Grazulis

Haemangioma - Update

2010-02-07T16:56:00.002Z

Thea’s scans all came back negative and she was started on the Propanalol treatment as well as continuing on the steroids. The steroids were steadily reduced each week until, just before Christmas, she stopped taking them completely. She is still taking the propanalol.

Thea’s breathing improved almost immediately when she was started on the steroids, although it would come back a little overnight. Since we left Gt Ormond Street, after spending nearly two weeks there, her breathing has been fine and has continued to be ok after stopping the steroids. The haemangiomas have been reducing in stops and starts. There seems to be no change for a week and then suddenly they will reduce. Since starting treatment in September the visibile birthmarks on her lips and in her mouth, as well as on her ears and spine, have completely disappeared. The large patches in her nappy area and on her legs are still visible but have recently started to shrink and lighten so that, while still visible, are nowhere near as prominent as they were.

Thea herself continues to grow normally, and she is still generally very happy apart from when we have to wake her to give her the medicine.

More information on haemangioma and other birthmarks can be found at the Birthmark Support Group site: http://www.birthmarksupportgroup.org.uk/

Haemangioma

2009-09-28T12:11:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks after Thea was born she developed what looked like a rash on her leg. The midwife said to ignore it and it should go away after a couple of days. It didn’t, it got worse and seemed to spread further over her leg and also behind her ears. The midwife sent her straight to the GP.

The GP didn’t know what it was either. He gave her some cream and booked an appointment for her three days later. There was no improvement and so he sent her to A&E at the local hospital. There they diagnosed it as probably being haemangioma, also know as strawberry birthmark. They took some photos and booked a follow-up appointment and an ultrasound but did not really give us any information. For that we turned to the Birthmark Support Group website (http://www.birthmarksupportgroup.org.uk/), which is an essential resource for any parent who wants to know more. There we read a little about how for most cases it is best to leave haemangioma alone – it grows for a few months but then starts to disappear and is usually completely gone after a few years. But there are also warnings – that there is little real understanding or knowledge in the general medical community about treatment of haemangioma, that they can become ulcerated and very painful and, most importantly, if they appear on the mouth, around the eyes, ears or nappy area then there can be complications.

By the time we got the appointment with the paediatrician (probably only a couple of weeks later) T had developed a large mark on her leg, a small one in her nappy area, small patches around and in her ears and on her lips. The paediatrician discussed it with us, confirming a lot of what we had learnt from the Birthmark Support Group and saying that we really needed to see the plastic surgeon and seeing him was a bit of a waste of time. He also, because we asked for it, said he would get an ENT appointment to check her mouth.

The plastic surgeon appointment came though quickly, which was good, but the appointment itself was terrible. There were two other doctors in the room who were not introduced to us and we were generally made to feel quite intimidated. The surgeon refused to answer several of our questions and gave us information that was wrong including saying that if the marks became ulcerated it would be a good thing and that the marks on her lips would not become ulcerated; Her lips can become ulcerated and if they do then they can stop her from feeding because of the pain and are difficult to heal. It seemed like the answer he gave was based on a guess rather than any real knowledge. A recent news item in the MEN (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1130568_email_saved_babys_face) seemed a warning of what was going to happen to us if we left it like this. So Zak decided to get in touch with Gt Ormond Street Hospital. She emailed some photos and they said we should come down as soon as possible. We arranged that for Wednesday 23rd September. They organised the referral from the plastic surgeon. We still had no appointment with ENT. They said that she would be assessed and hopefully put on a new drug that is being used for treatment of strawberry birthmark and that we should be out in three or four days.

Then Thea started rasping, her breathing became noisier. She has always been a noisy and active baby but this was different. The sound would come and go. Unfortunately when Zak took her to the GP it was quiet. The GP said it was likely a bit of phlegm and common in babies. That kind of felt like enough that we should not worry about it.

We did receive an ENT appointment for the middle of October, but then a few days before we were due to come to London they called and asked if we could come in earlier. We had a holiday booked and said we were going to GOSH the next week so they decided that we did not need to go in then.

While we were away for the weekend T’s breathing noises continued to come and go and, very gradually, got worse. I was starting to get very concerned about it – her cry was very raspy, her breathing seemed ok but often noisy and very occasionally she would seem like she needed to catch her breath. It was only another day before going to GOSH.

When we got to London we were received with the greatest amount of attention and speed I have ever received in the NHS. The nurses and doctors here have been wonderful, attentive and, above all, have known exactly what is going on and what needs to be done.

They picked up on her breathing. They said this could be down to a birthmark in her throat and that it needed to be checked out asap. They called in their own ENT people and Thea was put on a waiting list so that she would hopefully be looked at the next morning. As she would have to be under general anaesthetic this meant no feeding from 6am. They also noticed something else we had previously been told not to worry about – a scar on her stomach which she has had since birth. So now we had not one, but two additional things to be concerned about. They started doing more tests – for her heart, and decided to prescribe steroids to try and start treatment of her birthmark to try to reduce the one in her throat as soon as possible.

The next morning we got the slot to check her throat. They confirmed the haemangioma there was blocking off her airway by about 60-70%. The steroids have worked quickly to reduce her rasping so immediate surgery is not required (but we have a follow up in a couple of weeks to make sure).

That day we also had ultrasounds of her spine and internal organs. Those, and the results from her heart scan, came back as fine. This was a relief as it seriously reduces the chance of the other thing the doctors are concerned about which is called PHACES syndrome (the S is new and and stands for Scar).

We are not entirely out of the woods yet. Thea still needs to have an MRI scan of her brain to confirm that there is nothing there and that she will be able to go on to the new drug instead of steroids. This new drug, propranolol, is more effective than steroids but can’t be used if there is a chance it will reduce blood flow to the brain (for obvious reasons). As MRI machines are very booked up we don’t know when this might happen and because of her breathing (it still comes and goes) the doctors don’t want to let her go yet. And even if they do we are already looking at regular follow on appointments for the next year, at least.

Fortunately Thea has proven herself to be a happy soul, rarely complaining about the prodding and starving she has been put through. But the main thing is that Thea is getting the best treatment she can get and the GOSH team here are absolutely fantastic. Hopefully we will be able to go home soon once everyone here is happy with her progress and we have the MRI out of the way.

Great Ormond Street Hospital: http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/

Bad Login Page of the Week - Emusic

2009-01-22T19:45:00.003Z

I've been meaning to start posting when I find bad login pages. They annoy the hell out of me. I understand that logging on is part of the process of creating the whole personalised, big love-in feeling that comes with returning to a site but there are times when it feels like the site just doesn't want to let me in.

Emusic is an example of where it has gone wrong but could easily be set right. When I visit emusic it remembers who I am - presumably through a cookie - and so gives me recommendations. Overall it's a pretty good service and they have some excellent music. But, whenever I "do" something, such as bookmark an album for later download or even make a purchase, I am taken to the log-on screen again. OK, fair enough, I don't mind validating that I want to make the purchase. Firefox remembers my username and password form me so all I should have to do is click on the log-on button or, more likely, press the enter key and sail straight through.

Except that the page is poorly designed. Instead of recognising that I already have an account, and that it even knows who I am, it pre-selects the "create account" option forcing me to click two things in thwo different locations. Then it follows it up by completely forgetting what I wanted to do, forcing me to do it again.

It's idiotic.

It's bad design.

A list of my emusic purchases

2009-01-06T21:42:00.002Z

Live in Manchester and Dublin - Rodrigo y Gabriela
Violin Concerto/Company - Philip Glass - Adele Anthony
Select Classical Chinese Music - Various
Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians - Grand Valley State University
Shostakovich Symphony No 5 - LSO
Best of John Lee Hooker -
Soul Men - Sam and Dave
Chinese Dub - Jah Wobble
Bad Medicine EP - Liz Green
Joys of Spring - John Fairhurst
Steve Reich: Different Trains - David Robertson
Howls, Raps and Roars - Allen Ginsberg
Sound unbound - DJ Spooky
Beethoven Violin Concerto - Isabelle Faust

Icy canal

2008-12-31T13:26:00.001Z

Test

2008-12-29T20:50:00.001Z

Nano finish

2008-11-30T19:36:00.003Z

Despite a higher than average intrusion of real life I managed to finish my novel for Nanowrimo this year. It was a close thing though. I found myself ten thousand words (one fifth of the target!) behind come yesterday morning. I started by spending some time planning that last ten thousand words and then got stuck in. I wrote six and a half of them yesterday, leaving me with a smaller target to hit today. I kind of went for it because I knew I would be out for this afternoon at my parents to see Debbie and family. And it paid off.

But is it any good? Well, probably not. It's quite a different story to ones I've been writing recently. It's not science fiction, but more of a straight, literary novel set in China in the early 20th Century. A time and place that I still find fascinating, and probably stranger than anything I could dream up for SF, it gave me a historical structure that always meant I could find some inspiration. The main pattern of the story came to me pretty much fully formed and I've mostly stuck to it. Despite deviations here, and the odd surprise, it's pretty much the story I had in my head and, looking back now I think that yes, it is good. Not in a letting anyone else read it kind of way, just yet. At the moment it's more like a pre-viz, or storyboard, for a movie. All the pieces are there, sketched out, but the actual film is yet to be shot. That's the next stage. Move it from the flat, cartoony writing that describes what I want it to be into the thing that it actually is. I'm looking forward to it. But for now it's time to read that Hellboy comic I treated myself to yesterday.

(b)ankers

2008-11-27T09:13:00.001Z

From Doonesbury -

"Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Race to the Moon, S&L Crisis, Korean War, The New Deal, Invasion of Iraq, Vietnam War, NASA."
-- list of government expenditures which, combined, are still less than the current bailout

We could probably end poverty and go to Mars if we closed all the banks. Hmmm...

Nanowrimo begins

2008-11-02T20:34:00.002Z

The nice thing about starting on the weekend is that you have plenty of time to do all those things you really have to do before settling down to write a novel. Things like installing a new, untested operating system on the laptop you need to use to write on, catching up on Facebook and emails, trying out the new features of your new operating system and playing with your colour scheme. Downloading some new desktop backgrounds for your PC. Reading about the Royal Australian Navy because it's the Wikipedia article of the day. Still, it has been a successful weekend and I'm even a little ahead. Back to work tomorrow but hopefully I can just keep plugging away at it in the evenings and get to next weekend with a reasonable word count. My mistake last year, when I failed to get much past the second week, was having days where I simply did not write. While that was not entirely my fault once you get behind it is a big challenge to catch up again.

Long time

2008-10-13T20:29:00.002+01:00

Took a long break from doing my writing blog but finally broke the dry spell tonight with a silly new thing. Almost tempted to write about the spider from my dream last night but managed to avoid it. It was about a foot across, with legs like gnarled tree branches and strange, bright orange nodules on it's underside that excreted some kind of pus when it launched itself with a thud against the window I was standing next too. But this is much nicer.

Honeymoon

2008-10-09T07:02:00.003+01:00

We had a brilliant time in Crete for our honeymoon. Mostly we didn't do very much apart from eat a lot, lie on the beach and read but it was much needed. The hotel was nice and it was easy to get into the old town to have a look at the tacky shops or go for a nice meal. We did manage to do a couple of things; Visit the Minoan ruins at Knossos and walk the Samaria Gorge. By coincidence the walk day was also the worst weather we had - frequent drizzle - but as we were hiking that wasn't much of a problem.

www.flickr.com

We visited Knossos the lazy way, on a tour, and that was a bit disappointing. Half the tour was in German meaning that you just stood around half the time wishing you could be exploring the site more and also the route through the site was pretty constrained so I feel that there was more that I could have seen. Serves me right - it wouldn't have been hard to get the bus, just laziness.

I also had plenty of time to research my new book which I am getting really excited about. I've decided to save starting it until Nanowrimo in November.

Wedding

2008-09-22T15:43:00.003+01:00

Quick description before heading off to honeymoon.

Woke up. Had bacon and eggs cooked for me by Dad and then headed out to collect the cake and pick up Emily who needed a lift into town to get ready with Zak. Was a bit late meeting up with Anthony at the train station but that was ok because his train was late. Next went to the Palace Hotel to drop off the cake, the various other bits we had and Emily. Headed back to my parents where Anthony suggested going for a pint. Waited a bit for Debbie and Simon to turn up with new baby Oliver and then we went to the pub while Dad went to pick up Alan. Had a Guiness, which I haven't had for a while and really enjoyed. When we got back there was a bit of rushing around while everyone got ready and then the minibus taxi turned up. After a lot more fussing everyone finally got on board and we collected Lucille and Bob, and then Vicky John and Alice. Got stuck in traffic on the way into town which was a bit worrying as it was the Labour Party conference and a Stop the War demo next to the hotel that afternoon but everyone was actually going somewhere else, traffic cleared up and we sailed into town with plenty of time to spare. Checked the room over, came down and had another drink, went back to the room to see if the registrar had turned up and found the seats had been rearranged again. Confirmed I was who I am with the registrar and then people started turning up. Ceremony was supposed to start at four. At five past there was still no sign and someone came to say there had been a slight problem and the bride was running late. Finally, at twenty past, the registrar came in and announced that things were starting. Alice, as flower girl, came in first and did a marvellous job covering the aisle with petals. Finally Zak walked in looking absolutely stunning. Andy did a brilliant job of the reading and then the ceremony started. It didn't feel rushed, it felt just right. We went out to the theme from Once Upon a Time in China and drank champagne as we walked downstairs where everyone shook our hands. Drinks done it ws time to try and get photos organised which was pretty chaotic (but based on a quick look through yesterday it all worked out) and then into the meal. Slight problem with the seating arrangements but that got sorted. Food was really nice, although it was pretty late. By the time we finished a number of the evening guests had arrived so we decided to move the speeches downstairs, which was really nice. Anthony's speech was also great, not too embarrasing or too formal. After that we had our first dance to Israel Kamakawiwo's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and after that it was just more drinking and lots of dancing. I had a really, really good time and Zak did too. Thanks to everyone who came and made it a fantastic day.

