Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Bonfire night & mulled wine

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:45:26 GMT

I knew it was coming, but it was still a slight shock last night when I had my first real pang of homesickness for life in London. Oh, I know I still work here, but commuting isn't the same thing.

The bloke and I decided to help a friend prepare for a lectureship interview today by running a mock interview last night and critiquing his presentation. I don't begrudge him this attention, as we'd all like to see him get this job. As I hurried home from the station, I saw some neighbourhood Bonfire Night fireworks above the roofs of the houses. I suddenly wished very much that I were in London, jammed into a pub with a dozen acquaintances, excitedly pouring mulled wine down my throat to insulate me against the cold before going to a park to watch the Guy burn.

I did get to have the mulled wine. I like the stuff I make best anyway. It goes like this. Start at least an hour before you want to drink it. Then, over the lowest possible heat - you don't want to boil the wine - mix the following:

1 bottle nice rich red wine (I favour chianti but merlot was fine last night. Thank you M&S.)
1 lemon, sliced into rough chunks
2 oranges, likewise
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup sugar (Can be adjusted for taste. I like mine pretty sweet.)
some cloves
ground cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg
allspice
splash of brandy, sherry or other sweet strong liqueur (I used the last of our previous year's homemade sloe gin)

Stir periodically. The longer you can bear to let it sit and heat slowly, the better it'll taste. When you can stand it no longer, make 2 cups of peppermint tea and add it to the mulled wine. Spoon into wine glasses as if it were punch. Nom.

Boffoonery for Bletchley Park

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:21:18 GMT

I have now seen Simon Singh speak twice in the space of two weeks. I didn't know he was going to be at last night's charity comedic nerditry event "Boffoonery", in aid of Bletchley Park, at the Bloomsbury Theatre beforehand, though. So I think that means I am definitely not a Loony Fangirl. Nope.

For those of you who don't know, Simon Singh is a particle physicist turned popular science writer who has written such fascinating epistles (no, I'm not being sarcastic) as Fermat's Last Theorem and The Code Book. He is also a dynamic and incredibly articulate speaker. Last Monday, the deliciously cerebral mathmo happydork and I met upstairs at the Blue Posts pub in Piccadilly to hear him discuss his latest book Trick or Treatment, which is about alternative medicine, with the Science London book club. Much to our surprise, we found we were part of an audience of only 40-odd people, and thus nearly everyone who wanted to do so got to ask a question and engage him in dialogue.

Of course, we had to have the following discussion at the end.

nanila: "Oh, you've taken notes!"
happydork: "Yes. I wasn't going to so I didn't bring my notebook, but..." She holds up a heavily annotated bus ticket.
nanila: "That settles it. You're blogging this."

And she wrote up the evening beautifully. I recommend that you read about it here.

Last night, Dr Singh opened "Boffoonery" with fabulous demonstrations of the perils of believing in pseudocode by finding signs and portents of Princess Diana's death in Moby Dick, and of the Enigma encoding machine that was cracked at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing & friends during the WWII. This was by far the most geekcore moment of the entire evening, which was good because the two pints on an empty stomach had kicked in completely by the time Hugh Dennis (yes, the one from "Mock the Week"), Robin Ince and Robert Llewellyn (better known as Red Dwarf's Kryten) appeared to make bad puns about computing and cryptography. Additionally, Maggie Philbin, Richard Herring, Robin Ince and Johnny Ball competed in the first and last ever Bletchley Park-themed quiz show, scored in binary. Johnny Ball explaining the Königsberg bridge problem with flourishes of green marker pen while strands of white hair waved energetically about his head is a sight I shall not soon forget.

Next week, I plan to attend a symposium in memory of Harry Elliott, FRS, a debate on human spaceflight run by the astrophysics group, and the Jay Reatard show. If Simon Singh appears at any of those, I shall be quite surprised.

Professors Tinycat Strike Again

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:02:37 GMT

The visa application is sent. I can do no more except wait.

Except bombard you with Adorable Kitten Macros.

Sputnik Doesn't Believe You

Telstar is Always Prepared

It's good catch, that Catch-22

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:28:29 GMT

There have been developments in the ongoing saga of my quest to renew my visa. No wait, don't scroll to the next entry on your friends page! This is worth reading, if only for the element of schadenfreude.

Due to various bits of administrative faffing, I had to delay submission of my renewal forms. This means that it is getting rather uncomfortably close to the date of my visa's expiry. So I sought to make an in-person application. It's more expensive, but you get the visa that day and so it is guaranteed to happen before your current visa expires.

That is, assuming you can get an appointment.

I tried every office (Croydon/London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff) through the online booking system, repeatedly. None of them have appointments available. Please note also that some of these places are a good five-hour journey from both my place of residence and my work. I phoned UKBA, who informed me that every appointment at every office is booked through 31 December.

The really beautiful thing about this is that you are not allowed to renew your visa until within 5 weeks of its expiry date. Hence, by the time you're ready to submit your application, it is impossible to get an appointment.

The icing on the cake was finding out that since I filled out my form, it's changed. So I have to print out the whole 75 page application and fill it out again.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream (part 1 of 2)

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:42:22 GMT

On Thursday night, imyril, dizzykj and I went to watch Ben Haggerty tell seasonally appropriate tales at the Barbican pit theatre. I enjoyed it so much I wrote them up on the train home, and I want to share them with you this Halloween night.

Ben began on a plane to Jonesborough, Tennessee, heading for a storytelling convention. A dashing devil in a cowboy hat tricked him into stretching out across Row 13, reserved for the absent Mississippi Moondoggies. The weather turned bad, forcing the plane to divert to a city in Georgia. Ben noticed a funfair during the bus trip to his hotel and walked to it after checking in, much to the consternation of the receptionist. He played a shooting gallery game, hitting an unprecedented nine out of 10 targets and winning a lucky silver-plated left hind rabbit paw (shot by a cross-eyed man on a moonlight night). He slipped the paw into his pocket and wandered on.

He felt drawn, guilt-ridden, to the sideshow, outlawed in his country. For a mere $5, he could purchase the privilege of viewing ten exhibits through ten doors. The first, he was told by the carnie barker, was something English for an Englishman. A lord found himself a lady at an American beauty pageant while playing away from home. He took her to the sideshow, where he was hypnotised by the expert sideshow performer Marcello. Since the lord had a laugh like a donkey, the lady told Marcello to turn him into one. The lord's braying amused her briefly, but she wanted something else. She told Marcello to turn him into a rabbit, as he'd been after her like one. He did. As the lord hopped about the stage, Marcello dropped dead of a heart attack. No one could snap the Englishman out of his trance.

Having viewed the unfortunate man, Ben remarked dubiously that it could be any old bloke pretending to be a rabbit. Ah, said the carnie man. Consider Door 2! Behind Door 2 you'll find an amazing sight. A long time ago, twin Dutch girls with a poor seamstress mother were out on an errand when they heard an organ grinder in the street. Enchanted by the music, they stopped to watch him. Oh, you like my music! said the man. Watch this. He pressed a button and a large red flower, poppy-like, unfurled from the box. In the flower's centre stood a perfect porcelain Dutch boy. These twin girls have always wanted a brother. Please sir, they asked, may we have the music box? This is my livelihood, he replied. If you want it, you must do something really bad.

The girls went home. The next day, they ruined their mother's sewing basket and cut up the curtains. Returning to the music man, they found him scornful. Such paltry sabotage is not really bad, he said. Despondently, the girls returned home, where they found themselves forgiven. The next day, they deliberately shattered all the crockery while washing up. Their furious mother threatened, If you continue like this, I'll leave you here alone! The girls, though frightened, would not be so easily deterred from their goal, though the music man deemed their deed not quite bad enough. Once the boy was brought home, their mother would relent.

The next day, the girls razed their mother's little garden, so carefully tended, her pride and joy. Seeing the girls with the secateurs in their hands, their mother packed up and left. The girls waited. After night fell, they heard a knock at the door. They rushed to it. But it was not their mother. Instead, the music man told them that they'd succeeded at last in being really bad. He scooped them up and stuffed them in a sack.

In the morning, the organ grinder could be seen in the street. When the poppy opened, it now revealed two perfect little Dutch girls.

