money matters?

money boxes
money spiders
funny money
runny honey
honey bees
bees wax
back scratch
catch hold
catch cold
wrap up warm
snug & cosy
pink & rosy
noses numbing
fingers fumbling
dropping coins
in money boxes.

gravity sadly un-defied

My must-see sci.fi drama kept me up later than ever last night - not finishing until five before midnight.

As the final credits rolled I was ears wide open for the continuity announcement for the next episode - but not a word was said.

This morning found me scouring the web for news, finding confirmation that the rest of this first series does exist, and might become available on dvd or blu-ray or somesuch, but no suggestion that the remaining five episodes will be shown on british television. And definite contra-indications that a second series will ever be made - the sets possibly already destroyed.

At least there may be consumer resistance to this abandonment in the form of a Facebook group.

So I'm off to track it down and add my name to the list.

goal, set & match?

The workshop this morning was good - professionally set up and run, and there were five participants which worked well. We gave informal feedback at the end, which seemed well taken.

But the one thing I couldn't get out of my mind the whole time I was there, and which I could hardly say out loud to anyone - was that one of the facilitators looked so much like b.elanna torres that I could hardly concentrate on anything she said.

Shame on me!

Goal Setting

A former colleague of mine is stepping out in new directions, and tomorrow morning is running, with partner, the first of their life coaching workshops.

They've set up a google-able website, printed leaflets and put up posters, and at the last time of asking had had three positive enquiries about tomorrow's workshop.

Keen not to discourage their paying customers they've asked a few Extras to attend to give a bit more atmosphere, and I've agreed to go along.

The theme of the session is goal setting - as a first step to making changes in your life - and given that the session starts at 09.30 on a Saturday morning I can see that my first Goal is going to be forgetting my longed-for Saturday morning lie in.

Just as well I believe in karma.

Or do I mean korma??

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you have a great weekend!


That's all folks

music of the spheres?

About five years ago I invested in a high price, high quality radio/cd player and have really appreciated the sound it gives out. Regular communications arrive in the mailbox urging me to update my Model T version or buy swishy accessories, but so far I have resisted.

It seems strange then to find myself in the unexpected situation of feeling disloyal for considering a different gadget altogether.

With increasing interest I have been reading advertisements for a sort of mega non-portable MP3 player. You can upload the whole of your music collection into this black & silver box and then sit back and choose what to listen to with hardly more effort (so the copywriter assures us) than changing channels on the tv.

I was blissfully considering the benefits of this lifestyle when I came across a survey on the website - the manufacturer is seeking information about how many cds his customers/prospective customers have. Apparently so far he has gathered that the average number per collection is 1100 - though the most common number (is that the mode?) is around 300. What drives up the average is the number of his customers with collections of more than 3000.

Unfortunately this has had quite a deflating effect on my desire to buy.

As you will understand when I tell you that even after Christmas has come and gone, my cd collection will number -

25!!

An Unfortunate Miscalculation

There was an anguished message from the minor godlet yesterday.

Due to the above mentioned miscalculation he has spent all the money he had thought he was saving to live on for the next six weeks.

So what's to do? Let him starve? I don't think so.

Something strange has happened to my head since I took my new, lower paid job. Suddenly I feel as if money doesn't matter. That if I see something to spend my money on, I should go ahead and spend.

Before this I was a complete miser, more keen to count my shillings than spend them, so I'm a bit puzzled at what's happened. The answer may be that last month I committed myself to the most expensive holiday I've ever paid for, and know that even the deposit will have to come out of my savings account. And somehow that seens to have broken my lifelong taboo on overspending.

Let's hope we all enjoy the holiday, and that I'm not in debtor's prison the following week.

a bus stop near home

Crossing the road the other day I noticed an advertisement on the bus shelter opposite. Not a very exciting or colourful advertisement. Mostly grey, and not much text, but as my myopia got into range I saw it was announcing Queen's recent cd release, Absolute Greatest Queen.

Over the weekend I checked a clutch of online reviews - rather scathing most of them: The music is good, but who's it for? If you like Queen you'll already have these tracks, probably more than once.