2008-09-04T21:40:00.000+01:00

so simple it's ridiculous: cross browser ad blocking for your pc: http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html

a week off

2008-08-24T09:09:00.002+01:00

Finally, some time off work. The plan has been mostly just to do as little as possible which has meant doing some of the obvious things, like video games and olympics watching, but I've managed to get some other stuff done too. I went for a walk from Edale up Mam Tor on the Monday, which was very wet and a disturbing reminder of how unfit I am at the moment but very enjoyable. Had a good view of several kestrels hunting from the top of the ridge.
Zak's sister is staying with us at the moment which makes the apartment feel pretty small. So on Tuesday I went to help my dad clear out the carpet from the spare room and leave the car there to save having to find somewhere to park it every day in Manchester. On Wednesday Crystal and I met Zak for lunch at the Manchester City Art Gallery. It was full of kids for some summer event but I broke off to go and see a new exibition and Crystal spent some time looking at paintings. I left her there and went home to watch Election 2. That is an excellent film. It's got some pretty nasty bits in it but overall is a bit less ott than the first film and less shocking. It is still a good look at the triads in a pretty unglamourous light and confirms Johnny To as someone to watch. Which is nice because when looking at the Cornerhouse web site I saw that another film of his, Mad Detective, was on this weekend.
Mad Detective was a really interesting film about Bun, a mad detective. He may be psychic or he may just be mad. Unlike the average film in this genre it doesn't shy away from the fact that Bun really has no grasp on reality, whatever his talents might actually be, and is a real danger to those around him. Bun's visions are brilliantly realised and the acting quality throughout is superb. Films like this, and the Election series, show just how good Hong Kong film making can be.

2008-08-17T11:08:00.004+01:00

Nearly two months since the last post. Been very busy with work, not feeling too good about that but things look set to get better. Bt then they always do and yet seem to manage to get worse. I've taken a week off work, which I really need. Hoping to get out for some walking, as well as doing some writing and other stuff. Didn't do my gr-sf piece last week which is bad, but this past week has been pretty disrupted as Zak's sister is staying with us now.
Went to see Wall-e and Batman recently. Wall-e was very good, as good as most other pixar films. The robot does look a bit rubbish in the pictures but when you see him animated it's a completely different story. The animation is gorgeous. The only thing wrong with the film is when the humans get involved. They aren't that engaging and that kind of spoiled it a bit for me. But, it's a kids film and it has a message and that needs humans, not a peculiar romance between to robots.
Batman is also excellent. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker has gotten a lot of comment and it is a great performance. It evokes the best of the best comics; Dark Knight Returns, Long Halloween, Arkham Asylum and creates a serious film out what could have been just another action film.

a lot to get through

2008-06-22T11:47:00.008+01:00

I've been coming up with ideas of blogs entries regularly, running through them in my head and then forgetting all about them. Work has been busy and when I've been able to sit at a computer I've generally been trying to catch up on email (not so successfully) or do some writing (not so successfully). But, it's Sunday morning and it's raining so I'm going to get through a few of the things on my mind.

This post will not be as serious as David's latest, which I recommend you read. The UK has long had a good reputation for taking care of refugees and it annoys the hell out of me that this reputation is being eroded and destroyed with lies.

http://beardadventures.blogspot.com/2008/06/treatment-of-asylum-seekers.html

Ubuntu
I upgraded to Hardy Heron, the latest version of Ubuntu, a few weeks ago. I was initially doubtful as to whether I would do it or not as each release recently has had a few problems but this one went really well. It's a Long Term Support (LTS) release, which means that it is going to be supported for 3 three years after release. It goes a long way to neatening some of the rougher edges of Linux, although I'd have a hard time pointing out exactly what they are. It feels the same, just slightly better.

However, to be honest, I hadn't been using it that much as lately I've been leaning towards the mac. Reading about a couple of applications brought me back, though. The first is Gnome Do, a Quicksilver clone that is just awesome. It comes with some great modules, such as Google Calendar and Twitter integration, and I am really impressed with it.

I also learned that Lotus Symphony, a new office suite from IBM had been released. It is based on Open Office but with a different user interface based on Eclipse which gives it a very different look and feel. I have to admit i do not like Open Office. It's ugly, like using an office program from 10 years ago. The last MS Office release, with the ribbon, shows just how far behind Open Office is with its interface. So I was pretty excited about a new Office app for Linux that might actually be pleasant to use. Indeed, Symphony is pretty and it's clear that thought has gone into making it work. It has a tabbed interface, so all your documents appear in the same window whether they are a word processor document or a spreadsheet. It's all very nice and clear. I like it, and it might become my preferred Office app except that it's pretty slow. My PC might not be super new, but it's not that old and this is a Word Processor, for frack's sake, not the latest FPS. So until the speed issue is sorted out it's just not for me. Symphony is available for free download, for Windows or Linux, at http://symphony.lotus.com

So, although I am generally positive in my feelings towards Symphony I couldn't help but wish that Google documents was available offline. So imagine my surprise to learn that Google Docs is now Gears enabled, which means that it is available offline. So I can access any writing I am working on from any internet-enabled computer, work on it offline too, and get automatic versioning and offsite backup. Cool. The Google docs interface is continuing to imrpove, as well. It now works with a fixed width view (looks like print layout view). Google docs can be found at http://docs.google.com

Ficlets
And all of this is supposed to be so that I can write. I am keeping up with the weekly project, just about, which has been pretty good. Sure, there's some bad writing on there but there's also some interesting ideas and I'm enjoying it. As a kind of side project to that I've also set up an account with Ficlets. Ficlets is a site where anyone can add a short piece of writing and others can comment on it. You are free to extend it yourself, writing prequels and sequels, or use others' work as inspiration. It's an interesting community, although I haven't been quite as engaged as I'd like due to work, I've had some nice feedback. Mostly I've taken pieces from the blog and posted them there, which offers a nice opportunity to edit some of them and try to improve them. There is a very strict constraint on the number of characters that each ficlet can have which works to really force you to think about what is really necessary for a piece. See my Ficlets profile here.

Chess
I started reading the Yiddish Policemens Union by Michael Chabon a little while ago. It's set in an alternate history where a Jewish homeland is set up in Alaska instead of Israel. It's also a detective story which chess as a large element in the characters lives. It's funny and interesting although I never really felt myself empathising with the characters too much. The cleverness of the language was almost a distraction from that kind of engagement but that may also just be how I'm feeling at the moment. I do recommend it.

It also awakened within me a fascination with the game of chess and I've found myself mildly addicted. I'm trying to find people to play against, am playing daily chess puzzles (via a Google plug-in from Shredder chess) and have bought a book to try and improve my game.

Finally
Went to see the Revengers Tradgedy at the Royal Exchange Theatre last night. I like the Royal Exchange because it's in the round creating a very intimate experience. The play itself was well produced and entertaining, with plenty of dark humour and gore mixed in the same uncertain balance as a Tarantino film. There is none of the soul searching of Hamlet, just the steady progression of revenge with a purity of feeling, and joy at success, that leaves plenty to think about after the play is done.

Indiana and the Manchester Museum

2008-05-25T11:56:00.005+01:00

Bank holiday weekend. Nothing much to do except read more of The Yiddish Policeman's Union. So decided to get out and do something.

First we went to the Manchester Museum. I've been meaning to go there for a while as I haven't been since I was a kid. My interest was piqued by the Lindow Man exhibition as I did not see it on any of the previous times it has been in Manchester. Unfortunately it was an incredibly disappointing exhibition. Things are laid out in a confusing manner with very little real information beyond what is in the leaflet. There is also a pointless aside as a whole bloody section about a woman who, as a girl at the time the Lindow man was found, was in hospital and got a Care Bear. And apparently Bros were popular at the time. I don't mind have the discovery put into cultural context but found it ridiculous that it overpowered the exhibition to such an extent. There is also a big fuss about showing respect for human remains but when you get to the case with the body in it there is nothing - no label, no explanations, nothing at all that would indicate that this is something you should pay attention to, let alone pay respect to. Everybody involved in putting the exhibition together ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

The rest of the museum, though, is definitely well thought-out and there is a lot to see. The Egyptian exhibition is entertaining, informative and interesting. The exhibition of stuffed animals is very much as I remembered it and still a little creepy. And there was more that we didn't get the time to see, especially as the normal entrance to the dinosaurs was blocked although the exhibit is apparently still open. Interestingly the bodies on display in the Egyptian section are all covered up with cloth and there little notices to say that this is an attempt to show respect to human remains and is being done as part of an attempt to stimulate debate on how we should treat these bodies and whether it is right to have them on display. However it all smacked of hypocrisy with the Lindow Man exhibition just downstairs.

Link to Manchester Museum.

And so, on to the next relic on show: the new Indiana Jones film. Like everyone else with a fondness for the first films and the burning rage of the Phantom Menace still too fresh in my mind I did feel a little nervous about going to see it. I re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark on Friday. Cautiously I peeked at reviews to try and get a sense of what to expect without reading any spoilers. A mild optimism encouraged me to get it over with and so we went last night. I enjoyed it. It's an Indiana Jones film. Sure, it isn't as good as Raiders or the Last Crusade but it's still thoroughly enjoyable. I want to stay away from giving any spoilers but it really does feel like an extension to the other films. Like someone you haven't seen for a long time and then meet up with again, it's a bit awkward at first, and there's a few more grey hairs, but it's still the same person. I read somewhere someone say it is the third best Indiana Jones film and that's probably about the best summary I could think of.

2008-04-22T19:56:00.006+01:00

Went to see Grindhouse last night at the Cornerhouse. It was the full thing - two films by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino bound together with fake previews of trashy films and missing reels. I did not see either film when they were released separately but I'm glad I had the chance to see them together first. It was an intense few hours with a lot of gore and comedy on the way. The two films work well together as a complete experience but I don't know if I would be so impressed if I'd seen them by themselves or without a cinema full of expectant fans.
For me I think Planet Terror was the slightly stronger film with more of a plot and a typical Rodriguez sense of enjoyment over common sense. Death Proof was almost a relaxing romp afterwards with a simple two act structure, dialogue instead of plot and probably some of the coolest "real" car stunts I've seen in a long time.
It was the total cinema experience - fun films, good audience and uncomfortable seats. We laughed together, groaned and winced together and came out of it wondering if they ever will make Machete, probably the coolest trailer ever, into a full length film. I hope so.

2008-03-31T19:23:00.001+01:00

Went to see Gogol Bordello last weekend in Leeds. They were fantastic, had a great time bouncing in the middle of a fun crowd. Aching a bit today. Now, I wonder if they do weddings...

2008-03-25T21:12:00.006Z

This is realy interesting.
View here. Found on BoingBoing

2008-03-24T15:08:00.003Z

Just been to see an exhibition of William Blake at the Whitworth Art Gallery. Like many I am an admirer of Blake but I've never had an opportunity to see the prints except online or in books. It was an intense experience. The energy and power of viewing the illustrations has left me shaken so I'm not really sure what to think about it all and I need some time to think. I am hoping to be able to go back before the exhibition ends but unfortunately that is in a couple of weeks time.

2008-03-08T19:03:00.002Z

I don't really believe in piracy. That's why I use Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows - I know that all the applications I need are available to me for free. Recently I've been downloading a lot of free music - and it's really good stuff. The biggest help in finding it is this blog:
http://freealbums.blogsome.com/
It covers everything from the latest Nine Inch Nails release, through jazz and all the way out to classical. Definitely worth a look.

2008-03-03T20:07:00.001Z

Ant sent me this link.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pHqqggwXbyE
That's about what happened...

2008-02-26T19:06:00.001Z

just had a very strange day. on the way to work i kind of went to cross the road, didn't take time to look properly and was knocked down by a taxi coming around the corner. i'm ok, just battered and grazed but no bones and didn't get hit on the head. in fact i'll probably be back at work tomorrow. spent about 3 hours in a&e to just get everything checked out and walked out with a dressing taped to my arm and cocodamol in my bloodstream before spending most of the afternoon asleep with babylon 5 playing as I've run out of anything decent to watch and definitely couldn't face anything complicated.

on the plus side found out the other week that i am going to be an uncle.

2008-02-02T15:45:00.000Z

The iPod is not a particularly pretty device but it does just work, doing everything I need with a minimum of fuss. I got some new sennheiser in-ear headphones last week and they are superb. I am now listening to things at half the volume, while sat on a noisy bus or train, and still hearing things more clearly than before. It has led to a bit of a boost in my podcast listening so here's some of the ones I've been enjoying recently:

Astronomy Cast: Interesting look at space and astronomy stuff I find it incredibly relaxing to listen to while I just soak up interesting facts.

Audio Dharma: Talks by Gil Frondsal and other Buddhist teachers. It's a nice complement to Zencast.

Boing Boing TV: Sometimes downright crap and the adverts are annoying but some of the best/most fun animation I've seen can be found here.

Songlines: Podcast for the folk and world music magazine. I first heard Rodrigo y Gabriela here and am still grateful.

Finally, a special shout out to Starship Sofa. Well worth digging through their back catalogue for a weekly, in-depth look at many famous SF writers by a couple of fans from the north of England. It's a lot funnier and a lot more entertaining that that sounds. Tony is doing it by himself at the moment but it's still going strong and is now publishing regular, free to download stories with a small pile from Michael Moorcock and plenty of other big names too. I cannot recommend Michael Moorcock's London Bone highly enough - it's the best audio presentation I've ever heard with the voice perfectly matching the story, the acting is superb and it just blew me away.

