Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Tuesday, 6 August 2013
Nocti
I went to a restaurant in Berlin with some folk.
It is called Nocti Vagus. It is (apparently) Latin and means "dark wanderer".
It is the second most bizarre thing I've ever done, most of the things I do most people find bizarre, and the most bizarre thing is top secret.
It is dark. Not dark as in nighttime dark, not dark as in shut your eyes dark, not even dark as in Darth Vader's helmet after filling the coal bunker dark. It's dark. Dark as in there is absolutely no light at all. You have to go through a delighting chamber to get in so there is never any light. If you have a phone you have to turn it off, not just put it on silent. No lighters. No luminous watches.
It's dark. You don't get accustomed to the darkness, there isn't a chink of light. After not long you either panic and leave, or shut your eyes because they're totally redundant.
I chose the "surprise" menu. They don't tell you what it will be, nor do they tell you what you had afterwards.
So. You go into the delighting chamber. The door closes. The inner door opens and the waitress, Sylvia, says hello. You put your hand on her shoulder, everyone else puts their hands on yours, and so on, like a dark conga. And she "shows" you to your table.
She gets you as far as the chair and you're on your own. You fall over, drop most of the cutlery on the floor, and listen to the sound of glasses and bottles falling off the table onto the floor. Sylvia arrives with a basket of bread with a bowl of dip in it. You have to guess where she's put it. You pour wine by either putting your fingers inside the glass and waiting until they get wet, whilst listening to the other guests go "bollocks" as they tip it straight into their laps, or you do what I did and neck a load from the bottle before passing it on.
The food arrives. You poke it with a fork, then bring the empty fork to your mouth a few times before shoving your hand in it to try to feel what it is. Nobody can see you so you either grab a handful of it and nom it, or starve.
You chat. Mainly about it being dark. I asked Sylvia how she manages. She said she found it weird at first but got used to it after only a week or so.
Starter was probably sauerkraut with some gubbins. Main course, I call "Steak a la Main et les Doigts". Pudding had jelly in it, and sorbet, and ice cream, and that shirt is going straight in the bin.
When she offered coffee I chickened out and went back to the bar. You go into the delighting chamber, she closes the inner door, opens the outer one, and you are in dim light.
You then see Sylvia for the first time. "Hello, Sylvia!" I say. "Bugger me, you're blind!" You can tell blind people usually, their eyes are sort of not seeing, kind of thing.
Sylvia informs me that she isn't quite blind. She can see some shapes. And that's why she got used to it after a week. I never would. Some of the waiting staff are totally blind, some not quite. I was totally reliant on blind people for a couple of hours. And she was serving 31 other people in there as well, I found out later. Humbling.
Next time you see a blind person, spare a thought. Maybe offer to help them across the road? You've got a hell of an advantage.
It is called Nocti Vagus. It is (apparently) Latin and means "dark wanderer".
It is the second most bizarre thing I've ever done, most of the things I do most people find bizarre, and the most bizarre thing is top secret.
It is dark. Not dark as in nighttime dark, not dark as in shut your eyes dark, not even dark as in Darth Vader's helmet after filling the coal bunker dark. It's dark. Dark as in there is absolutely no light at all. You have to go through a delighting chamber to get in so there is never any light. If you have a phone you have to turn it off, not just put it on silent. No lighters. No luminous watches.
It's dark. You don't get accustomed to the darkness, there isn't a chink of light. After not long you either panic and leave, or shut your eyes because they're totally redundant.
I chose the "surprise" menu. They don't tell you what it will be, nor do they tell you what you had afterwards.
So. You go into the delighting chamber. The door closes. The inner door opens and the waitress, Sylvia, says hello. You put your hand on her shoulder, everyone else puts their hands on yours, and so on, like a dark conga. And she "shows" you to your table.
She gets you as far as the chair and you're on your own. You fall over, drop most of the cutlery on the floor, and listen to the sound of glasses and bottles falling off the table onto the floor. Sylvia arrives with a basket of bread with a bowl of dip in it. You have to guess where she's put it. You pour wine by either putting your fingers inside the glass and waiting until they get wet, whilst listening to the other guests go "bollocks" as they tip it straight into their laps, or you do what I did and neck a load from the bottle before passing it on.
