Party On

The loudest sound in the world is that of the Space Shuttle lifting off. Or the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs hitting the earth 65 million years ago. Or a snowflake falling on the top of Mount Everest, where the air is thin. Despite searching the web for several minutes I have been unable to find an accurate answer to this question.

It doesn't matter anyway, because the new loudest sound in the world was our office party, which occured last night in a secluded spot somewhere off London's fashionable Leicester Square. It was a place with actual bouncers outside, and a list, which your name had to be on, in order to be able to come in. And a velvet rope, and everything. Amazing.

It was actually surprising that I found my way there at all. I set out with no idea where I was going, other than that it was "somewhere near Picadilly Circus" or Shaftesbury Avenue. I walked past the theatre where the new Monty Python musical is on, and walked a bit more, temporarily wandered into WC2 (which meant I was going the wrong way), found myself in Dean street, and before I knew it I was... back where I'd started from. And not on purpose, either.

I briefly toyed with the idea of just going home again, preferring the idea of curling up in bed with a hot cup of cocoa and listening to the shipping forecast on Radio 4. But before I could do that, I bumped into someone else from the office and they actually knew where they were going, which is more than I did.

Parties are just not my thing. I do not "do" parties and for many years did a pretty good job of avoiding them at just about any opportunity. But in recent years, I've grown to tolerate parties, not for the drinking and dancing and derring-do, because I do not "do" any of those things either, but because sometimes it's actually just quite nice to get a chance to talk to people outside work.

As open plan and laid-back as our office is, it's somehow not really right to just go wandering about chatting to people. After all, they're probably busy, and it would be wrong to interrupt. But at least at a party, it's nice to get a chance to mingle, and talk. I spoke to lots of people, some of whom I recognised and an awful lot more who I didn't, but they seemed to know who I was, and that was quite nice really. Several nice ladies talked to me, and that was quite nice too.

Thestrangest thing is that as well as the people, sometimes our company do-dos are often accompanied by rather good music. For the early part of the evening, the music was provided by a 'DJ' who seemed to be doing little more than playing tracks off his Apple laptop. It was not until later that a member of our party broke out the vinyl and took to the wheels of steel, flipping and mixing and scratching and generally making what shall hereinafter forever be referred to as "The loudest sound in the world."

For someone so young (younger than me, anyway, which automatically makes him about 17 in my perception) he seemed to be playing an awful lot of old records. Queen, James Brown.. and that band that Norman Cook used to be in after The Housemartins. I should have asked if he had any Breakdance records.

Sadly I couldn't stay too long because I had to get a train home. And as it turns out, the taxi driver on the way home was listening to Radio 4, so as I sat gazing out of the window looking at the bright lights of my home town drawing closer, the sight was accompanied by the sound of that strange tune they always play before the shipping forecast comes on. Eventually I got home, and went to bed, deafeaned, my ears still ringing from the entertainment of two hours earlier.

There was hardly anyone in the office today. Those that were helpfully put all their digital camera pictures of the evening onto the network drive, and luckily there were no sign of any photos with me in them. And so, as parties go, it was quite alright. I'm invited to another one on Tuesday. I think I might actually go to that one too.

Ant Gets There Eventually

I remembered the big thing that I was going to write about.. Proof that my mind is not failing me entirely - sometimes it takes me a while, but I get there eventually.

So here's the thing. This morning I was reading my email. I get all kinds of newsletters and things, so it was no surprise when I saw in my inbox that the nice people at Amazon wanted my attention. I like Amazon a lot. I buy books and music and all kinds of stuff from them.

Today's email was announcing something new. And really quite unexpected. Because it seems that Amazon now sells.. erm... well... I'm not sure there's a nice way to put this. Erm.. Amazon now sells.. sex toys.

I'm not sure what's worse. The fact that Amazon, the lovely little mom and pop bookstore down the road is now selling these.. erm.. implements.. or that Amazon's massive computers think that this is something which I'm going to be really interested in, so they send me an email about it. With pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Of big.. things!! Aaargh!

I'm used to getting email from Amazon. It knows what I've bought and it recommends me things. "Mr Ant, as a previous purchaser of works by Franz Kafka and Jean-Paul Sartre, we think you may enjoy these writings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez." This is all very intellectual and very fine. It is a testament to my well-groomed mind that I am profiled in this manner and recognised as the thoughtful person that I am.

However this is a new direction. "Mr Ant, as a previous consumer of filthy, filthy pornography, we think you may also enjoy the 24 inch bumhole intruder." I mean, it's not like I don't know what these things are - I may be a virgin but I'm not naive - but I just can't get over what a shock it is when an old friend suddenly gets new on you. I'm going to get rude here, so if this offends you, switch off your television set now.

Because it's one thing to expect a nice book recommendation. It's quite another to see, in words and pictures, "Rabbits! Pleasure sleeves! Love balls! Dongs!!", several things that made me wonder "what the hell is THAT?", and, in what I assume is some kind of spelling mistake, "Clitorial stimulators". It's just.. so... eeeh!

I'm not sure why it freaks me out so. I guess it's just a surprise to find this kind of thing in your face.. erm.. so to speak... when you're least expecting it. But I guess I get the message. The next time I'm looking for a 'Gold Oscar' (eeew!), a "Top Cat Corkscrew" (aaargh!), or "The Inflatable Erotic Party Piggie" then I guess I'll know where to go.

I did like the advert at the bottom of the page, though. "Check out our great value DURACELL BATTERIES from £4.91..."

What Kind Of Day Has It Been?

No, really, what kind of day has it been? I can't remember. I'm sure there was something big that happened today. I thought to myself "Well, I must write that in my blog tonight". But it's gone. Whatever it was, I can't remember. What was it? Was it even ever there? Am I imagining it? I'm forgetting a phantom memory that I never had?

I don't like this. It doesn't seem like a good sign.

But overall I think I had a pretty nice day. Last night I wrote down seven things that I knew I HAD to do today. And I was woken up by a phone call that added one more to that list. And several emails during the day brought several more.

Funniest thing - I did them all! Goodness, I feel productive. Definitely a better end to the day than how it started. Once again I awoke thinking it was Saturday, until discovering that it was not. Bleary-eyed and as unco-ordinated as a sleepy boy can be, I stumbled into the bathroom to do what I needed to. And then, I returned to my bedroom. I tripped over my bag. Then I tripped over a rather long cable, causing it to become entirely unplugged from the thing which it was plugged into. I just about got it connected back up, when I fell onto the bed, landed on my 'wrong' hand, experienced a pain that wasn't there before, and collapsed into a heap of pillows, fully contemplating what a pathetic specimen I must be.

Later, when I'd had a chance to re-take my start to the day, I was very pleased to be getting through my list of 'ToDo's with much efficiency. Several things I'd been putting off were done, and oh... how sweet it feels when crossing such a thing off the list. What a busy day I have had. Did everything I wanted to, as well as other unexpected things that people came up with during the day.. And even including one thing which, even today, I was thinking about leaving for tomorrow.. Ah, it feels nice to be useful.

I still wish I could remember what it was that I was going to write about today.

I'm going to need to start carrying around a notebook with me, I think. It might help me to remember things. And there could be many other uses to enjoy too, not least the wonderfulness of keeping a 'to do' list and demolishing it daily. That's not a terribly new idea, of course. I first read it in a self-help book called "How To Get Everything Done And Still Have Time To Play", the author of which went on to write "Do It Tomorrow"... which I haven't yet got around to reading.

Yes, a notebook. I need to start taking notes. And keep blogging more. Otherwise I'll never remember what I forgot.

One Better Day

After a long day at work which, if you'd asked me last night, showed all signs of being "the one" where I would have finally walked out in a fit of petulance and sheer creative angst at being an unrecognised genius, I find myself actually quite pleased at how everything went.

