John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

The pain and suffering of a developer: 31 July 2007: Imagine if you were a property developer looking at this, a detailed plan for the conservation of the Great Crested Newt. Fantastic that it exists. Fantastic that it's being made to happen. And I love Great Crested Newts, no really, I do .. I spent my childhood with my nose in books about British wildlife. But there's something about it that's just not really what a property developer is about. Wouldn't it irritate you if you were trying to get your job done? This and maybe ten other things about possible archaeological significance and rights of way and all that? Like I say, I'm really happy it's there, but I just wonder what could be done to make it less irritating. Like, for instance, making property developers (well, everyone, actually) liable for environmental damage in a really serious way. Then, checking all this and doing it properly saves them money. But I suppose they'd just bulldoze the newts and no-one would be any wiser.
Scarborough and overflights: 30 July 2007: It was Lifeboat weekend, and we were treated yesterday to an overflight by a Lancaster; At least, I think that's what it was. Wikipedia says there's only one flying survivor in the UK, NX611 Just Jane, but it doesn't look like the most recent pics in Flickr and according to the various articles on her it doesn't appear she'll be flying again.; It's this Lancaster PA474, one of only two remaining that are airworthy. I get it now, I was coming to the Coningsby part, but this tells you it's from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight based there.; I'd worked out Coningsby from this picture of a Hurricane on the same day; which leads you to this Wikipedia and a picture showing a Hurricane with the same markings about a third of the way down on the right. I kinda knew it wasn't a Spitfire from doing Airfix models as a kid.; It's a crap telephoto lens I've got isn't it? It's a Tamron 55-200mm. Either that or I need to sort out camera shake.; The gulls were all of a flap over it. They have young ones just leaving the nest. Our cats daren't leave the house.; I don't know whether these flypasts became part of the video for the latest Manfat Voodoo tune, a beautiful song called Direction Airline. The song isn't officially released but here's the video with the recording from the BBC Radio York session. Personally, I've heard a better recording of it (unreleased, lo-fi video of the last Halloween gig, just Dav and Damion where it lilts along like heaven), and the video part seems a distraction .. I actually prefer to just close my eyes and relax into it and almost nothing makes me do that atm, so big tick. But hey, I'm not the artist, they know best. If you're a Digger or Stumbler or similar, do the clicking thing for us.; Scarborough was a bit like this today
Flood pics: 29 July 2007: Flood pics on an interactive map
18 mile run: 29 July 2007: I didn't manage it. But I have a good excuse.; The route was, if you want to follow along at home, northwest from the top of Scalby, past Foulsyke Farm, left at the fork (although I missed that and had to take the next left), past Beacon Farm where I think I met a rather scary loose alsation, teeth and everything, straight over at Surgate Brow Farm, then left up the footpath to the viewpoint. North along the road to where it's marked with a chevron, due South on the footpath, curve around and follow it for about a mile across the top of Broxa Forest, and into the woods, meet the footpath T junction and turn right down to the river, then left to follow the river all the way South to Langdale End.; Well, take a look at this taken along that mile stretch of footpath:; Beautiful views, sure, then this; Look at the angle I'm running at, then this; Some footpath! Look what I'm running through. No, look closer; What that is there, is very uneven bog with waist high thistles and thick ferns in it, at a jaunty angle.; A mile of that, when it's supposed to be a footpath, and having been chased by a dog that wanted me for lunch, is enough for any man.; So I clambered over the barbed wire fence into the forest where, although the ground was mostly dry, I was now running an army assault course of trees and branches, and that continued even when I did regain the path, for another two miles along the river where more mud and running streams were added.; I did, however, do three hours of this nonsense before persuading a farmer in Langdale End to let me use his phone, thanks very much for that mister, you did better than the ice cream lady at the viewpoint who reckoned she'd run out of credit. Yeah, right. I was offering to pay, too.; And, honestly, BT, what's to do? I remember very clearly their claim that while, yes, they were taking coin operation away from most public call boxes, they would ensure that next to each call box would be a shop where you could buy a phone card. Well, no there isn't, and reverse charge doesn't work to mobile phones. Shameful.; On flat ground I reckon I'd have done my 18 miles in that time (the terrain doubled the time it took), so I think I earned my stripes today.; I feel good about a couple of things, though.; Firstly, I stocked up with Lucozade energy drink and gels and that solved the energy problem I'd had on my 16 mile run. I felt like I could just continue running. Groovy. Can't quite get to sleep now, tho (it's 01:42).; Secondly, part of the point of training is to make everything stronger, not just your muscles but the whole thing .. bones, joints, tendons. There were a couple of times when I slipped and one time I thought .. wow, ankle .. and the other .. wow, back .. but I'm home now and don't feel any problems in either places. So that's all good.; Just one more big training run before the marathon, it's a twenty miler, and I did say to myself I'd run back from Whitby. I think actually Whitby is further away than that so I think I'll be running back from Robin Hood's Bay or similar.
