Jack caught his first mouse last night – the first we know about anyway. He did the usual cat thing of toying with it for a while before eating it. Miles was looking on, perhaps offering telepathic tips. When Jack came in to go to bed he looked very pleased with himself indeed.
Cute but dangerous (if you’re a mouse/bird/rabbit/frog/etc.)
Categories: Cats · Uncategorized
HP and myself went to Belton House on Saturday night for their annual Spitfire Prom. HP made a lovely picnic and we took our various “in-a-bag” items and our cool picnic rucksack and set up camp. Luckily, the weather held out and it was a very enjoyable evening. The funniest moment was when the orchestra were playing 633 Squadron and everyone was waiting for Charlie Brown’s Spitfire to appear from behind the house. A lone pigeon or dove or something appeared instead and swopped around doing his own little fly-past. The real thing was spectacular but I wonder if I was the only one pondering what it would be like if it crashed? Or thinking how cool it would be if there was some simulated gunfire?
Categories: Music
Categories: Cats
I have finally put up the photographs I took when I went to see Peter Gabrel in Italy last May. Just in case anyone wants to congratulate me on my choice of shutter speeds or something like that, let me just say up front that all I did was turn the dial to Auto and turn the flash off! My camera is a Canon Powershot A70. The photos are over there on the right.
For years I’ve been having regular dreams about witnessing plane crashes at very close range. Whenever I’m at home in a dream it’s always in Whitley Bay, in the house where I grew up, even though I haven’t lived there for almost 17 years. I digress. In these dreams, I’m usually looking out of the window and see a plane (an airliner) taking off and then obviously struggling before crashing in the streets near to my house. Occassionally, I’ll be walking somewhere when the plane crashes and I have to run for cover and dodge enormous bits of debris. One particularly vivid occurence was when I was walking along Hillheads near the ice rink when a 737 came down. I only just escaped that one.
The house in Whitley Bay was near the flightpath of Newcastle Airport but approaching planes were still at a fairly high altitude when they passed over. In Peterborough the only plane you’ll see is the odd RAF fighter on maneouvres. I was also having these dreams long before I was flying back and forth between the UK and Italy last year. Plus, I’m not scared of flying. But I wanted to use this blog to note when I have a plane crash dream and see if there is a pattern to them.
Categories: Dreams
After two listens to Orbital’s Blue album I conclude that it’s, uhm… underwhelming. Acid Pants, the collaboration with Sparks, is awful. Easy Serve sounds like a demo song from a synth. One Perfect Sunrise is trying too hard to be another Halcyon. The opening track, Transient, is the most interesting for me but the remainder are all very uninspired: not bad, but not good either. On this evidence they are right to be calling it a day; I don’t think they have anywhere to go.
Categories: Music
Some time ago while I was in Italy, I read about flickr on plasticbag.org. I was fascinated and signed-up immediately. Unfortunately the corporate firewall wouldn’t let me use it and I had no phone line in my apartment. Last night I was doing some email housekeeping and came across a welcome email from Flickr. So I gave it a shot.
After only a short spell online, I’m not convinced about how useful it is but the user interface is astonishingly good. The post below is the only photo I’ve uploaded and I’ve already received a comment commending the colours and shutter priority. Should I let on that my camera was in Auto mode with the flash manually disabled?
Categories: Web/Tech
Solisbury Hill
Originally uploaded by Tompy.
Categories: Uncategorized
The fluffy bundle of naughtiness that is Jack, has already learned to climb the garden fence and yesterday he showed off hs new-found cat flap negotiating skills. HP had to go to Tesco to get him a collar: he’s so small it went round his neck twice. We’ve put his “bling” on (ID tag) and he has a bell but I’m concerned about him running free when he’s not even four months old and we didn’t think it was fair on Miles to lock the cat flap.
Categories: Cats
I’m up to track 6 with Orbital’s Blue album and so far so OK. Not brilliant but nothing’s made me reach for the next track button. Yet.
Categories: Music
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