Friends, colleagues and family gather.
Memories pooled – in thought if not in voice.
All focussed – for a moment away from the ordinary,
Onto the special.
We all know the one who has passed,
But there is less sadness here.
There is celebration and appreciation –
Memorial rather than catharsis.
Later, a quiet dignity contrasts with youthful exuberance
As voices can raise and conversation resumes.
May 17, 2009
On a Passing…
May 11, 2009
May 7, 2009
But it’s Ixnay on the Win7 RC from Scotty in Engineering…
… a more subtle skunky approach may be required?
May 3, 2009
Custom Tag Time…
Created from images of Champagne cork metal caps from Whigams – one of my favourite bars – my (blog link) Custom tag.
Yes, it’s a work in progress and rushed but a bit of a wheeze. It reads, just, but shows a bit of potential. Next step, actual size and try to find caps more closely matching the CMY colours – not easy.
April 13, 2009
The World in Your Room….
My first version of this was a little confusing – this should be simpler although I mix measurement systems, that’s just how I can relate to different distances.
Standing in an average room, around 8 feet high – imagine a model of our world – a big, round, inflated ball reaching up to the ceiling.
If that represents the Earth, then;
the ‘edge of space’ would be about 19mm above the surface of the ball – that’s less than the diameter of a 1p coin.
all the moisture content in the atmosphere and almost all of our weather is contained within about 4mm of the surface.
an airliner will typically fly no higher than just 2mm – around the thickness of a 50p coin – from the surface.
the deepest part of the ocean will be just over 2mm below the line,
the average depth of the North Atlantic Ocean is a shade over 0.5mm,
the deepest bore-hole drilled to date (the Kola Superdeep Borehole) is about 2.3mm deep,
in the North Atlantic, the Gulf Stream which keeps us relatively warm for this latitude, is a very thin and narrow band of about 0.25mm deep and on average 19mm wide, but flows around 750mm (about the length of my arm) from, say, Bermuda to Ireland,
the Greenland ice sheet is about 0.5mm at it’s deepest and is approx 450mm long (a page and a half of A4) and just over 200mm wide (just slightly narrower than A4).
the International Space Station orbits little more than 65mm from the surface (the width of 3 £1 coins) and
GPS satellites on which your sat-nav depends, orbit more than 3.75m – over 12 feet from the surface.
Our world is so big, so strong and we are just a thin smear on the surface – making nature angry.
September 1, 2008
Synth me some more…
North Berwick Harbour this time – shame it wasn’t a nicer day but very synthy all the same.
August 31, 2008
The Joy of Synth…
Photosynth is now released for public fun and games and I couldn’t resist joining in.
My first effort can be found here: Scottish Seabird Centre
November 1, 2007
Samhuinn…
The Beltane Fire Society here in Edinburgh arranged a superb event to celebrate Samhuinn. All in all a great little spectacle. Mobile phone photos on Flickr.
October 29, 2007
Oestroegenius
….the very words evoke a particular reaction.
We all have preconceptions about ‘celebs’ – our emotional, visceral and intellectual reaction to how they look, behave and sound. We make judgements – snap, easy, glib judgements. I like to think my judgements are right. I’m accustomed to being right, usually, sometimes.
Many people have heard of Ms Eclair, seen her on various TV programs, but fewer will have seen her on stage. When she appeared in Edinburgh on Sunday, I was happy to along expecting a pleasant evening of slightly nutty, slightly grumpy stand-up.
What I wasn’t expecting was the hour and a half of slick, energetic, continuous, stream-of-hyper-consciousness humour that assaulted us from the moment she appeared. It simply didn’t let up. Running, jumping, rolling around. Constantly keeping up the routine, never relying on dialogue with the audience for a pause or a link. Fantastic. Leaving one quite à bout de souffle.
I have a new perception of Ms Eclair – one which she perhaps deserves more. Like she could care less 
Go see her if you get the chance.
October 16, 2007
60 today…
Congratulations to our friend Vicky (she’s not online hence no link). She is 60 today and working very hard.
However, putting many of us youngsters to shame, to celebrate, she has run 60 miles this week and to date, has completed 60 half marathons.
Go girl.
October 8, 2007
After the Gorilla, Here Come the Bunnies
It’s another must-see advert in the Sony Bravia Story. Uber Smile-making…
October 2, 2007
Still Hurts…
Proof, though none is needed, that although time dims the memory of some events, others only lie dormant – this post (very eloquent for a policeman) – touched a nerve for me. If you’ve ever had to do it, you’ll understand.
September 30, 2006
The Umpire Strikes Back…
-TeeHee… This is sssooooooo important – cricket has been left in turmoil. Did they or didn’t they, was he right or was he wrong – who is He? There are so many links – pick one!!!!!!
Boy, can we talk at length about a lot of crap – just look at the BBC Sport web site and try to make any shred of sense out off this heap of dung (pick your own depositing animal, I don’t want to come over as parochial, nationalistic or otherwise oriented for or against any particular animal faeces – do you think that covers me??).
Are we talking about tossers or full tossers. If you can’t make sense of it from West of about 30 degrees Longitude (I’ll make it easy – that’s AMERICANS) – think about corked bats – oddly no mention of that in WIKI under Baseball, Hmmmmm.
Still, if we focus on cricket maybe ubuntu will go away. I am forming my opinions on how to express my UTTER AGGRAVATION about ubuntu – I’ll post that tomorrow.
September 14, 2006
Photo 1
Holidayed here…awesome stuff. Touching stones raised thousands of years ago……stunning. I’ll do the Flikr thing eventually.
