Comment

Caravan

As far as I'm aware it's not advertised anywhere, but by and large people agree. The Friday before the May Bank Holiday marks the start of the caravanning season. You'd do well to bear this in mind if you've got to drive in the direction of the coast this weekend.

The caravan seems to be a uniquely British phenomenon. While the word exists in other dialects of English, nowhere else does it convey the same degree of optimism as it does on these shores.

In no other country - as far as I known - is it considered normal to tow a shed a couple of hundred miles so that you can spend a week in it on holiday.

Elsewhere this would be marked down as folly. But here, the talk is of taking your home on the road. (Really? Your home? If it's your home, why is it abandoned in your back garden for the winter months, slowly gathering dust and damp?)

I think it's something to do with the British need to feel independent. Or our cheapskate attitude to hotel prices.

But really all this whining of mine is just jealousy. Given half the chance I'd join them, pootling round the lanes with my single-axle, dual-berth, snow-white mobile mansion in tow.

You wouldn't see me for dust.

Arts

Film: The Station Agent

Loneliness and solitude – enforced and self-imposed – provide the broad theme for The Station Agent.

It's another one of those films that half the audience will come away disappointed by, pointing out that nothing happens. The other half will be completely enthralled, saying it resonated with them on a deeper level.

Count me in this latter half.

Personal

The old and the new

Many things are changing at work. And it's more than the usual beginning-of-the-financial-year shuffle. I'm revisiting some thoughts from a year ago and trying to predict what will happen next. Out with the old, in with the new, I think they say.

Tonight I discovered a better place to spend those spare brain cycles. Willie Williams is perhaps most famously known as U2's show designer, but this Easter he's been responsible for a light installation at Canterbury Cathedral. The pictures on his website show what can happen when you keep the old in step with the new. Beautiful.

Tech

Goodbye wet film

I've decided: I'm going to sell my old camera.

I love my SLR, so when looking for a compact digital camera almost a year ago I was keen to get one that wasn't so good the SLR would be sidelined. I failed. The digital doesn't takes a good pictures as the SLR, but I've scarcely used the old camera this past year.

Last week I ordered some digital prints online. They landed on my doormat this morning and I realised there was no point to wet photography anymore.

In time I'll buy a digital SLR, but until then I'll manage on my compact.

If you're interested in a Canon EOS-300 with a 28-300 Sigma lens (this one?) then let me know! I may even throw in my one remaining roll of slide film.

Greenbelt

Waffling and wandering

Another good friend has started blogging. Welcome Rachel to the Greenbelt blogosphere, waffling and wandering her way through life.

Arts

Film: Under the Tuscan Sun

When I mentioned that Under the Tuscan Sun was showing locally this week, Jay said it'd be a nice film to see. She didn't emphasise the word "nice", but I picked up on it; the trailer didn't leave hope for much more than a two-hour filler of a film.

But it was more than that. There's laugh-out-loud humour running throughout, and when Diane Lane smiled, the entire audience was with her.

Personal

Summertime

Bluebell woods, open roads, meandering conversations.

The summer Sunday season has started.

Personal

First burn

It was only as afternoon turned to evening today that I realised how much of the day I'd spent outdoors. It's been a glorious day, with just a feint wisp of could against an otherwise clear sky.

A walk on the South Downs with Mum, driving around with the roof down and lunch in the garden combined to give me that familiar warmth on my forehead. I'll be paying for it soon: today I caught the sun for the first time this year.

Personal

Never knew such a NIMBY

Today's lesson: when I've pumped myself full of anger and frustration I'm a less effective communicator.

So don't ask me about today's invasion of a West Sussex village. About the five hundred souped-up cars descending on the old A23. About the rammed-full lanes, the back-firing engines, the testosterone, the racing.

Don't ask because my answer won't make sense.

Personal

Say it with daffs

This time last year, the message was simple. Hundreds of daffodils spelt out "CLIVE + HILLARY" on the banks of the A12 just east of Chelmsford.

When I noticed a month or two back that the bold green leaves had started to push up amongst the grass, I'd hoped that Hillary had perhaps provided a response. (Something about the pace of that conversation appeals to me.)

Arts

Coupland in Stratford

A press release from the RSC provides a smidgen more info about Douglas Coupland's upcoming monologue. It looks as if there will be just three performances, and that they'll be part of the New Work Festival.

Still no news of ticket availability. Watch this space.

Arts

Film: House of Sand and Fog

As a rule, I don't read reviews before watching a film. In fact, I try to keep as ignorant of a film's contents before the curtain is raised.

On the one hand this means I get to endure some films I'd rather avoid - many because of their subject matter, others because they're frankly very bad. But it also means I get to be surprised and delighted by others.

House of Sand and Fog is a film that fits into the latter category. I was aware it had received good reviews, but I'd no idea of the shape of the plot or even really the style of film.

The result was a very enjoyable evening. A film that kept me with it as it switched from one genre to another.

Personal

Why walk?

I've been surprised recently how some good friends still don't know about my walking. So let me state it outright:

I am walking the entire length of the mainland UK coastline.

This always raises questions. The first is usually Why?. I've always considered "because it's there" to be a cop-out answer of the highest order.

I still don't know exactly why I'm walking. Maybe I want to see where the coast leads. Maybe I'm curious as to its length. Maybe I want to check I really live on an island. It seemed like a good idea when I started and I've no reason to stop yet.

Then today reading an article about Norris McWhirter's passing I realised it's not so strange. Norris loved "visiting the 1,049 offshore British islands". Others climb a list of mountains drawn up a hundred years ago. As for me, I walk by the sea. And I love it.

Greenbelt

The trouble with 1 Corinthians 13

On the way home after a Greenbelt Management Group meeting I usually get frustrated. It's an hour's train journey - an ideal time to edit the minutes I took during the meeting - but my fingers refuse to work and my brain runs wild.

Today's journey was different. I bumped into John Peck and Charity Quin. John was one of the founders of Greenbelt and having missed Saturday's AGM was keen to catch up.

Chatting with John is always a pleasure, doubly so when he's keeping me from the non-minuting guilty feeling! "The trouble with 1 Corinthians 13," he pointed out after Charity mock-chided herself about love being slow to anger, "is it's so readily quotable."

(The photo above was taken by Pip on Saturday at the AGM.)

Greenbelt , Tech

How wrong can you be?

I've mentioned before how Festival Dispatches sometimes tickles censorware. I can understand how our mailing might match a "travel dictionary", but today's hit something far more sinister.

A recent e-mail from you has been quarantined by rule Spam cat 1 - Hate Offensive Adult Violence for checking as it may contain inappropriate content.

Violence? How far from Greenbelt's ethos can you be? I'm puzzled over exactly what triggered this. Was it the mis-spelling of "discounted"? Or the inclusion of the phrase "The F-word"? Maybe any mention of religion's enough these days.

Once again I'm convinced such unintelligent filters are of no value at all.

Arts

Film: The Missing

Another western. But The Missing somehow didn't do it for me. I felt it was way too drawn out, and I just couldn't get involved emotionally with it.

Cate Blanchett was once again almost unrecognisable (if she ever plays the same role twice I'll be stunned), and her chameleon-like acting rubbed off on Tommy Lee Jones a little.

But at the end of the day I'm afraid this film was nothing more than okay.

Personal

Crinkle-crankle

Caroline's obsession and a rainy day have today conspired to educate me.

Today I learnt a what a crinkle-crankle wall is. I visited an example that various websites claim is the longest in the world. Others may use words like serpentine, wavy, meandering or drunk. But out here, we're not ashamed of alliteration. Crinkle-crankle is is. (And it seems to fit.)

Now all I have to do is drop the phrase into everyday conversation.

Arts

Roy Lichtenstein

Late this afternoon I finally made it to the Hayward Gallery to see the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition. It should come as no surprise that I enjoy his work: the bold strokes and playful imagery soundly rooted in contemporary culture.

But walking round the gallery I was stunned time and time again.

It runs to 16 May and I strongly recommend you see it.

Personal

Don't do early starts

I don't like early starts, so I discarded the option of catching the 0644 from Woodbridge this morning, instead driving into Ipswich for the 0742. Well, that was the plan. But a queue at the ticket office meant I hit the platform just as the train doors locked and now have to wait twenty minutes on a cold bench for the slow service.

Tech

More wireless

I think Mum's is the sixth wireless network I've installed. Today's task? Talking her through getting broadband up and running. As the picture shows, we succeeded.

Now what do you think my chances are of getting my iSight back once she's had her first transatlantic video chat with Isabel and Nicholas?

Personal

Nearly forgot

I've not been feeling on top of things of late. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that I almost forgot to vote today.

With turnout so low in the UK these days I'm all for compulsory voting. Well it somehow seems more appropriate than MP Idol.

Arts

Film: Open Range

Empire's view was:

Costner, for one, is content to make 'em like they used to.

And it's true. Open Range has all you expect of a Western. Sweeping, epic landscapes; a saloon bar; a gun-fight; plenty of cud-chewing and unforgettable lines like "Let's go get our cows". All this, and a touch of 21st century sound and vision editing.

It's not quite grainy black-and-white and a twelve inch TV on a Sunday afternoon, but the spirit's the same.

Arts , Tech

The sound of drag and drop

Mum was dead chuffed with me over Easter. After sorting out some quirks on her new computer I buried myself away with it, headphones on. An hour or so later I returned to present what I'd done. I hooked it up to the hi-fi and pressed play.

Greenbelt

Not quite

When The Times published an article about Greenbelt on Saturday, they got one or two details a bit wrong. You don't mind if I correct them, do you?

Personal

J-day

I left Mum and the family behind this morning as I started my drive home. I'm stopping off in Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge on the way back to see friends.

Today turns out to be my J-day: I'm met James; next is Jessica (and family - including my Godson Christopher), then finally Jay.

The sun's shining, the car roof's down and I'm using all the back roads. Sure it'll take me all day to get home this way but it's so much more appealing than the motorway.

Personal

Family day

Prisons, skiing, bridge-building, parenting, chocolate-sorting. Gadgets, job applications. America, Lebanon.

Surrounded by fifteen or so representatives of the extended family this afternoon, I caught just a word or two of each conversation as I tried to find one to tune in to. The things about each other we wanted to know or the things we wanted to tell.

Arts

onedotzero

When I first saw first saw Ed Holdsworth's short video Arrive in July last year I suddenly realised I had a love of shorts, animations and abstract films.

Now I've finally laid my hands on a copy of the film. Arrive's just one in twenty pictures available on the latest onedotzero_select DVD. The disc's a packed collection of diverse shorts. There are music videos (including one from Lambchop), advertisements, experiments and short stories. None could be described as ordinary.

The small screen isn't necessarily the best place to see these films, but neither I believe are the festivals. I'd love to see more shorts and abstract pictures in regular cinema. If only the big chains could find room for one before each feature. These films are things I want to see much more of.

Personal

Bluebells and grapes

The dour weather called off our planned walk to Jack and Jill windmills. Instead we all headed to the local steam railway for a picnic: Mum, my two sisters and two brothers-in-law, my nephew and niece.

No words are necessary really; this picture of Isabel and Nicholas captures the moment well enough. It's not hard to guess what happened next.

Personal

Daffodils and frogs

Good Friday. I drove back to Mum's after work last night for an Easter with the family. By Sunday we'll all be here, the first time we've been together since Jez and Jane's wedding last May.

The drive last night seemed to carry the mood of today. Almost as soon as I left, the skies darkened and the rain began to pound the road. Yet no matter how heavy the downpour or how bleak the sky, a bright light illuminated a patch of land ahead. I'd have to drive through the rain to get to the sunshine. To meet Sunday you have to spend some time with Friday.

Personal

Chasing copper

I was handed my first 2004-minted coin this week. I think it's the earliest in the year I've seen a freshly minted coin. (Remember? It's the little things I notice.)

Greenbelt

whyblog? iii

Mission accomplished.

The fact that Liz has started blogging means I personally consider the blogging workshop back in February to have been a success. Better still, Liz is now another friend whose life I can dip into on a daily basis where previously we'd have only met up two or three times in the year.

Update, 10 April:
It doesn't stop there... Caroline's blogging too now.

Tech

D-Link DSL-300G+ and Apple AirPort

Who'd have thought it? A month ago I was cursing my ADSL modem, on the verge of replacing it for one that actually worked. Instead, I've bought an identical one to install for Mum. Am I really that cruel?

No, I just figured out how to make it work. (And someone at work was flogging one on the cheap.)

The rest of this is just techie detail for anyone similarly struggling. Non-techies, look away now.

Greenbelt

Licensed

We've got a licence!

It's another one of those key milestones that we need to pass for the festival to happen. I'm not directly involved in the licensing process, so I got to hear the news third hand.

This year we're increasing the site capacity once again (to 17,500). This has knock-on effects in the amount of camping we need to provide, the size and layout of the venues, the number of stewards we need... the list goes on. Getting to the licence hearing represents a huge amount of work and I'm always grateful to those whose efforts get us past it.

Personal

Conned by the climate

I feel like I've been conned.

We've had two or three beautiful days here, so after moving my bedroom round I turned off the heating and cut back to just the one duvet. Jude's post about summertime clearly hit the mark.

I woke every hour last night, cold.

And this morning, the old gent on the street by my front door told me "winter's not through with us yet".

Personal

The salesman

From the outset he wasn't the most dynamic salesman. His face sank when I answered "yes" to his faux-sincere "May I help you?".

I'll give him two out of ten for enthusiasm. His knowledge of the product line was similarly weak. But I'd made up my mind: I would be buying a new radio, and so much better to buy from a local firm rather than a chain. I'd just have to gamble on the reception being any good.

(I wonder: did the salesman's instinct tell him straightaway that I'd be making a purchase? Was he in fact just thinking, "Oh get on with it, then I can go home"?)

Personal

One company, one colour?

After school I studied at Imperial in London. The college was founded in 1907 by merging three older colleges on a single site in South Kensington. The college scarf reflects this: the colours of each constituent college are present. (And - on the reverse side - the colours of the University of London remind us that Imperial itself it just one part of a larger institution.)

The resultant scarf clashes with anything you might choose to wear, a perfect example of design by committee. (But who wears college scarves these days anyway?)

Arts

Film: Gothika

From the very beginning - the black-and-white Colombia Pictures logo - you know Gothika is going to be a dark film. It leans away from the thriller genre, playing more to horror cliché.

Dark blues and greys? ... Check.
Failing electricity? ... Check.
Driving rain and closed roads? ... Check.
Paranoia and fear? ... Check.

If only they'd gone for the cut phone lines I think they'd have got a full house.

So not really my cup of tea, but I imagine a good night out for those who want this stuff.

Personal

The little things

I've just nipped into town to withdraw some cash for the weekend.

It looks like Barclays has a new ATM and - get this - just before it hands over the notes, it fans them out with a flourish and a flick of the robotic wrist. Is this just a machine showing off, or is there some functional purpose?

Maybe the designers realised it made it easy to count the money at a glance so you stuffed it into you wallet straight away, rather than count it in the street where you're more likely to have it snatched.

Whatever, it's the little things like this that keep me happy. The ways my life changes from day to day in almost imperceptible ways.

Greenbelt

When we are free to say "no"

The wisest thing I've read in a long time is this:

Only when we are free to say "no" can our "yes" be authentic.