General Catch Up
Seems like a long time since I wrote anything, what have I been up to?
I just finished Season 3 of The Wire - in some ways the best yet I think. Almost anything I say about it will spoil some aspect, so just go and watch it.
Running - not much happening. I’m doing 2-3 shortish runs, and I’m still trying to get my time down on the Cherry Hinton circuit. I seem to be able to get to about 26.30 and struggle to get beyond that.
Just got a new bike through the cycle scheme - there’s some sort of tax break if you use your bike to commute, so you can effectively get about 40% off the cost. I got a decent road bike with dynamo and hub gears, so if anyone wants my old bike (still serviceable) I’m open to offers.
I also just had a big clear out of books and old stuff - I’m fairly good at getting rid of clutter, but I just felt the urge to make a clean break with a load of old things I’m never going to look at again. I do feel better for it too, although possibly it was just a kind of work avoidance scheme so I don’t actually have to get on with any new projects. I’m currently trying to get back up to speed with some more advanced maths, and I want to learn more about web programming. Oh and I started learning Devanagari script.
We’ve also been on holiday, to Weymouth, but I think I’ll save blogging that for another time.
Not Dead
Only the blog is a bit moribund. Everything else is going fine. Work is keeping me very busy trying to get up to speed with my new role, which I’m really enjoying so far. At home I’ve finally finished laying the path I started 2 months ago. I’m hoping it will give the girls a bit more opportunity to practice with bikes and scooters than going across the patio could.
Latest News
Lots going on, so I’ve not really been blogging. I’m very busy at work - I’ve started a new role managing all the maintenance development on our product. We’re currently testing the latest release, so plenty busy with that really.
Running is going okay - I got back down to 28.22 on Tuesday, but my knees are still not quite right, and I just seem to be in maintenance mode for running at the moment anyway, which is okay.
We downloaded our first bit of TV the other day (I know this makes me positively medieval compared to some) using the BBC iPlayer. The interface is a bit shonky, and it’s a bit crap they don’t make it clearer that the p2p stuff keeps running even when you’re not using the iPlayer. Still it did remind me of the first time I used a video - suddenly a whole different way of using the TV opened up. What did we watch you say? Being Human - a BBC3 one off/pilot about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a flat. I thought it was really good and well-written. Knocked spots off Torchwood anyway.
Last weekend I filled a 6 yard skip with garden rubbish and rubble from breaking up the old concrete path. The girls helped a bit, but I did it nearly all myself, which I found quite therapeutic. Now I’ve got to get the new path laid - need to get some boards first to edge it.
Tomorrow I’m taking the car to have the cam belt replaced, before I go up to visit my parents on Saturday. It will be good to see them again - I’d like to go more often, but it is hard to fit it in with everything else.
Weekend
Quick catch up as I’ve not written anything for a while. I finally started running again this week - I did my normal circuit on Thursday (29.50), and a somewhat truncated run at the weekend. I seem to have lost a lot of fitness, or at least oomph while I’ve had a little break. I stopped partly because I seemed to be getting some knee pain, and I wanted to try to strengthen the muscles up a bit, and also get some new trainers. See how it goes I guess.
H had her Latin OU tutorial on Saturday, so we met up afterwards at the Fitzwilliam museum, as L had been saying she wanted to go (although I think she actually just wanted to go for lunch!).
Today I’ve just been fettling the car and bike a bit. I’ve also got a book on PHP web projects, so I want to have a play with that (if it’s any good I’ll talk a bit more about it). I’m still waiting for Amazon to send me my MP3 -> cassette adapter for the car, but that’s another story.
Also just got the first disc of The Wire season 3, which is already shaping up to be a classic. Go get season 1 now - you can still beat the crowds. Season 5 is underway in the US, so I’m assiduously trying not to hear anything about it.
L has lost her first tooth - apparently the tooth fairy’s going rate is now £1 per tooth. This could ruin me…
It’s my birthday…
And I’ll break concrete if I want to. I’m putting a new path in the garden, so the first step was to break the old concrete path that’s been disfiguring it since we moved in. I did try doing it manually, but it was clearly going to take weeks, so I hired a breaker from HSS and got the whole lot done in a few hours (albeit of rather hard work). So next job is to get a skip…
Unfortunately H is ill, so I’ve also been looking after the girls (so they got quite a bit of TV - they were watching Laputa - Castle in the Sky as we’re working through the Miyazaki films).
It hasn’t been very birthday-ish, but it’s been quite satisfying.
More Music
More tracks from my ancient past:
- Cud - Only a Prawn in Whitby - there’s lots more on that site btw, it’s a real treasure trove of old indie stuff.
- Madder Rose - Beautiful John [YT] - another very good example of the twee genre. This was in the 1993 Festive 50 at number 36. The one I really want to find from the same year is Attagirl by Heavenly. So far no joy.
