What other subject could I discuss in thing a week 13 other than 13. I can think of few other examples in the modern western culture where rationality and superstition collide on such a monumentally ingrained level. Society has attached such a stigma to this innocent and innocuous number as to hardly be believed. Developers will build streets without a house number thirteen because they know it wont sell. Hotels often don’t have a room thirteen for the same reason and it’s not uncommon for high rise buildings to skip the thirteenth floor. There’s even a recognised phobia of the number. No, honestly there is. It’s called triskaidekaphobia. Try slipping that one into conversation.
But why? It’s only an arbitrary number. If you start at one and count upwards you’ll eventually get there as surely as you’ll reach nine, forty two or six hundred and sixty six (all of which are also numbers with a perceived psychological significance). Don’t get me wrong. Thirteen is quite special in its own right. It is a prime, one of those special numbers that Pythagorus (the triangle guy from maths at school) and his insane followers worshipped so much. It’s the first year of teenage life and as such a major step to adulthood. It’s the number of the original colonies forming the United States. There’s any number (no pun) of good things about thirteen so why is it demonised.
As usual with traditions they follow the Christians like to take credit and claim they started it. In this case it’s down to the rumour that Judas was the thirteenth to take his seat at the last supper or that thirteen is one more than the number of disciples Jesus chose and as usual they ignore things they don’t like, such as evidence that thirteen had significance in mythology long before them, or contradictions like the fact that in Italy, which most people would agree is quite a Christian country what with the Pope and all that, thirteen is widely considered a lucky number.
Maybe it’s because there’s not quite thirteen months in a year. There are a little under twelve and a half lunar months in a year. Many ancient societies were built around a lunar calendar and the discordance of twelve months and an extra bit could have been irksome I suppose.
In short I don’t know why it gets picked on and nothing’s been resolved in this little blog. Which is as it should be. I’d rather start a discussion than end one any week of the year, especially the thirteenth.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thing a week 12 - All in an inch
Just a short one this time. In fact probably not even an inch (or about 2.56 cm). Basically I’m rushed off my feet and don’t have time to write blogs at the moment. However that’s no excuse to shirk bloggy responsibilities, or to miss an opportunity to pat myself on the back.
Everyone remember how I took December off exercising to get fat while I had a couple of little injuries Well at christmas I got an absolutely adorable belt. The best thing being that I could adjust it myself so it actually fitted. I cut it deliberately as short as i could get away with. It was straining on the last hole. As of this weekend I could move it up not one but two notches. That’s right, I’m getting skinnier. Hell yeah.
Whoda thunk it. Healthy eating and regular exercise actually works.
Everyone remember how I took December off exercising to get fat while I had a couple of little injuries Well at christmas I got an absolutely adorable belt. The best thing being that I could adjust it myself so it actually fitted. I cut it deliberately as short as i could get away with. It was straining on the last hole. As of this weekend I could move it up not one but two notches. That’s right, I’m getting skinnier. Hell yeah.
Whoda thunk it. Healthy eating and regular exercise actually works.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Thing a week 11 - I’ve been ill and I don’t like it.
On Wednesday I woke up and couldn’t hear properly with my right ear. This was an irritation at worst, inconvenient at best, but I thought nothing of it. I’d probably been sleeping funny, and since I’ve been sleeping unusually well lately I decided to take the rough with the smooth and got on with my day. I figured at some point I would get that strange pop sensation as in a plane or when climbing a mountain and my hearing of the right hand side of the universe would be returned to me.
By lunch time I had a dull pain spreading through the right side of my head and it felt like that side of my head was swelled up and I had a constant dull thud, thud, thud pulsating through my senses. It went beyond my hearing. Thud, I could feel the pulse in the back of my jaw, almost taste it. Thud, I could see see the pulse as a flash behind my eye, of the kind that used to come just before an insomnia nightmare migraine. Thud, vertigo, a strange sensation that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before, I certainly don’t remember it. My balance left me and I stumbled. I had to catch my self, support myself arm outstretched to the wall and stand still, eyes closed, until it passed. Thud. Thud. Thud. I took some paracetamol and the sensation passed and I was left with only the dulling of all noise to the right, a slight clumsiness and the self-knowledge that no matter what the mirror was trying to tell me my head had swelled to at least twice its normal size and still undulated to a now lazy but constant thud.
