one of the many perks of not working in a university any more, is a proper recognition that you can work from home when you job is just looking at a pooter all day. Of course a lot of that may be down to me telling people to work from home, but you know it all still means the same thing.

I can sit at my nice big desk, with the windows wide open, and almost no disruption. We’ve got a bit of a resourcing issue at work at the moment; namely we have loads to do, and not enough people to do it. So it’s drastic action time as I am coding - hence the whole at homeness of it all.

One thing about working from home is you can get into the zone. I’m sure you all have your different zones, with programming it is said it takes 15 minutes to get into the zone and only 10seconds to get pulled out of it again, So sitting alone is a good way to go if you want to get something done; it’s a lousy way to go if you want to talk to anyone, or not get a bad back.

That’s why today I made sure I took lunch. If I was in work, i reasoned, I would take a break and go for a walk to clear some space in my head. It’s just when you are home it’s a much nicer walk - I went to greenbank park, and I took my camera.

I did get quite a lot of work done too. mainly through the process of ignoring my email. I’m a bit scared to look actually.

Saturday was trip day for the Jumps, and we went to Chirk Castle, which is in Wales. It’s National Trust which means we get in for free, and we don’t pay for parking. It also means you can buy tea-towels with maps on them, walking sticks and flat caps.

Chirk Castle is the last Edward I castle still lived in today (as you will know if you followed the link above).

[Historians look away now!] Edward I was the King who built loads of castles in North Wales - he spent £80,000 on castles in the 1280’s that’s a lot of money. The Main aim of the castles was to keep the Welsh quiet. They didn’t really think England was all tat great thanks, and much preferred the hilliness of snowdonia and the wild coast that was to become scouse-wales. Edward I (who was the fourth King to be called Edward) was recently voted 94th Greatest Briton - maybe because he conquered Wales, or maybe because he did quite a lot of law reforming.

None of that really tells you about Chirk Castle, except why it was built. As it is the only castle of that time still lived in, it doesn’t really resemble a 700 year old Castle it’s more of a stately home squeezed into a castle. It’s still very interesting and warm. unlike those ruined 700 year old castles. the Café is nice, and there where chickens in the car park.

New Camera

Really for us it was an opportunity for me to try out my new camera. The weather wasn’t great, but still we got some good shots. The zoom is cool; We have some fab shots of animals, the type you think you are going to take with your camera, only to discover you have a dot in the middle of a field of grass; well on my camera you get a full picture of the animal.

The Colours are really good to. It’s not until you get a decent camera do you realise just how over saturated some cameras can make photographs - of course this means I will have to start taking pictures of everything again. for one it’s 8 mega pixel which means good shots can be blown up real big and stuck on the wall.

No books for ages and then two come along.

Eats, shoots and Leaves, as I am sure you all know, is a book about punctuation. It’s the ideal book for Ruth; but I’ve been shying away from it, Mainly because I’m pap at spelling never mind punctuation. I also read the first couple of pages a while back; and I didn’t get any of the jokes.

Now, as you can no doubt tell by my liberal use of semi-colons, I have read the book all the way to the end.

It’s a fantastically well written book. I don’t really want to criticise anyone who has managed to get published, but comparing just the writing of this book with Pies and Prejudice, really doesn’t do Stuart Marconi any favours. I think one of the reasons I took so long to read his book was the style and the pace. In contrast Lynne Truss knows how to write, she’s quite funny too.

It also does a really good job of explaining just where all the funny little marks are supposed to go. It’s of course still quite confusing; there are 17 rules for commas, not all of which make sense, or are easy to follow; There are other bits, where even experts can’t make up their minds; and there are several ways of doing the same thing, most of which are wrong at some point.

I’m going to make a concerted effort, at least for this week, to improve my punctuation. but I have to admit to being a little intimidated; because now everybody is looking, they will notice how bad I am at it.

she does at one point despair of illiterate book reviewers, so I’m stopping here.

