Thursday, November 27, 2008

Beware of the Bin Man

I am sure there is a saying or lyric that sounds like that.

Cycling to work for me has been an evolution of needs. Which started in June with the daily need to traverse the 1.8 miles from Paddington Station to Mayfair and back again.

In the beginning there was no bike. Just a choice between bus and walking. As the summer mornings and evenings in London were rain free and 1 mile of the journey involved a walk across Hyde Park, walking was the preferred option. Of course I took the bus while the blisters healed. But they soon did and the hardened skin served me well.

As pleasant as the walk through Hyde Park and the Mews leading to Paddington was, I really did not want to spend over three hours commuting to work and back each day.

Buses were good. If one turned up. Which as a rule they did not. And I quickly grew tired of regular 45 minute waits for buses that were scheduled to rumble past every eight minutes.

So the evolution of the commute came to focus on a bike. I love cycling. It is three times faster than walking and you get the same scenerific qualities.

The only trouble being it is difficult getting your average garage variety mountain bike on a train. So the focus turned to a foldy-up bike. One that could be carried on the train and then deployed at Paddington.

One was acquired and the daily commute dropped from over three hours to just over two. The union proved to be one made in heaven (figuratively speaking). Or union between man and bike was heaven, union between man, bike and London commuter traffic was problematic. But I got used to the fact nobody cares if you are on a zebra crossing, that there really is no right of way. And that traffic lights only really mean red after they have been red for more than ten seconds.

And then the nights started drawing in. Soon enough it was dusk as I cycled home and it became apparent I would need lights. Not to see the road with, but to let everyone know that the shimmering image of spokes and luminous pedals was actually given impetus by a biological being that needed to survive. And that worked for a while.

Until it got proper dark and it became apparent that I would need to be lit up like a christmas tree to avoid severe injury. Especially when me and my foldy-bike narrowly avoided a journey across the bonnet of an impatient Jag.

So now my attire for commuting, given the addition of inclement weather, starts with my pigeon blue woolly hat with white stripes (explained later), matching scarf, jeans (I keep my suit in the office), big thick black coat and luminous yellow jacket of which you regularly see builders, road sweepers and bin men wearing.

The hat is pigeon blue because two days after I first wore it I was serenaded by a repeatedly swooping pigeon as I peddled down Park Lane. I can only assume it thought the trailing scarf was fluttering wings and somehow could not see the 93kilos of human man perched on bike beneath hat. My attempts to pedal faster only spurred it on in its amorous endeavours. Fortunately it was not prepared to risk the peril of swooping so close to so many double decker buses as I scuttled across to Curzon street with my hats virtue still intact.

So, to the point of this overly long tale. I got on the train at my local station this morning, one of the last in a long trail. People never cease to amaze me just how rude they will be. Anyone shows me their elbow just to jump a space in the orderly flow of humanity gets my pedal in their quads. Regardless of gender and the woman are the meanest. The older they are or the more they can flick their hair whip like the more right the seem to think they have.

For some reason these past few weeks people have been extraordinarily polite to me. Making way for this intrepid traveller as I have rarely known.

This morning was not that different. I parked the folded bike in the luggage rack and shuffled along with the rest.

Being an old hand at the commuter lark I know the lengths people will go to make sure nobody sits in the seat beside them. As we trailed along I noticed a guy sat at a table with two other laptop users with a collection of bags sat in the seat beside him. You are not supposed to ask to sit there because the bags might belong to someone else or being English we are supposed to naturally shy away from inconveniencing people. Bollucks to that I’m European.

Alright fella can I get that seat? I said.

Maybe he didn’t hear me although I thought I was pretty clear. Or maybe so many had walked past and not asked he thought he had got away with it. He ignored me.

So I tapped him on the shoulder. Can I get that seat there fella?

This time there was no avoiding me. He diverted his gaze from the laptop screen, possibly thinking about telling me they were not his bags. And set eyes on me. Admittedly I am a fairly broad character and hadn’t shaved for about ten days on account of a long weekend in Exmore. But a look of temporary horror crossed his face. And then he couldn’t move quick enough. Almost taking out the other two laptops and hurriedly pulling his bags onto the floor and standing to let me through.

It was only when I sat trying to figure why my unshaven face would cause such a reaction did it occur to me I probably did look like a grizzled old(ish) bin man. It is a look I plan on cultivating. At least while commuting.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Not Strictly Ballroom

Of course the topic on everyone’s lips right now is the matter of the venerable John Sergeants exploits with a Russian ballroom dancer. And for once for a political figure (albeit a reporter) it is not a matter of sexual scandal for which we speak.

It is actually of ballroom dancing that we speak. Or rather Mr Sergeant’s ability to put a smile on our faces rather than actually knock out a heart stopping Salsa.

This is my third season of Strictly although only my second as a mostly avid viewer. My previous incursions to the show limited by my dislike for the judges inability to see the obvious in favour for rhetoric. And my seemingly well placed mis-trust in the BBC’s adherence to phone voting figures.

