Brennig Jones (and friends)

Episode 14 (29 minutes running time)

It’s Saturday morning in rural Worcestershire and…

Citronella and Adam Curry do some – back to normal! Yay! – introductions to Episode 14 which was recorded on a brilliantly sunny Saturday.

Now that we’ve sorted out the quality of audio clips, we’re back on track.

During the week we’ve had two emails worthy of note – Five AM who sang Be There for us a couple of weeks ago have dropped us a very nice ‘thanks for playing our song’ email.

And Janis from Northeastern State composed a long email which was very lovely of her. If she could send it in as an audio file that would be great, otherwise I’ll read it next week.

I think this week’s podcast sounds much more positive than earlier versions; having The World’s Fastest Laptop on the case really helps!

We start with one of the best, most bum-kicking mashups I’ve ever heard: Paranoid Rock by Go Home Productions. Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and Queen’s We Will Rock You. Brilliant!

The second track is the widely-known band Collective Soul and All That I Know.

We play out with a brilliant piece of ‘It’s The Weekend!!’ music – Sunspot and The Heidigger Paradox.

In between the music we turn things upside down (again!) and look at the Eurovision Song Contest from an unusual angle.

We also spare a few thoughts on a new paper from a government think-tank that proposes shorter school holidays.

And we examine the view – published this week – that Yoga, Massage Therapy, Reiki and Horoscopes are the work of The Devil!

Podcast admin:
All music played comes from the Podsafe Music Network – except for the opening track which comes direct from Go Home Productions.

If you’d like to send in a contribution or air your views on these – or any other topics you can think of – you can email the podcast: thisreality@brennigjones.com (killer anti-spam software requiring once-only validation!).

Or if you prefer you can leave your comments (or whatever) in our drop zone at http://drop.io/thisreality.

B.

And so my project in Swindon begins to take on twilight properties as things draw to a natural conclusion.

It’s difficult to write about work and the people I meet – confidentiality agreements, Official Secrets Act – these things conspire to make openness and communicating difficult.

But there is one project that I can talk about.

It went live yesterday, 08.00 on 28th May 2008.

It’s a public-facing application (.NET front end, Oracle database on the back end) that draws input in manual form and – via system interfaces – from a range of corporate applications.

It was designed and developed by the web team here who are – it has to be said – exemplary in their approach to any problem and are endowed with standards of professionalism that exceed industry standards.

Andy is an excellent manager; Rich, his lead developer, is worth his weight in gold bars.
The project was conceived and championed by Dr Faith Culshaw, a free-thinking academic capable of seeing the potential benefits and not shy about owning the idea through to delivery.

The concept behind the project was to provide an information system which members of the public, academic researchers and scientists from across the world, government departments, industrial scientists and all sections of the media would be able to interrogate, to view case studies and the outputs of peer-reviewed scientific research-based projects.

These research projects would have been active in each of he organisation’s component parts; British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Society, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, and all of the many participating collaborative centres and research institutions so valuable to this work.

This application enables users to filter and interrogate the raw data in a variety of ways, and with a ground-breaking degree of transparency.

Users are also able to scale down through the information to a level of granularity that even goes in to detail about the grant funding information for each project.

I’m convinced that over time, the content will expand to provide a massive resource of searchable scientific output – a concept which speaks for itself as to its practical application; there are so many ill- and partially-informed folk in the world, how could this be a bad thing?

I would have liked to have rolled this project out to the other scientific research councils, but sadly that degree of work falls well outside my brief.

So it’s a large pat on the back to everyone involved in the Science Impacts Database at the Natural Environment Research Council.

You all deserve it.

B.

(project manager, NERC)

Schooling Vin this evening was both not good and very good.

Flatwork.

Within 15 minutes of commencing work he started headshaking.

And the problem grew.

So we took a breather, I dismounted, tied him up and got out the nose net that I bought the week before last.

I had spent a little time preparing it and fitting it to size.

It took about ten minutes to get Vin’s bridle off, attach the net, refit the bridle and remount in the arena.

We walked for ten minutes, then trotted alternating reins for another ten.

No headshaking.

Stone me!

Canter work; five minutes of left rein then five minutes of right rein.

No headshaking.

So we rode BE Dressage Test 102.

It was a fairly good effort, but not worth a collection of 8s – which is what we’re aiming for, obv!

The really puzzling thing is that headshaking is related to pollen – and the nose net is a pollen filter.

But today has been classified as a ‘no pollen’ day on the pollen count.

Peculiar.

Anyway, having established that Vin’s headshaking is treatable (though it’s still unclear what the cause is) my next course of action is to write to British Eventing seeking ‘special dispensation’ from them, allowing us to use the nose net ‘in competition’ (if circumstances/conditions call for it to be used).

