Precision Handling

Brain strain

2010-08-05T04:27:00.003+01:00

I look up from Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale on the laptop to see that the white lino floor of the kitchenette is undulating. No, more than that, it's writhing. A quick mental check of the drugs I've taken recently confirms, only 2 beers, so WTF? Oh, I remember, I'd run out of dishwasher detergent so had improvised with the liquid stuff, seemed a good idea at the time but isn't, the dishwasher is pumping out foam by the gallon.

Remember, I screw up so you don't have to.

Living la vida loca

2010-07-27T01:39:00.004+01:00

I've known Charlie since we were 2. Now he's a corporate litigator in mid-town Manhattan; when Consolidated sues Amalgamated Charlie's in there chopping someone off at the knees. Saving widows and orphans? Don't be silly, they're poor. At lunch we discuss my legal encounter of the previous day, which was a phone call from Carlos' lawyer asking, can I be in court tomorrow to do my bit as a character witness. Well with more than 24 hours notice it would have been a pleasure, but I'm in NY. Carlos doesn't know anyone else respectable (trust me on this, I honestly am respectable, really boringly so) and I wanted to help; he is a, er, shall we say less polished version of my brother and it would be a shame for him to go away.

Useful

2010-07-01T22:40:00.003+01:00

I'm spending a few days with my mother; my brothers and I have been taking turns doing this since our father died earlier this year. Of course, the rota is approximate, since life gets in the way (not as much as death I suppose), but that's fine. We even managed to arrange the funeral without fighting. The point is not to be useful (fixing windows, throwing away unnecessary correspondence, suggesting that maybe that bill should be paid, doing it myself if the reaction is too hostile) as it is just to be there and reassure her that we don't plan to put her in the poorhouse ("Mum I don't think they have poorhouses any more").

Anyway we're not here to be useful we're here to be interesting. Aren't we?

Feel the fear

2010-06-29T16:29:00.003+01:00

I watched the England-Germany game until it got to 4-1, then stopped. It was embarrassing, like watching an animal that's been run over twitch and die. I know nothing about football and could understand less of what the manager said. That is, he sounded scary and impressive, but while what came out of his mouth was grammatically and syntactically correct, it conveyed no meaning, especially after I thought about it. Is that why the English players looked so terrified?

"Christ what does he want us to do now?" "I've no idea but I'm really really afraid and I'm going to cry, please will that nice referee blow his whistle."

Oh btw I'm taking a break from poker. Recently I've encountered some significantly bad luck (no excuse, the paradox of the gambler's ruin is that even a skilled player is highly likely to encounter a terrible run of luck some time) and this has made me play much worse, tentative yet rigid. Let's see if I can stick to that resolution.

Psychometrics

2010-05-02T14:42:00.003+01:00

Precision Handling is dedicated to public service and the extermination of adverbs. In the first vein here is one in an occasional series of personality tests.

You are a science nerd if when you overhear people discussing chemistry it disappoints you that the subject turns out to be sexual attraction and not the stuff involving, you know, actual chemicals that smell and explode.

Ash and cash

2010-04-19T11:33:00.003+01:00

Mme and Mlle Inkspot, plus girl cousin, went to New York to have some fun and are stuck there by the Icelandic earthfart. Of all the thousands (millions?) of people in this situation they are some of the luckiest; they have grandparents to stay with and a beautiful (especially in the spring) city for entertainment. God knows how long they'll be there, so I had an idea: enroll them in school. Precisely, put them in Hoboken High School (the grandparents are in Hoboken, across the Hudson from midtown Manhattan; when planes crash into the World Trade Center or land on the river my father-in-law doesn't have to move from his desk to photograph it). I read that HHS is New Jersey's second most improved public school of 2009, so they should acquire valuable life skills such as buying drugs, smuggling boyfriends' weapons past the metal detectors and catching STDs. Completely brilliant though I say it myself. The girls put their feet down at this prospect of re-enacting West Side Story so they're going to a completely reasonable school elsewhere in town, starting today.

And what are the mice doing meanwhile? Playing poker it must be admitted. Last night was a catastrophe, wiping out most of the previous week's gains. Swings and roundabouts, roundabouts and swings.

Second set

2010-03-27T20:46:00.003Z

It's 11-30 and Mlle inkspot (15, and conscious of it) isn't answering her phone. She'd said that a bunch of them were going to Ollie's house so eventually I phone there. No says Ollie's dad, I thought they were at your place.

Eventually she does phone in.

"Where are you, I've been worried?"

"Don't worry dad, we're at Ollie's house."

Oh my god she is totally busted. At least she sounds sober, so above all I'm thrilled at being ahead in parenting tennis, it's the first time.

"Oh my god you are totally busted. At least you sound sober, but I'm cross, this isn't a game you know."

Life at the top

2010-03-09T16:14:00.003Z

To Precision Handling's promotions committee again. I'm there to give the minority view. Well, my view's in the minority and I give it. Maximum Boss comes in. He's meant to be even-handed and impartial and all those other things that nobody ever is and proceeds at once to nobble me. I'm from the same branch of PH and he's particularly supposed not to nobble me.

"I hope you're going to promote Buggins [also from our branch]."

"No I don't think so, the letters are negative [and even libellous]."

"Doesn't matter you should promote him anyway."

This happens in front of everyone so is easy to resist. Which is my point: if you're going to nobble someone shouldn't you at least do so competently? That is, privately, with hints of blackmail? Anyway it didn't work, hurray.

King's Lynn

2010-02-27T18:36:00.003Z

Urgent text: "Dad can i get my cartilidge pierced, ada's mum is taking her."

No you can't. Not until you can spell cartilage anyway. That held her up for 5 seconds, thanks internet, love-15, god you're rubbish at this Inkspot, ffs raise your game. I phone Ada's mum, who is certainly not taking Ada anywhere near a piercing parlour, Ada's been grounded for various teenage-type infractions. 15-all, that's better, I might even break her serve. My real objection is that the idea nauseates me, who cares about that.

"Right i'll get pregnant and do drugs so you'll have a spastic baby to raise. And then i'll get its tongue and belly-button pierced."

Christ it's a bit early for the nuclear option isn't it? 15-30 anyway. So I find internet sources saying how painful it is. There are even more sources saying it's a doddle, 15-40. So no you can't because I say you can't and it's illegal without parental permission until you're 16.

"Right i'll go to kings lynn and get it done illegally, you can get anything illegal in kings lynn."

Game over. But what is this with King's Lynn? It's a completely harmless small port on the east coast of England, miles from anywhere, too dull even for Eliot to write a poem about. How did it get this louche reputation?