Then night fell and discomfort rose. Sleep, so often for me a distant prospect at best, was not even a blip on the horizon. Constant pain. Constant Thud. Faster Thuds as the pain grows, intensifies and becomes more acute. There have been times in my life when such a constant and immediate reassurance that my heart was still beating loud and strong and constant to the point when I could experience it with all my senses and it was overloading my perceptions to the point of exquisite agony would have been a welcome blessing. But not now. Not here. More pain killers. I plead with my body for some peace, a brief respite for sleep. It hurts to lay down my head and the room spins as my head moves. The pain relief overtakes the thudding and I feel the unpleasantness of being drunk. As I eventually fall asleep I apologise to all the glasses of water that helped me through the day.
Thursday started as Wednesday ended and painkillers became a part of breakfast. They were a regular companion for the next few days to be honest. The whole world became more distant. Dulled and somehow further away. No longer just the right hand side. The painkillers had taken all of me away to a place that was so similar to that wonderful terrible state that an insomniac knows so well. I can’t adequately describe it other than a dullness, a detachment from the world. A second hand experience from your own eyes. It’s a state of mind normally reserved for the insomniac and the new parent. Stay awake for a few days and keep functioning. You’ll find it. I realised this on Saturday. That’s when I decided to put the painkillers to one side and deal with the pain otherwise. I’d allow the pills to help me sleep, if I needed them, but I’d not walk willingly back to that distant world.
Now it’s Sunday evening and the pain has largely gone. I’m left with a slight ache behind my right ear and I still can’t hear properly on that side. I can hear the sea, as if I had water in my ear from a swim and the ocean refuses to leave, but I think my body has the ear infection mostly on the ropes. I feel on the mend.
Now after all that self indulgent whining I'll end this dirge of a blog before I go full emo. We all know you should never go full emo.
By lunch time I had a dull pain spreading through the right side of my head and it felt like that side of my head was swelled up and I had a constant dull thud, thud, thud pulsating through my senses. It went beyond my hearing. Thud, I could feel the pulse in the back of my jaw, almost taste it. Thud, I could see see the pulse as a flash behind my eye, of the kind that used to come just before an insomnia nightmare migraine. Thud, vertigo, a strange sensation that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before, I certainly don’t remember it. My balance left me and I stumbled. I had to catch my self, support myself arm outstretched to the wall and stand still, eyes closed, until it passed. Thud. Thud. Thud. I took some paracetamol and the sensation passed and I was left with only the dulling of all noise to the right, a slight clumsiness and the self-knowledge that no matter what the mirror was trying to tell me my head had swelled to at least twice its normal size and still undulated to a now lazy but constant thud.
Then night fell and discomfort rose. Sleep, so often for me a distant prospect at best, was not even a blip on the horizon. Constant pain. Constant Thud. Faster Thuds as the pain grows, intensifies and becomes more acute. There have been times in my life when such a constant and immediate reassurance that my heart was still beating loud and strong and constant to the point when I could experience it with all my senses and it was overloading my perceptions to the point of exquisite agony would have been a welcome blessing. But not now. Not here. More pain killers. I plead with my body for some peace, a brief respite for sleep. It hurts to lay down my head and the room spins as my head moves. The pain relief overtakes the thudding and I feel the unpleasantness of being drunk. As I eventually fall asleep I apologise to all the glasses of water that helped me through the day.
Thursday started as Wednesday ended and painkillers became a part of breakfast. They were a regular companion for the next few days to be honest. The whole world became more distant. Dulled and somehow further away. No longer just the right hand side. The painkillers had taken all of me away to a place that was so similar to that wonderful terrible state that an insomniac knows so well. I can’t adequately describe it other than a dullness, a detachment from the world. A second hand experience from your own eyes. It’s a state of mind normally reserved for the insomniac and the new parent. Stay awake for a few days and keep functioning. You’ll find it. I realised this on Saturday. That’s when I decided to put the painkillers to one side and deal with the pain otherwise. I’d allow the pills to help me sleep, if I needed them, but I’d not walk willingly back to that distant world.
