Modern communication

When you think about it, the Internet has totally transformed the way in which we communicate. What might once have taken you several weeks to track someone down to find out the information you needed, now, thanks to the wonders of online chat and email, takes mere days:

4 Feb
18:00 Me: Hello.
20:25 Carolyn: helo, hello helllloooooo
20:50 Me: Sorry we missed each other.
22:23 Carolyn (via email): me too

6 Feb
20:45 Me: Hello.
21:17 Carolyn: hi

7 Feb
22:36 Me: Are you there?
22:53 Carolyn (via email): No!
22:54 Carolyn: Are YOU there?
22:55 Me: Yes! Hellooooo!!!
22:57 Me (via email): Just missed you again!

8 Feb
20:40 Me: Hello!?! Are you there this time?
20:42 Me: Hello?!
20:42 Carolyn: yes.
20:43 Me: Result!
          ...I've forgotten what I was going to say now!

9 Feb
19:18 Carolyn: How do you make licorice mead?

So much easier than a phone call!

Bee-line

I received one of Carolyn's out-of-the-blue, weird-question text messages on Tuesday morning:

I wonder how I would know where the fault lines in our garden & field are?

I have to admit, I have never wondered that. As a general rule, gardens don't have fault lines. So, on Tuesday evening, I took Carolyn for a walk, and demanded to know what the hell she was on about. It turned out she was on about bees (obviously). Someone had turned up at her bee club claiming that bee hives should be placed on fault lines. The vibrations rising up from the fault line, he reckoned, mean that the bees have to vibrate less that usual in the hive (!?!), which means they have more energy to use to gather nectar and stuff.

No, Carolyn didn't understand it either. I told her it was bollocks. If anyone who isn't a physicist or a member of the Beach Boys starts going on about vibrations, you can pretty much guarantee it's bollocks. The same goes for waves and energy (although I don't consider the Beach Boys particularly well-informed on the latter).

I asked Carolyn if the man had suggested placing crystals under the bee hives. He hadn't. I think he's missing a trick there. Crystals famously help to focus energy.

I then asked Carolyn if she was sure he had said fault lines and not ley lines. No, Carolyn was pretty sure he'd said fault lines.

"You did science at school and university," I said; "you don't actually believe this bollocks, do you?"

"I never did Geography!" said Carolyn.

I have to admit, she had me there.

 


Disclaimer: For the record, I'm not saying that there couldn't possibly be a correlation between beehives' proximity to geological fault lines and honey production. I suspect there isn't, but, if there were, I could hypothesise several plausible explanations for it. What I am saying, however, is that the hypothesis that energy vibrations from fault lines somehow increase honey production is utter, utter bollocks.

Broonzy and me

When I win The Big One on the lottery, there's a walk I plan to take several times a week. I call it the Moor Walk. It looks a bit like this:

[Postscript: Apologies if you see a pop-up YouTube ad. Time to move to Vimeo, I think.]

A surfeit of Gruts

Ivor Cutler: Gruts
The inspiration for at least one website: Ivor Cutler's 'Gruts'.

J.R. Hartley used Yellow Pages, but, this week, I successfully resorted to Amazon to track down an old book I've been after for many years. I suspect you'll be very surprised I didn't already own a copy.

Meanwhile, in related news, I also tracked down a video of Ivor Cutler performing Gruts For Tea. The video is introduced by Neil Innes, who, bizarrely seems to think Cutler's masterpiece is called Grats For Tea. Go figure.

Anyway, sit back and enjoy:

Fitz and I saw Ivor Cutler perform once. Imagine my delight when he opened the show with Gruts For Tea.

Through the pinhole

For some time now, I've fancied having a go with a pinhole camera. That's a camera without a lens. You take the photo through a tiny pinhole, which, due to its tiny, pinholish nature, focuses the image for you. It works on exactly the same principle as my legendary hatescope. The tinier the pinhole, the better.

So, yesterday I gave it a shot:

Self-portrait taken with a pinhole camera
Yours truly yesterday.

I used my super-duper digital SLR camera, removing the lens and replacing it with the body-cap intended to protect the camera when the lens is off. I had a spare body-cap, so (before I put it on the camera, obviously) I drilled a smallish hole though it, then stuck a small piece of black plastic with a pinhole pushed through it over the hole. The plastic was cut from an old flowerpot.

This is a bit like having the world's best hi-fi and using it to play Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins.

More soft-focus (not blurry) pinhole photos here.

The Gruts fight in numbers

A heavy grut (I think)Hasbro.com: Heavy Gruts

Heroscape Character Bio: A MacDirk warrior swings for the head of his Grut enemy, only to have his blade deflected by the orc's armored forearm. Another swing converges with the Grut's shoulder. The MacDirk's blade is stuck, wedged between two plates of bronze armor.

Never had Liam MacDirk faced off against such a well-trained warrior. The Gruts fight in numbers; that is their strength. And yet this one orc soldier has just felled three of Liam's comrades, and Liam was poised to be next.

Frantically he tugs at his sword, trying desperately to loose it from the Grut's shoulder. It does not budge. The Grut methodically turns his head, looking at the weapon caught in his armor. He then looks up and into the frightened eyes of Liam MacDirk. The Grut's face twists into a snarled smile as he downs MacDirk number four.

The Heavy Gruts are not gifted their armor. It is earned, specially crafted for each member of the Heavy Gruts after he have proven his worthiness on the field of battle.

No, me neither.

Cloud-sea

HOLY CRAP!! You should have seen the view from Blackstone Edge this evening:

Blackstone Edge Cloud Sea
A pylon this evening.

More photos here.

What the internet is for

Stuff like this, basically:

My name is Anna and this is my final for a college level sign language class. I am not deaf and still learning sign language and encourage others to learn sign language as well! Thank you so much for all the love.

Wonderful. Made my day.

Swallows and damsons

My friend Carolyn's damson and sloe gin
Carolyn's damson and sloe gins.

"Look what my friend Carolyn made me for Christmas," I said to my farmer friend on Christmas Day.

"It looks like a jar of tractor diesel," my farmer friend replied.

No, it wasn't tractor diesel; it was damson gin. And the dark blobules in the accompanying bottle weren't sheep droppings; they were sloes.

We finally cracked open the damson gin last night. It was fantastic. Like the best cough mixture you've ever tasted.

(I mean that in a really good way.)

Thanks, Carolyn. Make mine a pint.