Awaiting a better name

Where we broke down - St Gotthards pass

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:51:16 +0100

We have discovered the panoramic stitcher which is downloadable from windows live...

The X Files

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:02:52 +0100

My slightly (!) obsessive Doctor Who watching pales into insignificance when I remember myself as a teenager and the excitement that a new X Files series was due to start. When I first started watching the X files (about Season 4), I borrowed back episodes from a friend and started watching them until 2, 3 in the morning to catch up on the plot. At University, in the dog end episodes of the last two series, I was the only person with the ability to watch them in my room (my computer had a PC card) and i'd host all night X files watching sessions, which sometimes clashed with the 9am lecture the next day... And when the film came out (which was essentially a very up itself round up of the worst of the previous five series) I counted down the days til its release starting months in advance.

It is for reasons like this that I don't allow myself to watch that much television. I think you may understand why. And, because that really was all A Long Time Ago, and i have now grown up, I suppose it makes sense that I have only just found out* that there is a new X Files film, released in only two weeks. When I think of the way I marked the last film (sadly, I can even tell you the date as I had it so indelibly marked in my brain: 21st August) I have astonished myselff with my lack of knowledge about the second film's impending release.

Never mind that it is bound to be a jumped up vehicle for David "I'd rather put a gun to my mother's head than make another series" Duchovny to make some money, as his post X Files career has hardly been startling. Never mind that the plot is bound to be full of the most ridiculous contrived situations, and that once Mulder \& Scully got together the series was ruined and it was kept artificially alive to continue the "myth". Never mind that Billy Connelly is in it, which takes it away from the realms of geekiness into something quite different. The part of me which is still the slightly (!) geeky 17 year old is all happy this evening. It doesn't take much...

*from reading a copy of Women and Home (magazine aimed at the 40+ market, second hand from my Mum) in the bath, rather than the cult forums I once frequented. I think this illustrates how life has changed in the past 10 years...

Just testing

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:58:34 +0100

I've just worked out how to do photos (thanks JTL - its the same for picasa!)

The view from the car.

And here was me working out which bit of my html went wrong, and all along picasa would do it for me...

OOh switzerland

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:31:06 +0100

I nearly forgot, we flew to Italy and drove my sister's car back. In two days. The plan had been to do it over the week but as little sis wanted to come home and has limited scope for leave, we did it in two days. This would have been fine. After all, driving through Switzerland is enormously pretty, even if seen from the driving seat. In fact, we were doing so well we thought we'd go up St Gotthard's Pass, rather than the slightly more direct tunnel. It wasn't supposed to be too bad... after all, we saw cyclists on it (2km up is insane on pedal power if you ask me, but then no one did). Sadly however, the car had other ideas and gave up the ghost at 1926m above sea level (don't you love sat navs?). I tell you what though, if you're going to break down anywhere, half way up a mountain is definitely the place to do it. Although I did spend a lot of my time singing Sound of Music songs (wrong country, but its all Alpine, isn't it?)

Anyway, we did eventually get going, six hours, 400CHF (�200), and the nice swiss AA man and garage later. We chose the tunnel... and drove like crazy, getting to Metz in France just in time to get a hotel room as they were closing reception for the evening (50euros for three people for one night... bargain). So we got home, but it was more eventful than we might have imagined.

Crazily, its not put us off. Mr ferijen and I are looking to go to Swizterland (in a slightly newer, more reliable) car in September.

///sings off humming i go to the hills... for the Sound of Music....

Religiousy stuff

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 09:00:38 +0100

May I commend to people this morning's Thought for the Day (although at the time of writing its not quite up yet) from John Bell. Once again his eloquence on the truth of the gospel (rather than what people choose do with their private parts) gives me hope that Christianity has a chance.

90s music

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:57:29 +0100

My main present was a new iPod Classic. Oh its pretty. Admittedly, I'm every so slightly jealous at opting for capacity over style as Mr Ferijen decided to go for style over capacity with a new iPod touch (oooh prettiness) but its taken three mp3 players for me to opt for the lure of the Apple and its soo lovely. So I'm sitting here on a day off from work (bliss) loading music

Bizarrely, the default 90s music playlist on the ipod so far has
Kylie Minogue
Aretha Franklin
Verdi's Requiem
Faure's requiem
Les Miserables
Oasis
Eva Cassidy
Chopin
Manic Street Preachers
Tallis

