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nostalgia_lj has written TARDIS/GCU instafic.
It's quite sweet, really.
ION, ramtops and I ran the bar at the annual N Somerset LibDem 'ossidge'n'mash dinner'n'quiz last night, as we have for the last few years. A good time was, I think, had by all but we both woke up with mouths that felt like Lilith had left some of her discarded Bits inside, which was deeply unfair as I drank precisely one bottle of Butcombe Gold, and Mac even less. I blame the ersatz ice cream Cornettos we were given near the end of proceedings. Chock full of Ingredients, I'm sure; toxic waste, I suspect.
ramtops and I finally dragged ourselves to the North Somerset show on Bank Holiday Monday; we've been meaning to go for about as long as we've lived here, but lack of ertia has done for us until now.ramtops bought a hat, I bought a wooden spoon (though still not a replacement for the irreplaceable Spoon That Died), we ate some fairly disgusting "food", and we walked back home along NCN33. Oh, and I've added Pavane to my ever-growing to-read list should I ever actually finish Quicksilver (I'm in Lyons, and the king is dead). Keith Roberts was a reactionary arse, but he wrote some fine books nonetheless.While I'm at it, this photo seems to have attracted some attention since I uploaded it this morning (99 views in 14 hours, as I type), and will make a handy icon for those many, many times I feel the need to write about mouseless heads.
I need a cycling icon.
I've just ridden from home to Winford via Wild Country Lane, Hobbs Lane and Barrow Lane. The sign said "Dundry 1½ miles"; how hard could it be? Dundry Lane was ok, but that last stretch of Winford Lane to the top of the ridge was fucking hard work.
I'm a lot fitter than I used to be, but I've a way to go yet before I'm truly comfortable with gravity defiance.
Still, Dundry Lane, the Bridgwater Road, Barrow Street, Hern Lane and Wild Country Lane was pretty much all downhill on the way back. Time to sort out tonight's dinner now, and finish updating our backup server's Ubuntu (having isolated the fscked memory stick that was upsetting it earlier today).
I've spent this afternoon going to most of the wholefood shops in Bristol, in search of a bottle of decent concentrated apple and blackcurrant juice.
Long Ashton -» Ashton Court -» Leigh Woods -» Clifton
Fresh and Wild: Crazy Jack 6% homœpathic only
Wild Oats: Crazy Jack only
Cotham: Suma 10% (purchase one; I also picked up dishwasher tabs and rinse aid)
Cotham -» Gloucester Road
Shop 1: Crazy Jack and… Meridian 12%! (purchase one, and a jar of tahini)
Shop 2: bugger all
Shop 3: Crazy Jack and Meridian 12%
Gloucester Road -» Montpelier
Farm shop: bugger all
Grocery on the corner: bugger all
Italian Grocer: bugger all (though they had both A&B and Blackcurrant at decent concentration, but sweetened: why?)
Montpelier -» St Pauls -» St Werburghs
St Werburghs: Crazy Jack only (but I bought a hunk of Green's unpasteurised, organic, Somerset cheddar)
St Werburghs -» Easton
Sweet Mart: Crazy Jack only (but I bought some coriander and two tubes of squit)
Easton -» railway path -» Temple Quay -» Redcliffe -» Cumberland Road -» Southville -» Bower Ashton -» Ashton Court -» Long Ashton
and home, and an apple, and a pot of TEA.
And no sign whatsoever of the Meridian organic good stuff with a sensible proportion of blackcurrant juice in it.
A dock strike in the US against the war? Something from over the pond to give me a warm glow inside, for once :)
Bugger all on the BBC yet, of course.
[ HTT ginmar for the heads up ]
I was talking to someone (I don't know who) about my past; I was describing the Welly Club as it was in the early 80's, at the tail end of the Mrs Wilson years, and we ended up thern.
For some reason, there was a chap there selling records in a corner of the bar area: he looked like Dave Langford (hell, he may have been Dave Langford). I spotted the cover of a Terry Riley LP I didn't recognise (and still don't :) and went over and grabbed it. It was in some sort of gatefold or boxed sleeve and, when I opened it to check the disc was OK, found that it also had at least a dozen 7" singles stuffed inside as well. I started going through them to see what they were, then sat down so I could look at them more easily, but someone told me to move as I had sat in the record-seller's seat.
