fine weather, we thought we would go out into town today.

So we had a good lunch at Teri-Aki. L protested, but then she did try a few things - she liked tempura, and she even tried one of the fish eggs from the sushi, but decided that was nasty. That’s the sushi that is marked “challenging” in some restaurants I’ve been to, so I don’t think she did to badly.

While we were there, we saw Prof Hawking - nice to see that he’s still able to get out and about. After lunch we walked up Castle Hill - none of the family but me has been up there before for one reason or another. When we reached the top, the rain immediately began to fall, so we quickly descended again. The rain then stopped, so we walked back into town through Trinity College, and stopped for coffee and cake at Michaelhouse.

Back at home, Mrs F found that her new OU course material had arrived, so she was pleased, having started the day a bit down after a bad dream and a poor night’s sleep (see below about coughing).

It was a really nice day out, and it’s so nice to be able to relax with my family and not feel the need to be constantly doing things. I want to have more of that kind of fun in the coming year.

Post Yule

Haven’t updated for a bit as I’ve been feeling pretty ropey since before Christmas. I’ve had a mix of cold and cough, but it’s mainly the cough that’s been bugging me - it’s very dry and it just seems to have been going on forever. It was keeping me awake for several nights, but I’ve now discovered the wonders of Cough Nurse (ie like Night Nurse but for coughs) which seems to have just taken the edge off it.

So apart from sickliness, what else:

• Christmas itself was good - we had duck for lunch, with a bottle of Chateau Musar (my favourite wine). Lots of presents were exchanged, with Mrs F particularly pleased with my getting her the DVD of Miyazaki’s animated film of Howl’s Moving Castle.


• Then the 28th was E’s birthday, so we had a few people over (there would have been more, but it seems we’re not the only ones who are ill) but it was really nice to see Jay, and Guy + Susie and family again - Ella loves playing with their older boy Gabriel. I don’t think E could claim to have been hard done by for presents, given the proximity of her birthday to Christmas.


• Yesterday we tried to go out - we thought to go to St Ives, but the weather and traffic were against us, so we ended up having a rather disappointing lunch at Bella Italia (which has previously been quite good).


• Today I managed to go for a run for the first time in over a week. Possibly I could have gone before - it’s hard to judge when running will make you feel better rather than worse when you feel a bit off colour. Anyway, I did about 6 miles, so I shall treat that as the run I should have done last Saturday, and treat myself as just a week behind on my schedule. Of course I didn’t think about losing time in the training schedule when I started running, so I haven’t left any spare weeks to catch up the time I’ve lost. Hopefully I can make up the distance on some of the later long runs, but I think there’s a lesson there for another year.

That’ll do for now. I want to do some end of the year personal round up type stuff, but I need to think about that a bit more.

December 20, 2006

Up and Running

The new site is now officially up and running, if incredibly hideous at the moment. Hopefully that will spur me to actually do something about it.

Quick list of what needs doing:

• fix problem with delicious sidebar being indented so far. Some kind of stylesheet madness I assume?


• make the header links work, particularly the archives.


• change the style of the left sidebar - I don’t like the boxes.


• turn the colour scheme into something more palatable. Probably different than the old Furthermore, but with a hint of how it used to be.


• either work out how to redirect URLs, or redo a bunch of links (eg in the booklist)


• restyle the booklist and CV to the new site style.


• rewrite the main Furthermore page to say what’s happened.



• uninstall Movable Type.


• add a link to Amnesty International in the worthy causes section.

Update 22/12/06

• fixed the archives and the header links (mixture of removal and moving to sidebar).

December 19, 2006

Nothing to see here

I’m just fiddling with WP with a view to converting from MT. There’s quite a bit more to do yet.

Well, I’ve got all my posts migrated. I’ve got a three column layout. Now I just have to turn it into something less hideous.

Harmonica

L got a toy harmonica on the cover of one of her magazines. Turns out to be a swizz, as it only has two notes - the others are intentionally non-functional. This means you can’t get any kind of tune out of it, and the notes that do work produce only a kind of plaintive squeaking - the sound you imagine a gerbil might make if it were pulled slowly into a mincer.

December 18, 2006

The Big Opt Out

I just sent off my opt-out letter to my GP, asking them not to upload a summary care record for me to the NHS data spine. I’ve thought quite hard about this - I don’t have any medical data that I’m actually that bothered about keeping strictly private - but the government’s implementation of central NHS records seems likely to undermine doctor-patient confidentiality, and is yet another facet of the database state (see past rants about ID Cards, the ridiculous children’s database etc).