Special needs

2010-02-06T22:57:00.002Z

Last week I had an appointment with Arry ("with a haitch") at the gym. He's a strength and conditioning coach; these words have not been part of my life so far. What I was doing on the not-a-bike is irrelevant to Arry who has given me horrible things to do which are as horrible now as they were at the start. I think I hate Arry and want to kill him, only he's a nice guy and Hayley (with the profile and engagement ring) might not like it and I don't want to upset her. So I'll just swipe feebly at his ankles as I try to get up off the floor. The worst thing is the realization that if Arry and Hayley are professors of gym then I am in year 3 (= 2nd grade) and sat at the special needs table. On the other hand I've put on weight so at least I can say to Arry, look how useless your fucking gym is, I'm even fatter than when I started.

Happy new year

2010-01-25T10:39:00.003Z

I've started going to the gym. It is, of course, ghastly and the sort of thing that no sane person would choose to do, except that there was a photograph the other day that left no alternative. First I had to be inducted (induced?) which meant that a trainer person (wonderful profile, I could have looked at it for hours, but an engagement ring too) took 75 minutes explaining the equipment to 4 of us. But if anyone asked, but what should I do personally, me, inkspot, the unproud owner of several chins, oh I haven't got time to answer that. When I go to the US there is a similar gym where I work and there, in the most litigious country in the world, induction means signing a chit promising not to sue if you drop a weight on your foot.

So I've no idea what to do. There's a machine with strings and pulleys and weights and I pull at that until it hurts and then I go to another machine with pedals and handlebars only it's not a bike and I press buttons until it tells me I'm doing something called cardio. It also asks me how old I am. Damned impudent, and I'm so vain that I lie to it. Yes, I lie to a fucking machine, that's how vain I am. Cardio is 85% but of what there's no indication (fat burning is 60% if that helps). Anyway if I can read it right I'm usually beyond cardio so, given how I feel, it's 85% of dead. The only funny thing is that the not-a-bike is situated in front of rather a cleverly lit mirror so while you're getting all red and sweaty and dizzy you can look at yourself and pretend that you can see a cheekbone.

Winter scene

2009-12-17T19:54:00.003Z

I live in a particularly desirable part of a picture-postcard town. Well, I say desirable; it's certainly desired, although it looks like a cheap slum and is an expensive slum. It's next to a park and river and nature reserve, all adorable. There's a car park too, for the convenience of all. Including the doggers. When I take the pug for her late-night constitutional there has usually been a car, driving slowly around, or parked and signalling in various ways with its lights. (OK, maybe I'm wrong, but then explain the empty Viagra packets scattered around in the morning.)

Except that recently the police have cleared out the doggers and replaced them with drug dealers. Please officer, can we have our doggers back?

Setting sun

2009-11-11T06:58:00.002Z

There is a conference this week in Tokyo for the 60th birthday of someone who is both a friend (older!) and distinguished; it's a pleasure and an honour to be here. Not all of the organizers are totally efficient, so I've been staying in a couple of different places, including Shibuya. This is full of love hotels and fashionably dressed teenagers, though I don't know who the love hotels are full of. Not me anyway.

I tre nani

2009-10-29T10:10:00.005Z

Kinosaki is famous for its hot springs. The food here is excellent, the local speciality being crab. Otoh you will also be given eggs cooked in the springs; they prove that water at 80 degrees is insufficient to boil an egg. Avoid. A further "plus" is being accommodated in traditional Japanese inns, which includes the traditional cramming of 3 adults into a room fit for one. A crone comes in the evening to arrange the mattresses in an orderly row, like something out of an economy version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. However, there is no Snow White. I've discussed this with the other dwarves and we've agreed to advertise the position. Ladies, feel free to apply. And when I say position I mean positions of course, there's no need to stop at one. Why not seven? "But 3 into 7 doesn't go" you reply.

Maybe, but we'll have fun trying.

Mellow fruitfulness

2009-10-17T16:36:00.004+01:00

More interesting things happen to me in, or in relation to, Bristol than I have any right to expect. On Wednesday I met Lulu Labonne for lunch (very good smoked salmon, very, er, experimental fruit salad, my responsibility). In the East Village she would be unremarked, in Bristol her black on black was deeply ironic, as is she. Her shopping included a green anti-personnel device that she claimed was a vegetable, but there are more edible-looking things in the Horrible Mediaeval Weapons section at the V&A.

The next evening Mrs Pouncer ("Clarissa darling") met me in the Isambard, the Paddington station pub. Frankly, the place wasn't good enough.

"Vodka and vermouth please".

"Sorry, we don't do mixed drinks".

"But this is a pub isn't it?"

"Yes, but we don't do mixed drinks, they're separate franchises."

Trust me, nothing on this blog is invented, it's all true. (Well, not quite, I invented Carla Bruni, but Sarkozy is real, he's a horrible little psychopath.)

So we moved on to dinner.

"It's got to be kosher."

"OK, there's a Chinese restaurant, Chinese food is kosher isn't it?"

I've long chosen to believe this, maybe I got it from Calvin Trillin, and have taught it to my daughter. Even sweet barbecued pork buns are kosher in a Chinese restaurant, there's a Talmudic dispensation or something.

"For god's sake Inky, they used rectified lard."

So we went Indian ("they're kosher").

Classical education

2009-10-04T22:28:00.004+01:00

In a recent New York Review of Books (no link, it's a paysite) Glen Bowersock reviews two books on classical Greek sex between men and boys. He starts by explaining the words erastes as lover and eromenos as beloved. These are the usual euphemisms, but eros connotes physical love, i.e. sex. So in fact erastes = fucker and eromenos = (male) fucked, but the NYRB doesn't like the f-word. Most of the article is taken up with a detailed discussion of the evidence for exactly what happened (intercrural rather than anal apparently, and it goes on from there). Thank you Professor, it's your job to know this sort of thing. I must admit, I like grown women but this stuff functioned well as a form of higher porn. Oh, and the Romans were no better than the Greeks; google coitum plenum et optabilem to see what I mean.

So why on earth did Thomas Arnold choose classical Greek and Latin as the basis of an English boys' boarding school education? Lytton Strachey is hilarious on this subject in his Eminent Victorians, explaining that classics was what Arnold knew, so he would, wouldn't he? But Strachey was himself as gay as a Bristol pub, so why didn't he comment on the fact of Arnold institutionalizing a system where boys, of the same age as the eromenoi, were closeted, as it were, with teachers of the same age as the erastes? It is surprising that responsibility for a correct analysis should be left to this blog, but Precision Handling does not shirk its obligations.

Lost weekend

2009-09-28T16:34:00.004+01:00

The poker club meets in the back room of a pub 1/2 hr away. Here's Carlos; he doesn't have a heart of gold, but I'm solid with him because I found him an expert witness (a maxillary surgeon) for his assault case. The question is whether the other guy's smashed face is due to encountering a wall or Carlos. "It's OK Inkspot, the police are probably going to drop the case because the other bloke has a terrible record, but thanks anyway. Really, thanks a lot." It cost me a 5 minute phone call to a surgical friend, but the British class system is as rigid as ever and Carlos has the wrong contacts. Except for me.