2007-12-31T19:12:00.001Z

2007 comes to an end. Looking at this blog it has been a slow year for things interesting enough to write and also a difficult year to find the time to write. When I started this it was not meant to be much more than a journal for me to record what I'm doing or interested in at any particular time but recently there's been little to add. I am going to keep it going, occasionally, but I'm also going to start doing something new, something that I am going to try and keep up.
A while ago, following on from reading about Wreck This Journal, I set up a notebook with an ever-growing list of creative challenges for me to do. Some were more successful than others but the principle worked - it got me thinking again, it got me writing and drawing again and it was fun. The journal is still with me - there are a lot of pages left to fill. But it's also the starting point for a new set of challenges for the year where I hope to be able to post something new every week on to a new blog. I do not know what that will be - whether a picture, a photo or a story, or something else. I do not doubt that a lot of it will be rubbish, but it is the doing that is the point.
So, I guess I'll see what happens.
If you want to see whether I manage it then point your favourite browser or news reader to:
http://gr-sf.blogspot.com/
Hope to see you there....
Happy 2008!

2007-12-02T20:17:00.000Z

As my last post hinted at my efforts towards Nanowrimo this year were slowly failing and I stopped writing anything towards it a couple of weeks ago. In between work, stress, illness and the demands of being creative something had to be left behind and that story was it. Which is a shame because I was enjoying it. I have written over 15000 words and I'm quite happy with what I want to do with the story now so at least it has put me in a strong position to write the novel at some point. A time that I hope will be soon.
Work has been very busy, with long hours, lots of stuff going on and it has left me feeling exhausted and very tense. I have done the occasional nice thing, though. It was good to see Soo when she came over for a writing weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was a very focused and non-boozy weekend but we also managed to go and see Beowulf in Imax 3d. I've heard rumours that 3d is supposed to be the next big thing, with James Cameron looking to release his next film in 3d, but after so many attempts I guess I felt a bit cynical about it all. Beowulf was not the best film I have ever seen but the use of 3d lifted it to be something more than the interesting but shallow film that it is.
Yesterday we went to see Ratatouille which surprised me more than I expected and which I enjoyed more than I expected. It is fairly standard modern kids fare but is greatly helped by a good story and a slightly subversive feel generated by the way that the rats always remain rats - they are not really anthropomorphised in the way of most Disney films so when, as happens a couple of times, you see a large number of them on the screen at the same time you do see them as rats. And despite that you still prefer them to the humans.
The other good thing that I did yesterday was get hold of the Black Dossier, a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill which comprises variously of histories of various members of the League, details of an alternate history of the world that might just be true, a comic story of how the dossier is recovered by a couple of old members, related paraphenalia related to the fascist Big Brother government of IngSoc and a 3d adventure extravaganza at the end. I've barely started it and I already love it. It is something perfect for the coming dark nights over the next week. Assuming I can get home at a reasonable hour from now on.

2007-11-15T21:17:00.000Z

nanowrimo is not going so well. circumstances have conspired to allow me to fall well behind. so far it might be too hard to catch up. we'll see what another weekend of effort can do. despite this i am enjoying it. something about the excuse to just sit down and write despite a constant drive to look for reasons not to.

"The station is weirdly beautiful. Covered in blue light, the colour of neon reflected in a lover's eyes, it seems to be alive. Its web of collectors extend and contract along its length like a deep sea creature propelling itself along some dark sea bed, seeking and catching antimatter created in the tearing of the high energy rays passing through the planet's magnetosphere."

see http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1567
ttp://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/are-you-looking-at-this/

2007-10-31T20:28:00.000Z

Nanowrimo is almost upon us again. I'm looking foward to it. My laptop has shiny new flavoured Ubuntu (amazingly easy to do this time). I have a few vague and confused scribblings that barely make sense, let alone a plot. I have a big stack of tea and coffee. I have a pile of books by my favourite authors to star at and curse when I need inspiration (for the record: Alfred Bester, John Brunner, W S Burroughs, Joseph Conrad, Sam Delaney, M John Harrison, Ursula Le Guin and Gene Wolfe). It's going to be awesome.
If you're interested in joining in just head over to the web site and sign up. If you want to follow my progress then my profile is here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/user/134290

In other news, I had my birthday, it was strange at first and then fun, I bought an ipod, and spent a couple of hours in waterstones but didn't buy anything. and went to the art gallery. work busy.

2007-10-01T13:58:00.000+01:00

Got back from a week in North Wales yesterday. Had a very nice time. Saw lots of castles which I haven't been to since I was a kid and did a fair amount of walking. Also did Snowdon. I am not sure I've actually been up it before but now I can definitely say that I have. We had pretty good weather and the views were really nice. You can view the route we took in Google maps here or, if you have Google Earth installed you can view it in 3d. We also went to the bird sanctuary on Anglesey at South Stack but it's definitely after the season for it and there were no birds, only a couple of climbers.

2007-09-23T17:44:00.000+01:00

Work has been very busy. When I haven't been working I've been writing, which has been nice, but then it got to the point where I couldn't face being on a computer when I got home and email's stopped being answered and all I could managed was the odd zombie fight on Facebook.
But I have am off next week. After tomorrow, anyway, and we're going to North Wales. Looking forward to green and mountains even if the weather isn't great.
Had a reminder that it is nearly time once again for Nanowrimo, an annual competition to write a novel in one month. The prize is a novel that you have written in one month. I really enjoyed doing it last time and it taught me a lot. I don't have any ideas for it yet so hopefully I'll spend some time on it next week. If you've ever thought about writing a novel I recommend that you check out the web site and consider giving it a go. It's not like you have anything to lose.

2007-08-14T18:54:00.000+01:00

The US currently uses 20 million barrels of oil per day. First we’re going to ban plastic bags, slicing away a giant 0.16% of that consumption. Now, bring on the plastic bottle ban, slashing a full 0.02% from the oil guzzling. Take that, global warming!
Reason Magazine

We have a reusable bag from Tescos. It's environmentally friendly and I get points when I use it and don't use a plastic bag. Some of these things are even fashion statements. The other week I emptied it out and was astounded by all the packaging that the food I had bought was wrapped in. There are at least enough there to make 10 plastic bags. Suddenly it all seemed rather pointless.

2007-07-16T09:39:00.000+01:00

When Zak said that she wanted to go to Celebration Europe, the first official Star Wars convention outside of the US, I was a little bit dubious. The grown up part of me wondered whether I really wanted to be trapped for three days in a giant space filled with costumed, light sabre wielding lunatics. Afterall, much as I love Star Wars, I am not a true fan. I don't read the books, I don't care who shot first and I have no desire to dress up as a jedi or collect toys. Another part of me was quite happy with the idea. The part that loved Star Wars as a kid, that still gets that slightly irrational feeling whenever I hear those opening chords of the music.

Friday

We arrived on the Thursday afternoon and spent the evening in the centre of London gawping at Big Ben and finding somewhere to eat. The next morning we queued with everybody else to collect ticket and band before heading in. The first thing we saw inside was a big mock-up of Jabba's palace. Beyond that was row after row of shop selling almost any kind of Star Wars merchandise you can imagine. Fortunately that is not all there was. There were also long, long queues to collect autographs (at a minimum of a tenner each we didn't bother) and for chats or shows with various people involved with Star Wars. These were mostly hosted by Warwick Davies, who did an excellent job. (Warwick is one of Zak's heroes so she was particularly happy to be able to get a photo with him later that day) So we went to see R2 D2's controller, along with Kenny Baker. We saw the puppeteers behind Jabba's movements in Jedi, and an interview with a slightly crazy Mark Hamill. After that was the opening ceremony with a very smooth Ian McDiarmid and a showing of Star Wars on a big outdoor screen. It was nice to spend the evening drinking a few beers in the sun while watching the film. It then seemed like a good idea to go to the bar and drink some more. Chatted to some other visitors, eventually hooking up with a couple of Scots and a man from Barnsley until they kicked us out and we staggered the 100 yards back to the hotel.

Saturday

Woke up a little later than planned so got up, ate breakfast and made it inside in time for a showing of the Clone Wars, a new CGI cartoon animation coming out next year. Looks good. Then made it in to Anthony Daniels, who played C3PO, who gave a great performance. He knows that all the people in the room watching him are probably certifiable but that they also have a great affection for him. Unexpectedly interesting was the chat with Rick McCallum who produced the prequel trilogy. He came across as intelligent, keen and happy to be there with an honesty to questions that seemed quite refreshing compared to the usual spin of DVD extras. Finally that day we went to see the Battle of the Bands which was between Darth Elvis and a death metal band called Anchorhead. Anchorhead won with a crazy reworking of pretty much the whole of the Star Wars theme. I am not a fan of metal but they did deserve to win. We went for a drink after that but felt pretty tired so decided to take advantage of having a TV for the first time in months. Not that there was anything worth watching.

Sunday

Sunday started with a quick trawl of the shops before the crowds arrived to see if there was anything worth buying. After that it was an interview with Ray Parks, who played Darth Maul, along with a crazy reenactment of his death scene. After that we went to look at the Vader Project. A bunch of young artists had all been sent a Darth Vader mask to decorate however they wanted. There were some brilliant results. That set us up to watch an interview with Billy Dee Williams who was tired, intelligent and, of course, smooth. That about wrapped it up for the day. We wandered around a bit more, took some photos, tried to get in to see Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) but had to leave before it started it - it was running about an hour later than planned.

So, overall, I had a good time. It was interesting to get some real insights into what have been incredibly important and influential films. It was fun to meet some other fans and I'm glad that I went. But, if they have another one in a couple of years time I don't think I'll go again. Fun as it was it did feel like there could have been a lot more. Not just in terms of guests but also organisation. From the beginning there seemed to be few people who really knew what was supposed to be happening and who could help. There were few instructions to guide people. There were fan films being shown upstairs that could have been playing alongside the (inevitable) queues to make them more fun. There could have been more free stuff. Probably next time it will be better. But even so, for now, once is enough. And no, I did not buy a light sabre.

2007-07-10T19:29:00.000+01:00

Work has been very busy and looks set to remain so for at least the next couple of weeks. However I am feeling much happier about it than I was last week.
We went to see Monkey;Journey to the West on Saturday. It is an opera directed by Chen Shizheng with music by Damon Albarn and animations by Jamie Hewlett. It also has an outstanding cast of fantastic actors and acrobats which all combined into a fantastic, wonderful experience. The set and costume designs were great - really matching the artwork - and the movements of the actors amazingly well choreographed so it actually felt almost seamless as it switched between live action and animation. And this is despite having crappy seats with restricted view.
Much, much better than the Mahabharata.
And despite being busy and tired am making myself do some writing at last and work through my own, personally developed (and stolen) journal. Drew a picture of an apple today and some origami. And as soon as something is good enough to show I'll be sure to upload it.

2007-06-24T19:39:00.000+01:00

"There could not be another person on earth who read these things with more intense interest than he did, for to him these were questions of immediate practice, influencing what he might do that very day. To him every paper had the unwritten subtitle How Should I Live Right Now?" Kim Stanley Robinson, Fifty Degrees Below Zero.

I've been thinking a lot about creativity lately, as well as trying to push it all into practise using GTD as a framework to capture everything and free me up to observe the world in as many different ways as I can while dosed up on repeats of Ze Frank's Show and random inspiration from the internet and books.

The most important thing is simply making the time to do things. (Easier now I don't have a tv.) Even when you are engaged in something else, like walking to the shops, listen and look about you for what is new, for the elements of beatitude around you in the pattern of clouds, the feeling of weightlessness at the top of an assisted chin up in the gym, the flicker of rain on a window, the thoughts fired by an article on the internet, the blank page in a notebook, overheard conversations on buses. Creativity is a habit. I'm also trying to do more than just write. While I am not a photographer I thought it would be nice to wander around Manchester with a camera a few weeks ago and I think I'll do it again. I also make sure I have coloured pens around for creating colourful things and am trying to make time to do some sketching.

Yesterday I read in Fifty Degrees Below Zero about Freegans. Checking my 30 Signals vs Noise feed later that morning I came across an article on Freegans in a nice piece of synchronicity. When I took the rubbish down I had a quick poke around and found a pair of almost new swimming goggles (worth 12 quid) which are perfect for Zak, who had said earlier that very day that she needed some.

Also went to Urbis where there is a nice exhibition of modern Hong Kong artists and a exhibition called Play. Play looks like it would be good if you were with a kid or two and if it had all been open.

2007-06-10T09:22:00.001+01:00

Filofax hole punch
Originally uploaded by grazulis.

Yesterday went in to the Arndale centre to find some bits and pieces. I had a quick check of the filofax section in Smith's but didn't really see anything I want (I'm looking for quadrille paper, a world map, printer paper and some other stuff but shops never have it for pocket size, only the larger sizes). Then I found the hole punch. That was pretty much top of the list because with it I can create my own pages and really start to customise and prettify what can otherwise be an overly drab and practical object. The photo shows the punch and a page I create from a flyer for Journey to the West opera that is coming up in July. Much better to see that rather than gun-metal grey.

2007-06-09T14:42:00.000+01:00

Finally got around to joining and then getting to the gym this morning. So I am now tired and vaguely cheerful while quietly ignoring how much I am going to hurt tomorrow.

2007-06-04T18:50:00.000+01:00

Had a nice weekend. The weather was really nice so I decided to spend a couple of hours wandering around taking photos. The light wasn't great as it was around midday that I was out but some of them are ok. Mike came over from Leeds for lunch at a good little veggie cafe here in Manchester then we wandered back through town looking for somewhere that wasn't full for a beer and ended up at our apartment. For the evening Zak and I went to see a dance/show based on the Indian epic The Mahabharata. Some of it was ok but apparently modern dance is just another term for formation walking which kind of took any excitement to be had out of the whole affair. The music, by Nitin Sawney, was pretty good, though. After that went to Canal St. and had a beer sat outside, by the canal. All very European. Sunday decided not to do much except get the shopping done and play some PS2. Final Fantasy XII for those who are interested.