You can read more at The Big Opt Out. There’s a form letter you can use to send to your GP.

December 13, 2006

As of yesterday

I don’t seem to be doing much blogging lately. Maybe it’s the running using up my time. Saturday I did a ten mile circuit of Cambridge - knees felt fine, but it was very cold, and I foolishly didn’t take my gloves, so my hands got absolutely freezing. I thought they’d warm up after I’d been out for a while, but no such luck. Then in the afternoon Mrs F’s sister came to visit, which was nice - she brought up some presents for the girls, and they like playing with her. Unfortunately Mrs F started to come down with a bug as the afternoon wore on, and ended up having to go back to bed. So that meant I had to cancel my night out at the BBC Backstage party at very short notice (sorry, Ursula). One of those things I guess, but I was pretty pissed off at the time.

Sunday Mrs F was somewhat better. I took the girls up to Histon playground (L likes the little helter-skelter there). It was a bit cold though, so we went back quite early, except that I left a bag behind with all the changing stuff (+ drinks, snacks etc) behind. I had to go back after lunch to look for it - fortunately it was still there. As I was still in quite a bad mood about the previous evening, I thought I’d take a bit of a drive round. I ended up at Upware, so I had a quick pint at the Five Miles, then negotiated the tiny back roads back to Cambridge - I love the sensation of being in the middle of nowhere, and the fen landscape is great when you just want to be on your own for a bit.

I took Monday off as Mrs F had been planning to go to London to meet a friend and see the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain. Unfortunately her friend had to cancel, and she was still feeling a bit off-colour, but she decided she’d go anyway, and just not stay out too late. I took E into town (had to wait ages for the bus in the rain) and managed to get Christmas cards + various other things I’ve needed for a while. Since Mrs F was back early I was able to go out and see (at Jay’s suggestion) The Scissors at The Cellar Bar. It was pretty good - Jay has blogged it more amusingly than I could. You may have to be one of Jay’s imaginary friends to read that though.

December 3, 2006

Sickly

Ah, it’s all been sickness in the Furthermore house this week. Wednesday night L woke up very poorly, and Mrs F had to stay up with her, with me doing backup vomit-cleaning duties.

Then Friday I came down with the same thing (although not so badly) so I had to leave work early. Saturday was a complete write-off, and today I merely felt grim. Actually I’m starting to feel a little better now, which is good, as tomorrow is Mrs F’s birthday, and I booked it off work so we could go out together.

Furthermore: November 2006

November 19, 2006

bits and bobs

MeFi meetup was good fun, and it was great to go to a formal hall again - real hit of nostalgia for me. I cut my run a bit short the next day - only did an hour.

Today I managed to do quite a bit of my finance course revision + worked on the family tree program for quite a while - I can see it’s going to take a lot of effort to get all the information into it that I have now, never mind adding new people in.

It’s good though, I feel like I’ve caught up with myself a bit, and that I’m doing the things I want to do. I seem to have got through my mini mid-life crisis. I don’t think it was any single thing that did it, just a combination of GTD, and reading and thinking about what I wanted to get out of my life. It’s helped as well that the children are a bit older and more able to play by themselves or with each other.

Now I just have to get over my procrastination demon - but I’ve found quite a good book on that too - The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Interesting stuff - maybe I’ll write a bit more about that too.

November 16, 2006

Wire and Rain

Had to run in the rain this morning which wasn’t so great. At least it wasn’t cold.

This evening I watched episode 1 of season 1 of The Wire, which teh internet people seem to rave about. I thought it was good, and I’m going to carry on with at least the other episodes on the first DVD (1,2&3). Since it’s on rental, I’ll see what I think after that - all the series DVDs seem pretty popular at Amazon so it may be a while before I can get the next one anyway.

Tomorrow evening I’m off to the Cambridge Metafilter Meetup, so we’ll see what that’s like. It’s going to be at Trinity Formal Hall, which should be good fun at any rate - I haven’t been to a formal hall since about 1993.

November 14, 2006

Roots Magic

I’ve downloaded the basic version of Roots Magic. It looks like exactly what I need to manage all the family history info I’ve accumulated in one place. I’m particularly impressed they’ve thought about the fact that you might want to add sources for where you found pieces of information.