Gig 2: 27 July 2007: I feel like the chaps offa The Full Monty, queuing to get their giros, but inside they are running through their routines.; I'm still full of Manfat tunes, it feels like my body's stuffed full of them, all playing at the same time and, like a bingo ball machine, one occasionally drops into place and sits in my head on its way out of my system until it's replaced by another, like bees flying from the hive.; Salbutamol is the one presently in my head .. I just wandered around Sainsbury's playing it on my shopping trolley. I started out with Send in the Rifleman. Who knows when or where it will end. It would be nice to point to those tunes so you know what I'm talking about, but they're a bit lacking in that department atm, hopefully we can fix that soon.
Gig: 26 July 2007: Played a blinding gig last night with Manfat Voodoo at the New Tavern. Just vocals, guitar and drums. I wasn't sure it would work terribly well, I felt like a spare part at start of the practice .. hang on, I've been picked up on this .. "practice is the noun and practise is the verb", says Dave Barry at the Scarborough Evening News. So I was right this time. Anyway, it really worked on the night. I heard "that was your best gig ever" through to "I only came because I thought Paul Tilley was playing" (he's their regular drummer). Just think what it could be like if I knew all the songs :-); Apparently Dav always brings the accounts when he comes to a gig, he likes the frisson of danger when the darts games start.; If you missed the gig, and in all probability you did given that there are 6.6 billion people on the planet and probably about 70 at the gig (just 0.000001% of you, was there something good on the telly?), here's Manfat Voodoo's latest video, Trepanning on the Transpennine.; I hear we are also playing Beached early Sunday afternoon, oh yers, there we are. I played one song in more or less that slot last year and the heavens opened as we went on stage.; On the recommendation of the DTXpress mailing list, I bought some Zildjian anti-vibration drumsticks which are, apparently, either perfect for, or designed for, people who play electronic kits. The pads on an electric kit aren't as forgiving as proper drumskins. These sticks have their thick ends hollowed out and filled with rubber. I was worried that would create a weak spot, a bit like bending asparagus till it breaks to work out where the woody bit is, but I haven't broken one yet.; I did, however, firstly lose a plastic tip which I spent valuable spare time aralditing back on. Then, most of the way through the gig I felt a bit more wibbly wobblyness than I expected .. couldn't stop drumming .. but worked out that the rubber bit was starting to exit the stick and was flipping and flopping around my hands as I was trying to play, until it eventually exited at speed. I never did find it again. Does nothing actually work nowadays?; I never did write up the Corporation Club benefit for Ed Woodward. I've been here twelve years or so and had never heard of The Corporation Club but it seems to be on the agenda as a venue now, perhaps following the departure of the people who ran it for the past couple of decades. I'd link to the story but the Evening News is giving an error atm.; I think it's a working men's club, not that I'd know. People have described it as like a real life Phoenix Club. It's a great place. If you haven't been in, here are some pictures. "Bulldog clips to hold your bingo cards, for sale in the office, 25 PENCE". Glorious.; Someone was telling me that the Conservative Club has a really cheap bar. Well, the Corporation Club has a really cheap bar too, and you don't have to scrub down your soul with bleach afterwards.; On this night, which was a couple of weeks ago, Manfat started the night, played OK, but compared to last night I'm not sure it was the right place for them. With the other bands I've been in, which are covers bands, I've always felt second best to proper bands who do their own material. But in this gig, Madchester covers band The Mad Cyrils topped the bill and gave everyone a blindingly good time while proper excellent songcrafters Manfat were in the warmup slot and that was right for the night. That changed my view on the whole thing a little. Special mention should go, too, to Bob Wig and the Castanets, which is basically members of This Garden wearing big wigs, doing tunes and being very funny indeed. Catch them if you can.; Finally, for no good reason other than I can't be bothered to start a new blog title, here's a picture of a pond.; Last year, the council (I assume) brought in big diggers and made a pond next to the bigger pond near the North Bay railway, spread mud everywere, and I wondered why. It turns out that, without fanfare or even a sign saying so, they've made this rather beautiful sort-of conservation area. Not sure if it's conservation really, more a deliberate planting of normally wild fauna, but it's rather nice, anyway.
Motorola V547: 25 July 2007: I just composed a longish text message on my phone and tried to send it, and it said "memory full". Of course, because the memory was full, I wasn't able to save it to drafts either. So, hang on a minute. You didn't think to check the memory before I started typing? That's just rude.; Of course, there was no way to free memory from that part of the menu, no option to 'delete oldest message to make enough room' or anything like that, so I had to remove my carefully crafted message in order to make space and then re-type it again.; Now this phone's been irritating since day one. The interface is fairly horrid. Shortly after the guarantee ran out the earpiece failed so I have to hold all my conversations on hands free, unless it decides to work, and I never did manage to get any images off the phone, no way no how.; Oh, almost forgot. The charger. It takes me maybe ten minutes each time I want to charge it to trick it into realising it's connected to power and can charge. The plug has to enter the phone at just the right angle, and it has to be left balancing in just the right way .. phone on its side, with the cable over something higher so the phone's lifted a little by it .. before the phone will recognise the power connection, start charging, and continue until the job's done. And sometimes you can do all that and get it right and it will say "unable to charge". Seriously, I have better things to do with my time.; Not much makes me angry, but losing this text for such a stupid reason .. this phone very nearly ended up thrown out of the window.; So I say: Don't buy Motorola. I mean: not ever, not for any reason.
Wave goodbye: 23 July 2007: I'm in a funny mood. Have been for a while now. This is profoundly depressing. Not just that 'The Wave' is set to be scrapped, which is sad enough, but the reasons given. I really, really, don't want memorials to the dead knocking about the place, and The Wave seemed to me to celebrate the power of the sea, to encourage respect of it, and to say something about why we choose to live by it. I honestly can't see how it could be interpreted as an insult to the woman who lost her kids to the sea the other year. When other places are developing iconic buildings that provide a visual statement to potential visitors about vitality and modernity and encourage tourism, we seem to have missed an opportunity. Plus, we have a very vibrant artistic community here. Perhaps we are missing the power of Pete Massey.; I do, however, understand the problem. A quarter of a million pounds on a sculpture when 600 jobs are going at the hospital, that's a difficult sale even if the money comes from different places, and if it was originally considered because it was going to be less than a hundred thousand pounds, then we've been misled. How can you spend a quarter of a million pounds on a few bits of curvy steel anyway? It's only relatively recently that I realised that any public money at all goes into the arts, so there must be other people who think that the money would be better spent on helping redundant nurses.; Another thing that's upset me recently is the realisation that there's a remake of Hairspray. Does that trailer take about five minutes to load on your machine too? The original by John Waters is a work of genius and probably my third favourite film ever. Why remake it?; Gordon Brown on the floods. Walking over to some police chief's doorway with just one person by his side, not talking to her. Being greeted by someone in a helmet. Then talking to the press: "Mumble mumble mumble mumble", I walked out of the room. When I came back he was still going on, "mumble mumble mumble mumble". That really does need to improve or the smiley muttlymedia Tories will get in.; And if that's all I've got to worry about, then things must be OK.; Tunick (link to pictures of naked people), however, makes me feel better. Plus his picture of naked people around Newcastle's Sage (iconic building) includes a few pixels whose job it is to represent my privates. Now that's more like it.
Scarborough NHS, bad news: 18 July 2007: Check out the news tonight, Scarborough and North East Yorkshire NHS Trust announced to its staff today it intends to amputate 600 jobs. That's quite something in a town of 50,000 people, although they say the trust provides for a population of 250,000.; My own view is that that trust has had financial troubles for years, that much is common knowledge. Having had dealings in the past with companies on the edge, I believe the rule is, if you have to make cuts, make them big ones. The worst case is to make cuts, get the bad publicity, and then find you didn't cut enough. So do your worst, fix the problem in one bad day's news. Tomorrow, you'll be solvent, and when your books balance, you can start to re-employ. I think if we look at the trust in a year's time, we'll probably find it's in a much better financial position and is employing again. After all, I presume there are standards of care the trust has to provide. I don't mean to belittle the pain and suffering those made redundant will feel, nor the impact on the town. Just, when all is said and done, it's was probably necessary and is probably for the best. People don't do these things if they don't have to.; It certainly doesn't sit well with the story of David Johnson's early retirement package of almost £900,000 and salary of £165,000 pa. I do wonder about the argument that you have to pay the market rate to get good people. I'm just curious how much worse someone who is paid £80,000 would be and why the market doesn't work in that direction too .. how much extra value is the extra £85,000?; I'm sure there was some impropriety in the financial affairs of some Scarborough health trust not so long ago but I can't find it, maybe it was in the forerunner to this current trust.; If you work for the NHS, live in Filey and support the local football team, you're going to be pretty down in the dumps.
