And the earth hath revolveth one more time (this time with a leap second) and we are launched into a chilly January with a few resolutions and goals for 2006 – the plans so far include -
* Goldfrapp Concert in Edinburgh
* Three axis training from Edinburgh Flying Club
* Microlight To Orkney
* See ‘The Second Mrs Kong’ Opera
* Keep chickens (inspired by Mike, the headless chicken)
* Power rocking on Masai Barefoot Technology shoes
Finished “The Best Commando Novels” (AARGHHH! Himmel! Donner und Blitzen!) so all prepared if we have to go to war, and after looking open mouthed at the Christmas light display listened to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (the love child of Klaus Nomi, ELO/ELP). A New Year present comes in the figure of Ken Stott playing Rebus at last and us being ever grateful that our children weren’t the ones in the attempted murder incident on Hogmanay in Kelso, alledgedly involving the neds that attacked Stuart last year (what goes around comes around).
Radio Scotland kicked the year off with programmes on the real Whisky Galore story and the bizarre tale of Mary O’Rourke who had a career pretending to be a choirboy.
Meteors (the Quadrantids) streaked across the sky on the crystal clear evening of the 3rd January, none of which we managed to photograph but we stood in awe.
Composer of the month is Gavin Bryars whose haunting piece ‘Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet’ contains a sampling of a London tramp singing the religious song. Japanese group of the month is Pizzicato Five and the Arctic Monkeys – great music to develop software by.
The garden has the male Robin, the gals all partying in Spain for the winter, and the blackbird (as well the ubiquitous crow and raven)
January photos are a bit stark but then it is dark a lot of the time.
Birthday time so dinner at Ship Inn, Lower Newton By The Sea and picked up my photos from the Spencer Tunick naked day at the Baltic. Kim has a Lucid dream so I am not too sure what they put in the salad.
Birthday dinner (celebrations never stop) at the Caddyman with Jugged Hare which is almost guaranteed to bring gout to temperence members. And so predictably gout strikes – even on my cherry (to lower uric acid levels in the blood) and banana (to dissolve uric acid crystals) diet – all was thwarted by munching borlotti beans which have a high level of purine (too much of a good thing…). How do you peel your banana? Hint – the monkeys, the professional banana consumer, pinch the non-stem end and peel back – which on practical trials is more effective than peeling from the stem end.
Watched Syriana – the most cynical american movie of the year so far – I have spent years trying to look like George Clooney and now he is trying to look like me.
January wends its weary way to Burns night, another excuse to tipple through the Xmas whisky gifts, haggis dinner and the classic poem Holy Willie’s Prayer
Australia Day (also known as Invasion Day or Survivors Day after the Brits effect on the Aboriginal population) was celebrated by Stuart by getting a request for ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport’ played on Radio Forth. Australia was described as Britains largest open air prison with the horrific transportation of criminals and the destitute helping make Australia what it is today.
We have a mole and he lives in a hole – he seems to have outlived our molecatcher so we have our contract killer ‘SureKill’ gunning for him and look forward to seeing him dangling from a fence in the near future.
Computer systems and networking exhibited a domino effect this month – first routing issues in Glasgow; then our firewall decided to treat our main router as a threat and denied our main internet feed access; our sun server decided to die
and refuse to speak to its console in english – it took hours to work out how to fix the disks and reboot it in what looks like Klingon; BT equipment at our leased line exchange gave up the ghost intermittently (i.e. whenever clients tried to do something but looked ok whenever BT looked at it); BT dial up lines decided to pretend to be engaged. Perhaps this is the start of a Year 2006 problem? I am not too sure if there is any equipment left to go wro….
Countries I have visited so far – all of the Northern Hemisphere
Time to make a proper start on that southern hemisphere!
