Symbolic Forest

Today must have been the first day of summer.

I’m not saying that because the clocks change tonight,^* or because The Parents have gone on holiday, or for some other obscure astronomical reason. Today was the first day that really felt like summer. It’s not just about being warm, or sunny, but there’s something in the air. I wanted to go out into the garden and lie back in a deckchair sipping a gin and tonic. Of course, as I don’t have a deckchair, and couldn’t be bothered to nip down to the local branch of Deckchair World,^** I didn’t. And now it’s pouring down again. That’s this year’s summer gone, then.

* they do, don’t they?

** “Do you need more deckchairs in your life? Come straight down to Deckchair World – we’ve got the deckchair to suit you! Green stripes! Red stripes! Blue stripes! Special offers galore – buy two deckchairs, get one free! Come down and see us – branches in Scunthorpe, Withernsea, Beverley, Barrow and Goole.” I’ve started listening to local radio a lot more recently, and it probably shows.

Keyword noise: commercial radio, advertising, deckchairs, garden, gin, radio, seasons, summer, weather.

Well, I was glad Gordon Brown did take my hints on a couple of things.^* I’m just disappointed that he didn’t single out blue cars for rebates.

Current small reasons to feel pleased with myself: I’ve managed to completely avoid watching anything at all to do with the Commonwealth Games, even though one of the medal-winners is a teacher at my old school. Hopefully I’ll manage to keep avoiding it until all the fuss is over again.

Current small reasons to get pissed off: the computer keeps crashing, usually at the most inappropriate moments. I know what the problem is: a very obscure bug in the disk controller driver which very few people have come across, and nobody seems to know the cause of.^** Bah.

On the other hand, I do have a large box of biscuits on my desk at the moment. But not for long, I suspect. Hurrah!

* although, to be fair, everyone else in the country had already vaguely guessed the road tax changes.

*** it only comes up if you have a Promise SATA disk controller, a Maxtor SATA disk, and are running one of some Linux 2.6 subversions. But not all – the problem apparently disappeared in one revision of the driver, only to come back in the next.

Keyword noise: biscuits, budget, Commonwealth Games, computing, crash, economics, Gordon Brown, Linux.

As that nice Mr Brown of Ferryhills Road is going to deliver his budget this afternoon, I thought it would be a good idea to give him a few tips. So, in nice easily-digested bullet-point form, here’s the Symbolic Forest Budget 2006 – quick, clear the BBC1 schedule and get Evan Davies on standby!^*

• Higher taxes for married people.
• and anyone else who can get a date at the drop of a hat (sorry, Big Dave)
• Lower taxes for single people
• especially ones who are doomed to stay single for all eternity (it’s only fair).
• Higher taxes for big cars. You only need a 4×4 to take the kids to school if you live in, say, the tiny Welsh hill village of Llwybr Cyhoeddus.
• Smaller taxes for little cars. Especially blue ones.
• Lower taxes on beer produced by small independent breweries.
• Higher taxes for carbonated urine beer produced by big industrial ones
• No tax at all on gin
• Or tonic.
• No taxes on any expensive cameras or other gadgets I might want to buy in the next year.
• More cake

That should get the economy nice and stimulated. There you go, Gordon; hope this helps.

* But don’t mention the rumour about his body piercings.

Keyword noise: budget, economics, Gordon Brown, taxation, Big Dave.

So, as I explained yesterday, the security contractor at the office has saddled us with three “incompatible” security systems, two of which probably are compatible after all, it’s just that he doesn’t know how to get them to work together. We complained to the office manager about it. “Well, if that’s what the contractor said, that’s what’s going to happen.”

The next day, our boss comes through to visit. “What’s this about us needing three different tags for the alarms?”

We told him what we’d been told.

“It’s a bloody stupid idea. I thought they were all going to work together.” Yes, so did we. “I don’t want to have to carry three tags on my keyring.” And he wanders off, grumbling about it.

The following day, we notice the Managing Director stalking about in our part of the building, looking at the security gadgets and making “hmmm…” noises. The office manager is following him around, trying to explain how wonderful these expensive systems we’ve commissioned are.

“…you’ll have one tag for these doors, one tag for the outside doors and gates, one tag for…”

“Why do we need three different tags for everything? Why can’t we just have one?”