Perhaps it was the expensive sandwiches offered to me at lunchtime. Perhaps it was the skilful way in which my tormentors gave me no sign that bad things were undoubtedly being planned. Perhaps it was just nice that people seemed pleased to see me. Perhaps I'm looking forward to the Christmas party. Perhaps it was just nice to get a chance to kick back and have several decent chats with the people who matter. Maybe it's just because tomorrow is Friday.

I don't talk about where I work - and I'm still not going to - but we won an actual proper BAFTA award recently, and it's surprising how amazingly nice that feels. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't because of anything specifically that I did, but it doesn't matter. It's ours - we did it. It's for all my friends, my colleagues, the people I'm happy to share my 9-5 with. And when you're in such good company, there's no reason not to smile about it.

What Kind Of Week Has It Been?

Friday night and the week is almost over. I woke up this morning thinking it was Saturday, and it took quite a while before I realised that it was actually Friday and there was still work to do. Ugh. Horrible. But all in all, what kind of week has it been?

Monday & Tuesday - It was 5p listing day on eBay, and since I have a chunk of holiday that I have to take before the end of the year, I took two days off work. I never ever used to take even as much as a day of my holiday - but now I do. Bad sign. Listed all sorts of items on eBay, which at least makes me feel that I'm doing something approaching "tidying up".

Wednesday - Bad meeting at work. Actually it went pretty well, but I'm just bewildered at the direction which the corporate train is headed, and the only available choices of enjoying the ride from a comfortable seat, or standing straight in front of the train as it hits you, are both unacceptable. Kind of a bad sign. The clearest possible indication that I'll never be allowed to do anything that's too interesting or too important, because "you're just one person" and "what if you leave?".. Yeah, thanks. My desire to leave will be why I turned down three times the money from our competitor to stay here. Seems that loyalty and belief are expensive tastes. Given the number of other people who leave "when something better comes along", I must be some kind of unique, or some kind of stupid. Of course if they were really worried about me leaving, then perhaps not making my position entirely untenable would be an excellent start...

Thursday - The smelly man from the cable company came to fix my cable TV, which hasn't worked since July. Nobody at NTL could fix the (really simple) problem from their end, so eventually they had to admit defeat and send out a man to completely replace my cable box with a new one. (I can't explain it without getting technical, but it's the same kind of over-reaction as buying a completely new car because you're not sure which key starts the old one.) Still, it's back now. And even though I hardly watch it, it's nice to know that it's working. If you ever have the choice between getting cable television, or slamming your head against a brick wall for several months, look into that second, more satisfying option.

Friday - turned out not to be Saturday, presumably because I still had the last remnants of a major work project to finish off. Got it all out of the way by lunchtime, and spent the rest of the day feeling very relaxed that it's all over - for now. It was a lot of work, but hopefully the results will be enjoyed by a lot of people next week. And if it all goes wrong.. well, that part of it wasn't my fault. I tried to warn them.

Spent this evening printing out lots of labels and stamps and letters, wrapping up and stapling and sticking many parcels together ready for their journey to the post office tomorrow morning. Ordered my groceries to be delivered tomorrow afternoon. No plans for the rest of the weekend.

Next week.. a small party-gathering-type-thing at work on Monday to pat ourselves on the back about the project. I almost don't want to go, in case it all goes horrendously wrong. But I think I will. And I've got the whole weekend to decide..

But for now.. off to bed. And when I wake up tomorrow, hopefully it really will be Saturday. Goodnight. :-)

A Cure For My Ills

The nice thing about eBay is that sometimes they have discount days. Today, you can list whatever you want for just 5p. This is an excellent discount compared to the normal fees, when eBay will usually charge you something like £100,000 per item.

