stereoroid.com

Friday 31 May 2002, 17:00

Well, my flight on Sunday is definitely off. Aer Lingus e-mailed to tell me that, and that I should forget trying to book anything until next Wednesday, and they’re not even sure about that. They’ve offered a full refund, which I’ll be taking them up on, and if they give me problems over that, they’ve lost a customer for good.

I’ve found a seat on a coach-ferry-coach service that goes via Stranraer and Belfast on Sunday, for a surprisingly low price, so I’ll actually save money if Aer Lingus play ball. The downside is a total journey time of over 9 hours, but broken up into 3-hour segments, so it shouldn’t get too monotonous. I’ve already got a book to read, and I’ll need to get another - not a problem. Sleep isn’t really an option - I can rarely sleep while travelling.

I may post another quick update before I leave, but if not, see y’all next week…

Last night, on impulse, I went to see the new Star Wars film, Episode II: Attack of the Clones. I’m not going to inflict a full review on you, since there must be a million reviews out there already, but I’d like to log a few thoughts on it while they’re still fresh in my mind. Spoiler Alert: while I’m not going to discuss plot details, you may still want to skip the next section if you haven’t seen the film yet.

• Why “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away”? There’s no particular reason why that should matter, if all the characters involved have no connection with Earth. Since they are apparently human, however, it’s interesting (to me) to imagine a connection with human science fiction of the last century.
• Much has been made, elsewhere, of George Lucas’ debt to the pioneering work of Joseph Campbell, but in my opinion he owes equally as much to Isaac Asimov in particular. Starting with the obvious, there are the robots, with C-3PO stepping straight out of Asimov’s Robot stories. I expect him (it?) to quote the Three Laws of Robotics at any time. The bad guys in Episodes 1-3 use robot soldiers without such safeguards.
• There’s the matter of Coruscant, which is the capital of the Republic, a city covering a whole planet. Rename Coruscant as Trantor, and we’re looking at a scene from Asimov’s “Foundation”. In both Star Wars and the Asimov books, the rulers of the Republic/Empire are forever bickering among themselves, while struggling to manage outlying regions and overlooking the threat from the “dark side”. The difference is that Asimov’s books document the downfall of an Empire into chaos, while Star Wars charts the downfall of a Republic and the rise of an evil Empire.
• My major gripe with the film: too many impossible stunts. Some are fun to watch, but others leave you asking “why?”. In the former category is Anakin’s perfectly-timed skydive through the crowded skies of Coruscant, and Obi-Wan’s battle with Jango Fett on the roof of the clone factory. Near the end, however, Amidala takes a 20-foot leap from a pillar on to the spiny back of some alien creature, landing without so much as grunt. She’s not even a Jedi, so that can’t be it. The gravity appeared Earth-standard, so that would normally mean that even if she survived such a jump, she wouldn’t be able to have children, and we would thus have no Luke Skywalker or Leia Organa later.
• If it appears that I’m turning into an anorak, well, so be it. Looking at it cynically, if the Star Wars universe was perfectly thought out, with no plot holes, it would be average, but human nature means that it’s fun to poke holes in stories and imagine how we might have done better. I think George Lucas has been doing the same, having fun filling the holes in the original Star Wars universe, taking note of outside criticism, and plotting how to set the stage for the “main sequence” (episodes 4-6).
• It’s also fun to plot how things will turn around in the gap between the current storyline and the known story. For example, we can see the beginnings of the Empire in the designs of costumes and ships, and there’s a glimpse of a Death Star design. Also, while the Clones were fighting in the service of the Republic, they are clearly the first versions of the later Stormtroopers. The Republic’s downfall will not come from external attacks, so Count Dooku had no need to take on the Republic’s clone armies at this time. It doesn’t appear that he had a choice, since they were only invoked in the rescue attempt of Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Amidala. When Palpatine takes over, the Clones will presumably go with him and become the Stormtroopers.

Yikes! How many words was that? Get a life…

So far, so good. They have easyInternetCafes in Glasgow now, as well as London, so it’s cheap and easy to get online to update the site, if I don’t mind typing the HTML by hand. Not a problem, since I’ve made a point of keeping this site simple.About the AerLingus strike… services are definitely disrupted on Friday and Saturday, but as for Sunday, when I’m due to fly… I won’t know until closer to the time. If it falls through, there will be no point trying RyanAir from Prestwick as a backup, since they have no flights on Sunday, and tickets for both flights on Monday are currently at €120 and climbing, with Tuesday prices not far behind. I can probably get a train to Liverpool, then a ferry to Dublin - we’ll see what’s required.