- StereoLab - French Disko - from the small sample I’ve heard, this seems to be the only StereoLab track I like.
- Palace Brothers - Ohio River Boat Song - beautiful melancholy American folk music.
I think that’s about it. If anyone’s ever heard of a song by Mighty Mighty called Imaginary Girlfriend then I’d love to hear that again. Oh, and somewhere there’s a really eerie recording of Ghost Riders… at about half normal speed.
Running
I seem to have been a bit slack since the start of the year. Still I’ve managed one midweek run this week and last week as well as the weekend run. As a baseline for the year I seem to be doing the weekend circuit in 55 mins (I think it’s about 6.5 miles) and the midweek one in 27m30. That’s a lot slower than my best times of just over 25 minutes last year, but at least I haven’t gone right back to 30 mins or so. So the goal is to get that down under 25 minutes, and then to work on distance.
Music History
I recently had a final clear out of audio tapes (well, nearly final - the car still has a tape player, so there are a few there). The only things I had left were a few compilation tapes from the early 90’s, mostly consisting of John Peel’s Festive 50.
I went through them to extract things I still liked, and came up with a few bands I’d like to get “Best Of” compilations for - Billy Bragg, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Nick Cave. There were also various one-off tracks I liked, and I’ve been trying to look some of those up on-line.
Apparently there was a defined genre which covers most of what I liked C86 or “twee pop” - strangely I’d never heard either term until I started looking for some of these. But there’s a blog devoted to the genre and it’s descendants.
Anyway, I found a few oldies that I enjoyed, and tantalising references to some others that I couldn’t quite pin down. So here’s what I turned up:
Bob - Convenience - Myspace page plays the track as background. An perfect example of the indie-pop genre. There’s a podcast that includes the track as part of it. They actually play the same recording from the Peel show that I have.
I, Ludicrous - Preposterous Tales - once heard, never forgotten comedy song, quite similar to Half Man, Half Biscuit. Alas, the site merely allows you to buy the music, you can’t hear the track there.
Field Mice - Sensitive - covered by the C86 All Stars (so the scene even has a covers band).
Eggs - Government Administrator - I like this one a lot. Quirky.
Hmm, I think there’s quite a lot more still, so I’m going to leave you with those and do another post later. Enjoy!
Over Christmas
I eased back into work this week - I took an extra day off after new year, so I only had to go in for two days. I think I’m mostly back into the swing of things now, and it’s now official that I’m taking on a new role: from March I will be managing bug fixes for our product. I’m looking forward to it.
Christmas and New Year were both good - we had Christmas at home with the girls, and they both now have a mountain of new stuff. I went to see my parents on the 27th, which was good fun, and dad was in good spirits. Then the 28th was the little one’s birthday, so we had a few people over for a small party. 29th we went round to Guy and Susie’s so Lizzie could play over there. Then New Years Eve we went over to Stevenage to see Neil and Justine - this was all in the afternoon, as everyone present had small children. Finally New Years Day some friends of ours from Japan came round - they were in Cambridge for a few days and their daughter had been in Lizzie’s class for a while when they were staying in Cambridge for a year.
Running has been a bit slack, but I’ve been managing to go out once a week for a leisurely run round the city. I think I may need some new shoes though - my current ones are the same ones that got me through the marathon, so I think they’re nearly a year old now.
Busy Week
I managed to go out a few times last week - I met Chris on Monday evening for a quick drink in The Brook - I’ve lent him our stair-gates as he was about to buy one.
Thursday was our work Christmas meal. We went to the University Arms for lunch, which was good, then onto Revolution, which was bad in my opinion, particularly as we ended up on the roof (sorry, Vodka Terrace) which was freezing cold. After that the party split, and I ended up going to The Maypole, and then a curry at The Maharajah (which I don’t think I’ve been to since 199x.
Friday I met up with Ian and we went to The Blue, and then The Salisbury, where we met Clare and some of her work colleagues. I felt fine after the work do, but I was a bit rough on Saturday morning.
I finally managed to fit my new car battery on Sunday, after Ian had tipped me off to the existence of socket sets with extension arms. For some reason this idea had never occurred to me, so I had no idea what to try to buy to undo the retaining nut.
I’ve had today off, so H and I went to The Wrestlers for lunch (E tried a bit of the mild Panang curry, and liked it). I’ve been working in the garden and trying to cut back the wild growth of the summer. Unfortunately that means I now have a huge pile of branches and thorny stuff. Bonfire maybe? It would be a big one!
Back to work for a final burst tomorrow. I’m feeling a bit frustrated with my current project - ie, the last bit isn’t going very well. Oh well, perhaps I’ll have more luck this week.
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