The food arrives. You poke it with a fork, then bring the empty fork to your mouth a few times before shoving your hand in it to try to feel what it is. Nobody can see you so you either grab a handful of it and nom it, or starve.
You chat. Mainly about it being dark. I asked Sylvia how she manages. She said she found it weird at first but got used to it after only a week or so.
Starter was probably sauerkraut with some gubbins. Main course, I call "Steak a la Main et les Doigts". Pudding had jelly in it, and sorbet, and ice cream, and that shirt is going straight in the bin.
When she offered coffee I chickened out and went back to the bar. You go into the delighting chamber, she closes the inner door, opens the outer one, and you are in dim light.
You then see Sylvia for the first time. "Hello, Sylvia!" I say. "Bugger me, you're blind!" You can tell blind people usually, their eyes are sort of not seeing, kind of thing.
Sylvia informs me that she isn't quite blind. She can see some shapes. And that's why she got used to it after a week. I never would. Some of the waiting staff are totally blind, some not quite. I was totally reliant on blind people for a couple of hours. And she was serving 31 other people in there as well, I found out later. Humbling.
Next time you see a blind person, spare a thought. Maybe offer to help them across the road? You've got a hell of an advantage.
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Microchip
Microchip are a company who manufacture semiconductors, mainly Programmable Interface Controllers (PICs).
In the old days, they were great.
They are now not. NOBODY in the trade will argue with this.
They have replaced their awesome MPLAB with some devil-spawned open-source Java Netbeans pile of dogvomit written by children in garages which is not fit for purpose.
This is not a problem in itself, us engineers ignore it.
But NOW they've withdrawn the awesome product in favour of said dogvomit.
It doesn't work. I don't mean some bits of it don't work, I mean it's an unadulterated pile of irredeemable crap which PROPERLY doesn't work.
If you google it, you ONLY get hits ranging from disappointing to dogvomit.
I suspect, nay KNOW, that this once brilliant, innovative company are run by complete fuckwits, money men, and folk who don't give a shit if nobody uses their products any more.
I hate this world because of that.
In the old days, they were great.
They are now not. NOBODY in the trade will argue with this.
They have replaced their awesome MPLAB with some devil-spawned open-source Java Netbeans pile of dogvomit written by children in garages which is not fit for purpose.
This is not a problem in itself, us engineers ignore it.
But NOW they've withdrawn the awesome product in favour of said dogvomit.
It doesn't work. I don't mean some bits of it don't work, I mean it's an unadulterated pile of irredeemable crap which PROPERLY doesn't work.
If you google it, you ONLY get hits ranging from disappointing to dogvomit.
I suspect, nay KNOW, that this once brilliant, innovative company are run by complete fuckwits, money men, and folk who don't give a shit if nobody uses their products any more.
I hate this world because of that.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Women Bishops
I've been accused of being batshit crazy.
I can't argue with that, obviously. Beer or no beer, I talk a lot of shit a lot of the time. Usually I do it to wind people up.
Here's a subject which can't be taken seriously: Women Bishops.
It's a no-brainer. The Church of England, founded by Henry the Eight so he could legally decapitate a few of his wives for only having daughters, is a proud institution. It's ratified by the Royal Family, descended mainly from people we've spent the last 1000 years at war with, and is based upon centuries upon centuries of music with no discernible consecutive fifths, blokes with frocks, lads with their nadgers cut off so as not to ruin their voices, war, guilt, and the alienation of women. To be honest, pretty much like golf or Freemasonry, apart from the nadger thing.
The main anti-women-bishop argument is that the twelve apostles were men.
Let me help with that. The twelve apostles were Jewish. Half of them were fictitious. Three of them could write and one of those was a doctor. One of them (Judas Iscariot) was a bit of a git and would have shagged his own mother for a fiver.
So no, there is no argument for all Bishops being men. If we have Bishops I suggest that they fit the criteria described heretofore, and that all of them are now dead.
HOWEVER. There is no argument for Bishops. The C of E (Henry's club) has more money than the whole of Africa. Jesus said a lot of stuff (mainly obvious things like there's no pockets in a shroud, camels and needle's eyes, mustard seeds, that kind of thing) and there's no doubt at all that if you follow the "teachings" of the bible you'll vote for Ed Miliband and everyone will get a free unicorn.
