splateagle.com - blog

... upside down

2012-04-15T16:05:00.005+01:00

I've never liked that phrase*. Partly because it's an instruction to be seem happy and those are absurd and kind of offensive. But nonetheless that is what I did this morning.

I've been on a jaunt in the Southlands the past week visiting family, friends and (lastly, yesterday) attending an old friend's wedding. I'd booked my trains ages back and until this morning everything went smoothly.

Then after my early taxi ride from the hotel there was a tortuously slow rail-replacement bus ride from Newbury, followed by a delayed train at Reading, and before I knew it, I'd missed my train home. Boo Hiss!

I'd spotted last night that there might be issues with getting to Kings Cross today, but by that point there was little to be done. With hindsight (and without being at the end of a wedding reception - so possibly thinking more clearly!) I should have asked the taxi company how much it would be to drive me to Reading but bolted horses and spilled milk etc.

By the time I finally reached London I was in a foul mood. Magic phone of magic had at least enabled me to look at my options, but they hadn't cheered me: Checking fares on all the remaining trains today they came back sky high, and then a scan for coaches home yielded one, tonight at 11:30pm, affordable without selling a kidney but will deposit me at the wrong end of Princes Street tomorrow morning at 8:10. Beggars can't be choosers though.

So I was reluctantly hauling myself to Victoria Coach station on the tube, storm cloud overhead, but doggedly retaining my manners... until an utter twat of a northern tourist (whom I'd politely asked to move so I could exit the train, and who'd ignored me) objected rudely to being slightly jostled by my rucksack as I passed him.

I think that I really must never ever move to London. I snapped at him. There was proper shouting and swearing. Not masses but it was loud and angry. I was loud and angry. No matter how shitty a day I'm having in Edinburgh I don't think I've ever turned loud and angry.

I think that partly shocked me into a little mental readjustment though because by the time I'd bought my coach ticket, I'd somehow 180ed my mood.

Once on another such trip, Hame and I managed to miss our flight home by moments. We managed to get a standby but on a train at the end of the day and the one we'd just missed was in the morning. I don't remember either of us saying anything, or it being a conscious choice but instead of spending the day fuming at things we couldn't change, we settled in for a happy day hanging out together. Instead of waiting at Stanstead for 8 hours, we hung out at Stanstead... for 8 hours.

So today instead of being stuck in London, I have an unexpected extra day's holiday in London. I've pottered about & seen some sights, taken some photos and now (at Derek's excellent suggestion) I'm using my "useless" first class ticket for the missed train & enjoying the amenities of Kings Cross' excellent new First Class Lounge.

I doubt very much that I could do this sort of mood change consciously but I'm glad I have the facility subconsciously. And I'm very very glad I don't have to commute on the tube.

* that phrase being "turn your frown upside down"

eggs

2012-04-08T07:13:00.001+01:00

No word of a lie. I just woke from a faintly disturbing dream where my sister, some friends and I narrowly escaped getting mauled by a rampaging herd of pre-teens wielding chocolate eggs in a 24 hour Tesco.

Odd.

Happy Easter everyone

weather

2012-04-01T18:04:00.002+01:00

The past couple of days it's been summer in March here, then today on the way back from collecting a sofa from Falkirk with Phil we passed signs warning of snow tomorrow...

*baffled*

Presumably I should be preparing for a summer of tornados and rains of frogs?

... cruel world

2012-03-30T21:51:00.002+01:00

It's OK, I'm not going anywhere.

Well OK I'm going to London next month but that only feels like purgatory, I've no intention of shuffling off this mortal coil.

It is a cruel world though. Or at least it can be.

I had some bad news today from a friend. It's made me angry and upset. It makes me feel the world is a cruel and unfair place.

I have to remind myself that (to date) the balance of my own personal experience has been of world which is a lovely place where good things happen. I have to remind myself to hope for more good things to happen, rather than railing in futility against the bad things which have already happened to a wonderful man about whom I care deeply.

Those of you reading who aren't future me - I promise my next post will be less cryptic, and apologise for rambling incomprehensibly (to anyone who isn't me) but sometimes things need to be marked without the details necessarily being public.

Bad world. No biscuit.

... quite a prize

2012-03-24T02:08:00.003Z

What a lovely evening! It's been a long time since we did a proper Friday - then a few aeons ago Kim suggested we visit the Royal Observatory now that it's refurbished. Being a somewhat geeky crowd we all went for the plan. Tonight was the visit and I think I'm ok in saying a fab time was had by all. I saw three of Jupiter's moons for the first time in my life, was introduced to a splendid piece of astronomical software (Dad - you want to download that now it's brilliant) held meteorites, laughed at astronomers forgetting which of Venus and Jupiter is closer, and enjoyed splendid views of Edinburgh amongst some of its most striking architecture (a real feat in this city!)

Then we went to Liz's (via Tesco) for brinner and gin. And in mine and Liz's case a movie after everyone else wussed out - lightweights!

Splendid night. Yay for Fridays!

* Title is a reference to the somewhat disturbing fact that I found myself nodding along to Fergal Sharky on the way home as if his lyrics were meaningful. Possibly there is such a thing as too much gin after all?

Networking...

2012-03-21T18:43:00.002Z

... has never been like this in my experience. Perhaps I need tastier business cards. Or a polecat.

On a semi-related note, off to another Creative Circuit meeting this evening. See some of you there.

serendipity

2012-03-09T23:45:00.003Z

Every now and then - not often - but every now and then, the universe demonstrates a quite marvellous sense of timing, and delivers exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

Feeling very good right now.

That's all.

Collaboration

2012-02-08T16:16:00.002Z

I know it's almost been a year now, but I keep being struck by just how much I'm enjoying working for myself.

Many people who know me well have commented how much happier I seem (and I am!). More than one such person have observed (diplomatically) that I seem temperamentally better suited to answering to me, rather than to someone else. I think they're right.

That said, I don't think I'd be enjoying self employment nearly so much without the support and synergy I get from mine and Derek's joint venture [gawr-juhs]. So often in creative work you need external feedback to get something clear in your head... or at least I do.

I feel very lucky to be enjoying the best of both worlds.

Losers!

2012-02-07T15:42:00.002Z

We lost!

In however long we've been going to the Quiz (over two years if my poor excuse for a memory serves) two things have never happened: we've never had the Quizmaster's Two*, and we've never come last.

Last night we came last.

Happily last night's consolation prize was a bag of Rolos so our unprecedented poor performance was well timed.

*Nobody ever scores less than two on any given round at the quiz, if a team gets fewer than two points they're awarded two by default - hence Quizmaster's Two.

Office hours

2012-01-30T23:30:00.004Z

I really really love setting my own hours, even though some days it means that I start and finish later than is entirely sociable.

Missed the pub quiz tonight - my choice, but if I'd got more done during "office hours" (9:00am to 5:30pm) I might have made a different choice.

Then again the work I'd have done during the early part of "office hours" (9:30am to 1:00pm) ~~probably~~ wouldn't have been as good - my brain seems to work best in the afternoon/evening.

When I worked on a salary I used to have this recurring disagreement with my boss about what why it was important to be in the office. I maintained that doing the work and doing it well was the main thing. Being available to clients when they needed me was often cited as justification for being at my desk in the mornings...

... 20 minutes ago I received (and immediately responded to) a query from a client. Haven't done that during the day in... well I can't remember how long.

Just sayin'.

Ducks in a blizzard

2012-01-19T17:11:00.000Z

So the weather got nice again, Anita and I resumed our plan to go and feed ducks... and by the time we set out it was snowing.

What the hell. We fed the ducks under a bridge in a blizzard and came home to warm up with coffee. Sometimes you just have to accept that you live in Scotland.

Lovely weather for...

2012-01-19T13:41:00.002Z

So this afternoon Anita and I had plans to go feed the ducks on the canal (they were rescheduled plans from yesterday, in case anyone's cross-referencing with Twitter). we were meeting at 2pm, 20 minutes ago the persistent rain turned into snow. 10 minutes ago Nete called and (very sensibly) suggested we not go and feed ducks today because it was snowing and horrid outside - I agreed. 2 minutes ago it stopped snowing.

Weather is taunting me!