Getting here was not much trouble - in fact the day started off better than expected, when I was able to catch the express train to Howth Junction for the airport bus, shaving 20+ minutes off the travel time. I had expected Dublin Airport to be a zoo, but the opposite was true - nearly deserted, there was less than 3 minutes wait for check-in, and no hassle there. After that, things took a slight downturn, when the flight was late leaving, and I had a little hassle at boarding when the attendant asked for my ticket. There was none, it was a ticketless flight, so I showed her the email. Her response was “if you want to change your flight, you need to go to the ticket desk”. I think she figured out her mistake right then, since she waved me through before I had time to answer. If there had been any problem with my booking, what was I doing with a valid boarding pass in my hand?

The flight left the gate about 20 minutes late, got halfway to the runway, then turned back, since there was a problem with the “door closed” sensor. An electrician looked at it, and we then carried on as before. He probably just bypassed the sensor - when I was an Instrument Technician at Highveld Steel (South Africa) all those years ago, we used to say “if in doubt, bridge it out!” I’m kidding, the aviation industry has higher standards… I hope.

I’m staying at the Travel Inn, Glasgow City Centre, which is OK, if a bit bland. It’s a bit out of the centre, but only because Glasgow city centre is so tiny by UK standards. It’s smaller than Coventry, but still larger than Birmingham, which is hardly a centre at all. It’s 5 minutes walk from Queen Street station, and in a good location for the Barrowlands, where the concert is.

As I wrote earlier, I was booked in a “disabled, smoking” room when I changed my reservation. Well, it’s a disabled room, with handles, alarm pulls, and greater than normal floor space. I could set up a full drum kit in there if required, that’s how much space there is. When I checked in, I was told it was a non-smoking room, which was fine by me. Unfortunately, it looks as if they’ve taken a smoking room and converted it to non-smoking, because I asked for it. There is a non-smoking sign placed on the desk, but there is also a vague tobacco smell, and fag ash on the window sill.

If I spent a lot of time in hotels, I would probably demand more character from hotel rooms, but since I only spend a few days a year in hotels, I don’t mind if the room is “a vacuum with a bed”, as I believe guitarist Robert Fripp has described some rooms he’s seen in his many years on the road.

Well, it’s looking better than I had feared. My flight was one of those cancelled with no alternative arrangements on Thursday. They gave a phone number to call, and I got through to an agent after less than five minutes wait. I only need to be in Glasgow by Friday evening, but all Friday flights were full. She found me a place on the same 11AM flight as before, but leaving on Wednesday rather than Thursday, so I’ll be leaving for Glasgow tomorrow morning.

The hotel situation isn’t quite as rosy, though - when I called to extend my stay, the only guaranteed room was “disabled, smoking”. I’m not sure what “disabled” does to a room, except for the obvious (more handholds, space for wheelchairs), but I hope that “smoking” doesn’t mean that the whole room reeks of tobacco - curtains, carpets, etc. Ugh. It’s the same price, and I may be able to wangle something on arrival.

The extra day means I can definitely take a side trip to Edinburgh and Dunfermline, if I start early enough in the morning, probably Thursday. I’ll try and update this diary from a ‘Net café during the week, otherwise, the next entry will be on Monday. Cheers…

Ah, Monday morning. I must have slept funny, since one whole side of my head feels like it’s been stuffed with semolina pudding until it leaks out of my tear ducts. Couldn’t brush my teeth, since my housemate was hogging the bathroom, so I’d better find some chewing gum. Welcome to the 21st Century.

I’m flying to Glasgow on Thursday, on Aer Lingus, supposedly, but guess what? This is the day that Aer Lingus pilots are going on strike. Read the press release here. I’ll find out on Tuesday whether I still have a flight on Thursday. Well, I only need to be in Glasgow by Friday afternoon anyway, the rest was just sightseeing and shopping for musical instruments…

It’s Election day here in Ireland. Don’t get me started… oops, too late.I suppose elections are essentially the same the world over. You wake up one morning to find your local streets plastered with posters of people you’ve never heard of, with faces you wouldn’t trust to correctly show if they’re alive or dead. They all want one thing: power! That’s enough reason not to vote for any of them, ever.

This year, in Dublin, I’ve seen some particularly Irish variations on the theme. People were slapping up posters, tying them to every available pole they could find. In some cases, the posters caused huge traffic jams when they obscured traffic signals. There was even some defacement and tearing down of posters. My favourite, though, was the poster hung at the station I use to get to work. All it had on it was a woman’s face, a name, and the word “Education”.

You want education, Ms.? Just look at what happened to your poster. For starters, no-one knew what you actually stood for. (Education: more? less? Catholic? Montessori?) Secondly, you put your poster up far too early, long before the election was officially announced. Thirdly, you hung it in an easily accessible spot (a station) at shoulder-height, visible to hundreds of people a day, many of whom travel at odd hours and carry pens. It started off with a moustache, and your face progressively disappeared in a sea of black. The poster then vanished, just as the election campaign was getting into gear. If I could just remember your name, I would make a point of not voting for you.

To a Brit such as myself, it appears that the first priority in the creation of Ireland’s political institutions was “not like Britain”. This means a preponderance of Gaelic titles, since to use English would not be Irish enough. (Funny how it’s good enough for the USA, who had far more reason to be angry at Britain).

The following table may help in comparison between government institutions and people in the USA, UK, and Ireland:

“Oireachtas” is pronounced “O’Rictus”, and “Dáil” is pronounced “Dull”. “Seanad” is, of course, a gaelicised “Senate”, pronounced as expected.

The Taoiseach (pron. Tea-shuck) and Tánaiste (pron. Tarnished-huh) were the focus of most of the media coverage of the election campaign. I tend to switch off at the first sign of political coverage, but during the campaign, my overriding impression of Bertie was of a man who lives up to Lyndon B Johnson’s description of Gerald Ford: “so dumb, he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time”.

Not much to report today. Preparations for my Glasgow trip are complete, at least the essentials - flights, hotels. I’m going to attend the Stuart Adamson tribute concert at the Barrowlands hall, which is where Big Country had quite a few successful gigs. All that remains is for me to see what else is happening in the 3 days I’ll be there, although I may take a side trip to Edinburgh and Dunfermline.I was last in Dunfermline, my home town, about 8 years ago, when I visited Edinburgh to look around Edinburgh University. I had an offer to study Computer Science there, but was unable to take it up, since I could not afford to stop working. That was my first visit to Dunfermline since I was 6 years old, but I still remembered my way around, and even walked along the route I took to school. Not long at all, now, but when I was 6 it meant taking a bus, being a bit much for my wee legs.

One of Big Country’s famous songs, Chance, has the line “a cold new town”, and I know Stuart Adamson must have been referring to Dunfermline as it has been in the last century - a light industrial town with little character. It’s not quite the Milton Keynes of Scotland - that honour goes to East Kilbride - since Dunfermline played a pivotal role in Scots history. It was once the residence of Scots royalty, much as Windsor is to London, and Robert the Bruce was buried there. The wide Forth river between it and Edinburgh gave it some exclusivity and privacy.

Dunfermline is also famous as the home of Andrew Carnegie, who later moved to the USA and eventually controlled the first steel company in Pittsburgh. After he sold it to JP Morgan, becoming the richest man in the world, he then devoted his life and money to philanthropy. Whenever you hear the name Carnegie in the USA or Scotland, his money was behind it - for example, Carnegie Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University, etc. The Carnegie Corporation is still helping people today.

You can read a full book on Dunfermline here.

Just about to head home for the weekend - I’ve had a Bad Day, mostly down to one awful “customer”. I say “customer” in quotes, since the person in question purportedly works for the same company I do, but we definitely aren’t on the same wavelength, if even the same planet. There’s also a culture clash involved, since this guy lives and works in Abu Dhabi (no, really), chewing Khat, while I’m a Scot working in Ireland, tanked up to the gills on coffee. A recipe for friction if there ever was one.

Suffice to say that this bloke expects us to know exactly what’s happening inside a major server at a (big) customer’s site, while he drops us the occasional impersonal diagnostic report, and doesn’t even do what we ask, far less show any initiative towards solving the problem. My colleagues sympathize - we’ve all had dealings with this guy. It wouldn’t be so bad if major accounts weren’t relying on this guy…

Debating whether I should head to the pub for an after-work drink. I’m “lucky” in that my alcohol intake is self-regulating. This is partly because the more I drink the less well I feel, meaning I drink less. The other thing is that there are no drinks that I really like, meaning I lose interest in drinking as an evening passes. If I don’t have a reason to go to the pub, I avoid it. Tonight there may be some interesting conversation about the merger/takeover, so I’m leaning towards going.

Till next week…

The corporate takeover proceeds apace; we already have new email addresses. Yesterday I sent out a “change of address” mail to friends and associates, and the only reply I’ve received so far is from Markus Reuter, from the band Centrozoon. (On the website, he’s the one on the right - hi there!)

I thoroughly recommend trying out some of their freely downloadable material - spacey! Markus is/was also a member of the Europa String Choir, whom I had the pleasure of seeing play live twice in one day, a few years ago. An account of my “grand day out” could be found on the DGM site, but it’s now gone. I’ll try and dig it up again from my archives and post it on this site for the hell of it. (Update, 20 May: here it is.) I don’t know if they’re still a going concern, at the moment. They’re probably also going to be affected by the “restructuring” at DGM, too (which is mentioned in my first week on the blog).

A long weekend, and a good thing too. I spent Sunday evening at Dublin Castle, trying to see Muse in concert, with The Hives and The Revs. I won’t be going to one of these “festival” type concerts again. Why? Read on:

• Prices: After €25 to get in, they still wanted €2 for bottled water and €4 for a plastic glass of Heineken, which was a bloody cheek, since the whole event was sponsored by Heineken - they had a captive market.
• For safety reasons, the whole arena was divided down the middle. Given the amount of moshing that went on, it makes sense in retrospect. However, the front enclosure was allocated on a first-come first-served basis, using wristbands. Had I known this, I would have got there earlier, rather than be jammed into the “second class” section. By the time Muse hit the stage, there was a huge gap at the rear of the front section, and no attempt to fill it. This just angered the people in the front of the rear section, where I was…
• I spent most of Muse’s set playing impromptu bouncer, stopping various girls from getting crushed by the moshers. It’s not as if Muse play punk or heavy metal - they cover a wide dynamic range with some loud bits. So, why was I slammed from all sides by drunken louts, who could clearly only hear the bass, and nothing else? This moshing link leads to a funny site on the topic, which states, among other things, that getting hurt (or hurting others) is not the idea. The girls said “thank you”, but no more.

On the plus side, the sound wasn’t at all bad for an outdoor gig - loud and clear, not deafening, I could hear the bands well, yet still hear afterwards. I’m also pleased at the way I stood up to the whole experience - the worst I had was sore feet. Even my bladder played nice - over 5 hours without complaint.

Those of you who went to Woodstock or Glastonbury are probably going “what are you complaining about? We paid $10 for bottled water!” Sure, you’re right, but I’ve never seen such behaviour before, not even when I saw Black Sabbath at Sun City (in South Africa) 15 years ago, a concert which I think permanently damaged my hearing. On that occasion, I was carried from the middle to the front, without my feet touching the ground, but it was still safer than the moshing.

Didn’t get around to playing Thursday’s Child last night, but that’s OK, I had some more “Solitude Standing” while walking to the station to get home from the pub. In The Eye seems to me to be the definitive “mission statement” on non-violent protest in its purest form, harking back to Mahatma Gandhi. Other interpretations I’ve seen talk about this song as a statement of resolution against a specific individual, e.g. a man who has wronged her, but I don’t agree at all. I won’t quote bits of it at you, rather go and read the lyrics here.Then there’s Night Vision, which struck me as a meditative observation of everyday things, with much to remind me of Zen Buddhism. I know that Suzanne Vega was a Buddhist for years, perhaps even at the time of this recording.

Lastly, for today, the title track, Solitude Standing. It’s the most “rock” track on the album, the one where she lets her accomplished backing band off the leash a little. I remember the accompanying video, which has the band striking various muso poses while Suzanne stands in the middle of it all, simply playing the guitar. The structure and mix of this song also convey this impression - of a moment in the eye of the storm while the world circles around you…

Thursday’s Child has far to go…Today I find myself in the distinguished (?) company of David Beckham, Bing Crosby, and Queen Catherine the Great of Russia; namely, it’s my birthday. Age: getting old. If you really want to know, a clue is the fact that Paris was rocked by massive riots and protests that started when I was just one day old.

I was born on a Thursday, so that makes this birthday a little bit more special. Tonight I’ll have a few pints with the guys in the office, then go home and play Bowie’s Thursday’s Child.

Yesterday’s big news for us here was the final go-ahead for the takeover of my company by another. I refuse to call it a “merger”, since my company will, in a technical sense, cease to exist. The brand name will carry on, along with huge chunks of the product range, and the chances that I will be out of a job are quite small. In general, here in the office it was a case of “and suddenly, nothing happened”.

I’ve got to be a bit more careful in my choice of music to play in the mornings. Yesterday I succeeded in recovering files from one of the MP3 CDs I created, from my own audio CD collection, shortly before moving to Ireland. I’ve lost quite a few, thanks to a dodgy batch of Samsung CD-Rs. One of the albums was Solitude Standing by Suzanne Vega, and I started listening to it this morning for the first time in more than 2 years. I forgot the effect that Ironbound and Fancy Poultry had on me; it was quite a job keeping my head up and my eyes dry on the crowded train.

fancy poultry, parts sold here,
breasts and thighs and hearts.
backs are cheap and wings are
nearly free…