Jesus never said "let there be huge buildings and please can you go and murder a load of brown people".
There is a God. I think so. You don't have to agree, and if you don't, you're so more than welcome to ignore anything I say, I will think highly of you if you do. But this is just what I think. This.
We live upon a tiny planet on the Western Spiral Arm of this galaxy, the Milky Way (named after a choclit bar, so it must be good). We're in a tiny solar system (where we go round a hot thing we call the sun, look outside and you might see it), of which there are billions, in this galaxy. Billions, like 1,000,000,000 multiplied by quite a lot.
We are one of billions (see above) of those galaxies in the universe. And there may (or may not) be other universes.
Scientists (Stephen Hawkins, Prof Brian Cox, etc.) think (and not like "I'm pissed, I think this" but more "here's a shedload of data, it's bloody likely that this is so" kind of think) that the Big Bang occurred at the beginning of recognisable time and dumped these billions upon billions of things out of another thing about the size of a Bird's Eye garden pea, fresh as the moment that the pod went pop.
That's what I call a bang.
And whatever did that is pretty awesome, and if you want to call it God, then do. I do.
We understand shit. Richard Dawkins understands less shit than that. He couldn't find his own arse with a map, a headtorch and a GPS.
If you don't believe in "God", and I'm not talking about beardy sky fairies, then I reckon your're pretty much up yourself.
Christians, Islamists, and any petty clubmakers may disagree.
See this face?
Thanks for reading.
I can't argue with that, obviously. Beer or no beer, I talk a lot of shit a lot of the time. Usually I do it to wind people up.
Here's a subject which can't be taken seriously: Women Bishops.
It's a no-brainer. The Church of England, founded by Henry the Eight so he could legally decapitate a few of his wives for only having daughters, is a proud institution. It's ratified by the Royal Family, descended mainly from people we've spent the last 1000 years at war with, and is based upon centuries upon centuries of music with no discernible consecutive fifths, blokes with frocks, lads with their nadgers cut off so as not to ruin their voices, war, guilt, and the alienation of women. To be honest, pretty much like golf or Freemasonry, apart from the nadger thing.
The main anti-women-bishop argument is that the twelve apostles were men.
Let me help with that. The twelve apostles were Jewish. Half of them were fictitious. Three of them could write and one of those was a doctor. One of them (Judas Iscariot) was a bit of a git and would have shagged his own mother for a fiver.
So no, there is no argument for all Bishops being men. If we have Bishops I suggest that they fit the criteria described heretofore, and that all of them are now dead.
HOWEVER. There is no argument for Bishops. The C of E (Henry's club) has more money than the whole of Africa. Jesus said a lot of stuff (mainly obvious things like there's no pockets in a shroud, camels and needle's eyes, mustard seeds, that kind of thing) and there's no doubt at all that if you follow the "teachings" of the bible you'll vote for Ed Miliband and everyone will get a free unicorn.
Jesus never said "let there be huge buildings and please can you go and murder a load of brown people".
There is a God. I think so. You don't have to agree, and if you don't, you're so more than welcome to ignore anything I say, I will think highly of you if you do. But this is just what I think. This.
We live upon a tiny planet on the Western Spiral Arm of this galaxy, the Milky Way (named after a choclit bar, so it must be good). We're in a tiny solar system (where we go round a hot thing we call the sun, look outside and you might see it), of which there are billions, in this galaxy. Billions, like 1,000,000,000 multiplied by quite a lot.
We are one of billions (see above) of those galaxies in the universe. And there may (or may not) be other universes.
Scientists (Stephen Hawkins, Prof Brian Cox, etc.) think (and not like "I'm pissed, I think this" but more "here's a shedload of data, it's bloody likely that this is so" kind of think) that the Big Bang occurred at the beginning of recognisable time and dumped these billions upon billions of things out of another thing about the size of a Bird's Eye garden pea, fresh as the moment that the pod went pop.
That's what I call a bang.
And whatever did that is pretty awesome, and if you want to call it God, then do. I do.
We understand shit. Richard Dawkins understands less shit than that. He couldn't find his own arse with a map, a headtorch and a GPS.