Though the music box was indeed ornately carved and beautiful, Ben wasn't impressed. Well, said the carnie barker, wait til you see what's behind Door 3. First, let me tell you the real story of Cain and Abel. Cain's father was the Devil. See, the serpent didn't give Eve a fruit. He gave her...something else. Nine months later, she gave birth to Cain and a twin sister, whose name everyone forgot. Eve became pregnant again, this time by Adam, and gave birth to twins, Abel and his twin sister.

When the four children grew up, Adam decided that Abel should marry Cain's sister and vice versa. Cain had a problem with this. His sister was stunningly beautiful, while Abel's sister wasn't. So Cain suggested putting the choice to the Lord. Whichever of them gave the best offering to the Lord would be allowed to marry his sister. They took their offerings - Cain, a marvelous cornucopia from his harvest; Abel, a fluffy young lamb - to God. God struck the lamb down with a thunderbolt. Ha! exclaimed Abel, rushing down the hill to claim his prize. Cain, unthinking, picked up a stone and loosed it at Abel's head. He tried to hide Abel's body, as the ravens did after plucking out the smoking lamb's eyes. Of course, he couldn't hide it from God, who cursed him to roam the Earth without peace for eternity.

If you want to see Cain's folly, said the carnie barker, open Door 3. Ben went in to see a tiny brown snake writhing in a large aquarium. As he watched, the aquarium began to fill with bubbling red liquid, drowning the snake. Shaken, he emerged. English, did you like that? demanded the carnie barker. It was pretty horrible, said Ben, but no more so than any other piece of modern art.

You're hard to please, English, but I think you'll be shocked by Door 4. That there is a sad tale of greed. Old Ezekiel "Easy" Brown was drinking in a pub with his friends. He was a black man in the south, and like most, he was poor. This night he was angry about it and he stood up and shouted, dammit, is there no way to make easy money in this town?

A strange man stood up and answered, there is. Yeah? challenged Easy. Then why you dressed in rags like us? Because I'm scared to get it, replied the man. I tell you why. It's grave-robbing that can make you rich. There's a mausoleum in that graveyard on the hill, made of black marble, no door, with a symbol like they have on dollar bills, pyramid with an eye in it. You poke that eye and a whole wall slides back. When you step in, the door shuts behind you. A beautiful vision of a woman appears. She offers you all the gold you can carry, all the wealth you can hold and all the knowledge of mankind. All you have to do is kiss her (with tongue). Okay, I said, but only if you say the Lord's Prayer with me. So I started saying it. She hissed and threw me out. I ain't going back there.

That's EASY! shouted Easy. He rushed out of the bar and up the hill to the graveyard. He found the mausoleum and the pyramid and the lady and did what she said, with none of the Lord's Prayer stuff. She kissed him and his tongue turned into a snake. He rushed frantically back to the bar, where the tongue cursed his friends. He rushed home, where the tongue cursed his wife and daughter and drove them from his house. As he was about to give up hope, he stumbled across a baptism at the river and hurled himself at the priest. The priest, recognizing a man possessed, started to exorcize Easy. The tongue popped out of Easy's mouth and scuttled away in the water. Just as he thought he was saved, it returned with four alligator friends, which wrenched Easy's limbs from his body.

Now Easy has all the gold he can carry, all the wealth he can hold in his hands, and he's crazy. Job done. If you want to see him, English, open Door 4. Ben did, and saw the pathetic creature lying in straw, surrounded by money.

I need a drink, Ben told the carnie man. This county is dry, replied the man, but I have a secret. Open Door 5, go up the hill to the shack and show them your ticket. Just don't be too long.

~to be continued~

Dr Bones, ? - 28 October 2009

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:57:28 GMT

Many moons ago, Marco and I went to get a coffee after a rock-climbing trip. On the way out of Peet's, he was adopted on the pavement by a large grey cat of indeterminate age. Said cat spent a number of happy years with us in San Diego and Los Angeles. When it came time to move to London, he had to stay behind with my parents and my own cat, Molly.

Two years ago, he was diagnosed with 25% kidney function and given two months to live. Typically, the irascible grey cat was having none of that and continued to dominate my parents shamelessly.

Four days ago, he stopped eating and drinking. Today, my parents made the difficult decision to take him to the vet.

Good night, Dr Bones

Overheard in England

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:54:07 GMT

To Christina, the young lady on the train who volubly discussed a recent "infidelity" with a seatmate for the entire 50 minute journey from Cambridge to London Kings Cross,

First of all, if you are agonizing about whether or not to tell your boyfriend, perhaps it is not wise to do so on an otherwise silent - and packed - train carriage. Secondly, if you are agonizing about whether or not to tell your boyfriend, perhaps it is not wise to phone up your entire circle of acquaintances and tell them about it so that everyone knows about it except him. It will not stay that way for long. Thirdly, from what I gather, having been seated in the privileged position directly in front of you, you got drunk with a male friend, who also has a girlfriend. You let him sleep at yours, during the course of which he made a pass at you. You didn't shag him. You didn't even kiss him. Even if you are currently lying to your friends and yourself, this is not the end of the goddamn world. Why don't you face up to the fact that what you're really after is the pleasure of making a tearful, heartrending confession? And the romantic, painful reconciliation scene? I can almost guarantee, however, that the way you're going about it ensures that should you eventually decide to tell him, this is not what you'll get.

xo xo
nanila

PS Explain to me how it is that you did not spontaneously combust from all the hatred being directed at you by my fellow commuters.

To Christina's boyfriend,

Maybe she's not a cheater, but she definitely is a drama queen. This will happen again. So unless you happen to be equally fond of public scenes of remonstrance and floods of tears, I'd suggest a quiet exit at your earliest convenience. HA! Ahem, excuse me, something in my throat.

Good luck with that,
nanila

File Under: Getting Old & Boring

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:26:57 GMT

I've spent the last three weekends being a happy housewife. Okay, we've done other stuff, like having people round and getting drunk, or going to the pub and getting drunk. But the bits that give me a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment have been the housework and the baking. For instance, on Saturday I cleaned the whole house and made zucchini bread, which I refuse to rename "courgette bread" for the Brits. Today, I did all the laundry and hung it outside so it smells nice and fresh. I trimmed back the brambles encroaching from the jungle that masquerades as next door's garden. I dug up a large section of the garden near the house, separated out and replanted all the crocus bulbs I found, and planted a batch of tulips.

After dark, we popped over to the Botanic Gardens for a bizarre event called the "Plant Orchestra". The gardens allowed a Bristolian artist to spend several nights wiring up 60 plants in the Palm House to record the sounds they made. He chose the best 15 for the Orchestra. Visitors walk through the Palm House at night and listen to the recordings. The members of the Orchestra have green flashing LEDs nestled amongst their foliage. The banana palm gurgles. The capsicum crackles. The bamboo sounds like the lurching of a distant train. It is a most peculiar experience, and rather magical, especially when you look up and see the constellations of the northern hemisphere through the roof of the hot tropical glass house.

I fear I'm in great danger of settling down.

If you read this far without falling asleep, congratulations! Have some kitten pictures. And a disheveled Catmother.

Catmother, just awoken & in her oversized dressing gown

The belt on your dressing gown is a toy for me, right?

You cannot resist the combined power of our KAYOOT.

The Judgment of Professors Tinycat

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:24:53 GMT

Hello, insomnia!

The Judgment of Professors Tinycat

Life, the Universe and...Physics

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:53:06 GMT

Er, this is totally last minute as my colleague who was supposed to be on the panel has fallen ill. But if any Londoners are interested, you can find me tonight at 93 Feet East, E1 6QL. I will have the mini-magnetometers with me & believe I am expected to be geeky about space, Cassini, Saturn, etc. in a relaxed & friendly atmosphere, i.e. a bar.

Event blurb

Flyer

Allow me to summarize my day.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:23:01 GMT

I have PhD in chemical physics, a job that pays well and is reasonably secure, a British boyfriend, and I now own a house in the UK.

There is no earthly reason for my visa renewal forms to be this complicated. The form itself is 75 pages long. The accompanying instructions are over 50. I have to be parted from my passport and the last twelve months of payslips and bank statements. Being without a passport is incredibly stressful. It is the one document containing my right to be here and to travel out of the country. Being without payslips is mildly annoying, and twelve months of bank statements with detailed transactions constitutes a massive invasion of privacy.