I need to get the rule book out to see precisely what’s involved; I have a feeling I might need to ask the Vet for a letter.

Ho hum.

B.

Regulars will remember that we’ve had ongoing situations with Abbey National (details here and here).

The purpose of this post is to bring you the conclusion.

In the last few weeks we had two letters from Abbey’s complaints department.

The first letter was a ‘holding’ device – saying, in essence, that the matter was still being looked in to.

The second letter was apologetic, admitted there had been an error and concluded by saying the problem had been sorted and would not re-occur.

And enclosing a cheque for £30 by way of compensation.

So to the folks at Abbey National (I know their Fraud department look in from time to time!), we’d both like to say thank you.

Abbey National may like to know that half of their compensation payment went to the International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH).

The other half went to the Alzheimers Society.

On behalf of the ILPH (who today thanked me), I’d like to pass my thanks back to Abbey for their contribution.

I’m sure the Alzheimers Society are similarly grateful.

B.

Welcome to the world of hotness

Stone me, it’s warm out there.

No, really.

Humid-hot.

The kind of humidity I’d expect in Hong Kong – monsoon season.

Prince and Purple Rain.

Thanks for asking.

Anyway.

Kilburn – right now.

Anyway the hotness.

I walked briskly – didn’t run – about 250m for the train, yet I feel as if I’ve just come out of the shower.

If I’d stuck to the plan I’d have made it on time, on target.

But I got seduced.

All day vegetarian breakfast – £4.70.

So I caved in.

And as a result of my greed my planning went out of the window and I had to walk quickly for the train.

Erm, hope I’m on the right one!

Just going past the new Wembly stadium.

From here it doesn’t look as imposing as I’d thought it might – no more statuesque than Old Trafford (which I know v.well from the year of living in Manchester).

A track called Neanderthal – don’t ask me who it’s by; the person who flipped it at me didn’t give me that fragment of information.

But it’s good; very rocky.

Sudbury Hill Harrow just went past.

Where?

Oh yes, Northolt Park.

There’s a house – just down there – with a miniature observatory dome in the back garden.

The thing is with London is it doesn’t sell itself very well.

It’s too easy to focus on the negative; the positive rarely gets as emphasised as the less good.

I suppose an element of that is the nature of the news media – bad news is (for them) good.

I’ve seen, this morning, many good things and… thinking about it… no bad.

The nature of a capital city (well, most capital cities – Luxembourg not included) is a crush of people in a rush.

All busy, concentrating on getting from A to B and anything else is ignored until it can be processed at a later time or date.

Therefore it’s easy to see a capital city as a large, impersonal heaving morass of nameless faces.

And that, let’s face it, is not good; not conducive to the natural state of humanity.

I see that Amy has described me as Arty Slightly Odd Guy.

OMG Amy, throw a guy a lifeline, wouldja?

In your eyes I’m either Uncle Perv or Arty Slightly Odd Guy?

Doomed!

Beaconsfield out there, The Feeling in my ears.

B.

This is major freaky.

I’m sitting on the train – not the one I’d planned.

Not the one I’d planned because Chiltern Trains decided I really didn’t need to be in London at the time I do need to be in London.

So they cancelled the 06.15 from Warwick.

Which was really nice of them, wasn’t it?

No.

So instead I had to spend half an hour sitting in a not-very-waiting-room Waiting Room, sipping a scandalously overpriced Latté, reading Haldeman.

Maybe I should add that the Haldeman was a Christmas present from Soph, not a peace offering from Chiltern Trains for making me late for my first appointment of the day and also screwing the timings for the rest of it.

Anyway.

I’m sitting on a train.

Accessing the internet on The World’s Fastest Laptop…

Via my mobile phone.

Brilliant!

I’ve configured a Bluetooth connection from the laptop to my mobile; a 3G connection from my mobile to the internet.

Spam while I journey.

Yeah.

There’s another thing I’ve noticed.

The World’s Fastest Laptop has a way more powerful network card than the old IBM ThinkPad.

Every 30 seconds or so, as the train pushes on southwards to London, the network window pops up with another WiFi connection asking me if I want to connect.

No, thanks.

That’s someone’s house dude!

Does this new (for me, bear with me, I’m catching up with the rest of the interconnectivity world) type of connectivity mean that the days of having a separate 3G card installed in my laptop are gone?

That’s what my old IBM had – a 3G card.

So I’m out of it?

I can call up Vodafone and cancel my 3G card contract – thus saving about £20/month?

Well yes, it looks like it.

Excellent, I shall investigate further.

Meanwhile on the train.

It’s a dog eat dog world on the 06.44 from Warwick.

Let me fill you in on my immediate world.

