ill and ancient

I've been ill in bed for two days now, shivering, coughing, my fluids trying to escape from all facial orifices, and my head, it hurts so.

The keyboard on my wee laptop is too small to type on easily, I keep hitting caps lock or some other key that sends the cursor to the top of the screen or some other window or anywhere but where I want it.

Life goes on, the internet's still buzzing.

The latest story to hit the blogsphere is that CRU was hacked and so there are a load emails out there where climate change scientists conspire to keep the sceptics silent. Here's blogger Bishop Hill announcing the hack and here's confirmation that its for real.

And its getting a little coverage on the BBC but only on the hacking and computer security aspect of the story, rather than that the people advising world governments on climate change are a bunch of snakes.

I'm not that clued up on all the acronyms so I'll be building a glossary of them here

• AGU - The American Geophysical Union "A worldwide scientific community"
  
• CRU - The Climatic Research Unit based at the University of East Anglia
• FOIA - The Freedom Of Information Act the general right of access to information held by public authorities
  
• GRL - Geophysical Research Letters a research journal
• The Hadley Centre - The Met Office's climate change research lab
  
• IPCC - The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• IPCC TAR - The IPCC Third Assessment Report
• IPCC TAR SPM - The IPCC TAR Summary for Policy Makers
  

And I guess, just to be helpful, the main players in the emails:-

• Professor Phil Jones - Head of the CRU at the University of East Anglia, notable for maintaining of the time series of the instrumental temperature record; this work figured prominently in the IPCC TAR SPM. He is director of the Climatic Research Unit and a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. He holds a BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Lancaster, and an MSc and PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne - thought that the death of climate change sceptic John L Daly is 'cheering news'
• Professor Ray Bradley - climatologist and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is also research director of the Climate System Research Center. Also contributing author to IPCC TAR and IPCC TAR SPM
• Malcolm K Huges - a meso-climatologist and Regents' Professor of Dendrochronology in the Laboratory for Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. He was born in Matlock, Derbyshire, England, and earned a Ph.D in ecology from the University of Durham. Since 1998, he is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union

And for completeist's sake here's a list of the crimes revealed in the emails

• Phil Jones saying John L Daly's death is 'cheering news'
• Phil Jones perpetuating Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
• Trying to get Saiers ousted from the GRL

And other blogs that have covered this story far better than I

• Bishop Hill with highlighting the magic emails here
• Watt's up with that
• An Englishman's Castle
• Devil's Kitchen and here and here
  
• The Blackboard
• Climate Audit
• RealClimate (response from CRU)
  

Dilbert strips for my life (part 1)

I felt a strange urge to track down this Dilbert strip today

Recurring motifs in Just Joans' songs

The Just Joans are a truly great band, from Motherwell, they're century's answer to both Pulp and The Proclaimers.

I saw them play at the Betsey Trotwood in London the other day, and recorded them too.

They started some time in the middle of the decade, lead singer David Pope recording a handful of bittersweet bedsit songs in his bedroom on a 1980's tape recorder. When Adam suggested I put out a CD on my bedroom based record label in 2005 and handed me the tape, I had to stop my car cos the songs caught me just there.

They've gone from strength to strength since then, with four releases on London's critically acclaimed indie label WeePop!, every show they play sells out and other bands across the world record covers.

On thing that listeners will notice when careering through the Just Joans' discography is the recurring motifs, the hooks and lines that crop up again and again. Here's a broad summary of these recurring motifs.

Lines from other songs

• What Do We Do Now - "What do we do now" From Sleeper What do we do now
• Coia's Empty - "I love an in day with happy atmosphere" from Russ Abbot's Atmosphere, "And after all you're my wonderwall" From Oasis's Wonderwall
• East Kilbride - "I'm getting bugged running up and down the same old strip, I need to find me a place where the kids are hip" from The Beach Boy's I get around
• Friday Afternoons - "You know that I've been drunk a thousand times, but these should be the best days of my life" from The Wonderstuff Size of a Cow
• Hideous Accident - "I read the news today, oh boy" from The Beatles Day in the Life

