Most Haunted

Am I the only one who thinks that Derek Acorah is a complete fraud? That the whole show is a sham?

There's always a silver lining

I was ill over the weekend. Of course, I managed to be ill whilst my husband was away visiting his parental units. I spent two days in bed knowing that I can't get anything unless I stagger down the hallway to the kitchen and feeling too awful to want to spend the energy so I'm in absolute dire necessity before I even get up to get a drink. Not that it mattered anyway. Sunday night he got home and fed me tlc which revived my spirits if not much else. Monday I was a little bit better but not really well enough to get out of bed for too long. Sitting upright made me feel nauseous, walking required support as two days in bed leaves your legs a bit weak and shaky, but at least I had the motivation to get up regularly to make sure I had enough to drink, and in the evening I did manage some chicken soup. Yesterday, I felt quite a bit better generally, though I was still shaky and weak, I was able to sit up without feeling as though I was going to throw up, which was the first indication that I was on the mend and was likely to be back at work. So to summarize a completely wasted weekend.

On the good side, though an inability to eat for the best part of three days I've lost 7 pounds weight (huzzah!). I was able to sit uninterrupted for an hour or so and managed to get some photos uploaded onto my flickr account I'm going to spend the next couple of days getting the rest of the honeymoon photos up followed by the photos of the flat. I've also given up on trying to design my own web page as I know that whilst I have the technical know how to do the html and the CSS I just don't have the artistic skills to make it look anything other than a mess.

Sistine Chapel Ceiling in cross stitch

I like doing counted cross stitch and I've done a couple of big projects, but I don't know that I'd dare start something as big as this.

The complete project is 40 inches x 80 inches or 564 stitches by 1,114 stitches which translates to 14 stitches per inch or 196 inches per square inch and gives a total of 628,296 stitches in total. According the information from the designer it was completed 3,023 days after the initial stitch was made and took around 2,872 hours of stitching, this is on top of the 800 plus hours creating the pattern.

I have to say I am pretty impressed with the dedication and perseverance and I'm tempted to buy the book of the pattern, just to get more of the details of this fantastic piece of needlework.

Quirky Search Engine

I've known about the liveplasma search engine for a while, but never really used it. I've always thought that I have wide, boundary crossing tastes. However, a few quick searches later I find that all my preferences are quite strongly linked, proving that I'm more of a mainstream bunny than I thought.

Well What A Surprise

Abu Hamza has been found guilty of inciting murder and stirring up race hate and sentenced to seven year in jail. Now I hate to rain on the law and order parade but this verdict gives me serious misgivings. It's not that I don't think that he's guilty as sin, it's that there had been so much press coverage including some of his sermons and speeches prior to his trial that is there not the possibility that the jury were not fair and impartial on the evidence given. It's not just a case of the law being fair but also it being seen to be fair.

On balance, and from I've read of the trial, I think it's probably unlikely that there was going to be any other verdict. But on the other hand, the rhetoric that has been used in the press had certainly put me in a mindset that had I been on the jury my decision would have been made before the charges had been read. This is the heart of my misgivings. How much information should the media give prior to trials, and how prejudicial is media coverage to the ability to have a fair trial? With journalists increasingly taking upon themselves the role of police investigators are we not in danger of having trial by media fueled public opinion?

Given the rioting that happened on Friday it makes me worry what scenes we are going to be seeing in the near future, and what the implications are for relationships within multi-ethnic communities.

UPDATE

Muslims react to Hamza conviction (BBC website).

This report eases my misgivings on the one hand but also emphasises some of the reasons I had them in the first place.

I don't usually do memes but...

rathgild -- [adjective]: Extremely extreme! 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Thanks lj user spride

Can't Sleep

This is very bizarre because on Thursday night whilst at my media studies course, I was having a great deal of difficulty staying awake. Friday morning I didn't get out of bed till ten past nine (which isn't good when you start work at 9am) and continued to feel like I was falling asleep all day. I arrived home fully expecting to pass out on the sofa, but no, not even "America's Next Top Model" could induce me to doze. I really don't know what is wrong with me at the moment. It could be stress related due to all the upheaval at work, (new professor, new head of subject area, restructuring the pay scale involving regrading, refurbishment of the building, etc); or it could be a virus of some sort; or it could be another manifestation of the depression that I seem to have drifted into. The latter seems to be the most likely based on past experiences though I'm not discounting that the other two options are playing a part. I'm still in the demotivated, "why do I bother?" frame of mind and if it wasn't for the two courses that I am doing (the other is "International Terrorism"), I don't think I'd socialise with anyone. I just want to lock myself away so that I don't notice people ignoring me. I need to dig myself out of this but the more I try the more I just end up overdoing it and winding people up so that they avoid me out of embarrassment, as has happened recently when one minute people are talking to me and the next they are racing to get out of my way.

