J. apparently arrived at work at the normal time by overcrowded bus, wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a fleece. He's claiming lethargy. He's also twelve years younger than me.

Sometimes my lifestyle doesn't seem too bad.

"No, thanks." *

"Okay, that'll be £2, please."

I paid for my lunch, then, as I was leaving, was called back:

"You've forgotten your water!"

Is it really so difficult to comprehend that 'free' doesn't always mean 'worthwhile'?

*: It's not easy to insert hotlinks into speech, but I am a professional.

I've never visited the town, but is there something I ought to know?

I was quite nostalgic to discover that the combination of the keypad lock 'guarding' that corridor still hasn't been changed since, ooh, 1994.

*: Well, not the long way; much as I'd like to visit H. in Warszawa, I was a bit pushed for time.

I'll advertise both venues simultaneously. It is quantum, after all.

Yes, I've had a filling. It was supposed to be a minor repair to an existing filling, but by the time the old one had been removed and underlying decay excised & sterilised, my dentist was using tools I'd never seen before – I'm sure one was to prevent the drill destroying the entire external tooth. Before returning to the office, I've had to thoroughly wash bone, amalgam and saliva out of my beard, but I didn't feel a thing.

Then again, I can't feel my nose, either.

Before realising the glass was slightly mirrored, and that I'd put on a 'Marbles' t-shirt this morning.

Did you know that recognising its own reflection is considered characteristic of a sentient animal?

*: The door wasn't wearing the shirt.

That hurt.

Six pounds fifty. For a ham sandwich. Admittedly, that'd normally be served with chips & salad, but we'd declined them and expected a more... realistic price.

I'm in the wrong business.

It must have been just breaking up as I passed, since by the time I'd completed my shopping, I'd counted fourteen suddenly-off-duty costumed hypocrites in Sainsbury's.

Yeah! Give your money to a multinational corporation! That'll teach 'em!

Rather more alarming was the statement that our "undergraduates are inflated", affecting "the proportion of our students showing".

1: Of me struggling alone.
2: Of me nodding and smiling whilst the work was done for me – mildly embarrassing but THANK YOU, J!

I have a electronic pass card for my usual office building (a literal carte blanche, as it's plain, unmarked white), but such technology hasn't quite reached my temporary accommodation, so I normally need to borrow a key from Security.

However, the officer on duty today told me of a deceptively simple way to enter the building at any time, without a key. That's really handy, and I'm grateful for the advice, but I could have been anyone. I didn't recognise the security officer, he didn't know me (I suppose there's a tiny chance that other officers had described me, but why would they?), and we hadn't reached a point in the conversation at which I'd offer some ID.

I only have free access to three floors of corridors, communal spaces and my own office, of course, but it'd still be possible for me to return at a quiet moment and, if I was so inclined, take a microwave or shared printer from an unlocked post room or break into individual offices at my leisure. It's not just a matter of computers and other valuables, either – 'in season', offices could contain exam papers.

I'm not sure what to do; it'd be irresponsible and possibly a disciplinary issue for me to just ignore such a gaping security risk, but I can't think of a way to report it without incriminating someone who was only trying to help. I'm certainly not going to do that.

I selected a computer from our designated supplier's website and customised the specifications, but we needed to obtain the precise HE-sector price from customer services. That's been a laborious process, featuring unreturned calls, misdirected e-mails and over a week of delays. It's as if the company doesn't want our money. If I'd been buying for myself, I'd have gone elsewhere days ago – it's simply not good enough.

Finally! A quote has arrived this afternoon. It's 'For the Attention of: Dept of Biological Sciences' (er, no, we're in Central Admin) and is addressed to 'Dear Goods In'. It's the personal touch that makes all the difference.
Should we choose to confirm the order, the PC will be delivered to the Dept. of Management Science (they'll be pleased) in the Engineering Building (though Man-Sci isn't in Engineering).

All of which has prompted me to investigate whether we really do have to buy from a 'designated supplier'.

And we don't.

This morning was entirely usual: I woke at the normal time, ate my normal breakfast and cycled to work as normal. Bright sunlight on my office window made the room unseasonably hot by mid-morning, to the point of being slightly nauseating and ruining any appetite for lunch, which I forced down anyway.

By 14:00 I felt extraordinarily tired, with an annoying headache. I went for a walk to wake up, but as soon as I left the building, I felt astonishingly cold – my fingers even went numb, as if I'd been out for hours. I got as far as the College office before slumping into an armchair, shivering and still very drowsy. After recovering, I went back to work via a more indoor route.
The same pattern repeated itself at 15:00; I needed to talk to the Press Office staff, so wandered across to clear my head (still aching) rather than just pick up the phone. Again, once there I collapsed into a chair, bitterly cold and unable to concentrate.

I gave in to the inevitable at 16:00 and cycled home (perhaps itself an indication of impaired judgement) wrapped in my spare fleece, jacket, dayglo overjacket, scarf and gloves, deliberately riding slowly as I doubted my reaction times and spatial awareness. By 16:30 I was home and in bed with a couple of paracetamol tablets, unable to do more than blink slowly as I watched the last of the daylight oddly pulsing on the bedroom ceiling.

The next I knew was when the alarm clock (which I don't remember setting) woke me at 18:00. H. thinks I must have passed out, and that I should see a doctor immediately, but the odd thing is that I feel absolutely fine now, as if nothing whatsoever had happened.

[Update 01/02/08: False alarm, or rather, false all-clear. By 02:00 I was incapacitated with burning fever and diarrhoea for 24 hours (and counting, though the severity has receded drastically). Apparently there's been an epidemic of norovirus (viral gastroenteritis) this winter; I must have been unlucky.]

Unless it's the air ambulance, of course.

But there's a twist. In order to obtain two free meals, my mother wants us to go in separately and sit apart.

I'm in my mid-thirties. I earn a decent salary. I don't need to play these sort of games any more, and won't.

That may be my mother's underlying motivation: on some level, such penny-pinching is a game.

Remember the NOISY building work last September? The ground floor and half of the first floor were remodelled in that phase of the project; now it's our turn. This weekend we're moving to the far north-east of campus* for a year or so, whilst those departments which escaped the building work last time get to hear the rest of the first floor and all of the second being similarly remodelled.

It seems open-plan is back in fashion with those wishing to practice dynamic and visible management; that's the format to which we'll return. To be fair, multiple stages of consultation have resulted in an acceptable layout with a minimum of tantrums, and I've been promised a dark corner with my own window blind. We'll see – few plans survive contact with the pneumatic drill, and all that.
The fundamental premise of open-plan wasn't open to negotiation, unfortunately, though of those colleagues I'll be seeing far more of on a daily basis, and of those who got to extend their collaborative working opportunities (what fun!) in the earlier phase, I've yet to encounter one person in favour of abandoning individual offices (or open-plan within individual departments' offices, rather than multiple tangentially-related departments sharing a collective space).

It's all so dehumanising. A clear-desk policy was implemented downstairs when those departments moved into their new space, whereby the only items of paper permitted on desktops are those on which the drones staff members are actively working. There's also a (probably apocryphal) rumour that the cleaners are required to remove any posters from work spaces each morning – no more family photos, then.

I wonder if it's coincidental that the 'Personnel' department recently rebranded itself as 'Human Resources'. There's a dangerous semantic difference between 'persons employed' and 'expedients'.

*: To seriously old offices, which will in turn be remodelled once we've moved back out. The plaster around my 'new' door is visibly crumbling – never mind a hefty kick, a meaningful glance would probably break my door down.

All weekend I've been worrying about my next project at work, which magnified the usual Monday morning less-than-eagerness-to-go-to-work. It was a horrible sensation which I thankfully experience rarely nowadays, but it was (literally) a wake-up call: the only way to eliminate the feeling is to face the task.

The problem is that it's slightly beyond my current technical knowledge (I think – I don't even entirely understand what's involved) yet rather important. A good analogy would be to have to learn a whole new language, with a speech to a multinational audience (of potential customers) being one's very first rehearsal.

The rest of the day actually went quite well: I engineered three impromptu meetings about the issue, with a fourth tomorrow, and secured a fallback position: implement someone else's attempt at the same task, though at a larger level, if the more ambitious plan stalls.

Here's the point of the title: my technical knowledge increased infinitessimally today, and I'm still concerned, but now several other people have to be concerned too.

Sorry, folks. ;)

Bugger. Don't make the same mistake. The Amazon page for the latter contains virtually no textual information about the film and there's no cover image, so the automatically-generated 'Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed' and 'Listmania' sections are pretty much the only content, and feature several Wong Kar Wai items. That doesn't justify my carelessness, but it does at least partly explain it.

There still are in Scotland, of course, but the English pound note was phased out in 1983/4; the current intake of undergrads straight from school were born in about 1989.

Well, I clearly remember pound notes. I was 13 in 1984 (and a pound went so much further in those days!), so I suppose that was the note I saw most frequently.

However, it seems that course isn't running. Successful project, eh?