Counting

• What Do We Do Now? - 20 to 25 (30 to 35 in Smittens version), years passing since you last saw your friends from home
• Five Beer Bottles - 1 to 5, 5 to 9, beer bottles spinning on the floor and months of fear

Old and Lonely

• Old and Lonely - When the Just Joans played their debut gig at the Tchai Ovna,their set finished with a cover of The Magnetic Fields' 'Old and Lonely', this cover has made a resurgence in their set more recently. Its a dour song, but fits well with the regular Just Joans sentiment
• I won't Survive - Contains the line "When I was young my mother told me, not to grow up old and lonely". There seems to be this sense of inevitability in all the songs that you can't fight your destiny, and the protagonist will always end up old and lonely.

Coia

• Coia's Empty - A song about a low key party at Coia's place "cos his folks are in Spain, and drinking in a house is better than drinking in the rain"
• What Do We Do Now - Years later, when catching up with old friends, the song asks "Do you still see much of Coia? No, he's moved in with his girlfriend". In The Smittens' cover Coia has changed gender and is moving in with his girlfriend.
• Does he know?

Steven

• Friday Afternoons - "Hey Steven, Where's that pint you owe me?" asked at Glasgow University Union
• Why are we so lonely, Steven? - New song, not sure of the lyrics

People

• Murray - Coia's Empty
• Jenny - Coia's Empty
• Grant Kelly - Grant Kelly
• Rowan - Grant Kelly
• Coia - Coia's Empty, What do we do now
• Steven - Why are we so lonely Steven?, Friday Afternoons
• John - I hear you're the man now John

Places

• East Kilbride
• Motherwell
• The Little Green Shop
• Glasgow Union
• Strathclyde Park
• Bellshill Station
• London

Here's a couple of other bands covering Just Joans songs:-


The Felt Forum - Five Beer Bottles (Just Joans cover)


The Smittens - What Do We Do Now (Just Joans cover)

There was an Australian mob, Tiny Records, who did a spiffing cover of Back to Highschool on a NotQuiteRocketScience podcast, and here's my own cover of if you don't pull.

manc_ill_kid - If You Don't Pull (Just Joans cover) by manc_ill_kid

Back to Borders

This morning I find myself in the Starbucks in the Brent Cross branch of Bordersn suppoing cappucinos and hot chocolates like I did months ago when I was unemployed.

This time however, I'm not unemployed, I'm homeless. Sure I have fine job, doing quality assurance at a food factory, I just find myself with no fixed abode.

Weeks ago I plotted a chart on this blog showing that I spend far too much money on rent. The place I was staying at was way beyond my means, so I sought somewhere more affordable.

I found somewhere more affordable, its just not available yet. So I've 'moved out' without 'moving in' anywhere.

Its one of these things which keeps getting postponed and postponed, "tomorrow morning", "in the next few days", "oh its gone, but there's another due at the end of the week". Life's like that sometimes. At my last factory, we had a delivery of cable parts that was a year late, twelve months of putting up with promises of a better tomorrow, afeared that as soon as you order and pay for the same thing from a new supplier, the original supplier would come up with the goods. Money wasted, overstocked.

My life consists of couch-surfing, staying with friends and lulling others into thinking the storm drains of Wembley are habitable. My possessions in heaps spread across the UK, filed away in boxes hidden under stables and behind doors. I am a half-human, not all there. No keys of my own, no independence. No home computer, no blogging.

The huge silver lining is that every day I remain in this epherial state, I am £19 richer than I would be if I'd stayed at the old place, almost like a 30% pay rise.

London Blogger Meetup - Paramount

At work I had to tell someone off cos their hair was sticking out from under their hair net and in a food preparation environment, that sort of thing is bad, however, it didn't go well as they pointed out that my hair was sticking out too. So, I've remedied this by having my head shaved.

I'm crap at telling the barber how to cut my hair, always have been, and so I talked myself into having it shaved number two all over. This'll be like the third time in my life I've sported such a hair cut. The first time was in 1995 when I was trying to join the army and then in 1997 when I got cute Genny from my course at uni to cut it.

Every time I underestimate how cold it is without a thick heid of hair.