2007-06-02T12:18:00.000+01:00

Been a very GTD heavy week. Really enjoyed listening to the podcast with Merlin Mann and David Allen mentioned a couple of posts back and have now tricked out my filofax for proper GTD use. I'd never really gotten to grips with how the filofax could be organised and it's been a very organic process. Still not entirely happy with it but it's definitely getting there. A couple of interesting comments that pinged in my mind were that can take two years for GTD to really take hold. The other was to remember that it's as easy to fall back on to GTD as to fall off.
The other GTD-related observation I have for the week is in the use of place labels. That is, organising next actions by location or person: Stuff I want to ask my boss goes on an @boss list. I started consciously doing this a few weeks ago because I need to be in regular contact with several people who are not based at the same site as me and it was a convenient way of organising. Of course, this is not some new GTD thing, it's always been there but I just never had a great need to do it before. And now that I've recognised it I can start implementing this in other ways. So if I have a bunch of phonecalls to make they go on an @phone list, or websites on an @internet list.
Went to see Pirates 3 this week. It was all right, better than the second one. I feel about it much as I did Spiderman 3. It's a fun film, not art. Bad reviews come along because it's supposed to match some ridiculous artistic ideal that it's not really striving for. The main problem with it is that it's just a bit too silly and the macguffins are generally poorly explained and come across as just plot devices we're supposed to suck up without questioning. Which is ok unless you're remotely tempted to ask yourself, erm, why did that just happen?

2007-05-29T13:59:00.000+01:00

Heftier stars are more likely to host planets - space - 29 May 2007 - New Scientist Space
Reading this article it struck me that, while we have long supposed that other stars must have their own solar systems, we are now in a position where we know it to be true and we have photos of them. That's pretty awesome.

2007-05-25T19:57:00.001+01:00

Now that I am taking the bus to work I have time to catch up on all those podcasts that I've been hearing about. There are plenty out there and I'm slowly making my way through ones that have caught my eyes, from award-nominated SF short stories, through Zen, to intellectual discussions about just about anything.
Today I started listening to one I've been wanting to hear for a while: discussions on GTD between Merlin Mann and David Allen. I heard the first two today on my way home and they really got me thinking about my current GTD implementation. The second episode looked at how things can leak out of the system when reviews are not properly done and longer-term goals are not looked at leading to a kind of background level of stress or distrust of the system and this really struck a chord. Since starting work I have been pretty rigorous about getting my system together and keeping it going there and that has meant that I do feel pretty on top of all that. This, in GTD terminology, is all runway stuff, things that are directly in front of me that need dealing with now. However that hasn't left me feeling less stressed or helped me come to terms with stuff going on outside the system. Something I haven't really done before is use the system for long-term goals and things that I want to do with my life in the future, like making progress with my writing. In short it is time for me to get through the book and conduct a serious review. I'm looking forward to seeing what it throws out.

2007-05-13T20:37:00.000+01:00

David came over yesterday evening so we went for a meal in Chinatown (not bad, generous portions, but not awesome) and then on to check out some Futuresonic events.

edit The MySpace page for the live act we saw: http://www.myspace.com/denisjones (Thanks David)

2007-05-12T09:49:00.000+01:00

No blog posts recently as I moved into my new apartment a three weeks ago and it has taken me this long to get broadband set up. My own fault for going with BT who have been rubbish. You'd think it would be easy to do something that they specialise in and do hundreds of times a day. They messed up setting up my phone line too. Now they want to charge me... I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry but have decided to wait a couple of days before calling to discuss everything with them again. Although what's the point? They don't care about their quality of service.

Which has been a major grumble for the past few weeks but also about my only one. Work is going well, the new apartment (just near Picadilly station) is very nice and things are trundling along nicely. I even managed to install Feisty on my laptop, despite more than a few problems with my ATI graphics card, and have now got it all more or less setup how I want it. (verdict - the ATI card thing is a real pain, some things are a bit easier but overall not a great deal of difference from Edgy, especially as I already had many of the new features already installed).

So, quick rundown of what's been happening: Went to Leeds got drunk, came back, went to Leeds again to see sister, work, work, work, work and saw Sunshine at cinema, work, Soo and Ant came over and we got drunk, felt terrible, parents came over for roast dinner, work, work, work and saw Spiderman 3, work and watched Pan's labyrinth on DVD (thanks Soo!).

Work is going well and I am enjoying the job. It's quite nice to be able to get my teeth into some of this stuff again and the feedback has been positive too. Sunshine was pretty good, really enjoyed it and glad I went to see it at the cinema because the vision of the sun is religious in the way it is used. There's a bit of a shift in tone at the end away from character that is a little disappointing though. Spiderman was better than I'd expected from some of the reviews and basically no better or worse than the others in the series. Pan's Labyrinth is really cool. Hard to believe it's from the same director who brought the world Hellboy (a film I enjoyed but came out of the cinema with no desire to see again. Feel maybe I should now, just to check).

2007-04-10T20:32:00.000+01:00

While at Stell's birthday do a couple of weeks ago Ant and I found out that Damo Suzuki, ex-lead singer with Can, was playing at a pub in Huddersfield over the Easter weekend. So, after helping my dad with various bits of DIY, drove over there to see it on Saturday night. First up was a psychedelic band which was pretty nice. Next came a band who produced a sound very similar to white noise for half an hour. Damo looked like he was sleeping through it all sat at the cd table until he bounced up to the stage to create an hour and a half of inspired audio lunacy. At one point I thought my brain was melting.
Went back to Anthony's after that and had a beer to relax. Sunday had a roast dinner at my aunt's, which was cool because we do not have an oven at the moment and roasting or baking anything is impossible.
Monday finished off installing the window sill my dad (with a bit of help from me) had put together for the front room and headed back to Huddersfield to meet up with David and Ant for a 9 mile walk in the rain and mist over some good Yorkshire moorland. Fantastic stuff.
All of which set me up quite nicely for today when I started my new job. Walked from the station to the mill where the office is, with my legs slightly aching from yesterday, for a gentle day of introductions and a look at the project I'll be working on. So far it all seems ok although there are a couple of things that need sorting, like access to Subversion, but the work itself looks like it's going to be interesting. It will be pretty challenging and the hours are quite long too, especially with the journey from my parents' house, but that should all be easier when we (hopefully) get an apartment in Manchester centre.
The journey home was a bit of a nightmare tonight. Got on the Metro with a lot of United fans going to tonight's match against Roma only to have it stop after one station because of a failed tram ahead. This meant waiting to be told to get off for twenty minutes and then getting the bus home making the total travel time back about 2 hours. Hopefully the next few days will go a little easier.

2007-03-24T15:51:00.000Z

Oh, yeah. Google have done something unthinkable. They've made the personalised home page actually look nice, if you really want. See http://www.google.com/ig.

2007-03-24T15:14:00.000Z

It has been a strange week, particularly on the job front. I had to finally get into gear and sign on so I telephoned the number I had been given and arranged an appointment for the next day. I was told to be there at 9:45 so I could start filling in the forms because their computer system was down and they could not do it for me. I turned up but the office does not open until 10, which was a bit frustrating. I had to agree my contract for getting back to work, to apply for so many jobs a week and so on, and then my application had to be sent off to assess my eligibility because I had been out of the country for a year, in case I might be foreign or something. I was also given a few jobs to apply for that they found for me on the computer. Apparently they can only look locally but if you go to the website yourself, www.jobcentre.gov.uk, you can do a national search. One of the jobs had to be applied for that same day so I emailed them my CV. Got asked to come for interview the next day (in Reddish, near Stockport), which I thought went pretty well but I always feel the pressure on the technical side because I simply haven't done any programming for a year. And yesterday they phoned up to find out if I would be interested in taking the job. Nothing has been absolutely confirmed yet but it looks very positive. Good opportunity, good salary. Should find out more details the start of next week.

2007-03-22T09:02:00.000Z

Recently finished Nova Swing by M John Harrison, one of my long-term favourite writers. No surprise, then, that I really enjoyed it. It's a brilliant piece of writing mixing noir tropes a slightly surreal sf story about a group of people whose lives are affected by the site, a kind of quantum interzone where the rules of our universe are broken. The writing is amazing, filled with light, drawing characters that whose motives are often difficult to perceive but are never less than real. In short, do yourself a favour and buy it.

http://www.mjohnharrison.com/index.htm

2007-03-08T16:45:00.000Z

Seems hard to believe that we have been in the UK for three weeks already. One question that keeps coming up is how weird is it being back which I never really know the answer to. In the first few days, still jetlagged and ragged, it was a bit weird but, for me, it's also coming home. I've done it several times before and I know that it is going to be weird. Probably the strangest thing so far has been standing in the cheese aisle in Sainsbury's paralysed by the sheer amount of choice. Just how many types of cheddar does one person actually need?
Spent the second weekend back visiting various friends in Chester and Leeds. It was nice to see everyone although I did drink rather a lot both times. Cheers to everyone for making us feel very welcome everywhere we've been. Other than that it was mostly just looking for jobs and brushing up on some of my skills.
Last weekend was the time of the move. My parents had agreed to exchange houses with my aunt and her family. My parents had a small, three bedroom terrace just for themselves while my aunt had a large two bedroom flat and two kids so the exchange seemed a fair one. The flat also backs on to a really nice park so it should be a good place to live... once it's been sorted. There's a lot of work to be done and both Zak and I have spent a lot of time cleaning, scrubbing and moving stuff around. Still, it's about at the point where it's livable now and the real work can begin once the windows have been replace. Noddy, our cat, arrived yesterday and is a bit freaked out by it all but he came out to play this morning. He's sulking under the bed again now.
Job-wise things are progressing slowly but they do seem to be progressing. I've had one interview and have another next week so I guess will have to see how it all goes.
It was also really nice to see Interzone with my story in it. It looks really cool and I'm very happy with it. Have to get on with some more now.
Favourite meal so far is probably the grilled wensleydale sandwich I had yesterday with tomato and fresh basil on ciabatta.

2007-02-16T15:31:00.000Z

So last week my time at the school drew to a close. Got some nice cards from the kids and an incredibly heavy tea caddy from my boss. Went out for one last night at Le Cargo and spent most of Saturday sorting, packing and throwing things away. On Sunday we got to Shanghai by train and went to the Metropole. Had a nice meal at the veggie restaurant Gongdelin and a drink in the Captain's Bar overlooking Pudong by night. Next day we did the cultural thing and went to the museum (but it's a really good museum!) and went to the Yu Gardens place for a look around the shops even though both our bags were heavy and full enough to dissuade us from buying anything.

In the evening we met up with Sly and then went to meet Victor and his new wife (Victor being my friend who is also into GTD). Victor also invited a friend of his who works for Microsoft and we had a bit of a chat about programming, GTD, etc while everyone else looked on, slightly bored. But they also invited me to join with them in working on lifehack.cn, a Chinese lifehacking site and I found today that Victor has set up a Backpack area for us to use.

Next day we met up with Sly again, went to the post office to send some of Zak's stuff back and sold her broken laptop before moving out of the hotel and to Sly's sister's apartment at the end of the number one Metro line. Sly took us out to Windows in the evening, it being a cheap place to drink in Shanghai. Next day Zak and I went up the Pearl Tower and enjoyed the views through the smog on what was quite a nice, if chilly day. Then we went back, cooked some steak for Sly's brother in law and got an early-ish night.

Up at six the next day to get to the airport. Bit of bother there as Zak has two violins and baggage restrictions are pretty tight, especially as we were transiting through the UK. Our plane to Heathrow was delayed so we were able to Fast Track through the security. They didn't even look twice at the violins we were carrying (well, except through the x-ray) which is a bit infuriating with the bother we had in Shanghai. There is no policy on instruments
which is what causes the problem. Anyway, we missed the flight to Manchester, got booked on to the next one and that was delayed an hour as well. So, finally got back home almost exactly 24 hours after leaving for the airport. A long journey.

2007-02-09T03:41:00.000Z

Just submitted my first bug report to Ubuntu as my Firefox keeps crashing.
https://launchpad.net/bugs/84132

2007-02-08T01:23:00.000Z

Went to poker for the last time yesterday evening. Kind of sad, but I won two games out of three so it was fun too and I am immortalised in the book for my last week. I suppose I should say that Zak won a game too.

2007-02-07T11:26:00.001Z

Frying peanuts
Originally uploaded by grazulis.

2007-02-07T08:50:00.000Z

Entering into the final stretch now, only a few days until we leave Ningbo and head to Shanghai before flying back to the UK. Everything seems to have taken on a kind of serene calm before the storm, helped by the unusually warm weather making it feel like spring, although there have been a few goodbyes, boxes have been posted and some tears and arguments along the way.
Monday night was fun. We invited William, a chef, over to our apartment along with a few other people to have a night of learning how to cook. It was all a bit hectic but I now have the recipes for some of my favourite dishes, including gongbao jiding, a really nice sweet and sour soup, tofu and pumpkin, as well as a couple of things I wouldn't have known what to really do with before.
Not really sure how much chance I'll have to get online between now and going. I imagine I'll be able to use my laptop to connect wirelessly in some cafe in Shanghai but I hope to have more interesting things to do than that. Like visiting museums.

2007-01-30T01:27:00.000Z

LOL. Should I switch back now?

BA strike called off
Union abandons strike but British Airways says it is too late to prevent widespread disruption.

2007-01-29T10:20:00.000Z

Phoned BA today and changed my departure date to be the 15th Feb instead of the 13th. Pretty sure I'm about to read that the trade unions have come to an agreement with BA and the strikes are off but a couple of extra days in Shanghai aren't necessarily a bad thing.

2007-01-29T03:44:00.000Z

Buddhism can be regarded as a fairly negative religion, especially when reading the Mahayana teachings of emptiness. This can lead to many misunderstandings as to the nature of that emptiness and what enlightenment is. Often when one hears about a Zen master or someone who has had a satori experience there is a sense in which that person is enlightened, that they become a moral authority without peer. Yet there are also many instances of masters, from all traditions, behaving in ways that do not suit them. It is as though the teaching absolves them from moral absolutes by virtue of their own experience combined with a thorough disdain for the normal world in which the rest of us live. This can lead to people abusing their position in various ways, even leading to views that seem very much at odds with Buddhism's peaceful reputation, such as described in the book Zen at War.