“The contractor says that they won’t…”

“Well, I thought we were just going to have one tag that would do everything. I don’t want…”

I tuned out, but it was clear the way the conversation was going. What makes me sigh isn’t that we always prefer contractors who have worked for us before, even when their track record is hardly promising.^* It’s that the management should have spotted this coming. The contractor did give the office manager a nice thick specifications document – did the manager bother to read it at all? Didn’t he bother to ask questions about the vague parts?

* This isn’t the first time the security contractor has fitted something and then not set it up properly, because although he’s agreed to fit the system we wanted he’s not willing to learn how to configure it.

Keyword noise: alarm, contractors, incompatibility, management, office, RFID, security.

As part of all the building work that’s been going on at the office, we’ve been getting the security systems upgraded. A new alarm system, new motorised front gates,^* and new electronic locks on most of the internal doors. All to be worked by RFID tags, kept on our keyrings and carried round all the time.

Now, being logical and sensible, we assumed that the company had specified either a single system, or compatible systems, so that we could use one single tag to unlock everything. Therefore we were pleased to spot, as the contractor^** started to install the hardware, that all the sensors we could see came from the same manufacturer. Very sensible.

We each get a tag the other week, and start using it to open and shut the front gates. Three days ago, the contractor pops his head round the door to say he’ll be issuing us with the rest of the tags, the ones for the indoor locks, soon.

“The rest of the tags? We’ve already got one.”

Apparently, we need separate ones for the outdoor locks, the indoor locks, and the alarm system itself. Because “the systems are from different manufacturers.”

“But they’re not from the same manufacturers! We’ve seen them, and they’re identical! If you hold an outdoor tag up to an indoor sensor, it recognises it!”

“No it doesn’t.”

I held my “outdoor tag” up to the newly-installed sensor by the office door. It bleeped, and flashed a little green light at me.

“Well, I can try to set it up so that that tag unlocks this door,” the contractor said. “But it won’t work.”

(to be continued, otherwise this post would get a bit long)

* This is a Good Thing, because guess who’s job it is to unlock and open the old front gates every morning.

** Our usual security contractor, a friendly chap, who is very anal about making sure his cabling is put in and terminated neatly, but isn’t very good at setting up the security systems themselves properly.

Keyword noise: alarm, building security, buildings, compatibility, defeatism, electronic locks, forward planning, incompatibility, locks, planning, RFID, RFID locks, security, systems.

There’s been an awful lot in the news lately about the drug trial whose guinea-pigs are dangerously ill.^* My own abnormal reaction is: they volunteered for this. They may well have come out of trials before with no problems, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be as lucky on the next trial they take. The chance of something like this happening is miniscule, but it’s still there.

Am I being too callous? It is, of course, still a horrible thing to happen to someone, and to their relatives. One of their relatives, a BBC producer called Myfanwy Marshall, has been on the news constantly since it happened, telling us all how horrible it is that her boyfriend is dangerously ill, and has lost his good looks. On an interview last night, she said how shocked she was that he suddenly looks middle-aged – “forty-five”, she said. I know people don’t always say what they mean when they’re under stress, but it certainly seemed to show a lot about her priorities in life.

* Well, three-quarters of them – the others were on the placebo.

Keyword noise: drug trial, medicine, Parexel, testing.

I was a little doubtful when I saw, on the front page of Friday’s Guardian, the tagline “Steam trains – the great aphrodisiac”. I do like trains, but I wouldn’t say that about them.

It turned out to be subeditor’s hyperbolae. The article, by a former director of British Rail, turned out to be about the radical romanticism of the steam engine. Eroticism was only briefly mentioned. I’m rather glad, to be honest. Train-into-tunnel might be a classic visual metaphor, but I don’t think very many people would say that the train itself is what gets them going. There are people out there who haven’t just had sex on the train, but can remember the numbers of the trains they’ve had sex on – but I somehow don’t think it was the train itself that was turning them on.^*

What I do like about trains is what that article calls “the rigmarole of trains”. The ritual surrounding the railway. The little bits of peculiar terminology that you don’t get anywhere else.^** The natural romanticism of rail travel, and the community feeling that can spring up around the line.

* but if it was – on balance, I think I’d rather not know!

