Vinyl: If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You

Artist: Caravan
Owned on digital media: Yes
Want to replace: n/a

Caravan's second album, and for me, and many other fans, one of Caravan's finest hours. Ever since I first heard it, the melodic soft-rock organ of Dave Sinclair exhibiting total synergy with the guitars and drums of the other band members have epitomised summer. Playing it at any time of year will always evoke summer, but actually saving it for a gloriously sunny summer's day with the smells of new-mown grass wafting in through the window in counterpoint to the sounds of superlative prog rock wafting out, is an experience guaranteed to have me smiling from ear to ear while I sing along with the familiar lyrics. Anyone who has never understood the hold prog rock has on us who came of age during the 70s only has to listen to this.

More bad news on the carpet front

Looks like we'll be camping out in the study even longer than anticipated.

The irony is not lost on me, that I put together a detailed plan to ensure that we'd be on the sofa bed for as short a time as possible. The plumber, the plasterer, and the decorator (me) were planned and scheduled to the nth degree, every day for four weeks, and we all kept rigidly to that plan.

Then, on Monday of this week, the plan fell apart. And today the carpet suppliers inform me that there is no stock of this particular carpet left anywhere in the UK (something I find hard to believe, since they are one of the UK's largest floor covering firms) and we'll have to wait for more to be imported. Due on September 6. I'll believe it when I'm walking on it.

Book Review: Stuart - A Life Backwards

Young volunteer at a Cambridge hostel for the homeless meets young homeless man and they decide to write the story of the latter's life. Backwards. Only it's not entirely backwards, since it ends, rather than begins, with his death, having shortly before the end discussed his childhood and its attendant traumas.

The chapters deal with blocks of time from Stuart's life, and these are taken in reverse order, but within each chapter time flows in its normal direction. So the narrative takes the form of a kind of running stitch - leaping backwards behind the scenes to start at a point several years before the previous stitch, but then moving forwards during the course of the chapter.

Masters is neither totally absorbed by, nor totally aloof from, Stuart. Their partnership in the creation of the work leads to what appears to be a "real" friendship - possibly, even, the only one Stuart has ever had - and indeed this is perhaps one reason for the criticisms that this isn't a "proper" biography. But the author skilfully avoids the traps of sentimentality, solutionising, or preaching when recounting the problems that Stuart deals with daily, whether these be internally or externally generated.

Perhaps the single most important thing this book taught me is that there are no simple explanations for why someone becomes homeless, or remains homeless, and similarly there are no simple solutions. But there are other lessons too. That it can happen to anyone, for example. Both homelessness and injustice. There's a lot of "there but for the grace of God" in this, but it is never mawkish, boorish, or overly focussed on the often horrific facts of Stuart's existence.

It's one of those books that, while it's occasionally an uncomfortable read, also occasionally has you laughing out loud. It certainly provoked one of the most interesting debates we've had for a long time at book club.

Family milestones

A little while ago I wrote a proud Dad post about my elder daughter, and today it's the turn of my younger daughter. For today is GCSE Results Day and all over the UK year 11s are opening envelopes, or reading notice boards, and either slumping or jumping.

In Blythe's case, there was much jumping involved I suspect. There certainly was here when she revealed her results - all passes with a highly creditable smattering of As and A*s in all the important subjects.

That's her passport to college, and her future mapped out for the next two years, which in these uncertain times is a welcome wedge of certainty. One other certainty is that there'll be a celebratory meal happening next time we see her.

What a difference a foot makes

Having spent the weekend tidying up the loose-endy type of jobs on the front bedroom - refitting the power sockets; replacing floorboards; checking for squeaks; pushing the lighting cables back into the ceiling void and refitting the light; caulking the skirting boards to avoid draughts; etc - we sat back this morning with excited expectation to await the carpet fitter.

He arrived mid-morning and within minutes of dropping his tool bag in the bedroom was wearing a worried frown.

"It's 570 this."
"That's right"
"I've only got 540 on the van."

Those being linear measurements, in centimetres, of the room and the carpet respectively.

Now I've made many mistakes in my life, but one of them definitely isn't measuring a room and getting the length out by 30cm. That's very nearly a foot. An inch and I might have accepted responsibility, but a foot? No way. So what's gone wrong? Seems to me either the salesperson made a mistake converting my Imperial dimensions to metric, or (more likely) when keying it into "the computer" she's hit the 4 instead of the 7.

But as you might expect, no-one is owning up to that, so we have two options:

1. Accept a join in the carpet, a foot from the window end of the room, using a piece cut from the side which would therefore have its "grain" going in the wrong direction. Not a very attractive option. 
2. Wait for a replacement piece of the right length, and pay for the (slight) extra yardage, plus a cutting charge for the mistake. Their mistake. Earliest possible return visit by the fitter? Friday. Might be next Monday. Also not a very attractive option, but slightly less unattractive than #1.

So that's what we've done. Guess we'll be on the sofa bed for at least another four nights. >sigh<

Vinyl: For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night

Artist: Caravan
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: Yes

After four albums, all of which by this time I had in my hot, sweaty hands, Caravan's line-up changed. Bassist Richard Sinclair left to be replaced by John G. Perry, and perhaps more significantly from my point of view - because initially I hated the effect his viola had on the music - Geoffrey Richardson joined from Spirogyra.

My reaction to the new boy meant that it took me longer than most to reach the conclusion, shared by many of Caravan's long-term fans as well as those who discovered them later, that 'Girls' is the band's finest hour, even if it never quite displaced my first love (Grey and Pink - still to come in these reviews) in my Caravanny affections. Sad to say it is also notable as being their last really great album, for while they continue as a band to this day, everything that came after failed in some respect to measure up to it. There were a few moments of magic and intervals of inspiration, but mostly... not.

Beware the painted hair

Had the new radiator fitted in the bedroom today - one large double to replace the three smaller singles that were connected in series beneath each of the bay windows. A positive side-effect of this is that I can now get to those final small sections of skirting board that were previously hampered by the old pipework.

Whoever installed the heating in this house originally had some funny ideas about plumbing. Like running the pipes as close as humanly possible to the skirting board, which meant when it came time to fit thermostatic radiator valves they had to chisel out part of the plaster to make room for them! And that there was no room behind the pipes to get to the boards for painting.

With the new rad sitting proudly beneath the central window and the old pipes removed, around nine inches of skirting board on each side needed sanding down, undercoating and glossing, and that small area of wall required a spot of filler and some Gentle touching up :o)

While I was on my knees with the undercoat, I noticed a paintbrush bristle painted into the wall. I usually spot these and pick them off while the paint is going on, but this was close to the top of the skirting boards and had escaped my attention. Since one end had dried sticking up it was easy to slip a nail under it and remove the offender.

Or so I thought.

The paint-hardened bristle had achieved unexpected strength, and stabbed me under the fingernail, drawing blood. Ow! Next time I'll be using a blade!

Everything stops for tea

Remember that old ditty about the English penchant for afternoon tea? It covers a lot of ground, talking about various activities that all stop for tea, and the final verse goes:

Now I know just why Franz Schubert
Didn't finish his unfinished symphony
He might have written more but the clock struck four
And everything stops for tea

We have it all wrong in this house at the moment. Everything stops for painting.

Yesterday: undercoat. Today: gloss. Picture rail, windows (three of them, with it being a bay), and skirting board. Takes between six and seven hours to get round the whole room - longer than doing the walls because by this stage I have to be careful with the edges, and there are a lot of edges - so it's no wonder I feel like I've done a day's work by the time I'm finished.

As for tea, well I don't stop for it. I drink it on the go. Mind you, that doesn't have to mean a break with tradition. I've been picking up my brush around 8am, so by the time "the clock strikes four" I'm done with painting for the day!

Wyrd or Woubt?

Chorlton Players' latest effort - a dramatisation (by Stephen Briggs) of Pratchett's sixth Discworld novel - that I spent Wednesday evening struggling to take photos of, at their dress rehearsal. It'll be the second (of three) nights tonight.

I say struggling, because being at least in part a spoof of Hamlet, it's all medieval and witchy, so the set is very dark to start with. When you combine that with the fact that  they've chosen (quite resourcefully, I thought) to handle the multiple scene changes using a series of slides projected onto the rear of the set, which means flash is out at least for shots taken head-on, and it all adds up to one big headache as far as photography is concerned.

So I threw away pretty much half of the ~300 shots, and wasn't all that happy with quite a few of the rest, but in the end I managed to salvage 98 half-decent ones which you can now see in the gallery.

There aren't any pics of the last five minutes or so, as my battery light started flashing red and I'm still a bit paranoid about continuing to shoot from that point on after that "memorable" night when I corrupted the card on the last photo and lost every one of the shots I'd taken. I keep threatening to invest in a second battery, but I only ever think about it on dress rehearsal night and by then it's too late.