But the marketing department have got me sussed - I like Queen and don't own any of their music at all - but now I've done a deal and had a special request agreed for a late amendment to my Christmas List.

Roll on December 25 and turn the volume to the MAX!

Is this a Link I see before me?

On Slate's Dear Prudence letters page this week is a thread asking how people generally celebrate Thanksgiving, and there's been quite a heartwarming bunch of replies.

So much so that I begin to wish we had a similar 'everyone welcome' festival in the UK.

I wonder where we'd put it on the calendar, and what we'd call it?

Noddy & The Distant Faraway Mother

There was a rerun tonight of a television programme about the children's author Enid Blyton. I used to love her books - The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, Malory Towers, Noddy of course - and there certainly were plenty of her books to keep a child endlessly occupied.

I had heard some years ago on a radio programme that Enid Blyton wasn't such a good mother - all she cared about was writing, writing, writing. For which she needed peace and quiet with No Disturbances. Which meant of course, No Children.

But the television programme absolutely pulled no punches and showed us a woman completely blinkered to the needs of her two daughters, and to the needs of any other person in her life; completely selfish in her desperation to satisfy her own inner demons.

Presumably in an effort to show a little balance and compassion, the programme also told us something about the disrupted childhood that brought Enid Blyton's demons into being.

And maybe drove her into her makebelieve world where children enjoyed endless sunny picnics and every adventure ended happily back at home.

Go Collider Go!

Champagne all round (again) for the scientists who have been nursing the Large Hadron Collider back to life for the last fourteen months.

During its down time the collider has been tested and dusted and refitted and fed a sandwich and tested some more. And finally cooled down to operating temperatures and had its green Go button pressed.

This evening the particle beams are chasing their tails sedately around the 27km collider track. Later in the weekend scientists hope to see the particle collisions this huge machine was built to cause.

And maybe, just maybe, the force of those collisions will be sufficient to generate that wunderkind of fundamental particles The God Particle.

Up here we're not so bothered about Particles - not when we already have a whole pantheon of the completed article after all.

Tracy Island

Looks like International Rescue are coming to the aid of the European Union.

Catherine Ashton as Lady Penelope, to Herman van Rumpuy's Parker.

The EU could do with all the help it can get - binding 27 independent countries within one constitution is never going to be an easy gig. Look what happened to the USSR with far fewer member states.

And the deal has the twin bonus of sparing the world from the over-smiley Tony Blair, while allowing the UK to keep a firm grip on David Milliband, who is surely destined for great things in domestic politics.

Ring in the Thousand Years of Peace

Have been listening this evening to The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins and am completely swept away by it.

It was commissioned as a millennial piece by the Royal Armouries in the UK and had its world premiere in London in April 2000.

The underlying form of the Mass is amended to include secular texts and non-Christian religious texts and the overall effect is huge and immensely moving.

If I had any space on my Christmas list I would certainly be adding this - but I may end up having to buy it for myself.

Now I've heard this amazing and overwhelming piece I am amazed it hasn't featured on the radio programme Soul Music.

Perhaps it did and I missed it.

Brief Encounter

A list has been published of a handful of UK rail stations that are to be updated as a matter of urgency. Several of these are located in the north west corner of England, which I suppose confirms the common belief that the south east corner has in the past enjoyed more than its proper share of funding.

The stations to be updated have been selected from the ten that came bottom of a customer satisfaction survey conducted earlier this year.

Though it isn't included in the first tranche of updatees the very bottomest of these stations was Manchester Victoria.

Which made me smile because I was there last year and was thrilled to find a grand old station in its original state, with tiny ticket windows peeping shyly out of their imposing brick background, and a spacious ladies' room walled with beautiful victorian tiles.

I did wonder if the rather scattered nature of the platforms was convenient for commuters in a hurry, but according to the news item this morning there may be no relief of their problems just yet, as the main result of the station upgrades will be

More Shops.

and on the first day

things went quite well at my new job.

The payroll person asked for my bank details (always a good sign)

My line manager, who is the company chief exec, confirmed that I have an office to myself, if you don't count three printers, two filing cabinets and the world's most intimidating photocopier (and I'm definitely not counting them)

The payroll person, wearing a different hat, asked me to pick what I'd like to order for my office christmas lunch (which was a pleasant surprise on my first day). I've chosen parsnip soup because it sounds delicious, even though I never choose the soup at group meals because there's always too much and it's far too filling; and duck confit with toulouse sausage and braised red cabbage, being tempted by the red cabbage even though I fear the dish as a whole may be too rich and too fatty; and chocolate pot brulee, because it mentions the word chocolate and thus could not be avoided. We only have four weeks to wait for this feast, which is rather a dire thought as it means christmas is nearly here, and as yet I have done nothing about it.

Apparently we get paid for a four hour midday break on the day of the christmas lunch - which I think means that we get to go home once the meal is over instead of stumbling blearily back to the office and failing to do anything useful for the rest of the afternoon.

How remarkably sensible!

criminal injuries?

Did you hear the incredible story this week about the two three year olds who for a little while were left unattended in a car in 2007?

Unsurprisingly mayhem ensued and one of the boys hit the other one.

The problem was that he used a car jack, and the injured boy was badly hurt.

Who would you think was to blame for all this? I would nominate the person or persons who decided to leave two three year olds unsupervised in a car and had previously left a car jack accessible to them.

But in some extraordinary way the UK legal system is agreeing (at the moment) that the injured boy is entitled to compensation from the general fund run to compensate people injured in the course of a criminal act.

I would have thought the only criminal act here was to leave the toddlers on their own.

And that if any compensation were to be sought (in this litigation mad society) it should be from the parent/s or carer/s of the child who behaved in such an entirely predictable (albeit not entirely acceptable) manner.

a hero worthy of his plinth

Following our plinth interlude this autumn there doesn't seem to have been much news about what was happening next in trafalgar square, until we heard Clive James speaking with his Point of View on the radio last night.

He was berating a female journo for revelling in her own ignorance of a certain Sir Keith Park who (we heard) is, in exaggerated fibreglass form, the new temporary fourth plinther prior to being cast in bronze and placed on a permanent plinth of his own.

Needless to say I had never heard of Sir Keith Park either, but felt humbled enough by Clive James' overwhelming support for him to run an internet search.

And could hardly believe what I found. Park does indeed seem to have been a man of heroic proportions both in his body (standing 6ft 5) and in his life.

He was a hugely successful fighter pilot in World War One who went on to lead with exceptional brilliance the fight against the Luftwaffe in World War Two. He seems to have combined the ability to be a first rate pilot with the completely different abilities to plan and lead startlingly effective campaigns. And while I admit that the website I was consulting may have been somewhat (well all right, extremely) biased in his favour, it left the casual reader pretty much certain that without Sir Keith Park it would have been a case of Sprechen sie Deutsch? for this blog.

Strange that for someone who feels they hold basically pacifist views, I should be so very grateful to this man who killed or was directly responsible for killing hundreds (thousands?) of his fellow human beings.

Maybe the War is sufficiently distant now that it's possible to guess what life would be like today if everyone on this side of the English Channel had taken a moral stand and refused to fight.

For me that's not a good picture, so I am now grateful to say I have heard of Sir Keith Park and that I support his right to be be on that plinth for as long as the fibreglass will stand it.

Goodbye to All That

Maybe it wasn't quite a war zone, but knowing I don't ever have to inhabit the poisonous atmosphere of that office again brings a lightening of the spirit and a wonderful sense of calm.

My lovely co-workers clubbed together for a fine collection of leaving gifts, and inscribed a card with many kind thoughts and good wishes.

I hope I have the good fortune to meet such a supportive group of colleagues in my new job.

Starting 9am Monday...

Defying the Ratings?

At the moment I only have a couple of Must See television programmes, and typically one of them must be suffering from poor viewing figures because it's being moved from Thursday primetime to something of a pre-graveyard slot on a Saturday evening.

I seem to have suffered from liking-the-wrong-stuff throughout my life, and have grown accustomed to seeing products I think are super-ace disappearing without trace.

It all started with the Minty Top Ten (a chocolate & nut coated mint-flavoured ice cream on a stick) when I was about thirteen. This was introduced as a variant on the original Top Ten chocolate ice cream version and was truly awesome. At least I thought so, but apparently no-one else did because after a month or so it vanished from the store freezers and that was that.

