Month: September 2003

I’ve been having problems with my laptop. The mouse pointer moves, all by itself, to either the top right or bottom left of the screen. I’ve just disabled the pointer stick, and that seems to have cured the problem – I’ll have to rely on the touchpad instead, which suits me fine as I prefer using it anyway. But it is a little annoying. And I don’t think I want to return the whole machine under warranty to get it repaired, as I don’t really want to be without it for something so minor.

I’ve no idea what use it might be to anyone, but grayblog now has an RSS feed. It can be found at http://www.grayblog.co.uk/rss/index.rdf. All posts from now on will have a title, but that title will not appear on the standard grayblog pages, simply because I don’t want to have to think of a witty title for each post. Titles will be more functional than entertaining.
Well, I say that there is an RSS feed, but I can’t get it to work at the moment. Check back later.
UPDATE: it’s working now.

Ah yes! Monday’s day out. I’d almost forgotten…
After doing a few chores involving the bank, Boots and the district council, I caught a train to London Bridge where I met up with Gem. We don’t see each other anything like often enough. She’s been feeling a bit low lately after a messy break-up, and I get the impression that things have been a bit stressful for her at work, with layoffs and people jumping ship. She seems to be approaching one of those crossroads in life, so I hope it was good for her to take a day out, relax, talk things over with an impartial observer, and generally have a good day.
Anyway, we mooched from London Bridge along the South Bank, pausing for a baguette-based lunch along the way. Not the best baguette I’ve ever eaten, filled with particularly dry grated cheese, but very nice to sit by the river and people watch whilst we caught up on each other’s news.
Then we sauntered along further until we got to the London Eye, where there was an icecream vendor. I really fancied a 99 with two flakes, but he only had chocolate icecream. It was good, but not really what I had in mind.
After this, we went in for the feature attraction of the day, which was a tour of the Saatchi Gallery. Modern art is not really Gem’s bag, and this visit was my idea. She has promised that next time we shall spend an afternoon looking at Impressionist paintings to make up. I say "make up" because even I was not entirely satisfied by the gallery experience. There doesn’t seem to be a logic to the way that the gallery is laid out and the pieces displayed. There is currently a Damien Hirst retrospective, but it was hard to actually gain any sort of overall view of the development of his work and style. Instead, his pieces were scattered through the rooms of the gallery, juxtaposed with works by other artists. The overall feeling of the gallery is that each artist is simply trying to out-shock or out-clever the next, and the endless references to death, sex and shit do become a little tiresome after a while.
Favourite works? Ron Mueck’s Mask, which is truly terrifying in it’s proportions. Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (known as The Shark In The Tank to you and me), which gives a terrifying impact when viewed from a distance, but seems weaker and more frail when viewed close to. Richard Wilson’s 20:50, which is innovative and produces an awful vertiginous sense in the viewer who also becomes part of the artwork by entering it. In fact, seeing 20:50 alone is worth paying the entrance fee for.
After the Saatchi, we retired to a waterside bar to enjoy some beers in the late summer sunshine, before heading up through Covent Garden to Oxford Street, where we braved the hordes, looked in a few clothes shops and ended up in Waterstone’s at Simpsons to use their loos and buy some paperbacks. Then we headed back to Soho, had some cocktails, met Gem’s friend Lisa, and finished the day with the three of us enjoying a Chinese meal before I had to dash and catch the last train home.
A good day all round, I’d say.

Galileo, RIP (rest in pieces).

Beer tonight with Paul F, Arron, Kearn, Terry, Hamish and other miscreants.
Absolutely.

I’ve just remembered that I haven’t given a full report of Monday’s trip to London. But now it is time to go to the pub, and Arron has promised to buy me a beer, so I don’t want to be late.
Tomorrow kiddies. Just enjoy your lovely new header and dream of textual treats to come.

Ewww. Link nicked from the Byn.

The votes have been counted. The readers have spoken. In spite of a couple of known instances of ballot box stuffing, I think I can safely say that the result is the one that gained the most votes.
And I really liked Palm House Door.

Radical Aces – a great game.

We’ve just found a dead stoat outside. It had a little blood on its neck, so I guess it had been caught and abandoned by a cat. It was only small, clearly one of this year’s young, and its fur was as soft as you could imagine.

We could tell easily that it wasn’t a weasel. After all, they are stoatally different and weasely distinguished. (I know, awful, but I thought I’d save someone the bother).
<rolf>The poor fella didn’t make it</rolf>.