the book of miracles

The Book of Miracles on Nowness.com

loving this!

j'ai toujours jeune

back when i was wee, one of my french teachers was a guy called moise from cote d'ivoire. we were a bunch of pasty scottish kids from a small scottish town and we'd never seen anyone like moise before. he took our spectacular ignorance in his stride. have you seen a lion? no, a monkey? i live in a big city. then a pause. does it have skyscrapers?

and he spoke beautiful french. even now when i hear a west african french accent it puts me back into a deeply content place in my childhood memory. thanks to moise and those few brief lessons we had with him my view of 'africa' would never be the same.

in those days, tho slightly later, being the time before internet and the like, getting your hands on african music, any music that wasn't western music, was tricky and relied on both luck and finding a decent record store. it must've been in one of these i first came across papa wemba and from there the sapeurs.

i loved those guys. and maybe yes, there was a time when i had a sapeur-lite phase in my life. so i was very happy to see the above mini documentary. okay, maybe the sapeur life isn't quite as it's portrayed but taken at face value - peace, respect and a healthy desire for dressing up? we could all do with a bit more of that!

earth

earth. the gift that just keeps giving. be warned - the minutes just slip away....

the ultimate small press

last year it was a derringer. this year how could anyone possibly not want one of these?

unicycle scotland

Voodoo Unicycles: Highland Tour from Beard Askew Productions on Vimeo.

post night shift sees me up at four, getting some work in while i'm choking for the sun to rise. why? just so i can get out and about. true, a balmy -6 at the moment but the sky is clearing and i'm never unaware of how lucky i am to get to do what i do where i am.

and not on a unicycle. but similar sentiments from this mob who are not so fortunate. they've got the mad skillz tho

but, just for arguments sake it does show you can take the boys out of the town but you can't take the town out of the boys. so i'm not super comfortable with all that 'the outside is a playground for townies' vibe. who's going to be fixing the wooden fence after they've been at it? sessioning a historic monument - moving rocks to make a gate for grinding? obviously i'm assuming they put it all back but all the same - not cool. and as for doing the rail on kyleakin - not too many emergency services up there and better things to be doing than fishing some idiots body out of the sound if it had gone pear shaped.

mostly tho i'm just being a bit curmudgeonly. looks a great trip,

out of context

i don't know who one direction are. or harry styles. but as an antidote to some of the social media nastiness that abounds these days this is hard to beat.

lee jeffries

i was having a think  about that last post but more towards narrative in the image and it got me to thinking about lee jeffries. i remember being very struck with his images the first time i saw them. these days maybe not so much - looking at them they seem maybe just a bit too constructed, a bit too stylised.

but that's the thinking bit of my head talking. back in the day i used to take my camera into work to try and capture something of the old people. it was a tricky business! and yet looking at those old pictures (when i can find them!) i think i could say much the same - way too self conscious!

but i find it difficult to tire of portraits and when i do it's an indicator it's me who's tired! it's a signal thing, to be able to slow down, to take the time to look, to see a person as they pass by...

that'll be the winter coming

i may have failed to post any autumnal pictures but now, with the morning temperatures down to a balmy -6 this week, this sky is the sort of thing i've been coming out to scrape the ice off the car to. and handy these phone things, not least because it turns out that the camera on my phone is better than the wee olympus thing i bought only three years ago. i can;y get used to it tho - i need something camera like!

and onto the bike. even allowing for weather i should be well over the 5k mark for this year which, allowing for a couple of months off for weather, injury and wedding isn't bad. true, i've discovered that i am actually beginning to get slower but also that i'm not that much bothered. the ability to stop and look about rather than beasting it with the head down is to be welcomed.

to avoid winter bike injury i've dropped the seat 3mm. this has improved things but i'm uncertain my winter boot cleats are just right. along with the slowing of pace there's a definite slowing of getting over hurt so i need to get this done properly. i've even had the mtb out tho both of those have needed extortionate repairs. i feel my lbs isn't my friend right now!

