The point is Phil, this is not the only life

I'm working on a new song. It's only half done, less than half done I suppose. It's about my favourite scene in Star Trek, the above screen grab is taken from it. It's from the original, unsuccessful pilot, "The Cage". In this scene, which is near the beginning of the story, Captain Christopher Pike is relating to the ship's doctor his weariness of his command, which has been made worse by a recent violent incident that resulted in the death of a crew member. There is wonderful dialog in this scene. Pike is musing with the Doctor about all the alternatives in life he may have and the Doctor is trying to persuade him to carry on as captain and not give up. The doctor's point, which Pike begins to see over the story, is that people need to keep challenging themselves and not give up, even if their challenges seem too much for them at the worst of times.

This scene is beautifully played and written. There is some definite dodgy moments in "The Cage", some of the production values are pretty bad by today's standards, but there is also some wonderful stuff too. I found out later that this was the first scene that was ever recoded for Star Trek. I wonder if they used this scene for screen tests and / or rehearsals, the two actors play it so well, they seem to know it well. I loved Jeffrey Hunter's more internalised and cerebral captain. I think Jeffrey Hunter could act William Shatner off the stage, on a good day, it's such a shame that he only lived to the age of 42.

Whenever I've been going through the worst of times in my career, this scene tends to rattle round my head. The song I'm writing, has the quote "The point is Phil, this is not the only life", which, like a lot of quotes that make their way into songs, is a slight misquote. The world weary Captain Pike seems to articulate some universal themes in this scene, it's like great songwriting, the best drama helps you relate to stuff that is happening in your own life, like going for a beer with your best mate and being able to pour hour heart out and realising that you are not the only one that has these issues in your life. There are so many other beautiful potential quotes from "The Cage", I think I'll try to capture more for the lyric.

Having had one go at the music today, I think I'll sleep on it for a bit. I like my verse chords, but the chorus, which I usually write first, sounds too much like a song I wrote last year called "Ferdinand the Bull", bugger. I also dropped another plectrum in my acoustic guitar and it took ages to get it out, I'm always doing that. I wonder if John Lennon used to do that?

Domestic Questions and Rising Temperatures

I've been trying to avoid using the air con all day. I have a nice efficient little air con system, this apartment is only two years old after all. It does not really cost me much money in the grand scheme of things to have the air con on most of the summer. But I think that government response to global warming is eventually going to force the cost of electricity way up to the extent that people will really have to think about whether they use electric driven air con, or open the windows. That come as a shock to most people here, but I think it's inevitable.

However, air con is just a great thing! There was a huge heatwave here last year and for a week, the temperatures were over 35c. I just shut the door and has the air con on all the time. I stepped outside of the apartment and thought I had entered a sauna, but my own little world was fine. Lots of people had power cuts then, as the electric supply here does not really cope in heat waves when everyone has their air con cranked up, but the supply here was fine. I would have just died in that heat, if I had no air con.

However, if you want to be more environmentally friendly, you can get away with no air con here some days, if you have all the windows open. So I struggled on through my boring Saturday domestic chores in the heat.



But I had to give up when the temperature reached 83f inside here.



Look at that. Seems the outside temperature in the afternoon was over 30c (apologies for my mixing of Celsius and Fahrenheit, I really only understand Celsius, but my air con controller only understands Fahrenheit!).

I feel pretty bad tonight, for no reason I can put my finger on. Apart from maybe all those domestic chores I did in the heat, or general exhaustion after all my travel.



Air con was pretty new to new to me when I came to America, there are only one or two days, at most, when you may have needed air con in Scotland. However, the gadget that causes me the most worry here is the waste disposal unit. I didn't realise I had a waste disposal unit when I first came here, I only discovered it a bit later. I never had one before, so I'm a bit wary of it and not too sure how to use it. There was this HORRIBLE bit in the opening episode of "Heroes" (the only one I have seen to date), where one of the characters puts her fingers down a waste disposal unit and gets them all mangled. I secretly fear that'll happen to me one day. It seems a kinda dangerous gadget. And I'm not too sure what is supposed to go down it. Old vegetables I think are fine. But do tea bags go down it, or used coffee filters? Is that more environmentally friendly than chucking them in the bin? I need to know.....

Welcome to Planet Zanak

This is in fact my fist post in Blogger. All the other material before this, was cut and pasted from Yahoo 360. Having been new to blogging in March, I briefly looked at Blogger, but for reasons I can't really remember now, I didn't really like it. I had a Yahoo account anyway, so I used Yahoo. Having looked at Google's Blogger again, I like it a lot better. The user interface is much more intuitive, and you need intuitive if you are going to have to cram in a bit of blogging into a busy life, and the template system makes it a lot more user configurable, which is nice - blogging is all about self expression, right?

I really like the way you can configure a unique URL in the Blogger domain. The challenge always is, try to find a word that no one else has used for your domain. OK - so geek alert! There are loads of words that writers had to make up to name planets and alien species in science fiction. So the name of the URL is actually from the first Doctor Who story that science fiction giant, Douglas Adams wrote. To be frank, it was a real mixed bag. Douglas Adams was a wonderful ideas machine. Some of his ideas I could sleep with under my pillow, he had such a unique mind. But sometimes, he couldn't really do plot. So I think he would sometimes write himself into a corner and not know how to get his characters out of the situation. The classic, which he spoke about himself, was in the "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy", he had Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect thrown out of the Vogon ship into outer space. He had no idea how he'd get them out of that again. So he invented the "Infinite Improbability Drive", a spaceship that traveled through space, by generating fields of improbability. So, it would be pretty improbable for a spaceship to be able to pick up two hitch hikers, particulalrly picking up those hitch hikers in outer space in the seconds before they froze or asphyxiated to death, and particularly picking them up in the ship that's just been stolen by your half cousin, who used to be the president of the universe and has two heads. Douglas Adams - what a mind!

He did the same thing in Pirate Planet, but I think this script was more of a throw away than his Hitch Hikers stuff. So he painted the Doctor and Romana the first (not my favourite Romana!) into a corner, but just got out of it by some silly messing about in the Tardis. I remember being only mildly satisfied by this conclusion when I first saw it at the age of 12. It hasn't aged well since! The story did have some GREAT ideas though. A pirate captain who had some wonderful dialogue, like "by the great parrot of Hades", and "by the evil nose of the sky demon". It also had a hollow, space jumping planet, that materilised around smaller planets and ate all the goodness out of them - a rather improbable scientific possibility though, what if they wanted to eat a planet bigger than them? How did they cope with their climate changing all the time? OK I'm maybe taking this too literally......

So good old Douglas Adams, the ideas machine. Even from beyond the grave, he is amusing me with unique ideas, even providing me with a unique URL that no one else on blogger has used. My old Yahoo name was "Lochardil", which was the area I grew up in, in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland. Imagine someone else having that already! I like Zanak better, though now I keep writing it, it does sound like it should be an expensive presciption drug! Google does not do anything much when you put "Zanak" into it - I wouldn't want to use a word that I thought was a harmless 1970's science fiction reference, but actually was slang for a perverse sexual practice!

So it took me about 2 and a half hours to do all the transferring from Yahoo to Blogger, so I have not been able to do any new posts until now. I haven't really decide how often I will post to by blog, we will see how we go.

The weather is wonderful here in the Bay Area now, I'm really looking forward to the summer. I'm trying to avoid using the air con in the apartment, but the windows have been open all night, and the temperature inside is stuck around 78F, so maybe I'll have to be a bad global warming creator and have some air con later - we all have to do our bit though.

And, happily, I'm over the jet lag already. After feeling pretty rotten on Tuesday, I was a lot better on Wed, then could hardly get out of bed at 06.00 am on Friday - hooray, back to normal. It's a beautiful day, and it's 7.52am on a Saturday morning and the Scottish Football is streaming on the internet (Dundee United, V Inverness, Dundee are playing better and are one up at half time, if you are interested......), lets see what the new day brings.

Good Intentions Continue, but I'm scared to be called a Geek!

Despite the jet lag forcing me out of bed at 04.30am this morning, (yes - that's 04.30 am, I was in the office by 06.30am today, that won't happen very often), I continue to be enthusiastic about getting back into Garageband and more music making.

