i am sparticus: Words

Time Out For A Week

PLEASE NOTE
This is the text from the redirect page put up in the last week in April '05 to cover up iamsparticus.com while I did some maintanence stuff. I've added it here for posterity but it didn't appear in this format.

We felt it was time to address all the rumours floating around. It's true,
We've sold out.
In response to this we were thinking that we'd do nothing at all for the rest of today and Tuesday just to build up anticipation. We'd make a come back on Wednesday with greatly reduced content of far poorer quality followed by a split up on Thursday in which some of us would start up a new project which seeked to build on the glory days of old. On Friday we'd all come back together for a great reunion. (In reality we'd all just sink to new lows.) Saturday would bring no news at all and when we realised no-one cared we'd release a best of and be seen in other places making witty comments. Sunday would bring no news. Finally Monday evening would see our triumphant return with a slightly new look and some new stuff to please the loyal fans.

That's what we were thinking anyway, but it seems like far too much effort. So we'll just do the whole next monday evening thing and be done with it. Don't worry we will be back. And if nothing else will keep you warm at night then just remember, you knew us before we were cool.

Oh and by the way, the trailer's up for serenity and you need to go and watch it. Speaking of which, if anyone's got a Region Free DVD player and wants a copy of Firefly (without a doubt the greatest show ever to have been made) on DVD, then you can have it for a sum of your determining. The box and cases are slightly damaged but only because I've watched the show so much. In case your wondering why I'm selling it it's because I found out it was going on Region 2 and that makes my life so much easier. E-mail me your bid to whatever email address you want to make up for me at good ol' iamsparticus.com

Seeing as I'm updating I may as well tell you I maybe on BBC Suffolk this Sunday. Stay tuned for details.

Buy Seb's Dignity

Buy Seb's Dignity

I've known Seb for many a year now and can confidently say that his dignity is a rare item. It's only been observed once or twice in the wild and therefore to actually own this item would be a rare catch indeed.

The Man and The Duck

Sitting at Stowmarket train station yesterday a duck comes wandering up to me. She doesn't quack at all, she just scrounges around for some food and then wanders off before I get the chance to take a photo. I throw some crisps duck to try to bring her back for a better photo opportunity and she obediently waddles over. And then refuses to leave. While I still have crisps the duck won't go away and her head won't stop following my hand as it goes from bag to mouth. It's all a bit odd and weirding me out so I try to shake the duck off by throwing crisps at it, throwing them progressively further away, This fails as duck will happily walk back from as far as I can throw and I really don't have the heart to throw crisps on the train track. So I'm sitting there at the train station with duck by my feet not moving.

A conductor has been watching all this and looks at my slyly, "You better watch out, come summer she'll be in here trailing a bunch of ducklingss behind her." WHAT ARE YOU INSINUATING MR. RAILYWAY CONDUCTOR?

Prison Life Hacks

I heard the best thing the other day. Apparently one of the things inmates do when they enter prison is work out which religion to declare themselves so as to get the best privileges. Islam seems like a good one to pick as you get to duck out of work every Friday and you get a bunch of festivals to take off, but you also have to do the whole Ramadan fasting business so in reality it's as much down as it is up. You'll generally get Christian festivals off, so picking that's a bit of a waste of time and if you pick Judaism you can't have pork so that's a downer too. In the long run they seem to be quite balanced, you gotta work out what you want really and what you don't mind missing and go from there. One of the best things though is this, inmates frequently declare their religion to be Mormon. Mormons don't get that many holidays but because they can't take caffeine they get hot chocolate instead of the daily tea and coffee allowance . Now that's playing the system.

Thursday The 14th

• Yesterday I learnt how to make fire with sticks and string. Convieniently I also learnt how to make string from stingy nettles. I figured out how to make sticks myself.
• Yesterday I also found out that Water Parsnip has an evil cousin; DEADLY WATER PARSNIP. Do not eat water parsnip for fear that DEADLY WATER PARSNIP will come in the night and exact revenge. That or maybe you'll get them confused.
• Apparently a Status Quo tribute band are playing nearby soon. If they're in need, possible names that would suit them are; 'Status Que?' 'Status Quorn' 'Status Quo 2: The Return Of Status Quo'.
• This weekend I'm probably going to the overnight Make Poverty History / Trade Justice March. Monday night I go see 65daysofstatic, Tuesday night I go see idlewild. For those who are about to get really tired, we salute you.
• I just pre-ordered TIGER! Bring on OS X.4!

Pas Une Pute

While in France I noticed this poster was up pretty much everywhere. The text reads "Quand un petit garçon grandit, il devient un homme / Quand une petite fille grandit, elle devient une femme, pas une pute". My limited French allowed me to translate the first two lines of the text "when a little boy grows up he becomes a man / when a little girl grows up she becomes a woman" but I couldn't work out the last line. Could there be a huge failing in the French Sex Education department? Are they trying to correct false ideas about what girls grow into? "When a little girl grows up she becomes a woman, not a pony"? "When a little girl grows up she becomes a woman, not a wicked witch"? "When a little girl grows up she becomes a woman, not a carrier of the dreaded cooties disease"? I guessed it was something to do with sexual inequallity / discrimination, something along the lines of "not a mother" or "not a servant", but I wasn't sure¹. Anyway I get back home and it's still bugging me so I look it up on some French - English translation site. in English? "When a little girl grows up she becomes a woman, Not A Whore" On every billboard in Paris.

Update

The text in the top right corner says "Ni Putes, Ni Soumises", which apparently translates something like "Neither a bitch/slag nor a registered prostitute". It's the name of a pressure group that's trying to deal with negative sexual stereotypes in certain communities. If your French is up to it you can read more on their website.

Footnotes

1: I was going to text a young person I know who's doing French in Higher Education but having since found out what the word meant I'm kinda glad I didn't.

Fontainebleau

When I was in Fontainebleau I went bouldering. "Bouldering? Surely you went rock climbing?" I hear the more observant of you cry¹. It should be explained that bouldering is a form of rock climbing that involves climbing up smaller rocks (averaging between 15ft / 5 metres and 25ft / 8 metres high) and does without all the large amounts of gear that proper rock climbing needs. "So it's like rock climbing for people who can't stand heights?" Not really as 8 metres is still a long way to fall without a harness and rope and some problems (the name for a route up a boulder) are significantly higher (Ladies and Gentlemen, coming in at 40ft Le Dame Jouanne). The emphasis is very much on technique though, so you'll get people throwing themselves at the same problem again and again untill they crack it. Practice makes perfect and all. It doesn't help that all problems are graded from 1 (which around the level of stepping on a stone) to 8b+ (which is around the level of stepping on a stone 10ft up in the air by ways of a crack the size of a piece of paper). "So bouldering is like rock climbing for people who are really competitive and have no imagination?" Well, yes. But it's here where the French have got something completely right. Given fifteen hundred square kilometres of forest littered with thousands upon thousands of boulders they didn't just go around and place markers on all the ones that had tough problems on them. Rather they painted arrows on the rocks to link up groups of problems to make long circuits all graded from yellow (do not attempt if you have to use a wheelchair all the time) to white (do not attempt if you can't stick on a glass wall by sheer force of will). The best of these circuits involve your feet never touching the ground, and getting from one problem to another can be more entertaining than the actual climb.

The reason I'm telling you all this is to explain why I spent the best part of Wednesday morning alternating my cursing between 'that damn rock' and 'those damn French morons who set this damn circuit'. It was a VERY HARD PROBLEM and when I got to the top I didn't appreciate finding a little orange arrow telling me that hole at my feet was where I was heading next.

Footnotes

1Obviously I don't really, but it's a nice expression and you should learn to cope with it. Pedant.

To Me The Eiger Is Just A Bouldering Problem

So I'm back from France and Fontainebleau. I would regale you with tales of fine climbing, good eating and masterful pontoon playing, but I'm very tired and I'm typing on a lousy windows machine (APPLE-C! Why won't you apple-c?!?). Some photo are up with more to come when I get back to Ipswich and my trusty iBook, for now see the few on flickr. Two observations though: How is it that I can get my flight moved forwards by three hours for nothing, even with all it's complicated security proceedings, yet I can't get my train ticket moved forward three hours without coughing up cash? And why do the French as a nation seem to object to having any sort of practical lighting in any of their public areas? One train, two train stations, one toilet and assorted walkways and approximately 5 watts of lighting between them.