No, I don't know what it means…
ramtops photographed the extraction process from the other end.…by the sad loss of Humph of Rossmore Road (tangential I know, but there y'go).
If anyone has a spare copy, or a reasonably clean rip, I'd be interested to hear from them.
Via gmul, I find that the London mayoral candidate best matching my views is Lindsey German (Left List) by some margin from Ken and Siân (neck to neck), and Brian a little further behind.
It seems that I'm still an old leftie really then, and it's probably redundant to mention that the BNP arsewipe trails at the bottom of of my list, some way behind the godbotherer, UKIP and Winston McKenzie (whoever the fuck he might be).
<irony>So here I was, poised to go and protest the enclosure of public space and destruction of communities by First Bristol Council in cahoots with the construction and retail industries. Instead, I'm waiting for the AA to come and poke at our car, dead at the farm shop a mile South of here, having arrived there via Sainsbury's.ramtops and I have just walked home with the perishables, and I'll be going back shortly to wait for the yellow van: I'm sure this is some sort of multiversal judgment, collapsing probabilities in a way to maximise my cognitive dissonance. I may still make it to College Green this afternoon, but Broadmead (let alone St Pauls) will have to do without me.</irony>
In case you haven’t read this already at the Bristol Blogger or Bristol Radical History, something for you to drag yourself out of bed for tomorrow:
Stop the Gentrification of Central Bristol
By Roger BRHGSaturday 12th April: Protest Against Gentrification of Central Bristol
11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls and 2.00pm Broadmead (Centre)
Bristol is undergoing massive attacks on our free spaces and culture by property developers and their friends in the City Council. Across the city green spaces, pubs, clubs and amenities are being closed and sold off with little consultation with the communities affected.
So if you oppose the…
* Threat of closure of the clubs and pubs on Stokes Croft (Clockwork, Lakota, Blue Mountain, Junction)
* The threatened sell off of Castle Park to the developers
* The loss of playing fields and green spaces city-wide
* The ‘private streets’ of Cabot Circus
* The dispersion orders on College Green
* The removal of the Bristol-Bath cycle path
* The loss of pubs and meeting spaces in our communitiesOn Saturday 12th April there will be street protests against the gentrification of Central Bristol. There will be two meeting points:
11.00am Albany Green, St. Pauls: Join the ‘Bristol Space Invasion’ Carnival Parade as part of a europe wide weekend of action against the privatisation of public space
Joining with…
2.00pm Broadmead (Centre): ‘Save Stokes Croft from Gentrification’ party parade going to College Green
After the parades come along to Bristol Space Invasion Autonomous Zone featuring Art, performance, cinema, open-mic and live music - ALL FOR FREE! - Call 07528 953 230 or 07591 631 230 on the day for details of precise location.
Please show your opposition to the destruction of our places, spaces and culture, before its too late.
See you there….
Save Stokes Croft and Bristol Space Invasion
ETA there's more at Bristol Indymedia. This ain't just Bristol; it's an international weekend of action against commodification and enclosure of public space.
Check out what's happening where you live!
Yesterday, I finally finished first-order processing and uploading of the photos I took of last Sunday’s railway path celebration.
Apart from well dodgy blokes in shades, there were Police posing on pushbikes, vegetables, badgers, drummers, a pink souzaphone, a knight in shining armour, and childrins. The weather was perfect, and a wonderful time was had by all. Sadly, and predictably, on Tuesday the Labour group on First Bristol Council, abetted by the Tories, fucked up the Green-amended-by-LibDem motion to protect the path from the ravages of the arsewipes on the WOEP, by proposing and forcing through a wrecking amendment.
Still, if the thing does get stopped, it just gives WOEP more time to consider destroying the Malago Greenway instead. Or as well.