Over the past year I have been slowly making my way through the Vimalakirti Sutra, which tells the tale of a layman known as Vimalakirti and describes his complete understanding of the doctrine of emptiness. At the start of the book he is pretending to be ill in order to encourage visitors to come and listen to his teaching. At one point in the book he is visited by a number of bodhisattvas from a different realm of existence where enlightenment is easy to attain. They go together to meet the Buddha from our realm and put to him a question as to how he can teach in this world when there is so much wrong with it. The Buddha's answer is interesting and it addresses something of the correct way to approach emptiness. That is, while we should hold on to emptiness as a method for understanding the nature reality it is important for us to remember the rules of the world around us, of what the best of us should try to be in our relations with others. Emptiness, in other words, is not some kind of all-purpose get-out clause for our actions even if we are enlightened, and more so if we are not.

"What is meant by saying that the bodhisattva does not dwell in the unconditioned? It means that one studies and practices the teachings on emptiness, but does not take emptiness to be enlightenment. One studies and practices the teachings on nonform and nonaction, but does not take nonform and nonaction to be enlightenment. One studies and practices the teachings on nonarousal [of causes], but does not take nonarousal to be enlightenment. One views things as impermanent, but does not neglect to cultivate the roots of goodness. One views the world as marked by suffering, but does not hate to be born and die in it.... One views the world as something to be cast off, withdrawn from, yet with body and mind one practices goodness.... One embraces the view of emptiness and nothingness, yet does not discard one's great pity.... One embraces the view that all phenomena are are void and false, lacking firmness, lacking personality... yet while one's original vow remains unfulfilled, one does not regard merits, virtues, meditation or wisdom as meaningless."
Chapter 11, Vimalakirti Sutra, trans. Burton Watson, 1997, Columbia Press.

2007-01-25T11:44:00.000Z

so, it's been an odd week again. a friend of mine has fled ningbo to look for work in shanghai and try and become a better person by squatting in his sister's house. turns out i've booked a flight on a day that BA might be striking. my boss has spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me to stay, badly. ("O, go on. It'll be great because I still don't have any kind of business development plan, want you to do more work and would you mind switching to a bonus scheme so i don't have to pay you because we will make a profit. honest."). had some nice comments about my story on the interzone forum. and i've been recording my moods in one of the best online apps i've ever seen - moodjam.org.
flying back on the 13th Feb, strikes permitting.

2007-01-18T01:58:00.000Z

Democracy works! Probably...

"You recently signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to
"create a new exception to copyright law that gives individuals
the right to create a private copy of copyrighted materials for
their own personal use, including back-ups, archiving and
shifting format."

The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and
you can view it here:
http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page10776.asp"

2007-01-17T07:33:00.000Z

Can't quite believe that I haven't posted since before New Year. So I guess a belated Happy New Year is in order. I guess that partly it's because the internet is still a bit rubbish. It gets a little better every day but a lot of stuff is still either extremely slow, times out or is inaccessible. This includes my googlepages website (although as the rest of Google has been strangely unaffected by the whole event may not be because of the earthquake), which is a bit annoying because I wanted to take a good look at it and fix a few things up as the address will be appearing in Interzone this month. That's right - any moment now your local supplier should be putting out the latest copy of Britain's best science fiction magazine with my first published story in it. Erm, buy it. Borders usually has it.

On the flip side it looks like my time in China is coming to an end. Things here at the school have not improved and so I feel it is definitely time to move back to the UK and be happy about the experience instead of trying to drag it out and getting more frustrated.

In the meantime we had an ok, drunken new year visiting various bars in Ningbo of varying quality (low to bad). Dmitri is back from Japan and it was his birthday last weekend so we went out for that. First he and Sly came over and we took them to the mall, Wanda World. Sly has never been in a B&Q before so we had some difficulty getting him away from the cordless drills. Had some nice seafood and went to play chess and drink coffee afterwards. Then we went and got drunk.

I have ordered suit which is being finished this week so that I can collect it on Sunday. I also have a number of things to sort out before my return to England, such as posting some boxes of stuff, buying some presents and booking our flights. Which I can't do until the school has confirmed what it is doing about my visa. If they don't let me know soon I'm just going to book a flight as soon as possible because I can't afford to wait around seeing as it's Chinese New Year soon.

I've also started teaching myself Ruby with an idea for developing a Rails application for writers. It's mostly just to get me back in the right mindset before going home but it's been really interesting. It's pretty well worked out as a framework for developing web applications but it's hard to find any decent reference material. Guess that will have to wait until I can get to a good bookshop.

Just finished reading "Looking for Jake" by China Mieville. It's a collection of modern fantasy short stories that are mostly set in London. I enjoyed it but it somehow felt like looking at old, sepia photographs; they look nice and you get an impression for the place but you sometimes wish for more.

2006-12-29T02:41:00.000Z

An earthquake near Taiwan has damaged some cables and now the internet is pretty much broken. I can access Google and stuff inside China but that's about it. Here's a China Daily article about it and an update.

2006-12-28T01:18:00.000Z

Seasons Greetings!

I had originally intended to do a short podcast for Christmas but I've had a pretty bad cold and feel that listening to me cough and splutter over the internet probably won't be the kind of fun experience that anyone would really want to listen to.

Last week we had the school Christmas party. That caused a pretty hectic week with something of a clash of cultures as the Chinese teachers took it far too seriously. The would basically take the kids out of mine and Ann's classes without permission and then argue when we complained that we actually wanted to teach them, or maybe even prepare them to do something for the party ourselves. They also got themselves into a very wound up state - one was practically throwing up with the stress she put herself under - shouting at the kids when they got the slightest thing wrong, pretty much taking any fun to be had out of the event and hiding it far away beneath the needs of their own egos. It was bizarre, disappointing and frustrating to witness.

Despite all this the party itself worked out fine with good performances from the kids and the parents seemed to enjoy it. Mr Cai, the head of the school, was there for a short time although more than one parent commented that it was strange how he could come to the Christmas party but cold not be bothered to attend proper meetings with parents. He also disappeared pretty quickly too. After the party Ann and her partner, Joop, came back to our apartment where the other foreign teachers came along for a few xmas drinks as well. Friday the kids and the teachers felt we deserved a rest after a very difficult week so we took it easy.

Saturday was Christmas shopping. Going into Ningbo any weekend is like Christmas shopping and Christmas itself made little difference as it is not observed here except as an opportunity to decorate the shops. We got in and out early enough for it not to be too difficult. In the evening Zak and I went to the Web school Christmas party at the Sheraton. Although neither of us has worked for Web for a while we helped bring the number of foreigners up. It was a fairly formal do, mostly in Chinese, and the food was a little disappointing. Still, there was plenty of free wine and all the smoked salmon I could eat so I can't complain. Afterwards we went to Le Cargo and then on to some smaller bars on the other side of town.

On Sunday we decided to visit Wanda World, a new mall that has opened up next to the school. It's a mall, so there's not a lot to say about it. Of course it's nice to have some restaurants and shops near the school as otherwise it would remain a bit of a wasteland around here but it's just a mall. I started feeling a bit ill while there though and by later in the afternoon my cold had come on in full force. Sore throat, sore nose, sore head, sore ears. I managed to get out to the Indian Kitchen for their Christmas buffet which was nice but a bit of a waste as I couldn't taste very much.

Christmas day we opened presents (for the record: an 80GB USB hard drive, a 2 GB memory stick for my phone, some incense and a bottle of whiskey) and I slept. In the evening we headed out to Josh's, a new Web teacher, for a Christmas party and by then I was starting to feel a little more human. Had some great food - pasta, dip, potato salad - and then came home as I was shattered and Zak had to work.

Watched A Scanner Darkly the other night. Really good film. Pretty much captures the book (at least it does a better job than any other PKD adaptation I've seen, wonder if they'll do Valis next? LOL) . The rotoscope effect works really well to give it a timeless feel. It could almost be set back in the sixties/seventies or in the future. Sometimes it is a little jarring to go from almost photo-real images of the outside world to the very cartoony indoor scenes but in a way that feels like part of the point. Importantly the story retains the power to shock, too, as it hints at the effect of Substance D on society - not just on the users but those who would exploit it for their own ends and power. It's a film that has all the bits but doesn't make it easy for the viewer. Intelligent, well made SF. It's a rare thing and should be treasured. I am also really looking forward to The Fountain.

Yesterday did not do very much at all apart from reading and some writing. Today is Zak's birthday so we are out for a meal tonight. My cold is still with me, my head is still bunged up and I spent what felt like half of last night coughing, but I guess I'm on the mend.

2006-12-22T00:57:00.000Z

never drinking baijiu again. ever.

2006-12-19T00:22:00.000Z

This is an interesting article on the Chinese economy in the Guardian:

"If anything, the Chinese response has been churlish, dishonest, petulant, hectoring, and patronising. Instead of addressing American concerns head-on, the Chinese reminded a country less than three centuries old that being older, China deserved respect and a different treatment....
It requires a particular form of chutzpah to roll out convenient aspects of Chinese history, which show foreigners in a bad light, while glossing over their own policies which have impoverished their people, if not keeping them imprisoned. And so China showed images of the opium wars, attempting to imply that China is a struggling country, emerging out of centuries of misery, and none of it was the fault of its own leaders, and the world must be patient with this fragile nation."

2006-12-18T07:40:00.000Z

Only one week to go until Christmas. Here at the school things are a little chaotic as the kids are mostly practising for their concert on Thursday evening. In the mornings we are running classes as normal but in the afternoons it looks like it's all change for this week.

Other than that things are pretty much as they are. Anne, the other Primary School teacher, has put in a letter to ask that her pay be increased (she is being badly underpaid) and the head of the school has basically ignored it and made no effort to talk to her in the week since. As for me I'm pretty much convinced that it would be best to leave at the end of this semester as I have not had anything happen to make me think otherwise. It seems a shame in some ways but I don't have any regrets. I've mostly enjoyed the past year in China but it is time to move on.

Life has been pretty quiet. It's cold but the weather has recently not been too bad except for a heavy fog one day last week. We've been going out for meals but nothing major. Yesterday we went to the gym as we had some free guest passes. The gym was quite nice, modern and well equipped but as it is in the city centre it's not really a good option for regular use. And the sauna doesn't seem to be used at all which is the best thing about going to the gym in the first place. I have lost a lot of my fitness, which is kind of shocking except that I've done little exercise for the past year except for walking around town. I can't even really get into the countryside very easily and there's not much in the way of hills around here anyway. Most are being scoured away to help build roads and buildings. The whole province will probably be completely level in ten years time.

Christmas is here in a small way. The shops are decorated and playing Christmas songs but, unsurprisingly, there's little else to indicate it's coming. We are planning on seeing some friends on the day itself and then probably going to a bar. I have the week off but Zak doesn't so that limits our options. Still, a rest will be nice and it should be a good opportunity to catch up on some writing. I was hoping to go to Beijing to meet Wu Yan, a Chinese science fiction writer, but I am not sure if that will be possible now. I need to check the details and decide. Soon, I guess.

2006-12-07T01:37:00.000Z

Grrr. One thing with regularly using different computers to access the various sites that I publish to or read or use to (attempt to) manage my life - logging on generally sucks. Most sites you visit and you have a big advert for signing up and a tiny link hidden away somewhere for regular users. In the case of Flickr, because I joined before it was taken over by Yahoo, I have to visit three pages before I can actually log in and see my account. It's moronic. Bloglines, Remember the Milk, Box.net are all the same. What is so bad about letting the people who actually use (and in some cases pay for) your service get access to them quickly and easily?

2006-12-03T05:37:00.000Z

Every so often I will think about taking another look at Linux. Usually the pattern is that I install it, play with it, and then uninstall it after a week when I need a Windows application or realise that, actually, Linux is kind of ugly and not that nice, or get fed up of having a simple task like sticking a CD into the drive made complicated. It has been a few years since I last tried it and I have been seeing frequent references to a new, easy to use distribution called Ubuntu. This itself still was not really enough to convince me but then I read that Mac users were making the switch. Maybe Linux is finally ready to be a desktop replacement that you can enjoy using instead of putting up with. I wanted to find out.

I downloaded the iso to burn it to a cd. You boot from the cd and the operating system starts so you have an opportunity to try it and see if it works before you commit yourself to installing. It seemed to work fine on my Acer 5500 laptop apart from a lack of correct screen resolutions and I liked the look of it. The default theme is orange which makes it really stand out from pretty much every other operating system out there. I admit I do like it but, if I get bored of it this is Linux and it is a simple job to changed pretty much every aspect of how it looks.

I lacked the courage to actually install it on my laptop as I was concerned about losing XP. Fortunately my work PC, which was pretty much not working due to the number of viruses on the school network, had a couple of very large, empty partitions and I decided to give it a go on that. After playing with it and using it for work pretty much full-time Nanowrimo came along and I needed to use the rather rubbish computer the school provided for my apartment. Because of the difficulty it has with XP I decided to give Ubuntu a try on that too. For the whole month of November, then, I have been almost exclusively using Ubuntu and for the first time I did not miss Windows at all. I decided to take the plunge and install it on my laptop.

All three installations have gone without any major problems. There is some great online documentation for helping fix up some of the little issues with Ubuntu hot off the cd and tools like Easy Ubuntu made the work of getting MP3 working, installing Skype and getting the correct video drivers very easy. I also decided to give Beryl a try. Beryl is a kind of extra layer for the UI which makes windows transparent, or wobble when you move them, and generally look like a very modern, Vista-like operating system. It can be a bit flaky and crash (it is still in development) at times but it does look really good, once some of the more extreme effects have been turned off.

I've also found applications to match everything I need and want to do with my laptop. Amarok is an excellent music player with some really good features, like lyric look-up and a feature that downloads all the missing album covers for you. Picasa is available for Linux too so I get to keep my favourite photo organiser. Stellarium is a really good-looking star map program and Democracy TV looks really interesting, offering easy downloads from various channels, You Tube search and download and the ability to add torrents. Open Office and Abiword are decent replacements for Microsoft Office, although they are not quite as good (and I miss the ribbon) but they do everything that I need them to do. I spend most of my time in Google Docs now anyway - pretty much all of my novel was written in it. The only thing I can't do is play the latest games, but I got out of the habit of doing that a long time ago.

