Sport the War on Error When the Wehrmacht invaded Denmark in WWII, the Danes famously announced, We have nothing with which to resist but humour. We shall fight hard!
5jt.com is doing its bit for the present times.
First error in our sights: 5jt.com is pleased to announce the end of the Iraq War. In fact, it ended in 2003 with the collapse of the civil power in Baghdad, since when the victorious invading coalition forces (yay, us!) have been occupying the country. So don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There is no war in Iraq, and there hasn’t been for two years.
While we’re on the subject: there is no War on Terror either. Not if “war” still means something you declare on a country to force certain outcomes, from handing over a province or so to total, utter, abject surrender. By the same token, there are no wars on drugs or poverty either. (Whatever happened to programmes?) So we can all sleep easier in our beds, at least we can as soon as we’ve figured out to what cause our leaders are really recruiting our loyalties and anxieties, and stopped them doing it.
Was the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq merely a technical glitch, a systems failure? See www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk for more information about this.
In today’s news At the Labour Party conference in Brighton an 82-year old delegate, a party stalwart since 1948, shouted Nonsense!
during Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s speech on Iraq, was manhandled out of the conference and detained by the police under anti-terrorist legislation. (BBC report) He has had his conference pass revoked. Let this be a lesson to all those who jeopardise our ancient liberties by daring to exercise them.
Universal product warnings Sent in by Graham Hodges, who enjoys privileged access to the Supreme Being, product warnings about everything you ever bought.
Welcome Kai A notable day. After years of fighting a rearguard action for our technology at the Big Pension Company, our first completely new hire started with us today. Kai Jäger and his partner Anne have moved from Nuremburg so that Kai can work with us.
Dennis still does Holding our own private Dennis Potter season, courtesy of Amazon DVD Rentals. Watched two TV drama series that had been screened while I was living abroad: Pennies From Heaven and we’re halfway through compelling and disturbing The Singing Detective. I don’t like it but I have to see it,
says Miki. Potter is surely one of the great dramatists of the 20th century. I wonder if The Gorge or Blade on the Feather can be found on DVD? Or (not Potter but Frederic Raphael now) The Glittering Prizes?
More on Nick Barbara Gibson writes from Virginia about knowing Nick Battye at school there. I’ve added her message the others on his page. I’ve also posted news there about the disposition of his library, as I can’t recall whether I’ve announced this before.
Going digital Almost completely stopped using tape cassettes now. Most of them were copied from CDs for use in the car, which has no CD player. Now we’ve jumped a medium: the iPod connects to a spoof cassette, and so plays into the car’s tape player. A few cassettes are not CD copies, and it’s time to digitalise them and add them to the growing collection on the new 230Gb drive. First up was David Whyte’s lecture on Poems of Self Compassion. I’ve used my low-concentration ’flu time learn how to record this and make an audio CD and digital versions.
Bianca and the courage to care Had a lesson yesterday in courage and compassion. I took a bus on my good citizen’s way to Camden Town Hall to testify in a licence hearing.
In front of me a young black woman was singing quietly but audibly to herself. She was drawing some glares for it. I leaned forward and said “You have a strong voice.” She turned, ready to defend herself, then saw she’d been complimented. We talked for a while about teaching ourselves to sing, the value I’d had from voice coaching, and her aspirations as an entertainer. Her first name is Bianca, family name unknown, listen out for her. Three teenage girls got on the bus and shortly afterwards Bianca smelled dope.
Are you smoking? she yelled. You don’t do that on this bus; not around me, you don’t! How old are you? Twelve? And you two? Eighteen? What are you doing teaching a 12-year old to smoke? No, don’t you talk back to me. You have nothing to say. Any right you had to quiet, you blew it off when you came on this bus smoking and dissing all these people. This lady here, she’s pregnant. You’re smoking round her? So she has to breathe all your smoke? And what are you doing, hanging with these older girls? You’re beautiful, you. Isn’t there anyone looking after you?
The youngest girls started to cry quietly. It was an uncomfortable harangue, both for the girls receiving it and for the rest of us listening, confronted with how little courage supports our convictions. Bianca, if you’re reading this, get in touch.
The Edinburgh Line Susan Ormrod sends these one-liners from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year.
I realised I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat.Marcus Brigstocke at the Assembly Rooms.
My dad is Irish and my mum is Iranian, which meant that we spent most of our family holidays in Customs.Patrick Monahan at the Gilded Balloon.
The dodo died. Then Dodi died, Di died and Dando died… Dido must be sh*tting herself.Colin & Fergus at the Pleasance
My parents are from Glasgow which means they’re incredibly hard, but I was never smacked as a child … well maybe one or two grams to get me to sleep at night.Susan Murray at the Underbelly
Is it fair to say that there’d be less litter in Britain if blind people were given pointed sticks?Adam Bloom at the Pleasance
My mum and dad are Scottish but they moved down to Wolverhampton when I was two, ’cause they wanted me to sound like a tw*t.Susan Murray at the Underbelly
You have to remember all the trivia that your girlfriend tells you, because eventually you get tested. She’ll go “What’s my favourite flower?”, and you murmur to yourself “Sh*t, I wasn't listening — self-raising?”Addy Van-Der-Borgh at the Assembly Rooms
The world is a dangerous place — only yesterday I went into Boots and punched someone in the face.Jeremy Limb at the Trap
I saw that show ‘50 Things To Do Before You Die’. I would have thought the obvious one was Shout For Help!!Mark Watson, Rhod Gilbert at the Tron.
Got a phone call today to do a gig at a fire station. Went along. Turned out it was a bloody hoax.Adrian Poynton at the Pleasance.
Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time.Demetri Martin at the Assembly Rooms.
A dog goes into a hardware store and says “I’d like a job please”. The hardware store owner says “We don’t hire dogs, why don’t you go join the circus?” The dog replies “What would the circus want with a plumber?”Steven Alan Green at C34
Hey — you want to feel really handsome? Go shopping at Asda.Brendon Burns at the Pleasance.
I like to go into the Body Shop and shout out really loud “I’ve already got one!”Norman Lovett at The Stand.
It’s easy to distract fat people. It’s a piece of cake.Chris Addison at the Pleasance.
I enjoy using the comedy technique of self-deprecation — but I’m not very good at it.Arnold Brown at The Stand.
If you’re being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a tunnel, then on to a little seesaw, then jump through a hoop of fire. They’re trained for that.Milton Jones at the Underbelly.
A highly sculptured people The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, who left us many myths, to which we keep adding. The following excerpts are answers given on history tests and in Sunday school quizzes by children between 5th and 6th grade ages. They were collected over a period of three years by two teachers and sent to me by Susan Ormrod. Read carefully for grammar, misplaced modifiers, and, of course, spelling…
Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies who all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Desseret. The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandos. He died before he ever reached Canada but the commandos made it.
Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. He was a actual hysterical figure as well as being in the bible. It sounds like he was sort of busy too.
The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a young female moth.
Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose of wedlock which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
During the first Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled biscuits,and threw the java. The games were messier than they show on tv now.
Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying,he gasped: "Same to you, Brutus."
Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw for reasons I don't really understand. The English and French still have problems.
Queen Elizabeth was the "virgin queen," As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah!" and that was the end of the fighting for a long while.
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood.
Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented
cigarettes and started smoking.
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper which was very dangerous to all his men.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.
Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couple. They lived in Italy. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet but her father was having none of that, that I'm sure. You know how Italian fathers are.
Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes, He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Since then no one ever found it.
Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and also declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." He was a naturalist for sure. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theatre and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on the old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.
Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf that he wrote loud music and became the father of rock and roll. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up.
Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbits but I don't know why.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He wrote the Organ of the Species. It was very long people got upset about it and had trials to see if it was really true. He sort of said God's days were not just 24 hours but without watches who knew anyway? I don't get it.
Madman Curie discovered radio. She was the first woman to do that what she did. Other women have become scientists since her but they didn't get to find radios because they were already taken.
Karl Marx was one of the Marx Brothers. The other three were in the movies. Karl made speeches and started revolutions. Someone in the family had to have a job, I guess.
What we did on our holidays Emerged from my refactoring hole and spotted a break in the schedule — we made a break for the surf in Cornwall. Weather was as mixed as Cornwall ever is, and the surf was good for the first day and the last morning. (We should plan a surf holiday in Oz.) More holiday pictures
Indulged M’s love for camping and toured a little on the way down, visiting Cheddar and Dartmoor. Penvose Farm has lost a little of its charm in the last two years, as the fishing ponds have expanded, removing the isolated corner, but the welcome is as friendly as ever.
With flat surf and good weather visited Lands End and Mousehole and saw Two Gentlemen of Verona performed at the Minack Theatre with a lot of Cole Porter songs that Shakespeare forgot to include.
Miki had to return to London to prepare for the forthcoming Lovelydisgusting exhibition in Mayfair. Encouraged by cheerful forecasts on impending swell, I put her on a plane at Newquay Airport, conveniently situated right next to the campsite, and learned a valuable lesson: Ryanair really will not check you in without government issued photo ID, and you really do lose your money. (Also learned that their website is unusable from a WAP phone and the front page weighs a hefty 230Kb. So much for media-independent technology. In contrast, try Google or even 5jt.com from a WAP phone.) Fortunately Air Southwest is more accommodating. Did we feel less secure? I don’t think so.
Newquay Airport is also RAF St Mawgan, and on the rainy days when I wrote and studied, the sound of the occasional Tornado's take-off would shake the car.
By the end of Sunday the promised swell had failed to appear and I planned an early start home the next day. Up before 7, I popped down to Watergate Bay to find the beach and water almost empty and the best body-surfing conditions I've found outside Australia. Two hours in my new Tiki wetsuit, a big cooked breakfast and an easy journey back to London in the kind of Indian summer they feature on old railway posters — Visit Newquay.
Refactoring and punts The best way to refactor software is a little at a time, like cleaning up in a kitchen as one cooks. Doing it this way allows for testing after each small change. Otherwise the crud mounts up and up, and eventually you have to stop cooking and spend time cleaning.
So it became with the user interface to the pension application, and yesterday was Day 20 of refactoring it. So many pieces to be moved or rewritten. Also a new field for me: writing GUI in APL, so I had new expressions and style to work out. Long, long days avoiding interruptions, to keep the many pieces in mind. At last the kitchen is clean enough to cook in again, but I need a break now to recover. A sprint like this is exhilarating but always ends with shorter and shorter productive days. Coffee is not a long-term substitute for fresh air and exercise.
Cambridge is close to Stevenage and despite failing to recruit companions, I was at Newnham Mill in the 30° heat by 5pm yesterday to check out a punt. One of the friendly fellows from Granta Punts helped me port the punt onto the upper river. Then I worked it 3 miles upstream to Grantchester, where I found a good steak and a pint in the Green Man. Then back downstream in the gathering dark through a wonderful dream-like quiet.
And a river of green
is sliding unseen
beneath the trees.
Pink Floyd/“Grantchester Meadows”