technicalities / cross-polination

OK, me being rubbish at this blogging lark isn't new. In fact it has a long and fine tradition going back almost a decade (scary thought) but lately I've been conscious of letting this place languish and wondering why. I think I just stumbled onto parts of the reason.

excuse part the first: "Apple took my RSS away"
It's ages back now, but the last major overhaul of Safari removed the RSS reader functionality (for no good reason) and put it in Mail instead... which is a stupid place to put RSS. Having painstakingly moved all my feeds (friends blogs and a few cartoons) to Mail I promptly forgot to check them for three months, after which I found that (presumably having realised an email application is a stupid place to put RSS) Apple have removed RSS from Mail as well... GAH!

So last month I started reconstructing my RSS feeds in a neat little standalone app called Netnewswire and that's working nicely.

...what does this have to do with me blogging or not? I hadn't really realised before but reading my friends' thoughts and musings prompts me to put down my own, and without that prompt I was forgetting.

excuse part the second: "Google broke my blogger"
I'm still not sure why but since its last update blogger's front end has been bitching at me about utterly spurious and non-existant faults every time I do anything. How do I know they're non-existant? Because everything still works, I'm just plagued with error messages.

That's less of a disincentive than the conversational vacuum I was in, but I think it's a contributory factor nonetheless.

So. That's my "dog ate my homework" bit for 2013, and (hopefully) the start of another period of regular posts... about nothing in particular, to be read by nobody in particular.

Mouse!

A mouse!

A mouse in broad daylight no less.

Brave mouse.

...

Well OK not so brave, it popped out from under the skirting of the big cupboard* in the corner of my kitchen/office, saw me, popped back in and then freaked out and ran under the fridge when I opened said cupboard to see where it came from.

It came from a hole where the studding wall of the cupboard meets the floorboards. Or rather doesn't meet the floorboards.

This is the third time (in two and a half years) that I've seen a mouse in my house. The first this year, but also the first ever in daylight (the other two were furtive night time mices as one expects). Its boldness - coupled with it being in my kitchen - make me think I should be doing something about it. Presuming mouse-boldness indicates competition for food and/or space under the floor**, which in turn I presume indicates a many of mices under my floor.

I don't want to kill them though.

I also don't want them in/on my food/food preparation places.

hm.

For the time being (since there's no evidence of mouse anywhere that food is kept or prepared - I checked thoroughly!) I think I shall live and let live, but keeping an eye out for further mouse-ey incursions. Loath though I am to start killing the wee buggers, I really can't have them making free with the kitchen.

* said cupboard is where I store Henry (the hoover) a bucket and other such large cleaning related miscellany... had mouse emerged from a food cupboard I'd be out at the shop buying traps but as it is...

** where, I'm reconciled to the fact, there will always be mice. I live in an old building in the middle of a city after all.

Ding Dong

So I wasn't going to blog about this.

Yes, I know I've not been blogging about anything much lately so big whoop, yes?

Well I wasn't... But then Hamish pointed something out to me and I wanted to share it. Hame's been one of my best friends for such a long time that I forget sometimes this isn't the land he was born into. On April 8th he emailed me with thanks for preparing him for this day. Amongst other things I'd once played him a particular Hefner song. I remembered - reading that email - how startled my archetypally Canadian friend was early in our relationship when my South Yorkshire roots showed through on the subject of this one poisonous bag.

Hatred doesn't figure in my make up. It doesn't, any of you who know me, know that. Margaret Thatcher was the exception who proved that rule.

I occasionally cite primary school craft lessons (where - teachers colluding - we'd craft clay effigies of the then-Prime Minister's head and then mangle them while gleefully singing "here's Maggie Thatcher, Throw her up and catch her, Squish-squash squish-squash, There's Maggie Thatcher" - I'm not making that up.) but they're symptoms not causes. Thatcher's influence on my generation was polarising, and I - by nature - gravitated into hating the woman, against my own nature.

Anyway back to Hamish. Today he sent me a link. I've never had much time for Russell Brand in the past but the Guardian article Hame pointed me at is beautiful.

if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.

Perhaps for the first time that explains to me my own struggle with vehemently hating someone when hatred isn't something I understand?

Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others.

I find I'm smiling, nodding, and (perhaps) understanding something new. Who knew?

I maintain (as I did on the 8th) that I'd have to be a massive hypocrite to claim to feel anything other than elated at the news that this poisonous, destructive and vile woman has - at long last - departed. I'm many things, but hypocritical isn't one of them. I'm unsettled though to think that - perhaps - my very determination to hate her, is part of the woman's legacy.

Connections

So I'm watching Andrew Marr's History of the World (thank you iPlayer) and up to part four.

