Rain

One oclock in the morning, i'm lying in the dark. The rain is falling, its ayrshire so the rain is always falling but in a room this dark all i can hear is the sound it makes. It's like being in a tent, only more comfy.

About four days ago i left my flat heading towards the station. It's maybe a fifteen minute walk. And it was raining. I mean it really was raining, it was raining like the sky was trying to wash away the pavement and take back the city.

I walked through it and felt so free. By the time i got to the station i was soaked through, my clothes damp and cold, my hair lank and bedraggled. But i was so happy, it's strange that rain can make us feel so free and so new.

What is it about rain that can make us feel like this? It's only precipitation, only evaporated water falling back to earth. I think it relates to the idea of glass i mentioned before. In the rain we have no glass, we have no way of avoiding being in the elements. There isn't anything we can do about the rain, so we go with it. Well I do, i dance i laugh i jump in puddles. If you are going to get wet anyway, why try to avoid it.

So i lay in bed last night listening to the rain, and thinking about this and think about somthing i read earlier. In Genesis the first thing that is noticed after the end is that there are no more oceans. The sea, and water in general is godless. In the rain, and on the ocean, there is no god. Water is too chaotic. Too powerful.

The sea and rain are similar in that neither can never be controlled by humans. So we dodge them and avoid them. I think we can feel more alive by embracing these things. Accepting the wilder things in the world can make us feel more real.

That is why rain can make us happy, it makes us feel alive.

Maybe i'm wrong, maybe rain is just fun. Who knows....

Digging

I spent a good few hours digging today. It really was good.

Lovely day + Dj Shadow + Mud = fun

There is something very satisfying about hard physical work. Or at least it seems that way as it's been months since i did anything outside.

I dont actually have much to say. I thought i did, but i dont. Oh well

Words

Ok so two posts a day but found this and had to share Huzzah for my friend:

Complete Poems, William Blake: dismal woe, rolld round, soft deceit, golden feast, lulling cadences, wintry door, dire ruin, pretty rose tree, ghastly torment, howling woe, dark deceit, thro heaven, ran thro, thro darkness, dewy tears, thy blue, which overspread, soft affections, solemn mourning, mysterious tree, eternal lot, unknown night, deadly sleep, loud roll, beat round.

These are statistically unlikely phrases that appear in Blake. As told by Amazon. The ones in bold are her favorites. I particularily like:

Lulling Cadences

Words=Magic. Discuss...

Glass

I was reading some stuff a freind had written online. She was talking about likes and senses and i remembered how cool these little quirks of interest can be. The film amelie has that, she likes skimming stones and plunging her hands into bags of grain. She meets people who clean, or punch the leaves of a laurel plant. So i remembered my all time favoirte sensation (except for the obvious of course):

On a cold day, when inside and feeling cosy i love to put the palm of my hand flat against a window. It works best on single glazing you can feel the cold coming through and feel how close you are to the world outside. If it is a really bad day outside you can feel the window rattle and shake as the wind hits it. It reminds me of how fragile we are, when standing there looking out feeling the cold it reminds us that if it wasnt for the glass i'd be cold. If it wasnt for the bricks and the roof i'd be exposed, if it wasnt for all the genius of people we'd be fighting for survival rather than drinking a cup of tea.

Sailing equalises that to a certain extent. We have all this technology and skill but at the end of the day if we are halfway across the atlantic and something goes wrong, or the weather gets really bad there is no glass. We cant hide, we have to deal with it, all our cunning. I thought about this last summer, sailing up a river (forget the name i'll find out), we saw a pair of hawks. They were gliding high up, using the thermals, barely flapping their wings. I got so captivated by them, watched for an hour maybe. They were so in control of their situation but had to deal with changes of the wind to stay where they where. Sailing has the same principle, if the wind blows we must act.

But at home, on land, if the weather worsens we can just stand behind the glass and drink tea.

Oh one last unrelated thing, great line from mr Scruff:

Why should it be
that the fish in the sea
are all unable to sing

Done and good and happy

six, maybe seven oclock. I am relaxed. I lean back into the strangely small sofa and smile. Drink in hand only me and two of my best friends.

We are all relaxed, all dissertations are done.

It was one of those moments that you wish could last. Calm and relaxed and o so happy. I was proud of what i handed in in the end. It was good, not perfect. I was happy. The rest of the night was good, but that moment was perfect. A moment of clarity.

I was talking to my brother on msn yesterday. He is in australia. Which is cool. He sets off on his big adventure in a few days. Leaving Brisbane to go sailing to east timor. So that is cool. I think he is really happy which is awesome. He was talking of those moments that seem perfect. Walking through brisbane, late in the day, this cool adventure ahead and sigur ros on the headphones. He stopped and realised how amasingly awesome the world can be, and how lucky he was. It happens that sometimes we just stop and realise that the world is fucking cool. And that our part in it is too.

A friend of mine has various parts of her life on the internet. I read somethings and looked at photos and felt nosey and inadequate. Nosey because it's all a little personal and inadequate because she is such an artist and intellectual and poet. She could express this idea of a moment of clarity better than me. Something else to work on. A moment of clarity is that moment when the whole world seems perfect. Or as someone once said to me:

"Somedays are just good because your boyfriend sends you a picture of himself in your pants."

Amends

So imagine a hypothetical blog. This hypthetical blog featured a story of a person, we'll call them person x. This story was derogatory of person x.

Now our hypothetical person x read the afor mentioned story and was upset. Reasnobly so. The imaginary blog had depicted him(or her) in a less than lovely light.

Anyway, i dont mean to offed people.

But it made me think, perhaps i should make a little more effort to maintain peoples privacy. This is after all public. It isn't easy, if something happens in my flat that i want to relate. I cannot very well make it seem to happen in another flat. Most of my social life is with my flatmates and as such many things in my life are about them. So what do i do?

I cant give everyone made up names. I will if i think it is necessary. Or just keep the story to myself. And for the record. Jen is one of the cleverest people i know and i am proud to call her my friend.

Even if she is a little daft.

Comments

I have no idea if anyone is reading this. If you are, do leave a comment.

I'd be nice to know someone reads.

Unless of course no-one does, which would make sense...

Eating Tablet.... sugary tastyness

Results, Scams and Ramblings

Computer related talk today.

Working on my dissertation in the linguistics linux labs. The specifics are too complex for me to even begin to explain in anything less than 5000 words but i was trying to run this script. To run it, it seemed i needed to use a linux box, so i tried to use the dept ones. Turns out i need a new account. And then i had to get the files across in the right formats and get them to work. Then export the results, analyse them with different software and i ended up with three numbers:

-1.826

-1.205

-.879

These three numbers are the end result of four months or hard work. No kidding: remove the minus signs and you got the invidual weights for each of my three constraints. Which is the point of my dissertation. So much work for such a small seeming thing. But to do all the tech stuff to get this i have had huge amounts of help from a small group of people, today i would have been totally stuck if it weren't for the help of the lab supervisor, and in general without my two dissertation supervisors i would have got nowhere. I know it is part of their job to help me, but even so they are cool.

But computers right: Bewildering and yet so cool. I have decided that it is wrong to dismissively label any techy computer stuff as geeky. Computers require such a huge amount of skill and knowledge to manipulate well, that anyone who is really good at techy stuff should admired (proviso: as long as they arn't completely devoid of social skills, this is only acceptable if they are a real genius).

If I do this research assistant job (and i really hope i do), i will need to learn lots about computers and that very quickly. While i know a little, to know more! I may need to ask people for help frequently, hopefully i'll get through it. I want to do it though because
a) it'd be really cool
b) i might get my name on a paper
c) I might get paid near £1000 for two weeks work! Score!

Oh the other computer related story is this:

Hey it is Andy and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the interruption but msn is closing down. this is because too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just one
person), we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This is no joke, we will be shutting down the servers. Send it on, thanks. WHO EVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOU WILL CHARGED £10.00 A MONTH TO USE MSN. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLAY. COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

This has to be the funniest scam i have ever seen. Check out the bad grammar, spelling errors and mad capitalisations. God bless the person who sent this to me he/she is very nice and honest and a good friend, but she/he seems to be the most gullible person in the world. And no it isnt Jen.

Anyway i have a dissertation to write

Effects

I got the first draft of my dissertation back from my supervisor today. She ripped it apart, but in a nice way. It is ten pages of red pen and critisicms. So i have lots to do over the next week.

I assumed she thought i was an idiot, but then she followed up with this:

"Would you be interested in being the research assistant on a webct experiment that I'd like to run later this spring/this summer?"

She goes on to add some details, but basically that is a job offer. Out of the blue. It suggests that she doesnt think i'm a complete idiot. It made me so stupidly happy, a kind of validated life type happy. I couldnt help but smile at everyone i saw for two hours.

And once again, like last night i am struck by the huge effect other people can have on you. A kind word, a smile, an hour's detailed critiscm, shouting, dancing or half an hours drunken conversation about philosophy. Every thing we do effects other people, our lives are goverend by the actions of others.

That and pure chance. But that is another rant.

The Moral? Be nice to people i guess, or be concious of the power we all have. But that sounds like new age hippie crap. So there probably isnt one.

Stephen Lamb

Warm Glow Faded

Was working at the co-op today. Guy comes in. I look at him think i recognise him from years ago,

"you're stephen lamb" i say
"nope" say this person, this imposter
"oh, are you sure?" i say to him.
"yep i'm sure, who is stephen lamb?"
"Just someone i used to know, sorry"

Embarrasing. I go about my day, beeping peoples groceries. Its a dull job but the the boss is away and one of us plebs is 'in charge' so i have the radio on. I phase out, niceties and instructions to customers, i'm listening to the radio. Suddenly...

"I know you, A.I. first year" A voice says to me.
I look up and smile
"You're stephen lamb" i say
"yep" he says happily.

We chat briefly and he goes, i get a break in customers so take the baskets outside. Massive Attack comes on the radio. I am caught listening to the radio and the rain, i cant help but think about chance and time. So odd that i would meet an old friend just after i mistook someone else for him. And even odder how old a friend he is. I barley knew stephen lamb in first year, he was in my tutorials for a month maybe, and yet i was glad to see him. I think of Jonathan Cameron, a man i met for all of thirty minutes on new years day while walking home through the meadows.

We meet so many people in our lives for long times and short times, some leave good impressions, some bad, some none. Some for no obvious reason stay in our heads for ever. I dont think i'll ever forget stephen lamb or Jonathan Cameron, and that is somehow comforting.

Even at the co-op amasing things can happen

Youth

Its about four oclock in the afternoon. I am sitting in that justified glow of having written one assignment answer, read one article, written 600 dissertation words and tidied my room. it's not that i have done that much work. Just that i rarely do any, so comparatively i am doing very well.

My parents are coming up this evening. We are going out to dinner at Valvona and Crolla vin cafe resteraunt. It should be very good. My little brother and his girlfriend are coming up too.

I realised last night that i was Sam's age when i met Cat. I was Sam's age when I started uni. I was Sam's age when i left home. I cant quite get my head around that. He seems like such a child, that isn't a reflection on him. I reckon i was just like him when i left home, but it is just mad. Maybe I was more mature, maybe not, either way I was young. No wonder first years always look young and eager.

They are.

Dances, Pub and Elephants

An evening in my flat. Jen gets back from work, I stop playing on the internet, Mike stops working.

Time for a cup of tea and a sociable joint.

I can’t remember where it comes from, one of me and Mike’s rambles, but I mention a Gay Gordons.

Jen: What’s a Gay Gordon?

Me (with a smirk):A sort of water fowl

Mike burst out laughing

Jen: No really what is it?

A game of Call My Bluff begins.

Mike (after some deliberation): It is a slang term for a British gay pub named after the first real gay pub in Soho The Gordon’s Arms

Me: No it’s a kind of Scottish dance

I should mention that I am a terrible liar. I just can’t keep a straight face. Jen believes me, so we confuse her more…

Mike (chortling believably): No it’s actually the pub

Me (sincerely): No it’s the dance

Jen: I hate you guys

This continues for sometime.

Me: Actually it was the name of an elephant that lived for 60 years kept by the Burmese Raj

Mike: Don’t be silly it’s a water fowl.

Eventually we give up, leaving Jen thoroughly confused. But before long we mention corn flour.

Mike: Mixed with water it’s a liquid but if you hit it, it turns solid

Me: Yeah it’s cool

Jen: Nooooo

Once again we drag it out for far to long leaving poor Jen far to confused to be healthy. Eventually she gets out her computer and confirms that corn flour and water is a liquid that turns solid when hit. And that the Gay Gordons is a slang term for a gay pub. No I know Gay Gordons was an Indian elephant.

GoodFun.

Backup

This whole blogging malarky is a bit weird.

I really want to write about everything that is important to me. But i cant. There is no way to sum up everything i enjoy, love, believe in and try to do in a short space. Or even a big space for that matter.

So...

I am Ben
I am 21 as of last saturday
I am scotish, though i speak with an english accent.
I like: Sailing, Reading, Playing Computer Games, Climbing Hills, Thinking, Finding New Music

... to be continued

Music To Sail Boats To

Last summer i went sailing with George Michael. Well George and Michael. Nice people, paid for my food and drink.

I deliberately didnt take any means of music production. So i made my own music. I sang lots. I can't even begin to remember all that i sang for those five happy weeks. But three really stand out:

The Futureheads cover of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love particularily the line "i've always been a coward/ and I dont know what's good for me" seemed to suit my mood.

Jaqueline by Franz Ferdinand is just perfect:

It's always better on holiday
So much better on holiday
That's why we only work when
We need the money

And Mr Blue Sky by The Electric Light Orchestra:

Sun is shinin' in the sky,
There ain't a cloud in sight
It's stopped rainin'
Everybody's in a play
And don't you know
It's a beautiful new day.

All three cheery, happy and powerful. I have sung all three loudly while at the wheel of Blue Sky powering along with a perfect wind a perfect sea and a blue sky.

Ideal

3.14 and £10 notes

I love Yann Martel's "The life of Pi". GoodBook. Easy and thought provoking, which is i guess pretty cool. The reason i say this is it has one of my all time favorite passages on the sea.

"And between them both, between the skys and the seas. There were all the winds"

The intention is supposed to be desolate and yes it is, but i think it is also alluring and fabulous and dreamlike. It's a phrase that seems to cover all that is great, and all that is terrible about the sea.

It's worth reading the book for that.

It occurs to me that at the moment this blog is pointless. I guess the point is to play with words and try and gain some understanding of them. I would love to write a book, but i know i'm no good at it. So here i will try and get better. It is not easy to explain the draw of the sea to people who dont know it, i will try here. Over time it may start to make sense.

So the Sea.
Imagine you are by the sea shore, everyone has been there. It isnt crowded, there isnt anyone as far as you can see. It is not lovely weather, it isnt sunny or warm. There is a cold wind, spray whipped off the sea comes with it. It stings your face. But you feel alive. It is cold but perfect. With your eyes closed all you can feel is the spray on your face, and the wind in your hair. The sound of wind and waves is all you can hear. Now you are reminded that the world is beautiful.

Or maybe Sailing is just standing in a cold shower tearing up £10 notes.

Maybe Over Time

Administrative Charges

I missed this months rent.

It is normally paid by my mum into my account at the end of the month. It clears in time for the direct debit to pay to letting agency. Not this month. February has 28 days. So money goes in on the last day of the month, it needs three days for the customary bankneedstoholdyourmoneytomakeabitanextraofmoneyclearingperiod. So i miss the direct debit.
Blam! £20 bank charges.
Blam! £100 letting agency administrative charges
Blam! £17.50 Value Added Tax
£137.50 gone in a blink of an eye nothing i can do about it. Fuck. Those are not administrative charges they are just profit, plain and simple. Fuckers.

I was, to say the least, angry.

At the moment all my money is counted as days at sea. My trip to Brazil will cost around £10 a day. So today i lost nearly two weeks sailing. That is two weeks of relaxation, sunshine, fair winds and nice times that i have to work hard to get back. Alternatively it is twenty-four hours working at the shitty supermarket where i work. Or sixty eight reasonably priced pints.

Procrastination And Poetry

Some how I still haven't started working. My dissertation drags on, as does my course work. So i started a blog. It's like keeping my journal which i have been doing for years but it is public.

Really I intend to use it to keep people who know me updated on my progress after i leave to UK.

I am going sailing to Brazil in few months, well lots. In October to be exact. I hope i am, a test sail from Oban to Irleland wil decide my fate.

Been listening to lots of drum and bassy trip hop LTJ Bukem style. And female type indie pop like The Pipettes. A slightly odd combination i grant you, but pleasing none the less.

A note about the title. It's from a famous poem by John Masefield who was poet laureate from 1930 till his death (Gotta love Wikipedia). The whole thing is below:

Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick's over.

It seems to sum up the power and draw of the sea.