predictably capricious...

NCB | Play organisation of the month

2007-09-03T11:25:00.000+01:00

The NCB's Play organisation of the month for September is Play Wales.

Nice summary, and good to highlight the work of a really top-class play advocacy and support organisation.

Play Wales are leading the way for other organisations at the moment.

Geography Test 3

2007-03-29T00:10:00.000+01:00

OK, not a test this time.

Here are some cities that lie on the 40°N latitude:

Beijing
Baku
Bari
Madrid
Philadelphia
Denver

Geography Test 2

2007-03-29T00:09:00.000+01:00

Can you name the 13 countries which the Equator passes through?

Geography Test 1

2007-03-29T00:08:00.000+01:00

Can you name the 15 land-locked African countries?

Quotes of the day

2007-02-05T23:58:00.000Z

Couple of juicy quotes today:

1) "I was once party to a discussion on how many Mars bars it would take to get a jumbo jet airborne." - Francis Cooke on the AUK list.

2) "Lazarus should sue for breach of copyright." - Robert Kitson on Jonny Wilkinson in the Guardian

Two words

2006-12-08T14:58:00.001Z

Two words I am starting to hate: "widening participation."

Time management

2006-12-07T10:50:00.000Z

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Time management is the worst thing in the world for me.

I often think I actually have a mental disability or mental health issue regarding it. Seriously. It's starting to screw up my life.

I procrastinate. I dither. I waste time. I fail to prioritise. In fact I often reverse-prioritise. I have tried lots of strategies to deal with this. I suspect that the key is probably something to do with self-discipline and commitment. I really struggle (yes really really struggle, not just like normal people do) with that stuff, and I don't know why.

I have gone through my last two jobs struggling, hanging on by the skin of my teeth, letting people down, stressing out myself and my family, damaging my health, making myself grumpy and frustrated with my lack of achievement and fulfilment of my potential and abilities. The number of occasions on which I have seen a job sitting on my desk which should be done, and left it in order to do something more fun instead. Weeks later it's still there. I have a meeting with my line manager. I'll do it. _It really needs doing._ I know, I'm sorry. It's fine, I'm organised now. I'll do it by Thursday. Monday comes - Sorry I was busy Thursday (and I got in so late on Friday it wasn't even worth coming in but luckily you didn't know that and I'm certainly not going to tell you and I'm going to pray you don't ask me to tell you what I did on Friday) so I should be able to get it done this afternoon or maybe tomorrow morning at the latest. Line manager gives up.

I don't want to do that to this job too. But at the moment I'm sliding, sliding down into a mess of work half-done, poorly-done and often not done at all. A chaotic crisis of late nights, lack of sleep, short temper, apologies, cover-ups, sickies, excuses and just too much pressure and stress.

Even the stuff I enjoy doing I have not done. Why? What have I done instead? Messed around. Played my guitar. Listened to music. Browsed random websites. Like a fucking teenager. Spent 2 hours creating myself a 3D avatar at meez.com when I had set aside the time to get some work done before a deadline. Why? I'm easily distracted, and when I see something shiny or fun I jump at it. I need to keep my feet on the ground more. I have ambitions to build an online persona with lots of contacts and logins and interactive Web 2.0 web presence in all the right places. I have spent time tinkering with my wiki, which frankly can wait. My "personal website project" is a mess which based on all the evidence of the last seven years is never going to materialise into anything good or worth while or stylish. Will Francis ever choose a domain name and stick with it? Will he ever settle on a CMS, a colour scheme, an aim or theme that actually holds the whole site together? Or will he just piss about for ever?

I'm a tinkerer, but one without the class, skills or artistic talent to make something good. Just as I tinker with bikes because it's fun - it does something right for my brain chemistry I guess - but then I spend too much money on bits and still end up with a bike that's not great and not necessarily very reliable. And then the next week I'll find something else to tinker with and a new reason to strip the bike down and play with it rather than actually, say, ride it. I tinker more than I ride. The same principles apply to my "website" that I have spent countless hours, not to mention money, messing about with instead of actually creating content and getting stuff up there which represents me and gives me satisfaction to publish. No, it's much more important to play with CSS attributes such as the hex colour values for the border-top of div.footer. That's my life's project. Great. It's really up there with Pynchon, Amis and Greene.

I think I need to come back to this and reflect on it when I have calmed down a bit. Definitely a prime piece of writing to work on and then set some SMART targets from.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | I love everyone, says smiling Ahmadinejad

2006-09-22T15:39:00.000+01:00

The Guardian: "I love everyone," says smiling Ahmadinejad: "The bottom line is we don't need the bomb. Some people think you can deal with problems through the bomb, and they are wrong."

Love it.

Google Maps to our house

2006-03-13T12:58:00.000Z

Our house is here - use Google Maps to get directions.

Just bookmarking this for my own future reference really.

Flickr

2005-10-07T12:26:00.000+01:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Derek Powazek: Embrace your bottom!

2005-09-16T11:09:00.000+01:00

Powazek: Just a Thought: Embrace your bottom!.

He's right IMVHO.
Of course many wikis have been doing this for ages.

It's very true that we tend to ignore the bottom of the page, and over-clutter the top. Embracing the bottom is a top (sorry) way of "rewarding" your readers.

And if you want a recap...

2005-09-13T01:47:00.000+01:00

This Real stream is on the BBC, I might just watch it a few times over the next few weeks as autumn sets in.

It's all just too sweet

2005-09-13T01:35:00.000+01:00

We may never see its like again.

Exhaustion. 25 days of stomach-wrenching nerves, unbearable excitement, and some of the greatest sport you will ever see. When Steve Harmison (this seems like years ago) unleashed the first over of the series at Justin Langer, this was everything we hoped for, and some.

Thank you Vaughny.
Thank you Freddie.
Thank you KP.
Thank you Straussy for your 2 hundreds and *that* catch.
Thank you Geraint, for your performances, especially that 85 at Nottingham.
Thank you Harmy, Hoggy and Gilo for your sheer English persistence and for being so much better than everyone thought you would be.
Thank you Jonesy for taking 18 at 21 and for bowling your heart out.

Thank you Shane and Glenn for being the greatest of your time.
Thank you Ricky and Adam for the quality of your team, your performances, your guts and your sportsmanship.

Just, thank you.

You Can Straighten the Painting - Why Wiki Works

2005-06-11T13:52:00.000+01:00

You Can Straighten the Painting - really nice.

Sorry, I just _had_ to blog this (slightly rude, but hilarious)

2005-06-11T13:31:00.000+01:00

The bash.org Quote Database has this gem.

See also:
this,
this,
this,
this (warning: rude),
and my favourite.

BBC NEWS | Election 2005 | Results | Stroud

2005-05-06T04:52:00.000+01:00

That was close. I think Stroud was Labour's 324th seat, the one that ensured their overall majority. Great to see over 5% of the vote for Martin Whiteside.

George Galloway has just made a mad speech after winning Bethnal Green and Bow. Radio 5 haven't mentioned Stroud or even Bristol West which was a massive win for the LDs. Huge swing to Lib Dems in Brent East too. Shame for them that they didn't dislodge Oliver Letwin or David Davis etc.

Those who switched away from Labour as a protest, but still sort of hoped David Drew would stay on as MP must be really relieved. If another 351 people had done then Neil Carmichael would have won.

Now off to find out what happened in the county council elections...

Apparently I should vote Lib Dem... but actually I'm voting Green

2005-05-05T12:02:00.000+01:00

Who should I vote for? v2

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 3
Conservative -16
	Liberal Democrat 65
UKIP -17
	Green 49

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For
I'm not really sure what you would have to put in to get a "Vote Green" recommendation. Maybe I didn't use enough "strongly"s ;-)

amongst the broken glass

2005-03-15T01:17:00.000Z

this is great, straight from the soul.

Paul's Peccadillo

2005-03-15T00:22:00.000Z

Discovered my friend Paul Northup's blog Peccadillo today. Wow! He has written loads of good stuff already, and he's only been going since the beginning of January. And pretty much every day too - puts me to shame. I shall definitely be visiting often. Lots to think about in there already...

first ride of the year

2005-03-14T13:41:00.000Z

Stroud to Hereford yesterday - approx 40 miles

Well, actually I only managed 28. I was going great guns till Newent, then the hills up to Gorsley and into Herefordshire to Upton Bishop really started to take their toll. My thighs were killing but I was just going to keep plodding on. But when I crossed the A449 my right thigh just seized up and so I called Jen to come and pick me up. Talk about sense of failure! Anyway I suppose I should have expected it with no warm up and no riding since last summer. I'll make it next time...

I hadn't noticed before that Herefordshire was so undulating.

Crazy stuff

2005-03-09T14:17:00.000Z

At Christmas the kids at the holiday club I run made up a new version of the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Here are the gruesome details - yes I know they don't make any sense at all. (Like the original makes a lot of sense!)

12 toilets flushing
11 annoying kids
10 teachers tutting
9 monkeys swinging
8 frozen keys
7 sausages praying
6 children playing
5 chocolate fingers
4 catalogues
3 french tourists
2 ninja turtles...

...

and a robin in a Christmas tree!

If you actually try singing the song with a group of mates (preferably, but not necessarily, kids) it is totally hilarious.

I'm in a dilemma about tactical voting... but I just can't vote Labour

2005-03-08T11:43:00.000Z

Martin Kettle's piece Are you thinking what I'm thinking about the election? is well written and well researched.

I think he's right (although obviously he's trying to galvanise Labour voters rather than supporting the Conservatives) ... but I'll be voting for the party I believe in (Lib Dem) in Stroud instead of voting tactical Labour. The Labour party seem to be deaf to the electorate's cry that they will get hammered because they didn't get rid of Blair over Iraq. If Gordon Brown were PM their re-election would be virtually guaranteed.

I think at the moment I would rather the Tories came back rather than another term of Blair and co. We might get Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary or something in a couple of years time - how cool would that be?!

2005-03-03T15:48:00.000Z

Yay! Drivel (ver. 1.3) now supports the Blogger API. Just testing it...

A word in your ear can carry more meaning than you might notice

2005-02-09T16:45:00.000Z

Mike Shea has reproduced George Orwell's classic 1946 essay Politics and the English Language.

It shows up just how much many people (especially politicians, it seems) use certain phrases and idioms to produce in our minds the images and implications they want us to hear, without actually coming out and saying it directly. Our society tolerates sloppy language and the sloppy thinking that is behind it, and we are the worse for it, because the jargon can conceal an awful lot of truth.

A joy to read

2005-02-09T16:32:00.000Z

A "display of ritualized sexual tension so blatant it makes one tempted to call an anthropologist." - Aaron Swartz on Stanford's "Secret Snowflake" rituals.

He's good. He's very good.

But then we've known that for years.