Monthly Archives: November 2003

To London last night with Chris and Melanie, to see Radiohead at Earl’s Court.

Pizza Hut first, where we sat opposite a George Lucas looky-likey (“but with a chin” according to Chris). We got to Earl’s Court in what we thought was plenty of time, but (along with several thousand others) were surprised to find that the support (Asian Dub Foundation) had scarpered already and the boys were on. We missed hardly anything though.

All the usual tunes, yer standard singalongs. (Americans and pseudo-Americans! You might be able to listen to it too.)

Unlike last time, we didn’t get wet. But I think I stood next to the Chairman and General Secretary of the Chain Smokers Association.

Two encores later, we started to head home when it was clear they’d gone off for good. But the toilets and the T-shirt stand beckoned, and by the time we left the building we were several thousand back in the race for the tube. The West Brompton tube was similarly chokka.

So we took a cab back to King’s Cross. “You see so much more than on the tube,” said Chris (he’d been drinking).

Sadly we had to take the 00:06 back to Cambridge, which stops at every opportunity. Still, I could have a lie in…

Those of you with little to do will rejoice at the news of more photos in Avaragado’s gallery (pages 7 and 8), going back to 1995 in fact. So what’s in this selection?

Christmas (“Taxi for Heckford”) party. Punt (“I am cold”) race. Model (“Give it to Bob”) cars. Alton (“You said five minutes!”) Towers. Sarah and Ades’s (“I do”) wedding. Tim’s (“Look for the big X”) birthday. Christmas (“Simply the best!”) party. Wild (“I thought they couldn’t turn over?”) tracks. CID managers (“People-smuggling”) offsite. SCO development (“Stop micromanaging”/”No”) kickoff. Punt (“Weil’s disease”) race. Christmas (“Darth Vader’s breastplate”) party. Alton (“Philip’s leaving do”) Towers. Alpe (“I couldn’t stop”) D’Huez. Christmas (“False limb”) party.

Fasting fakir flummoxes physicians:

Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades – but is still in perfect health.

Can a new Shazzie diet’n’book combo be far behind? The videos will be simpler, that’s for sure.

Squiddies and exsquiddies of some vintage will remember Mark Phillips, one-time product manager, occasionally known as The Captain.

He was in charge of things when we were adding arrays to the product for scalability. We originally called the array member in charge the “master”, and the subordinate servers the “slaves”. These terms were used in command-line tools, documentation, etc.

The Captain objected to “master” and “slave”, since they might possibly offend. We countered that master/slave was well-established terminology in the computer industry, but he wouldn’t budge. We eventually settled on “primary” and “secondary”, and cursed The Captain whenever we spotted another mention of “master” or “slave” that needed to change. (Some of us were still doing this five years later, as engineers occasionally wrote log messages using the original terminology, preserved in places deep within the code.)

What a waste of time, we thought. But it looks like The Captain was right all along. Los Angeles County recently announced that “based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, [master/slave] is not an acceptable identification label“.

Went to see the play Bouncers last night, by (hold on to your lunch) John Godber, and starring Nasty Nick from EastEnders, Terry from Corrie, and two others who apparently didn’t deserve a billing by the Corn Exchange (though those two had a bit more, shall we say, range, than the big names).

We had front row seats: close enough to see the whites of their eyes and the froth of their spit. The two non-soapies nearly cracked up near the end (“Lucky Eddie’s fourth – and final – speech”), just after a scripted roll-on-floor by Terry-from-Corrie was followed by an unscripted pick-up-coins-that-fell-out-of-my-pocket by same.

Avaragado’s score: three melons.

I’ll stop writing now before this turns into an essay.

Avaragado’s gallery now extends back to the beginning of 1999. People are starting to look younger…. Pages 5 to 7, boys and girls.

Highlights include: Shazzie’s 30th; 101 things to do with lucite; Avaragado pie-eyed; Roger topless; bowling; very nearly seeing the eclipse; the Maldives; a fancy dress Christmas party; and the Millennium on Parker’s Piece.

One of the “advantages” of not working is that you get to see, if you so desire, live speeches by various dignitaries in full on the 24-hour news channels as they scramble desperately for something to show. (Breaking news! Update! Newsflash! Latest! Please watch!)

Currently, London is blessed by the presence of Dubya. He is the most tedious, uninspiring, plodding speaker I’ve heard in a long time (it’s about six months since my last Doug yawnfest). The shrub can’t say more than half a dozen words without pausing for a couple of seconds in an attempt to sound “presidential”. Occasionally he pauses longer, probably because his teleprompter says “wait for applause”; eventually the audience gets the hint, but not always (which amuses me).

At the Job Centre, my instantiated Pauline also implemented Phill Jupitus.

Sigh, went to the Job Centre today for the first time, to be anointed as a Job Seeker. One of Thatcher’s millions, as I believe is the vernacular.

I am now officially dole scum.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with a person of type Pauline.