Some people ask, why not get married? It's cheaper and easier. Well, that's a very cute idea, if you happen to want to get married already. Does no one else find using it solely as a means to get a visa kind of repellent? Excuse me for having principles.

Double-glazing is BRILLIANT.

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:15:48 GMT

Old Window Out	New Window In

When the window fitters ripped out the old windows, one of them knocked on the door to the room in which the kittens and I were sheltering from the dust. "Just wanted to show you this," he said, holding up a piece of rolled-up newspaper. "Your windows were last replaced in 1979."

Those newspapers spent thirty years providing stunningly inadequate insulation between our walls and our single-pane windows. It is so much quieter in the house now, even though the downstairs windows won't be replaced until tomorrow.

Three cheers for obscured glass

I am so excited about taking showers without being visible from the neighbour's gardens.

New window in studio

So much more light!

Parenthood Lesson No. 34

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:08:48 GMT

Working from home is not difficult even when you are confined to one room due to the house having no windows and no front door.

It is, however, nigh impossible when you are confined to that room along with two seven week old kittens who think that your mouse hand is the most fabulous new toy ever.

Here is a message from Telstar: "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiqgtttttttggggggggggggggg"
And one from Sputnik: "mew"

(I may have cheated on the second one. But you see, I put him on the keyboard and he promptly slid off onto the floor when Telstar launched a flying tackle at him.)

The Four Stages of Enlightenment: London Underground Edition

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:21:32 GMT

Until last week, I carried a photo in the back pocket of my handbag. It had been there since the day I found it outside Highbury & Islington tube station. I stood there for a while after picking it up in front of the dodgy burger stand, futilely scanning the crowds to see if I could spot the owner though I knew full well it must have been lying there for hours. Something about her face arrested me. She was young, but she was also weary. Her jaw was set firmly and she stared straight into the camera. I thought she must be a fellow immigrant. Her taut, guarded expression reminded me of myself, posing for the umpteenth set of such photos for heaven knows what official purpose, doomed to be filed in a cabinet locked in a cold halogen-lit room and never looked at again.

She has experienced the sheer exhaustion living in this city can bring. Bone-tired is the only expression that describes it accurately. She knows the phases of learning to travel the underground as a commuter, which are as follows.

Stage One: Bewilderment You are trying to stay out of everyone's way while furtively working out whether "Eastbound" on the Piccadilly line is going to get you to Kings Cross or not, without stopping at the bottom of the escalators like the tourists. This phase can last anywhere from a couple of days to a month, depending on the demands of your workplace and how much you go out.
Stage Two: Satisfaction You know your route. You know exactly where to stand on the platform to board the carriage where you're most likely to get a seat, or at least be able to read the Metro* without holding it an inch from your nose. Or, if you don't care so much about a seat, the carriage nearest the exit at your alighting point. If you're extremely lucky, these two will coincide. Mostly, however, they don't. This phase lasts a couple of months to a year.
Stage Three: Rage You have now been doing this for far too long. You are tired of the crowds, tired of the smell of a thousand different flavours of soap and deodorant, tired of other people's drawn faces, tired of their obstinate refusal to make eye contact. You hate the idiotic bumbling of tourists with a white-hot intensity. (It's a wonder they don't melt under the collective incandescent heat of Londoners' annoyance. You wonder how you never noticed it before.) If someone is so injudicious as to deliberately attempt to block your way into the carriage, you plunge in, elbows out, not apologizing or speaking, and make sure to get a good jab in under a rib. Both combatants then pretend nothing happened and seethe silently, loathing one another. This phase can last anywhere from years to forever.
Stage Four: Resignation This is a blissful, Zen-like state. You have learned, at long last, not to care about anything other than the book you are currently reading or the fact that you'll soon be home. You are completely detached from the crowd and your surroundings. You don't need headphones. Even the book is superfluous, though not having reading material does make the journey seem longer if you aren't sleepy enough for a nap. If you can move quickly through the station or up and down the escalators, you do. If not, you wait patiently.