Also I'm having an unusually animal-ey day. This morning my dreams were full of incongruous and wrong-sized animals: a teeny tiny deer got into my parents' house by mistake and we had to try and get it out but it kept hiding under the furniture. Then we did get it out into the garden and (for no clear reason I can remember) I then had a conversation with my Dad while on a rope swing (which never existed) over a pond (which was filled in years ago) in which were a family of 1/4 scale crocodiles. Later in the same dream there was a hamster the size of a dog at my friend James' house.

Strange.

Weather's cleared up too but now Anita's working on setting up her new computer instead so the ducks will have to wait.

Revelation

2012-01-17T23:19:00.001Z

Funny thing happened the other day.

I've spent (most of) the past year feeling sorry for myself. Feeling loss. Feeling bereaved. That's all understandable, but not bring able to move past it was worrying me until the other day.

Somehow it struck me that I'd been waiting for something that couldn't happen. I'd been waiting most if last year to feel "OK" again, only my definition of "OK" was skewed. I was waiting to feel OK by standards that no longer apply.

I am OK. Just as much as I was before I met Joe. It's a helluva comedown from where I was *after* I met Joe ;) but it is... OK.

Back to normal then.

Could be worse.

finally

2012-01-04T09:22:00.004Z

13 months ago I first reported an intermittent fault with my telecoms to Orange Home. I had a working voice line, but only an intermittent broadband connection, and much slower than it should be given that I live around the corner from the exchange. At the time I suggested that the problem might lie with the rather ropey wiring inside the flat - specifically the old style GPO phone point (broken) where the line entered my flat.

Just to reiterate. That was 13 months ago.

Today I finally got a BT engineer sent out. He took one look at the GPO phone point and confirmed my diagnosis (on closer inspection the wiring inside was so corroded and loose that it's a miracle I was getting any connection at all). He's replaced it with a modern master socket, and now - for the first time since I moved in - my broadband is operating as advertised.

Now in fairness to Orange, part of the reason it's taken so long is that this was an intermittent fault. So when I got disheartened arguing with tech support bods insistent on investigating unrelated problems, I'd give up for a while and put up with it. Had it been simply unusable it would have been fixed ages back. That said, it's both heartening and infuriating in equal measures that I'd correctly identified the fault on day one myself. If the tech support bods at Orange had listened to me and done what I asked then, this would have been fixed for over a year by now.

Instead they sent me a stream of unnecessary replacement equipment, and performed idiotic remote tests that shed no light whatever on the actual problem (as well as repeatedly asking me to connect equipment to a master socket which I'd told them wasn't there!) All because we have an idiotic deregulated telecoms industry here in the UK (thank you Thatcher) which discourages service providers from investigating issues in the infrastructure because the infrastructure is owned and managed by another company. Bah.

Still. At least now my broadband works.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T17:37:00.002Z

Yes I know I'm late - I was busy celebrating.

Among the many many things I love about living in Edinburgh is that Hogmanay is a 3 day festival here - we kicked off with the Torchlight parade (above) on the 30th and finished (personally) with a chilled gathering chez Chris (thanks again for the delicious curry buddy).

No fireworks on the 1st (for me) but lots on the 30th and even more on the 31st. NYE itself was great this year - Sonja and Ivan hosted at their lovely flat over the East side of town, with handy access to Calton Hill for watching the fireworks (both overhead and looking down Princes Street toward the castle). I'd never watched from up there and (I gather) this year's secondary display was bigger than it's been in previous years. It was certainly impressive.

Today I've been getting back to work. A far happier state this year than it's ever been before. Lots to do, but all of it good.

Here's to a splendid 2012 eh?

"...beat me on the bottom with a Woman's Weekly"

2011-12-27T00:31:00.003Z

...gotta love Victoria Wood, even (especially?) in parody.

I have had a fantastic xmas break. Lots of mild over-eating, fine food, fine drink, toys and great company, and of course the deep joy of having got presents right (I think).

Just wrapped up the tail end of Boxing Day with my sister (after everyone else had pooped out and gone to bed) finding things to laugh at on YouTube. She's been having a hard time this year - putting my rough 2011 into perspective! - and we'd had a helpful but saddening serious conversation... capped off with videos of (amongst other things) cats leaping through boxes, "is this offensive?", "hell no!", inappropriate muppet parodies, and a glorious dual-homage to Victoria Wood and Russel T. Davies.