I've been doing some more investigating in the huge ocean of content that is the internet, and in particular, I've been looking at the blogosphere and there are so many interesting, creative people out there. It's in part, a lack of self confidence in my own musical ability that has delayed my efforts in the past, but I think some of a lack of confidence is a cultural thing - I'm finding that my confidence levels are different outside of my native land. I could write at length about my own views about how Scottish children are damaged and held back by aspects of the culture and education system in the UK, but that's a topic for a whole other time. I also wrote a song about it that I'm quite proud of, as it articulates exactly how I feel about that, but there is a lot of old pain in the song too, so I find it hard to listen to. It does it's job quite nicely though, as a cultural, musical statement. It was my first song composed entirely on keyboards too. I may get round to putting my new stuff back on the internet. I need to sort out a branding issue with it first, more on that later.....

I've also been having fun this evening, finding out about software syths, and even better, software organs. There is this great product you can buy for pc or mac and it integrates with your MIDI keyboard and will make sounds like a genuine 60's / 70's Hammond. There is even a setting to make the software Hammond sound like it's new, or like it's been on the road played at gigs for years. Wow - whatever will they think of next.

I must check this out at the weekend, my weekday evenings tend to be a waste of time for doing anything other than watching DVDs or listening to internet radio, such is the tiredness created by work. So all my good intentions tend to be scheduled for the weekend, which can create some pressure / tension.

I've resurrected a song idea that's been bubbling around in my head for years, and I like the sound of it in my imagination. It's about my favourite scene in Star Trek. I found out later that it was the first scene they ever filmed. Captain Christopher Pike and Doctor Philip Boyce are having a chat over a Martini disguised as medicine and Captain Pike has this wonderful dialogue about the his weariness of the responsibility of his job and his longings to be free. It sounds terribly geeky as I write this, writing a song based on Star Trek. I would have to do this on my own, as none of my mates would agree to help me with this! However I'm hoping it won't turn out geeky in actuality. It sounds great as I play the song in my imagination, lets see how it will turn out in reality.

Off for some food and the second episode of Life on Mars, series 2. Let's hope the series is all as good as ep1. Then off to bed at 09.00, I feel another early start coming on tomorrow. Rock 'n roll!

Hey Ho Lets Go

Being jetlagged and lacking energy, I have sat in front of the iMac most of the evening and caught up on loads of DVDs. I watched a great documentary about the Ramones. I'm embarrassed to say I knew so little about this band, I can't imagine why they passed me by. I didn't know they were together so long. I also didn't realise that most of them had died recently. The above pic is of Dee Dee Ramone, bass player in the band. I thought he came over as such a nice, funny guy in the movie, then one of the final things in the movie is a caption to say he died in 2002.

It may be that it's because my first instrument was the bass guitar, but I always find I identify with bass players in bands. I think Arthur Kane's story is the saddest. The guy gets his dream come true of his band (The New York Dolls) reforming, then he dies a matter of weeks later, having only played one gig. Sad that the music we love has such a high death toll, the flipside of the rock 'n roll dream.

I also watched a BBC 4 documentary about Hawkwind. Lemmy's interviews were great, he is such a character, however did he fit in, in Hawkwind?

Back to USA

Headed back to the USA yesterday, so I spent most of the day today struggling with an e-mail backlog and jet lag, not a nice combination. Virgin didn't sell out the flight I got, so I had a spare seat next to me, which was great, as I was able to spread myself out a bit. I didn't feel quite as wrecked as usual yesterday, maybe as a result of the additional room.

I got through a lot of videos on my iBook and video iPod on the flight. The standout was the first episode of the new series of Life on Mars, that great new cop show from the UK. I was stopped at customs in 'Frisco, the first time that has happened. I ended up chatting with the customs lady about the series, as she took an interest in the DVD's when she saw them.

I really enjoyed the break. Van DerGraaf Generator were great and I really enjoyed re-discovering what a great place to be London is. I may move there one day - nice to have the flexibility of realising that the Bay Area is not the only show in town. After I get over the jet lag, I'm sure I'll feel refreshed. It was nice to have some room to think, I've had to work so hard recently, that I think that required "psychological space" has been missing from my life this year so far.

I'm determined now also to take various people's advice and start making my own music again. It's hard work doing it on your own if you have a limited musical ability and no one to encourage you, but I've been told often enough to believe it now, that the small amount of material I did on my own before was good enough for me to keep going. So I'm looking forward to starting that again at the weekend, when hopefully the full horror of jet jag will have passed also.

It was nice to have the wall to wall sunshine of the Bay Area back today, but I didn't manage to venture further that the mail slot - such was my exhaustion!

San Jose - April 25 2007

Guru

Had a nice evening on my last day in Edinburgh. Had a beer in a brewery pub in Fountain Park, then a curry in a place called "The Guru" in Polwarth. The Guru has one of those huge mirrors up on the wall, so you think the place is twice the size that it is. The food was very good as well.



This was spotted on my way home from the curry. However, there are a surprising lack of election posters around in Scotland, even though the elections are only about 2 weeks away. I wonder if the parties have realised that they don't do any good? There weren't any election posters visible in Edinburgh, even in walking distance of the parliament itself. Time was, the lampposts were covered with them, it hardly feels like there is an election on at all.

I'm going to miss being in Scotland for the election. It always felt like devolution was not really very interesting, with the same party in power in Westminster and and, albeit in coalition, in Scotland too. The SNP have an impressive poll lead, so they may do well in the election. The SNP made a huge tactical mistake by walking out of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the 90's and effectively allowing Labour and the Lib Dems to create the electoral system for the new parliament that best suited them. Now, the voting patters, as extrapolated into parliamentary seats, means that no one party can govern on their own. There is only one pro-Independence party, so a unionist majority seems assured. The Lib Dems seem to be allowing themselves some subtle wiggle room to allow them to form a coalition with the SNP and allow the SNP to keep a multi option referendum, which would include an Independence option, as a possibility - so, interesting times. Maybe devolution may mean something in the end, after all.

As I don't live in Scotland, I decided it would be unfair of me to use my entitlement to a postal vote, so I'm not able to vote now in, what promises to be, an interesting election. I hope they stream live coverage of the election night on the internet, so at least I can see what is going on. I got a summons to be a juror in the US today! There is a part of the form where you can request an exemption from the call-up, and top of the list of possible exemptions is not being a US citizen - they must send juror call-ups to non citizens all the time. I wonder if they would check my status if I just turned up, I always fancied being on a jury.

San Jose - April 24 2007

Back in Edinburgh

I'm back in my former home city of Edinburgh now.

This is one of my favourite views, it is the central Edinburgh taken from a little hill in the centre, Calton Hill. There is a great Victorian folly at the top of the hill, I think that they were trying to do some sort of Athenian thing there in the 19th century, Edinburgh was called the "Athens of the North" after all. It was sadly never finished, but there are some fine looking columns there that are visible all over central Edinburgh.



I've noticed that LRT (Lothian Regional Transport) are now putting slogans on the back of their buses, I wonder if this is helping reduce car miles driven in the city. The old purple buses were, to me, just a symbol of the city. But sparkly service, it seems unlikely. I was on a bus in Edinburgh yesterday, admittedly it was a "rival" green bus, and the service was as grumpy as ever. I used to think that LRT used to have a training course they put their drivers on to make sure they hit the road, having learnt how to be as unhelpful and grumpy as possible. I used to love the way they would deal with tourists. I thought they used to crank up their accents deliberately to be as un-understandable as possible.

I know it can't be an easy job, but I think the fact that there are never any bus bosses around when they are dealing with the public gives the drivers licence to deal with anyone as unpleasantly as they felt like. Or maybe the 44 is different, they only put the pleasant drivers on that one. My only ever UK lottery win was when I lived in Swindon and, partially as a sign of homesickness, I was using the Edinburgh bus numbers that I used to take to work as my lottery numbers. I think the 44 was in that list of numbers. So maybe not "service with a sparkle", but the 44 did help get me an unexpected lottery win once.

I'd love to know if the customer service on the buses has improved though.



I was in one of Edinburgh's many Macdonlalds yesterday, I don't think I've been in a Macdonalds for about three years, I was becoming suspicious of the burgers they were selling me.