I am a bit ranty at the moment, and for that I apologise. It’s getting less as the weekend goes on, but the weekend is coming to a close: maybe next week I won’t rant as much; I will at least try not to anyway.

We don’t actually shop much in the real ASDA. Daisy is at that age, where keeping her under control in the shops is more that it’s worth; so we do most of the shopping on-line. This week, through the usual reasons of busyness and tiredness, we hadn’t done an on-line shop. So I did a quick ASDA blast yesterday morning.

Now It wasn’t that long ago that we use to take bags to ASDA when we shopped. Trying to persuade the checkout assistant to let you use your own bags took some doing, there was no where to recycle the bags you did use and they would be positively throwing the bags at you as you packed.

Yesterday: Either the policy has totally shifted, or I got a fascist checkout woman. But when I refused to by the 5p bags-for-life, I nearly got thrown out the shop. I didn’t really see the point, we only do a real ASDA shop once every three months, and you can’t use them on-line (where they will happily use a bag per yoghurt).

Then I got told off for not filling a plastic bag enough. I rather foolishly thought it wise not to put fruit and veg in the same bag as raw meat. but apparently if I do insist on destroying the planet I should at least do it with ripped plastic bags and cross contamination of foodstuffs.

Going Green

The world does appare to be changing; where a few years ago we were collecting all our tins in boxes, driving to the back of an empty car-park and resolutely sorting out our glass colours, we can now get the council to do it for us. ASDA (and the others) are reducing the number of bags they use; which can only be seen as a good thing. It’s just we where somewhat bullied out of the recycling habit.

I suppose I should be happy, stop moaning and remember how hard it use to be - It’s my in-built dislike for being told what to do that’s making me upset. Next time I might just unpack all the food on the conveyor belt and carry it back to the car in my hemp ruck sack.

It’s been a while since I actually finished a book. I think it depends a lot on my reading habbit; and just how much time I give myself to catch the train in the morning.

Stuart Marconi’s Pies and Prejudice is a book about the north, as in the north of the country - north of Crewe as it turns out. It’s meant to be a look the north has character too, and isn’t just flat caps and the Hovis music; I’m not convinced it achieves it aim.

Really this book is a Stuart Marconi nostalgia trip: He moved dow south for the glittering radio one thing. Now don’t get me wrong people are entitled to be proud of there roots, and he does a very good job of getting all the bits of the north and explaining the subtle differences that make us all unique - I’m from Liverpool which Marconi rightly puts as not really a northern town, more of an enclave of its own.

It’s just later in the book, he gets all sentimental and starts rambling about random music facts and bits of history that really don’t bring much to it. It has the sense of a book that the author could have finished after about 150 pages; but you can’t sell books that short so his editor made him add bits onto the end.

There is a whole bit at the bigging which tries (and I suspect fails) to persuade southerners that this book isn’t just a northern thing; again I think the publishers made him do it. The reality is why would you want to read this if you are from the south, it’s like me wanting to read about the history of Sussex - first I’d have to find it on a map.

the BBC are picking up on just how oppressive this country is when it comes to people exceising there rights to take photographs.

Despite 100’s of security cameras all over cities and towns in this country, someone taking a photograph can be subjected to victimization and unlawful stop and search. all in the name of anti-terrorism apparently.

As one of the comments on the BBC blog points out.

“In the modern world, it is possible to take thousands of snaps with camera phones or more discreet cameras, so why would any aspiring terrorist need to use an obvious camera?”

more sinister is the reaction to this post

“Take some photos of the police who are trying to stop you taking photos. Then tell them you are within your rights to do so and you will not delete them and if they arrest you then you will pursue a case of wrongful arrest. They really hate that.”

Ruth said - “That sounds like a way to get beaten up”, and I agree, but isn’t that how you end up in a police state? How many police beatings actually have to happen, or can you just have the inferance of them to control behaviour beyond the stated laws? and remember it’s all done to protect us.

I’m off to photograph some buildings in built up areas. I wonder what would happen if I started taking photos of security cameras?