Among tonight's astonishing moments comes learning about Al-Khorezmiy who in 827CE calculated the circumference of the Earth damned near accurately. Marr tells me that the ancient Islamic genius calculated the circumference as 23,200 miles and that it's "remarkably close to the accurate calculation" but (infuriatingly) doesn't tell me what that accurate calculation is.

I naturally hit pause and ask Siri (he says 24,901.42 miles incidentally) my sense of C21st curiosity sated I resume the program. Only to learn that Al-Khorezmiy is also in a sense, the father of the algorithm, and since that sort of mathematical acrobatics is essential to modern computing (as Marr mischievously puts it) "every time you pick up your mobile phone, remember there's an old Uzbek Muslim hidden inside".

Genius.

00:14/13/12

It's nice having my shredder back

Haymarket: a missed opportunity?

For some time now I've been watching the plans for redevelopment at Haymarket with some interest. Back when the proposals were originally announced I was living in the neighbourhood, and - while I spent two of the intervening years living in Stockbridge - I've always been fond of the area and felt it deserved a bit of care and polish. Since moving back to this neck of the woods a couple of years ago I've kept an occasional eye out for developments, in amongst watching the (interminable) Tram project of course.

Picking Hamish up from the station on Thursday I subconsciously noted new hoardings there with some fairly disappointing "artist impressions" on, and must have made a kind of mental note to look into it, since that's what I've been doing while Hame's at the book fair he came down for.

Now to put this in context, for the past six years my mental image of what's coming when they finally give my local train station (and Scotland's fourth busiest) it's (desperately needed) overhaul has been loosely based on the visuals from Aedas' Haymarket Interchange outline proposal*. Primarily this one:

Much as I was saying in my last post about the success of the old ERI site's redevelopment, I feel this suggestion shows the strongest, most successful mould for modern architecture in an ancient city like Edinburgh: framing the old with a light but bold touch of the new.

Imagine then the crushing disappointment I experienced viewing the utterly uninspired and flat designs Network Rail have chosen from IDP Architects:

Where's the dialogue with its surroundings? Where's the integration of the old and new... above all where's the sodding design!? This lumpen box lurking behind the original station building has nothing to contribute to Haymarket's passengers or its surroundings beyond square footage. It looks as if the architects primary concern was that there weren't enough shadows for their building to hide in, and so they have put all their effort into making some.

Seeing the potentially missed opportunity here pains me - if this pathetic proposal from IDP is what gets built, then a chance to really enhance the western half of the city centre will be lost. I appreciate that Aedas' 2005 sketch is just a sketch, but I'm not the only one surprised to see such a poor job being done on the projected design. Last year rival firm Richard Murphy pitched a rival plan in the Architects Journal, while in a spectacular act of diplomacy calling IDP's designs "unambitious".

I fervently hope that before work begins in ernest, Network Rail are brought to their senses and commission something more ambitious, and more fitting to be part of this city's inspiring architectural surroundings, than this limp, apologetic, soulless lump.

* interestingly the inspired Aedas visuals are still the ones being used on the project's site to illustrate the proposed redevelopment, which is somewhat worrying since they're not at all representative of what's actually being planned.

Hamster time!

My friend and former flatmate Hamish is visiting! For the first time since he and Craig moved up to Wick in 2010 he's down for a proper* visit.

Mostly the plan while he's down is to hang out and chat, interspersed with some watching of movies and goofball TV - just like old times really! Since these days we're both self employed, we've both been working today, but also hanging out which has been great fun.

As a change of scenery mid afternoon we took a wander to get some air and to reacquaint Hame with the city he called home for a decade (and which he thinks of as his "Scottish home town"). I took a bit of a gamble in choosing the route and took us through (amongst other things) the new Quartermile development. Work had started there before Hame and Craig left for the frozen North, but (while it's far from finished) the area's begun to feel alive only in the last year or so and I really like it.

I say "gamble" because one of the things Hamish and I have always disagreed on is Modern Architecture. As a rule I love it. As a rule he hates it. Still one of the things I like about Quartermile is the way the old buildings of the former Royal Infirmary have been restored (on the surface at any rate) and re-presenced within the new development.

To my delight the gamble paid off! Walking through the mix of restored sandstone elegance, and stark glass and steel, Hame surprised himself and me by really taking to the place.

It's always nice to get to share this city that I love with visitors... but there was a new dimension in getting to share the changes I'm excited about with someone who's as fond of and attached to this place as I, but no longer usually here.

Anyway, an old fashioned evening of goofy Sci-Fi (frequently paused while we animatedly discuss things that have popped tangentially into our heads no doubt) beckons!

* It isn't actually the "first" visit of course - there have been flying visits since, but this is the first time he's been here for a few days in a stretch.