And as the photo shows, I have much to get rid of! So today I have been mostly taking photos of things, and scanning things, hoping that at some time within the next ten days, someone will be browsing the world's biggest garage sale and will think to themselves "Yes! I must have that."

And at least I have plenty of cardboard boxes in which to package the things before posting them to the lucky buyers.

Yes, the whole idea of eBay fits very nicely into my carefully-ordered lifestyle. Although having to walk down to the Post Office is a bit of a nuisance, but I guess you can't have everything. :-)

Postcards From A Second Life

My Second Life is a non-stop rollercoaster ride of entertainment. No, really.

On Tuesday I met Beatfox! An actual proper celebrity, who has been on television and everything. Well, OK, not television, but YouTube, which is pretty much the same thing these days. I was walking around, and there he was - on the same screen as me. What a major event.

Despite all my best attempts not to sound as giddy as a schoolgirl in the presence of actual raw hot celebrity, I expect I gushed far too much. But as I said at the time, "It's like meeting George Michael.. only without the toilets, and stuff."

Today I purchased a puppy. It is small and cute, and has its own squeaky toy and personal fire hyrdrant upon which to whizz. What virtual life is complete without a virtual pet to go with it? Strictly speaking I already have a Second Life goldfish, but it seems a little flat, in day to day use merely contenting itself by rotating round its bowl at a constant speed and velocity. Whereas puppy actually walks around, and bumps into things and turns around. And when bored, will play with his squeaky toy. Oh! Oh! This is marvellous. I'm pretty sure this is the kind of thing that Charles Babbage had in mind when he invented computers.

I haven't yet selected a name, or indeed a gender for my puppy - although I seem to already be treating him as a 'he', which is probably quite sexist of me. Perhaps I will call him Mr Peebles, which always seems like a very suitable name for animals of all kinds.

I will need to be careful to make sure that puppy does not wander too far away if I happen to leave the doors open, but otherwise I'm sure he will be fine. And in the event of loss, perhaps I can stick virtual posters around the neighbourhood.

It's good to have something to keep me off the streets, anyway...

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

When it comes to how electricity works, I used to like to think that I was pretty much with it. Then (as they say), whatever "it" was changed, and whatever it was that I was with, it wasn't "it."

So it was with a somewhat resigned air that I was expecting to have to 'buy a new one' some weeks ago, when my trusty network storage device (a Buffalo Linkstation, detail fans) had started making a sound like a box of particularly numerous and angry bees. The short term fix of banging it with increasing hardness was effective, but was rapidly becoming less so.

And so, I decided to go for broke and see if there was anything inside it that I could fix.

A first attempt at opening the unit was unsuccessful. It didn't seem to have any screws, and so at this point I stopped. But a few days later the thing was making so much noise that something had to be done. I tried again.

Some Googling revealed nothing. But some more Googling (hint: the word to use is "disassemble", not "dismantle") revealed the secrets of the hidden flanges and bits which must be prodded and pushed to cause the plastic case to spring open in delight.

I almost stopped again, having discovered that the poking of the first set of required flanges would cause some plastic movement, but not enough to cause box opening. Apparently the nice mirror bit on the front is actually a sticker, and it's covering some screws to keep that plastic bit in place. God knows why. Peeling off the sticker (at first by prising a screwdriver down the middle of it, until I realised that this was bending it up significantly) eventually revealed access to the two tiny screws which would need to be removed if the game was to continue.

These tiny screws would require watch-maker's screwdrivers to remove. In fact I have some of these.. and I did look for them, but couldn't find them. So, reasoning that any screws so tiny could not possibly be important, it was determined that levering the plastic up with a screwdriver would cause the tiny screws to fly across the room, no longer acting as a source of obstruction by conveniently becoming lost forever.

And now the front is off! More flange-prodding eventually causes the outer shell of the device to open. I pause to be impressed by the industrial amounts of dust which are inside. This is removed by several hearty blows (and doubtless plenty of spittle, which I am quite sure must be beneficial to modern electronic equipment.)

