oj’s status update

Seems I’m not the only one who gets excited at the sight of swifts. This from “The Miracle at Speedy Motors” - the latest No. 1 Ladies’ Detective book by Alexander McCall Smith:

The apprentice, standing beside her, suddenly tugged excitedly at the sleeve of her dress. ‘Look, Mma Ramotswe! Look!’

She looked in the direction in which he was pointing and immediately saw what he had seen. Flying ants. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the air was filling with flying ants, rising up from their secret burrows in the rain-softened ground, gaining altitude on beating wings, dipping down again. It was a familiar sight following the rains, one of those sights that took one back to childhood no matter what age one was, and brought to mind memories of chasing these ants, grabbing them from the air, and then eating them, for their peanut-butter taste and crunchiness.

‘Go and catch some,’ she said to the apprentice.

He handed her the spanner he was holding and rushed out in the last few drops of rain to snatch at the termites, a boy again. He caught some easily, and de-winged them before stuffing them into his mouth. Above him there were other, hungrier dangers for the ants; a flock of swifts, materialising from nowhere, had swept in and were dipping and swooping over their aerial feast. The apprentice looked up at the birds and watched them, and smiled; and she smiled back. What does it matter, she thought, if businesses are left unattended, if people are not always as we want them to be; we need the time just to be human, to enjoy something like this: a boy chasing ants, a dry land drinking at last, birds in the sky, a rainbow.

In typical Friday-evening fashion, after a beverage or 3, I was blabbing on to J about my week at work. She remarked that it was a long way from lugging boxes for a giftware wholesaler.

The thing is that I can draw a direct line between lugging boxes and the sort of work I’m doing now, since it was the giftware wholesaler who let me say ‘yeah, sure I can develop a data-driven, interactive website for you. Shopping cart? No worries, let me have a crack at it…’

Which was kind of foolish, but at least it got me into a vaguely cerebral line of work.

Then I started thinking back to what led me to working for the giftware company. Working for the other giftware company next-door… which happened because I ran into Sean on the steps of West End markets and admired his shirt (it’s from my work, drop by, you might be able to get some work unloading containers)… which happened because I was in the Fire Event at Woodford Festival, which Sean was in… which I got into as a result of being in a ‘Celtic Folk Opera’ directed by the Fire Event director… which Julie put me onto… and I knew her because we were in JC Superstar together… which I auditioned for because my best mate’s friend saw it in the paper… and I knew my best mate because Flash introduced us on a bus… and I knew Flash because we were in ‘Ubu Roi’ together at USQ… and I went to USQ because I complied with my parents’ wishes that I shouldn’t study jazz guitar at the conservatorium.

I think that’s about as far back as I can go. But it’s cool that I can have a decent job doing esoteric bits of coding in sleepy Mid-Wales thanks to a totally unpredictable chain of events… I guess that’s life, innit!

As I walked into town for lunch today I was marveling at the sudden appearance of flowers - Horse Chestnut, Elder, and very soon to emerge Hawthorn.

The Hawthorn bush that I saw really had a lot of buds, which reminded me of the old adage, “Many a Haw, many a snaw” - meaning that if the Hawthorn bears a lot of fruit, lots of snow will follow in the winter.

See the title of this post for a more amusing, phonetic interpretation of this prediction. Zzzz.

So I checked the progress of my tempeh this morning. One batch (made in a plastic bag) had miraculously grown all its fungi overnight and was sitting there, hanging together like a proper tempeh cake. Unreal!

The other batch (made in a stainless steel steamer) had a fine layer of furry white mould over the top. Naturally, I was reminded of my ‘friend on the phone’ (see previous post).

So perhaps there is some kind of reciprocity here. Once somebody declares that a layer of mould reminds them of you, they instantly damn themselves to the same fate!

I showed the mouldy cake to Pip, and asked him if it reminded him of anyone. His reply: “Frosty the Snowman!”

Then I sliced off and discarded the mouldy top layer and we sampled our tempeh. Pip declared it delicious, and he was right.

People are sometimes defined by their hobbies and interests. I sense that a new definition is building up around me - two interactions in as many days point to this conclusion…

Health food person: Those soybeans didn’t come in for oj.
J: That’s ok. There’s no rush. He just wants them for making tempeh.
Health food person: [puzzled pause] … but … I sell tempeh!
J: Yeah, I know… he just… likes making fermented foodstuffs.

Friend on the phone: Oh hello, I thought of you today. My pickles have grown a little mould on top. I’m just going to scrape it off and carry on… but I just saw this mould and thought of you.

Which I found not exactly flattering, but interesting at least. Not many people can claim ‘mould’ as a substance that puts their friends in mind of them.

Now that I’ve discovered how to embed videos, I’ll have to try and make sure my blog doesn’t turn into a mere collection of YouTube tidbits.

Having said that… there are some clips that you can have going in the background as an inoffensive soundtrack to your day’s work. And there are some that just grab your attention and completely distract you from your work. This fits into the latter category for me. The LA Guitar Quartet’s performance of Bach’s Little Fugue in G minor.

This is my third summer in Wales. It might not technically be summer yet; in fact it isn’t technically warm yet, but as I sit here in the (intermittent) sunlight, I can report hearing and then seeing my first screeching, spirit-lifting Swifts of the season.

Whatever season it is. I’d better get indoors; I think it’s about to rain…

I was just wondering, is the little syncopated riff that Jimmy Page plays in the outro of ‘In My Time of Dying’ a nod to Monty Python’s ‘Hello Operator’ song? The resemblance is uncanny.

You know the bit, right at the end of the song, Robert Plant goes ‘dying, dying, dying…… cough….’. Then there’s a little ‘doo-dy-doo-dy-doo, doo-dy-doo-dy-doo’ (the riff in question).

I have no idea if the chronology is correct. If Physical Graffiti came out before whatever series of Flying Circus contained that song, then obviously it can’t be so. It was the same episode as the All-England Summarise Proust competition.

I guess there’s only one person who can answer this important question. Does anyone know Jimmy Page’s email?

– Edit –

I’m getting to grips with the technology here… here is the (last few minutes of the) Led Zep song:

If you don’t feel like sitting through Robert’s wailings, scroll to 02:35 to hear the riff. (And the cough).

Now here’s the Monty Python song (it starts at 01:45):

So? It is, isn’t it?

This is where I follow through on the meme bit, or maybe the tag bit. I’m still not sure. But here’s a bunch of questions, and here also are my answers.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

Swiftly plunging towards an early mid-life crisis! In typical all-or-nothing fashion (of the time, I’m more controlled now), I quit my job, disbanded my band and left a relationship (involving hurriedly moving into an ill-advised share house) all within a few weeks.

It was then that I discovered cycling, which was great because it got me off cigarettes. But I also had a lot of useless revelations, and spent too long wandering up and down the Kangaroo Point cliffs muttering to myself, and sometimes to the cars.

I got a pc, but quickly got rid of it because I didn’t like having the internet in my bedroom (I really was a bit messy). So I was kind of sworn off technology for a while. The last email I received was “Fine, be a luddite then. See if I care!” Funny that I ended up doing coding and database admin.

I wrote some good songs, but they were generally pretty angsty. I think I wrote my worst-ever song in 1998 too. Thankfully, I think only one other person has ever heard it… though unless he’s taped over it, it’s probably still on a cassette somewhere. It was called “Make the Effort”

On my to-do list today:

Before bed, I am planning to make an experimental batch of spelt-and-raisin sourdough cookies. I’ve no idea how to make cookies, I guess I’ll just wing it. I’ve just ‘fed’ my spelt sourdough culture, and rather than discard the poured-off part, I thought I’d try and do something useful (and yummy) with it.

I also hope to get some reading done. I’m reading ‘Swindled’ by Bee Wilson, a fascinating and very thorough work on the history of dodgy food. Unfortunately, it being not what you’d call a quick read, I’ve been spirited away by Bill Bryson’s ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ - his childhood memoir, which is a quick and easy, and immediately gratifying read. So I’ll probably stick with that til I’ve finished (which won’t be tonight), then go back to ‘Swindled’.

Oh yes, and I’ll probably have a swig or 3 from the open chianti bottle which would otherwise continue sitting uselessly in the fridge.