Yeah, all told I think we Robertshaws will be welcoming 2012 with open arms. One thing and another 2011 has not been entirely kind to us. Could have been worse, and things are headed in good directions (albeit painful ones in some cases) but it's been one of the less happy years in memory all round.

So far though the year-capping holiday has been a real antidote to all that. It's never all smiles: 3x kids under 6 under one roof is hard work and (for three of the six adult clan members) kids are a taxing (and hugely rewarding) novelty... the balance though has been recharging, rewarding and memorably lovely.

Personally I've been hugely enjoying the nostalgia this year - which is new for me - my nephew and I spent all afternoon building a gigantic Lego set, then this evening my brother and I immersed ourselves in unexpected net-nostalgia when I found this place*.

An unexpected boon of my new freelance lifestyle has been being able to enjoy a longer festive visit to Yorkshire: having time to catch up with more folk, and really enjoy the family... all signs that 2012 will be better...

* One of the many many things Mum seems to be enjoying about being a Grandmother, is having time and energy to play even more than she managed as a young working mother (which was already a lot) and Lego falls squarely in that sphere. So I find myself in the privileged and happy position of teaching my Mum to play with Lego, and so finding an archive of instructions for the mountains of bricks I bequeathed them is invaluable

Perplexing Siri

2011-12-11T16:18:00.005Z

So I've not used Siri much - for all that it's the headline feature of my phone, I find the camera more useful, and I'm a bit... British, and self conscious about talking to my devices... at least when people are around.

Still there's something compelling about having a real world device that I can talk with naturally, and which understands me (albeit limitedly) It makes my inner sci-fi geek giddy! So now and then something grabs me and I try it out. The last thing I played with for any length of time was the spooky but fascinating Wolfram Alpha aeroplane trick which - disappointingly - then refused to work when I wanted to show it to my Ex over dinner the other night (happily he has a 4S too and understood how fickle Siri can be - it is still in Beta after all...)

Today I stumbled on another thing, less spooky but more useful than asking about planes overhead. I was writing my Niece's birthday card and (since I can never remember the post code) wanted to look up my brother's address. In the privacy of my own home and with the phone right there I held down the home button and said "what's my brother's address" Siri asked me my brother's name, then asked if I wanted it to remember he is my brother, then supplied his address. Neat! I thought. OK so (in spite of the fact that the word "brother" is in my brother's address book card) there's some learning involved in that function. Fair enough.

... and (it being Sunday) off I went asking Siri for credentials from as many family members as I could think of, all went swimmingly until I reached my Aunt:

Me: "What is my Aunt's address?"
Siri: "What is your Aunt's name?"
Me: "Anne Robertshaw"
Siri: [displaying "Robertshaw"] ... thinks ... "do you want me to remember that Patrick Robertshaw is your Aunt?"
Me: [sigh] "cancel"

fair enough I thought, "Anne" can be misheard as "an", and faced with an apparent ambiguity Siri's little brain picks the primary Robertshaw from its database and (naturally) pulls up me! Fail.

So, I think, on with the experiment:

Me: "What is my Uncle's address?"
Siri: "What is your Uncle's name?"
Me: "Colin Robertshaw"
Siri: "Calling Anne Robertshaw, which number?"
Me: [incredulous sigh] "cancel"

I'm a bit baffled by this. If it can hear "Anne" in the context of placing a call, how come not in the context of assigning metadata to address book entries? Still more perplexing is its refusal to recognise Colin's name as anything other than an attempt to call his sister! (I tried several times.)

I'm not complaining. I live in the future, and while I may not have a flying car or a robot housekeeper, I do have a quite amazing pocket computer which (mostly) understands natural spoken word commands... but the name thing has me baffled and amused. So I thought I'd share.

I'm Happy, Hope You're Happy Too

2011-11-29T00:23:00.002Z

Quiz! We won tonight, against our über-nemesis too. Superior music knowledge. Hurrah!

Life goes well on the whole.

Denise and Justin indulged me in post-quiz pub time, which was hugely appreciated and (I hope) enjoyed by all.

Work is busy-busy. I should probably hit the hay so that I'm fresh for it in the morning... But wanted to briefly and imprefectly record the happy.

Oh and I had an amazing weekend with my brother. Life goes well.

half your age...

