wendy house

performance appraisal:  2006,  age 42 & 43,  is recommended to pass with a Wendy rating of

ratings explained

Things that caused outsized ego, multiple bounces, hand-clapping and chair-falling-off-ness:

Exploring the US:  crossing the US in a 1976 red Chevrolet truck, visiting Spokane, Columbia gorge on the Lewis and Clarke trail, Charlotte, NC.

Family & friends: parental pleasure at the Tacoma glass Museum, Elton John live and the Seattle Symphony; Concert highlights that warranted blog posts included:  Paul Simon, Jamie Callum, The Mountain Goats; Writing a ‘Will and Testament’; Being invited to comment on a draft of AF Harrold’s next Poetry book;

Technology: setting up, then maintaining this blog; Replacing cantakerous Tinkerbell with whizzy sleek pink Darling; buying and using a back-pocket camera;

Things that deepened wrinkle-lines,  temporarily increased the protusion-portion of my bottom-lip or disrupted my sleeping and eating habits:

Family and friends: Not visiting the UK, even after my Uncle died; 

Exploring the US:  Errr….  …..I lost my passport. TWICE!;  No sniff of greencard;  unacceptably low local-occcurence of like-minded vocal feminists (female or male);

Technology: Paying LooSea’s ransome to the bodyshop; Tinkerbell’s premortal pernickety-ness.

If the following thingys are not on the 2007 highlights list there will be a public inquiry, a hearing, with tables, chairs, microphones, pews, and silly wigs or hats:

Family and friends: UK March Tour;  

Exploring the US: Sequim farm on Olympic peninsula; Rhode Island May party;

Technology: blog refinement, less drivel, more focus with a dash of wit; Handbag skills mastered;

This message will not self-destruct in one year it will merely become more insignificant and highly forgettable.

For a man who’s too ‘macho‘ to wear perfume.  Has someone questioned his masculinity?  He needs to reassert he is not a namby-pamby faggot.  “Daytona 500″ scent of the race-track: oil; exhaust fumes; gasoline. Daytona 500 for men who like to go round in circles, getting no-where, fast:

Alternatively,  if you’ve got twice the cash to splash on drowning his natural scent, simply make him hum.  

Looks like the patriarchy is stepping up to sell masculinity using the same tactics that have been tried and tested selling femininity to females… 

Parody targeting the Cosmopolitan readership:

This parody was inspired by

• the quality paintings and ideas in the ‘Gallery of the Absurd‘, 
• the thought provoking essays of Twisty, 
• one among many offensive Magazine covers,
• People who made witty observations when listening to me rant about the magazine,  e.g. piehole, coalandice.
• LooSea being treated, gave me unanticipated time at home.  
• my Mum for not allowing ‘those magazines that print nothing but rubbish‘ in the house (Cosmopolitan in the 1970’s).
• painting is focussing, relaxing, and cheap self-entertainment.

The original painting is available to the first person that sends me realistic details on how to deliver it to them.

Given my paint-skill levels,  this was the wrong media, medium, for a magazine cover parody.  I needed either a steady hand or a good stencil to paint small text to effectively mimic the standards of mass-printing production.  I have neither a steady hand nor the patience to create a stencil or imagination to purchase one.  This project would have been more effectively executed if I’d planned to use magazine covers to create a collage or software to design something very precise. I’ll know better next time when I pluck up the courage,  like the Cultfigurine, to venture inside the magazine…. 

twelfth in a controversy touching series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #12 milk in first?  (MIF)

Lets start by assuming you have a pot of brewed, not stewed, tea a china cup and some real milk.  As we have established this may not always be possible because one or several of the required utensils or ingredients may well be missing in a NW USA homestead or diner. 

What next?  Do you pour the tea into the cup then add the milk or do you pour the milk into the cup then add the tea?  This is a none-trivial and highly controversial step in the tea making process.  There is a class based distinction aligned with the choice to put the Milk in first.  Traditionally only lower classes put the milk in first.  It is a sign of good breeding (classiness) to pour the tea into the cup and then add the milk.  Obviously,  I discovered this the hard way when pouring tea for someone who knew better and kindly pointed out my ill-bread ways.  The term MIF is used as a derrogatory referent to people,  indicating their lack of refined manners.  The classic text on experiemental design (Fisher, 1935) uses an example of a person who could determine from the taste of the tea whether the milk had been put in first.

The Dailey Telegraph (Tabloid) reports that scientists have solved the MIF controversy based on taste (of the tea).  Excerpts:

The finding that a cuppa tastes better if the tea is poured on to the milk appeared to have settled a debate that has long preoccupied a nation of tea drinkers.

However, only hours after the Royal Society of Chemistry unveiled its findings amid the sort of secrecy usually reserved for the Budget, a row was brewing within the scientific community. 

The Royal Society of Chemistry results reported suggest that a good cup of tea requires:

using soft water, warming the pot before filling and allowing the tea to brew for three minutes. It was also essential to use loose-leaf Assam tea rather than tea bags – “they slow down the infusion”.

This report has not solved the controversey.  The Daily Telegraph article quotes a phycisist as citing reasons of wealth determining whether the milk is poured before or after the tea:

Putting the milk in first was a cultural quirk that “has nothing to do with taste”, she said. “It is a habit we have retained from the times when only the rich could afford porcelain which, because it isn’t as porous as china, could withstand the hot tea being poured in directly.  “Those of us with cheap china had to put the milk in first to cool the tea slightly to prevent our cups cracking.”

