Chris Hansen’s blog

Normally worms in your computer system come from the Internet or from emails or dodgy diskettes (what are they, again?? I forget.). However, a gentleman in Yeovil, Somerset found out that his computer worm was a bit different.

• 08:51 @helenroper : worse that that, it seems to be yy/mm/dd…tinyurl.com/ap292c #
• 08:51 @helenroper : sorry about the misformat, should be tinyurl.com/ap292c #
• 09:10 @helenroper : oops, i read it wrong…sorry! not enough coffee. i will hand back my practitioner’s certificate #
• 09:27 @helenroper : i would give anything to have a bad hair day; every day for me is a virtually no hair day… #
• 11:32 morning tweeters mine. feeding squirrels, finished looking at email and tweets and blogs. exhausted now. Lodge this PM. #
• 12:06 @THE_REAL_SHAQ : bird’s eye view of u, i guess! #
• 14:52 Demo coming down Kingsway. Wonder what it is? #
• 14:53 Silly gits. Socialist Workers being Bolshy. #
• 14:55 Students against uni fees. They should go to the US to see school fees. #
• 15:09 @james_hunter it probably was a demo software. Full of dodgy bugs… #
• 15:11 @james_hunter oops! Wrong reply. Sorry. Slip of the tweeting finger. Should have gone to Helen. #
• 21:28 @besskeloid : time for a new computer. know that the economy is bad, tho… 🙁 #
• 21:29 @JeremyJacobs : leonard nimoy is jewish, i think. #
• 21:31 @rustyrockets : oh, come now, you’ve got enough followers so that you need not wank alone, ever. #
• 21:32 @nakedboy : because customers are wankers, that’s why. if you can’t get it done because they screwed up, they need to understand that. #
• 21:37 back from lodge; did a good job at Charge to the Initiate, and did a great toast to the initiate as well; he’s a friend so a bit emotional. #
• 21:38 @nakedboy : I didn’t tweet you twice…Twitter seems to have duplicated it. sorry about that (on behalf of the fail whale). #

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We initiated my friend N this evening. We worked together at ImagoQA and Searchspace, and he expressed an interest in Freemasonry a while back, so I referred him to our Lodge, which accepted him and ballotted him in this evening. My contribution, besides being Junior Warden as usual, was to deliver the Charge to the Initiate.

Now, as many of you will know, Freemasons generally memorise their parts, rather than reading them from a book. Thus, delivering a 10 minute speech, from memory (only having to be prompted twice) is pretty good. The Charge talks about Freemasonry in general, what Freemasons must do and be in order to be good Masons and good men, and the specific obligations they have to their Lodge. I was really elated that I got through it with only two minor prompts.

I also delivered the Toast to the Initiate at the Festive Board, which was quite merry in my corner. Five of us younger (in Masonry) men were very merry indeed (not the worse for wear from liquor, just merry). It was really a lot of fun.

The Toast ran (as well as I can remember) thus:

Worshipful Master, Brethren all. Brother N has the distinct honour to have been initiated on Ash Wednesday…I should have been in church to be ashed tonight but instead I was here performing my duty to N, whom I proposed for membership. Speaking of ashes, a woman’s husband was pretty useless around the house for many years, until he died and was cremated. She placed the urn with his ashes on it on the mantle and, after the first heavy snow, took the urn and scattered the ashes on the driveway, shouting, “At last, you lazy loafer, you’re doing some work.”

I have known Brother N for more than 10 years. We worked together at Imago, and he worked for me at Searchspace, and now we are together again in the Lodge. Delivering the Charge tonight was a pleasure; since I will never be able to help with a ceremony for a son of mine, delivering the Charge at N’s initiation was a very personal and distinct pleasure, and I wish him many happy years of Freemasonry. Now please drink a bumper toast to N, the Initiate.”

I have worked out that N will be raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason in October 2010, at which time I am apt to be Master of the Lodge. Thus, I have begun to memorise the raising ceremony in anticipation.

I turned predictive text off on every phone I’ve ever had. It’s just a pain in the apse. However, these guys seem to have it down scu.

I have often had people to whom I was introduced as Christian Hansen come back to me with “Ah, Hans Christian Anderson!” or some such. I normally ignore them, or tell them that they are the six thousand, three hundred, and forty-fifth person to say that to me.

Worse are those chuckleheads who want to attract my attention and instead of calling out “Chris” they call out “Christopher”. I usually say, “It’s Christian, dammit!” in a rather loud voice. I have been known to do this in churches.

So, naming is something that is quite important to me, and to many people, especially to these people who were lumbered with names like Tim Burr and Hazel Nutt.

The travails of adding sound to a movie after the fact are difficult and fraught with the stench of possible failure. Two resourceful sound guys tackle the problem…

…and many happy returns of the day!