Snacks I enjoy:

Stilton. Brie de Meaux. Brie de Melun. Epoisses. Caerphilly. Yarg. Camembert de Normandie. Haloumi. Feta. Dolcelatte. Spelt and raisin sourdough cookies (hopefully). Did I mention cheese?

Things I would do if I was a Billionaire:

Buy Welsh hilltop farms. Block the drains. Reinstate moorland. Buy Aussie outback farms. Propagate appropriately.

Five places I have lived:

Llanidloes, Canberra, Toowoomba, Launceston, Brisbane. In ascending order of temperature.

Five jobs I have had:

I’ll try and do the more interesting ones.

1. Lighting operator for a strip show in Goondiwindi. It was a MALE strip show! The challenge was to get the right volume of smoke out of the smoke machine, whilst not actually looking directly at what you were supposed to be only partially obscuring.

The venue was the Queensland Hotel, affectionately known to the locals as the Snake Pit. After a night’s disco (non-strip) entertainment in the front bar, the floor was a sea of broken glass. Not just 10oz ‘pot’ glasses, but beer jugs, and those big, thick pub ashtrays. Entertainment was sparse in Goondiwindi.

2. Mechy / rigger type for a variety of venues, but mostly for an ambitious satellite-urban entertainment centre. It was fun going up the scissor lift, but I remember on my 30th birthday being up the top and thinking “Sigh! My life is going nowhere!” It’s nice to be 35 and not be thinking that any more.

3.
“Medical Payments, Owen speaking”
“Hello Simon, could I get a payment unauthorised?”
The frequency of this little aural mishap was the most notable thing about job #3. Nuff said.

4.
Remotely looking after electrical submetering systems for the US and UK’s biggest retailers. The aim being energy savings. If less coal is burned as a result of my work, I’m happy enough with that. If the side effect is that the big retailers increase their profits… well, so be it I guess. You can’t have it both ways.

5.
“Alright, good evening and welcome to Krazy Dayz Karaoke, I’m your host for tonight and I’m going to do a couple of tunes to get you in the swing… woo-hoo! Listen, boy, I don’t wanna see you let a good thing slip away…”

And finally…five people who write interesting blogs that I’d like to tag (in no order of preference):

plumsource - you are the only other blogger I know of. I should get out more. Or stay in more!

My mate JT in Brisbane wrote a great blog for some time, but his blogging shrivelled up coincidentally when facebook took off. Now he writes a status update every few days, usually paraphrasing or quoting whatever is his lyric of the moment.

Now, do I add tags to my tag post? I think I’ll have to tag it ‘tags’.

I was wondering what life would be like if you were to completely forego plastic. To get rid of all plastic items in your home and wider life.

I guess it would be a bit like the 19th century. Ok, most books and furniture could stay. The kitchen would be very different (but probably a lot nicer - nothing wrong with implements of china, steel, glass and wood). You’d stay fitter with your manual whisking, mashing and kneading.

A motor car would be out of the question. Even a bicycle would be tricky - have to get rid of those nice shimano components. In fact, there’s probably not a mountain bike in existence that’s plastic-free. Would have to be an old 10-speed. Oh, but what about the cable housings? Sorry, no gears. Single-speed, with a back-pedal brake.

It would be fun making the items you needed that couldn’t be got non-plastified. Of course, you would need a lot of nice, old-fashioned tools. (Perhaps you would have to make those… but with what?)

No CD’s… or cassettes… or LP’s. Possibly an old crystal set radio at a pinch (no bakelite knobs though). A top-notch piano with real wooden keys. And a fiddle perhaps (if you can get a bow without a plastic grip).

But my belly calls my thoughts back to the kitchen. You would have to buy food in a completely different way. Even bulk foods come in plastic. You could probably only do it if you were within cycling distance of a comprehensive bulk foods retailer, with nice, big hessian sacks of all sorts of goodies. Which would invariably be located in a big city…

I guess country life in the modern age comes at an environmental cost. But so does urban life. I know which I prefer.

By the way, there’s no danger that I’m about to go all silly about plastic. What would be the point of the exercise if I couldn’t blog about it every day?!