** phrases like “not to be used outside possessions”, or “not to be loose or hump shunted”.

Keyword noise: culture, locomotive, railway, ritual, romantic, steam engine, steam train, The Guardian, Simon Jenkins, trains.

Went for a walk on the beach today, to try out a new camera lens.^* I’m told that brisk exertion can be good when you’re feeling down; and struggling through the biting wind across the dunes always seems to leave me more cheerful than I was before. When I was too tired for the sand, I moved down and walked along the firm mud at the edge of the saltmarsh instead.

Even at half a mile, the roar of the breaking waves was a loud, constant growl. I stood and watched ships lining up and waiting to be piloted upriver, and tried to take photos of the changing weather.

(as they are on film, you’ll have to wait)

* Nikkor AF 35-70mm 1:3.3-4.5, if you care – an early 90s model, I think. I can never understand Nikon lens ranges. I don’t normally go for zoom lenses either, but it was only £35.

Keyword noise: beach, cold, photography, Nikon, walking, weather, wind.

In case you were wondering: last week, I was away in Wales. I was staying in the small, snowy town of Penrhyndeudraeth, Meirionydd, doing some volunteer work.^* Of course, I came back from my holiday needing another one to recover from it.

I managed to come across as a bit of a mad English tourist, whilst I was there, whilst I was in the local post office. The post office’s Lottery machine, you see, had a cardboard advertising hoarding on top of it. “Do you have a spare one?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” said the shopkeeper. She started to hunt around. “I’m sure we have one somewhere.”

“I don’t mean to be any trouble,” I said, “but if you had one handy – I’ve been looking for one of those.”

“I’m sure we did have another,” she said, wondering what the hell this mad English tourist wanted with a cardboard Lottery advert. “I’ll have a look for it and put it to one side for you.”

“Oh no no I don’t want to be a nuisance,” I said, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I just wanted one because that” – I pointed at the picture on the advert – “is my friend W, and it would be nice to have one. Well, um, thank you anyway. I really don’t want to put you to any bother.” And I left the shop, leaving me feeling embarrassed for causing a fuss, and her baffled at these strange tourists with friends off the adverts.

* “…with the mentally ill,” as one of the other people there said. I think it was The Goon, who may well be reading.

Keyword noise: advertising, celebrities, Meirionydd, tourists, travel, Cymru, Wales.

I always enjoy W’s parties, even the ones I can’t remember afterwards.^* And, because it was their wedding, this one seemed extra-special.

I’d been given the job of semi-official photographer, so I tried to stay more or less sober. It also gave me an excuse to constantly rush around the building shoving my camera into people’s faces. I would probably have done this regardless, but it was nice to have an excuse for it.

Eventually, people started dancing, so there was nothing for it but to put the camera down and bounce around like a mad thing. I don’t think I did anyone any serious injuries, but equally I’m not going to be winning any dancing prizes in the near future. Then, when I was exhausted, I’d flop down on the sofa for five minutes before picking up the camera again and repeating the cycle. If I saw someone posing for someone else’s camera, I’d try to quickly grab a sneaky shot from the side. Hopefully all the other party guests think they look good in profile. The main room was lit by beautiful blue fairy lights: it looked wonderful, but it was so dark that half the time I had no idea what I was photographing.^**

I was still emotional by the end of the evening. I hugged W before I left, and wanted to tell him: have a wonderful life together. W and P make an amazing couple, and everyone who knows them wants them to be happy forever after.

If you want to see the rest of the wedding photos – not that they will be of much interest unless you know P and W yourself, of course – most of them are here.

* such as the one where I got so drunk I collapsed in a flowerbed. There are quite a lot of people in London who have no clue what my name is, but if you say “you know, the one who collapsed in the flowerbed at W’s party” will know exactly who you mean.

** One technical photo tip: I was lucky that the house has very light, almost-white walls and ceilings throughout. This means that – if you have a swivel-head flashgun with good automatic metering – you can point your flash directly up at the ceiling to get nice, even, flattering lighting. It does mean, though, that the photo lighting is nothing like the original scene. This photo was taken in a room barely light enough to not walk into other people, and all the light comes from the flashgun attached to the camera.

Keyword noise: bounce flash, celebration, Civil Partnership, London, marriage, party, photography, travel, wedding.