So, is it all it's cracked up to be, a Linux for the masses? Well, not quite. It is very usable once it has been set up. Installing applications is easy, and free, but some things do still require a trip to the console to run commands. There's no mp3 support on a fresh install and, although it's easy to sort things like this out using Easy Ubuntu or a guide it is an extra burden. I would say, though, that once it is all set up then it is easy to use (And, to be honest, how many people can really set up Windows themselves, easily, getting it all right? At least with Ubuntu you also end up with all the software the average user needs already installed. Except for mp3.) I will keep using it and now feel I have pretty much made the switch. Of course I'll still need to use MS Windows for development and the odd thing that I can't do with Linux (update my horribly proprietary Sony mp3 player or play Rome:Total War) but I feel comfortable with Ubuntu now and plan on sticking with it for a while. Hasta la victoria siempre.

Links:
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/26/essentials-2006

2006-11-29T01:17:00.000Z

Well, I did it. I finished nanowrimo and have written 50,000 words in just under 30 days. The resulting story might be good, it might be terrible; to be honest it's all a bit of a blur. I am certain that it's not readable at the moment, never mind publishable. So why do it?
Well I have 50,000 words of new ideas and writing now. That is a significant thing. I've also learnt a lot, about what I can achieve and how I can go about it. It sounds trite but the only way to actually write is to get words down. Some days those words may be useless and need re-writing but other days things slot into place and just work. And suddenly that strange idea you had to do that has relevance to this and it all, maybe, just works. It was fun to go out there with only a vague idea for a couple of characters, a broad idea of where I wanted to end up and almost nothing in-between.
There have been times when it has been hard. I've fallen behind, felt like I did not want to continue, wondered if it's worth it when I likely have no real inclination to get this story published. Two things generally got me going again. The first was simply the word count. If I sat down and did so many words today and tomorrow (and sometimes the days after too...), then I would catch up. It's the sitting down and doing it that is the hard part - once it's under way it generally keeps itself going, unless it's one of the bad days. As for getting published, well I wrote the story to have fun. In the process I may have created something that, with some extra work, may be publishable. I don't know. But even if not I have played with a lot of ideas and had a good time doing so.
Probably the biggest thing I've learned, though, is to get out of the short story mentality that I've been stuck in. The biggest problem with writing a novel that I've had over the past year is just how to get to the point where you take an idea and write so many words about it. It seemed impossible. Now it seems like something that I can enjoy doing.
So what's next? First, relax for a bit, get on with other things I've been wanting to do, like getting Ubuntu set up on my laptop, and probably do some work writing on some other ideas before taking a look at the story and probably sorting it out.

2006-11-23T06:07:00.000Z

And suddenly I can access blogger and blogspot again.
Still writing - have changed the image on the right to show you my daily progress, if you're really interested.
It's getting colder here. Lots of rain too. Have bought a thick coat and some jumpers in order to be able to cope. More when I'm done with Nano. In the meantime guess I'll enable email posting, just in case.

2006-11-17T09:50:00.000Z

Digging through the new Google Docs and Spreadsheets settings I discovered that it can post to Blogger too. So I'm giving it a try.
Last week the school went to a mandarin orange orchard. We picked a lot of oranges and everyone enjoyed themselves.Today I started teaching the kids how to use powerpoint to create a slide on conservation. Tried to kick them out at break time but they wouldn't go.

Editing - I can also edit the post from Docs and Spreadsheets too. An online editor to edit a website? I would have wondered what the point was before...

Blogger access

2006-11-16T03:56:00.001Z

Blogger access
Originally uploaded by grazulis.

I cannot get to Blogger anymore. Google is also occasionally available. Of course, Wikipedia is back, so it's not all bad news, but not being able to reach some sites is extremely frustrating. Wishing I had thought to enable email posts.
I am doing this through Flickr, which I remembered allows me to post, but it is a bit of a pain because I can't edit or make changes afterwards.
Things are going well, though. I have written over 25000 words for Nanowrimo which means that I am on target. This is after a very shaky start because of a lack of time the first weekend and my being a little ill. Overall I'm really enjoying the process of writing the book in such a short space of time. It has taught me a lot and the book might actually be half-way ok by the end. After a lot of revisions.
I also got word that my story is in the next issue of Interzone. It will be published in January.
Other than that, things have been pretty quiet.

2006-11-01T07:33:00.000Z

If I'm a bit quiet on the blogging this next month it's because I've decided to do Nanowrimo, a month long challenge to write a novel of 50,000 words. I have a feeling it's going to be touch because I consider it a good day when I get 1000 words written but I guess that's the point. Anyway, if you're interested in giving it a try yourself just click on the icon on the right.

2006-10-30T03:43:00.000Z

Some websites I've found interesting recently:

BoingBoing has to be one of my favourite "news" sites of the moment, just for the sheer amount of junk it throws up as well as interesting info on geeky stuff.
http://www.boingboing.com

This is kind of like Google maps on steroids. It seems a bit slow but a nice way to waste half an hour.
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/index.html

More National Geographic, this time a whole area on world music with stuff to listen to.
http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/home

The new, improved Google reader is much better, to me, than the old version and has just about replaced bloglines, so long as I'm on a fast connection. Now if only they'd implement being able to order subscriptions other than newest first.
http://www.google.com/reader/view/

Turn photos into ascii art.
http://www.typorganism.com/asciiomatic/

Book on web design by 37Signals, the gurus of Web2.0
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php

Finally, Nanowrimo is a website to support the National Novel Writing Month with a challenge for any writer (or wannabe) to write 50000 words in November.
http://www.nanowrimo.org

2006-10-25T05:34:00.000+01:00

I arrived in Manchester, very tired, and was kindly collected and deposited home by my Uncle John. The next evening my parents arrived home. On the Saturday I went to visit Soo and Dave in Chester and had a bit too much to each and drink, but it was all very nice. It was weird being back in the UK, especially as the reason was so unexpected, and seeing some friendly faces helped. I went back home on the Sunday and began thinking about the speech that my mum asked me to give at the funeral for my Grandma. I still wasn't sleeping properly, usually waking up at around 4 or 5 in the morning, and on Monday morning, when I woke, I wrote the basis for the whole speech which I then finished off through the day.
The funeral was on the Tuesday. The church was full of family and friends which was really nice to see. I was very nervous about giving the speech on several levels; just doing it was one, but there is also the worry about content, what people would think, and all that. My mum had read it and thought it was good so I just had to get up and do it although by the end I was shaking and almost crying. It's something that I am glad to have done. Grandma meant a lot to me and I was happy that I was given the opportunity no matter how stressful it was at the time.
I didn't really do much on the Wednesday except go into Manchester to have a look at the bookshops. I got an email off David K suggesting we meet for lunch so I met him at the Earth cafe. It was good food, even if it was vegan... On Thursday my trip to Leeds began. I met Andy in the Angel for old times sake and then, slightly drunk, we went back to his house where we ate pizza and chatted. We all needed an early night, though, and I spent the next day reaquainting myself with my PS2 and reading comic books (thanks, Andy!).
I met Anthony in the Vic at 5pm. I'd remembered to email someone from my previous job at Education Leeds and so a few people I knew from then came along and said hello. Slowly my other friends started to arrive, as well as my sister and her boyfriend. Was thoroughly drunk by the time we left, which was only about 10:30 to give us time to get to an off-license before heading back to Anthony's and carrying on. Got to bed about 3.
After a few rough bits felt surprisingly ok on Saturday. Went to Hansa's, a very nice vegetarian restaurant in Leeds, with Mike, Cate, David and Amy. Ant came as well. Then back to Ant's where Dave and Dutch turned up to say hello. Got an early night, though.
Flew back on Monday with a rucksack of twiglets, marmite and dry roasted peanuts. Back at the school I was told that my boss had decided to hire a known heavy drinker and generally inappropriate teacher. Finally think Ann and I managed to convince him that no matter how desparate we are for teachers this would be a really bad idea.

2006-10-11T08:24:00.000+01:00

Lots has been happening since my last post. I met my parents in Hangzhou on Sunday 1st October, which is National Day here in China. Chinese people generally get a week off but because there's no real holiday here they have to work the weekends to make up for it. In the run up to that Sunday I had to attend three Chinese functions in a row and by the end of it I was wishing that I was vegetarian again. If I never eat a strange bit of meat again it will be too soon. One function was for my school, another for the company that owns the school and the last for the mayor's National Day speech.
Hangzhou was generally pretty ok apart from the bit where I fell over and bruised my knee and chest by landing on a bench. Saw some bits of countryside I hadn't seen before and I think my parents enjoyed it. On the way back to Ningbo we stopped at the Lu Xun museum in Shaoxing and spent half the day there. It's not just a museum but also a preserved bit of the old town. There's photos from my last visit. As everyone in China has holiday at the same time it was all pretty busy and by the time I got back to Ningbo I was about ready for a rest. It wasn't quite to be; I took the folks to the city centre for some shopping which took most of the day. The next day we went to the Qing'an assembly hall which was a kind of maritime museum but was pretty interesting before meeting up with my boss in a tea house in Laowaitan. In the afternoon we went to Moon Lake and rode a pedalo around it.
On the Friday we received some bad news. My grandma died the day before. From that point on it's been a bit hectic as various calls had to be made and things sorted out and things left without knowing what would happen. The funeral is next week, on my birthday, so my parents have been able to complete their holiday at least. I've changed my existing ticket to allow me to fly back to Manchester but the only space has been for tomorrow so I will be back before them. I've also arranged a ticket back for the 23rd. So tonight I'm off to Shanghai to see my parents, briefly, before I fly back. I am hoping to meet up with some friends while I'm there but it's all going to be a little odd, I think.
Had another good bbq at William's last Saturday. Some really good food and then ended up at LBBs. Do have some other news but that's going to have to wait for now. Watched Superman Returns the night before last. I enjoyed it. Which is strange really because I've avoided Superman comics as though I were allergic to them. It captures the spirit of the original films really well (and let's face it, you just need to hear the theme to remember) and you can at least see where the budget went.
Also had a serious chat with my boss today because things at the school aren't going well and I felt I had to impress upon him the importance of certain things happening while I am gone. On top of which I was told this morning that some new children would be starting in Ann's class which we were never told about. Overall I'm not happy.

2006-09-27T08:29:00.000+01:00

I've gotten a little out of practise implementing GTD properly because it hasn't really been necessary until recently. As such my system has become very adhoc which poor management of categories and a rather slapdash approach to doing reviews leading to a loss of control on my part. The new job is not so familiar to me and requires a different way of thinking; using broad labels such as work or home have made it hard for me to create the focus of Next Actions that I have really needed. Some distinctions within categories and inboxes have become blurred making it harder for me to manage even basic requirements for acheiving. The net result of all this has been greater stress within the context of an environment that I can do little about.

After reading this article on DIYPlanner I decided to attack the problem at source and I cracked open Freemind in order to work out my goals and categories across both work and home and take a look at what has been working and what has failed.

Using a mindmap I was broke things up into distinct categories based on my current needs for Work and Home. Under Work, there is Teaching, Admin and Attitude. These are then further broken down into relevant subcategories (see the mindmap below). I then broke these down further, either with extra categories or tasks that I need to complete, to get as much down as possible and to help highlight which of these categories are important and which are not.

On the Home side I used the Physical, Spiritual, Social and Cognitive categories suggested in the DIY article. Under these topics I began to list some of the things that I wanted make sure I find the time to do, like Writing under Spiritual or Reading and GTD under Cognitive.

With this work done it was time to see about putting it into practice. I have a long list of inboxes at the moment so I decided to focus on getting that down to just two, on the computer, which can then be supplemented by more mobile methods, like the hipster, later.

I began by looking again at Remember the Milk for ToDo lists instead of using an offline application such as Outlook so that it is easier for me to manage and check my lists wherever I am. As I've mentioned before RTM also has some good features and is fast to use.
My previous categories were area-based, such as Home or Work, but there was no way to highlight what needed to be done immediately. I began by setting up some new lists and renaming old ones. The lists that I have currently settled on are:

@NextActions
@Waiting
Home
Shopping
Writing

The @s are to make those appear first on the list. Everything begins life in the @NextActions list and can then be moved if it's more appropriate that it go somewhere else. However I then found that I wanted to be able to categorise items further so that I could keep everything I need in the @NextAction category but still be able to look at a particular area, such as Curriculum. To resolve this I took the list of categories I'd worked out in the mindmap and applied them as labels. For example, "Amend Curriculum Plan" is tagged with Admin and Curriculum. Admin is the big label but Curriculum helps to refine it. (I can also assign names under tasks too, especially useful for @Waiting items). RTMs Overview page includes an section that combines Lists and Labels in a single box with items displayed in a cloud with items at different sizes depending upon how many items are in them making it easy to see lists and projects that have a lot to do (see screenshot above). Finally I printed out a copy of the mindmap of labels which I can keep on my desk for easy reference when creating new items.

Once I was happy that that was in place I started to tackle my email. I still like the gmail interface so I saw no reason to change from that. It's fast and flexible and available whereever I have internet access. The first thing to do was to separate my work email from my personal mail. Work email in my personal space depresses me because it makes me feel like I have to deal with it even when I'm not at work. I have already set up a work email account which I have begun to encourage people to use but not everyone does and stuff just gets through. So I have set up a filter on the worst offenders to forward those messages on to the work account and label them huamao so that I can remove them from my personal mail account during review. I then went through and deleted the work messages from my email account so that it is now just for me (after forwarding ones I needed to keep to the work address).

The next step was then to redo the labels. I have never used labels in Gmail effectively. Some, like "Scotland" (set up to bring together info about a trip to Scotland 3 years ago) could be deleted while others, like Parents' holiday (to track details of bookings for my parents' trip to China at the moment) I've renamed. I also created two new categories, @Reply and @ToRead, for marking those emails that require further action. All others can be archived or deleted. Emails requiring further response are also starred so that there is a single quick click I can do to see what outstanding emails I have. And best of all it leaves me with an empty inbox. My new list of labels in gmail (remember, this is for personal use) is:

@Reply
@ToRead
computer - for anything related to computing such as MS newsletters
family - messages from my family
friends - message from my friends
huamao - messages to do with my current job
info - basically a reference tag, for information like password reminders, flight details, etc.
jobs - contacts and other mails that I may need when looking for work
writing - stuff to do with writing, selling it or doing it

My work email account (also gmail) basically mirrors all of this but with slightly different categories based upon the RTM ones.

So, after spending a few hours rebuilding my GTD system I am feeling more in control of things than I was. There is a tendency when you feel like you have too much on your plate to sit back feeling sorry for yourself and just try to ride it out while getting more and more stressed. Now I feel like I'm in a position where I can at least be in control of what I need to do, even if the other problems with the job (or, rather, the management) are something that I am just going to have to accept for now.

My error was to be sloppy about reviews which led to poor and ill-thought categories and lists as well as extending the number of collection buckets I was "using" beyond a level that was maintainable. This kind of rebooting has made me feel much happier about what I need to do and reminded me that the most important things for me to keep the system going are the Next Actions and the Reviews.

Assuming, of course, I even stay in this job....

2006-09-21T05:41:00.000+01:00

Went to Shanghai last weekend. Ningbo is reasonably developed but is still lacking in a lot of areas - the shops are pretty monotonous, there aren't many bars and mostly it's just the same people out every week. Which is nice but it's good to experience something different for a change, especially as I've been feeling stressed. And Shanghai is very different. It's a truly modern city, with a fast, reliable underground, bookshops with good supplies of English novels, shops of a dizzying variety (everything from specialty kilim shops to Ikea), and a busy but relaxed vibe that makes London seem very quiet.
Mostly I wanted to buy a couple of books, and I ended up getting five. For those who are interested:

Umberto Eco - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
China Mieville - Looking for Jake
Liz Williams - Banner of Souls
Mark Gatiss - Vesuvius Club
Murakami - Norwegian Wood

We stayed in the Metropole as all the cheap places were booked up and we hadn't put a lot of thought into planning it. Still, it's a nicely decadent place, very reminiscent of the 1930s and our room had views over the Bund and a balcony looking over the rest of Shanghai.
Went to the Gongdelin vegetarian restaurant and had a couple of beers in a bar on Saturday. On Sunday I went to meet Victor, a guy I've been in occasional contact with as we share an interest in GTD and moleskines. We had a delicious Xinjiang meal and chatted about computers and time management. He's a nice bloke and I look forward to having the opportunity to meet up again.
After that I met up with Zak who had been looking at violins. As well as walking up and down a street filled with musical instrument shops we also headed to the Yu Gardens area but didn't really do much else before getting the train back to Ningbo.
It seems strange to me that I haven't been to Shanghai for the weekend before now, but I think I'll definitely be heading over again in the next month or so.

2006-09-09T09:39:00.000+01:00

Well, term started last friday and it's been something of an interesting week. Some has been good and some has been bad. The good is the actual job, and the small amount of teaching I do, is very enjoyable. I also like getting to know the Chinese staff and generally although there are things that are just plain not working there isn't a lot that I can do about that and I have to just keep pushing while letting things happen. The key example here is the attitude towards hiring more teachers. They are reluctant, still, to talk about paying for advertising or increasing teachers salaries to make it happen. But without more teachers we face a problem with existing parents and also with the fact that we simply cannot expand and get more students. Which brings us to the bad. Last night I got phonecalls from two parents who screamed at or threatened me down the phone because their kids had told them that a new pupil would be starting on Monday. That isn't even true - we had a visit from some parents who are keen to get their child in to the school but it isn't going to be on Monday. Even if it was true we would still have less than 10 children in a single classroom. The problem is that there is a wide range of ages in that classroom, from 5 to 10, and they believe that this is unacceptable. Now, I have spoken to the classroom teacher, Ann, and she maintains that teaching that range is well within her capacity. I am also teaching two of the older students for science and SOSE/History so that all the kids have guaranteed teacher time. Of course, the situation is not ideal and we desparately need another teacher but the parents' behaviour in all this is unacceptable.
I've also been out a couple of times this week with work. The first was on Monday for a meal to celebrate the start of term. This involved my boss, the acting principal Mr Cai, ganbei-ing everyone around the table. Ganbei means empty glass and is like "cheers" except that you do have to empty your glass. In this case, red wine. I was required to go around the table as well so I was thoroughly drunk by the time I got home.
Next, Friday night, we went out for a meal again for the Teachers Day Holiday but the drinking was a lot more subdued as everyone was saving themselves for the KTV afterwards. KTV is kareoke, which I have managed to avoid so far but not any more. The KTV club is basically lots of private rooms for groups to sit around on a sofa and enthusiastically applaud each other for singing. Yes, I did sing one song. But the strangest thing was when I went to the toilet. I was standing at the urinal when suddenly the attendant placed a hot towel on my neck and started giving me a head massage! To say I wasn't expecting it is understating the matter although I've been so tense all week that it was probably a good thing. Anyway, after KTV Zak and I headed into Laowaitan to meet some friends at a bar called Le Cargo, and I got very drunk for the second time this week.
On a non-work related theme Zak and I went to a very nice Lebanese restaurant on Tuesday. We had humus and aubergine dip and grilled chicken and meat with spices. It was great. And there's no alcohol served in the place which was even better.

2006-08-27T05:17:00.000+01:00

Watched a recent Hong Kong film called Election yesterday. The story is about the fall out within a triad from its election of its new chairman and the battle between the two candidates to gain control. It was really good. The film is very naturalistic, with no guns, so is very different from the normal HK fare. In fact the triad leaders spend most of their time in the film locked up as the police try to force them to work out a truce while the gang's factions fight amongst each other to deliver the baton of the chairman's authority to the leader they support.
It does have some faults. Some of the themes and characters aren't developed quite as well as they could have been, including the main theme of the battle between tradition and the need to "modernise" their gang activities. There is an Election 2 which apparently isn't quite as good, or at least is really just a kind of re-run of the original but it's supposed to be still watchable. If I see a copy with english subtitles I think I'll get it.
Today is the school's open day in preparation for the start of term next Friday. I get to meet parents and give a speech which is all a bit scary. I probably shouldn't have had tha second tequila last night but actually I feel fine. This lunchtime I listened to Just a Minute to help me relax.

2006-08-21T12:27:00.000+01:00

Today I met one of the richest men in China, the owner of Hua Mao group and my school. He came to see how the place is looking and generally give his blessing for the future. The school itself is really starting to look like a real school, with classrooms and everything.

2006-08-16T08:05:00.000+01:00

More playing about with Google, but this time with googlepages. My old website has been moderately popular, mainly because of the cut-up machine, but has been in a considerable limbo since UKOnline disabled the facility to upload changes through any mechanism except directly logging on to their servers. This always seemed to me a shame but at the same time I moved onto Blogger and found that maybe I didn't need a website anymore. However, with Google's new service I decided that maybe it was time to have another look at what a personal website should be.
I did take a quick look at googlepages when it was first announced but found the lack of javascript (an essential for the cut-up machine) and no abiliy to create your own template a bit too limiting. This time around there are still no personalised templates but there is the addition of google widgets, exactly like those used on the Google homepage, which can use javascript. So I spent Sunday evening playing with that and created a cut-up machine (which you can add to your desktop by clicking here: ).
That evening I fell ill with some kind of nasty food poisoning and spent most of Monday and Tuesday in bed. This morning, not really wanting to get on with very much else, I've been playing with the site and have now created a new(ish) homesite. So far it's just content from the old one and I haven't moved everything yet. But not bad for a morning's work.
Not that it has all been that easy. The lack of templates means that I am stuck with the scheme that Google has created and cannot modify it at all. So, if I want to change something on one page I have to go through all of them and change each one. It also means that it is impossible to create a generic menu system. To get around this I had to create another special widget and add it manually to each page. This seems ridiculous when compared with the functionality that blogger already offers and hopefully will be fixed soon.
Aside from that it works quite neatly. The page editor is simple and allows anyone to create a website. You can also upload pages and images (up to 100MB) so if I had wanted I could have used that facility to create a carbon copy of my old website without much fuss (except for the lack of folders).
So now I just have to decide what the website is for. Afterall I do have my blog so what's the point? I've yet to really decide. I think I want to look at the site as a platform for my writing, another plank on the muddy path of treating it as a career, and so there will be content and organisation changes over the next few months. Much of the older content will, I think, be archived off to the side to make way for other stuff. Now that I can. Unless the changes announced to Blogger today change my mind again.
The new home page can be seen at: http://gary.leeming.googlepages.com
Setup your own pages at: http://www.googlepages.com (you'll need a Google account)
Information on creating Google Gadgets: http://www.google.co.uk/apis/homepage/

2006-08-13T03:20:00.000+01:00

Well, I survived the typhoon. Actually we didn't even get any rain here in Ningbo although it was pretty bad in the south of the province. This week I've decided to finish with my part-time work with Web English School as it was just taking up too much of my time. My new job as Dean is really starting to take off and I want to be able to focus on that, and write, and the money isn't so important. It paid for my phone and got me a little extra, so that's ok.
As a writer I like to collect news articles, bits of science and odd words that I uncover on the internet. Previously this meant adding links to your favourites (and, latterly, delicious and bloglines) and forgetting about them. Then, almost inevitably, when you came back to read the article it wold be gone, moved or deleted, meaning extra wasted time searching Google for some remains of a half-remembered idea. Scrapbook for Firefox is a plugin that allows you to select a piece of text or even a whole web page and save it to your hard drive. It also has the ability to categorize your snippets into folders, add notes of your own, search and highlight text. All very useful, until you move to China and leave your computer behind.
Recently Google announced Notebook, an application that does pretty much the same as scrapbook but with the advantage that all your information is stored at Google, can be shared with others, and accessed anywhere with the internet. It also integrates with Firefox so additions can be made quickly simply by right-clicking on a selected piece of text or page, just like Scrapbook...
I've been using it a lot to collect articles and research information but I feel I haven't been using it all that effectively. Sure, it's a repository of information I want to be able to read when I want but what else can it do? This week I started using the enhanced Google homepage again and rediscovered the wonderful Word of the Day. I decided to add a word from the list to the Google notebook and realised that I may be able to use it more effectively. This morning I went into it and set up four different notebooks: Inbox, Words, Inspiration and Novel. Inbox is the default. Everything added goes in there. This saves me having to continuously alter which Notebook I'm adding to which is not an easy or intuitive process, especially from the pop-up window. Now, once a week I can go through the Inbox and file things into the correct notebook. Interesting articles that may be a starting point for an idea in Inspiration, words I like into Words, and research for my novel, well, you get the idea. Each notebook can also be divided into sections, which can be useful fo separating out specific information further. So now I can spend even more time on the web "researching" ;)
Google Notebook is still a labs (beta) product and does have some flaws and some omissions. There is AJAX implementation to create a nice interface but it can be a little unwieldy at times. Options such as collapse all are only available through a drop-down menu and they should really have instant access icons. You can create sections within a notebook but notes added just seem to be thrown into the latest section instead of at the top where they can be filed easily or, ideally, asking you which section you want the note in when you drop it onto the notebook. There is also no "tagging," a concept so integral to Gmail which would also work really well here as it is impossible to have notes in more than one section. The option to be able to quickly highlight text would also be useful as would being able to view the note full page or as a pop-out.

2006-08-06T04:27:00.000+01:00

Well, people travel for new experiences so last week I went bowling for the first time. It was an event organised by Web, the school where I'm doing some part-time teaching. It was a lot of fun although I didn't score that highly. I think it was around 80.
I have had another busy week. The work for the new school is starting to really pick up. Lots of forms and policies to get sorted before the start of term, new parents to meet, and new teachers to recruit and fix up with their visas. And when I'm not doing that then Web are asking me to do extra classes, which I am now having to turn down. I haven't had a day off for a few weeks now; so much for my long holiday... Spent yesterday afternoon in a teahouse working through some stuff in a meeting. The teahouse was pretty nice; quiet and comfortable. You pay about 50 or 60RMB for a cup of tea but you get endless refills and free food so it's expensive but a good place for go spend a couple of hours.
I downloaded Office 2007 Beta last week as I do miss having One Note and I wanted to test Outlook's iCal features. Seems pretty stable and I do really like the new interface. It's such a simple but powerful change that it almost seems a wonder no-one thought of it before. Now, instead of lots of drop-down menus and obscure icons the two are combined into a single "tabbed" interface. For example, the Home tab includes all the basic editing and style functions which are divided up into specific boxes and labelled with what they do. And if an option isn't there, or you are not quite sure what you want to do, many of them can be extended by clicking on the bottom of the box to provide more information. There is also a big Start button type thing in the top-left which opens out into the standard save, etc, but just, well, looks good. If I could be bothered I would post some screenshots but there's probably plenty out there.

2006-07-29T09:01:00.000+01:00

Sony Ericsson W810c
Originally uploaded by grazulis.

Have been busy this week. Partly because of my new role as Dean, partly because I've been working "part-time" at Web international, a professional English school here in Ningbo. I say part-time but I've taught over 20 hours this week, mostly in the evenings, which has been a bit much and has left me little time to really do much else, although I have been wasting time playing a computer game - It's too hot to do much else.
This is my new phone which is pretty neat. I've been using my calendar to sync with Outlook but what I really want is to be able to sync with Google calendar. I'm hoping that the beta of Outlook 2007 will at least allow me to subscribe to iCal feeds so I can sync downwards.

2006-07-16T03:43:00.000+01:00

Am back from Xinjiang where I had a really fun time.

Or see photos.