Vinyl: Cunning Stunts

Artist: Caravan
Owned on digital media: No
Want to replace: Yes

Caravan's sixth album, and the second one to feature Geoffrey Richardson on viola. By this time, I was warming to him a bit, although I still found his live performances a little... theatrical. But in spite of any personal antipathy I felt towards him (having, obviously, never met the poor guy), there was no getting away from the fact that he could play, and several of the tracks on this album are warmed and made more melodic because he's on them.

I note that some reviewers bemoan the fact that with this album Caravan strike out in a more commercial direction, but for die-hard fans like me it was just good to have another record of good Canterbury tunes to add to my swelling collection. Their, by now traditional, single long track this time around is Dabsong Conshirtoe, which ranks in my mind among the very best stuff they ever did. It's worth buying the album just for this.

It's the future!

I have a Slashdot widget on my iGoogle home page. Along with most of the other widgets on there, except Google Reader, I don't often pay it much attention, but today it displayed a tantalising headline: Extreme Memory Oversubscription For VMs. Having worked on VME for many years, I still retain an amused, distant interest in the activities of today's virtual machine enthusiasts. Here's a quote from the article...

"Their method is based on a combination of lightweight VM cloning (sort of like fork() for VMs) and on-demand paging. Seems like the 'other half' of resource oversubscription for VMs might finally be here."

Good grief. On-demand paging! Imagine that. Something we were doing in the mainframe world at the end of the 1960s. Next they'll be telling me they've invented a subsystem called Virtual Store Manager.

That's the trouble with the computing industry today. It's staffed with twenty-somethings fresh from college who like to think they're original thinkers and have no concept of, or interest in, history (or reinvention of the wheel). Even if they could be bothered to read up how we did it on mainframes they would probably not think it relevant (as a commenter on the article points out). Sad, really. The truth is high-end PC systems with massive amounts of memory and virtualisation technology look more and more like mainframes every day. They have the same problems, and those problems have the same solutions.

(If you're *really* interested, you can read the original Slashdot story here.)

The mask of doom

Masking tape and I have never quite hit it off.

However, since my worst experiences from years gone by have been with the older, traditional "beige" tape, the more modern painter's tape is specifically designed for the purpose and supposedly does a MUCH better job (quote from the main website: "This is the advantage of using low-stick tape: you can press it down very hard without worrying about the tape pulling the paint up."), and Nikki had expressed a preference for edges that were considerably less wobbly, I put my reservations to one side and applied a few metres of the tape - as reported yesterday.

I should have known better.

It's my own fault really. For not sticking to my guns in the first place and, worse, for not abandoning the idea after a very early indication of likely failure (I'd had to reposition the second piece of tape, and it took off some of the ceiling paint when I moved it).

So after slapping a second coat of Armagnac onto the chimney breast at lunchtime, I spent an increasingly frustrating 40 minutes this evening removing the tape, and an even more frustrating 45 minutes painting over the holes it left in my lovely white ceiling. Not a single piece of tape came off without some damage, and at a guess I'd say around 90% of the total length of tape used came off with some ceiling attached. Even more annoying, much of the paint removed was right on the edge, so repairing the gaps - sans tape - meant the reintroduction of wobbly edges, thereby rendering the whole exercise a complete waste of time.

I spent much of the rest of the evening with my grumpy face on.

A search of online information sources reveals a possible reason for the problem: "Normal Blue Painter's tape should not be used on faux, delicate finishes, lacquer or new paint finishes that have been done less than one month." What? Who in the world suspends a decorating project for ONE MONTH while one half of the job cures to the point where masking tape can be used? Tch!

It's a record

Achieved superluminal velocities after work while belting around the 'Gentle' walls, completing the task in under two hours thanks to (a) it being the second coat and (b) the judicious application of masking tape around the ceiling and chimney breast.

A straight edge was required by the Mistress of Ceremonies so I'd been round during lunchtime with the ScotchBlue™.

Colour my world

The good news is that yesterday morning saw the second (white) undercoat go on with no damage to the initial coat. I got away with it.

But if the undercoat turns a decorating project from a building site back into a room, then the next phase - applying the colour - brings that room to life. After a considerably shorter painting session than either of the previous two days, on account of having Nikki's help doing the low-level cutting in while I was working on those parts only accessible from a step ladder, this was the result.

The picture doesn't really do justice to the colours. It's the first coat so still a little patchy, and the full effect won't be brought out until the picture rail and skirting get their fresh new white paint, but it gives an idea of the final look. The lighter shade, which covers all the walls apart from the chimney breast, is Crown's "Gentle" matt emulsion, while the accent colour is provided by their "Armagnac." Yeah, I know. We had that conversation about "who chooses the names of the colours" too.

Second coat tomorrow night after work, and then "only" the woodwork remains. Radiator fitting booked for next Monday. Carpet fitting booked for the week after next, but I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to bring that back three or four days and give us a weekend to move all the furniture back in.

When a room becomes a room

It's been a quiet week on the bedroom redecoration front as we watched the damp patches receding, and worried about whether they were receding quickly enough. My plan had me applying the first (sealer) coat of white emulsion to walls and ceiling today, and it was touch and go whether the drying would be complete or not. Other activities during the week (including the famed monthly curry night) were suspended in favour of preparation - mainly sanding of windows and skirting boards - which was hampered on account of having fingers permanently crossed.

This is a self-imposed deadline, it's true, but the plan is designed to avoid this job hanging on longer than necessary. No-one enjoys having the entire house turned upside down, and one of the best ways to keep up the pace of painting is to book the carpet fitters and work to that date as an immutable fixed future point. Even though it's not really.

This stage of the proceedings is always one of my favourites. It's the moment when a room in progress turns from a building site, with its bare plaster and woodwork splashed with dried PVA, back into something that's recognisably a room.

The finish may be patchy (I always apply two coats of white before the colour) and the woodwork still has that post-sanding mottled aspect that makes it look vaguely diseased, but it's no longer just a newly-plastered room. It's visibly on its way to becoming a bedroom once more.

I took a risk, in the end, with the dampness. There were still one or two small patches of plaster not entirely dry. I won't know until tomorrow whether this will be a problem. The last time I started painting too early the second coat ripped the first coat off in places, leading to all kinds of patching up and rework issues. Very frustrating, not to mention physically demanding, as it was the ceiling causing the problem. This time the trouble, if there is any, is restricted to small areas of wall. Fingers crossed I'll get away with it, but for the moment at least, the deadline is safe.

Watching plaster dry

It sounds like it should be as boring as watching paint dry, but I can tell you watching plaster dry is much more interesting than that. Every time I walk into the room, the pattern of damp has changed. Receded. It's fascinating, in its own way, and every centimetre of changing colour, from the deep maroony-brown of wet plaster to the clear shining almost-alabaster aspect of dry, brings us that much closer to the day when painting can start. Which, according to my plan, will be Friday.

Yes, I have a plan. We don't want to be camping out in the study for any longer than we can help, so to bring the schedule in in the minimum time requires that things like radiator and carpet fitting are booked in advance, which it turn means we need to know when the wall painting will be complete (for the rad) and when the woodwork will all be done (for the carpet).

Still, no photos yet. I may be sad enough to get some small frisson of excitement from a visibly decreasing patch of damp wall, but I wouldn't dream of suggesting you are too :o)

Warble

It's been a long time since I've sung karaoke, so when I heard that Chorlton Players had organised a karaoke fundraiser, I was among the first to sign up, and the first (apart from DJ Annie, and Simon who was playing the part of doorman for the night) to arrive.

I was conditioned from a very early age to turn up right at the start of events like this. My parents were always the first to arrive at (and usually the last to leave from) any parties, weddings, or family gatherings to which we were invited, so naturally I grew up thinking this was the way it was done. I don't recall any pithy phrase of my mother's that accompanied these early arrivals, so this story won't feature in "shit my Mum says"; it just was. As I  got older, I soon realised I was in a minority in this respect, and sure enough with a posted start time of 7pm it was after 8 when the first of the "real audience" turned up, by which time I was champing at the bit to get going with the song I'd had cued up almost since I arrived.

A traditional starter for me - Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street - an easy melody to get the pipes warmed up. As I progressed during the course of the evening through a series of my most favourite karaoke staples, I realised just how long it had been since I sang any of these in public, and how easy it is to get out of practice with the nuanced phrasing of songs like Vincent, Desperado, and Englishman in New York.

Still, you know, it's karaoke not the Royal Opera House, so who cares? We all had a lot of fun and some good choons got sung. Not sure it was much of a success as a fund raiser - I think they needed 30 people to break even and I counted 29 at the busiest point - but if *almost* 30 people can have such a good time for a whole night and not actively lose money, it can't be that bad.