If you don't believe in "God", and I'm not talking about beardy sky fairies, then I reckon your're pretty much up yourself.
Christians, Islamists, and any petty clubmakers may disagree.
See this face?
Thanks for reading.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
996 divided by 12.
996/12?
Start with the 9. 12 doesn't go into 9, so you get 0. NO times does 12 go into 9. Write 0.
0
So, keep going, use the 9. 99. 12 goes into 99, definitely, 99 is bigger than 12.
1 12 is 12. 2 12's are 24. Etc. 8 12's are 96. 9 12's are 108, so it's bloody 8. Not 9.
Write 8. After the 0.
08
Now, 8 12's are 96. So take away that 96 from the 99 you tried to divide it into. 99 take away 96. It is 3.
So replace the 99 (which you already tried) with the 3.
So, instead of the 996, you have 36. Replace the 99 with the 3. 996, replace the 99 with 3. 996,99(3)6.
Now you have 36.
1 12 is 12, 2 12's are 24, 3 12's are, fuck me, 36! So it's 3. Write it. 3. Write it after the 08.
083
083 is the same as 00000083 or 83. It's bloody goddamned fucking well 83.
There.
Start with the 9. 12 doesn't go into 9, so you get 0. NO times does 12 go into 9. Write 0.
0
So, keep going, use the 9. 99. 12 goes into 99, definitely, 99 is bigger than 12.
1 12 is 12. 2 12's are 24. Etc. 8 12's are 96. 9 12's are 108, so it's bloody 8. Not 9.
Write 8. After the 0.
08
Now, 8 12's are 96. So take away that 96 from the 99 you tried to divide it into. 99 take away 96. It is 3.
So replace the 99 (which you already tried) with the 3.
So, instead of the 996, you have 36. Replace the 99 with the 3. 996, replace the 99 with 3. 996,
Now you have 36.
1 12 is 12, 2 12's are 24, 3 12's are, fuck me, 36! So it's 3. Write it. 3. Write it after the 08.
083
083 is the same as 00000083 or 83. It's bloody goddamned fucking well 83.
There.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Goad
When I were a lad, we went to pubs.
It was a while back. There were folk there called "skinheads". Their raison d'etre was to start a fight.
You could ignore them. Best thing. Tossers.
But if they wanted "bovver", they'd goad. They'd pick. And wind you up. Until you just got so fucking fed up with it you'd start. Then they'd give you a kicking.
That's not free speech. That's just fucking stupid.
Please, people. Free speech is where you say what you want.
Goading is where you get a bite. And a kicking. And if you want, you can call the Plod.
Fuck's sake.
GROW UP. JUST GROW UP.
It was a while back. There were folk there called "skinheads". Their raison d'etre was to start a fight.
You could ignore them. Best thing. Tossers.
But if they wanted "bovver", they'd goad. They'd pick. And wind you up. Until you just got so fucking fed up with it you'd start. Then they'd give you a kicking.
That's not free speech. That's just fucking stupid.
Please, people. Free speech is where you say what you want.
Goading is where you get a bite. And a kicking. And if you want, you can call the Plod.
Fuck's sake.
GROW UP. JUST GROW UP.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Deport Him
He's a hate-filled bastard. He has a chip on his shoulder.
Apparently he hasn't committed a crime. Well, if anti-semitism isn't a crime, that's a bit daft. Anyone who doesn't agree with his misguided religious beliefs gets ridiculed.
He incites people to civil disobedience.
He singles out minority groups and has a go at them.
So what if he hasn't committed a crime in the UK? That's simply a problem with UK law. Change it.
So send him to Jordan or somewhere. See if I care.
Who mentioned Abu Qatada? I was talking about Old Holborn.
SNORK!
Apparently he hasn't committed a crime. Well, if anti-semitism isn't a crime, that's a bit daft. Anyone who doesn't agree with his misguided religious beliefs gets ridiculed.
He incites people to civil disobedience.
He singles out minority groups and has a go at them.
So what if he hasn't committed a crime in the UK? That's simply a problem with UK law. Change it.
So send him to Jordan or somewhere. See if I care.
Who mentioned Abu Qatada? I was talking about Old Holborn.
SNORK!
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