• 09:29 @AdiumX : we saw an urban fox in our back garden last week…in broad daylight. it’s scared the squirrels away. #
• 09:47 @studfucker : “Inspiration” should be your new pornstar name. a guy once grabbed my dick in that sauna and i complained. he was barred. #
• 10:04 @besskeloid : sorry. i hope you don’t have the same one i had…very long recovery. #
• 10:05 feeding squirrels this morning. the urban fox must not have been around last night. #
• 10:06 @studfucker: i wasn’t the only one who complained about him, BTW. he used to follow people (me too) around the gym kind of spookily. #
• 17:18 made broccoli and stilton soup. #
• 23:21 back from LOI. Almost word-perfect for tomorrow. Trying not to watch TV. #

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• 07:39 @AdiumX : no, don’t need to shave. need to go to a modelling agency and do an ad for aftershave. #
• 07:44 morning tweeters. slept through the oscars, thank god. now to face another grey day in London. #
• 09:06 @jonk : i lived close enough to the last two IRA bombs here in London to hear them going off…quite scary. #
• 09:09 @AdiumX : What is “SIGG” when it’s at home? #
• 09:09 @jonk : so how DID you fit? Enquiring minds want to know!! #
• 15:15 @pmeanwellralph : i suspect it’s your name: the “Meanwell” probably attracts the religious wackos. #
• 15:18 @chrys : go for it! you’ll do fine! #
• 15:22 listening to Bob Newhardt: Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue…can’t wait for the Driving Instructor. #
• 16:23 @pmeanwellralph : if i think followers are commercial or obnoxious i block them, but they don’t read my tweets anyway… #
• 16:50 @pmeanwellralph : blocking means they can’t see your tweets or follow them. unfollowing–u just can’t see theirs. #
• 17:19 @fonsus : my, you’re an adventurous soul. i still curse the day i replaced windows xp with vista on my desktop… #
• 17:20 off to Eathai in Soho for Thai dinner. #

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• 08:00 i now not only hate windows but i also hate Trend Micro with a passion. #
• 13:39 afternoon all. sermon duly delivered. however, it might have been a bit too pointed for that traditional congregation. will blog presently. #
• 18:57 @vasilatos : happy as a clam–at high water?? #
• 18:59 back from wagamama…usual katsu curry and gyoza. now to figure out what to do with Trend Micro, the idiots. #
• 23:16 well, off to bed. houseguests are still cavorting around i gather. glad i am too old to cavort these days… #

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• 07:48 @stevis : congratulations! may you all have many years of happiness. #
• 09:42 morning, tweeters all. writing my sermon now becomes urgent priority. i have gone dry. what to do? #
• 12:25 inspirations struck, thanks to www.desperatepreacher.com so sermon is now done and I can face the rest of the day. #
• 16:34 @sbrettell : i took a different tack…will post it tomorrow on my blog and announce that here so you can see what i did. #
• 16:39 @chrys : just another indication of how Apple feels about its users: we know better what you want and need and can use… #
• 16:40 back from searching for a fricking blanket…all the stores here have are dubets and HWMBO is too warm with a duvet. #
• 19:54 @tug i wanted to go to john lewis but HWMBO insisted on Tottenham Court Road. Another domestic argument I should have won. #
• 22:02 @jonk : these new sinks and faucets always look like mailboxes to me. One expects a letter to go in the little slot at the bottom. #

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We have and his friend Dave visiting for a week. We had agreed to meet around 6 to have dinner tonight. He and Dave went out to mooch around the town, and HWMBO and I went out to find a blanket.

HWMBO has discovered that a duvet is too warm for him at night, but trying to buy a real blanket in London is difficult. We went to Next, we went to Heal’s, we went to Habitat. Only Heal’s had a suitable blanket, and it was

• 09:52 @MrPandaBehr i was meaning to ask Chaz if he knew you. he’s a real sweetie. #
• 11:06 morning tweeters…barely. out to lunch with a fellow tester and then get my glasses. pedestrian day indeed. #
• 11:48 @MrPandaBehr Chaz has now awoken and says “hi” back atcha. #
• 20:34 stuck on the second page of my sermon. Isa 43:18-25 is my text. stumped. #
• 23:00 good night tweeters. have been wrestling with firefox, AVG (on HWMBO’s computer), and tiredness. hope tomorrow is better. #

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I was unaware of the vanity poem scam, which consist of a publisher accepting all poems submitted to it for an anthology, and charging the authors for a copy of the book ($49.95). Of course, this is just a scam–if a publisher chooses a poem you write for an anthology, s/he should give you one copy of the book (at least) for free. Here is a cogent article about literary scame for background reading.

There is a organisation which takes advantage of this to submit the worst poetry possible to the anthology in the hopes that somehow, some day, the anthology will reject a poem. It runs a contest called the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest.

An example of a poem so bad that you might want to chew your own arm off rather than hear it is this one, Nicky Nacky Noo, by Stephen Abutlol.

