Ha! Fooled you! I'm not actually ajn.

Closer
Originally uploaded by gothick_matt

I just heard a librarian on Radio 4 citing their new self-service checkout system as an example of how they were raising their game in the face of the challenges of the modern world.

Somewhere in Rome, it's possible an educationalist was boasting of the high availability of fiddle lessons while smoke drifted in through their window...

( My Saturday )

Date:	2009-11-05 18:08
Subject:	Lloyds TSB
Security:	Public
Mood:	annoyed
Music:	Frequency - The Jesus & Mary Chain

"We've noticed that our records show we cannot keep in touch with you about upgrading your account or other products and special offers that could benefit you financially..."

Gah! Can't they take the bloody hint? I've told them I don't want to have spam posted to me, and I've ignored the last three of these sodding letters.

I'm guessing they simply don't have a list for opting out of the "we notice you've opted out" letters.

I know it's only a little thing, but I really wish they'd get a bloody clue. The last time they kept sending me crap I didn't want -- those annoying credit card "cheques" -- I complained several times, then finally cancelled the credit card because it seemed the only way of stopping them. I'm with Mint now, who don't send me credit card cheques, advertising, or pleas for me to change my mind about the advertising.

Now, I'm not going to move bank accounts because of something like this, but it's certainly putting me off buying any extra products from Lloyds. Especially as it's my bloody money they're using to print and post this crap to me both as a customer, and now as a taxpayer...

Okay, rant over. Sorry.

( Just back from a preview screening of Harry Brown, the new Michael Caine film. No big spoilers, but put behind a cut for the sensitive, just in case. )

Bleurgh. Bit of a washed-out nothingey day today. Slept in late, woke up with headache. Watched trashy TV for hour, finally got out of house.

High point: having failed to get in touch with my usual date for arty outings, I was resigned to going around the preview of the RWA's Autumn Exhibition alone. Just as I was taking a photo of the odd bus they have parked outside, my friend and occasional massage therapist Tara appeared, with boyfriend in tow. "I can get you in for free," I said.



Kieran had to head off home, unfortunately, but Tara happily joined me, which was far nicer than wandering around on my own. Seems as good as ever, with a few old stalwarts mixing with some newcomers, and lots of interesting stuff on the walls.

A coffee, a baguette and some paracetamol on the way home managed to eventually see off my headache, but I've just felt fairly tired since then, so I've done bugger all, apart from some laundry. *sigh*. I'd planned to write off my morning, but it looks like most of the day will be written off, really. I should have had a nap after lunch; I'll never learn...

Anyway. Maybe I can get to bed early tonight and get out for a jog first thing; that should give me a bit of energy for tomorrow.

Yesterday I did very little, apart from finishing off the text of a camera review for my techy-type blog.

EDIT: Oh, actually, one important thing; I sent off the six original photos that the Bristol Ferry Boat Company are planning on turning into postcards Real Soon Now. That'll be cool to see. Nicola there also wants me to pull together enough stuff to do an exhibition at the Ferry Station, their floating restaurant.

Today I jogged 6km up into Clifton and around the Downs, finished off laying out & adding pictures to the camera review and posted it, went to take a picture of the Suspension Bridge for Wikipedia, nipped into town on the ferry for lunch at the Watershed, trogged home via Waitrose, and tidied up a bit with Superman II in the background.

And it's only quarter past eight. That extra hour we got from changing back to GMT seems to have gone a long way...

Strikes me I've been putting off updating for ages. This is partly because I was on holiday and away from a keyboard for a while, and partly because I've had the impression I should play catch-up and blog about everything that's happened since the last update.

This is clearly pretty unrealistic, especially given the amount of free time I've got at the moment.

So, I will probably revisit some of this in detail, but for now here's the precis:

First week off, hung around doing bugger all until I felt vaguely human. Second week off: Devon, Steve, beaches, whistle-stop tour, tramping around Dartmoor, finishing in Paignton. Then kaveypie and ahnlak's anniversary party, much natter. Many photos taken.

Back to work, finished the Couch to 5K plan (so can now actually jog for 5km without stopping; have impressed myself), finally unwound and cheerful enough to start tidying the flat properly, finally ordered new sofa.

That brings us all the way to Saturday. Yesterday I went for a jog, trying to see just how hard going uphill is (answer: very hard), and then met up with the Bristol Flickr crowd for a walk around the harbour. There were model speedboats, which were cool:



And that's about it.

As I said, I'll be going back and filling in some stuff, plus processing a boatload of photos, plus finally saying thanks to a certain spongebobjess who sent me something way cool just before my holiday which I've still yet to take photos of (or perhaps video would be better? Hmm...) plus, of course, whatever stuff happens from now on. Gah.

Can somebody slow the world down a bit, please? I'm getting dizzy...

Holy crap, I'm busy this week. Still alive, will reply to anyone I'm owing an email to at some point soon, honest, gah, what's next on my to-do list? *panic*

Erm. In the meantime, here, have a picture of one of the more interesting things happening in Bristol this week.