eating the lunch

Noma: Staff Meal on Nowness.com

one of the things i really enjoy about being at the restaurant in sweden is having lunch, or breakfast before the fishing, but mostly the lunch. it's not like we have to work for it - t's brother is far too hands on for that! - but it may be that i get to fetch some ingredients or maybe wash some dishes (supervised mind!).

after that we get sat down on the deck, usually there'll be some family members about, sometimes one of the waiting staff. being summer the sun is shining and we'll have a good old banter over the food before getting stuck into service. it's great and this video about noma shows that no matter how big the restaurant staff food is always important.

then it's off to do the tables - i get to do this now with a minimum of checking. i wish i could say i was less pernickety than t's brother when it comes to my own work but i'm not which is only one of the reasons why it's such a joy when i get to be a less than effectual kp and get fed for my troubles!

things i'd paint in my garden

not the best of days today as 'work' we had done on the roof results in the last 24 hours of torrential rain being deposited from the roof and into our kitchen (don't ask!). i think maybe this is the final straw for this house and maybe we'll consider a move next year.

and, like one of my previous houses, that got me to thinking about what i'd like to be doing round about the garden. walled, enclosed spaces are ideal for some outside images, maybe some thing like these...

it would have to be in a space where only we could see it - even down here in the south if we were to paint our house the 'wrong' colour it would cause a stir that would put the shenanigans around our garden to shame.

which is a pity as a more colourful, more interesting urban landscape would be rather lovely i think.

more of these here and here. i'm also pleased that next time i'm in london i can get on a bike and be shown some wall based loveliness

at the zoo

it shouldn't be any big surprise that i'm no fan of zoos. never have been since i was wee. but where do they go, i asked when i was wee (at manchester zoo maybe?). and then as i was older seeing bears with horrible psychological disorders due to their confinement, being told what this was and yet watching hordes of people still watching, still coming to the zoo.

so the contention, in the guardian, that tigers and pandas are the dancing bears of our time was like to find favour with me. but it did get me thinking and, in a roundabout way, got me to this



outside the wire, for me, has always been more interesting and, in its way, just as confining.

more radio, murder and identity

a few years ago now, my head full of critical theory, i had this idea that i might do a phd in which, rather than look at some literary text, i might look at stories closer to home, the stories people tell when they come in to hospital and from there the stories that professionals tell about them to each other and back to the patient. it was to do with that notion of the creation of a patient identity that could be and might necessarily be separate from the identity of the individual.

maybe medical humanities wasn't where it's at these days or maybe it's just the faculty at my university just weren't up to speed (oh no, they said, we don't understand this..!). i could blame me but nowadays i've seen bits and bobs of that same idea pop up here and there but equally not with anything like the emphasis i wanted to put on it. the idea remains, shelved, but allowing for some intellectual rustiness on my part, still ready to go.

i still talk about it in a roundabout way whether it's teaching ecgs or reflecting on a critical method. mostly it's about questioning heuristics, their facility and application, interrogating what you 'know' if you like. these days, it being junior doctor time (tho i do the same with nurses) i torment with simple looking questions like what's on this ecg (it being sinus rhythm). sinus rhythm they'll say and then we'll go way into why it's sinus rhythm and that's where it exposes both their lack of knowledge, assumptions and errors as well as my own.
because all of us, whether we like it or not, will make a judgement based on the assumption that if a thing looks like a thing then it is a thing and that information is based on all sorts of conscious or unconscious 'knowledge'.

there's all manner of nonsense that can occur with this sort of associative thinking and even more if you don't know you're doing it. you can see it at every level of organisation in all walks of life (and esp amongst those critical theory types who are so ready to apply their theory to everything except themselves) and, i would hazard a guess, it may be more prevalent among those who assume they are 'experienced'. i would never do that they'll exclaim (for more on this in a medical context read atul gawande's book on checklists).

i'm always on the lookout for good examples of well meaning but error prone thinking and i was listening to this week's episode of this american life today when i came across a particularly tragic example (it's the second part but the first is worth a listen as a preamble). be warned, it's upsetting. all the people here were, for whatever reason, trying to 'do the right thing' and yet the consequences were far reaching. true, at the end it may be that there's some sort of rapprochement but it shouldn't be forgotten there's still a dead guy.

this american life is well worth a listen and this episode for me in particular. radio, it seems to me, is ideal for this. you have to sit, you have to listen, there is no heavily made up presenter to distract you, no commentators droning on with their opinions, no music as  a backdrop to enhance 'the drama', just people's voices and time for consideration.

office gardens

when i walk out the door in the morning i'm confronted by a giant sage bush, a plant we were told, wouldn't grow over winter in scotland. three years later and it's dominated both garlic and chives so successfully i haven't the heart to cut it back. also coming to the end of its season is our oregano weed. the last of the bees, grey backed and slowing now are still at the flowers. harvestmen have appeared plus a range of spiders. despite the prolonged warmth (by scottish standards) you can feel the autumn.

our neighbours, of course, aren't super impressed with our garden. too ragged, too unmowed (and this before we dug up half the lawn!) but i suspect even they are beginning to get it - no complaints this year as the cuckoo flowers pinked the front garden for spring.

back in the day i worked in occupational health for a while. the big victory i look back on was getting people to give up fizzy juice and drink water. i never would have conceived of bringing a garden indoors to enliven the horror that is cubicleland. not to say i haven't worked in a place where there were plants but it was only one company and the plants were sad things languishing in pots.

great then to be browsing spoon and tomato and come across this -




i saw a 'vegetised' wall in london last year but never dreamed it could continue into the workspace. pasona deserve massive credit for this - i can only imagine the battle whoever did it must have had! too often corporate types forget that happy workers are productive workers (happy being that state a worker can declare themselves rather than be bullied into!). decent food and decent environment don't cost much - the gains are in worker satisfaction and commitment. i doubt we'll be seeing anything like this in britain any time soon....

what you do when there's no tv

plenty!



worth watching for the quote re inspiration near the end

*got via colossal

man cold

i, under the weather but t has gone out, muttering someting about working seven days, and leaving me with instructions to do ....stuff. how little she understands...

things i didn't do

away back in the day i used to play underwater hockey, it was during my brief time working a nine to five and, to date, remains my only exposure to actual team sport. it was great fun, top exercise but exposed any aerobic frailty that might be shown by anyone with a history of smoking.....

so mainly i got relegated to short burst aggression, a role i got rather good at (until i came up against my nemesis good and proper at my last scottish championships - great game but a whole other story) but not one that certain of my team mates turned out to like during practice! of those there were couple who liked to go free diving - the whole underwater bit of the hockey predicates much chat and practice of breath holding - but for me the smoking and the head weasels, tho primarily the smoking, kept me from going any way deep.

that said, i was always fascinated by it so was loving this...
 

William Trubridge - Freediver from The Avant/Garde Diaries on Vimeo.

which got me to thinking about other stuff i don;t do, mainly due to time constraints these days.

around about the tine i was playing underwater hockey there was a photographer knocking around who was taking landscapes from a kite. i was well taken with this and had one of the engineer guys at work looking at how he might make a remote servo for me but it was one of those things that fell by the wayside. at least it was until a few weeks ago when i was looking around for some aerial shots of some local roman remains. welcome to the world of kite archaeology

it was with glum faces that both me and t had to admit to ourselves that there was no chance we'd ever get it together to build one of these despite the multiplicity of kite platforms available in the house but, you never know, maybe one day we'll get in touch with that lot and go and see what they can do. it looks top fun and if there's one thing i can do, it's fly a kite.

which was why, the other day at work, one of the conversations lead up to someone expressing a desire to go kite boarding. yes, i said, i can do that, in fact i've got all the gear in the house if you want to give it a go. as ever, the rest is silence!

i'm amazed at just how much time people have to lie about, watch tv, go drinking/drug taking and generally do nothing. there is so much to see, so much to do and so little time to do it. now i'm off on the bike!

*checking that link for  underwater hockey has got me in the mood for a game. unfortunately there isn't a club near here but i think i can rustle up a game on spec. i'll dig out my sticks and results will follow....

cosmography of the local universe

Cosmography of the Local Universe (FullHD version) from Daniel Pomarède on Vimeo.

sit down and relax. you just can't not like this....

the deluge

i'm so fabulously bored by the ongoing crap weather it's quite unbelievable. if i wasn't working tonight maybe i'd have been up earlier and got out for a morning ride but as it is i'm sitting psyching myself up for a trainer session while the rain (and possibly snow!!!) hammers down outside. it puts me in mind of this

a reference to which i've been looking for (in the wrong book!!) for the last two weeks. maybe the finding of it was waiting for some proper rain...

exit thatcher

how can I not write something about thatcher? even as I tried to avoid the blanket news today I caught a snippet from one of the 'demonstrations', filled it would seem by people who most likely weren't even born when the thatch was in power. but one of them got her time in front of the camera declaring 'that woman made my life a misery'. and in that was all that needed to be said.

a long time ago now but a time when it seemed to be about 'them' and 'us' as opposed to 'me'. I never, other than one brief paranoid moment, when it appeared the special branch were upon us, thought that thatcher had it in for me personally. that came later, a noxious by product of thatcherism, the all consuming individualism. there is, she declared, no such thing as society. and then set about making sure it was true. and, much like orwell's big brother, far from having it imposed upon us, the country lapped it up and demanded more.

I remember when word cam that she had finally left downing st. I was working in the states at the time and my flatmate phoned me. have you heard, he said, thatcher's resigned. I put down the phone. I had, it must be said, expected to be euphoric, as it was I was stunned. I need a moment I said to one of the others on shift. I went away and sat down for half an hour. thatcher was gone. it seemed like the end of an era. except really it wasn't, only the start of the process that would lead to thatcher's unofficially anointed successor, tony blair.

how do I feel about it now. strangely, with much on common with russell brand of all people. love her or loathe her there, surely, can be little debate that thatcher's domain changed the face of the country. and try as I might I can't quite unremember those days of strikes, blackouts, rubbish in the streets and general hopelessness that preceded her even as I want to remember something else, something that was about community. as the man in the article says - this demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.

she was such a dire person what with the support of the regimes, the total lack of support for other women, the cronyism and everything that went with it but I couldn't help but feel sorry for the wreck of a woman in her later years. I've seen way too much in the way of Alzheimer's, vascular dementia and the like to take any pleasure in seeing someone with it. poor thatch, escorted by the police to water flowers, banged up in the ritz with no-one to visit her. be careful what you wish for, sometimes you get it. unfortunately, with people like thatcher, so does everyone else.

notebooks

it shouldn't need to be said that i'm particular when it comes to my writing materials. these days i use an ink pen I got from tesco's about five years ago. they don't make them anymore and i'm down to my last four or five with nothing to replace them. they're liquid ink - before that I had a box of ballpoints i got back in new York that lasted the best part of fifteen years. i'd hoped that my recent batch of muji 0.38's might have been the new pen but they have a scratchiness that just doesn't work for me.

and then there's the notebooks. for home use i've got a stash of a5 books i got in menzies - should've got more as they no longer do them. sturdy, leather bound, they're great. i do have a moleskin but I've never got on with them - the moleskin only serves as a training record. of late i've been using a very nice wee ordning and reda number. flexible, pocket sized with a horizontal band to keep everything in place. but, as with many things Swedish, there are times when I just don't want to be paying out that much money.

casting about i happened upon the leuchtturm1917. all the signs so far are good. beautifully featured with page numbers, stickers, index pages and tear outs and while it lacks the leather cover of the ordning it has a nice heft in the hand. I doubt it'll hold a pen as well as the ordning but that's the only quibble. certainly much better than an equivalent moleskin for me.

fixes vos pensees
aussitot qu'elles vous viennent a l'esprit
ou que ce soit

indeed.

now I just have to get a decent pen....