I’m in the window seat of four.

On my right is Guy in Short Sleeved Shirt who’s pouring over an SAP manual.

Opposite him is Woman with Many Pieces of Paper and a Blackberry.

Sitting next to her – opposite me – is Hot Girl.

When she got on she had a black ‘Crombie’ type overcoat on.

Underneath that – she’s taken it off and stuffed it in the overhead – she has a tight, short, low-necked black dress that might seem, to some, to be a little out of place in the world of 9-5.

Well, it might to me.

Perhaps I’m just square.

She looks at me.

She looks at me a lot.

Yeah baby.

I’m married, right?

But you can look.

Hahahahaha.

Oh my God.

She’s looking at me because I keep laughing.

And giggling.

And snorting.

Not because she thinks I’m cool.

Not because I look like a clean cut seducer (even though I may be – in my head).

I’ve really got to stop listening to iPod stuff that makes me laugh, because no-one else can hear it, right?

Right.

Be cool, Bren.

Jobs.

I wonder what they do, for a living; Guy in Short Sleeved Shirt, Woman with Many Pieces of Paper and a Blackberry and Hot Girl.

GiSSS, it might be fair to assume, is some kind of SAP specialist, or a trainer in SAP.

WwMPPaaB though? That’s a tough one.

She could be working for the Recycling Authority? Maybe?

OK, maybe not.

Perhaps she works for Blackberry; showing us how the clever use of technology is capable of supplanting these Many Pieces of Paper?

Hmmm…

Too much thinking.

Hot Girl?

She’s either a high-flying brain in the fashion industry, or a receptionist in a road haulage firm.

In my world there’s no in-between.

Screwed; that’s my head.

Anyway, going to sign off.

The Chiltern Trains train that did arrive is just pulling through Bicester North.

B.

Monday afternoon, end of May.

It feels and looks like a wet Sunday afternoon in the middle of Winter.

It hasn’t stopped raining all bloody day.

Right now, it’s coming down so hard I can see the rain splatter off the roof of Soph’s car.

I haven’t ridden, although I did nip up the yard and shove a couple of carrots down Vin’s throat.

And I’ve vacuumed the living accommodation in the lorry, generally tidied up.

Said ‘Hi’ to Tracey who was leaving as I arrived.

Oh yeah, washed the car – well, put it through the car wash machine.

But get out there and do something?

Two chances of that happening, Slim and No and Slim’s just left town.

That’s what I need.

A John Wayne western.

That’s what the day feels like.

One of those interminable Winter days that seem to populate the memories of my muchly youth – when I was about ten years old – that’s when the weather seemed to be the worst.

And there’s something wrong with the internet.

Everything seems to be running at ridiculously slow speed.

In fact my laptop thinks everything is too slow so it’s repeatedly trying to bluetooth an additional internet connection via my mobile phone.

The trouble is I don’t get a mobile phone signal at home.

Things are running so slow I can’t establish connections to a significant number of websites – we’re not talking about one or two here!

So I’ve just run a check on our broadband speed (using http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ if you care).

And they tell me that our BT-advertised ‘Up to 6Mb’ service is, this afternoon, actually delivering 1.5Mb on the download and 0.4Mb on the upload.

So, feeling a bit miffed (as some people might believe stereotypical Brits may speak) I’ve flipped over to various comparision websites to learn about what broadband services other ISPs offer – and what speeds they promise.

And you know what?

I.
Just.
Can’t.
Be.
Bothered.

It’s all such a royal pain in the arse.

Speaking of Royalty.

This Reality Podcast got an email from Princess Beatrice!

Really!

She’s been listening since Episode 9 and is – according to her email – hooked.

Yeah.

That’s completely untrue.

Sorry.

It’s the weather, screwing with my head.

The truth is that Princess Beatrice may have been listening since Episode 9, she just hasn’t got around to sending an email about it.

Yet.

But, you know, I remain hopeful.

But here’s a big bag of truth my friend.

A massively enormous bag of truth.

As with all Web2.0 activity, podcast ‘listens’ are notoriously difficult to track, right?

Right.

Web page hits, unique visits – there are web professionals out there who have raised the art of determining true visitor activity to a high science.

And yes, it is difficult.

Sitemeter tells me that this blog receives about 15,000 unique visits a week, but it only captures information on the most recent 100 visitors – so I lose a lot of data.

My host has their own stats package on the website, but it doesn’t give me anything helpful about blog activity – just webpage activity on the domain name root and associated html pages off it.

But looking at the website stats for the day before yesterday (Saturday), the following data stands right out:

What it tells us is that (just) on Saturday 359 unique visitors went to the This Reality podcast ‘downloads’ page on the website.

It’s safe to assume they either listened to an Episode (maybe the most recent one – it usually being released on Saturday) online or downloaded it from there, to listen to at a later time.

It’s also safe to assume a number of people performed the same download or listen online function via the blog.

And it may also be safe to guess that a number of listeners get the podcast via iTunes.

As if this number – and these suppositions – aren’t mind-blowing enough, bear in mind that those stats only relate to Saturday!

Blimey!

Who knows, one of them might have been Princess Beatrice.

Oh yes.

B.

Ummm.

Hi.

This is me.

Again.

I’m really sorry about the rambling.

It’s down to the weather.

And the flies.

Well…

The Fly (duh, duh, DUH!).

No, not The Fly in a Jeff Goldblum kind of way.

The housefly.

Or even…

The Bloody Housefly That’s Been Annoying The Hell Out Of Us Since Friday.

Yes I know they have a limited lifespan.

But this one doesn’t seem to be aware of that rule.

It’s in here, annoying the hell out of the two of us.

Flying around – avoid swats with hands (and cushions), living well past it’s alloted lifespan – and seemingly impervious to the terminal qualities of the tin of Raid spray.

If it comes near me one more time I’m going to pick up that aerosol and…

Throw the bloody can at the fly.

I’m going now.

It’s time for my medication…

And now to bed.

It’s been a fun-packed, action-filled evening.

Soph’s dillied and dallied her way through an essay prep.

I’ve dozed my way through Clear and Present Danger.

The thing is, with watching television when half asleep, is that one’s brain freewheels.

Especially when the adverts interrupt the programming.

Femfresh, that’s been advertised a lot this evening.

Why?

Does a study of the television-watching audience indicate that there’s a large proportion of the Sunday evening film viewership who have, erm, odorous bits?

And why doesn’t the Femfresh advert come right out and say what the product is for?

How coy is that?

It’s like watching an advert for HSBC that doesn’t actually mention money or accounts or credit cards or loans.

Which is, of course, precisely what HSBC adverts don’t do.

So there we have it; Femfresh manufacturers are shy.

So here, courtesy of a tired brain, is my advertising slogan – in an Ordinary People kind of way.

Femfresh. For women with smelly c*nts.

There.

I said it.

That’ll be £50,000 please Femfresh.

B.

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend, no work for us tomorrow, but this Sunday evening still has that ‘back to school’ feel about it.

Fair enough.

I’m probably going to take Vin schooling somewhere tomorrow.

If it stops raining long enough!

Soph’s sitting over there writing something intellectual about Information.

I’ve been cutting experimental audio tracks and running them through Castblaster in an effort to try and recreate yesterday’s loop/echo.

And failing – in that experiment – to recreate yesterday’s ghostliness.

[shrugs]

I don’t know. We’ll have to see how next week’s recording comes out.

Extremely disheartened at such failure, I’ve taken to mundane technical activities.

I’ve backed up my old laptop, my new laptop and also backed up the half-terabyte external disc and all pen drives to another half-terabyte external disk.

Yeah, nerdy.

But if I was really nerdy I’d construct a RAID array with failover and…

Sorry.

Slipped in to work mode for a moment there.

Anyway.

Recognising that I need something else to do I’m now writing emails to people I used to be in close touch with.

Shane and Pete in Brixton.

Dr Gorgeous in the North West – just sent her a rambling yet hopefully amusing ‘how are you, what’s new?’ email.

Ian (also up there), I’ve sent him something far more down to earth and pithier.

Other, similar, emails in the pipeline.

Which is stupid really.

Why would you put emails in a pipeline?

OMG!

I’ve just seen our new neighbour walking past the lounge window.

Bleached blonde hair, skirt up to her armpits and breasts hanging out of the flimsiest top imaginable.

With two of her friends.

Attired in identical fashion.

Followed to the car by a guy – in jeans and a pink t-shirt.

We’re living next door to a sitcom.

Or perhaps they’re the straight act and we’re the sitcom?

Actually… I think that’s the scariest thought.

Or perhaps we’re in a social experiment.

Ooooh, talking of which.

Big Brother is back in a couple of weeks.

More people watching.

Excellent (Smithers)!

B.

Wow.

An entire podcast about interesting stuff and three – three – emails asking about the spec of the laptop.

Well OK.

It’s a Dell Latitude D530,  with Core 2 Duo T7250 which ratchets up to 2.00GHz/2MB/800MHz.

Eight (that’s E.I.G.H.T.) Gigs of RAM and 120Gb hard disk.

The basic module is Windows XP/Office 2007 preinstalled but with the hard-disk partitioned for future dual-boot capability when/if required.

Now then, I’m off to try and find out why three sound files had some kind of loop/echo when they were recorded, but were clean during both the preview and record processes.

B.