Which is a little eccentric to say the least. On t'other hand, I've got another 70GB to play with :D

Birthday fun

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:49:49 +0100

I reached the grand old age of 27 on Tuesday. I'm finding this new age a little more traumatic... which is odd as I think I will suit being my thirties much more than my 20s (domestic suburbia has always suited/appealed to me more than the time when apparently I ought to have enjoyed partying/socialising/and all that jazz). Sadly I had a meeting until 6pm on my birthday, which wasn't the best planned in the world, but as I came home to a very garlicky house (Mr Ferijen was having fun making bruschetta) and one of the most amazing notes in the world: "Your Thorntons parcel is at number 39", life wasn't too tough. Wine + chocolate + scrummy food + new books and music as birthday presents... its a tough life but someone has to have it ;)

New puter

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:13:17 +0100

I'm typing this from my new computer. I've justified this on the basis that a) I get a little bit of a pay rise with my current secondment at work and b) if I need to work from home/from the hospital/from my parents house, it would be good to rely on something better than a large stack of memory sticks. So I have a new laptop. It is a pound less than the laptop I bought for myself back in 2001 to write my dissertation. That was old, creaky, tiny screened, heavy cased, the very cheapest I could negotiate and second hand. This is new, shiny, fast, speedy, and, whilst certainly nowhere near the most expensive on the shop, I could still have spent �100 less on it and still got a machine twenty times better than the old laptop.

In time, I hope that the corner of the dining room might be recovered from the mind of crap I laughingly call my "desk". and I can become perfectly mobile (and get back some of the use of that room, which with a piano, table, chairs, computer desk and computer chair in an area about 2.5 metres by 3 metres is a bit of a squeeze...)

Update on Mum

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:08:31 +0100

Thanks for all your lovely comments. They're really appreciated.

Mum had tests yesterday and today, and sees the consultant tomorrow. early indications are that the cancer is only in one place and fairly treatable, but more results come through to confirm, or deny this. So your continued prayers would be really welcomed... that Mum gets the treatment she needs, that it doesn't make her too poorly and the non cancerous bits of her can cope with it, and that the rest of us can provide the support she needs.

Sometime between now and Monday evening I have to decide whether to get the plane I've booked to fly me to Italy on Monday night, which was my plan for next week (well, that and driving my sister's car 1000 miles through Europe to get it back to England in time for the insurance renewal). I'm hoping that the answer becomes clear.

The joy of sex

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:04:49 +0100

I had the misfortune to hear a (well managed, if entirely created on a whimsy coincidence of the Jerusalem Gay Pride march and the Anglicans Conference in Jerusalem) "debate" between someone from the more conservative end of the church of england and a "gay deacon", on this evening's PM programme (about 43 minutes in on the listen again feature). Now, I'm about as liberal as it gets on such things, and frankly I don't really care who people fall in love with, as long as they try and avoid breaking as many hearts as possible in the way, but I just couldn't get over the way that the conservative speaker was just obsessive about sex. And all before the watershed (I'm typing this after nine, so its safe, I reckon ;))

According to the speaker,. being gay, clearly, means getting a lot of sex, with "non complimentary genitalia". Now, I can (just about, on a generous day) understand about why people might get worked up about this, although its really not my cup of tea. But what I cannot stand is the link between being gay = must be doing lots of sex we don't like = therefore all people who are gay are clearly in need of saving, turning, ignoring, whatever. Love, both of the neighbourly and of the lover type (can't remember my Greek on this, sorry!) just didn't come into it. Neither did the fact that one might be gay and not bonking everyone in sight. Is it so difficult to accept that being gay = still being a human and therefore still being prone to falling in love, lust, and getting heart broken. Oh, and for what its worth, if you really do think that one of the most important parts of the Christian message is about working which bits of boys and girls ought to go together in which way, I think focussing on those who happen to fancy someone of the same sex is probably not the way to go.

He also said, as one of his arguments, that clearly being gay was unnatural because "it would be odd if we had a marriage pride march". For what its worth*, pride in marriage would be a great thing, I think. I mean, people are still getting married, but so many weddings (though not all, of course) seem to be about spending as much money on possible on demonstrating how much of a "perfect" couple you are, rather than planning a life long commitment to each other. So bring on the marriage pride march, and maybe stop thinking about what all those people are doing in the privacy of their own homes.

*Having lived - unmarried - with Mr Ferijen - for these past four and a bit years, I'm probably not best placed to comment ;)