It imported from my parents’ old Family Tree Maker file without complaint, and I’ve added a couple of things since then. Don’t bother with the Platinum edition - the basic is fine unless you need a lot of help with PC applications.

November 13, 2006

This weekend

I increased the distance a bit this weekend - I did an 8 mile circuit + 3 runs from the corner of Chesterton Road and Castle Hill up to the top of Castle Mound. Each run up is just under 1/5 mile, so that’s just over another mile altogether. Time was around 1 hour 30, so I’m reasonably happy with that.

I seem to be getting a bit of soreness underneath the outside of my right knee though, so I’m going back to the physio to get it checked out.

November 7, 2006

Le weekend

Friday I was in London again for a presentation skills course. It was pretty good, but a secondary reason for going was to see the shiny new offices in the CitiGroup tower in Canary Wharf. We were pretty high up and the weather was clear, so the view was incredible - you could see right across to Wembley (if you had good eyesight like I don’t). You could really see the smog over the city as well. The course finished quite early so I managed to meet up with Rachel, who had to leave early to revise for a ton of job interviews she has lined up, and then Tony, who I was at college with, and I haven’t seen for a few years. He and his wife had just had their second child, so he was quite tired, so we had some food at a nice Italian place near Farringdon, and then I headed back home.

Saturday H went into town in the afternoon. The girls and I went out in the garden until teatime, when I thought H would be back. Since she hadn’t turned up, I thought about what to get them for tea and came up with boiled egg and soldiers. Just as I was about to put the eggs on, H arrived home. “Sorry I’m late - the bus didn’t come. Did you get my message?” she said.

I didn’t know anything about the message because we’d been out in the garden. H played it and it suggested that I give the girls boiled eggs and soldiers for tea. Obviously the mind-melding is proceeding apace.

I took L to the fireworks in the evening. Really good this year I thought. L liked them, but she got a bit bored after a while. Next year I think we might try to bring everyone into town, which will make the logistics harder - with just L, I can take her on the bike (although I need to get a trailer bike, as she doesn’t really fit in the child seat any more).

H and I watched Torchwood on Sunday, which I was quite looking forward to from the trailers. It was absolute cobblers though. (Spoilers follow). I don’t believe for a second that Ianto could keep his partly cyber-converted girlfriend, Lisa, in the Torchwood base for months on end without anyone knowing. And that was just the start, after that the implausibilities came thick and fast, culminating in Lisa’s self administered brain transplant into a Pizza delivery girl (whose brain death doesn’t even rate a mention from the team). The team then casually shoot her body dead to kill Lisa. No consequences follow for anyone (although I guess it’s going to be hard for them to get any more pizza).

Might give it one more go, but that’s it.

November 2, 2006

Bike bits

I’d been thinking for a while of buying a mirror for my bike, but having now done it, I have to warn you not to waste your money. At least, not on a handlbar mounted one. It doesn’t stick out far enough, it moves when you steer (duh) and generally I got no information from it that I wasn’t already aware of by just listening and glancing behind. Don’t bother.

Gloves on the other hand - I just bought a pair of “sealskinz” waterproof, breathable mountain biking gloves for a small fortune, but they’re great. Finally, gloves that actually keep my hands warm now the weather is cold. I got them in the outdoor shop on Green St - can’t remember the name I’m afraid. I did try Halfords, and they had some quite good ones, but they had incredibly tight cuffs - I don’t have outlandishly large hands, but I could hardly get them on.

Londonist

I had a course in London on Tuesday, but it was only in the morning, and they even finished a bit early, so I booked the rest of the day off. I went up to Euston and met one of my Woolwich-era friends for lunch. Then I went to Tate Modern to have a go on the slides.

Unfortunately I hadn’t reckoned on how popular they would be. Tickets (free) for the highest levels had all gone, and the level 3 slide only had times for about 4.30 which would have meant hanging around for 2 hours. I’ve been on slides before, and it didn’t quite seem worth it. Fortunately, there were two slides that were just queue and go, so I went on those and called it a day.

Then I did a bit of shopping, although I only managed to buy a few stocking fillers for the girls. Probably a good thing really as I would have spent a fortune otherwise.

Finally I met up with a couple of friends at a pub and we had a good evening of catching up. Gotta go to London again tomorrow for another course, so hopefully I may be able to catch up with some other people after work then.