Having asked what their vegetarian option was, I found out that it is really only one thing, it's called a "Vegetarian Melt", or something like that.

I think I'll leave it another three years before I go back. It was cheap right enough, but the "melt" was pretty horrible, soggy and nasty. I suppose you have to be a meat eater to appreciate Macdonalds, but it's pretty much a mystery to me why this chain is popular.



Spent a very enjoyable afternoon yesterday, digitising tapes for the Kirkcaldy bands website. It's amazing that these twenty year old tapes still play at all. I think the average recommended life of a cassette tape is meant to be 20 ish years, so I'm glad we are digitising these now.

I had "The Twist"and "The Ghost Train" on my iPod on my way to the pub last night. I'll upload them to the site when I get back to the US. It was great to hear some of this material again, especially the Ghost Train's - "Waiting for Madness", which I'm listening to over and over again. The soundtrack to the happiest days of my life (so far).



Spent the evening here, as I always do at least once when I'm back in Edinburgh. It's right in the heart of Rose Street, but it's a little oasis of calm in the craziness that is Rose Street. An occasional stag or hen party end up entering Robertson's by mistake, but they generally last only one or two beers. It's really more like a local. Very old fashioned, in a nice way, inside. I'm suffering today though, as I'm not used to drinking strong European beer in any quantity any more. I must just drink Scottish stuff when I'm back next.



I'm staying at the Travel Inn at Morrison Street again. I always seem to gravitate back to this area when I'm back in Edinburgh, as I spent most of my 20's in this area. I always seem to enjoy the Travel Inn, I stayed in a Travel Inn in London too.

Most of the Stag and Hen parties that end up in Rose Street, with their identical T shirts made for the occasion seem to stay here too, but I never seem to hear them.

There was a fire alarm today which was a bit of a pain in the arse, but we only had to stay outside the hotel for about 10 mins. I was annoyed I missed taking a picture of the fire engine though!

There's only two Michael Marras

Michael Marra is one of those people who makes me proud to be Scottish. He writes wonderful, blusey, rough and ready, foky songs. I first saw him at an "Celtic music festival" on Glasgow Green in the early 90's. Most of the day was rubbish. Van Morrison was a huge bore. But I remember wandering into a tent and hearing Michael Marra playing to a little audience. I didn't know who he was at the time, but I was blown away by him. My sister bought me a copy of his CD "Gael's Blue" for my birthday soon after and I really loved it. I like playing it in the US in the car, as it's such deeply Scottish music.

Seems that he lives in my birthplace of Forfar now, and goes to see Forfar Athletic Footlall club, despite being a Dundee FC fan.

Michael wrote a great song which he played the first time I saw him. He said it should be Scotland's national anthem - it's called "Hermless", I must dig out the lyrics sometime, when I hear it I always think, this guy really understands Scotland.

There was a deal of confusion this week, when we thought Michael was running for elected office for the Labour party in the upcoming elections. But from the pic on the poster we saw today, this is not THE Michael Marra. You would not think there would be two people with an unusual name (I think Marra is an unusual surname), in the same area. From a very quick google and wikipedia search, there seems to be no connection between the two. If they are connected, I doubt if Michael is pleased, I believe he wrote a great line in this song he wrote about the "Shirley McKee fingerprint scandal", that went "even the first Minister must sometimes stand naked". Cool

The real Michael Marra's website is here, it's rather good -

http://www.marra.me.uk/


Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 20 2007

Arbroath Smokies

I've left London now and have travelled to the beautiful little Angus village of Kirriemuir, birthplace of JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, no less.

The weather, after the gloriousness of London, has gone somewhat wrong. Or maybe somewhat right? The unseasonal weather may be more of a worry than it is all worth, global warming and all that.

I came here on Wednesday and I'll travel down to Edinburgh tomorrow. We had lunch today in a nice Italian cafe in the freezing cold fishing village of Arbroath. Arbroath is famous not only for the guys who took the fishes out of the sea, but also for a way of preparing the fish. They are smoked to create what they call an Arbroath Smokie. We bought some fish today in the place that the sign relates to, and there was a genuine smoke house next door to the shop, with genuine smoke coming out of it. I can't tell anyone what they taste like any more, as I've been a vegetarian since a March 1986, but smokies were a great treat when we were young.

Arbroath is also famous for the treaty of Arbroath, which a load of Scottish nobles signed in the 14th century to solidify the independence of Scotland. We will maybe hear more about that soon, depending how the election results go on May 1st.

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 20 2007

We need more Christmas Cake

I became mildly obsessed with a song called "Christmas Cake", last Christmas. Being an atheist, I always have mixed feelings about the annual madness that is Christmas. I tend to think that these days that religion is beginning to spoil a perfectly good capitalist festival (joke).

On, if it was not for the fog delays at Heathrow, what was supposed to be my last evening in the Bay area, I tuned into Stanford University's college radio station when I was on my way home from the pub. They played a great song from a compilation called "Maybe this Christmas". I remembered the name of the album, and checked it out again when I got home. It seemed there were three albums in a series, I think they were all released for charity and are hard to find. Anyway, there were a load of really cool people doing "different" Christmas songs.

And, of all people, Rilo Kiley had done a song on the second album of the series. I just love this song, it is beautifully played and sung, and the lyric is just sublime. It's just what everyone needs as an antidote to the annual Christmas nonsense:

"(it's almost christmas)

when i take off my make-up i look old and defeated
i'm not so dangerous
cry into my christmas cake
starin holes into me all night
you should just give up
'cause our love's become sellin' secrets
to the russians they don't need
the cold war is on between you and me

25 years old and a bachelor's degree
your parents helped out with graduation fees
the loans were never enough
the credit cards are calling your bluff
hold your hand, cut them up, move away
or you'll payin' them off 'till your kids grow up
and do the same

there's no more runnin' water
wrappin' presents in the dark
move into your car
change where you park
too bad that job carolin' department stores fell through
but the new year is right in front of you

cry into your christmas cake
don't know what else to do
don't know what else to do

(fa la la fa la la la la)

i fear i'm goin deaf
i've got some sense left
give up some more to be with you (oooo)
'cause what good is seein' if love's not lookin' back at you (aahhh)
and what good is feelin' if my hands aren't touchin' you

and another angel came down
he was wearin' only a cloud
he said sew up the bad that you've done
tomorrow christmas day comes

(christmas day)"


It's on the album of the series called, "Maybe this Christmas too". We need more songs in the world like this! Next Christmas I don't just have Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" as a sad Christmas song to listen to.

The photo above is from set on Flikr from Japan, the guy who took it's user name is - Jmurawski.

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 20 2007

We didn't mind the gap, Van der Graaf Generator in London, April 16 2007

Being the bands first gig without sax player David Jackson, we were a touch nervous about how they would be. Would there be a big gap in their sound?

In the end they were phenomenal. They did a great set. They didn't seem to be consciously doing too much to make up for DJ not being there, but it worked a treat. They even played two new songs, the first one being really good too.

The audience was really great too, really appreciative, huge ovation for them at the end. The band seemed to be really, really enjoying themselves too. Peter Hammill so much so that I saw him skipping away at the end, and he seemed to be so overcome at the occasion that I caught him looking down at his set list to see what the song was that they were going to play for an encore.

I didn't take my camera to the gig as it had run out of battery, and anyway I'm always wary of losing cameras at gigs. We were up in the balcony anyway, I'd have needed a huge zoom lens to get any shots of the band.

I downloaded this above pic from Flikr, it's from a great set of photos taken by a guy called Sean Kelly at the gig. I could see loads of people taking photos with cellphone cameras, but I haven't seen any posted on Flikr yet. These photos were taken with an Olympus compact, according to Flikr. However all the cellphone photo usage has made me do some research into cellphone cameras though, and I have found that you can get a Sony Ericsson phone with a 3.2 mega pixel camera in it for around $350. Amazing, I was happy with my old 3 mega pixel Olympus for long enough, and now I can have one with more mega pixels bundled into a cellphone.

Anyway, long live Van Der Graaf Generator. On the strength of this performance, I hope there are many more to come. We worked out that it's now 19 years since we first saw Peter Hammill (the bands main man, pictured above). That was in London too, Queen Elizabeth Hall, February 14th 1988. Peter was only 41 then and now he'll be 60 this year!