Now it’s Sunday evening and the pain has largely gone. I’m left with a slight ache behind my right ear and I still can’t hear properly on that side. I can hear the sea, as if I had water in my ear from a swim and the ocean refuses to leave, but I think my body has the ear infection mostly on the ropes. I feel on the mend.
Now after all that self indulgent whining I'll end this dirge of a blog before I go full emo. We all know you should never go full emo.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Dull, dull, dull
Hello again, welcome back. Sorry about the delay. I was talking a break from the internet over the holidays. Speaking of which how were yours, good I hope.
Now, however, the holidays are over and it’s back to work. This is the reason for the rather downbeat title of the first blog of the new year I’m afraid. Work. Not my job per se. I want to emphasise that. I actually enjoy my job for the most part. The problem is work, or rather the lack of it.
I work for a consultancy, this means the work generally comes in peaks and troughs. We’re either rushed off our feet or scrabbling round for work, but there’s always something to be getting on with. This first week back though I’ve been experiencing something new. Nothing to do. Not constant, I’ve been able to scrape together the odd hours work here and there, but there have been stretches, such as the whole of yesterday afternoon, where I’ve had literally no work to do. It is dull.
I did all the things I was supposed to do in this unlikely event. When there was no lovely profit making project work to do, I did admin and business management. When this ran out, I asked my bosses for work, I rang round the company, other departments, other offices, asking for work, I rang customers to try and rustle up some work. Nothing.
I then moved on to personal development. I gave my self some training, learned a few new tricks to deal with flood water. I spent some time training some minions (I like to call the juniors that because it gives me a happy face, it’s a good thing really, imagine if I used my powers for evil and got real minions, scary). Then nothing.
Because I look after our teams resource plan now (remember, I told you back in week 3) I know I’m not alone, because I rang round the company and outside, I know it’s a simple case of there’s not much work out there at the moment, but there’s several promises on the horizon.
I read the paper. This is where I start to deviate from the staff handbook approach on how to deal with a lack of work. I played monopoly on excel. It’s a great little spreadsheet I found years ago. If you want it, send me your email address, I’ll forward it to you. It helped pass the time.
In the end though there’s no denying that the new work year has started dull and is putting a severe dint in my shinny new optimistic approach to 2009. Hopefully it will change for the better soon. In the meantime I’ve decided to use any wasted time on other things. Hopefully I’ll put out a couple of extra blogs over the next few days and catch up so that at the end of the year there are 52 things a week. That would be nice.
Now, however, the holidays are over and it’s back to work. This is the reason for the rather downbeat title of the first blog of the new year I’m afraid. Work. Not my job per se. I want to emphasise that. I actually enjoy my job for the most part. The problem is work, or rather the lack of it.
I work for a consultancy, this means the work generally comes in peaks and troughs. We’re either rushed off our feet or scrabbling round for work, but there’s always something to be getting on with. This first week back though I’ve been experiencing something new. Nothing to do. Not constant, I’ve been able to scrape together the odd hours work here and there, but there have been stretches, such as the whole of yesterday afternoon, where I’ve had literally no work to do. It is dull.
I did all the things I was supposed to do in this unlikely event. When there was no lovely profit making project work to do, I did admin and business management. When this ran out, I asked my bosses for work, I rang round the company, other departments, other offices, asking for work, I rang customers to try and rustle up some work. Nothing.
I then moved on to personal development. I gave my self some training, learned a few new tricks to deal with flood water. I spent some time training some minions (I like to call the juniors that because it gives me a happy face, it’s a good thing really, imagine if I used my powers for evil and got real minions, scary). Then nothing.
Because I look after our teams resource plan now (remember, I told you back in week 3) I know I’m not alone, because I rang round the company and outside, I know it’s a simple case of there’s not much work out there at the moment, but there’s several promises on the horizon.
I read the paper. This is where I start to deviate from the staff handbook approach on how to deal with a lack of work. I played monopoly on excel. It’s a great little spreadsheet I found years ago. If you want it, send me your email address, I’ll forward it to you. It helped pass the time.
In the end though there’s no denying that the new work year has started dull and is putting a severe dint in my shinny new optimistic approach to 2009. Hopefully it will change for the better soon. In the meantime I’ve decided to use any wasted time on other things. Hopefully I’ll put out a couple of extra blogs over the next few days and catch up so that at the end of the year there are 52 things a week. That would be nice.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thing a week 09 - It’s the most hectical time of the year!
Yes I did just make up the word hectical. I think I like it. I may introduce it into a conversation tomorrow, just for fun.
This is in fact last weeks blog which didn’t happen last week because this time of year is just far too hectic. I work for a consultancy. The problem with consultancy work, like most others, is the necessity of clients. Clients tend to get to December and decide they have lots of things on their desk they’d like to get finished before the new year. So they send it to us and expect it to be done before January. Which would be fine apart from the big holidays that eat up at least most of your staff for a quarter of the month. So we get the work package from the client at the beginning of the month and take a couple of days going through it, then put in a request that they send us all the data they didn’t bother to give us that we’ll actually need to do the job. The problem being that they’re short staffed because of Christmas so it takes an age for them to get it to you. Anyway a week or two in and ready to start work with a week or two (if you’re lucky) left to finish. That’s just the professional side. On top of that there’s the personal issues of travel arrangements and shopping for gifts and life in general. It all adds up.
So sorry if you were inconsolable with grief on Wednesday that you didn’t have my pointless ramblings to make your life better but I’m rushed off my feet, I’m full of cold and I’m using all of my spare minutes playing Fallout 3 which I think I’m addicted to. It’s a brilliant game that is eating into my not sleeping time. Sometimes insomnia pays off.
This is in fact last weeks blog which didn’t happen last week because this time of year is just far too hectic. I work for a consultancy. The problem with consultancy work, like most others, is the necessity of clients. Clients tend to get to December and decide they have lots of things on their desk they’d like to get finished before the new year. So they send it to us and expect it to be done before January. Which would be fine apart from the big holidays that eat up at least most of your staff for a quarter of the month. So we get the work package from the client at the beginning of the month and take a couple of days going through it, then put in a request that they send us all the data they didn’t bother to give us that we’ll actually need to do the job. The problem being that they’re short staffed because of Christmas so it takes an age for them to get it to you. Anyway a week or two in and ready to start work with a week or two (if you’re lucky) left to finish. That’s just the professional side. On top of that there’s the personal issues of travel arrangements and shopping for gifts and life in general. It all adds up.
So sorry if you were inconsolable with grief on Wednesday that you didn’t have my pointless ramblings to make your life better but I’m rushed off my feet, I’m full of cold and I’m using all of my spare minutes playing Fallout 3 which I think I’m addicted to. It’s a brilliant game that is eating into my not sleeping time. Sometimes insomnia pays off.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Thing a week 08 - What do you mean, “Bah! Humbug!”?
It may surprise people to learn that I really like this time of year. I like the cold, I love the snow (which we’ve actually been getting this year) and I really love the dark mornings when I’m out and about early before most people are even up. It’s a strange but in a really good way feeling to walk through the city when it’s practically deserted.
That said however, I’m not a fan of Christmas. It looms there like a dark cloud to blight what could be a great time of year. For any newcomers to the blog, go and check last Decembers entry for a good old fashioned Christmas rant where I vent a narrow slice of spleen over the glib fetid stench that is the modern Christmas. I don’t cover most of the reasons it’s bad, but I make a start. In this blog however I’m not going to moan about the stolen pagan festival though. It will probably come in a week or two because I know you all love to hear an ill thought out rant on the keyboard. Today I thought I’d pay homage to the little silver lining that comes with being a Christmas grump.
May the force be with you and protect you if you should dare speak out against Christmas. Point out to the most ardent environmentalist that they are using enough electricity on ridiculous lights and ten trees worth of wrapping paper or talk to a dedicated economist about the irony of people getting into debt buying presents they can’t afford in the middle of a credit crunch or mention to anyone that you think 3 tonnes of tinsel is just a bit too much and bordering on tacky and you will invariably be met with one of a limited number of responses. My favourite of these being the wonderful Bah! Humbug!