I played until too late, so Saturday was a bit of a write-off, I was too tired to be a useful family member and the morning was a bit tense. Sunday we had lunch with friends, he's gentle, she's beautiful. They have a lake in the grounds, so after lunch ("That lamb was delicious, you could really taste the innocence", stolen from Arlington Hynes at bogol, thank you Arlington, it was a great success) we went swimming. Despite the Indian summer it was too cold to stay in long, and the children were too intelligent to go in at all. Dinner was chips from the Turkish chip van; you don't get that in the country.

Me me me

2009-09-19T11:08:00.004+01:00

Some time ago Gadjo was kind enough to tag me; it's taken this long to think of anything to say.

1. Telling people that I'm a mathematician stops most conversations. It's easy to change the subject: "That's a fabulous bracelet, it looks like something worn by a warrior princess". Some women like being compared to warrior princesses, but real warrior princesses tend to think I'm a drip.

2. One of my ambitions is to introduce my brother (divorced, single, straight, glamorous, good-looking) to warrior princesses, such as Miss Whiplash and Nursemyra. He spends his time going to horrible places full of angry people (Iraq, Kosovo, Darfur, Burundi, ...) and trying to fix their lives. Ladies, form a disorderly queue please.

3. OK, settle down, more math now. It was chemistry that got me into science in the first place; my dad gave me a chemistry set when I was 8 or 9 and it was the best present ever. The experience of doing math is like that of doing chemistry; things (chemicals or ideas) react and transform, creating new colours and smells in ways that are at first unexpected, then explicable. Without the unexpectedness it would be dull, without the explanation stupid. And of course it brings pleasure, at its best like a rocket shooting up your spine and exploding in your brain.

4. When I had just finished my PhD I first met my US contemporaries at a conference and was blown away by finding out how much more they knew than I did. That was the single biggest intellectual event of my life till now, because of the way it overturned my view of what it means to be a mathematician and taught me that knowledge, deep and broad, and creativity are inseparable.

Eat your heart out Jacques Cousteau

2009-09-16T07:15:00.005+01:00

Last night I went swimming with whales. As one went by I squirted mustard in its ear. That made the whale thrash around a whole lot and I woke up at 4-30 in a Bristol hotel room.

Bastard whale, now I'm going to be useless at work today.

Oh btw Freudians, it was mustard, it was yellow.

Exotic job

2009-09-05T17:24:00.003+01:00

"Dad, why don't you have an exotic job?"

"Well, I'm a mathematician, that's pretty exotic compared to most people. But what do you mean by exotic job?"

"Oh, it's where you wear a suit and take the train really early and work in a bank and come back really late [and bring back shedloads of money], that's an exotic job. Like my friends' dads have."

Damned private school.

"Look, if it weren't for mathematics those guys wouldn't be making any money. And it's really beautiful, plus it underlies everything else in this world, from electronics to our understanding of the spread of disease. You wouldn't be texting your friends without that. And you can't even tie your shoelaces without understanding math. [Memo to self: verify this last one, it's a bit dodgy.] And anyway you should always be proud of your own family and stick up for them."

There might have been some finger-wagging during this.

"Yes daddy yes daddy."

A few weeks later the school play approaches.

"Look darling, I don't want to embarrass you at the school play, so would you like me to wear a suit?"

I do actually have one, I got married in it. I've a horrible fear it might have shrunk meanwhile.

"Oh no dad, don't bother, everyone knows you haven't got an exotic job."

Random acts of genius

2009-08-30T17:49:00.003+01:00

We're having the Vegetarians over for dinner tonight. What do you give people who won't eat most of the things you like yourselves? I know, fruit salad. Dead easy, buy fruit (nice fruit), chop it up, add some more juice if necessary. And, most important of course, good-quality liquor. I was reaching for the rum bottle (Lamb's Navy, none of that pointless white stuff) when insight hit.

A couple of years ago I made sloe gin. It was, and is, undrinkable, with a pH of about 1, so that after stripping the enamel from your teeth it burns a hole in your stomach. But it is god's gift to a fruit salad. More precisely, half a bottle of it is. My gift, rather, because I am fucking brilliant.

Spinnenreinheit

2009-08-17T08:43:00.003+01:00

There is the most beautiful spider's web that I've ever seen in the kitchen this morning. It is a perfect taut disc, about 18" across, with a spider smaller than my little fingernail at the centre. It's anchored, almost invisibly despite the sunlight, at various spots up to 4 feet away. There should be flies hovering around a piece of over-ripe fruit (not unknown at Castle Inkspot) as prey. It's a shame that I can't share this with my family, but Mme and Mlle Inkspot both have a horror, atavistic and unfaked, of spiders and their webs. I spend a certain amount of time being summoned to deal with them, and a corresponding amount of time issuing loud, cheerful and authoritative pronouncements that the spider has been cleared away, despite my not having been able to find the thing.

Last night we were outside in our Israeli neighbour's garden. I was cold, so borrowed his coat. Black cashmere, made in Poland, designed by Hugo Boss, who also designed the Gestapo uniforms.

A class act

2009-08-04T03:50:00.002+01:00

The Henry Gates/policeman incident has been forgotten by now, so it's time to post about it. The US press covered it purely in terms of racism, of course, but forget that, it's about class. In those terms you have a Harvard professor, who from the age of 18 has been one of the most privileged people in the world (Yale, Cambridge, Harvard) confronting a working-class cop. The line "Do you know who I am?" and the insistence on producing a Harvard ID (which indicates rank in the university) as opposed to a Mass driver's license (anyone can have one of those) can only be understood as "Fuck you, I'm famous and you're a prole" followed by "Fuck you, this prole is taking you in." Mind you, I'm not criticizing Harvard, this is what Harvard is for and what the world expects of it.

Turning the pike

2009-07-28T01:07:00.002+01:00

Driving from the Lincoln Tunnel to Princeton in the early morning leaves the sun rising, red and raw and sore, in your rear-view mirror. Newark airport is still closed, so the first noticeable feature is the sweet smell of long-chain hydrocarbons given off by the oil refinery at Elizabeth. At night this is a beautiful sight; it's illuminated in a way and to an extent that it would look ridiculous as a fairy castle, but it is redeemed by its functionality. The road at this point, the New Jersey Turnpike, is well maintained, not the pot-holed horror that represents the average US highway such as Route 1, which I take for the second half of the trip. To know this, imagine the M1 full of holes with the number of lanes varying randomly from 2 to 4 and with traffic lights every 3/4 mile. And with the drivers obeying the highway code of their planet of origin.

State of mind

2009-07-22T12:08:00.002+01:00

New Jersey is a bit of a flop really, next to New York but not New York, full of swamps (state bird: the mosquito), smelly industry (my father-in-law) and questionable businessmen (don't ask my father-in-law any questions). All in all, not really a tourist destination. Especially in July, when you can leave an air-conditioned building at noon and have the experience, as disgusting as it is alarming, of water vapour condensing on your body. So we're not here as tourists, obviously. Mlle Inkspot comes to go crazy in shopping malls, Mme I to remind herself that 3,500 miles is not necessarily too far from her parents and I to pursue Precision Handling's interests in Princeton, a town whose smugness is less noticeable only than its dullness.