I've noticed someone has also nominated the minty Top Ten as their favourite long-lost ice cream on a Woman & Home forum - so maybe it's time for the manufacturers to have second thoughts?

change for the worse?

There was a moving interview on the radio yesterday evening. A nurse in her seventies was telling the story of her life.

For more than fifty years she lived according to her birth gender as male, feeling from early childhood that she was really a girl, but toughing it out through life as a soldier and a farmer, marrying and fathering two children.

At around 55 the marriage failed, and the interviewee decided there was still time to become a woman and enjoy a good life before the onset of old age, and was referred to a specialist for advice.

The advice of course was that such a transition should be made slowly, with two years initially just dressing as a woman, before any treatment could be started. And that that treatment would take another three years to complete.

This seemed out of the question for someone already in their mid fifties, keen to start a new life, and a private clinic was approached.

This surgeon had no scruples about scheduling surgery in a matter of weeks, and the woman she had always wanted to be stepped out into the world shortly afterwards.

She has found great companionship and pleasure in nursing, and has had at least one good relationship with a man, but she told us that none of her previous friends and family could accept her new life, and that everyone she used to know had turned away from her, including both her children.

Despite this, I felt sure she would be so relieved, so contented to be at last in her own body, that she would be prepared to discount the loss of such small-minded people from her past.

But the interview closed with the question I think maybe it always does: Knowing what you know now, do you think you made the right choice?

And this time the interviewee answered: No, I don't think I did.

Which just seems so heartbreakingly sad.

today was the day

when unusual or unexpected books were in the news.

First there was discussion about the upcoming publication of the working papers of what would have been Vladimir Nabokov's last book, had he lived to turn the working papers into a book and not asked his executors to destroy them.

And second was the story about C G Jung's Red Book having recently been put into the public domain, allowing his disciples to read for the first time the private thought processes that led Jung to develop his theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. Jung's own handwritten and decorated Red Book has been on exhibition in New York since early October prior to publication of a facsimile and translation of the Book.

It seems a strange coincidence that these two books written so many years ago (30 and 80-90) should become available to the public at almost the same time, both in facsimile, but neither of them perhaps with the author's complete support.

anniversaries

Media excitement today over the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall completely overshadows any commemoration of the much grimmer events that occurred fifty one years earlier in Austria & Germany.

Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass - on 9 November 1938 was one of many events that showed the world what would be the likely fate of the european jewish population over the next seven years.

Why nobody noticed, nobody cared, is maybe a question we should be addressing alongside the feverish studying of Hitler and the nazi party that forms such a central part of the history curriculum in schools these days.

What use learning to recognise a tyrant if you don't also learn how to resist one?

Ritter Re-born?

Were reports of the death of the Ritter Square some months ago exaggerated?

A visit today to the Waitrose foodstore at 50 Hauxton Road, Trumpington, Cambridge revealed a healthy display of both the Marzipan and the Whole Hazelnuts Ritter Sports, with best before dates of June 2010.

As opportunity permits, your fearless reporter will investigate previous known sources of supply at the supermarket best known for its ongoing attempts to take over the world (T****); at Hayes Garden Centre in Ambleside; and at retail booths in rail stations at London, Victoria and Leeds, West Yorkshire.

The results of this investigation will be published here first - but may be somewhat delayed until such time as your reporter has occasion to travel between South London, West Yorkshire and the Lake District.

In the meantime, have a break?

nimby

sadly we can confirm that neither of Friday night's mega-massive lottery jackpots has landed in our back yard.

I guess some are just destined to stay on the treadmill until retirement age arrives.

But at least I'm changing treadmills in a week's time, which is maybe the next best thing to a mega-massive lottery win?

ivy league

(Warning: barefaced boasting alert - if you don't like boasters, the first part of this is probably not such a good post for you to read!)

For twelve months we didn't want to broadcast the news that we had a daughter trying for a place at one of the top two UK universities in case we pointlessly raised expectations or put a hex on proceedings.

Then when she achieved the grades she needed and was accepted, we didn't want to broadcast the news because it just seemed like outright boasting.