Guided BRT is the wrong answer to the wrong question in pretty much any existing urban area, which presumably explains why the government and its tame quangos are so excited by the things. That and their being bus, and not (still strongly Unionised) rail.
Today, I want shopping. First, to Asda - no, not to support Wall*Wart by buying anything, but to offer the knee of the cargo trousers I wtore on Sunday for repair at Johnsons, who rent a pitch in their market strip. Thence in search of new wholefood/deli experiences South of the river: the deli on Oxford Road was shut (permanently?) and I couldn’t find the one I thought was on Wells Road at all. Ho hum. I returned to North Street and got the bits we needed from the Southville deli and greengrocer, but still no concentrated blackcurrant juice.
There seems to be a terminal shortage of the stuff in Bristol ATM: all that I can find is the Crazy Jack (or whatever its called) stuff that only contains blackcurrant in homeopathic concentrations and is of no use whatsoever. The bog-standard Suma and Meridian juices might still be around on Gloucester Road, but I haven’t seen my holy grail, the little bottles of organic mega-concentrated Meridian juice, since I snaffled the last bottle the Sweet Mart on St Marks Road had over a month ago.
I’d bike up to Gloucester Road now if we weren’t waiting for purple_peril, who we’re ferrying up to CostCo this afternoon; she’s late, damnit. Hopefully she’ll arrive in an intact state soon after I post this.
ETA and here she is :)
Via City of Sound, Jason Kottke writes, prompted by a Salon interview with Pamela Paul, about parenting, children and the “toy” industry.
Can’t argue with a word; it’s hard to find anything for kids, even in supposedly enlightened outlets like ELC, that doesn’t take all initiative away from babies and children. Best to improvise, and let your kids do the same: they’ll be happier, learn more, and you’ll save a goodly wodge of money besides.
Parenting isn’t passive, and learning sure as fuck isn’t either.
Yay! fafblog!
Too long have we all been denied the wisdom of the Medium Lobster,
fafblog!
Bristol Council announced yesterday that the plan to use part of the Bristol to Bath bike path for bus rapid transit has been “shelved” - not abandoned. This isn’t victory yet, but it’s a cause for cautious optimism. Today’s protest and celebration is still happening!
Timetable for today (times in BST :)
» Cyclists gather from 11am in Queens Square for a 12am sharp departure
» Walkers and trundlers gather at Fishponds, by Morrisons, for a 2:30pm departure, reaching the Bristol end of the path at about 3pm, then heading for College Green for the rally
Be there, or be somewhere else.
It just occurred to me how deeply sad it is that I’ve spent most of this afternoon refactoring and testing library Javascript, because it’s something I can’t justify the time for on werk days. OK, that’s not all I’ve done today - ramtops and I went shopping this morning, and I’ve changed our bed - but still…
Oh well.
The code needed (and still needs) cleaning up, honest: some of this stuff goes back twelve years, but at least I’ve got the namespace pollution pretty much under control now. I blame myself for writing a specialised codebase grep in Perl that lets me easily find all the places in our entire collection of Perl and ColdFusion libraries and client web code any given function or method is used; couldn’t do this else.
Yesterday morning, I placed my bi-monthly-ish tea order¹ with Gillards. Dreadful website; excellent service.
Yesterday evening the bit of Teh Intarweb that houses our servers and provides our DSL (but not our cable) suffered a small but perfectly formed death (still no confirmation, but it seems that a major router or switch decided to wave its legs in the air). The bits got swept up and stuffed back into the series of pipes in the early hours of this morning, and all seems well now.
This morning, my tea arrived. Huzzah! But one packet short and with a handwritten addendum to the delivery slip: “Sorry no Darjeeling First Flush until new season’s arrives”. Arse! I’ve about half a (125g) pack left from last time; it’ll have to stretch.
¹ 125g Jasmine Chung Hao, 375g Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Assam, 250g Ceylon Orange Pekoe, 250g China Lapsang Souchong, 250g Russian Caravan, 125g Darjeeling First Flush. Oolong and green tea I get elsewhere.
For no particular reason other than bizarre juxtapositions, this is what we’ve last scrobbled with the Roku on random play:
