Naked Blog

SAGATECH

An occasional column on today's technology for yesterday's people

What I was going to write about yesterday, before my home became a wildlife park, was my amazing feat with Blogger. That's right. This fascinating site with its starry dotcom is nevertheless brought to you by those wonderful people at Blogger. Or Google I think we should now call it.

I know various of you "migrated" I think it was called to Wordpress, which was the fashionable thing du jour, but here we tend not to bother with fashion. If it ain't broke, don't upgrade it is the order of the day. So with Blogger we remain.

---

Sit, drink coffee, verbalise, drink more coffee, go for a crap, weigh yourself, write what you thought of on the pan, PUBLISH POST.

What more could a boy want from an application? You can even do spell checker, but it's not that good, and doesn't learn. Unlike Nokia predictive text, which is absolutely ACE these days. But I digress.

Last night in bed you could have cut the atmosphere with a mousetrap. Rather than hop onto her lovely bed, zoe stayed on the carpet, at the exact spot where I'd trapped the last mouse under a flowerpot. It must have had mega mouse smell. Me I was praying she'd relax into sleep, as that would mean a mouse-free room. And it came to pass.

Half one she woke me with urgent miaows, and I thought that must be the radar gone off - but no... I let her through the house and just left the door ajar after that. Promised myself I'd shift rubbish urgently, but here I am with you, and well, you know the rest.

---

But Blogger had been acting up for quite some time. Months. That's why the top and sides never get updated, and sloppinesses are left unchecked.

"Your publish request is taking longer than expected. To continue, click here."

That one happened practically every time. I imagined it was the Blogger system overloaded, but I was, as it happened, quite wrong. Then it got worse.

java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out

That is the Blogger equivalent of a letter from your bank asking you nicely to pop in and discuss the conduct of your account. Before they lend you even more money to drop you deeper in the mire.

I NEED SOMEBODY

So I checked the help pages, and it transpired this was a fault at my end. You have to clear the browser cache and delete the Blogger cookie. But how? This wasn't made that clear, even though the attendant advert for Firefox definitely was. (We're as unadventurous with browsers as with blogging apps. See what you're like at 61 :)

First sign out of Blogger, or nothing useful happens.

To clear your cache on MSIE you click Tools/Internet Options/Browsing History/Delete Files/Delete Temporary Internet files

Takes quite a while. Must be mega.

Deleting the Blogger cookie is more interesting. You click Tools/Internet Options/Browsing History/Settings/View files

This lists every cookie on your machine! Oh my god - as your entire browsing history is laid there before you. Thank God I never go on dodgy sites these days, as your sins would visit you big time. Anyway. There were a few Blogger cookies, so I duly deleted them.

Restarted Blogger, and mardi gras! Published with gay abandon. Then I saw the first mouse, which kinda blotted the copybook a bit.

---

Today I'm remaining below 100m. Hopefully seeing Babs, as Wee Robert doesn't seem to have materialised with the new window. Because on Sunday it's Fraochaidh (879m), which is exactly the same height as Ben Ledi. Maybe go for lunch. She's out of her wheelchair now, and into a moonboot with her broken foot. There's a nice new fish shop in Leith Walk called Tailenders. Sandra kindly took me there a few weeks ago, when I was still learning not to drink. Nice but expensive. Although I could have murdered a couple yesterday. Babs never has to wear stilettos again, but I never saw her in them anyway. Fraochaidh is near Ballachulish. Yesterday I was inches away from two different mice. And didn't die.

PARADIGM SHIFT

Best enjoyed after the post below

Well, after today's mouse re-infestation it's clear the honeymoon is over. The mouse deterrent effect since darling zoe moved in has abated, and it's back to the law of the jungle.

Last time - two and a half years ago - there was so much stress, lying awake in aural agony every night, listening to the vermin chewing their way in. All night, every night. Unstoppable force. Alopecia set in, and some months later my hair began to fall out - only just now re-appearing... albeit one hundred years older-looking. It's still deserting my body in various places, doubtless to be replaced by the white stuff as and when.