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007

Got to be a joker he just do what he please

Of course - as we were in the pub only one tube stop down from it, we had to go to Abbey Road. There was a deal of confusion about which zebra crossing the Beatles were actually pictured on, there are two on Abbey Road! But we thought we sussed it eventually, and took some pics of ourselves crossing it - none of which came out well though. Counter to normal zebra crossing methodology, we waited until there were no cars around (not easy in London!) before we crossed it. We reckoned that it must get annoying for most people who drive in the area, as Beatles fans must do that all the time.

It was very strange to see the Abbey Road building in real life. I had seen it so often in Beatles film clips and there is some great super 8 film footage of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd hanging around the area, on the day they were signed to EMI.

There is also loads of Beatles related graffiti on the wall outside Abbey Road recording studios. that must get annoying for the people that worked there. Some people are so thoughtless, writing on walls, and we even waited until there were no cars until we stood on the special zebra crossing! When we got back to the Tube station, we saw that there were pics of the classic album cover, that so we realised we were on the right one. The classic "Abbey Road" roadsign that was on the cover too must have been nicked years ago, this one is a pretty poor modern replacement.

And we did see a Beatle (Beetle) at Abbey Road.......



OK, well near it.....

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007

Were you still up for Portillo?

When I was heading back to Scotland from London on Wednesday, I turned round and saw a familiar figure. I was about to talk to him, because he was so familiar that I thought I really knew him, then I realised I only knew him from the television - it was Michael Portillo.

I ended up sitting over the isle from him on the plane, I didn't learn much about him though. He was reading the Telegraph, no surprise there, was doing some writing with a lovely fountain pen, and was doing some offline stuff on his Blackberry.

I have mixed feelings about Michael Portillo. When he was a minister under Thatcher and Major I really loathed him. He seemed one of those unthinking Tories, who was young and ambitious and would say anything to play to the Tory gallery, in order advance his career. I remember he made a nauseating speech at the Tory party conference one year about the SAS, that seemed designed just for the Tory rank and file.

However, having been continually tipped to lead the Tories one day, he seemed to destroy his own chances of being elected, by doing the opposite of playing to the gallery. I remember a speech he made during his leadership bid, about needing to reform the party to get elected again, that the Tory grandees really hated. His leadership chances seemed to evaporate overnight. The Tories had to go through another two useless leaders that got them nowhere, before they were ready to listen again to the same speech, this time read by David Cameron, and they elected him on, more or less, the same manifesto. Politics can be a funny thing. I guess that political parties are just collections of people, and people can be a funny thing.

Since he left politics, he is often one of the most interesting, and mainly impartial, political commentators. He now seems light years away from that young fresh faced guy, who made Tory ranks swoon, and made everyone else outside of the Tories think he was a total arse with that speech about the SAS. People's reaction to him losing his seat seemed to be one of the less good examples of politics as a spectator sport, the caption for the blog entry is from a book about the 1997 election. I think most of the left, me included, enjoyed seeing all those Tory heads fall at the time.

I decided it would have been a bit naff to try to talk to him, but I would have had loads of questions to ask him. But I did remember I had a satirical song about him from a BBC Radio 4 comedy show called the "Now Show" on my iPod. The "Now Show" is generally un-listenable to me. The two main guys in it who our older viewers may remember from the Mary Whitehouse Experience, seem to specialise in nasty sneery English public schoolboy humour, with little editing for taste. However, one time I heard it they had a really funny guy who wrote satirical songs, I think his name is Mitch Ben. There was a documentary Michael Portillo made, that I didn't see, where he was charged with being a teacher in a Liverpool school. The lyrics went -

"I may never forgive the BBC
for what they have just done to me
it's up with cancelling Doctor Who
and binning Jackanory too
I don't think I can take the stress
my emotions are a mess
I'm so sick I could eat my pillow
you've made me quite like Michael Portillo"

I remember the song ended -

"Am I really such a moral coward
at least I still hate Michael Howard"

So I had the unusual experience of listening to a satirical song about a politician, whilst looking at him in person at the same time. Do you think I should have let him listen?

Michael Howard was yet to win the Tory leadership when the song was written and also Doctor Who had not returned at that time, by the way, if you are really interested.

Clouds, not Portillo Paparazzi



I had my camera on the plane with me, as I was keen to get some nice shots out of the window. I could only get an isle seat, but the person who was supposed to be at the Window didn't show up, which caused a lengthy delay as the pulled their baggage out of the hold, but meant that I could sit next to the window.

I had a funny thought that I should try to sneak a pic of Michael Portillo reading his Torygraph, but I didn't think I would sell it for much on Paparazzi.com! So I took some rather attractive photos of clouds over Southern England instead.

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007

Here lies proof that wit cannot be a way to immortality

I have really enjoyed being back in London. I have enjoyed it a whole lot more than I imagined I would. Like most northern Scots, I have an almost instinctive dislike of "down south". Having spent the three most miserable years of my life in Swindon in Wiltshire in the mid 1990's, the antipathy only got worse.

However, now I am a trainee Californian, I am beginning to see London with new eyes. London is so vast, that I always thought of it as a different thing from England as a whole anyway. There are eight million people in London, compared with only five million in the whole of Scotland, so it's big enough to be a country in it's own right.

The weather was beautiful when I was there. The congestion charge introduced by my hero from Schooldays Ken Livingstone (I used to wear a badge at school that read, "keep the GLC working for London", that meant bugger all to most to my fellow school pupils in southern Fife, but in a struggle between Margaret Thatcher and the GLC, I knew who's side I was on), has made walking round the city centre MUCH more pleasant, and the currently very poor exchange rate with the US dollar (don't I know it) is keeping transatlantic tourism to a minimum, which is a shame for London, but is meaning that all the tourist attractions are pretty quiet.

However, I think it's more of a mind set thing with me. In my 41st year, I think I'm finally over some of the more negative feelings I generated within myself about London in my miserable years in Swindon. One of my professional dilemmas is that there are only, I would say, 20ish jobs in my profession available in Scotland, that would pay me anything like what I make in the US. So, if I was to come back to the UK one day, unless I was very lucky, I could only find an equivalent job in Southern England. I'm beginning to think I may give London another try one day. I was interviewed here for Direct Line Insurance back in 2000, but walked away from that, having changed my mind yet again about my life and career strategy. Maybe that was a wrong direction, who knows now, not good to look back I suppose. But if I am deciding that it might not be too bad a thing to live in London one day, this maybe gives me more flexibility. Also, I'm now used to the Bay Area's glorious ethnic mix - I think that London is the only part of the UK that feels similar.

So I have had fun being a tourist, in this city I mainly know from business meetings and changing planes. My favourite by far was the Tate Modern. Great artworks, great location. I did Westminster Abbey for the first time as well. Being a huge Dicken's fan, it was weird to see his grave. The quote above, came from a gravestone in the really atmospheric cloisters around the abbey. I also did Madame Tussauds (biggest rip off in London, please avoid), the Churchill Wartime Bunker (very interesting) and the British Museum (bit of a misnomer to call it the British Museum, it was really loads and loads of stuff we nicked from other countries in the days of empire. There was an interesting section explaining Islam, I don't suppose the tabloid reading masses who only ever hear about the negatives, will read this kind of thing though).

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007

I had some fun in the Underground, way out in London

I always loved the London Underground. OK, at rush hour it is not much fun to be squashed in next to thousands of people, but when you are a tourist like I was this week, you can avoid rush hour and it's a much more pleasant experience. I was first in London on 1981, and I thought that the Underground, or "Tube, as the Londoner's call it, was so atmospheric. I loved the way that, when trains pulled into a station, they would push warm air into the station.

They also have great names for the lines and the stations. I love names like "Piccadilly", "Bakerloo", "Epping", "Morden". It's also one of the most comprehensive underground networks in the world, if not the most comprehensive. I love the story of that sexploitation film maker, Russ Myers, arriving in London for the first time and finding all sorts of naughty meanings in the station names. You can imagine he could have almost directed a film called- "Shaftesbury Avenue". So I spent quite a bit of time in London, hopping on and off my old haunts (and some of the stations are supposed to be haunted by the way!), on the Underground.

This was a Piccadilly line train arriving in Holborn station, I can't exactly recall where I was going at the time.