In a school leaving Physics examination (Oxford University, 1980, GCE ’O’ level) I completed a question that used adding milk to tea as a way of assessing my understanding of “Specific Heat Capacity“.  It seems that English Physicists and Chemists have been emboiled in this debate for a long time. The issues appear to be:

Milk in first advantages:  reduces the liklihood of cracking a non-china cup,  pleases members of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Tea in first advantages:  the milk is less likely to curdle, people with good breeding will recognise your good taste,  has the George Orwell seal of approval.

Given the strong opinions and class related issues surrounding this decision when pouring tea on behalf of an English person it is wise to ask “milk in first?” before pouring.  Of course I may have got this slightly wrong, maybe you should ask “Tea in first?“,  maybe you should ask if they are a Physicist or Chemist first.  Gosh it’s all so complicated.    

Wendy recommends that you ask the tea drinker if they want their ‘milk in first’ before pouring tea on their behalf.

Disclaimer:  Dr. Wendy accepts no responsibility for any offence or heated arguments caused by asking guests ‘Milk in first?“

twenty-third post in a size-ist Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 23: penchant for petite

Excel collected evidence on my previous relationships that

• lasted longer than 1yr
• lasted less than 1 yr, near misses.
• didn’t get beyond preliminary dating. 

Based on a chart infested detailed examination of this data Excel has informed me that my relationship success (lasting for more than 1 year) predictors include the boy being under

• 5′10″ 
• 135lbs
• 32″ inside leg
• 32″ trouser waist

According to Excel,  size does matter.  In the US,  boys of these proportions that are also over the legal age for consenting naughtiness are not common.   Looks like I’ll have to work on aligning my attitudes with the ’big is beautiful’ philosophy or volunteer to take some social deviant treatment lest I become susceptible to commiting a social crime akin to another local gal, LeTourneau.    

There is a trend amongst the young adult girls of Seattle.  I’ve not noticed boys indulging in this fluffy passtime.  The trend is wearing your pyjamma pants as everyday wear.  What does this dressing choice say?

Possibly it’s a variation on the notion of ‘come to bed eyes’,  ‘come to bed pants’?  Maybe it’s a way of expressing how ‘laid back’ you are “I’m so laid back I didn’t even bother getting dressed this morning“.  Could it be that these girl’s objected to the storyline of ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and they’re making a point about the fashion industry,  they’re awake in Seattle and not following the store-based clothing classifications.  A wee rebellion against the fashion industry.  Hoorah! 

Here’s a couple of girls sporting the look in a local Coffee House:

The folded arms, ankles-crossed, pony-tails, multiple uncoordinated colours, jacket shorter than t-shirt and trainers (US = sneakers) are all optional extra’s but definitely part of the core ‘look’ I see the local girls stylin’ in.  I may have to try this out to get the full experience of the fashion-rebellious pyjamma’s as outer-wear thing. Like wearing other people’s clothes, but not quite since I will have to purchase my own Hello Kitty Pyjamma pants. 

I’ll report back on the experience.  Wish me luck

Do not read this film review if you are likely to find a one-sided, negative, critique of this popular cultural icon offensive.  For those interested in reading less offended, more detailed, analyses of the film this UK website provides some interesting analyses.

Sleepless in Seattle?  Puking in Puget (Sound)

Icky, Icky, ICKY.  It prompted a Wendy tantrum,  small inanimate objects flew,  cats hid.  Evidently this film was extremely popular.  This review is intended to redress the balance of the Wendy-perplexing popularist view. 

 :-(      

 Ratings Explained

I could write pages of analysis on this film.  For your readerly sake and sanity I’ll constrain myself to 3 points and assume that you are familiar with the film.  There are, unfortunately, too many more that I could make.

Key characters:

• Male = Tom Hanks = recently widowed father of one son, Architect
• Female = Meg Ryan = Magazine writer (? I can’t remember and none of the plot reviews I’ve read reference her job,  after all it can’t be important,  she’s only a woman),  engaged to a rich man

Three points of Analysis:

1. Role reversal would undermine the social acceptability of the plot.  If a man (rather than Meg Ryan) was investigating a widowed woman (rather than Tom Hanks),  while engaged to another woman, following them,  writing them letters, considering a stronger emotional attachment to the ’stalked’ woman than thier fiance, lying to their fiance, how would we value that man?  Is this movie saying that it is okay for women to stalk, lie and be unfaithful?  Is it acceptable for a woman to behaive like this?  Is it acceptable for a man to behaive like this?  I’d argue that irrespective of gender this behavior is unacceptable.  That the film places a woman in this role suggests that the film makers, and potentially viewers, can accept that a woman if deceptive,  unfaithful,  conniving etc.  I consider this a slander.  That it appears acceptable, through the popularity of the film, is more than disappointing.
2. Widowhood legitimises male singleness.  Why not divorce?  Divorce is more common than widowhood.  Widowhood gives the Tom Hanks character a ‘he’s a good guy’ status.  Divorce could potentially undermine this status because a substantial proportion of the audience would have first-hand expereince of divorce,  would know that mistakes were made, imperfection is implied, blame is hidden and not fully understood by outsiders.  Using widowhood was a strong strategic ploy to provide the Tom Hanks character with a good, clean history that we could trust,  it gains audience sympathy without raisng any questions of potentially realistic imperfections.  He is portrayed as unblemished.  Why wasn’t the female put in this ‘above and beyond question’ good person role?  I was disappointed that the Tom Hanks role was placed in a socially unquestionable position while the female role was not.
3. Humour at the expense of portrayed stereotypes of women.  One of the most offensive scenes involved Tom Hanks,  a male friend and his wife disucssing a so called  ”chick movie” (An affair to remember).  The woman describes the plot with emotion and empathy and difficult to understand dialog.  Her husband then explains that the non-understandable description is because the film was a ‘chick movie“.  They then parody her expressiveness while descibing what can only, pressumably,  be a ‘not-chick movie’,  ‘The Dirty Dozen’.  It is pressumably ok to classify films as ‘chick’ and ‘not-chick’ movies,  it is okay to demean this woman’s inarticulate expression as a ‘chick’ thing,  obviously you can’t expect articulate expression from women,  to top it all she laughs at their woman demeaning humour.  Pressumably because she’s a good sort who understands that to be a woman is to be inartiuclate, over emotional and the butt of Jokes.  What a terrific gal.  I nearly puked.  Some internet searches confirmed my suspicion that this film is considered a ‘chick-flick’ itself.  I guess I’m just not a ‘chick’,  I am very definitely a human being and a female,  just not part of this bizarre patriarchal consipiracy that appears to define women as ditsy, unreliable,  seekers of ‘true’ love, with bundles of humility when they are the targets of derrogatory humour.

After having forced myself to watch all of this film I had to consume 4 pots of Tea before I could let myself loose on an unsuspecting public…. …and even then there was some risk involved…

Church of England (C of E) Bishops taught me everything I know about upstanding moral behaviour.  Hoorah!  In this season of Jesus-birthday-induced-bravado things are wont to go a wee bit astray.  The Bish’ of Southwark (pronounced suth-ark) was reputedly in high spirits….

The BBC reports that the Bishop of Sothwark got a tad tiddly when out drinking with the Irish.  What a suprise.

Excerpt from witness at the scene:

Paul Sumpter was playing pool in a bar on, ironically, Crucifix Lane, in Bermondsey, when he heard his car alarm sound.  ”I rushed out there and I saw an old looking guy with his legs hanging out the back of my car,” said the property developer. “My baby’s toys were in the back seat and I could see him chucking them all about the place.”  There was even a Ruth Rendell novel — that was title End in Tears — which was quite ironic. After “dragging” him away, the man initially revealed himself as the Bishop of Woolwich before falling on the pavement and knocking his head which left him unconscious for about five minutes.

Excerpt from Bishop’s perspective:

“I told the police I arrived home without my briefcase and with bruising on my face and a gash on the back of my head. I went to the doctor the next day and was told my injuries were consistent with a blow to the head, so I assumed I had been mugged, but that’s a supposition. I am hoping the police will be able to be clearer.”

This photograph was taken in Soutwark Cathedral on my last UK tour, March 2005. It is the tomb of the Bishop of Soutwark who coordinated the writing of the King James Bible, completed 1611:

Standing in the check-out queue of the local large food store.  Magazines are placed where we can read their covers while waiting.  How thoughtful to entertain and educate us for free while we wait.  Most of the magazines convey a very restricted value set.   They appear targetted at some form of femaleness.  I decided to buy the most prominent of the magazines ‘Cosmopolitan’.  The name sounded promising. The strap-lines on the cover distrubed me.  Here’s the cover for your delight with pinkness filtered out to avoid offending anyone sensitive amongst you.  The message I read on this cover was:

securing and maintianing an active sex-life that satisfies a man is your reason for being. 

How did I find this message?  By subtle re-interpretations of each individual strapline. My re-interpretations are listed below working from top-left down,  then top right down: 

1. educate yourself on how to be an effective sexual partner (object)
2. predict how and when you can be a sexual partner (object)
3. make sure your hair tells people you are an effective sexual partner (object)
4. make sure you do not confuse men when you are trying to be an effective sexual partner (object)
5. how to look like an effective sexual partner (object) without spending too much money
6. how to survive your failure as an effective sexual partner (object) for one man so that you can be more effective for the next one.
7. ensure that you please the man when you are having sex
8. make sure that your body is in good enough condition to be an effective sexual partner (object)
9. make you legs look longer because that will make you more desirable as a sexual partner (object)

Such diverse, useful life skills.  Well that sorted out my Thursday night’s educational agenda.  I think I’m fixed,  I wonder what the theme of next month’s magazine will be? 

Lakeside Collision:  Not recommended.  Extremely poor customer service strategy.

Due to a slight disagreement with a concrete column LooSea was sent to reform school (Lakeside Collision) for a quoted 3 days of treatments.

I phoned Lakeside Collission after 3 days to confirm that I could pick-up my beloved Loosea.  No.  She’s not ready, should be ready tomorrow.  We’ll call you when she’s ready.   

Tomorrow came.  No-one phoned.  I called them.  No,  LooSea can’t come home, she’s not ready.  They only call people when their car is ready to be released,  has passed the quality assessements. They refused to give me an estimation of when she would be ready.  They are going to hold her without any courtesy check-ins with me to help me plan my life without her.  Apparantly replacing a Honda Civic wing and bumper will take at least 5 days….   maybe more… ..no-one dare say…

Their refusal, or inability, to estimate a work completion time and follow-up to let me know when, if, that time shifts has undermined my confidence in the company.  What strategies do they use for mechanical troubleshooting if their strategy for customer-service troubleshooting is cut the customer out of the information loop?

eleventh in a slightly bonkers (potty) series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #11: going potty

Lets take a moment to compare and contrast tea-taking experience in an American cafe diner with tea in an English cafe bar.  There are outstanding specialist tea serving establishment in the NW US,  we’ll cover these later.  This summary if focused on commonly available eating extablishments.  

In a NW American cafe you risk:

• no fresh milk
• an outrageously small tea pot if they have one
• only tea bags (not loose leaf tea)
• only one or two types of black teas (multiple infusions) – Liptons and Early grey
• hot not boiling water meeting the tea leaves
• bought to your table by a smiling server

In and English cafe you risk:

• a selection of teas (unlikely to have any fruit or herb infusions)
• tea bags,  in some places they still serve loose leaves.
• Individual tea pots that pour well.  A variety of teapot sizes are normally available to suit your group size.

“A pot for 4 please” is a reasonable request and normally catered for with a single pot of brewing tea for two and a second pot of hot water to ‘top-up’ the brewing tea.

• boiling water poured directly onto the leaves
• fresh milk in an individual container,  tailored to the size of the tea party
• a supplementary pot of hot water to top-up your pot as you drink the tea
• no server
• staff smiles severely rationed

Have I missed anything?  Take a look at a young happy Wendy bringing a pot of tea for two with a supplementary pot of hot water to the Barcelonean prince (photographer) on a sunny summer afternoon in ‘Hawkins’ an atmospheric Birmingham city cafe bar (1986)

The whole NW USA cafe,  fast-food, reasonably priced eatery infrastructure does not support sharing tea.  This lack of infrastructure makes the experience more of a trial rather than a pleasure. 

Don’t go potty,  seriously consider developing a taste for coffee, rather than Tea, in the NW USA

twenty-second post in a bi-nominally distributed Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 22: its classic

A classic single is the alternative to a combo in yet another large fast food chain with the same name as myself.

Summary of the 3,300 miles drive across 14/50 Northern US States for 10 days in late August 2006.  This post pulls all the earlier blog posts and adds a few storylines.  Because that’s how a Wendy spends the long winter evenings, reminiscing on her little adventures.  For a visual ride take 10 minutes to watch a flick-r slide show that gives a feel of the journey.

The journey in blog posts:

• Adventure pilot:  the reason for the journey is a friend’s home move from the west coast to NY where she’s taken a teaching position in the Bronx.  It’s her truck, filled with her home-accessories (sofa, chairs, tables, crockery, cutlery etc). 
• Pre-trip plans:  where will we go?  what will we see,  I don’t want to miss anything but I don’t have a clue what’s out there…
• Idaho Shoot and Stuff it:  the Taxidermy industry is still Alive in the west.
• Montana Wendy driving:  on the second day I drove for a while.  World traveller took this photograph.  The truck made strange noises,  gave subtle feedback not displayed in dials.  For the rest of the journey I opted out of driving.  World traveller could ‘feel’ and ‘hear’ the truck make judgements about its health based on that sensual understanding that cannot be conveyed easily in words. When and where to sensibly call AAA was an underlying theme of the journey.
• Basic Truck Maintenance:  duct tape muffles maddening wing-mirror squeak.
• Wyoming Buffalo:  the truck nearly runs out of gas late at night in a ‘closed’ Yellowstone park.  Earlier that evening we’d successfully escaped a police tail (not blogged).  Earlier that morning we’d convinced a different policeman that we didn’t need help.  A truck driven by girls attracts the attention of the police.
• Wyoming tractors: all over the place,  tractors.  I suspect they are the US equivalent of the British Yak.
• South Dakota Wall Drug:  Because its a culturally shared experience, Wall drug has to be visited. Followed by the Corn Palace in Mitchell where we illegally loitered for a while.  Naughty!
• South Dakota Cowboys: We saw some, real ones, mainly in trucks pulling their horses behind them.
• Minnesota mechanic:  he just dove into the engine,  seat in the air,  what a hero, fixed the truck there and then while we hunted-down local pie.
• Minnesota I90 speed limits:  road signs publish a Maximum and a Minimum.
• Ohio unshorn teachers: a copy of a teachers behavioural code published in a pie serving Ohio cafe.
• Ohio Pie Prices: the same cafe showed innovative accounting practices,  the sum is greater than the individual pieces.  The sum is a tad scarey.
• Pennsylvanian Karaoke: after days of practicing what my pilot called ‘Car-e-oke’ on our last night we raved it up in a small town Karaoke night with friendly locals.
• Pennsylvanian speeding house:  we were overtaken by a house.
• Keeping it clean:  categorisation and rating of the tested motel showers (Mining, Cowboy, Trucking, Tourist, Toy).

Then,  not long after completing the journey, the much loved truck died

Bye Bye truck.

Movie Monday!

Spivs is highly recommended for people who enjoy action films that tackle topical and socially unacceptable issues in direct ways.  It has some subtle humour and emotional swings built in,  This is not a film that drives smiles.  It does capture, and move, your emotions with subtle and powerful effect. The online reviews I found were more harsh than my experience, they may more adequately reflect your experience.  Here’s the BBC review.

ratings explained

A London based film, Spiv has the mood of a classic London based Gangster, or wide-boy,  films such as ‘The long good friday‘, Layer Cake,  Lock Stock and two smoking barrels.  It tackles fundamental, international, human rights issues.  There is a reasonable review posted on “Eye for film’.  The review doesn’t adequately acknowledge the disturbing topic matter of the film: humans, children as a commodity for trade in Western capitalistic culture.  Life and sex as something that has monetary, tradeable value. 

Beautiful lighting and attention to photographic details.  For example,  during the opening credits we see the Spiv dressing.  Smart 3-piece suit, classic style with the last button of the waistcoat undone.  Inbetween the calm attention of his dressing we see and hear loud scenes from racecourse. We swiftly move to the spinning a yarn.  We watch the Spiv talk in one screen frame while simultaneously viewing the story he is recounting in an inset.  This technique of multiple frames is used sparingly,  to good effect.  The ending is clever and leaves enough to feed your imagination.  It’s more of a turning point in a story than a ‘wrap up all major themes’ ending.

For Anglophiles there are some excellent scenes of London,  Docklands,  Victorian red-brick terraced streets, slummy high-rise flats, gray skies, the London underground.  Jack Dee plays a significant bit part as a builder called ‘Nige’ with impressively powerful perception and subtlety.  Summary?  This is half way between a well constructed art film and a socially conscious film.  It doesn’t hit the heights of either,  it does meld the experiences well.  It is worth watching if either genre moves you.

For a photo-story of the Wendy House, 24hr Power outage, click this picture of my reading a book by candle-power:

The Wendy House was lucky,  only 24 hs without electricity and a gas-fire for warmth.  The Seattle PI reports that more than 1 million Washingston State residents lost power. The all to frequent sound of siren’s passing the Wendy House re-inforced the risks associated with a suddent lack of traditional power sources.  The smell of woodsmoke, prevalent in the air, took on an ominous tone.  Did it herald a burning home?

Memories of my childhood: 

January 1974,  11yrs old, the UK was suffering from a power crisis.  The Conservative government under Prime Minister Edward Heath introduced a ‘3 day week’ to conserve power.  At that time the UK’s main source of electrical power was the National Coal industry,  electricity from coal.  The country was suffering from extreme inflation.  To try and curtail inflation the government introduced wage-capping.  The Miners were not happy about their wage cap.  The Miners union introduced a ‘work to rule’,  they only followed the detail of the job description nothing above and beyond.  This severely curtailed coal production and reduced the power available to the country.  Unable to negotiate a solution with the Coal Miners representative,  the Union, the government introduced a 3 day week.  Power was only available on 3 consecutive days in a week.

To an 11yr old this is exciting and fun.  4 days a week where the evenings were by candle-light and no hot-water for bathing.  As a family we would play cards by candle-light. It was like camping inside home.  We wore several layers of woolly jumpers and fingerless gloves indoors.  We used a camping gas stove to brew tea and make the occassional hot meal. 

After the Heath Conservative government was replaced by Harold Wilson’s Labour government the normal working week returned.  Wilson was a working-class boy who excelled in English the educational system.  A Yorkshire boy,  like Wallace, with a quick wit.  The last great intellectual Prime Minister that lead Britain.  The last true Labour Prime Minister.  With some impressive political thinkers in his cabinet such as Tony Benn and my personal favourites Denis Healey and Micheal Foot.

The exploitation of oil from the North Sea helped Britain to avoid severe economic disaster,  and assured that Scotland would not gain independence before its natural resources ran out.  That would be approximately…. ….now.  Britain is begining to face a renewed energy crisis and despite a thrashing by Thatcher the National Union of Miners is still a voice at the lobbying table.  The fancy new Labour party, Blair’s government, is being criticised for its lack of long term planning.

In my ‘retirement’ I want to live in, or below, a Windmill, to be self-sufficient then sell extra power back to the country in an emergent decentralised power system. 

This weedend’s assignment is to

1. take the idea of ‘measurement’ made by reference to easily recognisable object or event. 
2. use that idea to construct a novel, easy to recognise, insult.  

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band produced some good examples in lyrics (I can’t find online) something like this: 

You’ve got the brains of a dead ant 

and about as much imagination as a telephone pole….    

….but I still love you…

Woke late this morning because my warm cosey sleep was not interrupted by:

• a CD radio-alarm
• the roar of the morning commute traffic nearby at some unearthy hour

When dailight fought it’s way into my room I rolled out of bed, discovered that there was no hot water and washed sparingly in the cold.  Wrapped up warm.  Put on my head-torch,  manually opened the garage drove the car out,  manually closed then locked it.  I skipped breakfast and tea thinking that I coulkd get that at the works canteen.

Drove to work.  Driving when the power is completely out for a city is fascinating.  It works extremely well with the US 4-way stop system everyone knows what to do,  it may be slow,  but its systematic,  rule-based fairness.  The UK would probably rely on politeness and individual based sense of fairness,  which in th UK would probably work and be a bit faster than a 4-way stop.  When I got to work,  it too was powerless.  Just some emergency generators and bewildered employees.  I sorted a few ‘what to do’ type things and looked at some colleagues impressive photographs of their Journey into work,  over and around fallen trees in 4-wheel-drive monsters. 