---

Here's the arrival of zoe, in October 2005. You can sense the relief leaping out of the pages. And you can see how much I've aged in those thirty short months.

Relief until today, that is. (There was another mouse caught at tea time.) But now we're a partnership, zoe and me. She catches and stuns them, then I take over and remove. Together we will prevail. I just have to accept I'll have to do some housework. "Do the cleaning, so zoe can search and destroy," advised asta in 2005. But did I follow that advice? Did I heck. I just let it get worse, thinking that cat beats mouse any day. Just as Delta 32 mutation saved me from The Curse. A pill for every ill.

---

All of my attention is on zoe, who's strung up like a fiddle string. Adrenalin city, enjoying her sudden starring role. Here, there, her eyes and ears dart. But I will sleep quite well tonight, because she'll be beside me in the room. Her teeth and her claws will comfort me. She hears what I could never hear, and catches what I could never catch. 2005 will not happen again. Then I was alone, defenceless.

As was Andy Murray against Nadal or whoever at Wimbledon tonight. Defenceless. But that's showbiz. Gotta take the knocks, kid. Never forget - it's only batting a ball over a net. Real life is somewhat more complicated, as people from Dunblane are sadly well aware. More news soon. It's lovely to have something to write about you might conceivably be interested in. Hills are a bit exclusive.

THEY'RE BACK!!

Oh I feel quite faint. Just seen a mouse, only inches from my feet. Zoe! I called, but to no avail. The fat thing is asleep in the livingn room. She'll have to perk up better than this. No wonder she's become fond of the kitchen.

Oh I feel quite sick. Horrible black brownness. Now my hair will all fall out again. It's a nightmare. Zoe will have to take a refresher course. Instead of lying on my chest getting stroked she can get off her arse and EARN HER KEEP.

How I was put on this earth to suffer.

OH FUCK I'VE JUST SEEN IT AGAIN. THIS IS FUCKING SERIOUS. I'VE BROUGHT ZOE THROUGH. sURELY SHE'LL CATCH THE WEE FUCKER. OH FUCK SHE'S CAUGJHT IT . IN HER MOUTH. OH FUCK SHE'LL LET IT GO AND ITLL RUN ABOUT. I CAN'T COPE WITH NATURE IN MY HOUSE.

UPDATE SHE'S LET IT GO IN THE LIVING ROOM AND NOW SHE'S TRUYING TO GET IT AGAIN BUT ITS GONE UNDER MY CLOTHES ANAD I'M TERRIFIED. I CANC'T DIPOSSE OF A HALF KILLED MOUSE BUT YOURE NOT SUPPOSED TO LET THEM EAT THEM CAUSE THEY GET PARASITES. WELL AT LEAST THIS HAS BEEN AN EXCITINIG DAY FOR BOTH OF US.







My entire safety has now gone. And where is the injured or dead mouse? This is not a good day for humans.

PAST CARING

She's just turned up with another one in her gob. Or maybe the same one. Here is is. She's having a field day. I think it's just a baby one. I've got all that stomach adrenalin back again. Violated. Unsafe. Unsure.

But at least the bairn is OK. Refresher course.

Can't believe I'm sitting blogging and snapping while this is going on. Talk about trouper!

WHEN YOU WALK...

A couple from yesterday's jaunt up Ben Ledi (again). Awesome, but you know I find the top quite scary - looking across the tortured landscape of Scotland, shrouded in what seems like perma-cloud. Twice I've been up, and both times couldn't wait to descend. Uneasy. Maybe it's a lightning thing. Or just being so close to the sky, looking down on rainbows.

But - this is why we do it. The pictures speak a thousand words, but actually up there is to be struck dumb. There is a feeling, a presence, of geological torment - that the ground should so rise up like that. Poking into the sky where it shouldn't really be.

Massive is I think the word. Too massive. Strange.

Maybe some day I'll sit and eat a sandwich up there, but until then I'll relish my fear of the plunge-o-rama just feet away.













SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH

...continues to delight, shock and amaze me. It does for high schools what Merchant and Gervais did for office work. Except that high schools actually matter, whereas offices by and large don't. Do you know I've never even set foot in an office in my entire life?

Chris Lilley lays bare the faults and foibles of this fictional school, and although it's in Australia, the essences still reverberate. In Summer Heights High, the featured "bad boy" is Polynesian, but he could equally be British and display the exact same behaviours. "Fuck off Miss!" "You got your period, Miss?" Camp drama teachers are ubiquitous, always bleating about how "important" drama is, when of course it's the opposite.

It's played as comedy, but is so very much more. In Britain the effect is filtered and diluted by the alienness, but in its native land I'm sure it shocked rigid. A Jean Brodie for the age.

DON'T DRINK

One month today since alcohol last crossed my lips and I feel fine. Keep thinking of all the money I must be saving, but - as always - expenditure rises to take care of any surpluses. Expenditure which these days includes frequent two pound mugs of coffee from Starbucks. Yes - I've sold my soul to the multinationals. Well, there wasn't that much left to sell.

Pros: More money in the pocket. No hangovers. Clear head at work every day. No longer mixing with pubscum.

Cons: Alone more. (Even more.) Missing some of the pubchat, but certainly not most. Some good(ish) blog was written on the thousands of "morning afters". Most of my very few friends not only drink, but smoke as well. It's unfriendly to be perfect.

Coffee is now the only intoxicant, and it might make sense to lose that one as well. Who would ever have thought, back in those ecstatic nineties? Who would ever?

I'm heading for another month sober then. In fact I don't think I'd be upset if I never drank again.

Andy Murray and his right biceps have become instantly iconic. Well - you know what they say... if you've got it, flaunt it. Me I've flaunted it that much I don't think I've got it any more. Sandra says she doesn't care for him. I said it was a mistake to diss England the way he did.

I'M SITTING IN A RAILWAY STATION...

. . . Got a ticket for my destination . . .

Days these days are filled with things I absolutely must blog about the moment I get a minute - but neither the minute nor the moment ever seems to show up.

Last Monday was Ben Ledi near Callander, Stirling - at 879m simply the highest I've been alone. Still adventurous after Saturday's lairig!

At the summit I met a guy sheltering from the June hailstones in a tiny bothy. We chatted, as he showed me the various descents. His name was Bill, and he was 72. Bill and Ben. Hardly make it up.

So here we are again, in a rocky reprise. So wish I could send pics from this phone. Have a nice Monday! P x .

TICK, DONE IT, GOT THE LAIRIG

Oh it was quite splendid, although very tiring. Hence yesterday's silence. Zombied.

Story later,such as it is, but the pics are already on Flickr on the sidebar. I need to go back to the Cairngorms and embrace them, make them my own.

This post en route to Callander, where I might climb Ben Ledi (850m). Or not. P x

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

That's right. On the twentieth of June this year, but only for readers west of Greenwich. Because it's at 23.29. One minute later and we'd be talking 21st. So zoe and Daffers will get it on the usual day.

This time tomorrow I'll still be only part way along the Lairig Ghru. Can't remember when I last was so excited. Seriously. Wednesday I completed my stamina training in the Pentlands in horizontal sleet, and since then it's been R and R - mostly for the feet. Plates of meat.

I got gel plasters, gel footpads and gel cushion insoles. Any more gel and I'd be auditioning for Grease.

Several people have told me the Lairig is on their 'must do before I die' lists. So exciting. Still off the booze. Next and final thing must be coffee. So intoxicating.

Wish me luck. P x

LATER, BACK HOME

This is a strange thing to write, as dissatisfaction seems to be a human necessity - but I think I've got everything I want.