Loving this: 16 July 2007: Loving this .. lullaby versions of Down in the Tube Station at Midnight, and a bib that says "What would Joe Strummer do?" Cool
This is an ambition of mine: 12 July 2007: Apart from wanting a house the shape of the sort of pyramid that is supposed to sharpen your razor blades overnight and to sleep in the sweet spot just to see if I get sharper too, and for that pyramid to be in an unmanaged forest (cue a thousand cries of "forests need management" and me mumbling "they managed perfectly well for thousands of years without us"), AND for that pyramid to have a glass peak housing a swivel chair where I can sit and watch the stars at night, one of my enduring ambitions has been to do this. I even got to the point of calculating how many balloons I'd need, and imagining the look on the face of the proprietor of the local party balloon shop. My current excuse for not doing it is a) I'm too busy, and b) I've a 50% chance of ending up in the North Sea.; But at least I'd be able to wear a GPS tracking device while I did it.; If you look quickly, we are currently trialing LivePerson on that site for the next few days, a service that allows visitors to a site easily to chat with an operator (possibly me in this case). More importantly it allows me to watch you wandering around the site. It's rather like sitting in a shop and having people wander in, look at things, and wander out again.
16 mile run: 9 July 2007: I went for a 16 mile run at the weekend. It wasn't pretty. I mean, the scenery was good enough, but I flagged after about 12 miles to the point where I couldn't run slowly enough to stay within my heart rate range, which means something was seriously wrong.; Was it hydration? Was it blood sugars? Was it just that I haven't trained enough? I am investigating, but so far the feedback from the Runner's World forum is: weigh yourself (naked) before and after your run, each Kg lost is a litre of water you need in order to rehydrate. No-one said the goal is not to lose any over a run, but at least that would give a measure. How much you lose depends on all sorts, but includes the weather.; I'm in the habit of eating a dried apricot every 15 minutes while on a long run, and I drink water. That is "never going to be enough", apparently. SIS Go Gels are recommended by another, with a pouch of Lucozade energy drink also required.; I defend myself with the knowledge that these are my first experiences with relatively long runs, and so far my water/apricot thing's worked fine.; Anyway, some pictures for you. I ran out to Scalby, Suffield, right then left towards Harwood Dale, but left at the picnic area to run down Whisperdales Beck, Low Dales, picked up the road along Lowdales Beck, then the road through Hackness, Suffield, Scalby and home.; The visually interesting part was Whisperdales Beck, Low Dales and Broxa Forest which is all beautiful. If you want to play along, maybe right-click and open the Ordnance Survey's GetaMap page in a new window, then enter SE964943. In the centre of that page is the car park and view point where I turned South West off the road and started to head down through Whisperdales.; At the bottom of Low Dales is a very long ford, which is interesting. It basically looks like the road turns into a river. Personally, I'd have lots of doubts faced with it .. is this right? Am I driving into the river? Is something wrong for all this water to be on the road? But it seems to be how it is. Maybe it's rare that it 'floods' and was only like that because of the rain.
Futurist rain damage: 9 July 2007: We did have a bit of rain damage, part of the Futurist collapsed.
Tunick seems to be developing a little: 4 July 2007: Ooh, Spencer Tunick seems to be developing a little, here it's not just mass nudity, there are other elements.; And I'm sure I saw on yesterday's Breakfast news the BBC is organising a naked lady flashmob, perhaps in cohorts with Dove, but I can't find any more than this to back me up.
Lily Allen: 4 July 2007: OK, so now I start to get the Lily Allen thing.
Where is Gordon Brown?: 3 July 2007: OK, so we were sick of Blair's face and spin and obsession with news and presentation, but what's happening now is wrong.; Where's Gordon Brown? Intellectually, I know he'll be doing a great job, but don't we need to see our leader get up and say "it's all fine, it's all under control, these are evil people, muslims aren't all like that, we should all go about our daily business". We need to know what to do. We need reassurance.; I know he appeared for an hour on Sunday, but that sort-of makes it worse. If he can do that, why can't he just poll up to a microphone outside Downing Street and say something? Does he not feel our need?; Presently we've heard from everyone else. I've heard more from Alec Salmond and the Australian prime minister than I have from Brown.; Much as we might not like it, you have to manage the news if you're in government. If he doesn't, this government will freefall. The press seem to be being kind to him now, but one did say really early on before these bombings that he has a reputation for disappearing in a crisis. Once that sticks, he's lost. Cameron won't shy from the media.
Catchup stuff: 1 July 2007: Some recent Nikon pics for you.; Each time I run past the seagulls on the cliffs, I wonder what stage their brood is at, so I took this shot with a telephoto lens in case I could see anything.; And, we can. Chicks .. look! Dunno why it's not better quality. It was low light.; Inbetween times, we ate products from Sandral SA in the pub.; I do kinda like low light photography, don't know whether this is crap or interesting, probably the former. The orangey water is a combination of it being brown floodwater and the sodium streetlights.; Even the Nikon hasn't really captured the beauty of this scene. Well, I haven't captured it using the Nikon.