Go where?

2009-06-26T15:39:00.003+01:00

Paddington is an exquisite terminus, maybe even sumptuous. However, the people running it have the mean habit of refusing to reveal where their trains are leaving from until 5 minutes before departure. At the best of times this precipitates a rush among the would-be passengers that is unworthy of the surroundings. Moreover, I found a new twist to this on Wednesday. If, as I did, you misread the departure board (for the 9-30 to Bristol Temple Meads, if that adds to the piquancy) you find that there is neither means nor time to retrieve the situation: in the wrong part of the station none of the information you need is displayed, and none of the staff know anything either. Of course, this didn't matter in the slightest; it was only a train, and I took the next one.
But when I was a boy you could expect station staff to know about their trains, and staff in a bookshop to know about their stock, whereas now any such hope is regarded as eccentric, or even unreasonable. It wasn't as if I wanted detailed recommendations ("The 12-30 is an excellent train, sir, you won't go wrong with that. And the claret in the dining car is really most drinkable, but the zinfandel is suspect, I don't think it's been cellared properly"), but they knew nothing. Not their fault, clearly their management intends them to know nothing, but who gains by this?

Return of the native

2009-06-19T13:09:00.004+01:00

Last week I had a free day in Kyoto (fabulous place, deserves better than this blog, too hot for tourism) and another in Sapporo (fabulous weather, too dull for tourism). Present-buying was a success: Mitsouko for Mme Inkspot, some junior perfume with an embarrassing name for Mlle I. And the trip back was as unghastly as possible, despite the check-in staff in Sapporo going to a great deal of courteous trouble in an attempt to send me to London and my bag to Paris. [Warning: plug follows.] Air France was a pleasure, with free champagne even in cattle class and some movies well worth watching, despite the tiny screen. I'd thought for ages that I'd seen La Dolce Vita, but that was the sort of self-delusion that leads Jeffrey Archer to believe that he really has an Oxford degree. After all, every gentleman has seen it, and I'm a gentleman, so I've seen it, even though I can't remember exactly when. But it's fabulous, of course, with loads of gorgeous actresses whom I had trouble distinguishing, I must admit. OK, Anita Ekberg is blonde, but she starts off not speaking Italian, and then she does speak it, so whoa, is this the same person? Maybe I need new spectacles.

Actually I'm too harsh on Sapporo. I had some outstanding food there, including sea-urchin (uni), which I like a lot even though it doesn't look like anything you'd want to eat. Well, to be frank, it looks like something you'd definitely not want to eat, so the first time is a bit of a trial. But subsequent times are a joy. It's a bit expensive, but the Japanese, although they'll only pay (me) for an economy airfare, are otherwise generous with expenses, with no nonsense about receipts. Instead, you're met on day one with a thick wedge of high-denomination banknotes, so there's plenty left over for the acquisition of a gentleman's requisites.

Those things

2009-06-11T14:12:00.003+01:00

The role of chairman at a conference is simple: at the start of a lecture, announce the name of the speaker [you should try to get this right] and the title of their talk [ditto], and at the end, say "Let us thank the speaker." Except that this time I did it, I committed the spoonerism that every chairman dreads.

Fortunately the theaker on this occasion had a sense of humour.

Up up and away

2009-06-07T05:19:00.003+01:00

The Docklands Light Railway is an easy way of getting to London City Airport, according to the airport's website and and Transport for London's website. Easy peasy, no hint of engineering works anywhere. So I get off the tube at Bank (the Circle line having already let me down) to find the relevant bit of the DLR apparently closed, for engineering, and an incomprehensible bit of paper advertising a replacement bus service. Well, we all know what those replacements buses are like, you're better off walking. So I took a cab. Except I didn't; at 8 am on a Saturday the City of London is deserted, those bankers don't get out of bed for less than a million, and not at all on weekends. After 20 minutes of waiting and wandering I get one to stop: "Sorry mate [mate? what happened to guv? was I just demoted?] I can't get you there, all the roads are closed, I've just come from the East and I've seen it." Fuck fuck and double-fuck, I've got a plane to catch and a connexion to make in Schiphol.

How can they close off an airport and not tell anyone? Has some arse, offended by some slight to religion or ancestors, set off a bomb again? So back into the tube and ask someone in a relevant uniform if I really can't get there. "Oh, take the tube to Plaistow, there are buses running from there". Now this is so clearly insane (Plaistow??) that not even I believe it, so I get off 2 stops later, go to a DLR station and see an actual train driver, the first person to say something coherent and true: "I can take you to Canary Wharf, and there are buses from there." It's my only chance at this point, so I go for it. And at Canary Wharf bugger the buses, there is a cab driver who gets me to the airport in time. Whoof.

OK, rant over, only not quite. Look, I understand that engineering has to happen, but why is every piece of information about it either concealed or invented? If I were some wretched Japanese visitor faced with this depravity I'd never want to return. Whose fault is it? Isn't that pointless buffoon BloJo in charge of TfL, so it's him, isn't it? How can I, in my turn, reduce him to weeping frustration? Can I hire a skilled rentboy to spend the weekend bringing him nearly, but not quite, off? No, that would be too much like Eton. Suggestions please.

Spirit of ecstasy

2009-05-22T12:04:00.003+01:00

The assiduous reader of this blog will recall my account of an attempt to win a prize fellowship at All Souls, the organ through which Oxford University osculates the establishment's fundament. A couple of days ago I found in my spam folder, as will have most of you, an advertisement for Senior Research Fellowships at this same club. Well, it calls itself a college, but it's really a club for the smoothest, smuggest and most complacent bunch of barristers you'll ever find, with a few scholars and intellectuals allowed to tag along. I had to change my underwear, I got so excited: £88K a year, until the age of 67, for "pursuing a programme of research". That's it, no other obligation whatsoever. We all know that means "doing what you like"; even if, like me, you have a serious side, it is the sweetest deal imaginable, so I'm applying, definitely, and I suggest you do the same. Here's the url:

http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/elections/research.php

Performing zeal

2009-05-03T21:14:00.003+01:00

I'd planned this evening to watch Performance (James Fox to Mick Jagger: "You'll look funny when you're 50") in the company of a bottle of Burgundy. But "Dad, dad, can I make you a cocktail!" Don't complain, the alternative is being lectured on the environment by a 14 year-old who takes half-hour showers. However, except for Alexanders, I loathe cocktails, and there was neither brandy nor cream in the house. So we compromised on pastis, which I do like, provided I'm not expected to drink 6 oz of it. Now I'm off to watch Performance without the Burgundy; it'll be better that way, trust me.