Everything. I. Want.

These last few days have been as close to perfection as any man has a right to expect. How odd. Must be the solstice - all that light stuff in the sky.

OK. It's after ten now, and I must to bed, then rise with the pussy at 4.30. Sandwiches to make and pack. Food for a whole long day. Water. Grapes. Muesli Bars - so much more stylish than Mars.

GPS is primed, feet rested, bumped into Chav Gav and L in Ocean Terminal this pm. I've been going to the Starbucks there quite a bit since quitting pubs, mas o menos. Pisspot full of coffee for 2 pounds 5p. HMV are doing All About Eve for seven quid, reduced from eighteen. Lidl are doing delicious smoothies (assorted) for 69p the quarter litre. Scrumptious. I got six for the Lairig tomorrow, but they all went double quick. So I got eight more today.

Bread will be Kingsmill Oats and Seeds. So excited! Did I say that? It's 22.24 now - twenty after the sunset, but there's still not a cloud in the sky. Solstice in hour and a half - you can almost feel it. Yesterday in the Botanic Gardens I watched as a bird banged a snail out of its shell then ate it alive. Pulled its wee alimentary canal out. Beak and claw. I made the movie, but only of the eating part. Nokia has a movie editing suite. Is there anything it doesn't do? I was in the Glasshouses. Free after 4.30. Bunch of Triffids. There's a lichen exhibition on til July 6th. Nice. You get to use real microscopes. Free.

Oh. Nearly forgot. I got to put the sun photo every six months or the world might end. Like in LOST.

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum.



As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.




HERE'S SOME PRETTY...

...pics from Edinburgh Botanic Garden today.





SPRINGWATCH

And here's that bird eating a snail alive. Don't look: it's too awful.

You can see the empty and essentially useless shell to the left of the bird. Then it blows away. Fat lot of good, if you think about it. I'm starting to think live Newsblogging. (There is NO SPEECH in this movie for obvious reasons.)

ALL ABOUT SPOILERS

Dismayed last night, on switching on All About Eve, to see some young man with bad hair and even worse teeth, telling me all the plot. By the time I found a mute button the movie was materially spoiled.

Radio Times magazine is as bad. Every damn film is laid bare before you even start. Must write to the editor..

On Pentland bus for the final training for Lairig Ghru this weekend. So exciting! P x

TEST-ICLE

SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH

Interesting and unusual Aussie comedy show on BBC3 last night, which you can (and should) catch on its first repeat this evening. It's wonderful that nowadays you can see just about everything just about three times in the same week.

This all comes about because of my continuing flirtation with sobriety - ten days and counting. Interesting and unusual times. And which all go to show the silliness of the government's booze guidelines. Twenty four units a week will get you quite rip-roaring drunk on two separate days. Quite. 'Nuff said. And being quite rip-roaring drunk twice a week is not good. Cannot be good, physically or emotionally. Bad Tennents.

Anyway - Summer Heights High. It's a "mockumentary" of life in an Australian High School, written, produced by, and starring in three roles a guy called Chris Lilley. Who is very funny indeed. (Ignore the Radio Times, who simply don't get it.)
Repeated tonight on BBC 3. Miss it at your peril.

NOT WATCHING YOU

Something I am cheerfully missing is Big Brother - with its usual mix of trailertrash wannabees. Quite ghastly. I had it on for ten minutes, nine of those without sound as I can't abide those Northern English accents. One guy appears to be blind, and another fat twat looks like a cross between Dean Martin and Sylvester Stallone, both gone badly to seed. The shades on top of his head say all.

Real outdoors people never use sunglasses, you know. They are yet another example of a complete waste of money. Huge money in some cases. Like hair products, and oh I could go on all day, in the absence of anything actually happening in my life.

Well, not strictly true. On Sunday I walked along two canals with the walking group. At Falkirk the Union Canal meets the Forth and Clyde Canal, except due to an apparent ghastly mismanagement of geography, it's hundreds of feet higher up. Quite a sight - a canal coming to an abrupt end, hundreds of feet in the air.



So they built a huge contraption to raise and lower the boats from one canal to another. You couldn't make it up. It's called the Falkirk Wheel.



HEEL THYSELF

Just when I should be training for Lairig Ghru, my new Raichle boots have made a callus on my left heel. This is due to bad construction of the footbed, which has a ridge where there should be smoothness. You just can't get quality these days, for love nor money. I've attacked it with scissors. Plus spent fortunes on foot preparations. Cinderella shall walk the Lairig Ghru.

Work now. Pics and links later. I even took a video of the Falkirk Wheel in action, but it goes on for five minutes and is mega boring. Mebbe speed it up.

Update: Due to Blogger's indisposition, this post was very late in appearing, so you might miss tonight's repeat of SHH. However, the good news is that Summer Heights High is available on iPlayer

Video

Falkirk Wheel in action (5 mins)

What you see is one floating boat being lowered from the Union Canal to the Forth and Clyde Canal, and another one raised vice versa. Because of Archimedes principle, the weights of the two gondolas are identical. So the process takes no more power than that of three electric kettles and the electricity for the entire day costs around ten pounds.

You still get the feeling there must be an easier way...

SPRINGWATCH!



You know the tourist season has arrived when you see these yellow-jacketed creatures prowling the streets. OK, it was Rose Street, Edinburgh in the middle of the afternoon, arguably the least likely place in the discovered universe for any crime to happen, but still they thanklessly pound the beat so that the tourists might sleep sound in their hotel beds.

Try to find one in any Leith streets however, and you might as well stab yourself in the back to save your assailant the bother.

As a cynical PR exercise this would be hard to beat.

---

Will and Grace are on cracking laugh-out-loud form just now.

Have great weekends all... and watch for PC Plod.

ALIEN V PREDATOR

You wait all week for one, and then two come along at once...

Might be more understandable if you do in fact read Tuesday (below) first...

Yesterday was notable for its very bad weather forecast. All were united... metoffice, metcheck, BBC, ITV, you name it. Each one had the dreaded black cloud and two raindrops - for the entire livelong day. Metoffice even had a Severe Weather Warning for my region set at 60 percent probability. All were agreed - a really fucked up soaking wet day.

All except one, that is.

Por qua?

My humble Lidl weather station stuck to its guns and forecast cloud yes, but not one drop of aitch two oh. Not one. And apart from the lightest of sprinkles at around eleven, that was exactly what happened.

So:

Met Office supercomputer array (3.2 billion pounds): nul points

Lidl Weather Station (14 pounds 99p): dix points

You pays yer money...

PAINT YER WAGON

Celebrated my new life as an ex-drinker yesterday by splashing out a little, both on calories and goods, the main being a nice linen-look suit from BHS. Just 60 quid for the jacket, and 29 for the trousers. I love it when they sell them separately. Makes for a much easier fitting. The trousers are just a touch snug, but then non-drinkers get slim quite quickly.

The man from Del Monte says Yes!

More prosaically, it'll distract my bingo ladies' attention away from the midge bites still adorning my forehead. To which end I bought piriton tablets but they make you all trippy. Nevertheless, after two of them I could see they do what it says on the box. Good night's sleep all round then, and today is glorious, just glorious. Not yet seven of the am, and those Salisbury Crags look so damn inviting. Trouble is - once I got up there it would take some willpower to come back down to earth and work with its windowless gloom. (Gambling emporia rarely have windows or clocks. Nothing must remind the punters that they have other things to do.)

In a couple of weeks I'm on an expedition doing Lairig Ghru, the highest pass in the Cairngorms. Twenty miles, some of it over boulders. Very exciting!



I think my hair has stopped growing again. Send follicle prayers to Kunta Kinte the hair-god.