Stage Four takes years to achieve. There are many moments of false enlightenment, particularly during Stage Two. But Stage Four, true Stage Four, for an immigrant, is a hard-won victory. It leaves lines on your face and a certain steely, faraway expression in your eye. The girl in the picture I carried had reached it.

* Free morning paper, distributed at tube stations and bus stops. Clever types describe it as "yesterday's news, today".

ALERT: Contains kitten pictures.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:54:40 GMT

What, you dun wanna play with me no more?

Is it cuz I chewed on your face?

Oh ho, gonna get me back, are you?

Too late. Iz under protection of the hoomins now.

Chemistry Nobel Prize: Ada Yonath

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:29:52 GMT

Professor Ada Yonath will share this year's chemistry Nobel Prize for helping to untangle the structure of ribosomes.

I saw Professor Yonath speak in 2002, the year I got my PhD, at the Maria Goeppert-Mayer symposium held annually at the University of California, San Diego. (Two years before that, I won a poster prize at the symposium. A year later, Sally Ride gave one of the symposium talks. And in 2003, I chaired one of the sessions as a postdoc.) Although I can't recall much of the content of her talk - mostly because biochemistry is not my remit - I do remember being quite inspired by her vibrant presence and clear, precise delivery.

She is only the fourth woman ever to win a chemistry Nobel. My own achievements are much humbler but although I no longer work as one, I'm proud to have trained as a chemist myself today.

I become a mother today.

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:44:10 GMT

I'm sorry I had to keep it a secret from you, dear internet friends. But now you know. I became a parent to two adorable little boys today.

This is Telstar.

And this is Sputnik.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to attempt to rescue Sputnik from his reflection without disturbing Telstar, who fell asleep instantly in my lap.

On the boardwalk in Yellowstone Park

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:54:39 GMT

Hot Spring Abstraction

Sometimes I wonder why I keep trying to create abstract art when a mat of single-celled organisms can do it instinctively.

Things Wot I Have Missed About America

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:48:57 GMT

While I was in the States, I had occasion to reflect upon the things I missed about America. I was surprised to find that there were more than I had expected (none, excluding family and friends). In the order in which I wrote them down, here are the four most important ones.

Cappuccinos. By which I mean the drink made with espresso and the froth of steamed milk. You do not get extra points for putting in the steamed milk as well, England. You get a latte. Don't misunderstand me, I love a latte and will happily drink one - when that's what I've ordered. (I'll still drink a latte when I haven't ordered one, just a bit crankily.) Until England at large sorts this out, may the gods continue to smile upon the fortunes of Monmouth Coffee Company. Sadly, I can't go to Borough Market or Covent Garden every day just to get a cappuccino, but it's nice to know that they're there.
Sugar. Boy howdy do we Americans have sweet teeth or what? We know how to make puddings, and even things that are not puddings seem like they are. I introduced the bloke to the Monte Cristo sandwich, which I explained as the invention of someone who couldn't decide if they wanted French toast or a ham and cheese sandwich, so they had both, and then stuck in some turkey for the hell of it. He thought it was dreadful and commented at length to this effect, verbally and via interesting facial expressions, while he polished it off. Which is why you can't eat too much of our cuisine or you start to look like...well, an American.
Friendliness. Gosh, we're nice. I walked around our campsite at Yellowstone holding a bottle of wine for all of thirty seconds before the woman in the adjacent site asked, "Do you need a corkscrew, hon?" And then there was the man who stopped us so we could get a good look at the family of marmots without frightening them off, and the people who told us (with reference to a map and terribly specific directions) where to find a wolf pack, and the barman in Bozeman, Montana who stopped charging us for drinks three hours before the bar shut, and all this just for smiling and saying hello. Dammit, we're nice, and if that makes us seem a bit simple to you grumpy sophisticated Brits, well, so be it. I like us for being that way and I don't think we should stop.
Our land. There's so much of it and it's so wild and beautiful it makes me all choked up even when I'm tearing down the freeway at 90 mph. Granted, we didn't do anything to deserve it other than displace a bunch of native people rather rudely. But as the bloke pointed out, we've tamed it enough that it's totally accessible by car on wide comfortable roads so that even the fattest, wheeziest one of us, as well as foreigners who scarcely know enough English to be able to read our road signs, can appreciate the grandeur of the Tetons or the dizzying dropoffs of the Grand Canyon. That took some doing by the slimmer, more motivated among us and it was a monumental task. It's something to be proud of.

Harbinger of the Fluffy Apocalypse

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:59:17 GMT

Commander of Aerial Assault Forces

Allow me to introduce you to someone we met on our travels through Yellowstone. When we arrived at Grant Village campgrounds, we were delighted to learn that the reward for booking six months in advance was a site situated right next to the lake. We decided to celebrate the next morning by cooking bacon & eggs on our propane stove instead of porridge.

Just as we sat down in our portable chairs to enjoy our repast, a barrage of cones rained down from the adjacent lodgepole pines, one of which was a direct hit on the yolk of a perfectly done sunny-side-up egg. This was followed by lengthy commentary from the adorable little death-dealer himself, which I presume ranged over such topics as our presumption at illegally placing our tent within his grounds, our low parentage and our displeasingly immodest display of furlessness.

We formulated a plan for vengeance, as his barrage followed us wherever we tried to shelter near the picnic table. We collected all of the cones and heaped them in a pile and stood over them. Undaunted, he descended at his leisure and began collecting and storing them, not at all threatened by our bulky presences. Indeed, he won us over in a shockingly short space of time. Between snacks on smaller cones and stashing the larger, he chittered with gleeful abandon over his victory.

The spider's vigilance

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:42:27 GMT

Those two-legged types think that just because they're biggest and loudest, they own this place. Well, I can assure you that if you determine ownership from the amount of time spent in a house and care in patrolling its perimeter, like I do, they've got it completely wrong. Those honours fall to me, and I carry them out with pride. If I let my guard down even for a second, this place would be overrun with ill-bred interlopers with vicious tempers and poor impulse control. I've got one right here, see? You should have seen the way she swaggered in here, preparing to spin right across the cupboard doors. Not only would that have obstructed my hunting ground, it would have made a terrible mess for the bipeds to tidy. She won't be trying that again, oh no. Not until her next life.

Not settling in the UK just yet.

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:27:57 GMT

I spent a portion of last night and today collecting information for my application for settlement in the UK. (I decided to wait until after our upcoming trip to the States in case my passport wasn't returned in time.) While I was putting together a list of my absences - and thank goodness for my LJ addiction or I should never have managed to do it* - I discovered something that made me check over the guidelines again. Firstly, that I've been outside the UK for 222 days during the past five years. Technically, you're not supposed to spend more than 150 days outside the country, even for work, during the period your application covers. Secondly, buried in a bunch of information about settlement on a web site for a company that fills in visa application forms for a fee, I found the following sentence:

"A work permit holder can only apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain after they have spent at least 4 years and 11 months as a work permit holder. Any periods of unemployment or periods when the individual was working without a valid work permit (or leave to remain) will not count toward the qualifying period."

(Note that this information does NOT appear in the settlement form guidelines or on the official UK Border Agency web site. I had to phone them to confirm it, which involved spending nearly 20 minutes on hold. WTF.)

Although I had a work permit for the entire time I've been in the UK, for the first year and a half I was on a partner's work permit. Since I wasn't actually working, that time doesn't count towards settlement. This makes perfect sense to me and I'm not quibbling with the rule that requires you to be employed for the full five years. I just wish that that had been clear to me two months ago.

The upshot of the story is that I'll be applying for an extension to my HSMP (highly skilled migrant) visa, now called a Tier 1 visa, and waiting another two years for settlement. I admit I cried a little when I discovered this.

On a more upbeat note, check out the table of all the places I've been since I moved to the UK!

Absences from the UK over the past 5 years

Destination	Duration (days)	Start	End
Los Angeles, CA, USA	10	29 September 2004	9 October 2004
Dublin, Ireland	4	19 January 2005	22 January 2005
San Diego, CA, USA	15	26 January 2005	9 February 2005
Prague, Czech Republic	3	1 March 2005	3 March 2005
Amsterdam, Netherlands	3	16 March 2005	18 March 2005
Los Angeles, CA, USA	17	23 May 2005	8 June 2005
Ireland	16	16 August 2005	31 August 2005
Barcelona, Spain	5	24 November 2005	29 November 2005
San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA	15	27 December 2005	10 January 2006
Cologne, Germany	8	15 June 2006	23 June 2006
Cork, Ireland	5	26 June 2006	1 July 2006
Paris, France	3	14 July 2006	16 July 2006
Los Angeles, CA, USA	24	17 October 2006	10 November 2006
Budapest, Hungary	7	26 December 2006	2 January 2007
Los Angeles, CA, USA	9	6 January 2007	15 January 2007
Dubrovnik, Croatia	10	3 July 2007	13 July 2007
Olympia, WA & Los Angeles, CA USA	11	31 August 2007	10 September 2007
Sicily	7	18 January 2008	26 January 2008
Paris, France	2	16 February 2008	18 February 2008
Olympia, WA, USA	15	5 July 2008	20 July 2008
Berlin, Germany	3	22 September 2008	25 September 2008
Vienna, Austria	3	4 October 2008	7 October 2008
New York, NY, USA	6	21 January 2009	27 January 2009
Olympia, WA, USA	21	5 September 2009	26 September 2009

Also on a more upbeat note, I discovered a whole bunch of postcard stamps that I bought the last time I was in the States. So, if you want a postcard while I'm on holiday (assuming I don't get exploded by a volcano or eaten by bears while in Yellowstone), fill out this poll. You have until noon on Saturday (5 September).

View Poll: Postcards from the wilderness

* This is partly because not all US airports used to stamp our passports on entry, so I have a lot of return stamps through Heathrow & Gatwick with no start date. It's also partly because immigrations officials tend to stamp on whatever page they happen to find most appealing, which means I have a number of pages with stamps from, for example, 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2008. *headdesk*

The robin's perspicacity

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:21:37 GMT

I've heard others call me shy before. I don't mind that so much. It frustrates me when they say I'm aloof or unapproachable, though. How can they get it so badly wrong, I wonder? I don't wish to be rude, but sometimes I feel if they made the slightest bit of effort they'd see that I'm simply cautious about bestowing my trust, which is only practical in such a large and unpredictable world. For instance, I know that the people who come into this garden to leave me bits of bread roll mean me no harm. Occasionally I allow them to approach quite close, as they like to imagine that their coaxing noises are having an effect on me. I'm not one to go around brutally shattering others' carefully cherished illusions. I also know that the little dog next door would bite straight through me if given half a chance. And don't get me started on those foxes. If I didn't scorn them for the teeth, it would be for the language. Breathtakingly rude, they are. Nearly as bad as the dragonflies. You may call me "reserved", if you like, but just because I exercise a little discretion to keep from compromising my dignity, let alone my life, doesn't mean I deserve to be labeled a snob, thank you very much.

Girl In Studio

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:20:07 GMT

Having a little tea break

I can't believe it never occurred to me before to put an adapter ring on the fisheye lens for my Holga and attach it to the zoom for my dSLR. Duh? (I predict I will be obsessed with this trick for at least a month.)

As you can see, I haven't quite finished unpacking. I bought shelving to put away the crap on the floor but haven't had a chance to assemble it yet. In fact, it's what the camera's sitting on. *sheepish*

Rita, my little red bicycle

By the way, I have a little surprise for you. Every person who requested a Saturn lithograph (4 on DW, 16 on LJ) is getting one. The remainder were sent out today. If you don't receive yours, it's the fault of a postal service and you should let me know so I can send a replacement.

The dragonfly's belligerence

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:24:59 GMT

Oi! What you lookin at, slags? Oh, you think just because I got these sparkly gossamer wings - yeah, I know that word, just because I aven't swallowed a dictionary don't make me thick - that I'm soft, do you? Why don't you come over ere and say that? HA! You can't catch me, can you. The best offence is a good defence, especially when you only got three days to live. Right, I can't stand around ere all day talkin to you, I got important stuff to do, like mating. That's top priority, know what I mean? Hey! You there! Get off that twig, that's mine. Oi! Oi! OI!