Inside this box is a hard drive, mounted and secured behinds all kinds of paraphernalia that I'm not even slightly interested in investigating, and a large circuit board which is inconsiderately blocking my access to my prime suspect, the dinky little fan at the back of the case.

More pressing and squeezing and bending reveals that this circuit board is not moving because it is screwed down. Doh! And as is the style, I do not have the right size Philips screwdrivers. However, I do have a slightly smaller one which seems to work as long as you press down really really hard. Soon, the board is loose.

Trying not to touch the somewhat lethal-looking power supply components, I eventually manage to wangle the back panel, upon which the fan is mounted, out. It's just clipped in. I examine it closely, to note down the required black magic specifications which I will doubtless need in order to obtain a replacement fan "just like this one." It looks like the connector is special, and shared with other parts of the board. I really don't fancy trying to solder it, but I'm pretty sure that I just could cut the appropriate wires and twist them together if a suitable new fan could be found. This is still within my skillset.

I measure the fan. 4 centimetres. 12 volts. 0.07A, or something, and note this down with the intention of later searching for a new one. But before then, I decide that the unit would probably run cool enough if I ran it in its unboxed state and with the fan hanging out, or disconnected somehow. So I power it up, and.. well, that fan runs pretty darned quiet. Maybe that's not the problem after all.

I remount the fan onto the plastic backpanel, noticing that it seems to wiggle around a bit. Perhaps this problem is mechanical rather than electronic. The fan is in fact just about the only thing in here which is not secured by screws - with the exception of some odd piece of clear plastic which seems to make the lights on the front panel come on.

I decide that the wiggling must stop. What is the solution.. Glue? Too drastic. I adopt a policy of 'no permanent damage' so harsh and permanent glues are not to my liking. Added to which I would probably be unable find the glue in the first place. Suddenly I remember that I have some blu-tack somewhere, and indeed when I go to look, it's just where I left it several years ago, sitting on top of the door. A little stretching and moulding soon has it back to its old self, and before long I am rolling out little sausages of blu-tack which will fit through the mounting holes on all four sides of the fan.

Some re-mounting and pressing later, and it's close enough for jazz. It still moves, but not so much, and even if it does, I put my faith in the properties of blu-tack to act as a vibration dampening mechanism.

I put things roughly back where they should be, deciding not to waste time screwing the circuit board back down as it's not like it has any room to move about in there anyway. I am not quite sure which way around this clear plastic light-panel thingummy goes, and even the "How to disassemble your Linkstation" web pages offer no clues other than to point out that I should have carefully examined the orientation of this piece before removing it. Huh. I try all four ways, none of them seems right, so I leave it a place which hopefully might be right but if not at least won't rattle around too much.

Plastic back together, slightly dinged mirrored label thing back on in front.. connected back up and powered on.. and all is quiet. Too quiet. Further diagnosis reveals that it is necessary to push the power lead all the way in before the unit can be turned on. Which I do, and the unit wakes up and makes all the correct sounds of industry. Within moments, the computer sees it and all is well.

So, the mirror effect on the front may not be quite as perfect as before, the four status lights might not be quite as working as before, and the front USB port may not be quite as un-smashed-up as before, but it is all working nicely, and not making any nasty noises.

I even ended up with four screws to spare. I am an engineer!

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Small things make me happy. And several things are causing me to feel happinated at the moment. Shall I list them?

1. I'm awfully pleased with myself for cleaning up the mess underneath my computer table. This brings me joy each time I put my feet down, as I am doing right now. Aah.

2. The discovery of the album "Don't Be Afraid: Get On" by Cooly's Hot Box. No, I've never heard of them before either. But it's one of those rare albums where nearly every single track is insanely perfect, and that's a feeling I haven't had since I bought the first Jamiroquai album back in 1993. Listen to two minutes of my favourite track just here.