And now here we are partway into her second year and it suddenly hits me: if I don't make the most of the opportunity pretty soon it will be too late. University will be finished, she will be off into the real world, and I will have missed my chance to jump onto the table and share this wonderful and amazing news with the world.

So, here it is:

My daughter is a student at Cambridge University, one of the top universities in the world.

And not just any old student at one of the best universities in the world. In her first year exams she came 5th equal out of the 74 on her course, putting her in the top 10% of a group of students who might be expected to be among the brightest in the uk. Wow.

The strangest thing is that she was offered a place at Cambridge without having any of the extra-curricular points we had thought might be essential - she wasn't in a sports team, didn't play an instrument, wasn't one of the team of Head Students. It seems she was accepted solely because of her attitude to work and her exam performance. Perhaps government pressure on the top universities to open their doors to more students from non-privileged backgrounds is having some effect - even though most of my daughter's co-students have indeed come from fairly elite schools rather than their local comprehensives.


Thanks to the amazing education system in the uk my daughter's success has all been achieved without payment of a penny over and above our regular taxes. She attended the totally free and open-to-all local state schools, worked hard and achieved her grades. The government pays her university fees and a living allowance (subject to our household income not being above certain limits) and once her education is finished she is committed to repaying these loans out of her own income, at a reasonably affordable level, in each month that she earns more than a pre-set amount.

Currently there is no need in the uk to set up a college fund before you can hope to attend university. It's just down to you to repay the government loan out of future earnings, in the knowledge that those earnings will probably be enhanced with a decent degree behind you.

Socialism seems to get a pretty bad press these days, but it's hard to argue against it being a good way to run a decent and humane society. Let us support our citizens when they need it, and they will support us when their situation improves.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need?

More Lines of Beauty

From our vantage point above you we enjoy many sights considered beautiful, from sun rise over a mountain range, or a flock of scarlet birds wheeling in the skies beneath us, to the wonders taking shape within some of your human cities.

If you take pleasure in line and colour and materials perfectly selected for their place, spend a moment at www.archidose.blogspot.com and enjoy some of the beauty displayed there.

G & M

General Motors - automotive leaders currently causing global financial confusion

Grand Marnier - cognac based liqueur with orange

Genetic Modification - shortcut to developing new plant varieties while causing public outcry

Gregor Mendel - Moravian monk who discovered the science that underlies genetic modification

GrandMother - formerly grey haired & cuddly, these days equally a blonde in a business suit

Grant Maintained - schools funded by government money and run for the benefit of the wealthy

Grand Master - black belt of the chess world

Gina McKee - star of the show Our Friends in the North despite appearing opposite both Dr Who and James Bond

Gladys Minor - sister of the better known Morris

Groucho Marx - the one with the moustache (not to be confused with the ones with the harp, the club and the capital)


G&M - like S&M but more Glamorous

G&M - like G&T but more Minty

G&Ms -like M&Ms but more Garlicky

Hello?

This is Mrs Jupiter here, taking a quick look round while Mr J catches forty winks. Not that he'd admit to any such thing of course - he'll have been considering important matters of state no doubt according to his version of the story.

Those of us who can hear the snores might be expected to think otherwise.

I'll go now so as not to outstay my luck, but I'll pop back sometime to fill in a few of the gaps Mr J seems to have left.

Kind regards,

Mrs J.

nine more days and counting...

Hoping for an early, early night tonight.

Training up my replacement seems to be completely exhausting, even though she's bright and quick to learn.

Shouldn't have taken my eye off the ball like I did twice today though, thinking she was good to go on her own for a while and me needing to finish another piece of work.

Both times resulted in problems - the first time definitely down to me not giving enough information; the second - who knows?

So, first task tomorrow is hunting down the source of a $5.00 mismatch on the cash account.

Let's hope it doesn't take too long.

highway to heaven?

The 50th birthday tomorrow of Britain's first motorway is being greeted with as much acclaim as though this stretch of road had some kind of religious significance for the local mortals.

And perhaps it does - car-worship has become an accepted form of observance, so maybe the motorway network is revered as the perfect means for the display of your pimped and polished automotive idols.