****. The alternative is a Masters' degree, and I really don't fancy that sort of time-investment.

On Monday, I was a tourist in London, at my employer's expense.
On Tuesday, I attended a conference costing ~£100 per hour.
Yesterday was devoted to normal web development work.
This morning I was hanging 64 shower curtains. Eh?

I suppose a mere quarter of a year (three months from today, the whole ordeal will be over for another year) isn't especially early for booking a restaurant.

[Update 26/9/07: I left London seventeen hours ago, and my nose still itches.]

At the moment my train pulled into Euston station and I disembarked into the world capital of the surveillance culture (London has the greatest density of security cameras on the planet), my mp3 player launched into Geoff Muldaurs' theme from 'Brazil'.

For those who don't know, that film is Terry Gilliam's '1984'-like view of a near-future police state and, incidentally, the source of this website's name.

Then again, adding an extra 11% overnight does seem a little steep. Now it's a lot more expensive than at supermarkets, just as they're accused of artificially inflating prices.

However, there are two logistical problems; not so much obstacles as minor annoyances.

• Frying liberates vapourised fat into the air, which settles out again onto every available surface. It's essential that I open the back door and close all internal doors, isolating the kitchen as much as possible before beginning.
• The ingredients aren't sold in quantities suitable for one person: I can't eat eight rashers of bacon, six sausages and a whole tin of beans at a single sitting. Hence, I eat half on each of two consecutive evenings, even if the first meal satisfied the desire and I'd much rather cook something else on the second night.

So, tonight's first task was to rewash them immediately before... starting... to....
Ah. You see where this is going, don't you?

At least I'm consistent.

I still frequently choose cheese & tomato, but in the form of a wrap² containing Monterey Jack cheese³, chile⁴, tomato chutney and guacamole⁵.

'Times change', and all that.

1: crumbly, tasteless Cheshire cheese, if left to my mother.
2: unheard of in 1977.
3: actually, that was new to me mere months ago.
4: definitely not part of my childhood diet, and I suspect my mother has still yet to encounter a chile pepper other than in a restaurant or pre-prepared sauce.
5: not merely 'foreign' in the late Seventies but downright alien.

Okay, I saw some of the oldest rooms in the University's founding College, so some parts have been in continuous use for over forty years; they really could do with a gap of a few months for them to properly air.
Okay, I saw some of the smallest rooms on campus, in the largest communal configurations (up to 26 students sharing a kitchen little larger than in a domestic home).
Okay, rooms elsewhere in the complex are drastically better (large, well-lit, built in 1990 and arranged into flats shared between 3-4 students).
Okay, even in the best cases, the compromises of communal living are something to be endured; one can't expect too much.

Still, I couldn't conceive of being a 18/19-year-old student again myself.

Needless to say, those photos are absolutely useless. It's not that the residences are bad, and any specific problems (like that damp) are dealt with, but even the best rooms are unsuitable as a means of promoting the College. If I can't sell them to myself, how could I use them to sell the College?

Best not supplemented by coleslaw, even if it is approaching its 'use-by' date and needs finishing.

****, that's foul.

In no particular order, I'm attending a conference in York, ensuring the University's degree ceremony webcasts go out properly, inflating a couple of hundred balloons for Bowland College's pre/post ceremony reception, moving my mortgage, and catching up the routine tasks which certainly don't go away when I do.

Yes, I've been shopping (thanks, A & A!). All's well with the world again.

However, when you pull-up on a quiet residential street at ~07:15 every morning, particularly at times of the year when people sleep with bedroom windows open, please don't sound your car horn to indicate you've arrived. At least not immediately; wait to see whether your colleague needs that additional prompting – it's quite likely he/she is aware that you arrive at the same time every day (his/her neighbours are) and is waiting by a window.

And if you do need to wait for a minute or so, please turn off your engine, at least until you have an opportunity to get that rattling exhaust fixed.

• A lecture theatre in the refurbished Bowland North (Lonsdale, as was), Lancaster University, has been named in honour of the late Marcus Merriman, legendary senior lecturer in History.
• It's been fourteen years since my Finals, but I've always been vaguely aware of the examinations season in each subsequent year, until this time – the 'Silence-Exams!' sign outside the Great Hall was a surprise. I don't really know why that feels like a life landmark.

Automatic doors ponderously swinging open as if a cathedral portal; a cashtill responding as if the pixies inside are back on paper-based accounting; rush-hour motorists decelerating to look at the ikkle lambies; my web host's MySQL server "running a bit slow" (with no further explanation), meaning I have negligible editing access to the blog – dunno when you'll actually see this; ... not a great morning.

