Who Do You Think You Are?

Cartoon from NO2ID

As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I like the new Pet Shop Boys album. No surprise there, although (whisper) I didn't really like the last one much, save for "Love is a Catastrophe". But today, I just wanted to give (most of) the lyrics of the last track on the album, an anarcho-camp anthem against ID cards (in the context of the establishment of the climate of fear in which they are being pushed through):

If you've done nothing wrong
you've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
you shouldn't even be here

Long live us, the persuaded we
integral - collectively
to the whole project it's brand new
conceived solely to protect you

One world, One reason, Unchanging, One season

If you've done nothing wrong
you've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
you shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late
We're concerned
you're a threat
You're not integral
to the project

Sterile. Immaculate. Rational. Perfect.

Everyone has their own number
in the system that we operate under
We're moving to a situation
where your lives exist as information.

Enjoy the Silence

Kirk at Vik, Photo by VikingChild

More peaceful imagery from Iceland. Vik is a small village, the most southerly in Iceland, kinda near the middle. The population is around 300 in the town itself, and the church is to the east side, up on the hill as seen in the photo.

I love the straightforwardness of place names in Iceland. Many are in common with other Norse languages, but Icelandic has remained the most pure. A short glossary:

• dalur = valley
• foss = waterfall
• gata = trail
• hver = hot spring (pron. "kver")
• jökull = glacier
• laugar = hot spring
• skógar = forest
• vatn = lake or water
• vik = bay, cove, creek
• völlur = flat land

Others, like fjörður, are obvious...and some, like "fell" are also in dialects in the UK.

I like Vik. Reykjavik means "smoky bay"...and one of the possible etymologies of the word "viking" come from the idea of people coming from a bay - "vik - ing". Just like me?

Smoke on the Water

Strokkur at Geysir. Photo by VikingChild

Blog had become a bit of a rant, so just to blow some steam (ha ha) a return to the peace and quiet of Iceland. One fo the must-go places is the home of the geyser, Geysir. The original one doesn't blow anymore, but this nearby example (Strokkur) patiently obliges about every 5-10 minutes. It's obsessional, addictive. We stood in driving snow and watched it go again and again, watching the hot waters breathe, rise and subside, until you knew (but not quite) that an eruption was imminent.

The picture was deliberately taken with other people in shot to give a guide to scale. It's not as big as the original Geysir, but still very impressive.

I feel very calm now...

Shopper's Paradise

Flicking through the channels the other night, I was unfortunate enough to stumble across a program called "Flash Families". We watched for a couple of minutes (that was enough). The concept was basically the idea of some families who like to "flash their cash"; conspicuous consumerism, essentially.

It appeared that some of the families had lots of money and spent it. Fair enough. However, the one family we saw on the program live in a 2-bedroom council house. They have five children, and the mother and several of the children have to sleep on a mattress and sofas in the living room. First thought - how terrible for them. Second thought - why "flash family"?

Answer: they spend all their money on designer clothes for the mother and the kids. The attic is full of discarded designer clothes (they don't even have the good grace to pass these on to charity). They "need" these clothes - and they're not rip-offs, that wouldn't be good form. So they can't afford the real necessities of life.

Children sharing beds or sleeping on the floor harks back to a day of real, actual poverty. These people are not poor - just incredibly selfish. My heart goes out to the children - let's hope that at some stage they learn the value of money, which is more than the cost of a Louis Vuitton bag.

Only Happy When It Rains

A report today suggests that statistics are being used for spin, particularly in the case of the so-called drought in SE England at the moment. (Aside: they can't do that up here, they'd be laughed at - it's rained all week and we even had hailstones, massive skull-crushers, on Wednesday - May!).

Back to the report. No particular surprise there. We all know the quote "lies, damn lies and statistics", but what seems to be changing is our ability to question statistics. Perhaps as understanding of maths decreases in schools we are creating a future problem. Most likely the problem is already there. Watch any selection of adverts, or news stories, and think about the statistics involved.

"A report recently showed that 39.2% of all workers take a sick day on Mondays or Fridays, effectively giving themselves a long weekend". Gosh, that sounds dreadful, we're a nation of liars and cheats! But think about it - on a 5 day week, the chances of being ill on a Monday or a Friday, if completely random, is 2/5 = 40%. So the value is what's expected, but employers groups could use this statistic to persuade us not to take sick days...

Agitate, educate, organise.

Venus in Furs

Photo by VikingChild

This is Pandy. He was my first soft toy, arriving on the same day as I did. He has survived having his fur plucked (hence his natty knitted suit), many washes and being hung from the washing line by his ears.

Respect due.

In his honour, here's a game for very small soft toys.

Let's Go To Bed

Wow. Forget the gym, let's go to bed. Scientists at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio have found that having a good night's sleep can keep you slim. If you sleep less than 5 hours a night you could end up putting on weight. When I first saw this, I thought it was all about the midnight munchies or something, but no, it seems that there may be a hormonal response.

This is not totally new; a study by the US National Institute of Mental Health in 2004 showed the same thing, indicating that a chemical, leptin, which basically tells you when you're full, is released when you're asleep.

By all rights I should be sylph-like.

Being Boring

Not feeling the best at the moment (hence no post yesterday), but have to celebrate the release of the Pet Shop Boys new album "Fundamental". Had a quick listen through and "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" is classic PSB/Trevor Horn and the whole album is an order of magnitude up on "Release", which I'm sad to say was disappointing. This is back to basics, throw the guitars out and embrace the inner camp....but with a political bite. "Integral" is quite marvellous and I can see people marching with banners whilst singing the chorus.

Recently Neil and Chris appeared on "The South Bank Show" tribute to Dusty Springfield. Chris was rather silent. Neil was waxing eloquently on a variety of things. I paraphrase the following.
Neil "Dusty, well everyone knows who she is, she's a one word name like Madonna, Kylie, Liza (knowing look to camera), Bowie..."
Chris (interrupting) "Preston"

And with this reference to the Ordinary Boys singer he almost managed to leave Neil speechless.

Food for Thought

Mashed potatoes

For reasons too boring to go into here, we ended up in the Marks & Spencer food hall today. It's somewhere I don't like to be. Perhaps it dates back to the days when they had a rather exclusive policy in the manner they hired Saturday staff when I was at school, or perhaps it's due to the fact that they sell themselves as the "it's not just cod, it's creamy Icelandic cod, we're better than everyone else, we're the high class, superior, chic, elegant, wondrous food hall that you should aspire to shop within" (phew). All the Hyacinth Buckets of my youth shopped there, which fitted. I bet they had hostess trolleys to serve it all on as well. Anyway, back to M&S, they sell mashed potato for around £2 and that freaks me out. When, oh when, am I too busy to make freaking mashed potato for myself? This web page gives another great example...

Anyway, today I had to freak out because of their "Gastropub" range. This sums up every bad feeling I have about the food there. (1) I HATE the word "gastropub" and all the pseudo-middle class aspirations that go along with it, (2) it appears to be a way of charging £9 for a pie and (c) if I want pub food I'll go to a pub.

Thank you, but no thanks. I'm off to the pub for a pie.

Who Needs Enemies?

I was worried. Bringing back Doctor Who? How could it work in the cynical new age? OK, special effects have improved, but nevertheless....I was worried.

I grew up with Tom Baker, with Sarah Jane Smith and Harry as the "assistants". I just and no more remember the end of the Jon Pertwee era. I stayed faithful with Peter Davison, gave up on Colin Baker, came back to Sylvester McCoy even though he was undersold with dodgy scripts and Earth-bound storylines. So for me, Tom Baker was the Doctor. Saturday evenings were started with watching the episode, perched on my gran's lap (poor gran!), whilst my mum hid in the kitchen cooking the tea. I loved "Genesis of the Daleks", "The Seeds of Doom" and "Terror of the Zygons", from which the line "We underestimated his power, but he underestimated the power of organic crystallography" has come back to haunt me. But how could a relaunch ever capture the joy/terror of my youth? I couldn't sit on my gran's lap now!

