The Hums of Ceres Wunderkind
Oct. 11th, 2008
10:25 am - Gene Hunt
Hmmm
English Gene Hunt is an English cop modelling himself on a American cop. US Gene Hunt is... an American cop.
There's a gap here that may never be filled.
Otherwise, not bad.
Oct. 8th, 2008
06:34 pm - Philips 8GB MP3 Player - Avoid! And be careful with Argos too...
Yesterday I got Minor a Philips 8GB MP3 player (his choice, not mine) to replace his very battered iRiver H10. The Philips looked nice (solid metal case, pretty menus, easy to navigate and use), and sounded nice - until you put a lot of tunes on it. Then it began to stutter badly when you tried to navigate around it. It sounded awful!.
So I took it back to Argos - and that's where the fun started. At one point they were telling me that they were going to send the player back to Philips and I'd have to wait for it to be returned. I told them that was completely unacceptable and in the end, once a responsible person turned up, they agreed on a refund. I bought a Creative Zen instead. It works flawlessly, and it's got a memory upgrade slot. Much better.
So - Philips's players look nice, but either the firmware's borked or the processor is seriously underpowered. And Argos, who used to be very very good about returns have, now that times are harder, turned awkward.
Any business can do well when times are good. It's when the heat's turned up that the smiling mask melts from the face of the bad ones.
We will remember!
11:27 am - An Odd Feeling
The last part of Pirates of the Archipelago is done, subject to revision, and I'm left feeling a little lost as I often am when I've finished a story.
As I've said before, author time is 1000x reader time, and only a very good author indeed can make his readers inhabit the world he creates in his story to the same extent that he does.
I've loved creating the character of Annie McLuskie and I'm sure she'll be back some day. I had similar difficulties letting go of Sunny Moon after I finished The Clockmaker's Girl. And, unusually, I've no idea what the next Tale of Glory is going to be about, although the title Pandas of Gold has a certain appeal. :)
Oct. 6th, 2008
05:34 pm - Pirates of the Archipelago, Part Sixteen
Annie and the foys meet. It was never going to be easy...
( Read more... )
Oct. 2nd, 2008
05:32 pm - Jam and Jerusalem
We gave an Our Grandmothers' War to the Finchampstead WI today. It went very well, despite some initial problems setting up. The power sockets were in the wrong place so FW and I had to swap sides. She's usually stage right and I'm usually stage left. It didn't affect the performance, though and all the tech kit (including our new projector which was (!) brilliant) behaved itself. There is so little time to set up for these gigs, and no chance of a sound check, so I have to mix on the fly from a position at the front; i.e. not in the audience.
We did sing Jerusalem at the beginning and there were home-made cakes (terrifically good) afterwards.
Apparently FW managed to reduce at least one member of the audience to tears.
Oct. 1st, 2008
09:50 am - Good Afternoon, Doctor
I was quite impressed to find that my GP (whom I was seeing for the first time ever) had all the details from my Friday's visit to the Royal Berks on his screen when I met him yesterday evening.
He took my blood pressure, pronounced it satisfactory, asked me some sensible lifestyle questions, told me he would set up the ultrasound scan for me and assured me that losing one's gall bladder does not condemn one to a lifetime subscription to the Immodium club. :)
So far, so good. Let's hope the system, which has been messing FW around recently, will at least work for me. It probably will, though. Doctors like acute problems; there's a simple diagnosis, a straightforward fix and a quick shot of job-done at the end of it, while managing chronic problems is far less rewarding, I think.
Sep. 30th, 2008
02:26 pm - Foy Ahoy! PotA 15!
It's getting progressively ropier for our heroine 
( Read more... )
Sep. 27th, 2008
11:07 am - Gallstones!
It looks, following a visit to the Royal Berks Hospital last night, as if I might have them.
Bah!
Sep. 24th, 2008
10:14 am - Pirates Of The Archipelago, Part Fourteen
Has Roy and Annie's gamble paid off?