Anyhoo, London Blogger's meetup the other night, down at Doggett's Coat and Badge, just over the water from Blackfriars. This month sponsored by Paramount Home Entertainment, those lovely people who bring us films such as Indiana Jones, Star Trek and Transformers.

They had raffle prizes of a Transformers skateboard, all of this season's Paramount Home Entertainment releases on DVD and a 32" telly, alas I won none.

Also there was a rather fun talk from Marko Saric about 58 ways to promote your blog, my favourite was (21) "Stop Planning, start blogging". Here's one of Peter Marshall's photos from the evening of me enjoying the talk.


So, as usual with my write-ups of this sort of event, here's a list people I spoke to, with links

1. TomTiredOfLondon - From TiredOfLifeTireOfLondon its a blog about things to do in London
2. Nina - Who writes Mapapay Dhow Trips
   
3. Aref-Adib - Has a wonderful visual online diary of arty thing in London and lookalikes
4. Cristiano Betta - On Tech and Life
5. Mikal D - Aref-Adib, Cristiano and Mikal were chatting about Google Wave, I still have no idea about what it does, how useful it is or how to use it, can it send traffic to my websites?
   
6. Hayley - The drummer from Witness to the Beard
7. Andy Bargery - The Marketing Blagger and organiser of these meetups, some kind of benevolent dictator for life perhaps
8. Marko - From HowToMakeMyBlog.com its a blog about how to blog
9. Zubyre Parvez - From 'Freedom for China' which collects music and artworks from around the world all expressing a need for China to be free from the Chinese Communist Party's oppressive rule.
10. John C - I think this the right link, he was called John according to his badge. We didn't chat for long, in fact, "hi" was pretty much the extent of our discourse. He's from YourBlogTools.com
11. Godwyns - who writes poems at EroticFantasies
    
12. Harry Wood - From OpenStreetMap its the Wikipedia of Maps
13. Selena - She's into social media and meetups
14. Pete - TheLondoneer
15. Antony - Fresh Plastic
16. Tom Flashboy - Haven't spoken to him in ages, and I was on my way out when I spotted him
17. Kate- who was talking to Tom
    

And here's a list of people who I saw but didn't speak to

1. Sheryl - Sartorial Pervert
2. Andy Roberts - From DistributedResearch
3. Pete Marshall - My London Diary, neat photography from around the capital
4. Bruce Bird - the niche market blogger, proving that you can make money from blogging
5. Miss Geeky
6. Tiki Chris
7. Al Robertson - Have seen him around at these meetups for months/years, but never really chatted to him, at this meetup he overheard me talking to FlashTom about naked chicks and indiebands which is the essense of every conversation I've ever had at meetups.
8. Caroline - From Caroline'sMiscellany
9. Rachel Clark

I think I've set myself a new personal best record for people I've spoken to at a London Blogger's Meetup. Here's the graph of my progress over the past year or so.
There's still some way to go.

Other blog posts about this meetup that you might be interested to read:-

• The Londoneer - featuring a photo of me gazing at a drink
• The Seldom Seen Kid
• Life as she knows it
• Fresh Plastic
• Niche Market Blogger
  

Blog stat pron - October

Good evening and welcome to my regular first day of the month blog traffic stats review. According to google analytics, for October, this blog got:-

1,132 Absolute Unique Visitors
1,924 Pageviews

Compared to September's

1,054 Absolute Unique Visitors
1,769 Pageviews

Whilst not quite at the heady heights of traffic that this blog was getting when I was a full time blogger unemployed, but up a healthy bit from last month when I resumed full time employment. To be honest though, its mostly old posts that are getting interest, rather than the newer tranche of cookery-orientated posts. Statcounter reckons I have 1,667 Unique Visitors, and an average of 66 pageloads per day, completely whupping the ass of my target of 65 pageviews. On the back of that phenomenal success, for November I'm aiming to beat 67 ppd.

Here are the metrics of of my RSS feeds on various feed readers:

21 subscribers - GoogleReader (same as last month)
4 subscribers - Bloglines (same as last month)
6 followers - Blogger (same as last month)

These are my top referers for October (not including google wanderers)

1. Twitter - 70 visitors
2. Facebook - 48 visitors
3. UK Bubble - 21 visitors
4. EUReferendum - 17 visitors
5. Mark Wadsworth - 16 visitors
6. Boy Trouble - 10 visitors
7. Daniel1979 - 5 visitors
8. Fitlads - 5 visitors
9. Zath - 4 visitors
10. Anorak Forum - 3 visitors

Lets take a brief moment to consider which were the most viewed posts during November.

1. What Have I gotten myself into - the TFTA scam - 239 views
2. Origami flapping bird animation - 77 views
3. No idea about pornography - 52 views
4. London Bloggers - Havana - 51 views
5. Facebook Scramble graphs - 42 views
6. Facebook IQ test gubbins - 36 views
7. Facebook ChainRxn graphs and hints - 32 views
8. Does Shisha kill - 32 views
9. Job Vacancies update 17-Aug-2009 - 32 views
10. Names of the dead in Gaza - 27 views

That top post there, "What Have I gotten myself into", about the training academy scam thing has been steadily growing in traffic since I posted it in July, clearly the organisation is still going and still roping people in. Using the wonders of Google's graph API, here's a bar chart showing how the hits on that blogpost have increased to date:-

Actually, due to the overwealming nature of old blogposts in that list, here are the top ten blogposts that I actually wrote in October:-

1. No idea about pornography - 52 views
2. London Bloggers - Havana - 51 views
3. SongKick Meetup - 26 views
4. Just like Delia - 22 views
5. BNP on Question Time - 19 views
6. Probably been to more gigs than you - 16 views
7. Blog Stat Pron - September - 13 views
8. Job Vacancies Update - 12 views
9. On the Minimum Wage - 12 views
10. I hate gigs that run late - 10 views

I have Aref-Adib to thank for retweeting the pornography post on Twitter and Facebook, cheers.

Another thing which has occurred to me that I ought to add in these regular stat pron updatey posts is a pie chart showing what I've been blogging about most.


Thats it for November's blog stat pron. If there's any other metrics you want to know about this blog, let me know in the comments.

Ooh, and before I depart for other topics to blog about, I ought to mention that I've started a SongKick-specific blog just here, called SongKick Dreams, so I shalln't be boring my regular blog readers with that sort of thing round here. If you're on SongKick, or like both statistics and going to gigs, then check it out. I think its awesome.

Wizarding

I lost the internet the other day, it was my day off from work, my weekend, and I had not much to do, so I rummaged through all the old videos on my hard disks and found this one which needed editing up.

I think the levitation technique is called 'wizarding' or 'the wizard'. I filmed it in about 2006, one Saturday morning doing unpaid overtime at work, so it wasn't really wasting work time.

Just Like Delia (part 2)

Another attempt at making something from Delia's cookbook in order to impress.



Should make a fine breakfast to snarf on the way to work tomorrow.

The last of the Potatos

My third crop of potatos:-

The smallest so far, and probably the last of the year, I think they were maris piper in the end.

I made them into mash to go with my sausage beans 'n' mash dinner.

The growing my own spuds thing was a fun adventure. I dunno if I'm going to have a garden to grow them in next season.

SongKick Dreams

I used to go to lots of gigs, hundreds of them, four or five a month, just any live music really, friends' bands, bands people talked about, regular promoter's nights. But I have a job, and my hours are grim, I need to be up at 4:30am in the morning sometimes, and I'm too old to be able to handle going out the night before.

So instead of going out, I stay online, scanning SongKick, and have SongKick Dreams.

At some point I'm going to start another blog, running commentry about SongKick, answering questions like:-

• How much traffic does SK get?
• How many members do they have?
• How many users?
• How fast is SK's membership growing?
• What's the spread of gig counts like?
• What's the spread of band tracking?
• What sort of messages to people leave each other?
• Why sign up to the site without clicking on any gigs you've been to?

That sort of thing.

It'll be neat if it was on a site of it's own, a blog about SongKick instead of a blog by SongKick, like you get blogs about Facebook or about Twitter, but this one will be mine, I made this.

But can I really be bothered?
Would it get much traffic?
After answering those initial questions would there be any 'news' to report or interesting 'mash-ups' that people have created?
Is writing about the posts on SK blog acceptable?

Is there more to life than this?