I shouldn't have been worried. From the theme tune, remixed, onwards, it pushes all the right buttons. Christopher Eccleston kicked off well, though I became resentful at the knowledge he was going to jump ship. The Dalek episode (entitled "Dalek" - well, what would you call it?) was wonderful - who would have ever thought you could be sorry for a Dalek?

Wind forward a year, and I've just watched "The Age of Steel", the second half of a two-parter relaunching the Cybermen. David Tennant is superb as the Doctor, and just as with the Daleks who would have thought you could feel sorry for a Cyberman? The scene, starting with "I'm cold..." (Sally Phelan) was heart wrenching. The writing is fantastic.

Saturday nights are Doctor Who nights again....and I never hid behind the sofa.

In The Name of the Father.

The Last Supper

The Da Vinci Code. A Ron Howard film. Based on a Dan Brown potboiler novel. With Tom Hanks.

What did you expect - Citizen Kane?

(the other half says the plot lent itself more to 321 than Indiana Jones, although Dusty Bin was nowhere to be seen....)

Crosstown Traffic

The traffic was terrible this morning. It's bad most mornings, to be honest, but it was terrible this morning.

We drive in about 15 miles on a dual carriageway each day. Sometimes the traffic is held up by a tractor on the road (aside: in Iceland, tractors seem to be banned from some commuter roads during rush hour). But most days there's nothing actually holding up the traffic. So what's the problem?

Personally, I like to leave space in front of me. It's called braking distance. But if you do that, damn it, someone will pull into the space, so you have to touch your brakes. If everyone is driving too close, then this perpetuates a "wave" of braking behind you. There's a great article about that here (I found it after we visited Seattle some year back but I was reminded of it when Ethan Hunt said something similar in MI:III!) The analysis says that non-competitive driving can eliminate these types of jams - so there's another good reason for being a nice driver.

Did you know that in the Aberdeen area BMW's are sold without indicators? Or is that just my perception.....

We Can Work It Out

A report today finds that mathematics teaching in schools concentrates too much on passing exams and not on creating an understanding of the subject. Wow, big surprise. Pupils are leaving school without the real maths knowledge they need. The powers that be complain that not enough students are studying the physical sciences at University, but yet many students are ill-equipped, mathematically, to tackle these subjects and are subsequently disadvantaged.

Yet GSCE grades are on the increase. Of course they are, if all that is happening is that pupils are being trained to pass them! The blame doesn't lie with the teachers, but with the trend for flogging teachers with league tables. More passes = higher league places, and you don't need a degree in maths to work that out. League tables, in all their guises, suck. Let teachers teach, let lecturers lecture, let readers read, let professors profess, let researchers research - and stop counting our beans. Standards must be maintained, but standards don't equal more pieces of paper.

There is a story about the mathematician David Hilbert, who noticed a student had stopped attending his classes. On enquiry, he found out that the student had given up maths to become a poet. His reply?

"Good! He did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician" [1]

You can tell I'm educated, I studied at the Sorbonne, doctored in Mathematics, I could have been a don...

[1] Hoffman, P. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers. New York: Hyperion, 1998.

The Mercy Seat

(Poster from http://www.fox.com/prisonbreak/)

It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Death Row
Of which I am totally innocent, you know
(Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)

I'm a big fan of US dramas. It probably started in earnest with Twin Peaks (drama or surreal wandering - you decide) but dates way back to the cop shows of my youth, Starsky & Hutch, Petrocelli and so on. X-files, 24, CSI, Lost - the higher concept the better. It's called escapism.

But Prison Break is the one that I wish away the weeks for at present. To summarise: Lincoln Burrows has been put on Death Row for the murder of the Vice-President's brother. His younger brother, Michael Scofield, has a plan to break him out, which involves him getting put away into the same prison with the blueprints of the prison tattooed over his body. Suffice to say that Michael is a bit of an overachiever. But it's not that simple - he needs to enrol help amongst the cons. On top of that, things never run smoothly - and outside the prison a conspiracy is emerging, and it's up to Lincoln's ex, Veronica (luckily a lawyer) to investigate.

How they will manage to maintain the suspense is uncertain, and the news that a 2nd season has been commissioned does not yet fill me with glee, but at present it is unmissable. There has only been one cliche "ouch" moment so far for me (spoiler in white): the last minute phone-call of the judge to reprieve Lincoln from the clutches of the electric chair - no!!!

Even amidst the sadness of yesterday I looked forward to the episode. Here's how to make an origami crane (that will sound like a real non-sequitor if you haven't seen it!). Till next week.

Into the mercy seat I climb, my head is shaved, my head is wired....

Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?

Netta and Mary are my distant relatives. Distant in two ways:

1) They're my first cousins once removed. Most people don't even know what that means, but coming from a small family, it means they're close to me.

2) They live in Canada, in Niagara Falls. 3000 miles away, but we visit back and forth, and they're close to me.

Netta is the older sister. Mary is younger; much younger - she's a child in an adult's body. She likes colourful socks and cuddly fluffy dogs. She likes going out to eat and seeing friends; she likes her "work" at Dorchester Manor and going to the pub with her friends on a Friday. She likes Coronation Street, Scottish music and she can remember meals we have had together all over the place.

Mary died early this morning. She slipped away peacefully, having been unable to recover from a bout of pneumonia.

Netta and Mary are close to me.

Eat Y'self Fitter

The finished product - photo by VikingChild

We're having Okonomiyaki for tea. The name means something like "whatever you want - cooked" and it's almost like Japanese comfort food. Somewhere between a pancake and a pizza, (more like the former) it probably originated in the area around Osaka after WWII when rice was in short supply. Much in the same way as pancakes were meant to use up things before Lent, okonimiyaki can empty your fridge!

In many restaurants you get the mixture and cook it yourself on a hot plate so it's not hard to cook it at home, provided you get the right ingredients (again, not too difficult given the proliferation of Asian supermarkets - hoorah!). There's even an okonomiyaki artistry page, showing how you can finish it off with mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce.

We love Japanese food, from sushi and sashimi to katsudon and various places in between. This is maybe the easiest to make at home. Recipe follows:

• 14 oz plain flour
• 7 fl oz water
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• Pinch of salt
• 4 chopped spring onions
• 14 oz finely chopped (white) cabbage
• okonomiyaki sauce (could make do with Worcestershire)
• mayonnaise
• kezuri-bushi (dried fish flakes)
• ao nori (seaweed flakes - optional, could use chives or similar for taste)
• beni-shoga (red ginger pickle - optional)
• Toppings - can use chicken, prawns, quorn chunks - anything really.

1) Mix flour and water, add beaten eggs and salt and beat together.
2) Add finely chopped spring onions and some of the cabbage and mix well. Keep adding cabbage until it's all mixed in together.
3) In a heavy frying pan at a high temperature, add oil. As it starts to smoke, remove from heat and turn the heat back to medium.
4) Ladle in some of the mix and flatten it down to make a circle about an inch thick.
5) Add some of the topping to the top of the cake and press it into the mix.
6) Once the edge of the pancake is cooked, turn it. Press it into the pan.
7) The bottom should be cooked in about 2-3 minutes, so turn over to check.
8) Once cooked, turn so that toppings are on the top (!!). First add the okonomiyaki sauce and spread it over the surface, then mayonnaise (nice lines are good!) Sprinkle with kezuri-bushi and ao-nori, then place on plate and serve with a sprinkling of beni-shoga.

Aaaaah! Turn off the TV, look at a book, pick up the phone, fix some food...

Paint It Black

Saturday 13th May 1989 - 17 years ago to the day - was, as you can see from the ticket above, the "Last Night of the Venue". The Venue was the local dive-bar-club, frequented by punks/goths/indie kids/students/psychobillies and so on. The music was great, the atmosphere dark and the carpet notoriously sticky. Benny the DJ formed our musical tastes without us realising it. Great bands played - near the demise of the Venue the Pixies played at the height of their "Doolittle" fame. We mourned the closure, 2 weeks before my finals (guess my mind was maybe not quite on those exams). Nothing was ever the same again.