But now in this much monitored world of phone voting the dialling public really do feel for the first time in years within any voting arena. That their vote matters. And they are right. Our votes are also now making a difference, which is very appealing.

Last week we saw the last black contestant fall by the wayside after some careful complimenting of a wonderful singer but clumsy dancer. Everyone was scandalised that it wasn’t dear John that left.

This week there was some ridiculously high judge voting for all the ‘pretty (men and women lumped together)’ dancers and some careful complimenting of dear John. We were supposed to think that it was not plausible for John to stay when only pretty dancers remain. He had his run - Asta la vista. But Cherie went and John stayed. I was one of the masses that voted for him.

From outraged judges to scandalised ballroom purists many seem perplexed at John’s feats. But has anyone dragged such a beautiful woman across a dance floor in such an ineloquent way. Has anyone managed to look like they are walking quite so sedately through a cha cha cha. And just enjoyed the music and the moment and the blonde Russian that they actually looked like they might nod off in a fit of melancholy. No and neither has anything in the last few months put such a smile on so many faces and god knows we need excuses to smile. So it is not surprising that the public are picking up a phone and making a difference. When there is so much in this world we are utterly powerless to influence.

And of course there is the satisfaction of seeing the pretty people faced with an early exit or the trauma of the dance off. When dear John never had to endure either. There really is something quite satisfying about that.

At the end of the day if you want Strictly Ballroom and all that entails then you are welcome to the tired and dusty halls of Blackpool. Strictly Come Dancing is an entertainment show that gets its high ratings through the spectacle and audience participation. It is good because of both these things and not from any one, so stop bloody winging that it starts and ends with the dance competition.

Sadly of course. Most of the above was typed yesterday. Only to find that John withdrew today. The headline was that he was worried he might actually win. But it was a lot more dignified on his part than that. I will keep watching this season purely in the hope I get to see Rachel Stevens do that Rumba again. But my position on the sofa next year is being given careful consideration.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

A Few Good Men

Well he did it. And I suppose the fact he is black is significant but I do wish the press would stop printing pictures of almost delirious black only crowds. That hints that they hope something a little more sinister might brew.

I hope not. McClaine’s defeat speech was magnanimous and I thought heartfelt, if his followers didn’t show themselves in the same light in that same moment. But they showed the world what it missed out on by not electing another republican president. And we are all the better for it judging by the shock waves of the last eight republican years. That will continue to reverberate throughout this small corner of the universe.

I really do hope that the more sinister aspects of the American government that have been shown to us during that same time period do not take it upon themselves to kill our great hope.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Fawlty Perspectives

It started with an unanswered phone call and a voicemail message that included all sorts of accusations and choice forms of language. The voicemail belonged to a 78 year old man. The accusations involved claims that one of the callers had slept with his granddaughter, which turned out to be true. That the pensioner would probably kill himself when he found out. There was more along the same intellectual baseline.

The fallout initially started with just two complaints. Within a week the call was being discussed in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister. The debate seems to go on wherever you go. I even got stopped by the Brazilian cleaner in the work kitchen yesterday and asked for my opinion. One of the two callers has now resigned and the other one. Well he couldn’t afford to resign. And suffers the indignity of being suspended.

My problem with the whole thing is that I find it hard to see where the debating points lay. There can be no opinion because the issue is cut and dry. There is no debate around comedians pushing the boundaries of acceptability, there is no discussion around the fact the granddaughter did sleep with one of the two callers.

It is not about accepting the prank in its intended context of humour. Just because Chris Moyles or one of his posse makes prank calls does not mean you can justify calling anyone and being generally abusive even if you laugh while doing it.

It is not about the fact the 78 year old man is a celebrity and therefore deemed outside the increasingly fuzzy boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour.

These two callers could have stood on a stage and said the same things without making their call. That would appeal to some, make some laugh or just confirm the opinion of these two held by a good many. And that would not have resulted in resignations or suspensions or the prime minister discussing radio shows. That is a benefit of a society underpinned by free speech.

The fact of the matter is these two people did call another human and treated him with utter disrespect. That broke a basic tenet of human behaviour. Nobody should be permitted to do this. There simply is no debate.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The Road - Cormack McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is probably more widely known in recent times for his book made into movie: No Country For Old Men.

The Road is a little different. A man and a boy walk east to west through America in a post apocalyptic world where all we know has burned, melted, been plundered, raped, eaten or committed suicide. So we are not talking jaunty tale of father and son at one with wildlife here.

Instead this is a world of mankinds possible future that does not preach or shout of our failings in the here and now. It just tells a very real story of what the future may hold. It is despairing and at times hard to read. Not from McCormack’s no fuss literary style but the sheer reality that is conveyed. At other times one man’s love for his child and the innocence of that child shine through the endless realm of dark skies and shifting oceans of ash.

If there is one fault in this story it is the need to make what is essentially a short story into a novel to make it commercially viable.

But apart from that this is the sort of story that should be read at schools. It resonates in the same way Lord of the Flies and Walkabout did as a life lesson that stays with the emerging mind.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A Non-Believer in a world of Believers

Many consider atheism to be a belief system, which is of course contradictory. The definition of belief is an acceptance of something as true, by way of an emotional and often spiritual sense of certainty. As such a belief system is not underpinned by an opinion based on known facts. Belief is the sort of system used to explain ghosts and gods. I have no doubt a good many humanists of the modern day employ the same gut thought in their belief of mankind as god.

But anyone that has worked through the information that is readily available in this current slice of time and concluded god does not exist should not have to suffer the label of atheist nor believer – both being constructs of faith societies.

We think, therefore we are.

God based faith is a perfectly acceptable medium for those that make a conscious effort towards ignorance. And there are a great many that put a lot of thought into building complex constructs to perpetuate this ignorance.

But in this modern world where we have so much knowledge it really does take that leap of faith to ignore the truth before our eyes. The moment you accept evolution as being the journey of life you must have problems with faith. You can wriggle and plot on ways that evolution fits into the genesis stories. But the problem you will always have with that Jewish Genesis account of this worlds creation, is that it evolved from Babylonian stories adopted by incarcerated Jewish slaves. How do you ratify as truth a legacy of stories that evolved via word of mouth over three thousand years ago, stories that evolved through hundreds of successive generations that really did not have a single clue about anything other than agriculture – the great perpetrator of human life on this planet.

It is only in the last four hundred years that man has started building a knowledge that has been underpinned by great thinkers such as Newton and Darwin. And most of what we know today has been learned in the last one hundred and fifty years. If faith is a wilful step of ignorance, actually believing those legendary genesis stories as a truth today is an act of stupidity.

Believers with faith tend to focus on those that prise open their clam shut minds, so it stands to reason Darwin would become the focus for those that scuttle from cover. Anybody that has read the origin of species will know that Darwin knew little of what he was opening the door to and a lot of what he thought was wrong when correlated with what we know today. But we should consider Darwin wrote in a time when most people thought the world was seven thousand years old, that fossils really were the remains of animals that didn’t make it onto Noah’s Ark and that a glowing Caucasian created everything you behold. Which makes Darwin quite remarkable.

But Darwins principle of evolution through natural selection is a seed for thought that can only grow if you open your mind. Believers will make chanted claims such as: ‘Incomplete fossil records’ without the slightest comprehension of what they are talking about. Of course what we know is incomplete. Does that mean we shut up shop and stay ignorant?

A sense for reason will acknowledge that we cannot take a three thousand year old text as a definite truth ordained by a since absent deity. A sense of reason will take a simple truth and look at in context.

We did think the world was seven thousand years old and then it we thought that maybe it was older. Thought evolved as we studied more and came to realise through successive thoughts that the world was four billion years old. Since that time, with the information we have learned in that time, we have come to think the world might be four and a half billions years old. We are big enough to know that any statement of known fact is based on what we know at that time. We know that what we learn may change that, but we are not so ignorant to believe that what we know is right and will always be so, because someone told us so.

We know that the world is probably over four billion years old and cellular life probably appeared very shortly after. We do not know how that occurred. It is very likely we will never know. Of course we will never know anything for certain, we can only take what we learn and shape our thoughts with what we learn.

It was thought that single celled life quickly evolved to multi celled life. But we now know that single celled life was probably the only form of life for almost three and one half billion years of this planets life. We know that repeated meteor impacts almost wiped out life on this planet on multiple occasions and that somehow single celled life evolved only six hundred million years ago into multi celled life.

We do not know exactly when of course. It was about six hundred million years ago. And then multi celled organisms continued to evolve around the simple Darwinian principle of survival, that when resources for propagation fail the best adapted to the environment will survive.

And so through a continuous cycle of growth and changing environment on this planet through hundreds of millions of years, through ice ages and through the absorption of carbons into the ground from all cellular life and then through the shifting plates of this earth’s surfaces and the molten fires of volcanoes that released carbons to create a shield that warmed the earth’s surface that melted the ice. Through meteor impacts that wiped out dinosaurs but not all life, through the continuous flux of weather and temperature and mutation in reproduced cells that in turn perished and sometimes survived. We eventually come to life as we now know it. Which is thought to have branched out from other life forms about six million years ago and further branched out to closer incarnations of Homo Sapien two and one half millions years ago.

We do not know everything of course. And to say we do is just plain wrong. We know evolution is what brought us to this point. Evolution will never change as a substantiating concept for our existence but it would be ignorant to assume what we now know will never change. Just as we build and re-assess our knowledge of all things. Humanities great legacy is the quest for knowledge and understanding, despite its tendency towards belief.

It is a great shame that those with faith have held sway over humanity for so long. And that humanity through this still struggles to wriggle free of belief. But then I suppose there would be little for me to write about.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Doing Bad Things

A great many people dream of writing a book, at least it would seem to be the case judging from the people I talk to. And a few of them do go on to write. And then a few of them go on to start their book.