I didn't realise, until a colleague in the states told me, that they never use the term "Way Out" for "exit", in America. Right enough, I have never seen it there. So it seems funny to see the term used again. I think this is a nice photo, taken in St. John's Wood station, just down the road from Abbey Road, where the Beatles recorded all their classics and the first Pink Floyd album was made.

Kirriemuir, Angus, Scotland - April 19 2007

Rainy California and Sunny London

The above photo is what my apartment complex in San Jose looked like, just before I left, yuk.


Having arrived in London, I'm pleased to report that it is absolutely glorious here. It is not often this nice here and the ladies at reception at the hotel said it is forecasted to rain tomorrow. But, on the way that people in the UK do, everyone seems happy here and is making the most of it.

I'm off for a shower so wash the grime of 12 hours travelling, then to the beer garden next door.

Jetlagged, at the Campden Head.......



We went searching for one of those great "traditional" london pubs, and didn't have to walk far to find one. This pub actually had stonework with it's name "The Campden Head" and date. "1909". It had a notice outside it relating it's history. The upstairs was a woman's birth control clinic in the early days of the 20th century.

I was determined to stay awake until arund 9.oo pm last night and this is me around 7pm, looking pretty rough, but happy to be in a nice beer garden.

The rain has not turned up as forecasted, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the day.

London - April 16 2007

Like a Virgin

I was talking last night about saving points on frequent flight. but, to continue the sexual analogies for a bit longer, I'm not really faithful to any airline. I think I have tried all the direct transatlantic carriers from the west coast of the USA to the UK, and they have all, at one time or another, done something to piss me off to the extent that I said to myself that I didn't want to ever use them again. I find economy class is equally horrible on every airline that i have tried. When I talk to colleagues about their experiences of airlines, they always eulogise about one airline or another, but on closer questioning, they are always talking about the business class service. Right. I have never got to travel business class over the Atlantic, I'd never pay for it myself and my employees are so careful with money, that I doubt if they will ever pay for it - even on the frequent trips to India they are threatening me with.

So this is the plane I'm about to spend 10 hours on. It always seems bizarre to me, how a little metal box can really stay in the air all that time. But there you go, loads of them do it every day, so lets see how we go.

Smart Cartes really are smart!

Anyone who has traveled in America will be familiar with this fixture of the airport, the Smart Carte. When I first traveled here, I was shocked that you had to pay three dollars just to get a carte at the airport, in most other countries they are free. I suppose this is the home of capitalism, as it were.

Like most people, I can find traveling quite stressful. Economy class must be a uniquely stressful experience, a form of torture, particularly if, depending on how you measure me, I'm nearly 6 foot tall. You get crammed into this horrible little space, stuffed with all these horrible magazines with pictures of aircraft, and "exotic destinations", there are always loads of children who look angelic before you take off, and then turn into Damien from the Omen as soon as the plane takes off, and don't get any better 10 hours later. The flight attendants always have these horrible fixed grins on, apart from the ones on United who have given up trying. By the way, I met a guy from United who worked in their HR and he told me that they are not allowed to make their flight attendants retire, so as long as they pass certain physical tests, they are allowed to stay on. There is actually a fight attendant on United who is over 80 years old, imagine relying on her in an emergency! Another great United story, is when I was bored one day at work, and was reading all the "customer feedback" we had on our airline contracts. The one that stuck in my mind was the guy who had said about United - "I want to be allowed to use an airline where the flight attendants don't look like my mother", nice.

On long international flights, and my regular international flight is 10 hours, when I get off, I like looking around at the people who have been on the flight all the time with me and seeing how miserable they all look after 10 hours of flying, when it's 10.30 am and their body is telling them it's 02.30 am and they have not slept! I always feel like shit myself, and the smallest annoyance gets magnified when I feel this way. So that's where Smart Carte comes in. One time when I arrived in San Jose International (which by the way does not seem to do direct international flights, some kind of Californian joke going on here?), and I grudgingly put my credit card into the Smart Carte next to the baggage carrousel.It took my money, but did not release the mechanism that released the carte, tragedy! I was not going to be defeated by this annoying mechanical piece of crap. It's bad enough to charge for a carte, but how much worse it is to charge for a carte, then not deliver the carte? I pulled and pulled and kicked and pulled and hit and pulled and pushed and kicked and pulled and hit this offensive gadget. Nothing. I ended up going down to it's neighbour and paying another $3 and buying a carte from it, I was traveling on business and my company was paying and at least I had an excuse for being profligate with the Smart Carte expenditure. There is probably a video from a security camera of this irate Scottish guy in San Jose International assaulting the Smart Carte machine, I remember being aware of that possibility at the time. But I was pissed off, disoriented, tired and sore. I wanted to take my frustration out on something and this Smart Carte just got in the way.

The next time I did the usual transatlantic journey, I got flew into san Francisco International, a much nicer airport and a genuine international airport, unlike the misleadingly named San Jose International, which really should be called "San Jose International (as long as you get off and on again in Chicago) airport". Ever the sucker, I went to the Smart Carte machine and put in my credit card. The card just disappeared! The Smart Carte machine in San Jose must have communicated with all the machines in San Francisco, saying "if you see that bastard again, nick his credit card!". I was annoyed, but wow, as I impressed by this Smart Carte show of intelligence. I decided that, in my then current jet lagged state of mind, that the smart carte was obviously clever than me, so I tried a more subtle tactic. I got the airport information people to call the Smart Carte's human minders, I thought that these people could probably talk Smart Carte language and persuade that machine in possession of my credit card, that I was not a bad guy after all, that I didn't realise when I hit the Smart Carte machine in San Jose, that Smart Carte machines were a higher form of intelligence than me, and that, please, can I have my credit card back. In fact, when the guy turned up 10 minutes later, he just poked about inside it a bit and got my card back, the Smart Carte machines obviously don't mind being physically examined by one of their human friends.

So, next time I flew into the states, I think that the Smart Carte machines decided that we were even. I went up to the Smart Carte machine in the terminal and got a free one, it did not ask me for money. I thought, that was nice. So today, I find that the truce of San Francisco Airport between me and the Smart Carte world still holds. The above machine took my money and actually gave me the Smart Carte. No need for violence on my part, or credit card theft on their part. So, having navigated the Smart Carte issue, I only have to cope with economy class now for the next 10 hours. Lets hope I don't find any gadgets on board who are as smart as Smart Carte. Wonder if aircraft toilets are clever?

San Francisco Airport - April 14 2007

What do I sound like?

I spend half my working life on conference calls, speaking into gadgets like the one above.

Unusually, we recorded one on Friday morning, as some of our folks could not make it at the time. I don't think anyone will actually listen to the recording, but I decided to listen to some of it, just to hear what I sounded like. We do so much business on conference calls, that my theory was, how I come over is important. So why not hear for myself?

It was a really weird experience. On the bigger conference calls, it's quite normal for me to sit and listen for a while and not say anything. So I'm sitting listening to all these familiar voices like it's any other conference call, then suddenly, I hear this unfamiliar voice. It's kinda quiet, with a strange accent that sounds a bit Welsh / Irish / Scottish, with, a bit of English, and a smaller bit of transatlantic, thrown in.

So, we can't see ourselves, like others see us, or hear ourselves, like others hear us, so what did I learn? I'm always being told that I sound calm, and I sometimes find this difficult to believe, but I did sound rather calm and controlled. The accent thing was really strange, that is not how I sound like to myself! The biggest shock was just suddenly hearing this new person on our call, then realising it was me.

Well, at least one of us listened to the replay.

San Jose California - April 14 2007

Why is watching 24 like picking your nose?

I don't have a television in America. Having had some brief experience of American television in hotels when I was here on business, I saw enough to make me think that I didn't want to watch it at all. I find the myriad of channels mega confusing, and I didn't grow up with commercials on most of the TV channels, so I find commercials really annoying. I didn't watch the TV much in the UK anyway. I find I only have an hour or two at the most available each day for TV watching and there is enough UK TV and radio available for internet streaming to keep me going, I also subscribe to Netflix. I bought a TV converter box for my big iMac once and little tabletop aerial, but all I was able to get was something really fuzzy in English, and the rest of it was in Spanish.