Lately I've been thinking back to these days, partly because I've re-established contact with friends & aquaintances from those old days, and partly because I'm that kinda age. In addition, at the start of the year we went to see Bauhaus and Nick Cave in the space of a week - goth throwback or what? No regrets. Retro is fine if you're not just living in the past....and as well as rediscovering old friends, it's led me to rediscover music I loved way back then.

I'd forgotten just how great Wire were. Benny played "I Am The Fly" and "Outdoor Miner", but with the recent rerelease of much of their catalogue, I've refreshed my interest. Elastica will never pay off their heavy debt for "Connected", from Wire's "Three Girl Samba". It's good to listen to bands from ye olden days with a different perspective.

So let's celebrate times gone by. Let's do the Time Warp again....

I'm With Stupid...

Photograph from http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk

First and foremost I'm not making the obvious comment here! No, just that with all the "scandal" in the Labour party over the last couple of weeks (Prescott, Clarke, local election disaster) and with the calls for Tony Blair to name a date for the so-called handover of power, I was thinking about the Tony/Gordon double act more than is usual for me. It occurred to me that I'd always assumed that Gordon Brown (texture like sun) was a lot older than Blair. However, with passing time, Tony's hair greyed, Gordon had a baby and I wondered...so I Googled and found out that he is only a couple of years older than the Prime Minister.

However, during my Google, I found out a nasty, dirty secret about the Chancellor. Wait for it... Whisper it... He has a PhD. His biog is pretty upfront about that but not so much on the subject of said doctorate. Not only that but he also lectured for a while (and the hollow laughs of AUT members across the country ring in my ears, given the current situation here).

Not a huge secret, I'll admit, but I wondered why, unlike certain other Labour MP's (stand up John Reid) he didn't use the title "Dr"? Reverse intellectual snobbery? Perhaps the public don't like their Chancellors (or Prime Ministers in waiting) over-educated?

Mr. Brown, as he prefers to be known, was in fact a precocious boy. He took his 'O' Grades at 14 (about 2 years early) and had his 1st class honours degree in History by the time he was 20. That obviously tired him out as it then took him 10 years to get his doctorate (in history, by the way)! This interesting blog comments on exactly that.

Never a frown with Gordon Brown.

Every Day Should Be A Holiday

Blue Lagoon, Photo by VikingChild

OK it's not snowing today! But just to make up for that, the picture above shows the Blue Lagoon (or Bláa Lónið) in south-west Iceland. This is my peaceful image for the day, making me think of relaxing in warm water.

Flying into Iceland is a somewhat surreal experience, and often you can see the Lagoon on the approach to the airport in Keflavik, as they are quite close. From the air you can see the power station which is adjacent - sounds not very pretty, but of course geothermal power stations are not "nasty" - and the lagoon is a by-product of such power. Whilst the floor of the lagoon is the traditional black volcanic sand, the water is filled with silica and algae which make it white and opaque. Could be a horrid tourist trap but being Iceland it's not.

So it you're ever in Iceland - do the tourist things - they're not that touristy. And listen to Sigur Rós as you drive round - it fits.

A Day In The Life

King's College on a sunny day (from http://www.abdn.ac.uk)

I read the news today, oh boy....

This blog is something that I really could regret...a chance to empty my mind perhaps? Maybe it's self psychoanalysis or maybe it's a chance to record and share? Not too sure! So I'm starting by setting myself some ground rules. Song titles. Pictures. Don't overdo it...

Well, today is a beautiful day in Aberdeen, blue skies and cherry blossom falling outside the window. The "Word" festival is in full swing outside and students are happily lazing on Elphinstone lawn. Everything is good? Forget about the exams, for a number of reasons...

To be very British, I must start with the weather. This week has been, at last, sunny and blue-skied. At the weekend we went for a walk around Stonehaven, at one point resting in Mineralwell Park with football going on at one side of us and cricket in front of us. Very restful. We had chips from the Bervie sitting on the sea front and it felt like we were on holiday. This was exacerbated by going to the International Market in Aberdeen on Sunday morning, eating crèpes and feeling rather European all of a sudden. The seats outside the coffee shops could be occupied without need of a thermal vest...

It will snow tomorrow.