Writing the book is not a project to be taken lightly, at least if my experience is anything to go by. Its not even just writing what you have to say in a clear and enterprising way, keeping your reader turning the pages. But in creating characters that live in peoples minds. In creating an overall construct that reveals these characters and their story to a finale that leaves the last page turned and the human mind wondering if that author has written any other books. Hopefully not with the intention of avoiding them. Most of that won’t be news to anybody that has spent any time writing.

The thing is though, if you are going to accomplish all that then at some point in time during your story you are probably going to have something horrible happen to someone good. This will usually be at the hands of someone bad.

And therein lay the problem. Most of us are in the main good people who would find it difficult to even contemplate assaulting, stabbing, beating, injecting with drugs, raping or shooting.

Despite the occasional blood rush in matters concerning religion and inanimate objects I would consider myself as standing among the good people.

So … progress on the book writing front had slowed of late as I have now come to the point of writing the bit where the bad people do the horrible stuff to the perfectly innocent and undeserving central characters.

It is not so much just in writing these acts but you have to think through actions and causes, work out logical processes and justifications for the bad things. Basically start to think like the perpetrator of these deeds. And then describe them in such a manner that brings home the horror of the situation to the reader and then manifest the trauma within the victims mind and even physically.

The weird thing is that having put it off for so long, now I have started this process it has been rather more enjoyable than I ever imagined it would be. Thinking like a bad person has actually come quite easily. Sure I have felt guilt as the deeds have emerged onto the page and some of the deeds are not very nice at all. But there has been something quite satisfying about the whole process.

I think it is the novelty of doing something you know to be absolutely wrong while knowing nobody is actually getting hurt. And knowing you are solely responsible for deciding whether they get caught, whether the victims get revenge or the bad person goes on to do more bad things. That in order to read about a murderer, someone has to commit the murder in their minds and then write it down.

I suppose I must have known that would have to be the case but it did not become real in my mind until I had to actually do it.

(Loud nefarious laugh slowly fades into the background).

Friday, September 05, 2008

Our House

It could probably be traced back to one summers evening in August 2004, but I will not bore you with the often complex paths that led to the union of Priddeesh and yours truly. A more accurate marker for the beginning would probably be a Holiday to Edinburgh in August 2006 where it rained for an entire weekend. During which Priddeesh caught cold and was very grumpy. Upon our return she never made it back as far as her flat, instead she decamped at mine, wrapped herself in a blue blanket and spent a week alternating between looking pitiful on the sofa and bed. And she never left.

I am not totally sure I remember there being any agreement along the lines of ‘Lets live together.’ Priddeesh just never went home. And soon after something very strange started happening in my flat. The clean lines were rapidly consumed by ’stuff’. And then soon after the open spaces vanished and were replaced by things to put the stuff in. Wicker baskets seemed to breed faster than march hares, bags of wool appeared from nowhere, clean and polished table tops were consumed by celebrity magazines with faces I had never seen. My once proud DVD collection was now littered with fitness DVD’s and then even worse I would find DVD titles like ‘Fifty first dates, Knocked Up and Forty Year Old Virgin’ ejected from the DVD player anytime I settled down to watch a movie. Penny Vincenzi books started piling up by the sofa and then a book case to put the books in and then more wicker baskets. And then a load of medical books. My neat and compact dining room table morphed one weekend into a big fat study desk. And then there were the clothes.

I think the clothes are what did it in the end. And now I am beginning to think they were all part of a cunning master plan. They always existed in neat ironed and folded stacks but they seemed to be everywhere. I brought a great big set of bedroom drawers and still neat stacks of clothes would sit insolently on the living room chair, or hang tired from the washing machine as if they had fallen asleep trying to crawl onto the kitchen floor. Or sat waiting for attention on the end of the bed. Summer clothes were levered into a giant suitcase. I’ll fit into those again soon clothes were stacked in draws beneath the bed. I threw away my old clothes to make space. And then one evening in October 2007, with the rain pelting against the window of my refuge - my study. A sweet voice floated in through the door: ‘Johnie, come and look at this!’

I ignored the request of course but little Priddeesh is not one to be swayed lightly, especially when she has a master plan brewing. So she appeared in the doorway of the study with her laptop balanced in one hand. ‘Johnie, look at this.’ She repeated. The screen was then positioned directly in front of me. I was staring at a house.

‘A house?’ I said.

‘Yes Johnie think of all the room.’

I often thought about having lots of room, but that was in the days before. Now my days were cluttered but joyous and fulfilled. And the source of my joy now wanted a house.

Almost a year later I find myself sitting on the living floor beside the brick surround of the fireplace in our new house, of that house. I think on the stress of the last two weeks, I think on the stress of the last three months, of the stress of May earlier in the year. During which I spent four weeks unemployed while looking for a job that would pay the mortgage for ‘That House’, or the hours I spend commuting now and the early starts and late nights. Of the months I will spend decorating. I listen to the busy movements of Priddeesh as she opens windows and cleans through the kitchen. She doesn’t stop talking. Excited jabber that I intermittently acknowledge while sorting through the vast amount of double glazzing keys, of her plans for a vegetable patch out back and a bench and table for the small square of grass off to the side, for a patio and for the border. And how she can just imagine children running around here and what a great place it would be for them.

I cross my legs: ‘But we don’t know anyone with children.’

‘Johniee!’

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Row, row the Boat

A perfect example of the events in life that spark some desire to put opinion to word but used to be tempered by the construct of my last website. Is the story about a husband and wife who faked the husbands death while he was out in a canoe and then lived it up on the insurance money. That story was what sparked the existence of this newer, streamlined site.

I felt for that couple and I wanted to talk about that. That they could come up with a scheme that got by the fairly intricate mechanisms of government and then the even more intricate mechanisms of insurance and managed to swindle over two hundred thousand out of the great leviathan of commerce. I raise my hat to them.

Of course the morally afflicted will raise their eyebrows and smack their lips together, while purposefully shaking their head from side to side. But from my viewpoint the only thing they really did wrong, apart from getting caught, was to lie to their children. But even then we don’t know what the relationship was there. They might have been crap parents and had little contact with them. Or they might have been great parents and had little contact with them. Or they might just have been crap kids. If they were both good parents and great children and then the parents pulled this, and did not tell them. Then that was bad.

As for swindling two hundred thousand from the system, no problem. The system is fat and bloated and is not principled. Two hundred thousand in the great scheme of things is nothing. I have seen mediocre government departments blow that amount in one afternoon on useless equipment that was never used. Just to hit budget expenditure so they can get more the next year. That happens all the time.

Two hundred thousand really is no amount of money these days. What they did was wrong within the great scheme of laws required of society. But there is some part of my that wishes they could have got away with it. I think it is the thought of two people being able to stick two fingers up at the system and laughing into their penicolada’s.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Touching the Linux Fantastic

It would be safe to say that historically I have tended to avoid Linux wherever possible. I think that was mostly because Novell (back in the day) forced it down our throats in the misguided belief it was a lot more than it actually was.

In hindsight I think my problem with Linux was in my approach. Novell trumpeted Suse desktop as a Windows killer (honestly) and I think I made the mistake of thinking of it like Windows. It is a whole different planet.

Time passes and we find ourselves in different situations. Novell now is a distant memory of pub quizes and futile team meetings. I work now in London for a company that reserve two rack slots for legacy Novell technologies and a server room for a whole load of everything else. Which includes Linux. I need to get my arse in gear.

Besides, now that Microsoft have burdened us with Vista, Linux should be a walk in the park.

The remit then was simple - to install openSuse and then on top of that vmware server - an old nemesis of mine from previous encounters with Linux.

The installing Linux bit went real well. Unless you’re running bleeding edge technology then these days it should do, depending on the distribution of course. Debian failed miserably at seeing any of my duo core hardware but openSuse breezed it. Hoorah.

Then I got into the trifling matter of vmware which likes recompiling itself. The trouble is the dialogue that comes with each section of the install might as well have been in a language from another planet. Worded in that obscure way that Linux help files often are. They can contain pages on pages of text telling you what is required in English, all verbs and adjectives that describe switches and mechanisms that make absolutely no sense at all.

So it was, that after completing the install of prerequisites like compilers and source code I found myself pressing page down through the license agreement. I felt if this was all for free - which vmware server is then the least I could do was check out the whole of the agreement.

The trouble is though that when you get to the end it just stops. And nothing happens. There is no box where you can type ‘I agree’ or even a message stating that all you need to do is press return to agree. It just stops and you go no where.

Of course this is where all the smug little Linux afficionados sit smug on that other planet of theirs and giggle into their vodka tonics. All mouthing inison: ‘Just press Q numb nuts.’

Which is all you have to do but until you find out that little gem the world can suddenly seem like a wonderful arena for random violence against inanimate objects.

So we get past the license agreement and press return past the first few questions.

And then it told me it would need to compile - coolio I was expecting that. And then it told me my compiler was the wrong version - by one digit at the end of a sequence of digits. It then informed me in that other planet way that continuing would probably mean everything I dreamed vmware was going to give me would likely fall on its arse just when I least needed it to.

So I did some research. Surely it was just a matter of installing the right version of the compiler. But the only version on offer was the one I had. So I did some more research. Was it because of my kernel version? It did not seem like it. Not for this particular issue. The kernel issues were just around the corner. One cheerful forum announced.

Eventually I found a walk thru of vmware on suse that flippantly explained that it always comes up with that message and you just have to ignore it and proceed anyways. Not so coolio.

So we march on, now with a sense that the end is nigh and very soon I will be able to tell people that I installed vmware on Linux and survived a recompile. My heart beat hard in my chest.

Then I ran into the kernel issues. In order to recompile vmware the install needed the source files. Which were diligently installed at the very beginning. But for some reason it could not find the source files. Despite my subsequently having installed, un installed, installed, rebuilt the damn server, installed, disabled the software update source, re-installed etc

Violence simmered at the edge of my frayed sanity but violence was not an option. My boss hadn’t gone home yet.

And then I had a moment of utter clarity. I was still trying to troubleshoot this as if it was windows, which roughly follows a logic hierarchy. I needed to start thinking like I was from the other world. Think chaos.

So I did and found that the source files it was looking for just did not exist despite being checked as installed. Why would that be the case. This was the standard kernel install, these were the standard kernel source files. And it was not working. Which could only mean that Suse for some reason had installed another kernel while I had my back turned, probably while I was pouring that last sambuka I spect.

A quick scuttle over to the software manager confirmed my fears. For some reason the default kernel was not installed but for some reason the pae one was. Which needed completely different source files to recompile. Arse.

So I uninstalled the pae kernel, installed the default with the correct version number and rebooted.

From there the vmware breezed and I soon connected to the server from a remote workstation. Hoorah. I immediately pulled out msdn and installed Windows XP as the first image. A balm to chaos and I breathed easy. Swaying back and forwards cradling my wireless keyboard.

Changing Styles

It seems amazing to me that I can stand here on the Paddington station concourse - the time currently being fifteen minutes before seven of the night. And by the time I get home in less than ninety minutes I will have this blog posted on my website. You could probably even have read it by the time I get home. The amazing part at least to me is that all I have to create the blog is my Blackberry and two thumbs.

But that is the reality of how it is now setup and it wasn’t even that difficult to do. Wordpress, php, a hosted domain name and mysql.

It has been a long time since anything johniebg related has been posted anywhere on the web which has primarily been down to one thing - work. In the last post I was on the verge of employment having given up a well paid if dull job for four weeks unemployment.

The job panned out and despite all my protestations to the contrary while looking for a job I now find myself doing the London commute five days a week once more. Although this time heading into west London from the western provinces.

The job itself is the best paid I ever had during full time employment although half of what I was earning annually as a contractor in the years that led to and immediately followed y2k. It is also technically the most challenged I have felt for a very long time, simply because such a wide range of technologies are used.

The reason then that there were no blogs on the old site then was simply from the fact I have been getting home for the last eight weeks so exhausted I barely had the strength to twitch a finger. Let alone hold eight above a keyboard.

Which is how I came to this solution, an evolution of circumstances and needs. It pains me to not write. All those ideas and frustrations floating about inside. They just have to come out. If they don’t things start to get unclear, all fogged up and turned about.

Writing then is my release valve for the tedium of existence. At least an existence where we are forced to do the things we would not ordinarily in the name of food on the plate and mortgage paid.

A lot else also has happened in those eight weeks which includes Dexter, a new mortgage and house (almost), a wedding date, more of the book and a very small bike. Which I will not burden you with right now. Hopefully that can be saved for another evenings commute.

Touching the Linux fantastic

It would be safe to say that historically I have tended to avoid Linux wherever possible. I think that was mostly because Novell (back in the day) forced it down our throats in the misguided belief it was a lot more than it actually was.

In hindsight I think my problem with Linux was in my approach. Novell trumpeted Suse desktop as a Windows killer (honestly) and I think I made the mistake of thinking of it like Windows. It is a whole different planet.

Time passes and we find ourselves in different situations. Novell now is a distant memory of pub quizes and futile team meetings. I work now in London for a company that reserve two rack slots for legacy Novell technologies and a server room for a whole load of everything else. Which includes Linux. I need to get my arse in gear.

Besides, now that Microsoft have burdened us with Vista, Linux should be a walk in the park.

The remit then was simple - to install openSuse and then on top of that vmware server - an old nemesis of mine from previous encounters with Linux.

The installing Linux bit went real well. Unless you’re running bleeding edge technology then these days it should do, depending on the distribution of course. Debian failed miserably at seeing any of my duo core hardware but openSuse breezed it. Hoorah.

Then I got into the trifling matter of vmware which likes recompiling itself. The trouble is the dialogue that comes with each section of the install might as well have been in a language from another planet. Worded in that obscure way that Linux help files often are. They can contain pages on pages of text telling you what is required in English, all verbs and adjectives that describe switches and mechanisms that make absolutely no sense at all.

So it was, that after completing the install of prerequisites like compilers and source code I found myself pressing page down through the license agreement. I felt if this was all for free - which vmware server is then the least I could do was check out the whole of the agreement.

The trouble is though that when you get to the end it just stops. And nothing happens. There is no box where you can type ‘I agree’ or even a message stating that all you need to do is press return to agree. It just stops and you go no where.

Of course this is where all the smug little Linux afficionados sit smug on that other planet of theirs and giggle into their vodka tonics. All mouthing inison: ‘Just press Q numb nuts.’

Which is all you have to do but until you find out that little gem the world can suddenly seem like a wonderful arena for random violence against inanimate objects.

So we get past the license agreement and press return past the first few questions.

And then it told me it would need to compile - coolio I was expecting that. And then it told me my compiler was the wrong version - by one digit at the end of a sequence of digits. It then informed me in that other planet way that continuing would probably mean everything I dreamed vmware was going to give me would likely fall on its arse just when I least needed it to.

So I did some research. Surely it was just a matter of installing the right version of the compiler. But the only version on offer was the one I had. So I did some more research. Was it because of my kernel version? It did not seem like it. Not for this particular issue. The kernel issues were just around the corner. One cheerful forum announced.

Eventually I found a walk thru of vmware on suse that flippantly explained that it always comes up with that message and you just have to ignore it and proceed anyways. Not so coolio.

So we march on, now with a sense that the end is nigh and very soon I will be able to tell people that I installed vmware on Linux and survived a recompile. My heart beat hard in my chest.

Then I ran into the kernel issues. In order to recompile vmware the install needed the source files. Which were diligently installed at the very beginning. But for some reason it could not find the source files. Despite my subsequently having installed, un installed, installed, rebuilt the damn server, installed, disabled the software update source, re-installed etc

Violence simmered at the edge of my frayed sanity but violence was not an option. My boss hadn’t gone home yet.

And then I had a moment of utter clarity. I was still trying to troubleshoot this as if it was windows, which roughly follows a logic hierarchy. I needed to start thinking like I was from the other world. Think chaos.

So I did and found that the source files it was looking for just did not exist despite being checked as installed. Why would that be the case. This was the standard kernel install, these were the standard kernel source files. And it was not working. Which could only mean that Suse for some reason had installed another kernel while I had my back turned, probably while I was pouring that last sambuka I spect.

A quick scuttle over to the software manager confirmed my fears. For some reason the default kernel was not installed but for some reason the pae one was. Which needed completely different source files to recompile. Arse.

So I uninstalled the pae kernel, installed the default with the correct version number and rebooted.

From there the vmware breezed and I soon connected to the server from a remote workstation. Hoorah. I immediately pulled out msdn and installed Windows XP as the first image. A balm to chaos and I breathed easy. Swaying back and forwards cradling my wireless keyboard.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Good Moral Code

It would be mostly accurate if I were to say that I am on the whole a peaceful person. Sometimes inanimate objects can wind me up as can easy viewing TV but I tend to avoid the later and give the former a good kicking if they mess me about.

Religion can be a touchy subject as well.

I was on the train the other morning and happened to be sitting next to an American (or Canadian) who spent the first thirty minutes on the phone running down his boss and then extolling his own virtues. Nothing particularly wrong in that I suppose. Perhaps a little immature I thought given that the guy seemed to be in his early fifties. He wrapped up the conversation with: ‘God bless.’ and then: ‘In the name of Jesus.’

Amen, I thought.

He then got out his Bible and started reading a section of Psalms. Which for the unenlightened is in the Old Testament. The Old Testament being a collection of Jewish books about Jewish people which was borrowed by Christians about 1700 years ago and never given back. Jewish people don’t tend to have a lot of time for Jesus nor the faith that grew around someone’s belief that the world was about to end and that Jesus being resurrected meant life after death was on the cards. I almost asked this guy why he was reading Psalms. But already knew the answer, ‘Because it tells me that Jesus was the messiah.’

Rubbish, I might have been inclined to answer. There is no mention of a messiah that will die crucified a convicted criminal anywhere in the Old Testament. Of course nobody reads it so they would not know. All they do is listen to caped guys paraphrase the bits they like to hear.

But I didn’t say a word.

The next morning I was sitting behind two completely different guys that were talking about their children. From what I could make out one of them who I will call Matt for ease of story telling, had a two year old and a four year old. He was telling his mate that he had just started attending church a couple times a month.

Matt had no qualms about stating his motivation for going to church was in his wanting to get his kids into the local church sponsored school. Not that the Church had any direct sway but he had it on good authority that they had considerable sway behind closed doors.

I was just thinking to myself that going to church in such a manner would only be useful if the people running the church knew you were there so they could sway for your children. When Matt added that he was one of the people that had volunteered to lay out the Prayer books and Bibles.

That would probably get him noticed I thought. And then I thought what a weird old world it was where parents have to resort to such desperate measures to attain what the believed would be a better education for their children (which I will come back to).

I know something strange is supposed to happen when you first see the wriggly little thing spawned of your own DNA smile and take its first breath. And I get the wanting the best for your children but to forsake all that you stand for and prostitute your beliefs in the name of education. It is one thing being Christian and going to church but faking it? Is it because parents think their red cheeked cherubs will be safer from the evils of the world in the house sponsored by god?

The other guy had so far managed impartiality. But like me seemed a little confused if that was their only reason for going to church. Matt did not miss a beat.

It is good to teach your children a good moral grounding, don’t you think. I am even thinking about buying a Bible you know.

I almost choked my coffee over the back of his seat. And then had to restrain myself from jumping up and asking him what the hell he was on about. What bloody morals. You mean “do unto others as you would have done unto you.’ The golden rule of humanity that has been found repeated in civilisations across the world from almost a thousand years before Jesus.

