Whisper it, but there looms a growing possibility that I may be returning to university in September.
I had thought that it was necessary to undertake a year's work experience before continuing to post graduate level, but apparently as a beneficial result of the economic collapse this requirement has been rescinded.
The week before last I made a discreet enquiry to one of my old tutors about what to do if I couldn't find employment this year- and got an application form for my postgrad by way of reply. Things now are moving a little quickly, unprecedented in my life for oh, at least a year or so. The application form is here, the loans forms are here (both downloaded), one of my character references is ready and the other promised next week and I'm expecting a postgraduate prospectus any day now.
The only major hurdle is getting actually onto the course, and considering I did my undergraduate degree at the same university I should imagine I have a fairly good chance at that.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Friday, 20 February 2009
Das Gedächtnis der Maschine ist nicht besonders gut
Yes, from the title you can just tell this blog will be somehow related to the misapplience of science and technology.
Namely, in that my laptop has been misappropriated into some sort of ad-hoc stereo system involving my iTunes player, the inbuilt DVD player and the screen. Which is absolutely grand, don't get me wrong, but now I think I've found the limitation of the system.
The memory is slightly less than rubbish. I put <14Gb on it, which is frankly a poor effort considering iPods can hold up to 60Gb, and then got a warning message in essence saying 'woah! I can't hold much more old boy!'. I did have an external hardrive, which seemed to do a grand job of taking on all my work and music and so forth, and then inexplicably dying at a critical juncture (the day before a crit when I had to try to get my work off of it and onto paper.) So I'm not too struck on those now. Which brings me onto the second point- the internal memory. Apparently it can be boosted with another hardrive plugged into the other port inside the machine. What, there's a spare port?!?
Shouldn't it have come with an absolutely full-capacity memory, rather than just half?
Namely, in that my laptop has been misappropriated into some sort of ad-hoc stereo system involving my iTunes player, the inbuilt DVD player and the screen. Which is absolutely grand, don't get me wrong, but now I think I've found the limitation of the system.
The memory is slightly less than rubbish. I put <14Gb on it, which is frankly a poor effort considering iPods can hold up to 60Gb, and then got a warning message in essence saying 'woah! I can't hold much more old boy!'. I did have an external hardrive, which seemed to do a grand job of taking on all my work and music and so forth, and then inexplicably dying at a critical juncture (the day before a crit when I had to try to get my work off of it and onto paper.) So I'm not too struck on those now. Which brings me onto the second point- the internal memory. Apparently it can be boosted with another hardrive plugged into the other port inside the machine. What, there's a spare port?!?
Shouldn't it have come with an absolutely full-capacity memory, rather than just half?
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
February 2009- Steampunk month of the year?
Throughout January, February has held a certain promise for me as so much Steampunk-flavoured media seems to have been announced or promised to me then. Now I know that it is only the 18th of the month, but already Gold Silver and Bronze have been awarded in the self-styled 'Steampunk All-Media Race'.
So here are the awards.
Gold (1st) place goes to Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Steampunk anthology, which I procured from Waterstones on the 10th. It had been promised unto me as a Christmas present, but for some reason the shop cancelled the order so I had to wait until I could afford it myself. In any case the order wouldn't have arrived until some point in this month.
Silver (2nd) place goes to Vernian Process' Behold the Machine EP, released on Monsieur Verne's birthday, 8th February. Due to random erratic aether problems however I couldn't secure a copy of this wonderful album until the 11th.
Bronze (3rd) place goes to a surprise entry that hadn't been forseen, that being a Steampunk-and-science themed issue of The Chap magazine. It was released on the 14th of the month, but I didn't manage to get my copy until yesterday (February 17th).
So those are the awards already conferred. Still to come (hopefully) are:
-Steampunk Magazine issue 5 (expected around February 25th)
-Gatehouse Gazette (expected towards the very end of the month)
-Steampunk Spectacular episode VII (but that's just a flight of fancy considering episode VI was released in October and there's been nothing since to sugggest it's still operational).
So here are the awards.
Gold (1st) place goes to Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Steampunk anthology, which I procured from Waterstones on the 10th. It had been promised unto me as a Christmas present, but for some reason the shop cancelled the order so I had to wait until I could afford it myself. In any case the order wouldn't have arrived until some point in this month.
Silver (2nd) place goes to Vernian Process' Behold the Machine EP, released on Monsieur Verne's birthday, 8th February. Due to random erratic aether problems however I couldn't secure a copy of this wonderful album until the 11th.
Bronze (3rd) place goes to a surprise entry that hadn't been forseen, that being a Steampunk-and-science themed issue of The Chap magazine. It was released on the 14th of the month, but I didn't manage to get my copy until yesterday (February 17th).
So those are the awards already conferred. Still to come (hopefully) are:
-Steampunk Magazine issue 5 (expected around February 25th)
-Gatehouse Gazette (expected towards the very end of the month)
-Steampunk Spectacular episode VII (but that's just a flight of fancy considering episode VI was released in October and there's been nothing since to sugggest it's still operational).
Monday, 2 February 2009
Possibly the funniest complaint letter
And now for something completely different, or so sayeth the cast of Monty Python. I found this just last week and although I know it has been going the rounds for some time now I see no harm in posting it here too. I nothing else it gives us all a laugh, something we need more of in the world today.
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
Ilove the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint1.jpg
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint2.jpg
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint3.jpg
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint4.jpg
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint5.jpg
Iapologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint6.jpg
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.
My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint7.jpg
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
Yours Sincererly
XXXX
Dear Mr Branson
REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008
Ilove the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.
Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.
Look at this Richard. Just look at it:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint1.jpg
I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?
You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint2.jpg
I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.
Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.
I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.
Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint3.jpg
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.
Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.
By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint4.jpg
It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.
I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.
Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint5.jpg
Iapologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint6.jpg
Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.
My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s53/masgtai/Virgin%20complaint%20letter/complaint7.jpg
Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.
Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.
So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.
As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.
Yours Sincererly
XXXX
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