Back in 2004 when I was back in the UK, 24 began its run there. I was initially fascinated by this concept of a real time show. However, my life was such at the time, that I was only able to watch the first episode. I'm also not sure I realised it was meant to be a series at the time, so when the first episode had, what I considered to be, an inconclusive finish, I was rather disappointed!

When I was considering moving to the US, a colleague told me about Netflix. I thought it sounded a great concept. The ability to order a few DVDs and keep them as long as you wanted, for not a lot of money seemed one of the better things about America. A year on in from first discovering 24, I decided to order the first 24 disc, and see the rest. It was funny trying to catch up with the story, two years on, but my bigger surprise was that, there was actually another 4 series to watch!

24 is addictive. I quickly got hooked. I think I will actually defend the first series, it was very suspenseful and worth watching for Dennis Hopper's appearance, at the end, alone. I first got into 24 at the same time as I got a video iPod, and I have fond memories of sticking episodes of the first series on my iPod and watching it down the fitness suite at work. I also used to watch it on the iPod when I was stuck on my own in restauraunts.

However, about 9 months after watching series one, I am about at the end of series 6, I have seen EVERY episode up to the current episode that first aired on US TV on April 9th. Having seen so much 24 now, I have decided that it is unhealthy for me - a form of addiction, a bad habit that I must break. The first series was good, escapist TV, but it has spiralled down and down ever since.

I may be accused of taking everything too literally, but how many people has Jack Bauer killed over the last 6 seasons? How come the bad guys can never seem to shoot straight, but every time Jack is in a firefight, he seems to just down the bad guy, first time. Are bad guys just disposable? Don't they have families too?

I'd also love to know what kind of cellphone batteries Jack uses, as he is always getting these important things downloaded to him by Chloe - it'd be great if he said "download that to my PDA" and then the battery died. I looked up Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Jack , on IMDB.com and discovered that he is about 2 weeks younger than me. Why, over a whole 24 hour period, does he never once walk into a room and forget why he walked into that room? I do that all the time. While I'm at it, how come no one ever yawns in 24? They are up for 24 hours after all. I have to fly to the UK tomorrow and I'll be up for around 32 hours without sleeping, I'm sure I'll yawn once or twice. They must all take caffene pills in CTU.

And, most importantly; what happens during the commercials? It's supposed to be real time, right? So, on the DVD, the clock just stops and starts again 4ish minutes later (btw, imagine sitting through 4 minutes of commercials, three times during a TV show, no wonder I don't watch American TV!). Does Jack just say to all the bad guys - "OK stop fighting and start again in 4 minutes, we have to persuade loads of Americans to eat more fast food now and we need to scare them about their credit history". It's just stupid, the show seems to go into suspended animation three times an episode. Every show is around 43 minutes on my DVD's from Netflix, that means 24 is really 17.2!

And the baddies!! There are no American "chief baddies". The chief baddies sometimes have American helpers, often yet another CTU operative who has been compromised - how many times can one counter terrorism unit be compromised! But, as I remember, the chief baddies have been Serbian, English and Middle Eastern, most often Middle Eastern. The middle eastern thing is hilarious. The makers of 24 seem not to want to identify any one country as the home of all the chief middle eastern baddies, so they have all these embarrassing lines like: "We have to target Marwan's country", "Marwan comes from the north of his country". It's never named. It's just called "his country". Having a number of friends and colleagues who were born in the middle east, I find the continual, lazy stereotyping of the middle east as the home of all the big baddies, quite offensive, and the fact that it was only when we had European big baddies that we named their countries, seems to make matters worse.

Since Dennis Hopper's great performance as Serbian big baddie, Victor Dreysen, there seems to have been absolutely no attempt by the makers of the show to give the big baddies any depth, character or texture. The latest middle eastern big baddie in season 6 is so much a cardboard cut out baddie, that I can't even remember what his name is meant to be. And the way they talk! It's soooo stupid! All these middle eastern people from the un named country, speak english with a funny accent to each other! There was one great moment when one of the American CTU guys was able to overhear them talking in their funny accented English about one of their plans and thwart that particular plan. Why were they making it so easy for CTU? Why not talk in Arabic or Phasri? I'm missing something here.

But I think the biggest problem I have with the way 24 has gone, is the totally single leveled approach to solving any issue. It's getting worse. Putting Jack Bauer's father and brother into the latest series and making them bad guys was quite a an interesting idea. When Jack found out that his brother was a bad guy, there were a million and nine interesting directions a talented scriptwriter could have written Jack's response to this, and what he may do to get his brother to give him the information he needed.What did Jack do? He pointed a gun at his brother and tortured him. When Jack had to persuade the CTU doctor to chose between saving Audrey Rains's husband and a suspect who had information that he had shot and that he needed to keep alive to get information, did he appeal to the doctor using the urgency of the situation as an argument? Was interesting dialogue written as Jack persuaded that the saving the bad guy and sacrificing the good guy was necessary? No - Jack pointed a gun at the doctor and threatened to kill him. OK jack, what use is a dead doctor? Jack Bauer's only answer to anything is to torture or shoot.

This is such a single levelled show - and it's getting soooo repetitive! So, David Palmer was almost removed from office by a vote of the cabinet. Surprise surprise, they do the same thing with the new President Palmer, two series later.

OK - if it's so bad, why am I still watching it. Because it's addictive! It's a bad habit that I can't break, and I stopped picking my nose when I was 10 (I guess!). The 24 makers even put the first 3 and a bit episodes onto DVD so you can get it on Netflix, but you have to pay $1.99 each to download the others off iTunes, as the new series is not out on DVD yet. I didn't even realise that the show was on US TV now, so I now can only download an episode a week, as my downloading has caught up with the series transmission dates.

But, I must be brave. Having excavated my last snotter as a hobby in 1976, I must break this new bad habit. There ought to be a warning from the surgeon general - 24 is addictive! And it's bad for you, it teaches you all the big baddies are middle eastern who talk english with funny accents to each other so that CTU know what they are doing, and that CTU is so crap that it's always being compromised, taken over, shut down, gassed, blown up and they keep having to bring Jack Bauer back even though he 's been a drug addict, died once (really - in series 2), faked his own death, been captured by the Chinese, released by the Chinese, only to be offered up to a big baddie by the Americans to be shot. Mostly it teaches you that every problem can be solved by torture and pointing guns at people. Really, listen kids, it can't.

So I think I will break the habit. Jack Bauer may be a goodie in 24, but he's king of the bogies as far as I'm concerned. So stuff the end of your latest series Jack. Copy that.

"Morgan says, "maybe love won't let you down, all of your failures are training grounds"".

I'm a really heavy user of Amazon, both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. I remember miserable years, of being a fan of hard to find music,and having to trawl and trawl through record stores - but not any more. Anything than can be bought new, and even more obscure stuff that can be bought second hand, is just a mouse click away now, isn't technology wonderful.

One of the more amazing tricks Amazon does is to recommend you stuff. Most of the recommendations are garbage right enough, what do computers know. But one day when I was looking around on Amazon, this recommendation for a singer that I had never heard of popped up. I must admit, if the cover did not have a picture of Jenny Lewis on it, I might have clicked on by, I am a human male after all! The CD was called "Rabbit Fur Coat by "Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins", I listed to a few samples on Amazon and was impressed enough to risk $15 to buy the CD.

I then accessed the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, to find out more. This was Jenny Lewis's first solo album, her regular band is called Rilo Kiley. From the description of the band on Wikipedia, they sound like they should be awful! They were formed in LA by two former child actors, Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, I have no knowledge of the shows they were in. In my experience, actors also being musicians does not regularly work out.

However, I couldn't have been more wrong. I've now bought all three of Rilo Kiley's CD's, as well as Jenny Lewis's new solo effort. Rilo Kiley's latest, "More Adventurous", is a 25 carat classic. On a recent business trip to India, it was never off my iPod. It is a gorgeous mix of musical styles, great intelligent playing, smart lyrics and great singing. The above caption is a lyric from a song on that album, it's called - "The Absence of God". I love the opening track too, it's called "It's a Hit". I love the irony of the lyric, it may have been a hit though, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's another smart 3 minute piece of enjoyment. The first two albums are excellent too.

I bought my first record in 1973 - wow that's 34 years ago, I'm getting old! I used to run home from high school in the very early 1980's, as I was so desperate to hear - "I am the Walrus", I was so obsessed with the song. I wondered sometimes if all my great musical passions were behind me, I spent most of the 1980's and early '90's getting into one band or another, and those bands tended to form the soundtrack of my life in the given year.

But it's been a year or two since I found a new band that really inspired me. So, it's been nice, thanks to Amazon, to find a new band to be passionate about. I feel like an old guy who realises that he can still fall in love.

I'm off now to have a sandwich, then indulge in a guilty pleasure - 24. More on that later. Or maybe not.

Oh and I made it to the Mall today and it was open and actually not too stressful for once. That's mainly too boring to talk about, but I have gone down a waist size in trousers! Wow - see what you can do when you don't drink like the Scots do any more.......

Here are some Rilo Kiley related links -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rilo_Kiley

http://www.rilokiley.com/

http://www.rilokiley.net/

Tom's Dinner - Why are onions so big in America?

I'm not a natural cook. I tend to think of it as a bit like reading novels, something I'm not a natural at, but it should be good for me, if I keep trying.

I'm off to the UK on Saturday, and I'm trying to finish up all my food that is in the fridge and is only past it's sell by date by a week or so, so I made Chinese with the noodles tonight that should have been used by last week.

American supermarkets are really different from the ones in the UK. All the packet sizes are different, all the brands are different, they don't do quiche (someone at work told me quiche was "very '80's" - well, so am I!), they have a whole row just for peanut butter, they don't have that handy green label that tells you what's vegetarian and what's not, and the check out people always say - "do you want help out today?". Most strange. "Did you find everything today" is an even stranger one. I never do. Where's the quiche?

I took me months, but I found out that there is a little corner of Safeways at Rivermark Plaza, just up the road from here, that will be forever Britain. There are two rows of Jaffa Cakes, chocolate digestives, brown sauce, and proper tea. They don't do the Sunday Post, but that would be too much to ask.

BTW I just remembered (it's funny how your mind works), I was dreaming about the Sunday Post last night. I had read most if it through, and just remembered that I still had the "Fun Section" to read. Well, "The Broons" was always about coincidence I suppose....

Anyway - as if I need an excuse not to cook with proper vegetables and all, for some reason you can only buy these gigantic onions in Safeway. So you either have to have a whole onion festival for tea, only use one half and put the other half back in the fridge to use in two weeks time, which'll be the next time I get round to cooking for myself, or you chuck the other half down the waste disposal. All rather unsatisfactory alternatives, in my opinion.

So there is another thing I don't understand about America.

I had another question today about driving in America, about rights of way and emerging into traffic, but it was so boring that I forgot to ask anyone about it.

I'm secretly scared of the waste disposal unit too - but that's another story.......

p.s. The spell checker wants to turn "Jaffa Cakes" into "Java Cakes", a nice open source spelling alternative there. After the CTO of Yahoo was nasty about Solaris (see my very first post to this blog), their spell checker is pro Java!

Circumnavigation and Saratoga

I was at a "mixer" in the lovely little Bay Area town of Saratoga yesterday. I don't have especially fond memories of Saratoga, as when I moved here and was even more clueless about this area than I am today, I went for a day out at a park that I read about there. The park was so difficult to find that I gave up and went home - very frustrating.

Met some interesting people and had some interesting conversations last night. In the glorious cultural mix that is the Bay Area, I ended up taking to some Jewish people. It's always been a mystery to me why Jewish men get circumcised, I didn't know Muslim men get circumcised too - you really do learn something new every day.

We were having a laugh about how little I knew about their culture, I was explaining that Judaism was not a big feature of Scotland. I never had the mystery of circumcision explained to me, so I told them I would go home and look it up on Wikipedia - the font of all knowledge. But, yuk, yuk, yuk - there are PICTURES on wikipedia! I couldn't bear to look. A part of my knowledge will remain unfulfilled. I'm glad now, really!

Confess Your Soul On Line (Why?)

It seems Silicon Valley is on the up, some of the more wierd and wonderful internet based business ideas are emerging again.

I was at a "singles mixer" last night in the beautiful little town of Saratoga. One of the guys who was there and his business card read, "Founder and CEO - Camfess, Confess your Soul". I thought it was a wind up - but is seems it is genuine, see the screen grab above.

One of the strangest internet based ideas I have come over in a long time; why would anyone want to upload a video of them selves confessing? Surely the point about confesstion, at least as I understand it in the Catholic Church sense, is that it was between your priest and your god. Sticking it up on the internet so that everyone can see, seems a rater odd idea.

From a quick glance at the videos, they look as if they are sub -Utube rubbish, I didn't see one confession, so maybe everyone else thinks this is a strange idea too.

After ten years of the internet getting mainstream, maybe the genuine new business ideas are running dry.

I'm hoping not to have the conversation again - A guide to the UK for Americans

One of the major frustrations I have about living in the USA, is that I come from a very confusing place. This leads to me having the same conversations, over and over and over and over and over again. So I'm hoping to short circuit some of this in future, by composing this little guide to the UK. If I have to have another conversation explaining my home country again, my head will explode - so here goes:

1. q. "You have an accent, where are you from?"

a. "Don't you have an accent? Try standing in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow at 2am on a Saturday night and talk like that, you will find you have an accent. I'm from Scotland."

There are a few variations of "2" below

2. q "a. Scotland, that's in England isn't it it?".

a. "Scotland absolutely never has been, and never will be in England. The Irish and Welsh were conquered, but we just did a very bad deal called the "Act of Union", with the English 300 years ago, after they tried to bankrupt us by blocking our trade routes when we tried to create an empire (who needs an empire anyway). Scotland is in fact a country, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (or UK for short). Americans tend to think Scotland is in England because the English use the term UK and England interchangeably. Not unreasonably, they can claim they are both English and from the UK. The Scots are both Scottish and from the UK. The Scots are not, and never, never, never and never will be English". Phew.

3. q. "So, where is Scotland then?".

b. "There are four bits to the UK. Three of them form the geographic entity of Great Britain, the bit at the top of the Island to the left of the main Island is Northern Ireland. Great Britain = Scotland (the bit at the top of the main Island), Wales (the bit at the bottom left of the main Island) and England (the bit at the bottom of the main island). The UK = Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland. The UK is the geo / political entity. The geographic entity of the British Isles is - Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England all have a different relationship to the geo / political entity that is the UK. Scotland is a country within the UK, so in a sense, it is a country within a country. It has it's own Parliament, courts system, education system, etc. It may leave the UK one day soon, then it won't be so confusing for everyone". Phew again.

4. q. "The Weather is really bad there isn't it?".

a "Well, it can be, but the point about Scotland, is it is at the top of a little Island in the Atlantic Ocean. The weather is changeable - the weather is very predictable in California in a way that is is not in Scotland. You can have 4 different weathers in one day in Scotland.

5. q. "What part of Scotland are you from?"

My heart always sinks at this one, most Americans have only heard of Edinburgh - why do they imagine the town of 13000 souls in northern Scotland where I was born, will be known to them? I have been asked this question here 23445 times since I came here (OK I made the last bit up) and all 23445 times, no one has heard of the place I was born.

a." Here's Forfar's wikipedia link, just read it and move on, it is not very interesting and life is too short - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forfar".

5. q. "You Europeans eat so late /get so many holidays, etc, etc, etc".

a. "Europe is an ancient and hugely diverse place, lets not generalise about it."

6. q. "Scotland, that's the Island to the left of England."

a. a. "No, that's Ireland".

7. q. "What language do they speak in Scotland?"

a. "English (that's not to say that if we speak English, that it means that Scotland is part of England, remember "2" above) and rubbish. Mainly rubbish, some Gaelic, but I never understood that.".

8. q ."You don't sound like you are Scottish".

a. "That's because if I spoke like I'd just departed Sauchiehall Street, you would not be able to understand me!"

I'll add more to this guide as I go - maybe!

No Pub Today - I Love the Pub

his is a picture of my favourite part of San Jose - the Mission Ale House. San Jose has a population of just short of, one million. It's downtown has about 6 pubs. When I first came here, this seemed really strange to me. There is a HUGE alcohol culture where I am from. Socialising is pretty much completely tied to alcohol - this is not really the case in the USA, it took me some time to adapt to this fact. However, this pub (or Bar as Americans say), is the closest to a Scottish pub I have found in San Jose.

It has none of the awful phoniness of the Irish Bars. The Brewery pubs are good, but they are really restaurants that sell beer, Americans think more about food than drink - not that that's a bad thing, but it does not make for good pub atmosphere. The Mission seems like a real pub. Thank goodness it's not trying to be a phony little piece of Ireland, or a restaurant. They will sell you food in the Mission, but most people seem to go there for a beer.

I actually would go as far as to say that the Mission is better than most Scottish pubs. Alcohol is not a big thing here like it is in Scotland, so the upside of this, is that American's think its possible to go for one or two beers and then go home. In my youth, if we could even remember going home, we didn't think we'd had a good evening - the aim was to get as drunk as possible. From what I can see, this culture is getting even worse in the UK now. But, it's possible to go for a quiet beer in the mission without getting hassled by drunk people, having been attacked by drunk people in my home country more than once, I'm particularly wary of drunk people. It's actually quite uncool to be drunk on a night out in America, it's uncool not to be drunk on a night out in Scotland.

Not only is it not trying to be Irish, the Mission actually has, what I think of as a very American atmosphere. But in a good way, friendly and uncomplicated.

I saw it as a sign of my advancing years that the bouncer at the door of the Mission asked to see every one's ID's when arriving, but always just waved me through. On Friday, after going there most Fridays for the past 2 years, he asked for my ID for the first time. Am I getting younger?

Also, I see then Mission has installed a jukebox again, after 2 odd years of it not having one. The old jukebox was great, I used to put the Violent Femmes and the Smiths on all the time. I must check out the new one. I don't suppose the new one will have the Violent Femmes's "Old Mother Regan" on it anymore. I got sick of the overly reverential tributes to Ronald Regan when he died and I kept putting that song on the jukebox at the time. No one seemed to mind.

So lets raise a glass to the Mission. Please don't ever change it. If it goes away, a population of just under a million will go from having one decent pub, to having no decent pubs!

For further reading, see:

http://www.missionalehouse.com/

No Mall Today - I hate the mall

I really hate shopping, except if it's for gadgets. I have taken months to get round to clothes shopping again, I had a big splurge of clothes shopping in May of last year - and the trousers I bought then are all beginning to fall to bits.

So, I decided to leave it yesterday, clearly avoidance - although I told myself it was a sensible move, as the shops would be quieter on a Sunday. Too right - they are closed! I forgot it was Easter Sunday. I can't remember what I did last Easter Sunday, obviously I didn't go down the shops. They were even still running a bus to the mall today, how odd - imagine spending an hour on the bus (American buses are very slow), only to get to a closed mall. I thought the parking lot was quiet today.

This is a pic of my nearest Mall, it is called Milpitas Mall, or The Great Mall of the Bay Area. I'm not so sure what is great about it.When I used to come to this area on business before I lived in America, I used to go up here a lot - it was something to do. But it is really a horrid place - it seems full of screaming children, packed with people. America seems to have so many shops, you can go to a huge mall like Milpitas Mall, and still find there are certain categories of shops, like a good hifi shop, just missing. I think they pump candy smells into the mall to wind up the children and the big restaurant has no food for vegetarians - this place has nothing going for it.

I try to get in and out of here as quick as I can. That was a record today, in terms of speed to get out - problem was, I didn't get in! So the trousers remain unbought, I think I will have to take some time out of work next week to go, as I want new trousers for my UK trip next week.

Well, at least I'm happy for the people that work there, they finally get a day off. I'm sure they work really hard and put up with all sorts of shit for bugger all money. I hope they are having fun, it's a sunny day, as ever, in the Bay Area.

Avoid your children - Work From Home

I think there may be some punctuation missing from this sign - spotted on my way to a rather pointless visit to the mall today.

Resting on my Laurels - another year in North Park

It's the dreaded lease renewal time again and, after a brief foray into the world of apartment searching, I've decided to stay were I've been for the part 2 years, for another year.

I only had a week or so to find somewhere to live when I was planning to move to the USA. I didn't get much money from my employers to help me with my move, so everything was done on the cheap. I spent a week in February of '05, web searching apartments on www.forrent.com and driving round apartment complexes. It was rainy season in Northern California, and it chucked it down all the time whilst I was doing this. On the last day of my search, I happened to drive past North Park - I hadn't even had it on my list.

North Park Apartment complex is a huge new complex, just down from Cisco's corporate headquarters, down from Tasman and North First, San Jose, if you know the area. The confusing thing about North Park, is that it's so big, that they market the different sub complexes separately. This is a bit stupid, as it tends to confuse the customers, that's why this place was not on my list in the first place. Also, the different sub complexes don't talk to each other - when I was looking for this place, I was originally talking to "The Oaks at North Park", I was talking to that part of North Park as it was the one nearest to the road. There are now five different sub-complexes here and they are all named after trees, and I told the Oaks that I didn't mind what type of tree I lived in, but they could only talk about the Oaks. Marketing advice - don't diffuse your brand, leverage off your organisation, don't operate in silos! I eventually ended up in, what was then, the newest part of Noth Park, purely because the person I was first talking to at the Oaks, had moved to work in the Laurels!

But that little niggle aside, I've really been pretty happy here since May 2005. You can give yourself nightmares by looking at aparrtmentratings.com, but most people posting negatives there seem to be people saying more about themselves, than the apartments. One described the management here as "nazi management". If language is a currency, we should spend it wisely, it devalues the currency if we abuse language like that. Nazi's killed 6 million jews, the management here held back part of someones deposit, I think I sense a difference in magnitude of the crime.

I deciced to go for the upper end of the apartment scale, there are loads of lower rent complexes in this area - but I decided that it was important to have somewhere nice to live, if I was going to live in a strange country. I think this was a wise decision. The only problem I now have, is that I got this apartment at a jolly good price, because they were trying to fill the place. So, we are on this year on year contract here and the rent is nudging up by over $100 every year. This is a real pain in the arse, as it means I'm marginally worse off every year, as, bonuses aside, my pay rises are not keeping pace with the rent rises.

Having not been pleased with this years proposed $180 rise, I decided to shop around. Also, I used to be based in the office that's 8 minutes (depending on the lights!) from North Park, but we got moved to the office that's 25 minutes drive, so this place has lost it's locational / work advantage.

However, surprisingly enough, I found that even with the latest rise, I'm still getting a good deal here. As I often work from home, I have a lovely home office here, so I wanted a 2 bedroom place. The going rate for a 2 bedroom place in a decent complex seems to be upwards of $2000 a month - wow. The only other place I seriously looked at this time was up the road in Sunnvale, and the apartment manager I spoke to there asked me where I lived, and she said - "we often lose customers to there", refreshingly honest. It was an OK place, the fitness suite was a ton better than the token effort we have here. But, having negotiated my rise here down to an additional $110 a month, I was being asked to pay the same as I'm currently renting a 2 bedroom place here, for a one bedroom place there. I did a spreadsheet (good old spreadsheets!) and found that, as I also had to take the place they had on there 2 weeks before I needed it, so I'd be paying for 2 places at once for 2 weeks, I was on a loser over the year. I'd be paying more in the round, for a smaller place.

My one major disappointment with this is that I checked out Sunnyvale on wikipedia and I found out that the place that Buffy the Vampire Slayer lives is called "Sunnydale", but they used a zip code for the fictional "Sunnydale" in the show and it was Sunnyvale's zip code! I've never seen the show myself, but my sister would have been very impressed!

So, another year at the Laurels at North Park, cross your fingers for the rent rise next year! It's nice and sunny, was new 2 years ago, it's reasonably quiet, although it was a lot quieter when it was half empty when I first moved in, the walls are quite thin, and near the light rail line that can take you to the pub in half an hour.

However, there was a scary notice in the elevator last night, it said something like - "Thank you to all residents who expressed their concern, the emergency sump pump is broken and awaiting repair, this not a hazard to residents". I don't really know what a sump pump is, but I used to work in the water industry and I know what sewage smells, smell like - and I can detect a familiar smell now from the air conditioning vent - oh well, nothing in life is ever perfect!