Bah! Humbug! It’s a great thing to hear. There are a couple of reasons I love it. First is the simple sound of it. How often in the general course of a year do you actually hear someone say Bah! out loud. Never. From January to November you’d be lucky to get this super syllable once, then suddenly it’s everywhere, and Humbug is a great word to say. It feels good coming out of the mouth. Try it yourself now. Hummmm, B’ug, Fantastic! almost as good as carbuncle or dumpling. Secondly and most importantly is the little internal smile I get at the thought of humbugs. I don’t have a sweet tooth. I was the freaky kid at school who preferred fruit to chocolate. But there’s something about humbugs that are just gorgeous. They’re so nice, and again, they feel great in your mouth.
Of course the Christmas bores aren’t referring to the delicious sweets. They’re quoting... anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Well done, it’s the catch phrase of the awesome Scrooge from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But where did he get it from? What does the word mean?
Well from the on-line dictionary we have this,
humbug
Pronunciation: \ˈhəm-ˌbəg\
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1751
1 a: something designed to deceive and mislead b: a wilfully false, deceptive, or insincere person
2: an attitude or spirit of pretence and deception
3: nonsense, drivel
4: British : a hard usually mint flavoured candy
and from the first three definitions we can see what Scrooge was getting at. Already in the 1840s, Dickens, through Scrooge, was sick of the crass commercialisation of the Christmas festival and how it had become false and deceptive and drivel and needed an outside force (four of them in fact in the story) to bring back the true meaning. Ironic really that it is now said as an attempt to put down any comments against the nonsense and pretence that has overtaken the modern Christmas. I wonder if it makes Dickens spin in his grave as much as Orwell does every time Big Brother is on the TV. Ahhh to the miss-represented classic. The fourth definition is the best though.
Still, I don’t want to be labelled a grump so I wish anyone reading, happy Saturnalia.
That said however, I’m not a fan of Christmas. It looms there like a dark cloud to blight what could be a great time of year. For any newcomers to the blog, go and check last Decembers entry for a good old fashioned Christmas rant where I vent a narrow slice of spleen over the glib fetid stench that is the modern Christmas. I don’t cover most of the reasons it’s bad, but I make a start. In this blog however I’m not going to moan about the stolen pagan festival though. It will probably come in a week or two because I know you all love to hear an ill thought out rant on the keyboard. Today I thought I’d pay homage to the little silver lining that comes with being a Christmas grump.
May the force be with you and protect you if you should dare speak out against Christmas. Point out to the most ardent environmentalist that they are using enough electricity on ridiculous lights and ten trees worth of wrapping paper or talk to a dedicated economist about the irony of people getting into debt buying presents they can’t afford in the middle of a credit crunch or mention to anyone that you think 3 tonnes of tinsel is just a bit too much and bordering on tacky and you will invariably be met with one of a limited number of responses. My favourite of these being the wonderful Bah! Humbug!
Bah! Humbug! It’s a great thing to hear. There are a couple of reasons I love it. First is the simple sound of it. How often in the general course of a year do you actually hear someone say Bah! out loud. Never. From January to November you’d be lucky to get this super syllable once, then suddenly it’s everywhere, and Humbug is a great word to say. It feels good coming out of the mouth. Try it yourself now. Hummmm, B’ug, Fantastic! almost as good as carbuncle or dumpling. Secondly and most importantly is the little internal smile I get at the thought of humbugs. I don’t have a sweet tooth. I was the freaky kid at school who preferred fruit to chocolate. But there’s something about humbugs that are just gorgeous. They’re so nice, and again, they feel great in your mouth.
Of course the Christmas bores aren’t referring to the delicious sweets. They’re quoting... anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Well done, it’s the catch phrase of the awesome Scrooge from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But where did he get it from? What does the word mean?