( Read more... )
Sep. 22nd, 2008
12:50 pm - You Need A Girl
to take a photo of a teenage boy, it seems:
Minor, not scowling, taken by his chum Tanith. No I don't know why the photo's on its side. It displays OK at Photobucket.
10:36 am - Two Wheels Good
I borrowed Minor's bicycle yesterday as the weather was so nice and my destination was only a mile or two away. I must say I enjoyed it, despite the slightly sore bum I'm suffering from now and the confirmation that, although I'm pretty healthy, I'm not particularly fit.
I still don't know why a bike needs 21 gears, though.
Sep. 20th, 2008
12:39 pm - A letter to the local paper
Dear Sir,
My son has just started an A Level course in photography and needs a new camera for his course-work. I should very much have liked to support a local business by buying his camera from Wokingham's specialist photographic retailer, but then I remembered how much I'm annoyed by the way their A-board blocks the Denmark Street pavement at its narrowest point.
I don't think I'll be visiting Wokingham Photographic after all. If Wokingham's retailers won't use common sense and courtesy when it comes to A-boards, perhaps they'll pay attention to their bottom lines instead.
Yours faithfully,
Me
Where I live
Sep. 18th, 2008
11:55 am - Pirates Of The Archipelago, Part Thirteen
Will Annie and Roy make it to the safety of the Ring?
( Read more... )
Sep. 16th, 2008
09:31 am - The Shorter White Album
A day or two ago, in response to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
skywaterblue, I said that the Beatles' White Album was full of pastiches, comedy songs and fragments. So let's see what left when you take them out and, while we're at it, delete the ones that are shite:
01. Back in the U.S.S.R.
Sep. 15th, 2008
09:54 am - What's My Crime?
FW and I attended a couple of evening sessions at the Reading Festival of Crime Writing this weekend, in the splendid surroundings of Reading's Town Hall.
Val McDermid was Saturday's speaker and Mark Billingham and John Harvey presented Sunday's jointly. Both sessions were tremendously entertaining. Just as SF writers don't have green skin and antennae neither, it seems, are crime writers unhinged homicidal maniacs :)
I've read no contemporary crime fiction - FW reads lots - so it was interesting to get an insight into another genre and compare and contrast the approaches. Certainly crime is better served by television than SF, but perhaps less well by film - nowadays, anyway. The golden age of Film Noir is long past! I guess this is why the fims shown during the festival were The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity.
Sep. 12th, 2008
09:44 am - Pirates Of The Archipelago, Part Twelve
Annie and Roy, alone together in a sea of peril.
( Read more... )
Sep. 9th, 2008
09:15 am - I just had to share this one with y'all...
From today's haul of spam (not caught by BT Yahoo's system, presumably because it came from a Yahoo mail address):
<...Fake lottery bollocks excised>
Please note that, you are to contact SIR TERRY WOGAN, Foreign Service Manager, London United Kingdom, wrightivornichola1@hotmail.com
Endeavour to email this following to Foreign Service Manager that will file out your claims immediately.
:) :) :)
I think they have a joker in their pack.
Sep. 6th, 2008
01:33 pm - Pirates of the Archipelago, Part Eleven
Annie has been cast out from the safety of the Ring of Leaven. This is where monsters lurk, where her father died...
( Read more... )
Sep. 2nd, 2008
11:55 am - A Set Of Choices
I just found a brand-new still-sealed copy of the Orange Box in a charity shop, priced at £3. Naturally, I snapped it up - it's over £22 at play.com.
But... should I have told the shop how underpriced the item was?
Or... I actually only want Half-Life Ep 2, which is $15 to download. I could give away the other games in the box under Steam's gifting scheme (if it's still active). For example, I could bribe Minor with Portal (which is an insanely brilliant little game). I could put the whole package up on eBay and maybe get £15 for it, then buy Ep2 as a download. I could salve my conscience by giving some of the money I made from the sale back to the charity.
What should I do?
Aug. 31st, 2008
03:34 pm - Pirates of the Archipelago, Part Ten
The race, and what came of it.
( Read more... )
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