2011-11-21T22:08:00.003Z

I'm loving Kid Rock's work just now... it isn't making me feel better but it is making me smile.

We won the quiz tonight! Beating our long-term nemesis in spite of our team only being me, Ivan and a very bruised Liz*. YAY! us.

* We're the best ones anyway after all, and Liz makes being bruised into an art form.

Consultation

2011-11-13T16:38:00.002Z

Not usually one for political messages but I think this is important. So if you haven't already, (and you're a Scottish voter) please take a minute to respond to the Scottish Government Consultation on Equal Marriage.

Thanks!

Darkness

2011-11-13T16:15:00.002Z

The annoying thing about the clocks going back, is that in moves what little daylight we get at this time of year into a part of the day I seldom use.

Boo.

5 A Day

2011-11-04T18:45:00.002Z

Unexpected bit of comedy at the supermarket this evening. Scanning my items at the self-service checkout and I came to the lettuce I'd picked up - no label so I push for produce by weight... flip through lists for a while finding no mention of lettuces.

Hmm

At this point I flash my best "something's gone wrong" smile at the friendly young shop assistant monitoring the self-service lines, and she wanders over to help. We'll call her Belinda because I'm reasonably certain that wasn't her name.

Patrick: Um, there's no label on this and I can't find it in the lists by weight.
Belinda: Oh...
Patrick: Have I maybe picked one up without a barcode?
Belinda: Yes, probably [takes lettuce] I'll get another. [toddles off in direction of produce aisle]
...
Belinda: [returning with lettuce in one hand and a green cabbage in the other] um... is this it?
Patrick: No, that's a green cabbage.
Belinda: Oh... [ponders] do you think it might be more expensive?
Patrick: [stifling giggles] maybe... but more importantly, it's a cabbage not a lettuce.
Belinda: [Looks despairing] Oh... *sigh* I don't even know where they are!
Patrick: That's OK, I do, shall i go get another and you keep an eye on the till?
Belinda: [Beaming with relief] Yes! [pushes both offending alien green items into my hands in the manner of a toddler who can't make their toy work]

Bless.

I should be appalled that she didn't recognise the difference between a lettuce and a cabbage, but I'm too tickled by the whole thing.

almost forgot...

2011-11-02T11:26:00.003Z

we won the quiz

(and I did! They had the Hulk on)

[BANG!] [splosh]

2011-11-02T09:59:00.003Z

One way to meet the neighbours I suppose: "Hi, um, I live downstairs and I think part of your bathroom just fell through my bathroom ceiling"

Last night I was minding my own business, when an almighty BANG! came from the direction of my shower. I opened the door to find water coming through the ceiling, above which is a header tank. Uh oh. Opened the access door to the header tank and was relieved to find no water falling from under it, but somewhat perturbed by the water falling from the ceiling and the big hole that had appeared there.

The friendly bewildered australian women who live above me in flat 6 were in the process of fathoming how their blocked shower had suddenly unblocked itself when I knocked on the door... Apparently something similar happened to them last year: flat 8's shower caused their shower's ceiling to collapse. Given I've been complaining to the letting agent since I moved in that my shower tray is in danger of causing a leak through into flat 2 (below me) I feel somewhat vindicated by this. Clearly a kind of tenement plinko is underway.

We swapped letting agency details and agreed to each call in maintenance in the morning. ClickLet's plumber sounds to be with them already. Dove Davies had already been informed of the leak when I rang them at 9:15 which was pretty impressive I thought... They hadn't heard about the hole in the ceiling though, and were as unsettled as I am by the news that my bathroom's cold tap is now spouting gunk and occasionally blocking... seems likely that it feeds off the header tank*, so I've shut off the hot water too (since presumably similar gunk will be going into the immersion tank if I use it) leaving me with one working tap - the cold in the kitchen.

The lovely thing about renting is that all of this is someone else's problem to sort out.

* which is also kinda icky. Though at least now I know.

New favourite thing

2011-10-26T11:50:00.002+01:00

... well apart from the phone itself and a few other other obvious things like Angry Birds (yes yes, I know, I'm years late to that party, but it is fun).

Apart from those things this is my new favourite thing. I'm getting a train this afternoon and giddy that I'll be able to unlock the travelling dream by doing so. Silly, but fun.