Well from the on-line dictionary we have this,
humbug
Pronunciation: \ˈhəm-ˌbəg\
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1751
1 a: something designed to deceive and mislead b: a wilfully false, deceptive, or insincere person
2: an attitude or spirit of pretence and deception
3: nonsense, drivel
4: British : a hard usually mint flavoured candy
and from the first three definitions we can see what Scrooge was getting at. Already in the 1840s, Dickens, through Scrooge, was sick of the crass commercialisation of the Christmas festival and how it had become false and deceptive and drivel and needed an outside force (four of them in fact in the story) to bring back the true meaning. Ironic really that it is now said as an attempt to put down any comments against the nonsense and pretence that has overtaken the modern Christmas. I wonder if it makes Dickens spin in his grave as much as Orwell does every time Big Brother is on the TV. Ahhh to the miss-represented classic. The fourth definition is the best though.
Still, I don’t want to be labelled a grump so I wish anyone reading, happy Saturnalia.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thing a week 07 - Workers comp’
There’s actually been a lot going on since last week but I’m really not ready to put any of it down in type yet. Good bad or indifferent.
I could make little inconsequential comments on things, I got the skates out again this weekend did a bit of a play. I went out with an old friend, my first proper night out in Liverpool, that was nice. Went out with the housies for one of their leaving do’s, he moves out on Saturday. I did the whole public speaking thing last night, scary stuff. etc. etc.
Doesn’t make for much of a read tho’ does it. I really can’t find the words to flesh things out just yet. Like I said, a lot’s been happening.
Otherwise I couldn’t think what to write. Then I was hit by inspiration by my good friend Jane Doh. I leave it to you to decide whether I’ve allowed her to become my muse or simply stolen her idea. Jane enjoys writing and has put a few paragraphs up on her t’intermaweb blog type thing from her latest work. I liked it. I can’t wait to hear more.
I enjoy writing. When I’ve got the time, which is rare of late, and the inclination I really enjoy stroking my creativity and letting the juices flow. For the past few years especially it’s mainly been scripts. They rarely get finished. Even rarer that they get read by someone other than me. Even rarer that they’re any good. None of that matters because they serve no other purpose than giving me pleasure while I write them.
So after that preamble and a thanks to Jane for the inspiration of which this blog entry is born, I commit to the net the first act of something I started writing almost two years ago and actually do still work on every now and then. I’ve still got no idea how it’s going to end. It’s changed completely at least three times. If anyone reading this is overly religious easily offended by inoffensive things, please remember, this all happens in a tiny universe in the corner of my imagination and not the universe that you live in. I’m not picking on you. Please don’t start picking on me. That said I’m always pleased to have a rational debate over anything. Oh and sorry about the jpeg thing but it was going to be a pain to get the formatting done.
I could make little inconsequential comments on things, I got the skates out again this weekend did a bit of a play. I went out with an old friend, my first proper night out in Liverpool, that was nice. Went out with the housies for one of their leaving do’s, he moves out on Saturday. I did the whole public speaking thing last night, scary stuff. etc. etc.
Doesn’t make for much of a read tho’ does it. I really can’t find the words to flesh things out just yet. Like I said, a lot’s been happening.
Otherwise I couldn’t think what to write. Then I was hit by inspiration by my good friend Jane Doh. I leave it to you to decide whether I’ve allowed her to become my muse or simply stolen her idea. Jane enjoys writing and has put a few paragraphs up on her t’intermaweb blog type thing from her latest work. I liked it. I can’t wait to hear more.
I enjoy writing. When I’ve got the time, which is rare of late, and the inclination I really enjoy stroking my creativity and letting the juices flow. For the past few years especially it’s mainly been scripts. They rarely get finished. Even rarer that they get read by someone other than me. Even rarer that they’re any good. None of that matters because they serve no other purpose than giving me pleasure while I write them.
So after that preamble and a thanks to Jane for the inspiration of which this blog entry is born, I commit to the net the first act of something I started writing almost two years ago and actually do still work on every now and then. I’ve still got no idea how it’s going to end. It’s changed completely at least three times. If anyone reading this is overly religious easily offended by inoffensive things, please remember, this all happens in a tiny universe in the corner of my imagination and not the universe that you live in. I’m not picking on you. Please don’t start picking on me. That said I’m always pleased to have a rational debate over anything. Oh and sorry about the jpeg thing but it was going to be a pain to get the formatting done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