Three of a kind

2009-04-29T20:26:00.005+01:00

So far this week I've proved a fucking good theorem (it's what I'm paid for, don't bother congratulating me), I've had an outstanding night at coastal poker and Mrs Pouncer has, graciously, acknowledged the accuracy of my insight into her dress supplier. Weeks don't come much better, short of falling in requited love. The high of each will last for days (weeks for the theorem, sometimes it's months).

Possibly the poker bears further comment. I was in the zone, where you know what's going right and what's going wrong, where things happen without your pushing, where you feel afterwards that you could have done even better if you'd made just a slightly bigger effort, where you know when to be hard and when to be soft. And my opponents were forming a disorderly queue in their enthusiasm to give me all their money; I had them mesmerized. If this sounds smug then I've failed to make my point, which is that these times don't happen often, but they must be recognized and seized when they do.

Global warning

2009-04-05T13:59:00.003+01:00

Today's NY Times has an article describing disintegration of the Antarctic ice shelf. Which reminds me: I spent Friday night playing in a poker tournament in a social club near the coast. The legal situation is hazy, meaning that either we're a bunch of respectable gentlemen doing nobody any harm and the police aren't bothered, or we're a bunch of crims doing nobody else any harm and the police are glad we're not out and about doing crimmy things to others. I've no idea what anybody does for a living; it might be above board. Anyway, work is only referred to as something that's difficult to do when you've been up all night.

I'm older than most of the players; young people are impatient, and think the game is all about winning. That's how it should be; a 20-year-old acting like a 40-year-old is a grim sight. But they are wrong; to get into the prize money you should aim to lose more slowly. As with the coastline: what is managed decline if not losing more slowly? Too bad there's no prize.

Empire of the senseless

2009-03-28T13:02:00.005Z

The metric system is a great invention; not because it makes precise measurement possible (it doesn't, it's the equipment that matters, not the units) but because it makes precise communication of that measurement so easy. However, some of its basic units are not adapted to everyday life.

"Bonjour madame, 363 grammes de ce fromage-la, s'il vous plait."

An elementary request; if I wanted 364 grammes, or 362, I'd ask for 364 grammes, or 362.

"Quoi, pile?" [Luckily I knew that "pile" here means "exactly".]

"Oui, pourquoi pas?"

"Sortez, sortez maintenant!"

A communication failure. In particular, I've not conveyed the fear and confusion that flickered across Madame's face just before she threw me out. That made the encounter a win.

Totally lost

2009-03-24T15:01:00.005Z

"What are you watching?"

"Go away, I'm fed up with explaining TV programmes to you, you can't be bothered to listen and then you mock me for watching."

"No honestly, what is it, I'll listen and I won't mock."

"Well, ok then. It's about a bunch of people who survive a plane crash and every so often there's a break in the space-time continuum and they go back to being wrecked..."

"Well if it has a break then it's not a continuum is it, it's silly and it makes no physical sense..."

"GO AWAY. You are an arrogant pig."

"Oh I see why you're watching, they're all incredibly good looking... GOD HE'S NOT! How does someone stay as fat and ugly as that? Is it in his contract that he has to be obese? Anyway I'm not arrogant, I'm sarcastic, there is a difference you know OW! that really hurt."

"Good, it was meant to."

Bruderhandlung

2009-03-20T21:57:00.005Z

My brother, straight and glamorous, turns up for birthday drinks. He's also single, his most recent squeeze having decided to stick with her husband. Fraternal conversation is along the lines of "Great tits, but she's a nutter" or "This woman will change your life, and she can be blonde if you want".

Why is it bad to be reductive? Not a word is wasted, the handling is precise.

Il sorpasso

2009-03-15T20:15:00.005Z

OK, it's happened. Mlle Inkspot is taller than her mother, who's 5' 4" of wild colleen* ("and a half you bastard, you've been imperializing me and all the other Irish since 1190"). God help me when she gets a mouth like her mother's, at the moment it's just "go away Dad, you're embarrassing". Well of course I am, it's my job. And I know something that Mme Inkspot doesn't: there's more than one embarrassing parent involved here.

*It's St Patrick's Day. If a bunch of drunks in Chicago are Irish, whatever that means, so is this house.

Inkspot in Lakeland

2009-03-14T15:27:00.003Z

"Dad, let's get a blowtorch so we can make creme brulee."

Not a bad idea, it would have sorts of other domestic purposes; you can't remove pubic hair or deal with earwax under a grill.

Brrinng, brrinng. "Hello, Lakeland, can I help?"

[Can you help what? Stop being grumpy Inkspot, they're trained to do it.] "Hello, Inkspot here."

"I'm sorry, who?" [What's this who business? Inkspot, with a significant position at Precision Handling, on kissing terms with a Pan's Person. Oh for god's sake pull yourself together.]

"Never mind, do you have blowtorches for sale?"

"Yes sir, certainly, one at £599-99 and the other at £39-99."

Well, that's it, sold, look at how much money I'm saving by getting the cheaper one. So off I tool and, not without difficulty ("They're by the gondola" Gondola? There is nothing here remotely gondolesque, or even Venetian. It appears that gondola is current sales talk for an ordinary display cabinet) find a blowtorch. Having been burnt (ho ho) before, I read the label. "Sold empty". "Excuse me, do you sell gas for these things?" "I'm sorry sir, no."

Sometimes a conversation just ends itself.

When is a sneer not a sneer?

2009-03-04T20:53:00.006Z

When it's a slur. At Precision Handling's promotions meeting the other day. It's really the revenge meeting; we're all primates, even the Archbishop of Canterbury (well, especially him, I suppose) and some pleasures, such as knifing an enemy, seem to be hardwired. The results were gratifying: a win for the good guys. Well, possibly not, there are no good guys. But there are plenty of bad guys, and revenge is worth waiting for. Especially when no-one knows whose hands are on the dagger.

The people united

2009-02-22T00:39:00.004Z

Last week saw a shareholders' meeting at Precision Handling. The employee and stakeholder enabling scheme means that those of us on the sharp end can turn up and discuss matters of the moment. What's absorbing the attention of those with nothing better to do (Sarkozy comes to mind, god he's annoying) is the need for a mechanism for appointing a new chairman, given that the queen is too busy, what with those corgis to feed and ruling a country that doesn't have an economy any more. It was a slow Saturday, so I went along.

The obvious thing would be to have candidates and a vote. But no, nobody good enough would wish to be seen to want the job (?) and the straightforward democratic option would be divisive (??). So we're going to have a committee. The committee will conduct secret ballots to see what people want, and then ignore the result.

Brilliant. Enver Hoxha would have been proud.

New horizons

2009-02-13T20:44:00.003Z

I had to review an application coming from a student in Peking. His romanization, not mine: the official address is "Peking University, Beijing." Go figure.

He had a detailed record of the courses he'd taken, and the scores he'd got (all very high, he looked really impressive). But one of the courses (along with Marxist-Leninist thought and dialectical materialism) was in plutonomy.

WTF? I'm not making it up.

Ying and yang, yo and yo

2009-01-30T21:39:00.004Z

My Japanese obligations are fulfilled and I have winged westward. In a well-ordered world I would have continued east, to interests in California, but Precision Handling's domestic operation is under-staffed. Our Sales Director, Dr Bruni, is keen that this should not be neglected, and a woman with eyes and sapphires like hers is not easily contradicted. It is possible that I have a tiny crush on her, but she seems to be in love with her husband. I met him at the firm's Christmas party; a poisonous dwarf named Sarkozy, who claimed to be President of France. Not in that appalling car he drives, he isn't.

and now go east

2009-01-21T15:14:00.004Z

As Mrs Pouncer has noticed, Precision Handling's interests have taken me to Japan. Tokyo, in fact, where I'm enjoying the most brutal jet-lag since, oh, the last time I was here. In the movies Scarlet Johansson turns up to console you, but she isn't in the phone book. I think they make these things up.

Sea cucumber? I wish. Having no Japanese, I've been eating at random. Tonight featured bits of octopus embedded in balls of dough and fried. Breakfast will surely be an improvement, but there are 8 hours of lying awake to be done before then.

Go west, young man

2009-01-14T22:07:00.004Z

Just back from pursuing Precision Handling's interests in Bristol. Again. But what are these interests, my readers demand? They are strictly legal. They do involve, however, the occasional appearance at louche events or places. Sometimes this is unplanned. Last night I was passing a pub that I had seen many times before, although previously either it had been closed or I hadn't wanted a drink. This time was different, and I went in for some port; I particularly liked the idea of a glass of Graham's '85 while I contemplated the day's events, which had been surprising. Well, the Graham's was off, so I settled, as one does, for a pint of Guinness. While consuming this I was distracted by the music videos (1980's disco, which is more enjoyable than I usually admit) and the decor. Funny, the 13th January and they've still got the Christmas decorations up. And why aren't there any women here? Well, enlightenment didn't dawn, it never does, that's one of the stupidest cliches in English, it hit me over the head. So did I

(a) abandon my Guinness and slowly leave, while keeping my back to the wall;

(b) take out my phone, call home and have a loud and obvious uxorious conversation;

(c) hang around and await developments, in the hope that the H & M scarf that I'd borrowed from Mlle Inkspot ("Daddy's on the turn") would disguise my obvious straightness?

Happy New Year to all our customers!

2009-01-04T23:16:00.003Z

Well, it's not quite brand new now is it, still running in more like. But you don't want to be too hasty, hailing the year before being reasonably sure that it's not going to skid into a ditch and stay there. That sort of thing really buggers up the calendar, and accounts for chunks of the Dark Ages. Not to mention leap seconds and so on.

But the main thing I wanted to say was, what with this credit crunch and Madoff's Great Pyramid Scheme of the Pharoahs, we have made our rates even more reasonable. Details on request, to xerxesQarquebus@gmail.com. No lingerie enquiries please.

And a Chappy Chanukah to you, choney.

2008-12-25T10:41:00.003Z

Merriment all around, and Mrs Pouncer has pushed off. Which aspect of Yulish horror was the last straw, one wonders? And is there an English cliche more hackneyed than "last straw"? It's a good cliche, though. When I cast off a particular aspect of my job, it really was a last straw that pushed me over the edge: it was trivial, compared to the series of bastardries that had been inflicted on me, and something snapped.

Good god, the most accurate way of describing my life is via cliche. I shall drink port. Warre's '63, I think.

Bristol fashion

2008-12-19T07:46:00.002Z

This is a curious town. Recently work has been bringing me here; downtown many of the buildings are very beautiful, in a way that I lack the technical language to express, but next to them are hideous, ghastly, abominable concrete hulks from the sixties, so horrible that they've been abandoned but not, alas, demolished. I stay in an attractive modern building in an otherwise seedy area; trust me, I know seedy, having lived in the West Village in the mid 80's, in an unattractive unmodern building. The most beautiful thing is the river and the way it drapes the city, but they really need to get rid of the concrete.

Real life intrusion

2008-12-10T22:44:00.003Z

A colleague has just had a book published. Well, it's his in some extended sense; it's a sort of encyclopaedia of which he is the main editor, but he's making a tremendous fuss of telling the world about it and inviting them to the launch party. This poses a problem. No, not that one, I'm not consumed with envy; it's quite the opposite, I'm thrilled: the book's terrible. Long, long-winded, yet vacuous, it's supposed to be useful to anyone, professional or amateur, who wants to find out what's going on in the subject, either in general or in specifics. But it's so bad that I can't imagine anyone learning anything from it. So: what do I say to him that does not totally reveal my true opinion? The etiquette books are silent on this point.

Literary endeavours

2008-11-19T22:40:00.003Z

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.

Since the rise of the environmental movement, Chomsky's "green ideas dream furiously" has lost its perfection as a meaningless sentence that is correct in grammar and syntax. But this is a wonderful replacement. On top of that it is a perfect palindrome, which makes it just superlative. OK, there are other palindromes, too many and too boring to enumerate, but this one is great, a magnificent achievement, as perfect as one of Michaelangelo's sculptures or Gauss' theorems, if not on the same scale. Hats off to its creator, or creators, who, according to Google, is or are anonymous.

How did they do it? Inspiration? Hard work? Or with a search algorithm? A really clever algorithm, if it was that, too clever to be plausible. The simplest explanation is that it is a work of art, and a sublime one.

Update: alert reader Ms Scarlet points out a dropped aspirate in the label: eroicus was indeed wrong. I shall borrow Arlington Hynes' spellcheck in future.

Updated update: and there shouldn't be an et there. As any fule kno.

My most embarrassing record

2008-11-12T16:22:00.001Z

is that I was arrested sooner than anyone else (3 weeks) my first year at university. For stealing a traffic cone. So unimaginative, I cringe still.

Tough guy

2008-11-11T21:17:00.005Z

"Daddy, can you make me pancakes? Please?" Huh? Never had this before. At this time of the evening (8-30, dinner was ages ago) she often wants cereal or porridge, which are easy. Pancakes are trickier, because the effing whisk devotes its contemptible existence to hiding from me. Sometimes behind the dogfood, sometimes not.

"Tell you what, I'll make you pancakes after you've finished your homework, walked your dog and practiced your clarinet."

"I've done all that, so will you make pancakes?"

["Since your negotiating position is now so lousy, why should I?"] "Oh, OK then."

God, I'm such a wimp.

More help wanted

2008-11-08T11:21:00.004Z

Mme Inkspot's birthday approaches. Yes, I do know what to get her, because she's told me: Black Orchid, by Tom Ford. (Duh, it's a perfume.) But frantic googling (is there any other kind?) reveals the existence of two sub-species: Voile de Fleur, and, well, it seems to be Not Voile de Fleur. FFS, which do I choose? Look, I'm used to parfum vs. eau de parfum vs. eau de toilette, but why must these manufacturers, sorry, parfumeurs or whatever, have to make a chap's life even harder? Especially as it's chaps who buy so much of their stuff; it's not in their interests to make us think, sod this for a game of soldiers, I'll get her a welding torch. Nor ours, come to that.

