Hmmmm. Today’s random variation is an upward one. Not a lot of activity today…
Here’s a picture of some ducks. Mallards, to be precise:
Quack
Just got my latest bill from Three for my iPhone contract. No extra charges, just the usual monthly fee, but everything is nicely itemised, including data use. As I might have mentioned, I abandoned my MiFi and have taken to using the iPhone’s hotspot, what with me being on that unlimited data deal. And it seems that over the Christmas period, I did manage to get through some data. The numbers are in Megabytes.
Big data
I’m not quite sure how I got through 2.6GB on the 27th….
Down another bit today, good stuff. I managed a bit of a walk at lunchtime. When I left the office, there was a bit of light rain, but while I was in Eldon Square, this happened:
Here it comes again
Yes, more snow. Taken through glass, which accounts for the reflections. This just turned into more patchy slush in Newcastle, but over the water in Gateshead, where the footpaths haven’t been gritted or cleared, there’s still loads of semi-frozen snow to negotiate. Needless to say[1], I am not even contemplating walking to work for the time being…
[1] Which is why I’m not saying it[2]
[2] And not typing these footnotes[3] either
[3] Hi Sherry!
Down just a wee bit today. Still lots of snow around, though it’s alternated with rain and sleet, so there’s been a bit of melting going on. But more snow is likely, mutter.
Today’s picture is a visitor from 1999. Space:1999, that is:
Eagle. Landed, obviously
No, it’s OK. I haven’t turned into a zombie, it just seemed an appropriate title to accompany today’s xkcd:
Damn brain
Click to see the whole thing in its native environment in the usual way. I have occasionally had similar thoughts, but then my brain told me to stop doing that if I knew what was good for me.
Hmm, down again today. How random, or something. Plenty of snow still on the ground, and apparently more may be delivered tonight or tomorrow, mutter, mutter. All of which means I’m not even contemplating going anywhere today, so you’ll have to have another picture from Saltwell Park:
More snow
Readers with memories in better condition than mine generally is may recall me mentioning this about a year ago. At the time, it was a wicked glint in the eye of its creator, Adrian Teal, noted for his work on Spitting Image many years ago, and for his caricatures that have appeared in various places. Anyway, Adrian had an Idea. He wanted to create a compilation from a fictional newspaper of the late eighteenth century, featuring scurrilous stories of the great and not so good, together with illustrations in the style of the time. This sounded like a lot of fun to me, and I was quite happy to pay up front to those nice Unbound people. Unbound have an interesting business model, which can best be summarised as “Kickstarter for books” – basically, writers put up a proposal for a book, and offer various levels of reward for people prepared to invest. These generally start at an ebook for as little as £5, passing through signed hardbacks to more specific items or treats for people prepared to pay more than the eventual selling price of the book.
As I mentioned last year, one of the offers was to have a caricature of yourself created by Adrian Teal himself. For reasons that seemed, err, reasonable at the time, I found that irresistible, and coughed up the necessary number of pounds[1]. It took a while longer for enough sensible people to commit to the project, and eventually it was indeed produced. Then there was the matter of Adrian having to sign all those books. but eventually, in the latter part of last year, this arrived:
The Book
Now, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t such a handsome, well-bound hardback as this. It looks nicely expensive, and is properly bound, complete with one of those ribbon bookmarks that nobody puts into books these days. The insides turned out to be an even greater delight, with care being taken to use recreations of actual fonts of the time, complete with the authentic long S[2]. The illustrations have the look I’ve seen in documents of the time, though there are some sneakily modern references in some of them, which add to the fun. Here’s a sample spread:
The innards
The book is presented by the (fictional) editor of the Gin-Lane Gazette as a compilation of the best bits from fifty years of publication, on the occasion of his retirement, and quite apart from reports of duels, scurrilous affairs, scandals and hangings, includes adverts for patent medicines, inventors in search of investors for their perpetual motion machines, and much more besides. All good fun, and just what was proposed in the original pitch. Nicely done, Mr Teal.
At the back of the book, as promised, is a list of contributors, including someone whose name might be misread as Les Beffant by anyone not familiar with the long s.
All that remained was the caricature. Again, towards the end of last year, I was asked to post a couple of photographs to the artist, and just over a week ago, it arrived. This is what Mr Teal did with the material available:
That’s me…
It’s an improvement on the original, to be honest. You’re far too late to be commemorated in this way, but you can still buy the book
[1] For authenticity, it should probably have been guineas, but never mind.
[2] Often confused for an F by modern readers, which would be prepofterous.
Up some more today. I blame the snow. Today’s activity was limited to a quick trip to Tesco on Clayton Street, rather than to the much larger store at Kingston Park. While the Metro was reported to be working properly, I didn’t want to take any chances. I managed to get most of what I needed, or at least reasonable approximations. Still, the new Gateshead hypermegaultrastore[1] opens in four months…
Today’s picture is another one from Saltwell Park a few days ago:
Trees
[1] Something like that, anyway
Like a lot of people, I generally use AdBlock to make web browsing less annoying. It’s not so much that I object to sites running adverts, but more the fact that some sites implement ads so badly as to seriously affect loading times.
And then there’s the more disturbing element of random advertising. I’d really prefer not to have seen this, for instance:
This might be a test of some new equipment. Here’s the current view from Losing it HQ: