Category Archives: Personal

Internet, Personal

Addicted to eBay

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This always happens when I’m busy and have tonnes of things I should be doing… A Sky Digital box that died under the weight of ages (7 years of heavy use!) led to my researching and purchasing a replacement on eBay, or face the prospect of having my wonderful Tivo box lie fallow and cause me to miss critical episodes of Smallville and the like…

And now, I find myself dipping in and out of eBay far more often than I want to – after all, I don’t really need a Fender Telecaster, or a Media Centre PC, or a PDA… Why am I so materially bound? ;)

Ah well. Did resist making bids on any stupid items but instead bought another set of [[Peter Hamilton]] books… which I can in some way justify as a productive purchase, and which the Indian part of me is pleased with for the discount I got by finding them on Amazon marketplace (it’s the Greg Mandel series).

Culture, Current affairs, Personal

England vs Ecuador

Anyone who knows me will tell you quite how bad I am at watching or paying any attention to sport, but have been getting into (bits of) this world cup. Never mind that my sweepstake draws were universally appalling (one of my golden boot strikers didn’t even make the squad – Ewerthon) — I have at least been watching the England games when I can. Saw the first one in Sardinia, the second in NYC, read the live commentary to the Sweden match (depressing as it was) on my train back from Heathrow. Today I watched the Ecuador match with friends in West London.

And it was exciting. And I was getting involved. And – its pretty cool. I can’t afford another time-absorbing hobby (and don’t think I’m that interested anyway), but it is fun to kind of share it with my (almost all much more interested in football) friends – although a few of football fans in the room did not appreciate my stating the obvious (“damn, that was close” on the Ecuador shot in the first 20 minutes). Alan Hanson, I’m not.

Anyway, come on my adopted nation, ENG-ER-LAND! Bring on the quarter finals — oh, and don’t worry Daf, I still support Wales for the Rugby ;).

Culture, Personal

Life narrative

I know there are some other [[Scrubs]] fans out there who will, like me, feel considerable empathy for JD’s internal narrative. I certainly spend a disproportionate amount of time gazing into the distance, introspecting about one thing or another.

Not quite this:

It was a dark and stormy night. Armand, clad in a tasteful Cowboy-Bebop style shirt and tan trousers stood on the top of his apartment block’s short set of entry stairs and prepared to brace the biting wind that infiltrated London like the a gust of… well, something cold

But more:

Do I really want to have that tub of Chinese food for lunch today? I’ve resolved to be healthy, I should get a salad. But I’m ill, and it tastes soooooo good. Sod it, Hong Kong café it is…

That said, since I’ve started being more… diligent about transcribing my unique brand of observational humour and insight here, I’ve started blogging in my head. It’s faintly disturbing and probably overwhelmingly geeky, but I quite enjoy the structure this blog gives my thoughts and the outlet for my puns it provides. It’s one of the reasons I carry around a small black notebook (as I’ve mentioned before)…

Is it just me?

Current affairs, Personal

Whoa

…sorry for lack of posts. I have a cold following my time in the sun and am feeling like a sack of refuse. To top it off, I woke up from one of those dreams where you feel like you’re responsible for the end of the world and can’t shake the guilt (you have those, right?) — and couldn’t get back to sleep. So am working off about 3.5 hours sleep today.

Hopefully the vit. C overdose will kick in over the weekend and I’ll be able to catch up. For the moment, though:

    Work is in happy overdrive (nice to be applying brain after break)
    Bust-a-move is going well
    I’ve finally gotten into Stephen Erikson’s books
    Sheila is off to Scotland for a week
    Arvind is happily moved into his new place
    I wish I was a punk rocker is both addictive and annoying me a lot
    Bill Gates and Robert Scoble both seem to be changing jobs (I go away for *two* weeks and MS falls apart!)
Personal, Travel

Armand in the USA, Armand in the USA!

I’m jetlagged and have some personal issues to deal with — so may not post on my various vacations as soon as I’d like. But expect to see, in the not to distant future, posts on (names of posts, themes, etc, subject to change without notice):

    Adventures in Sardinia
    NYC: meeting cultural and televisual expectations
    Conversations at an apartment block BBQ
    American dreams (of food)
    Key West: Party Town

I’m now in a no-drinking, salad-eating, no-spending phase of my life, so apologies if it gets dull. I do have a few interesting posts saved up, I hope… and some are only tangentially trip related:

Oh, and photos will shortly appear on Flickr, in the usual location. More soon (ish)!