Update: further googling has contradicted the first googling: Voile de Fleur is not a sub-species of Black Orchid. Phew.

I am sure the world needed re-assurance on this point.

Of categories

2008-11-03T16:47:00.005Z

Arlington Hynes deleted one of my comments at bogol. Since this is only the world's best blog I was crushed into a nadir of worthlessness. His explanation was that he wanted no politics; fair enough, it's his blog. But he made an error of category. My comment concerned Sarah Palin, who has already reached that zone, inhabited by the late President Eisenhower and Dan Quayle, of being above politics during her own political career. "Disjoint from politics" would be more accurate, but it's still a remarkable achievement. Can anything similar be done in other walks of life? Music? Medicine? Ten pin bowling?

selecta

2008-11-01T15:46:00.004Z

Pics are too hard, but here are 6 non-random things ("facts") about me.

1. I spent several years in Chicago. Its beauty is astonishing; visit if you do not know this. But not in winter, which is indescribable by ordinary standards.

2. The one woman who broke my heart was an accountant.

3. Good writing demands the extermination of adverbs.

4. Yeats is a dreadful poet. This has nothing to do with his adverbs.

5. English boarding school food is horrible. Unfortunately there are worse cuisines.

6. This blog is an outlet for sarcasm and inconsistency.

Election update

2008-10-26T10:26:00.001Z

No, not those tiresome goings-on in the US. They will result in either 4 more years of exactly the same, or 4 more years of almost exactly the same. Foreign policy (slavish support of whatever Israel does, plus starting wars without having a clue of how to finish them) will be particularly the same. Economic and financial policy will continue to ignore my suggestions of arbitraging the helium market if you can't corner it and securitizing commercial sex.

I'm talking about the election, by examination, of prize fellows at All Souls, that Oxford centre of the exquisite. Oh, "provided that candidates of sufficient merit present themselves". Plonkers.

The procedure has three parts. The first is a series of 3-hour written exams, including an essay on a one-word topic ("Crevices" this year) and papers on your chosen special subject. This was classical sociology for me, so I had to confront things like "What does contemporary historiography tell us about STDs in 4th century Athens?" The short answer here happens to be the right one, but you have to choose your moments.

The second, for chosen candidates only (including your correspondent), is a viva, where they interrogate you on what you wrote. ("Tell us, Mr Inkspot, what tool would you use if your crevice is not flexible?") I have to say, since false modesty is repellent, that I aced the papers and wiped the floor with them in the viva. I gave them Saussure, I gave them Plato, I gave them Derrida ("Se naitre, ce n'est qu'entrer dans le neant.") Well, possibly it wasn't Derrida, since I had just made it up, but I could get away with it because, it was clear, none of those smug feuilletonistes had read Derrida either.

The third was last night. They invited the surviving candidates to dinner, gave us cherry pie to eat, and judged us on what we did with the pips. Now Beast had made this fabulous suggestion of turning them into anal beads for the Warden, and that was my plan.

Before dinner they gave us champagne, Joseph Perrier '96. This is a small house, but the champagne was just fine. Yeasty rather than grassy, I had lots. The other candidates included a couple of striking young men in Armani. To cope with them, I flashed a twenty at a passing waiter and told him to make sure that they got champagne cocktails rather than straight champagne, and lots of them. He promised that an extra twenty ("for the butler") would ensure it.

And so to dinner. You'll want to know what we had.

Potage des tourterelles. Yes, I know, eating turtles is frowned upon these days, or even illegal, but nobody's told All Souls. They raise them for the table in a private underground aquarium. [Filthy sherry of some kind. I left it alone and had more champagne.]

Tourbot, sauce merluche des branleurs. The fish you get in this country can't touch what you get in Bombay, and this was good without being special. [A boring Chablis. Waiter! More champagne! By now I'd noticed a honeyed taste to the champagne, but I put it down to the sauce, not having full confidence in the kitchens' interpretation of dried codfish. Anyway, I had another glass or two to make sure I still liked it.]

Tournedos Rossini des flaneurs. Properly hung fillet steak, with real foie gras, of course, and cooked to perfection. [Some sort of Crozes Hermitage. I forget what exactly, but, boy, was it good. I filled my boots.]

Tarte aux cerises des suceurs. The cherry pip anal beads were a howling success; they delighted the Warden, to judge by his "Ooh, wait till I show the Dean!" [Ch. Suduiraut '88. I cannot resist Sauternes, and this was delicous.]

Le dessert. Grapes and bananas from the college's own hothouse and cheese from one of its farms. [Ch. Leoville-Las Cases '82 and Graham's '55. Oh my fucking god. The '82 Las Cases has 100 Parker points. Yes, read'em and weep, one hundred, the perfect score, the full monty. And I had heard of, but never encountered, the legendary Graham's. Go and look them up, I can't describe them.]

Today brought a polite note containing the Warden's regrets, etc. So where did it go wrong? Well, another time I wouldn't have stood on the table and used one of the bananas to conduct the company in a rousing chorus of the college song ("His swapping tool of generation..."), but at the moment it seemed so right.

Bastard double-crossing butler. Still, there's always next year.

Education matters*

2008-10-21T23:15:00.001+01:00

Mlle Inkspot is long since back at school. It must be autumn. The students have flocked back, including Keira Knightley, who's off to the local dog college to enhance her motivation for the title role in the next remake of Hound of the Baskervilles. All so eager to learn.

Except that education is an industry where the customers want less for their money.

"I get the impression that you understand this, but what you write should be correct and coherent so that the reader, besides me, is convinced, and easily convinced. Oh, and your spelling could be better."

"Doesn't matter as long as I get the right answer."

"Well, somebody reading it might get the impression that you don't know what you're talking about, and are lazy and ignorant. You're really putting yourself at an unnecessary disadvantage compared to the people who do write well, and can spell."

"..."

"Look, 'accelerate' has two c's. And it's printed here in the question! Can't you even copy correctly?"

*Doesn't it?

Profiling

2008-10-18T11:59:00.003+01:00

My profile lists my interests as sex, food and mathematics. (Separately; steady on, now. The fluid mechanics of syrup sex are specialized.) Clicking on each reveals the number of people on blogger with that particular interest; the results are

sex: 19,800

food: 55,600

mathematics: 5,000.

Taking food as the standard, I'm surprised and pleased by how much mathematics that is, and surprised by how little sex.