Tum tum tum de tum
This is apoem I sings a lot
to make me very vary hapy.
I fink it will look good on a poster two.
and a cofey mug to shows my frineds
at work so they no i am an internashunal
poet who mite even winz a prise!
Then i wuld be vary famus
and hav lotz of muney
wich wuld be vary funny
coz some of them sayd I was
eliterite wich sucks
(I hopes I can say sucks, if not
please put a defferent word instead.)
and also I just sore the poem
has to be 20 lines long so
I am counting the lynes again.
This is line nienteen
and this in number twenty. Thanx. The End

I suspect that even a Vogon would be trying to escape from a reading of this one. Fortunately for Stephen, however, the poem was accepted by the publisher for their anthology.

Perhaps I should enter…

…they used to wonder who put the orchestra in the radio…

• 11:04 morning all. houseguest arrived safely, actual chat ensued, so i’m late saying “hi”. sorry, will try not to let it happen again. #
• 14:02 In Soho waiting for Chaz to get his hair cut. #
• 17:12 @urbanbohemian : the Guardian regularly printed political cartoons drawing Bush II as a chimp, and not a bright one at that… #
• 17:13 i am wiped out, for some reason. still need to eat and go to a meeting tonight… 🙁 #

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Our houseguest Chaz and I were chatting this noon when we looked out the window. Lo and behold, our urban fox was climbing up the back wall. He turned and looked at me for the longest time as I was trying to get my camera out, but disappeared into the neighbour’s back garden before I could take a picture.

Now we know what he’s doing during the daytime.

This is not safe for work, so don’t click unless you want to see Hello Kitty as you’ve never seen her before.

• 09:30 @mkrigsman : any entity that gets more than a certain number of letters a day can get its own zip code. easier for the post office. #
• 09:41 @jonk : i’ll send some over in return for large jars of skippy super chunk. british peanut butter tastes like sand was mixed into it… #
• 09:42 @MrPandaBehr : a really cute gift. I’m tempted to add: “And the little teddy bear is nice too.” #
• 09:47 @jonk : it’s got lots of vegetable oil in it. american chocolate bars are better. #
• 09:51 @fj : everyone in south london is out of work except for the cleaners, who take the early trains… #
• 10:04 @tug : i enjoyed the one with stephen fry even more. #
• 10:06 have trawled through the emails and tweets. now for the blogs. Onward and upward! Morning to you all! #
• 15:48 @stevis : hope everything goes well for you today… #
• 15:49 who knew that replacing the hardware at the back of the toilet seat was going to make me sweat like a horse and swear like a trooper? #

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…and welcome to it.

Saturday I received my ISEB Practitioner’s Certificate in Software Test Management. This virtually completes my certification with ISEB–I could take the Practitioner’s Certificate in Software Test Analysis but probably won’t as it does cost a bit of money. I will now try to get contract work as a tutor for the three certifications I now have. There is some money in it and I enjoy teaching. We shall see about this.

There are few jobs out there; I have had a few nibbles via email but most are in out-of-the-way places for very small salaries. That’s not very attractive for me, as my net would be pretty small.

Nothing to say about Sunday; church, then home. went out to lunch with us to a Pizza Express in Soho. Then HWMBO and I walked to Fopp and I bought some books, CDs, and a DVD of Le Diner de Cons, which I saw in the theatre but would like to see again. Oddly enough, as I was browsing the shelves I thought, “I’d like to see Le Diner de Cons again,” and looking down at the bottom shelf, which I hadn’t looked at before, there it was! Obviously someone wanted me to buy it, so I did. Will watch soon.

Monday I did virtually nothing. This is depressing, but I think that a goodly amount of time away from work will help me sort out my brain. In addition, being out of work means that it’s probably good not to go out and buy anything including lunch, coffee, or what have you.

Tuesday I went to the Diabetic Clinic at St. Thomas’s. When I got there my friend Helen from the Friday Drop-In at St. Matthew’s was there also, raising cain as usual. She is in her late 60’s and is very firm about her wants and needs, so waiting in a waiting room is not a happy time for her. We chatted for a while and I told her that I was apt to have to inject a drug for type II diabetes. She said, “You should ask them about the pill I’m taking–sitaglyptin. You don’t want to inject, do you?” I told her, “No, I don’t want to inject, but it seems there is little alternative and I have to trust the doctor.” She wasn’t having it, but then she got called in for her blood test and we ended it there.

My blood test was OK, I think, and my blood pressure seems to have been a bit lower–the result of the increased dosage of blood pressure drug I got last time I was there, I suppose. The practice nurse called me in, and we discussed the drug: exenatide. It is injected, but not with a syringe, with a pen. You have to put the needle on the pen, dial up the dose, take a chunk of your tum between thumb and fingers, and insert the needle and press the plunger, counting to 10. Then remove the needle, take it off the pen and dispose of it in the sharps box, and recap the pen. We practiced on a squeezy pig, and then with a pen full of saline on myself. No sweat. So we started on it yesterday evening. I have to take it about 1 hour before breakfast and dinner. The needle is amazingly small and you can hardly feel it, if at all. So I got the prescription, waited at the pharmacy, and walked home. The diabetes practice nurse is very good, very helpful, and really took away all fear of being stuck with a needle.

This is almost it, I think. If this medication doesn’t work, then it’s insulin for me. The good part about it is that now that I am used to giving myself injections (he says, after having done four in two days) insulin doesn’t hold as many terrors for me. The problem with insulin is that it tends to get you to put on weight. This is bad for a diabetic. I want to keep away from it as long as I can. Once I do have to go on it, I shall have to cut down what I eat to the bare minimum to keep me alive.

Today, Wednesday, I got the guest room ready for and did some shopping. The rod that serves as the hinge in back of the toilet seat was about to break, so I needed to replace it. What a pain in the arse that is! I had to take the hinges and brackets off, clean underneath, try to put the new brackets on, find that they didn’t fit, put the old brackets back on, thread the rod through the two parts of the seat, sweat like a horse, and swear like a trooper. I wish they’d make these things easy.

Tomorrow is a meeting of the New Lammas Lands Defence Committee, where I’ll have to apologise for not keeping the website up to date, and figure out where we go from here.

Friday I have lunch with one of the other delegates to the ISEB Practitioner’s course to talk about testing stuff. Then I have to get my new glasses from Otto Opticians and rest from my labours.

• 09:49 @MrPandaBehr : odd coincidence: i was drinking mocha and reading and i suddenly coughed and the mocha sprayed all over the paper not in cup. #
• 09:53 morning tweeters. off to the diabetic clinic this afternoon, very apprehensive. #
• 12:46 @MrPandaBehr : that will be really nice. we won’t hear much from you during that week, i’m sure. totally understandable. have lots of fun! #
• 16:21 back from the diabetic clinic. am now to inject exenitide twice daily 60 mins before meals. side effects don’t look bad, we’ll see how… #
• 19:54 did first injection, ate dinner (leftover meatloaf) with HWMBO. Waiting for the side effects, if any. #
• 20:11 feeling well. listening to Gregorian Chant on live365, finished my Dr Pepper Zero. hooray! #
• 22:37 night-night tweeters…off to watch TV with HWMBO. #
• 23:42 @MrPandaBehr : great! say hi for me. #

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• 07:35 @nard : looking good so far. give us the recipe! #
• 07:41 good morning, tweeters mine! grey morning in London, which comes top here: twitter.grader.com/top/cities #
• 11:26 @besskeloid : where can you find a gormless git this time of day? #
• 18:30 meatloaf’s in the oven, sprouts are in the steamer, mushrooms are in the pot simmering, dinner is on its way. #
• 19:33 meatloaf absorbed, now to catch up on email and generally chill with a Dr Pepper Zero. #

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As many know, the Archbishop of Canterbury is a devotee of the Simpsons. Below you will see the new opening sequence for the Simpsons. I am presuming that some of the details will change every week, as they have done in the past, but it’s hilarious…sometimes more so than recent episodes. Reinventing itself is the hallmark of a good TV series.

…and many happy returns of the day.

• 00:07 nighty-night all…no longer valentine’s day here, so we can all go back to snarling if we like… #
• 13:59 A( Fopp to save the economy. #
• 16:48 back home now, was “at” Fopp, not “A(” Fopp before, sorry. Bought Chinese pastry in C’town, relatively rude counter staff. #
• 23:38 night night all…must sit with HWMBO and keep him company before he throws me out… #

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Forty years and more ago, a Boston firefighter saved the life of a little baby, snatching her out of a Roxbury fire and giving her the kiss of life to revive her. Now, the baby, grown up to be a lovely woman with kids of her own, looked for the firefighter to thank him for what he did back then. Watch the video after reading this article–I guarantee you will need a tissue. Thanks to for drawing my attention to it.

• 12:37 got my ISEB Practitioners Certificate in Software Test Management this morning…thank goodness. #
• 21:42 If you support marriage equality, read shelbycub’s blog entry for today: shelbycub.livejournal.com/347627.html . Keep tissues handy. #
• 21:49 @helenroper : thanks, Helen. Now to try to parlay it into something that will pay me some £££… #

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Today is our third anniversary. Or, perhaps, our eleventh anniversary. We went through our Civil Partnership three years ago today after what Ethel calls “an 8-year courtship”.

Unfortunately, I still feel like hell, so we didn’t celebrate too much. I sat in the chair in the living room drinking orange juice and watching things like “Unsolved Murders”. I didn’t shower until 6 pm (I felt so slovenly…) Then we went to The Well and had our Valentine’s Day dinner. Home for some decaf and tiramisu.

Then we listened to some Ella Fitzgerald singing tunes by Gershwin, which really set a lovely tone for the end of the day.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, you must read this blog post by . It says exactly what I would like to say about marriage and make sure you’ve got a Kleenex handy.

In other news, I have finally gotten my ISEB Practitioner’s Certificate in Software Test Management. I did OK (did not get a distinction, but that’s OK) and now have three certificates to hang up on the wall. Now I have to make sure that everyone knows I have it (change the CV, add it to LinkedIn, etc. etc. and so on and so forth). Took ’em long enough to mark it, but that’s OK.

Tomorrow it’s Eucharist, then lunch with our friend , who is down again from Edinburgh with a picture of himself in his new kilt. He does not yet have the courage to wear it as the Scotsmen do.

As our own dear Queen might say if she had a Valentine’s Day televised message: “A very heppy Vellentaynes Dey to yew awl,”

…and many happy returns of the day.

I think I missed ‘s birthday, maybe, so happy belated birthday to you, too.

• 13:32 off to rest before dinner. this cold has beaten the stuffing out of me. #
• 17:05 @MrPandaBehr : and the sun in your room isn’t the only hot thing there… #
• 18:40 A( Lancaster Gate waiting for HWMBO. Moron in Tube had a big bunch of balloons in height of rush hour #
• 18:40 Going to friends’ place for dinner. #
• 18:44 @jonk very cute. Smudges are what Photoshop were made for. #

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• 09:15 @MrPandaBehr I don’t eat in a men’s bathroom. Or a women’s bathroom. Or ANY bathroom, for that matter. #
• 09:26 @jonk so what information do you have to share with us that is TMI? My bar for such info is very high, mind you. #
• 17:14 @nakedboy : it’s called “Dr Pepper Zero” here in London and it rox. #
• 17:15 afternoon all…was wiped out this morning but have rallied this afternoon. hope to be closer to normality tomorrow… #
• 17:16 @nakedboy : i agree with you. love Dr. Pepper Zero/Diet. #
• 21:21 finished my Latin translation, now need to read a document for HWMBO. #
• 21:25 @jenny8lee : salem used to be a backwards burg–go there around halloween and you will be amazed at how bizarre it is. #

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• 08:17 @seashellseller : that was a scary video. luckily i’m getting a bit better. thanks for the suggestion. #
• 08:56 audit committee today, then lodge of instruction this evening. laundry in between, i think. HWMBO will kill me if i don’t do the laundry. #
• 14:53 back from audit committee–all’s well. drinking Dr. Pepper Zero and listening to News from Lake Wobegon podcasts. #
• 18:37 On Metropoain at Baker Street waiting to be off to Northwick Park. #
• 18:39 That should be Metropolitan Line but “pain” doesn’t even begin to describe it. #
• 18:56 At Wembley Park. Drunk ambles slowly off crowded train exclaiming aboiut letting him off when his path was clear. #
• 19:13 Mmmmm Subway! #

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I got a reference from The Register for The Times (of London) Spelling Bee. The website shows a game which you can play…click on the button, and a little robot comes out of the left, adjusts one of his antennae into a microphone, and proceeds to speak. You are required to type each word into a box. At the end, you get your score. You can then place your cursor on any word in “red” (which you misspelled) to find the real spelling. See how I did below

Now, I consider myself a good speller. But when the robot said “READ” and I typed “REED” I can’t see that I got that one wrong. Spelling “BALLOON” as “BELLOON” is a typo, pure and simple. Yes, I can spell “BALLOON”.

Maybe the Guardian, also known as the Grauniad for its love of misspelling and homophone confusion, should take this one over.

With the global economy in meltdown, it is important to look forward as far as one possibly can, in a financial sense. There are at least 15 companies that might be in trouble this year, even to the point of insolvency. Shout-out to my Singapore lj friends: one of your favourite sources of sugar and fat is on the list…

• 10:19 grey day today; had to cancel attendance at a seminar i was supposed to attend as my head is still full and my throat scratchy…ick. #
• 10:33 @jonk : holocaust denial will be a burgeoning industry as the last survivors & eyewitnesses pass on…evil always finds a way in. #
• 13:57 off to Argos to get a humidifier for the medroom. I’m tired of waking up with dried-out passages… #
• 13:58 of course, that was “bedroom” in previous tweet. my typing is deteriorating with age. #
• 15:29 argos was out of humidifiers by the time i got there…must be a run on them or something…will put a tin on the radiator i guess tonight. #
• 21:28 back from diocesan board of finance meeting. we are solvent, yay! #

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• 07:49 @MrPandaBehr : you can talk to him in Chinese; he is not out to his parents; the A&F here is LYC and I am so through with them… #
• 14:55 the pentacostals who meet in our church are singing a most tuneless version of “To God Be The Glory”. Stopped for a mo but are at it again! #
• 14:56 @urbanbohemian : good morning. Aspirins on toast, m’lud? #
• 20:26 @chrys : i like westfield. but i’m used to singaporean malls, which it very much resembles. new vivocity in Sg is very like it. #
• 21:27 @MrPandaBehr : LYC=Long Yang Club, another incarnation of A&F. I speak English. Typical American, I guess. #

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• 09:19 @MrPandaBehr : great photo…why not take one like it as you are now and post so that we can see the differences… #
• 09:30 @besskeloid : have you tried blocking these people? #
• 09:31 @jonk : do watch out…perhaps an alien will be bursting out of your knee very soon! 😉 #
• 09:33 good morning, tweeters all. slept horribly last night; cold is making my eyes stream and sting. #
• 10:41 still feel very tired and my head is full of something-or-other. chicken stock strained and boiled. Chicken rice soup for tonight, I think. #
• 11:53 @besskeloid : probably a good thing to do in the circumstances. In re Tweeterherders, that is. #
• 14:57 Twittering again from my BlackBerry. Hooray! #
• 16:08 @fonsus : as long as the girl keeps to arms and legs you’re fine. anything else she’s stroking should be off-limits. #
• 19:48 @MrPandaBehr : well, perhaps if you took one anyway, when your muscles get better and your eczema too you will have something to compare… #
• 22:08 @MrPandaBehr : well, i’m a bear, and he likes bears, but we don’t go out on the town much. (more) #
• 22:08 @MrPandaBehr : He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and English with a little Hokkien thrown in for spice. #
• 23:44 @MrPandaBehr : i used to go to a bear bar in Holborn (now sadly a Polish pub); HWMBO does not ID as a chaser & we don’t go to bear events. #

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Widor’s Toccata from the Fifth Symphony is a popular organ showpiece for the technically proficient organist. It’s a popular recessional at weddings and always gets a big round of applause.

Well, for those who think that the accordion is only suited for “Lady of Spain” and badly at that, here’s proof that’s not true.

Thanks to for the link via soc.motss.

• 00:22 night-night all. very tired. just watched “FBI Files” and discovered that AK killer Robert Hansen’s middle name is “Christian”. How freaky. #
• 07:23 @dirrtysean : bearded women have hormone probs–little estrogen produced, more testosterone. Voila! Beard. #
• 07:28 morning tweeters all. the now has nearly disappeared from the back garden, yay! Sleet predicted for today, though. #
• 07:28 …and no sooner did I say sleet than I look out the window and see something snow-like falling 🙁 #
• 07:43 @dirrtysean : sure, but actually she should see her GP soonest as the hormone diffs. are likely to be caused by a tumour in the ovaries. #
• 14:05 @MrPandaBehr : good luck! #
• 18:00 had my eyes checked, got 1/2way home and thot i’d left my bag w/ blackberry at the shop. went back, hadn’t. found it at home. rats! #

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In the last week there have been two public outcries over words used in public by BBC personalities.

In short, Carol Thatcher, daughter of Baroness Thatcher (Milk Snatcher) and sister of Sir Mark Thatcher, upper-class twit and possible African-coup-financier, said in the Green Room of a BBC show on which she was a journalist that a certain French tennis player was “the one who was defeated by the gollywog in the previous tour”. The tennis player was defeated by a man of colour

For the non-UKans among us, a “golliwog” is a children’s doll with a black face which was popular up to the 1970’s or so here in the UK and other places in the former British Empire. The popular condiment Robertson’s Jam had a picture of a golliwog on its label up until relatively recently. People of colour do not appreciate being referred to as “golliwogs” or “like a golliwog”–it is almost, but not quite, as bad as being called a “nigger”.

Someone else in the Green Room, said to be the comedian Jo Brand, overheard Miss Thatcher making this remark and complained about it. The BBC asked Miss Thatcher whether she was prepared to apologise for her remark. She said that it was a joke, and she declined to apologise. So the BBC sacked her from that show.

The second incident was committed by the popular host of Top Gear, a car show on the BBC, Jeremy Clarkson. You may remember that he was the man who thought that it was so difficult to crack the security around his bank account that he published his account number online. A few days later he discovered that someone had set up a direct debit from his account to the charity Diabetes UK. He was not amused and changed his account number. Twit material, indeed.

He is in Australia publicising his show over there, and at a conference of some sort he referred to the Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, MP, PC, First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, residence 10 Downing Street, as “a one-eyed Scottish idiot”.

Mr. Brown lost one eye in a rugby accident when he was a teenager and has a glass eye. I don’t know which one it is because I can’t tell from looking at him on the TV. He is indeed Scottish, and represents a Scottish constituency in Westminster. I won’t commit myself as to whether I believe he’s an “idiot”. Many people do have that opinion of him, similar to the opinion many have of former President George W. Bush. (I just like writing “former President George W. Bush”–it has such a ring to it.)

Clarkson has apologised for his outburst. Many people had complained to the BBC about the “one-eyed” remark, others complained about the “Scottish” remark. No one seems to have complained about the “idiot” remark. Clarkson’s apology was accepted by the BBC and he has kept his job.

What to do? There has been much complaint about Thatcher’s sacking from this BBC program. She must have said it in jest, they say; she couldn’t have meant it. Why sack her for a jokey remark not made on air?

I think that the difference between each of these incidents, and between these two incidents and the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand affair of three months ago, was the fact that Thatcher refused to apologise, while the other three did apologise. Wossy and Clarkson are still employed; Brand (although he apologised too) is not yet employed by the BBC again. An additional difference is that Clarkson and Wossy are on “entertainment” shows, while Thatcher was on a journalistic show of some sort (I’ve never seen it and I can’t remember which one it is).

I have little time for Clarkson, who is a rather loud, homophobic, “man’s man”, and I think that Wossy’s entertainment value is far outclassed by that of his backup band “Four Poofs and a Piano” and, in fact, by the entertainment value gained by watching a kitten play with a ball of yarn. I resent the fact that

• 08:55 @BrianHeys : salt and grit are in short supply nationwide. it’s raining down here so the snow & ice will be an unhappy memory soon. #
• 21:42 @urbanbohemian : The President’s middle initial is “H”, a la Dubya’s “W”. #
• 21:50 @BigRichB : you realise that “pykey” or “pikey” is a slur on Gypsies or “travellers” as they’re called in the UK… #

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I believe this is an ad. It was also a great surprise.

• 10:02 @pepstein : one lobster used to be buried in every corn hill for fertiliser. #
• 10:08 @jonk : i’m a mensan and i was at the NY con which was held in the same hotel as an AMWAY meet. the lift was 1/2 us and 1/2 them. horrible. #
• 10:09 morning tweeters all. cold slightly better today. snow still in back garden. rats! #
• 12:54 ok, that’s lunch over, and the Grauniad read. What to do now? Too treacherous down here to walk around… #
• 15:24 @urbanbohemian : you wouldn’t like it here. there is no plowing, salting, or sanding to speak of and its very slippery indeed. bad for walk. #
• 15:29 have put the stew on. beef and onions simmering in stock and beer now, potatoes and carrots added in an hour. 7pm dinner! #
• 20:24 @besskeloid : there are only 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don’t. #
• 20:39 @jonk : a lefty, huh? Obviously a good guy (you, me, my bf, and the President) #
• 20:42 the stew was good. note to self: put meat in early and simmer for an hour before putting potatoes and carrots in. it’s much more tender. #
• 21:00 @jonk : hey, i think you’ll be interested in these pictures: tinyurl.com/a4db55 #
• 21:00 @jonk : we had a housemate who was a lefty, so all three of us were. he was a real sweetheart and brings bourbon for me when he visits now.. #
• 22:47 watching animal planet: animal copy houston. what a testament to the cruelty of people to animals. #
• 22:48 that should have been animal cops houston. i can no longer spell, especially on my Eee. The right shift key is in a funny place. #

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• 12:41 @alexgeana : my pleasure. didn’t think that the dinner referred to the grass… #
• 12:43 afternoon tweeters. finally caught up on everything online, now going for stuff for lunch and some hardware. #
• 21:01 @jonk : i’m scared too, and i don’t live there any more. if he appears in austrian ads for right-wing political parties i’m outta here… #
• 00:18 time for bed, tweeters. glad to see that @stephenfry was released from the lift. I was once trapped in a lift with AMWAY and MENSA people… #
• 00:18 …it was the worst 3/4 hour of my life and the champagne in my hotel room did not compensate nearly enough. #

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Sunday night and all day Monday it was snowing in London, and most of southeast England. We had about 6 inches all told, with temperatures below freezing most of Sunday night and Monday. According to the Met Office, this was the worst snowstorm in 18 years here in England.

Now, in Marblehead, or New York, or Chicago, such a snowfall would be a piddling hiccup in the life of those who live there. The snowplows would be out, the sanders would be sanding, and everyone would (mostly) get to work. But here in London? No chance!

Here’s our back garden on Monday.

Note the lavender bush on the lower left-hand corner. “What lavender bush?” you ask? It’s there, just under the snow.

In the upper middle of the picture, there is a small space between a large bush and our fence. That’s where we saw the urban fox on Sunday, sheltering under the bush and then climbing over the fence into the alley next to the church.

HWMBO was delighted at the storm–it’s the largest snowfall he’s ever seen. He did feel a bit guilty at staying home from work.

I am of two minds about all this. On the one hand, lots of people get the day off from work–HWMBO certainly did. The schools were closed, public transport pretty much packed up except for the two Underground lines that are just that: entirely underground (Victoria and Waterloo and City lines, if you must know…), the buses not running, and lots of children throwing snowballs. On the other hand, I have a bad cold, I didn’t want to venture out because of the danger of falling down, we were running out of milk, bread, and dinner makings, and I had enough of snow in the United States.

In addition, the public bodies responsible for keeping the roads clear were and are not prepared for such a heavy snowfall. Plows (or ploughs)? Where would we put the snow? (Just pile it beside the road and dig out the crossings, that’s where!) Gritters (=US sanders)? We may run out of grit if this keeps up. My landlord (a housing association) has not, up until Tuesday noon, bothered to grit or plow the parking lot outside the building. It will be a skating rink tonight when the water freezes.

So what should they do? As Ken Livingstone (former Mayor of London) said, the buses continued to run even during the Blitz in the Second World War. Why should a little snowfall stop them? Boris Johnson, the current Mayor of London, recommended that everyone walk or bike to work (apparently Boris, a famous biker, did just that). Have a bit of fun. To be fair, he did suspend the congestion charge yesterday, for those hardy few who made it in. The fact of the matter is that as this happens only once every 15 to 20 years, there is no mileage in having crews ready around the clock all winter every winter, just in case it happens again. So the Mayor is blaming the boroughs, the boroughs are blaming the Mayor and Westminster, the Brown administration is in hiding, and estimates are that

• 09:38 @MrPandaBehr : no, it’s a Windoze desktop client: teletwitter.en.softonic.com/ not particularly good either–often dies. #
• 09:38 @MrPandaBehr : i’ve never heard of an urban fox attack. they scavenge out of trashcans and generally stay out of people’s way. #
• 09:43 @stephenfry : clubfry invitation would be better if the blue background didn’t obscure the word “Location” in the sign-up box on Firefox. #
• 10:51 holy jumped-up Jebus…it’s snowing in the Elephant and Castle AGAIN!! Not as hard as last night, as the actress said to the bishop. #
• 17:59 @alexgeana : i thot the “Alfalfa Dinner” honoured the black member of the Little Rascals… #

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• 08:04 @MrPandaBehr : just putting the CDs into iTunes. Ripping to MP3. not being an audiophile, i don’t know any better 🙁 #
• 08:06 morning tweeters all. cold seems to be a bit better, but i wouldn’t bet the store on it… 🙁 #
• 19:08 @jonk : yes, but Savethewords web designer seems to be a bit, um, well, FAIL?? (wasn’t you, I hope!) #
• 19:14 @besskeloid : sounds good. can you send him down here to make us each one?? #
• 19:16 @jonk : Whew! I was worried there. Load time was long enough to try the patience of a saint. Most people would close the tab before it loads #
• 19:48 snowing pretty hard here in London…perhaps that blizzard they’re predicting will actually happen. #
• 00:04 @MrPandaBehr : when my blackberry went titsup a while back, the new one didn’t have twitterberry, and i haven’t reinstalled it yet, sorry. #
• 00:04 @MrPandaBehr : what i see on teletwitter are squares. #
• 00:06 @besskeloid : i used to have a cloak like that. it is disturbing, but can also be quite warm. #
• 00:08 6 inches on the ground now, and while HWMBO was looking out back door we saw an urban fox under our bush; then it climbed over the back wall #
• 00:08 nighty-night. #

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I was looking around after seeing a reference to a product (a deodorant cream, if you must know) that I’d never heard of, and the top entry is a mail-order house that specialises in things you might not want to ask for over the counter.

Somehow I’d thought there was nothing left to be embarrassed about, but some of the products here showed me that I was wrong.

And, if you want to know how to keep all sorts of things private, this is the place.

• 10:07 morning, tweeters mine. still have a cold, coughing fit to break a rib. that means no major activity today… #
• 22:35 @stephenfry : in-fucking-sane. Lovely to see tmesis in action… #
• 22:42 well. back to ripping CDs for my iPod. Have about 400 albums so far, and only about 100 to go or so. #

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It’s been a quiet week Chez Hansen and Tan. I have been taking advantage of my newfound freedom to relax. However, HWMBO and I have both gotten the cold that everyone else has. Main characteristics are: unproductive coughing disturbing sleep. So, we’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms. We hope this will no longer be necessary soonest.

I had lunch with my friend N. on Friday. He is also between jobs, and has some personal issues. I tried to be the jolly uncle and may have succeeded a bit. N. is a good man and a good friend so hopefully when he joins the Lodge next month some of his energy can be channelled into that.

Next week I will do some cleaning-up around here–it really needs it. I need to clear up my study, get a handle on the wires that make it look like a worm convention, and clean up the mess that the squirrels make when they pick up their peanuts on the windowsill.

For the past couple of weeks I have been taking pictures of our kitchen sink with dirty dishes in them. I have a dim idea that I can make something of them, but am mulling over what it might be. Morphing from one day to the next, perhaps. We will see.

As you may remember, I took an ISEB Practitioners course in Software Test Management in the fall of 2008, and the exam in December. I am still waiting for the results (I think I passed). I took the course and exam at Qbit, which is run by people I have worked with in the past, specifically at ImagoQA (R.I.P.).

One of my LinkedIn groups had a posting from another former colleague from ImagoQA in which he was advertising a job at