Seriously; there are occasions when I feel as if I'm operating at a different rate to my surroundings, when everyone seems to be aimlessly ambling into the line of my purposeful stride, and when I can see conversational responses in a speaker's face before he/she has, well, spoken more than a couple of words. That one's particularly annoying, as I have a slight tendency to formulate a response in my own head, anticipate the other person's next response, verbally answer that one, and come across as random.

It happens most after I've been cycling rapidly in traffic. I doubt that's coincidental.

I haven't even had any caffeine today, though I'm working on that.

If this kettle ever boils....

During renovation work, delivery vehicles have been accessing the library and central admin buildings by reversing along a long gravel track by the underpass. The path is about as wide as a truck, with a steep slope on one side and a building on the other, providing poor visibility to drivers and few opportunities for an unnoticed pedestrian to dodge out of the way. It seems the obvious finally happened, and the student's arm was crushed.

An immediate response was to close off the track to vehicles, using two traffic cones and a large crash barrier. Yet already this morning one truck driver has gone to the trouble of parking, removing the obstruction, then continuing as normal.

It was impressive to see how quickly the security officers arrived to kick him out, without making the delivery.

However, I made the mistake of checking I have a clean copy of the appropriate files at home (my USB pen drive is intermittently faulty), and got drawn in. There'd be little point wandering lonely as a cloud if my head was churning with navigation structures and CSS hacks, so I'm writing this from my desk, at work. Bugger.

It's also quite humid this morning, so visibility is very poor. That's some compensation, but I'd have preferred to say that was the reason I changed my plan, rather than something noticed after I'd made the decision.

Still; if I do well this morning, and the mist (literal and figurative) is burned-off, there's always the afternoon. We'll see.

Where else could one become slightly lost in a maze of tiny streets and rationally think "let's follow that group of lads into that dark alley; they look as if they know where they're going"?

Pick your time carefully, though. My mother visited a fortnight earlier in March 2006, and reported it was pleasantly quiet but bitterly cold, whereas this last weekend was mild but seemed to be on the cusp of being oppressively busy.
Some of those narrow mediaeval alleys were already at full pedestrian capacity, and a couple of rush-hour vaporetti (water buses) were so full as to reject further passengers at the most popular stops. I suspect it'd be insufferable in June or July.

And no, despite my hydrological training and J's request, I won't be bringing back water samples as souvenirs for people.

Just for casual interest: what's the best way of retrieving coins from beneath floorboards?

Must be a typo; check the details.
No, it's correct, but a little circuitous:

Lancaster dep 10:20 (Bus)
Preston arr 11:00

Preston dep 11:37
Leeds arr 13:21

Leeds dep 15:00
Skipton arr 15:36

Skipton dep 15:41 (Bus)
Bentham arr 16:59

The use of buses suggests that there's engineering work on the Lancaster-Leeds (via Bentham) line, but why is this alternative even suggested as sensible?

[Update 01/08/07: I've discovered that Dilbert.com only archives past strips for a month, so here's a transcript of the joke:]

[Update 07/05/08: The revamped Dilbert.com has a bigger archive, so I've amended the link; you can see the strip itself again.]

I'm damned if I was going to join the queue, though. I do want to see 'Pan's Labyrinth', but not in the company of a coughing, whispering, sweet-paper-rustling horde.

Maybe tomorrow.

What a brilliant idea: a token I could give to someone, which he or she could subsequently redeem for money.

Totally dissimilar to, say, a cheque.

Incidentally, what does one call an unannounced palate-cleansing course between the starter and main course?

[Six suits? Who needs six new suits? I bet she'll take 'em back.]

Yesterday I discovered that whilst the system plays nicely together, and it's possible to watch one channel, record another to video and a third to DVD, the channels must all be analogue. One can watch digital TV, and record whatever's on the screen, but there's no way to record straight from the digibox – turn off the TV and recording ceases.
I found this a little odd, and tried to trace the fault, but that's not the really odd thing.

There is no fault. The system is deliberately configured this way, because my mother's partner can conceive of no circumstance in which anyone would wish to record digital TV – there's simply no point in connecting the receiver to the recorder(s), apparently. Digital is "all repeats".

Needless to say, he doesn't own a set-top box himself.

That could have been dangerous, never mind awkward.

And no, I don't think there was any agenda behind the topic being raised.

I think we just have to accept we're working in a building site, and let the contractors get on with it. A bit of dust isn't going to kill anyone (the asbestos was removed a few weeks ago). Cleaning up after them every day is merely a waste of time, and cleaning up after the cleanup could be even tougher.