What about all the other good stuff you might ask.

To which I would retort, ‘What stuff.’

‘All the good stuff Christians do?’

You tell me the last time you met a Christian that did any good for anyone other than a Christian. Or at least anyone other than those prepared to bow their head in prayer in order to receive a vaccination. Doing something in the name of faith for those that will acknowledge that faith is not good morals.

Doing something in the name of your faith is not the same as doing what your faith tells you either. People do good all the time, some of them just happen to be Christian. And don’t get me started on the bad that people do, do not assume bad is only done by people without faith. I could take a considerable amount of your time listing the bad done in the name of Christianity.

But we digress. So if Christians doing good doesn’t stand them out morally, maybe the word of their Bible does - the word of god they will tell you. Well if that is the case your morals revolve around condoning the beating of children to death if they are naughty (obviously after you get them back from church) and that (we are only touching the surface here) woman are only good for having children and should accept they are to blame for the sins of the world and are not even worthy of speaking in Church. Which you might snort at. But that one passage in the New Testament attributed to Paul was not even written by Paul - it was written in his name at least two hundred years after he died (most of us would call that a forgery). It has been used to subvert woman ever since. In the actual writings of Paul he talks of woman running worship groups, it never occurred to him woman would not be prominent. Oh what a wonderful thing the Christian Church turned itself into.

I would probably have recommended Matt read his Bible and quote a few of the good morals he was on about, those suitable for his children. But he would probably soon realise, as he otherwise seemed like a descent guy, just why the Church routinely had anyone that tried translating the Bible from Latin quite literally hung drawn and quartered. That was the punishment. The first Bible that was widely available to anyone outside the Church was the King James in the early eighteenth century. Which of cause precluded the demise of the Church because everyone then read it and saw it for what it really was – mythical and legendary.

And while we are at it precisely what do you consider is a good education for your child, apart from all those Biblical morals. A cursory glance at evolution? And then doctrine around all creation flowing from the hands of a glowing caucasion, who created mankind and then considered all his mistakes must have been the woman’s fault.

Surely only mankind could make up such rubbish. The need for faith through a god is nothing more than a human illness with it’s roots set in the same foundations as all other addictions. A mechanism by which people can overcome their social fears and failings and become part of a social group.

Church is the absolutely last place I would take a child. Which you should probably consider has one of the highest rate of convicted child sex offenders of any profession. Like Alfred Hitchcock is often quoted as saying after seeing a priest lean forward to place a hand on a young boys shoulder: ‘Run child, run for your life.’

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Heartbreak on the 7:10 to Paddington

A routine day except maybe for the lazy rain that forwarns of winter approaching. The train arrives and herded onto and into the carriage I sit down. Despite the number of people the carriage seems mostly empty.

In the opposite row of seats one row down but facing me are a man and woman. He is sitting in the aisle seat. Very smart, maybe late twenties, maybe early thirties. Dashing. I cannot see much of the woman. Not her face, just that she seems to have dark straight hair, a smartly dark utilitarian suit that compliments his and a wedding and engagement ring that sparkels brightly in the soft light of the carriage. It looks very expensive.

I have no understanding why I had to see her face, I just needed to. Maybe it was because at first the male who I assumed was the provider of the rings had his arm draped consoling around her shoulders. Which was why I couldn’t see her. But then he sat back in that way men do when they realise they are tryng to comfort a lost cause.

She was probably mid thirties, no makeup and average looking. I guessed from her dress the sort of efficient woman that sparkles because of the hope she holds inside. On this occassion her face was a picture of abject misery complete with protruding bottom lip. Not pouty. This was not the kind of misery that weeps at a dead cat, or even a lost parent, worse - not even a broken heart. More like a heart that sits inside your chest heavy and oozing dark impulses for you to be alone, laying down and to just close your eyes and never open them again. So instead your mind just steps you through the daily routine because it knows it should not leave you to your own devices. Me and that sort of misery are old acquintenances.

I couldn’t bare to sit there, my mind recalling my correlating memories. So I got up and moved back a couple of seats. A few minutes later I could hear a restrained sobbing. And then after a few more I saw her heading down the carriage. I assumed she was off to the toilet but she might have just got off without the guy. I didn’t see her again.

It's a brave new world

For a few years now I have been meaning to make my website dynamic, not so much in the jaw dropping content, that is of course already abundant. But in the nature of the interface. Dynamic lets me do all sorts of stuff while allowing you the avid reader to consume and then importantly ‘comment’. Not having the ability to create comments on my old website was apparently frustrating for readers.

Now that johniebg is a world wide phenomena I have expanded the empire to also include johniebg.org which from this point on in time will host my blogs. Importantly they should also be more frequent as I have setup a process that allows me to simply email a blog to my web page and hey presto it appears. Which is marked contrast to having to type and add a blog manually to my old johniebg.net site by editing the code. Which will continue to run but solely featuring the blog archives from 2002 to this moment and my creative writing.

Hope to see you soon.