2006-06-30T09:11:00.000+01:00

Today it is an oven out there. Even Steven, an Australian and disliker of air conditioning, is doing nothing today except sit inside with his air con on full blast.
But I had to go out as I wanted to wish the previous principle, Joel, well on his last day as well as confirm a few last bits of work before I go away. I also wanted to get my phone topped up and do a couple of other bits and pieces while I was in town. Hopefully, when I get back, the move to the new campus here will be well under way and I can focus on hiring new teachers. We're looking for primary and high school so if you're reading this and would be interested send me an email.
Anyway, enough of that. For the next two weeks I am on holiday and can forget all about meetings with the head of Nottingham University (Ningbo campus), recruitment, promotion and the curriculum. I fly to Urumqi on Sunday morning.

2006-06-22T12:37:00.000+01:00

And then something happens. Yesterday I had an interview here at Huamao with a couple of representatives from the company that owns the school. At the end of that I was offered the position of Dean, effectively head teacher, of a school they bought earlier in the year that teaches the children of expats here in Ningbo. The school is currently located downtown but is being moved to the campus here for the new school year. It's more money, more responsibility and, hopefully, more interesting work although it looks like I'll have to forego my long holiday in order to oversee the move as well as market the school to prospective parents. It's currently very small with only 20-odd students and and my progress will be judged by increasing the number of pupils. To be honest it came as a bit of a shock. I know someone else was being put into the position but he had to pull out for personal reasons. I didn't expect the job to be offered to me. I went to visit the school today and met the current principal and many of the teachers there at the moment. It looks like a nice place although it is a bit unnerving to think about what it all means. I guess I'll just have to see how it all goes. I am still planning on going to Xinjiang, however, as I really don't think I could stand to lose all my plans (such as they were) for the next few months. You can see the school's website at http://www.internationalschoolningbo.com/

2006-06-16T08:40:00.000+01:00

Today was my last day teaching for this semester. This week has been fairly easy with just the last few exams, scoring them and showing many of my classes Wallace and Grommit. Yesterday I took part in a dialogue challenge for my Grade 1 Ideal classes which required the students to learn dialogues based on phrases I had taught and then to adjust them to their own liking. It went very well and many of the students, thanks to some hard work from their Chinese teachers, were pretty much flawless.
So, what to do now? I am off until the end of August and, as I have said, I want to spend a lot of time writing but I am also planning on doing some travelling as well. On Sunday I am going to Putuoshan with Zak for a couple of days but as she is working she can't get away for too long. The plan then was to go to Xinjiang with Nick, who has just finished his contract here at Huamao, but now he has been offered a permanent job that he can't really turn down. So, I am still going to Xinjiang but I will probably leave it for a week before I head off now.

2006-06-12T09:34:00.000+01:00

Wired News: China Restores Google.com

2006-06-08T00:33:00.000+01:00

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Google 'compromised principles' over China
Interesting article. I had noticed that for the past few weeks I've been having problems reaching Google and my mail sporadically which I guess is all connected. One of the interesting comments here is "[Mr Brin] said virtually all the company's customers in China used the uncensored service." I guess, given the choice, you go for the one with the best results, even if it means you can't reach some of the sites you want - like wikipedia, BBC news, Wired blog, any geocities site and Blogspot. It's also interesting how Google keep engaging on this issue, unlike the resounding silence from companies like Yahoo and Microsoft who have actively helped the government arrest people or suppress content. (Sorry, I meant "obeyed local laws").

2006-06-05T08:49:00.000+01:00

I haven't really been up to all that much, certainly nothing that really seemed worth recording in the blog, but I figured I'd get something down.
I was asked by the school to participate in a competition to write an essay about Ningbo through a foreigner's eyes. I gave it a go, tried to write the most complimentary thing I could in half an hour and submitted it. Unfortunately I'm up against some stiff competition as I don't think I sucked up nearly as much as some of the other entries (although I did try). You can read the essays on the Ningbo Today website.
I've been working on my novel - mostly by writing down everything I know about it in a Tiddlywiki. This allows me to make WikiWords which can be used to identify other tihngs I want to write about as background so the whole process is kind of like mindmapping except that it allows me to explore ideas in a way that suits me better as a writer - and the tiddly creates a fantastic reference for me for when I am writing. I counted the number of words are in it yesterday and it already comes to nearly 5000 and there's still plenty I want to add in to it as well. It's a fantastic writer's tool - or indeed for any planning task. Of course mind mapping is still useful for a lot of reasons but this is a kind of next step on the process.
Speaking of which I suppose I ought to also big up N-Gen, a random name generator for writers and anyone else who might be interested in such things. It's been built by a friend of mine but it's simple and it works well. That also reminded me of WriteThis which I've also now downloaded again and is a great little app for just getting started.
As for work; I'm giving examinations this week and probably part of next week too. They're fairly simple (it has to be to get through 40 kids in 40 minutes) and it kind of makes it a fairly easy week in some ways as I just have to sit there and prompt the kids for answers to some basic questions that they should be able to answer. Of course what it does mean is that this semester, for me, is nearly over and I need to start thinking about the summer holidays. I am probably going to spend some time in and around Ningbo to do some intensive writing but I am also planning at least one big trip away. I am thinking about going to Kashgar*, in Xinjiang, which probably will take about 5 days of travelling overland (it's possible to fly but still difficult and extremely expensive) but it just somehow seems worth it. Haven't really decided for definite (well, ok, I probably have) and I haven't any firm plans so I'll keep you updated.
Yesterday I had an interview to do some part-time work teaching some employees of a stationary exporters. It's a small company and they seem nice and are willing to let me dictate when and where so it should suit me over the next few months so I can earn a little bit of cash and meet new people without disrupting my plans too much. (I've already turned down two offers of full-time summer schools...)
And that's about it.

*That link was going to take you to a page on Rough Guides web site but they have implemented an absolutely terrible website that doesn't allow me to link to the page I want because it uses javascript for everything. Idiots.

2006-05-25T09:54:00.000+01:00

Well the weather is getting warmer and the end of term is getting nearer. In fact, after tomorrow, I only have 3 weeks of teaching left. Time really seems to have flown by even though it also feels like an age since I left the UK. Still, it means I now have to start working out what I'm going to do for the summer.

This book looks interesting....

Strange Horizons Reviews: Visionary in Residence by Bruce Sterling, reviewed by James A. Trimarco

2006-05-18T09:36:00.000+01:00

I've been a bit ill this week with a cold and sore throat and ear. I went to the doctors yesterday and was given two drips, some antibiotics and some throat lozenges. The drips are bit over the top but tey are used to administer some kind of medicine. Am starting to feel a lot better now although my ear is still sore. Have had some time off work as there's no way I could have taught and mostly I just lay in bed.

On Tuesday evening I had an interesting chat with a man in Shanghai who is interested in Lifehacking and GTD. We started by discussing linux distros and it kind of went downhill from there... still it was nice to geek out for a bit and I've offered to help him set up lifehack.cn, which could be fun. He also put me onto a site that gives you 1GB free storage space for files - useful for backup and accessing anywhere:

And, this week, Google Notebook is here, which looks pretty good despite not being able to tag stuff. Handy for collecting research from the web together and not a bad interface either.

PS. David makes a good point about the box link (see comments) - use that and help me on my way to a free account upgrade! What are you waiting for?

2006-05-12T08:23:00.000+01:00

So, after a short break it's back to work. Spent Sunday spraying for cockroaches and sweeping up the remains. Actually I'm still occasionally sweeping up the remains as there are more, er, victims every morning. Basically after having a cockroach jump at me for the third time after opening my fridge door (they like to rest in the space between the fridge and freezer doors) I'd had enough.

Teaching has been pretty fun, the kids seem mostly to be glad to be back (although one class was just so so when I asked them how they were). The only day that was a bit rough was Wednesday but that was entirely my own fault. I went out on Tuesday night for Noah's birthday and we had way too much beer and sake at a Japanese restaurant. mmm sushi. I also found out I had another story rejected on Wednesday morning.

And tonight it's Steven's birthday so it looks like I may have to do it all again. In the meantime I'm listening to Black Grape and enjoying an unexpected afternoon off as my tutor students are not back from Korea yet.

2006-05-06T03:29:00.000+01:00

May Day Holiday

A podcast talking about what I did on my holiday - travelling to some nearby cities and seeing the sites.

2006-04-29T07:27:00.000+01:00

Well, have been busy wrapping up my last week of work before the holiday. Had my Wednesday classes repeated yesterday as that part of the timetable is running again until Sunday although I am, as of today, officially on holiday for a week. So yesterday's classes were a bit weird as I basically used them to review some stuff and show them some photos of my family. While I have enjoyed the teaching it's going to be nice to have a break. Looks like we're definitely going to Shaoxing on Monday with some of the other teachers here and then Zak and I are going to Hangzhou for a couple of days. I expect it will be incredibly busy and hectic but it will be nice to get out of Ningbo for a little bit.
Went to the ballet last night - Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. It was at the Ningbo Grand Theatre, a newly built place that is as modern and well built as somewhere like Bridgewater Hall so it all felt very civilised. Of course, the atmosphere was a little different, less stuffy and many people were quite happily snapping photos and chatting through the performance which made the visit more interesting. I've never been to a ballet before but I guess it was about what I expected except that I enjoyed it more than I thought. Namely a bunch of people dancing around to music, but it was pretty impressive. The dancers are incredibly fit and manage to make what must be really difficult look very graceful and easy. Don't think I would rush to see another one but I'm glad that I went. I was a little disappointed by the music as it is a little blander than I thought it would be but I guess it's really more like a film soundtrack, an accompaniment, rather than a symphony or something.
Today have mostly been lazing around, doing a few chores and soaking up the heat. It's a hot day today...

2006-04-24T05:15:00.000+01:00

Thanks to those of you who have given me feedback on the podcast. I will do another one soon.

This last week has been pretty quiet. I've caught up with some of my DVD watching, taught some lessons and that's about it. We went out for some food at a nearby restaurant on Friday night and then a few people ended up back at mine for drinks afterwards. We bought a crate from a local shop and the owner was good enough to drop it off for us although in the end we didn't make much of a dent in it as Ardon had some whiskey so we had some of that. When Rowena came back from work she told us that some Russian ballet people are coming to Ningbo this Friday to do Swan Lake.So it looks like, for reasons I'm still not quite sure about, I'm off to do that.

On Saturday night we went to Le Cargo, one of the other few bars in town. It's incredibly expensive, even compared to the other places, and it's also too small for the number of people who were there, but it does have the best music - mainly because they have someone playing it rather than a computer for anyone to use to select their favourite Bon Jovi tracks.

Next week is May Day, which is a week long holiday for many people here in China. Still don't have any definite plans as such but it looks like we're going to visit Shaoxing, which is another nearby city, and maybe do some of the sites around Ningbo. While it would be nice to go further away it's all going to be pretty busy with everyone in China on the move.

2006-04-19T08:19:00.000+01:00

Georgina was talking this morning about the dust storms in Beijing. They've been really bad this past couple of years but this year looks like the worst. Today has been really hot and nice until I walked out of my last class this afternoon. There is dust everywhere and a massive cool wind blowing. Pretty weird.

Also, just had some real, actual toast with jam. Awesome.

2006-04-16T14:32:00.000+01:00

Well, I've entered the age of podcasting, so if you'd rather listen to than read about my past week in China follow the link. I'll see how it goes but I may do one once a month or so instead of a blog entry. It's only a couple of minutes long, just to try it all out. For those of you who can't be bothered, a Happy Easter to you anyway.

2006-04-10T02:23:00.000+01:00

Went out Friday night which was greatly helped by getting paid for the tutoring I've been doing although the Shamrock was full of businessmen and LBBs full of idiots so came back reaosnably early anyway.
Saturday morning went to get Zak's bike fixed and had a look at some myself. Looks like I can get a pretty reasonable one for cheap so I may look into that this week. Getting around locally isn't difficult but a bike would just make everything a bit quicker and easier. I also bought a couple of plants. One is on my table in the main room which is really nice, kind of cheers the place up. The other is a bonsai which I've put on my balcony. Total price less than 3 quid.
Watched Dog Day Afternoon in the evening, which I haven't seen for years, and is still a really good film. Had to get an early night though as we were required to be up for 7:30 to get a tour organised by the school to a local festival in a town called Hengjie. It was a kind of food competition so got to try lots of different tasty things - although it did keep raining. I guess local festivals are the same all over. After that we went for lunch although I was still pretty stuffed so couldn't eat much. Then we were supposed to go climb a mountain and pick bamboo (the area has a lot of bamboo) and Nick wanted to go panda spotting. Of course there are no pandas but it gave us something to talk about. Unfortunately the narrow streets of the town meant that the bus got trapped by another bus that had broken down and we ended up just sat on the bus for an hour. Then we came home.

Teaching

2006-04-07T09:08:00.000+01:00

Keen students (sometimes)
Originally uploaded by grazulis.

It's been kind of a mellow week in the run-up to pay day. Got called by a friend at Webb, a language school in Ningbo for adults, to see if I could take an English Corner as a one off that evening. I said yes, it's a bit extra money and I figured it would be interesting to talk to grown ups for a change. The chosen topic was adoption, although I was able to pick any I wanted, so I talked about that. It was pretty interesting to see what questions I got, like: "Do people adopt babies so they can get tax breaks?" "No"; "Is homosexuality legal in your country?" "Yes"; "Is that why there aren't many babies to adopt?" "No"; "Why are you left-handed?" "Because I'm smarter." (Well, ok, that wasn't the actual answer I gave to that one). When I got back Nick was just heading out to the shop so we went out and bought a crate of beer as it was pretty warm and we all needed a drink. It was pretty heavy to carry back though.
Tuesday was hot, apparently up to 30 degrees. A little taster of what the coming months hold for us as it has cooled off a bit since. Other than that it's just been teaching, drinking and watching the odd dvd. Although 24 bottles lasted four of us 4 days so it's not been excessive. Also been playing frisbee after work a bit and doing some weights (so Mike, you'd better get to it too) which has been fun.
Got one of the Chinese teachers I work with to take some pictures in my Second grade class this morning so I've posted them for your pleasure. The lesson is to teach shapes by getting the kids to learn how to describe aliens. It works quite well. Afterwards Linda suggested I could use this lesson plan for a demonstration class for other teachers and parents. Gulp.