I did almost nothing this weekend. Well, not entirely true; yesterday I wallpapered a wall in the lounge¹. Not convinced it works, yet, but it may be just what I need to set the tone and get the rest of the room up and running. And it does stop the room being a Big Off-White Box.

But apart from that, buying some running shoes on Saturday, and doing a couple more of the C25K runs, I did nothing. It felt like I needed to. I'm glad I've got a couple of weeks off in a row coming up, even though I've still not actually decided what to do with them yet. I think the first several days will mostly be spent doing very little.

My noisy upstairs neighbours were away, and the whole area's generally quieter on Bank Holidays, and I enjoyed the peace, especially getting through most of The Kraken Wakes in the quiet of my living room on Sunday evening. At some point I will probably take up some hobby or other that gets me back out into the world a bit more, but for now I seem to be enjoying my own company well enough.

That's about all there is to report. Tonight I'm going to finish off the last few pages of Wyndham, and then start processing those wedding photos.

¹My first experience of wallpapering. Goodness, doing the edges is fiddly. Need to do some tidying up and maybe a bit of touching up with some similarly-coloured paint in a couple of places. And I almost ran out of paper, too.

"'Very rarely, in my experience of him,' he observed, 'has Dr. Bocker failed to equip himself with a brand-new cat when approaching pigeons.'"

I do like John Wyndham. Why on earth did it take me this long to get around to reading The Kraken Wakes?

Okay, so last weekend actually went fairly well. But I'm not sure I want to be a wedding photographer again for a while. Especially not for a couple of friends. Not that the friends weren't wonderful and supportive; they were. It's just that that's a lot of pressure to make sure you get great photos!

They say it's about the photographer, not the equipment, but I found my main problem was that my gear was too underpowered for shooting a ceremony in a dark barn. Lacking the 5D mark II and L-series lens brought along by one of the guests from the States, damn it, I had to fall back on flash, my fixed 50mm lens and relatively high ISO for the ceremony. So the photos of the ceremony itself aren't spectacular, especially as I've only used the flash once before, and I'm more used to taking many shots in quick succession than you're able to do with when you've got to wait for the thing to recharge.

On the plus side, some of the group shots were nice, and the Maid of Honour did a spectacular job of herding everyone around, and I managed to get up onto a nice high wall and get a couple of good "everyone" group shots from above, which seemed to work.

And on the even plusser side, I just kept wandering around with my camera through the whole day, stealing shots here and there, and some of them are pretty fine. So I think they'll have a well-balanced set of memories to take away once I do the processing, which is going to take up a chunk of this weekend.

One thing I regret is not getting a few more shots of the bride and groom before the groom got caught by a group of children and had his face painted, but that's not the kind of thing I could have predicted, especially as I didn't know there were face-paints there!

But anyway. I survived. And it was fun.

This weekend I'm going to mix some proper not-doing-much time, like this morning, with some decorating (finally putting the wallpaper up in the lounge, I think) and some general chores like tidying the rest of the flat. Nothing too demanding, hopefully. I'm also going to go get some running shoes at a shop that does gait analysis -- for those not following my running blog, I'm doing okay, but now I'm up to running a mile and a half my feet are getting fairly sore, so I think I need to go beg some shoe advice from someone who knows what they're doing...

I was on my way out of the library with the reservation I'd picked up, when I passed One Big Damn Puzzler. The cover image was quite striking, so I picked it up, and read the first paragraph of blurb, and was lost:

'"Is be, or is be not, is be one big damn puzzler." On a remote South Pacific island paradise the struggles of an elderly tribesman to translate Shakespeare's Hamlet into the local pidgin English are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a young American lawyer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. From that moment on, nothing will ever be the same...'

Date:	2009-08-12 07:31
Subject:	Fiesta
Security:	Public
Mood:	quixotic

Lemon Scented
Originally uploaded by gothick_matt

( TL;DR: It was a long day yesterday, so I'm not doing much today. )

Well, I was meant to be going out tonight, but my day (a dentist's appointment followed by a four-hour meeting booked through lunch) has taken its toll.

I think I'd have probably dropped out of the balloon fiesta idea anyway, as it's looking like rain, and there's always Saturday night's night glow as an alternative.

But my "plan B" of the Half Man Half Biscuit gig is feeling like too much effort, and I'm just too tired to summon any enthusiasm. It probably doesn't help that the last few I've been to were a bit crap, and that HMHB are on in Bath, which adds to the hassle factor and the potential lateness of the evening.

Feh. Maybe I should just go to bed now, and see if I can get up for tomorrow's dawn launch. I'll probably feel more optimistic in the morning.

...I've just had a message from someone at Stanfords to tell me they're using one of my Creative Commons images in their window display this week. Must wander past and see what it looks like. That's two of my photos in Bristol shop windows now...

Here are the candidates for my favourite photo of last month (I discounted the nice one with the clouds, as I already made a similar one photo of the month earlier on this year.)

No poll this time; I'm more just musing. Comments welcome, though!

Two Heads

'Ello 'ello 'ello

Graveyard Flower

The Bride and Groom