Xfactor and chips

2008-10-17T14:37:00.004+01:00

I know about Xfactor (a popular televisual entertainment, m'lud) because I've seen it. Simon Cowell's haircut alarms me and the Louis person annoys me, but my reasons for not watching regularly are my reasons for not watching TV regularly: I never know when something embarrassing is about to happen. Given that I would be sitting next to Mlle Inkspot, who, like all daughters everywhere throughout time, is six*, the threat of embarrassment is overwhelming. At any moment there will be an explicit reference to sex and I have to have my fingers in my ears and be chanting lalalala in advance. So there is just no point.

Chips are OK. There's a Turkish chip van near our house every night bar Mondays. I don't understand the never on a Monday rule, but I can't ask because I don't speak Turkish and the chip van man doesn't understand English beyond "Good evening, two large chips please". He gets cross if you omit the good evening.

*And how do daughters stop being six? Easy: one day they are six and the next they are married with children. That's my plan, anyway.

Sleaze factor 40

2008-10-14T09:02:00.008+01:00

From the NY Times of 14 Oct (registration needed). To avoid copyright problems I've made up some of it. No, I haven't, I haven't got the imagination.

"Friends of Ms Allen told ABC that she had sought to break off the affair when she learned that Mr Mahoney was involved in other extramarital relationships.

Mr Mahoney fired Ms Allen in January 2008, and she began legal proceedings in February that concluded with a settlement in March, Democratic staff members briefed on the matter said.

"You work at my pleasure," Mr Mahoney told Ms Allen in a Jan. 20 telephone call that was recorded and played for Mr Mahoney's employees. "If you do the job I think you should do, you get to keep your job. Whenever I don't feel like you're doing your job, then you lose your job. And guess what: The only person who matters is guess who? Me." "

UPDATE: it disappoints readers Scarlet and Beast that Ms Allen is, indeed, not Ms Lily Allen, "the perky pop princess who gets everywhere else". But not, we hope, under Beast's duvet.

Blogging the void

2008-10-08T20:02:00.005+01:00

Poker again last night. The drearier writers on the subject start from the assumption that the only point is to win money; I happened to do so this time, but that's not the major aim. Financially it's a zero-sum game, but emotionally it's decidedly negative-sum, since the pain of losing a certain sum of money (it doesn't matter how much, provided it's enough to hurt) is not nearly balanced by the pleasure of winning the same amount. The real gain, the real high comes at the point where you push all your chips into the pot and then wait for your opponent to call or fold. For this period of time, which might be a minute or so, there is a tremendous feeling of release. You have no more decisions to take, and all the pressure is on him, as he comes to terms with such things as: how good he thinks his hand is, what your hand might be, what he thinks you think he has, how much he fears you, how much he thinks you fear him, what has happened in the past between the two of you, and so on. Really the relationship between you is more important than anything, including the actual cards.

I can't achieve the same effect with roulette or racing. In either, you can bet all your money and then there is nothing to be done until the ball falls in its slot or the winner passes the post, but there is no antagonist, so no agon, so no release, just boredom.

Financial advice redux*

2008-10-05T13:08:00.004+01:00

It's in the nature of cornering a particular market that it excludes all but the participants. So those of you who are too late for the helium idea (everyone except Dr Maroon and Mrs Pouncer) need something else.

You will have noticed that the Irish have had this brilliant wheeze of guaranteeing all bank deposits. The English etc have been too dim to ask what they're guaranteeing them with and have fallen for this like a ton of bricks. Look, the only interesting thing I know about Ireland is that it has peat bogs and peat-fired power stations, so what can they offer besides peat futures? They can't print their own Euros, the Germans won't let them. However, Gorilla Bananas has raised the idea of a tart-run investment bank (brilliant, GB) and it is clear that such a bank could offer something better. Compare and contrast:

``I'm sorry, it's all gone wrong, but you can have a wheelbarrow load of peat next Tuesday."

``I'm sorry, it's all gone wrong, but you and your wife can shag me and a friend for 2 hours next Tuesday.''

Case closed.

*No, I don't know what redux means, and I bet John Updike doesn't either.

Wildlife documentary

2008-10-03T09:44:00.000+01:00

I spent 2 hours yesterday afternoon in the company of 60 or so of my colleagues, all intelligent people (I'm generous today), debating issues that no sane person could care about. Yet we talked, we listened, we paid attention, we considered, all with an elaborate politeness that was indistinguishable from pomposity, and we voted on a proposal. Then it turned out that half of us thought the proposal meant one thing and half of us the opposite, so we had to do it all over again. After that, we moved on to an even more absurd subject, and finally went home satisfied that we'd done a good day's work.

That evening I got busted out too early in a holdem tournament. I got all my chips in the pot at a point where I was 2:1 favourite, but my opponent caught an ace on the river. So ordinary.

So what is the point of this post? I'm sorry, there is none, I'm just venting my disgust at the banality and squalor of my life. Honestly, a bunch of primates foraging for celery would have organized themselves more efficiently, and wouldn't have put themselves in a position to be rivered by a miserable ace.

Financial advice

2008-10-01T09:18:00.000+01:00

Could the 2 tons of helium lost at the recent LHC explosion have been used instead to bail out Wall St? This arose at Arlington's place, but a moment's googling shows that with liquid helium amazingly cheap, at $15 a litre, max, a straightforward application of this idea is unlikely to have worked. Maybe the lifting capacity would have removed some of the more egregious individuals to a region of the troposphere where no-one would mind them. But my main point is that this same googling also revealed a minimum price of $3-25. This presents the most fantastic arbitrage opportunity. Plus, the biggest helium plant, in Texas, forecasts that it will be exhausted in a decade. Corner the market now, is my advice. And if it goes wrong, well, your next party will have the best balloons ever.

Your questions heard

2008-07-04T10:05:00.000+01:00

As a small boy I was sent to an English boarding school (not my idea). For calibration, take Dotheboys Hall, subtract the physical cruelty and divide by three. That is, nobody there cared a damn about you, and you couldn't get away. I enjoyed the lessons, though, including Latin and Greek. Here the model verbs were the usual ones: amo, I love, in Latin and luo, I set free, in Greek. (Sorry, we haven't yet figured out the typesetting of Greek here at Precision Handling.) An ordinary illustration of irony, one might say.

Irony, however, is a complicated concept, as its Wikipedia page indicates, partly because over the centuries people have attached divergent meanings to the word. This is situational irony, not dramatic, but is it intended or unintended? Well, it depends on your point of view. For the teachers, I'm sure it was unintended; they simply used the standard books (Kennedy, and Abbot and Mansfield) and got on with the job. But what about the authors? Is it plausible that from the thousands of verbs available in each of these languages they chose these particular examples at random? Occam's Razor tells you that this was deliberate and that what we have is a fine example of situational irony that is both intended and unintended.

Or just a joke. After all these years I still can't tell.

Help wanted

2008-07-02T21:12:00.000+01:00

Baudelaire often describes girls as having deep-dug eyes ("yeux creux"). Is this an accurate description of young women in 19th century France, or was he just desperate for a rhyme? Beyond deux, obviously. I mean, duh-huh.

Scholars of French literature and physiognomy, please advise.