3. The news that Clive James has released a new book, and there's an audiobook version, AND it's Book Of The Week on Radio 4 next week. I love Clive James to bits, not for his alluring body and raw Australian sex appeal, but just for the wonderful way he writes, how he can paint a whole picture with emphasis on just one perfect word, and the joyous delivery he brings whenever he opens his mouth. Clive has a website, and oh it's wonderful. Read this ancient television review he wrote. "Really driving those trucks.."

4. I read my gas meter earlier today. This in itself is not especially interesting, but I had to leave the house and go out specially to do it, on account of my gas meter being located rather inconveniently outside and down several flights of stairs. And by a detailed process of trigonometry (well, not actually trigonometry) I have determined that my annual gas and electricity consumption is of the order of 8.2 killowatt-hours. Each. This is probably no cause for celebration (not unless you enjoy spending £1,000 a year on utility bills, anyway) but at least I know that my electrical items are adequately supplied, and my gas boiler keeps me nicely warm and feeling suitably pampered.

5. The news that they're still making Blue Pepsi, even though you can still only get it in America. Blue Pepsi is definitely my favourite bright blue carbonated beverage, second only to Jolt Cola, and while both of these are out of stock at my usual supplier's, they are at least definitely still available. Joy! I've asked them to let me know when they have some more.

6. It's nearly Christmas! Oh I do like Christmas. Not for the presents, which really does seem to pale into insignificance when you get older, but just for the ambience of that time of year, when it is cold and dark outside, which makes the glow of brightly coloured Christmas lights all the prettier, and the warm feeling you get when wearing warm clothes all the more soothing. Those few weeks at work when everyone is in a festive mood, all looking forward to that little extra week-and-a-bit you can spend at home with your family, or even on your own. Unbeatable.

7. Thinking of the naughty little "e" suffix incorrectly appended upon the end of Captain Sensible's track "Bruce Forsythe".

Elvis Costello only had three reasons to be cheerful, and today I have seven alone! Who wouldn't be delighted by that?

Poor Mr. Peebles

There's an old man who lives near me. I don't know his name or anything about him, but every so often when I look out of the window, I see him shuffling by, on his way to the shops at the bottom of the road.

Thing is, just recently, I haven't seen him. Neighbourhood gossip reveals that he is really quite unwell with one of those nasty diseases that you get from 70 years of smoking. At first, the news was just that he had gone in to hospital. Some time later, turns out that he was still in hospital because there was nobody who could look after him. Some time later still, turns out that he has been sent to an old people's home - which explains why the local council was, with indecent haste, busily clearing out his existing home and pretty much unloading his life into a skip.

And while this is sad, it doesn't really affect me. No reason for it to do so, I guess. I didn't know him, never spoke to him. It is a shame, but nothing more.

Thing is.. at the weekend, I sighted our local neighbourhood black-and-white tabby cat, walking up and down the way, doing his regularly scheduled inspection of all nearby pavements, grass, and bushes, to ensure that everything was in order. I don't know what this cat is called either. I choose to name him 'Mr. Peebles', as it seems fitting somehow.

It reminded me that Mr Peebles would often show up when the old man was out for a walk. Mr Peebles would approach the old man, who would almost always respond with a considerate stroke or a friendly scratch behind the ear. They knew each other.

But this weekend, it seemed as if Mr Peebles was looking for something that just wasn't there any more. And it seems that this is where I find the sadness in the situation. That a black and white cat had noticed a lack of something that was once familiar - that it somehow had registered its absence, and that in some way, while searching, still hoping to once again see the kind old man, maybe Mr Peebles was resigned to the loss.

I'm surprised at how much that thought upsets me. The old man is, according to all neighbourhood sources and busybodies, still doing quite nicely and doubtless is attracting many fans at the old people's home. I weep not for him, but for those left behind. It seems somehow so much more poigniant and upsetting that Mr Peebles might be sad.

I can't help but feel that maybe this is back to front. But it interested me enough to write some words about it, anyway...