Maybe I just can't cope with life, the universe and everything.

What a day!

Ikea came today with our furniture. The one thing I like about Ikea home delivery is that as soon as the van is loaded, the delivery drivers call all the customers to say where on the delivery route you are and then again as they complete the delivery before yours. The thing I hate about this is that they make the first call somewhere between 8:00 and 8:30 am. So just before 8:30 we got a phone call to say that we were the first delivery on the list and that they'd be with us in about half an hour. Cue mild panic. Since we moved into the new place we have been stacking the unpacked boxes in the hallway, these all had to be moved so that they stuff can get through the door. No probs my husband got up and started moving all that whilst I had another five mins in bed. Of course, five minutes turned into ten, so it was with slightly more of a panic that I surfaced and got ready. We were ready for the furniture just as the van parked up outside. Phew!

I have spent the day assembling various cupboards and bookcases, with a little help from a friendly Italian who called round. Hubby helped with some of the furniture building but he spent most of the day in the kitchen, sorting stuff in there, making cups of tea on demand, and also coming over occasionally to pass me a hammer or screwdriver that I couldn't reach because I had things balanced precariously. Moving books from the old half height bookcases happened at some point, only to be followed by putting them on the brand new bookcases. Most of this was done by the time we had a visit from Charlotte who helped with the ritual stomping on flat pack packaging aimed at getting it folded to a size that was easy to carry to the bin store. [peeve: our bin store has only one recycling bin which is for waste paper (not cardboard or packaging). Does anyone know the nearest recycling point to Haymarket station?]

After all the hard work was done I slobbed on the sofa whilst hubby made a super meal for us, and later we had some of the cake that Charlotte bought for us. All in all we had a successful day challenging the validity of gender based stereotypes.

By the way, we are pretty much settled in now so it's okay to visit.

Ikea

My husband and I had another trip to Ikea. We had a plan though, so without deviation, hesitation and only a very small amount of repetition we got through the maze in record time. We then had to find the items we wanted in the self-service area. First item, not in the location it should be, next place we look has the right item but in the wrong veneer finish. My husband goes off to the info desk to get revised locations. Comes back with new info and we try again. With only one minor mishap we make it to the checkout with almost everything we wanted and move on to the home delivery counter. I depart to the packing station at the other side of the exit to wrap our small items and after queuing whilst other people faffed around packaged the stuff and made my way back to deliveries to find my husband behind the counter looking at the computer screen. It turns out that the bar-code scanner wasn't working, the girl there had added items by hand and was in a muddle about what was being delivered - hubby was being helpful by matching the items on the receipt with the packing list on screen. That was done and the labels were printed so the girl then started sorting the payment with hubby so I got the labels and stuck them on all our boxes. This was the point that we were called the "most helpful customers she'd had". Anyway goods are delivered tomorrow so we will then have the wonderful task of assembling everything.

Anyway we survived with sanity intact and rewarded ourselves with a nice meal out at Chiangmai. Hubby is going to the pub but I'm staying in putting my feet up and getting on with a piece of needlework.

Oh No!

I knew we would have to do this again, but......


We're going to Ikea tomorrow.

*runs away*

Blah!

It's almost 7 am and I'm still awake, which had been the normal state of affairs since xmas. This means that I'm spending a lot of time on my own brooding which I suspect is not doing me any good. The current wave of introspection is basically a whole bucket load of self doubt, that I can't go out socializing because there is no one who would want to socialize with me, there is no point talking to people because they really don't want to talk to me, there is no point inviting people to the flat because they don't want to come around and spend time with me, etc, etc. Logic says that this isn't so, but in the early hours of the morning logic is on a hiding to nothing, and the feeling of isolation is making me depressed and the depression is feeding the thoughts of inadequacy.

Update on the move

This is the first chance I've had to write an update on the big move.