Throughout a meeting today, something was bothering me about a colleague's shirt. Then it hit me (metaphorically): the logo had a grey & white chequered background, which is Photoshop visual shorthand for areas of transparency in an image; I was subconsciously interpreting it as unfinished.

What am I becoming?

Fair enough, though I rather resent having to sacrifice at least half a day of annual leave for their convenience (there was no possibility of a specific appointment, of course; they could only offer a 5-hour 'morning' slot).

However, the letter went on to say that if I failed to keep the designated 'appointment' (okay; or reschedule and keep an alternative appointment), the company would obtain a magistrate's order without further notice, in order to gain entry to my premises.
Again, fair enough if I'd persistently refused previous visits, but this was stated in the first contact I received. I'd argue it's pretty poor customer service to threaten customers by default rather than as a last resort.

The engineer arrived about quarter of an hour ago, within the final few minutes of the agreed 08:00-13:00 slot, and stayed considerably less than sixty seconds. He read the meter, and that's it. No tools were involved, no valves were checked. I now feel so secure.

*: Carefully note the presence of a comma in the title. It's kind of important. ;)

I wonder what the raker had uncovered. It seemed too extreme a reaction for it to have been merely a blackbird or squirrel – perhaps the prodigal family cat had turned up....

*: I've worked on open moorland, and sheep habitually died in the peat. It's safe to say I'd recognise the smell.

Right. Good to know. It's almost a pity I'm straight, really.

*: Of tea, that is.

If I wasn't predisposed, would I have noticed that the precise (though random) alignment of labels displayed 'MAR...illion', from right across the room?

Pity a camera wasn't available....

*: I know that's misspelled, but so was the label.

That's not an especially pleasant odour, but it's not cigarette smoke – I can't detect even a hint of that smell.

I was wearing my boots in the shower this morning (this entry isn't improving, is it? I was cleaning river mud off them, okay, and that's easiest whilst they're on my feet), and they seem to be drying unevenly – I think the drying tongue is gradually shrinking against the still-damp bootleg, or perhaps two freshly-cleaned surfaces, normally lubricated by dust/fluff, are rubbing together.

Well, we're over a month into official Autumn, the clocks go back tonight, Samhain ('summer's end', aka the onset of winter) is only four days away, and, most importantly, I'm uncomfortably cold, so that's near enough. The boiler is now, er, boiling.

If things get really bad, I suppose I might have to put some clothes on. That'd be drastic.

There are some odd options, too, which could be fun:

Bowland Beer & Brown Onion Soup with a Giant Mrs Kirkhams Lancashire Cheese Crouton
If one fails to finish the portion, will an extremely large woman come out of the kitchen to enquire why?

Black Sheep Braised Beef with Silverskin Onions, Turnips and Carrots with Dumplings & Pickled Red Cabbage
I think you'll find beef comes from cattle, not sheep. Unless the braising chef is ovine...?

Winter Vegetable Stew with Chestnut, Parsley and Black Wax Bomb Cobs
Black whats?

Locally Produced Cheeseboard
Does that come with any cheese?

Surprisingly, they're not especially smelly (though one knows if they've travelled far), but bits drop out of the louvred sides of the lorries as they overtake, which isn't pleasant.

*: Literally – I'm not referring to the X2 bus to Morecambe.

The problem is that the boiler was shut down during an unexpectedly cold spell in the Spring, so most radiator valves were left fully open. It was fired up again on Friday evening (the official first day of term) and rooms have been blasted with heat for the entire weekend. Even with the heating off now, the furniture itself is re-radiating stored heat, so it's almost as oppressively hot indoors as last July.

Quite apart from the inflexible timing of the institutional heating, the magnitude of the temperature (if that's the correct physical concept) is annoying.
People are naturally acclimatised to the ambient conditions of early October, so it'd be sensible to match and maintain that level as external temperatures drop in subsequent weeks. It makes less sense to raise office temperatures to a 'luxurious' summer level, forcing occupants to reacclimatise. That'll make external autumn conditions feel colder, and drive people to heat their homes sooner and more than they'd otherwise need.

I know the staff pension scheme has investments in petroleum companies, but that's no reason to inflate fuel expenditure....

This weekend just gone was the equinox (nominally), so the solstice must be 91 days away (21 Sept to 21 Dec). That means there's an entire quarter of a year between today and the festival of commerce. I'd have thought the christmas produce would go off sooner than that.

They work remarkably well – since they arrived, there hasn't been any drilling whatsoever.

THERE HAS TO be a case for doing that paRT OF THE WORK OUT OF OFFICE HOURS.

AND THESE LITTLE ORANGE SUPPOSitories we were given last week are useless.