Update: Photos are up and have begun to link to the articles I’ve written… enjoy!

Personal, Travel

I’m back

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As Sheila points out, I’m back today. Knackered after a busy and exciting few weeks; have a lot of stories to tell and will get around to structuring thoughts and writing stuff down over the next few days, as I recover from my jetlag. Very pleased to see that Sheila has developed a bit of a following and think I will have an in-person conversation with her about how she continues her burgeoning blogging career. Will Division6 become multi-author? Will Arvind seek to enter the fray? Who can say – but watch this space.

Guestblog, Personal

Lit Agents, Elephants, Return of The Budge

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‘An agent’s like a third wheel’ patiently explained a manager in my department.

‘An agent’s like a real estate agent’ whispered a publisher after a lengthy meeting with one.

‘Selling a book is like pushing a baby elephant up a hill’ said an agent.

So…this is an elephant on wheels.

DSC01548
I think you’ll all agree this is an excellent post to end my guest blogging career on Budge’s website.
Thank you all for reading. We shall now be returning to tech-chat par excellence.

Welcome back Budge.

Guestblog, Personal

A day and a titleline just for Daddy

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Happy Father’s day to all fathers reading this!

(I suspect it might just be you daddy, so Happy Father’s Day. Some sterling fathering you’ve done so far, results can’t be argued with, so keep up the good work.)

God bless daddy, god bless his beard. Today I listened to Handbags and Gladrags, The Wichita Linesman, RaRaRasputin and The Circle of Life in tribute to daddy and his musical taste. After all, it did shape mine.

Guestblog, Personal

Barbeques and Artichokes

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Thursday evening had been just too hectic, I realised walking into work on Friday, feet sinking into the pavement and eyes slits against the light. Now, having found large dark glasses which take up somewhere between 1/2 – 3/4 of my face, I’m feeling much much better.

Thursday’s first party was jolly. Wine, noisy publishers, ruddy cheeked agents dashing about with bottles and writers ‘schmoozing’ away. I only have one small quibble. Canapes should be bite-sized. They should be dainty and delectable. Fist sized artichoke hearts should not play a key role. There should be few tartes and more tartines and tartelets.

The four of us in our mid-twenties located each other very quickly, taking up sentry post by the front door, and sitting happily with a bottle of wine in between us. An editorial assistant at a well-known London house had just completed her first project, an erotic reminiscence of sorts. I.T. had been blocking lots of her emails thinking they were spam because the language content was so explicit!

Then south, to Clapham, where I had perfect timing, arriving at the barbeque as the first burgers were ready. 9pm, and still so mild. Gorgeous start to summer. Back to the question first raised at Imo’s bbq last month, “How many bankers/chartered surveyors does it take to work a barbequeue?” Very school disco with all the girls sitting demurely at the table and all boys semi-circled around the bbq.

It’s the weekend : nuff said.

Culture, Guestblog, Personal

Terrible experience at the National Theatre

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After work today I skipped down to the South Bank. The English were all out in their summer gear. Not a jacket or a brolly in sight. I scowled at the lot of them, and headed into the giant cement legomonster that is the National Theatre. I collected the tickets and found a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc at the bar. My mood got even better when the pinstriped one arrived, swinging his red man-brolly, complete with glossy wooden handle.

The play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, is listed on the National’s site as ‘…the clash between two cultures leaves thousands of unarmed Inca troops slaughteres and sparks and intense battles of wills between the sun-god and his captor…’ You can see this in full at www.nationaltheatre.org.uk. It was like a badly animated cartoon. The ten pounds I’d paid for my (extremely good) seat seemed an exorbitant amount to have to sit through it. Simplistic, unsophisticated, completely cringeworthy dramatisation. The Inca god spoke in a similar style to Ken Brannagh’s Benedict in Much Ado about Nothing, diguising himself from Beatrice at the masque.

The pin-striped one and I made our exit at the interval and wandered up the bank, delighted that we’d escaped safely.

Next time I decide I want culture, am so picking up Jilly Cooper’s ‘Wicked.’ You can find it on amazon.com by searching for Jilly Cooper, legend.