Cold,  hungry and completely TEA-LESS,  I followed a rumour that there was power in the nearby city of Bellevue.  I spent nearly 2 hours travelling to Bellevue main library.  That’s where I am now.  Warm,  cosey,  laptop powered-up and online.  Still tea-less.  I left my wallet in the Wendy House.  

When normality is resumed I will

• buy a non-mains-powered way of boiling water to ensure I have Tea during subsequent storms.
• a non-mains-powered radio so that I can listen to the news. 

The flick of a pony’s tale is an idiom that conveys time,  the time it takes for a pony to flick it’s tail.  An estimation based on a socially common experience is an extremely good way of communicating a time.  No pre-requisit to learn highly structured metrics (minutes, hours).  Pressumably, when this phrase was in common parlance horses,  ponies, were seen on a daily basis, flicking their tails.  Wikipedia lists some ’strange’ units of measurement.  Within this list are  examples of socially common objects and events to communicate the ’size’ of something.  Examples include:

Length:

• double-decker bus
• football field
• distance walked while smoking a cigarette

Data storage capacity

• bibles
• encyclopedia
• Library of congress

Wonderful words with communicative power.  How would you measure a dose of the flu,  or laughter?

Living in a wooden house is still a novelty.  I grew up in the security of bricks and mortar.  The only noises from the water hammer in the copper pipes as the heating burst into action on a cold day.  Tonight, I am experiencing my first storm in Seattle.  I hear the wind growing and the house c-c-c-c-creaks.  The lights flicker-ker-ker-ker.  Will I be plunged into darkness any minute?  Time to find my head-torch.

Federal news radio reports:

A powerful storm socked the Pacific Northwest with heavy rain and wind gusts close to 100 mph Thursday, flooding streets, toppling trees and cutting power to thousands.

More than 150,000 customers lost electricity in Washington and Oregon, utilities reported. Additionally, Washington’s largest utility, Puget Sound Energy, said thousands lacked power

The services are watching for floods,  mudslides,  the massive tree’s falling where they could take-out people or power-lines.  At first I thought the locals were always over-reacted to so-called storms.  Calling a snow-flurry a snow-storm.  Tonight I understand, a little more, why.  The infrastructure is more vulnerable than in Britain.  The tree’s are bigger.  The cables are often overshadowed by trees.  Vulnerable.  The houses are built on the brow’s of hills for the good views.   When the trees on the hillside fall they unmesh the topsoils,  enable mudslides.  The ‘trouble-spots’ here are not necessarily known.  In Britain we know the problems through centuries of documented natural events.  Here, many buildings, roads, and services (power etc) are relatively new,  less than 10yrs old.  The realistic implications of living with this are only really beginning to dawn on me.

tenth in a ceremonious series of Thursday posts about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #10 Will you be mum?,

Lets start by assuming you have a pot of brewed, not stewed, tea a china cup and some real milk. As we have seen it may not always be possible because one or several of the required utensils or ingredients may well be missing in a NW USA homestead or diner. 

What next?  The holder of the tea ceremony, host*, normally pours the tea on behalf of the guests.  In the English working and middle-class circles I grew up with** it was possible to offer the honourable role to another guest by asking

“would you like to be mum”. 

The offer is a generous one.  As if anyone could replace a real mum!  With this phrase the host conveys trust that the person can pour tea for the guests and distribute the filled cups with suitable polite conversation and without spilling a drop in the process.  A shy person might decline the offer,  a person with great respect for the social skills of the actual host might decline the offer,  someone like me who might miss the cup or spill a drop from the spout while pouring will decline the offer.  Just that the offer was made is flattering.  While in the USA I’ve never actually got to the point where enough of the pre-requisites are in place that I can offer the role to another person.  My tea pots are all tricky little devils that need practiced skills to pour well.  I couldn’t offer the role to a guest because I would be setting them up to spill the tea and that just wont do,  that’s mean and devious.   A Brit could look at the shape of the spout,  the proportions of the pot and quickly adapt to the peculiarities of my pot.  Here my pots are not sufficiently usable by a novice, I must fix that and a screw driver wont help.  Oh my gosh,  please warn me if I sound a tad too much like Martha Stewart,  it’s frightening.

Assume that when in the NW USA the locals will not understand the implications of being asked if they want to ‘be mother’.

* intended as gender non-specific use of the term.

** Disclaimer:  I have not investigated aristocratic tea practices.  Aristocratic tea practices may involve behaviour codes that I have not acquired.

twenty-first post in a pg-13-rated Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 21: borrowing clothes

Due to an unfortunate accident aged 17 (1981),  with a track (into you like a train) on the second Psychedelic Furs album,  I like to wear other people’s clothes.  This raises a number of challenges which may, or may not, be publishable in subsequent posts.  Luckily,  quite a few English chaps* have found it rather amusing when they discover that I literally want to get into their trousers etc. and have been indulgent of my little proclivity.  Since arriving in the US there have been a few minor outbreaks of Wendy in street camoflauge, but nothing too PG.

* male gender specific usage

Initially baffled by what to do with my bottle of industrial cleaner capacity alcohol, I’ve now found a seasonal use. 

Spice up the hot eggnog.  Yummy.  Cheers everyone..

Introducing ‘Movie Monday’.  Future film reviews will be published on Mondays.

A poignent, amusing, well scripted, directed, cast and acted insight into the Queen’s life. Recommended to people interested in the process of manipulating ‘media spin’ and people curious about the British Royalty.

ratings explained

The Queen,  a recently released film covering the Spring to Autumn of 1997,  a brief 4 months in the reign of the current British Monarch.  The significance of the months include the election of the first Labour government in decades, the death of Princess Diana and its immediate aftermath. The film has two official websites, a UK based ‘The Queen’ site (2k) and another official ‘The Queen’ website (3k). 

Highlights:

• Excellent package.  Well directed,  excellent screenplay with Hollywood style ’soundbites’ taken from original speaches and cooked-up for the film. An outstanding performance by Helen Mirren.  A fabulous cast including Sylvia Simms as the Queen Mother.
• Alistair Campbell is just as offensive as I’d always imagined him to be.
• British car industry remnants are still evident with the Prime Minister in a Rover and Royalty dashing aound Balmoral in half a dozen Land Rovers.  Unlike film’s like ‘The Layer Cake’ where modern British gangsters product-placed drive German, rather than classic British, cars.
• Witty.  Despite the drama and distress the film is laced with poignent humour and light relief.  Phew.
• Diana’s life not disected.  Limited material or investigation into Diana’s life.  The film is definitely not a ‘who done it’ or questioning the Royal families relationship dynamic with Diana during her life.  Naturally it touches on this but not excessively or tediously.  This is a non-trivial achievement given the popular interest in Princess Diana.
• Period film-footage: this was used very effectively to build atmosphere and convey the shere scale of the crowd scenes. The live shots of the big-screens erected in hide-park to cover the funeral,  the shots of the flowers laid outside the various palaces.

Lowlights

• Breadth of appeal.  Not interested in the current British Royal family and political dynamics?  Then this isn’t the film for you.  I can’t imagine this film having a broad appeal,  but I could be wrong.
• personally powerful details omited.  On the day of Diana’s death all the Radio stations played sombre music with all day.  The only ‘talk’ was an announcement every 30 minutes that Diana had died.  This was particularly impactful for me travelling on a 6hr journey on a foggy, rainy August day after an emotionally and physically tiring weekend in a car with only the Radio for company.
• Too respectful.  The satirical portrayals of The Queen mother in classic period TV shows like Spitting Image highlighted her enjoying a tipple of Gordan gin and gambling.  I noticed no subtle references to this satiral image.
• 14 point stag: one theme in the storyline was a bit too soppy, with unclear significance to me.  The Queen has a ‘moment’ with a 14 point stag.  The stag is killed in an hunt with an unclean shot by an amatuer hunter,  The Queen visits the corpse of the stag and passes her comliments to the hunter.  Maybe this storyline was a comment on how she expressed her respect of death more openly to an animal than to her ex-daughter-in-law.  Maybe its an  indication of capability for respect and consideration.  I wasn’t sure.  The stag scenes were somewhat surreal.  For me they didn’t work.

Maybe you can point out more of the low-lights,  I’m having a bit of trouble seeing them

Below I’ve copied the top of a web page, not in Excel,  from the Wendy House statistics.  It lists the top 22 URLs (Uniform Resource Locators, or URI’s, Uniform Resource Indicators?) that have requested pages from the Wendy House during November 2006.    

Speculative interpretation of the data above:

1. The vast majority,  79% (26799/33828), of all web-site references come from people who are already here exploring the Wendy House by clicking categories or blog-referencing links within the posts.  I like this
2. At less than 1% (327/33828) Google provides the second main source of people clicking on the Wendy House.  Adding all the google numbers together (http://images.google.com/, http://www.google.com/, http://64.233.161.104, http://64.233.179.104/) gives a cumulative total of 327.  A substantial proportion of these references were people looking for images.  A quick look at the search queries that bought people to this website shows they were interested in the text and photograph in my  ”High Spirited” post.  
3. MySpace is the only Social Network that sends noticable traffic to this Blog.  4 profiles predominantly send traffic here.  2/4 profiles do this because a teenager commented on their profile including a URL to my Wendy House server stored photograph of the High Spirited beverage. 
   • 60 references from a 17 yr old boy in Utah. 
   • 58 references from a highly offensive-to-me female objectification for male jacking-off profile. I’ve reported it to the MySpace team as offensive and inappropriate.   
   • 57 references from Annie, a 17yr Rhode Island girl’s ‘private’ profile.
   • 40 references from Kate, a 17yr San Antonio girl.
4. The remainder look like websites promoting loans, gambling and drugs that I suspect remain from when I used to allow trackbacks (now turned-off).

this weekend’s assignment is directly copied from a 7th grade in-class exercise:

“Your science teacher Wendy has invented a time machine. You have been selected to take the first trip. Explain in a multi-paragraph letter comment to your teacher Wendy where you will go and why.”

Not a clever move.  Literally.

The concrete pillar wont budge on it’s position.  Inflexible.  LooSea, softy that she is, crumpled under such rigidity.  Right indicator light smashed to pretty reflective pieces.  Bumper deformed and scratched.  We snuck home together.  Taking only left turns.  Wendy House scars from the 6.8 Quake (28 Feb 2001) can be seen on the concrete floor of the first picture.  The moral is,  mother-earth cracks concrete, pretty reflective lightfixtures do not.  The pillars of concrete should not be tangled with lightly.  Or, look forward when you reverse-turn out of a tight parking slot. An obvious,  yet potentially rather expenisve lesson learned.  I will be taking the bus to work today….

nineth in a culturally significant Thursday series about taking tiffin with (black) tea in the NW USA.