Despite all the assessments that were due and needed processing I was able to get 6 days annual leave from work. Hubby was supposed to be doing the same with the exception that he had to go into work for a software presentation one morning. We should in principle have then had a whole week with both of us, sorting and packing, making the job easy and stress free.

Things didn't go exactly to plan as can be seen from the saga below:

Monday, 12th Dec (7 days to go)

Hubby went to work to "quickly finish something", with added assurances that it wouldn't take long and he's be back by lunchtime. He arrives home at about 7pm saying he'll have to go into work the next day too. I head up to new flat to wait for a delivery of furniture - or rather for the replacements to the furniture that was delivered damaged, replaced with equally damaged goods, etc, etc. The replacements were fine. A friend calls around in the evening to help packing, but is very ill, so, though willing, is unable to help. Agreed that hubby will go with her to the doctor the following morning, going into work afterward.

Tuesday, 13th Dec (6 days to go)

Hubby goes to meet friend to go to doctor. I spent the day doing laundry and packing suitcases with fabrics (towels, bedding, clothes, etc) that were not going to be needed till we were in the new place. I get a call mid morning to say that GP has sent friend to hospital. Hubby has called into work to say he won't be there but that he'll be in on Wednesday to finish off. Despite all this managed to get huge swathe of stuff in the bedroom packed. Phew!

Wednesday, 14th Dec (5 days to go)

Hubby goes into work. This was the morning we knew about, but he still had to finish something or another. Can't remember which bit I did whilst he was a work. He arrived home mid afternoon, so after a very late lunch we rearranged the way the boxes were stored and went quite a way towards packing everything in the bedroom.

Thursday, 15th Dec (4 days to go)

A whole day together packing. However, we had an early start going to the new place and assembling flat pack furniture. On the way there, stopped in town to buy a towel rail, toilet roll holder and set of shelves for the en-suite bathroom. Lots of self assembly ensured. Went back to old flat and finished packing bedroom stuff. Emptied hall cupboard so that we could start storing some of landlord's stuff in there.

Friday, 16th Dec (3 days to go)

Had a late start. Cleared space in living room, mainly by moving packed boxes into bedroom. At this point I'm getting frantic that there is no way we are going to be ready for the removal firm. Realised that there wouldn't be time to stock the new place up for the hols, so spend the evening going through Tesco on-line and organising the delivery for the afternoon of the move. Didn't really achieve much but felt better.

Saturday, 17th Dec (2 days to go)

Hubby had a driving lesson, so I went to town and bought new sheets, pillow slips and pillows and took them to the new flat. Made up the bed so that all it needed was a duvet. Met up with hubby, had lunch, then back to packing. Shut down the rest of the computers, and boxed up cables, monitors, etc. Cleared desk and the workspace hubby was using. Packed most of stuff from kitchen. Realised that there was no need for Friday's fit of panic, so bought a film on pay per view and had a relaxed night.

Sunday, 18th Dec (1 day to go)

Started to pack last bits in living room and had a brainwave. Stripped bed, and threw duvet cover into washer/dryer. Went back to packing living room, disconnecting, tv, video, dvd, etc. Suddenly hit the point where we were moving bits backwards and forwards with no real point. Realised that we were done. Put newly laundered cover on duvet and made bed at old place for last time.

Monday, 19th Dec (Day of move)

Got up at some unspeakable hour as we couldn't remember when the removal men were due. Guessed at 8am but found out that it should have been 9am. No worries though as it meant we had time to get ourselves ready and then pack the things we'd been using to the last minute. Grabbed the duvet and stuffed it into a black bin liner and put lots of packing tape around it to (a) fasten it and (b) make it identifiable. Removal firm (Scotmove) arrived, gave stuff a once over and got right down to work. Because we'd been in a furnished flat we pretty much stayed out of their way whilst they were moving things out of the old place, just keeping an eye on what they were grabbing to put in the van. A few times I had to stop them from trying to pack landlord's stuff and every so often they'd check through with us what was left to go and what was staying. Loading the van seemed to take forever, but eventually everything was loaded. We headed up to the new flat and waited for our stuff.

Unloading the van was a different story. It seemed to happen really quickly. I think the removal guys were a bit bemused when I said to just dump everything into the living room, but as I explained, if we stacked boxes into the cupboard and spare room, we'd never get around to unpacking things, whereas if it was in the living room we have to unpack to get the place tidy. Logical when you think about it. At this point Hubby helped carry boxes into the flat, I started to organise their storage, grabbing things that had obvious locations, eg blackbin liner with lots of packing tape = duvet, so grab, unwrap, shake out and put on bed. By about 2pm we were all done and alone in our new home. We went off to get lunch (there's a starbucks nearby) and then I went to the old flat to wait for Telewest to pick up the decoder box and cable modem, and hubby went back to the new flat to wait for grocery delivery and the sky installation engineer (who didn't turn up).

By the end of the day we had the bookcases up and stacked with books, most of the crockery stacked on the kitchen worktops, and hubby had managed to get our old free-to-air digibox working, so we slobbed in front of the tv, and started planning our xmas.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


As is traditional at the start of the new year I have made a number of resolutions. Of course, tradition also dictates that these resolutions should be broken by the middle of January. I'm hoping that I will do better than that and keep up with these, hopefully to build on them next year. So here goes.

1. I will lose weight.


2. I will learn to programme.


3. I will recycle more.


4. I will give more to charity.


5. I will lobby my MP, MSP and MEP on important issues.


6. I will spend less time gaming on the computer.


7. I will read more.


8. I will not buy anymore books until the "to read" pile has been reduced to less than a single bookcase.


9. I will complete at least one piece of needlework before starting another.


10. I will blog more often.

I suppose I should keep a blog of how well I'm doing on all these resolutions and then I can be judged on my success (or failure), which would help me to keep number 10. But if that's the one I fail, how would anyone know how well I'm doing on the others?

Encouragement may be needed.

I have an account on Care2.com where I found this item on a friend's page. I make no apologies for lifting this text in full. Besides, I asked first (thanks Michael), as the issue of the US religious right flaunting rules to suit their own political agenda - or in this case having a political agenda when they shouldn't, is getting to the point that it looks corrupt.


A Call for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to Investigate Activities by James Dobson and Focus on the Family

On November 28, 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against James Dobson's Focus on the Family. Naomi Seligman, CREW's Deputy Director, was delighted when Soulforce offered to launch a national drive to support this complaint. By signing the petition addressed to the IRS, you will join thousands of Americans who are concerned about James Dobson's growing political influence in Washington, D.C. and across the nation.

Focus on the Family is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization whose stated purpose is "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a practical outreach to homes." In past years, Dr. Dobson has become increasingly shrill about his political beliefs (especially against GLBT people) on his daily radio program and through his fundraising letters.

For example, on December 1, 2005, Focus on the Family announced that it would end its long time banking relationship with Wells Fargo because of the bank's "ongoing efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda."

Earlier this year Dobson promised to dedicate his life to amending the U.S. Constitution with a Federal Marriage Amendment that would make second-class citizens of Lesbian and Gay Americans in committed relationships and deny them their basic civil rights and protections.

Although his non-profit status bars him from electioneering, Dr. Dobson continues to use his considerable political muscle to support anti-gay initiatives and to endorse candidates for political office. In early April, 2004, Dr. Dobson endorsed Republican Representative Patrick J. Toomey in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania. In addition, it was reported that Dr. Dobson actively campaigned during a rally for Rep. Toomey.

Other candidates that Dr. Dobson reportedly endorsed in 2004 include North Carolina Republican candidate Pat Ballentine for Governor and Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn for Senate.

You can read more details, including the full text of the complaint sent to the IRS, on the CREW website.

Please sign the petition below to add your name to thousands of Americans who want the IRS to investigate the political actions of James Dobson and his organization.

Remove IRS Tax Excempt Status Of Focus On The Family Petition:
http://www.soulforce.org/petition/1

"I ____________ support calling upon the IRS to thoroughly investigate Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family for continued violations of their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; specifically that although they are barred from electioneering, Dr. Dobson has endorsed candidates for political office several times. Such abuse of their status as a tax-exempt, faith-based, nonprofit organization can no longer be tolerated."

We've done it!

Way back in June I gave the marathon post about looking for a new place. Well we've found a new flat and moved in yesterday. I didn't want to post anything before (I know all about counting chickens). Anyway the new flat is huge, or rather it seems huge. We did a quick measure up of both places and the whole of the old flat would fit into the living room and kitchen of the new place with room to spare. We bought a king size bed from Ikea and it looks lost in the vast space of the bedroom.

We decided that the delivery men should put everything into the living room. That might seem a bit silly when we have huge space in the bedroom as well as a second bedroom and walk in storage, but it's not really. If we had put everything into the spare bedroom or the box room we would never have got to a point were we were going to sort through the boxes. if there are stuck in the living room we have an incentive to get things unpacked and stored in their right places. So it's not as daft as it might seem as first glance. We already have four bookcases of books, as well as the DVD and video players, half our stash of DVDs and most of the stuff for the kitchen unpacked and put away, which is great when you consider that we only started unpacking at 5pm and we were both at work today.

Tonight I'm going to take some pictures of the chaos so that when then flat is organised there is a comparison.

WooHoo

Subject to major disasters it looks as thought the boy wonder and I will be moving house sometime during the beginning of December. As a result we are having a massive clear out of stuff that we don't want to take with us to the new place. A bunch of this stuff, however, isn't ours and we don't want to schlep it to the new place if we don't have to.

A lot of this stuff was given as "long term loans" when I first moved up to Edinburgh and was part of helping me set up the flat here and includes things like:

• A cd player and amplifier


• A filter coffee machine


• Yamaha DX27 keyboard


• Computer monitor


• various other computer bits


• model airplanes

There are also things that are ours that we no longer need and that might be useful to others
eg our old microwave, a 17" monitor, that will go to the Bethany stores if nobody else wants them.

This list isn't complete and by the end of November we'll have a much better idea, but in the interim if we have anything of yours please get in touch to make arrangements for collection asap or we will assume that you don't any it anymore and make arrangements for disposal accordingly. Also because some of the items have value we can only give them back to the owners (if they want to give them to someone else afterward that's their business), so please don't send other people to us to collect your stuff for you.

Tao - Beat of the World

In the end it was only half of Tao (the other half were back in Japan performing at the Tokyo International Forum) but that didn't really matter. A stunning performance of traditional Taiko drumming with some very modern visual touches. To be honest I am totally at a loss has to how best to describe the show, other than perhaps the best performance of drumming I have ever seen.

I would certainly recommend seeing this show if you get a chance and I believe that there are still some tickets available.

I like Orange.

Now that Paul is up here we are learning the benefits of being Orange users - 2 for 1 tickets to the cimema on a Wednesday. Just been to see "King Arthur". Without giving too much away it is part of the mongol hoard doing Braveheart on Hadrian's Wall against an invading Saxon army (heading southwards?). Okay so it isn't Excalibur but it doesn't suck that much either plus it has Clive Owen looking moody, Keira Knightly looking elegantly manic in a costume that doesn't cover much, and Ioan Gruffudd smoldering as Lancelot. Oh and Ray Winston is in it too.

Put your brain into neutral and go see it.

Frazer's Golden Bough

I just happen to have a copy of the full 12 volume version of Sir James Frazer's "Golden Bough" in pdf format. As far as I know this version is not available on the web (yet) and I'm currently trying to get Volume 1 converted to text for publishing. Anyone want to help?

To make it easier a certain Italian friend created a script that will automatically process all the pdfs into png format, and then set the OCR software onto the png to create a txt file. There are a few places where it doesn't work properly but these are usually due to the scanning process (I didn't always get the book square to the automatic process is confused). All that is needed is proof reading the txt file against the pdf.

Before anyone asks it appears that the 12 volume version is out of copyright, though in the worst case variation it is in copyright for another 3 years. However, I think that 12 volumes would probably take in the order of 3 years for me to complete. As not only is there proof reading the main text but there is cross referencing the not inconsiderable index making the links to the various pages in the text. Then I have to decide how to deal with the enourmous number of footnotes. As you can imagine it is going to be a mammoth task.

I get the feeling that I am going to be busy.

Times change

Scanning through the BBC news pages I find this little snippet:

Pink was a boy's colour while blue was thought better for girls - a "generally accepted rule" according to The Ladies Home Journal in 1918, which described pink as "more decided and stronger" while blue was "more delicate and dainty".

followed later on the same page by:

The colour pink gets its name from the jagged-edged dianthus flower, commonly known as a pink, which in turn got its nickname from pinking shears, those serrated scissors used by seamstresses.

Having just gone through months of telling people that white is not actually a "traditional" wedding colour and that Victorian brides would have just worn their Sunday best dress, usually in a serviceable colour, so no there is nothing wrong in having a black wedding dress, it was nice to see a reference to an accepted colour association being changed just to prove that it wasn't me making things up.