Thursday Tiffin #9: the non-trivial question

The none trivial question was directly phrased in the fifth post ‘got milk?’.  Why is this question non-trivial?  In the UK (black) tea is always served with milk available.  The drinker may choose not to take the milk but it should always be there.  Milk,  not cream.  This is taken for granted in the UK.

The question of availability of milk becomes particularly complex in the US,  more so in the NW USA where the infrastructure for supporting coffee drinking culture clearly takes priority.  In my early experiences of asking for black tea in the homes of NW US people I was absolutely astounded by several people that did not have any milk in their fridges!  They had ‘50:50′,  this is 50% milk,  50% cream often called ‘half and half’ which makes good latte coffees.  Milk in the US is complicated,  they do not use the UK standard descriptions of ’skimmed’, ’semi-skilled’ and ’full cream’.  They have a whole different labelling system.  2% is approximately equivalent to semi-skimmed, 50:50 is more creamy than full cream, I haven’t worked out the others.  It’s all too scarey.

In diners and cafe’s your black tea bags next to your basket of individually wrapped tea bags, including multiple infusions, will not arrive with milk.  This is standard.  If you ask for milk they look perplexed and they improvise.  I’ve been given individual UHT milk packets,  packets of ‘half and half’ and powdered coffee creamer.  Absolute nightmare.  You need to specify 2% milk.  They may not be able to fulfill this request,  you are a difficult customer because you are one they might not be able to please.  Ouch. 

You need to anticipate that the tea provider will not necessarily be prepared with an appropriate milk for an English style black tea, ask what types of milk they have.

twentieth post in a biologically determined Wednesday series of “why wendy’s single“.  

Reason # 20: it’s in the jeans

no unattached elder brothers in the excellent gene pool of my fabulously tasteful witty young friends,  at least none that my not insubstantial nose has whiffed….   

The Star magazine produces a poorly contrived story-line. The before photographs are paparazzi style unposed for shots and the after shots are obviously posed for.  Hardly comparable on the basis of make-up alone. Is it a wry joke?  Am I really supposed to believe the line or laugh heartily at is shere ridiculousness?    

The headline really needed that excalmation mark,  because the storyline that ‘make-up matters’ is an outrageously shocking, novel, storyline.  So few women have realised that their societal value pivots upon their ability to master the skills of purchasing and applying make-up.  I can’t read this because my failure as a woman both to purchase and master the application of make-up would be too disturbing to deal with without expensive therapy sessions.  Adding failure to failure I don’t even have a husband to pay for the necessary treatment.  It’s a virtuous cycle,  no husband, no make-up,  no make-up, no husband.

It would be equally easy for a magazine to construct a story with photographs to prove a point that illustrated the many cases where make-up has virtually no impact or is even detrimental.  They could even run an uncontroversial article on the role of make-up in various valuable societal roles,  irrespective of genders,  e.g. Make-up matters for people performing in front of TV cameras or on stages where the audience is more than 10 feet way.   An article of this nature might at least be worthy of reading.  An extreme stance in the opposite direction would be fun, for balance, make-up really doesn’t matter.  An article with this storyline would,  in my opinion, warrant and exclamation mark for providing an alternative valuable viewpoint!  I’d love to see popularist magazines target both male and female audiences questioning their discourses and presenting thought provoking articles that counterbalance dominant views.  Especially questioning the sickeningly dominant view that female beauty requires maintaining a consumer industry with a value scheme based on manipulating physical appearance, breast implants, nose sculpting, liposuction and of course piles of make-up for everyone princess.  Challenging the relative value of males and females wearing make-up is just one potentially interesting article …   .maybe its already been written…

For the week starting Monday:

• 30th Oct: Seamus for building an outdoor coyote-proof cat enclosure using re-cycled wood.
• 6th Nov:  AF Harrold’s mention of ‘the Goons’. Any reference to Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan,  Harry Secomb, or Michael Bentine, direct or indirect is pleasing. Altogether is simply outstanding.
• 13th Nov: Katy for mentioning the Pooh
• 20th Nov: The Cultfigurine for asking ”is your anti-spam-bot psyhcic?‘ The word ‘bot’ is particularly appealing.
• 27th Nov: LaCroix for detailing the push:me-pull:you Seattle:snow car experience including the pulling:person’s inspection of the underside of the car.  Reality stranger than fiction!

you guy’s made my day with your cheery little published thoughts

Party season and dressing-up time (tree and me) is here! Religious?  Looks like religious consumerism frenzy with some Christianity thrown into the mix based on many diverse seasonal pre-Christian ceremonies and some generally bizarre behaviour.  Seems like mostly well intentioned good fun.  In the Wendy House:

Same tree as last year, wearing it’s party-best with an imposing new Angel atop

Same Wendy as last year,  this year wandering around an EMP seasonal party armed with Camera, LaCroix, Bollywood fans and Russians,  including a very creamy white one.  I was tempted onto the dance floor by Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’,  kept there by the Bee Gee’s “Saturday night fever” and the Village people’s “YMCA“.  The DJ’s 80’s tunes mapped rather closely to my stereotype of ‘gay’ music.  It’s possible that I was sending an unintentionally inaccurate message about my gender preferences by dancing to these tracks,  they were familiar and FUN!  While LaCroix put her colour theory and unique eye into picture action I tried to capture the atmosphere during a Bollywood style song: