Partial Success
Monday, April 17, 2006
Easter Weekend and Serendipity alert...
So it probably wasn't the greatest idea to start a blog immediately before an Easter weekend in which you had absolutely no intention of updating. Ah well.
Still, this Easter weekend, thanks mainly to the energy of the Moll, was one of the more productive I've had, we fitted in three restaurants, two art exhibitions, one michelin star, two walks and a 7k run. the Moll also got me foru new shirts, so I'm slightly more fashionalbe than I was before easter. However, this is like saying luto is slightly closer to the sun at some points during it's elliptical orbit.
Anyway, for those of the newly massive readership interested in co-incidence and serendipity, the Times today has an article explaining how the Abbey Mills Sewerage works built by Bazelgette, discussed below are still discharging sewage into the Thames, and how dealing with this will cost in the order of £2billion and may disrupt London's Olympic bid.
Still, this Easter weekend, thanks mainly to the energy of the Moll, was one of the more productive I've had, we fitted in three restaurants, two art exhibitions, one michelin star, two walks and a 7k run. the Moll also got me foru new shirts, so I'm slightly more fashionalbe than I was before easter. However, this is like saying luto is slightly closer to the sun at some points during it's elliptical orbit.
Anyway, for those of the newly massive readership interested in co-incidence and serendipity, the Times today has an article explaining how the Abbey Mills Sewerage works built by Bazelgette, discussed below are still discharging sewage into the Thames, and how dealing with this will cost in the order of £2billion and may disrupt London's Olympic bid.
"Built in the 1860s by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Abbey Mills Pumping Station, at Stratford East, produces half the city’s total sewage overflow. It can discharge a million and a half cubic metres of waste into the Thames in a day.
"At low tide the creek in front of it looks like a vast mudflat: a glistening brown sludge full of compacted human detritus. A sign on the railings overlooking it reads “Olympic Walk”. The only visitors are tramps, under-age smokers and consultants involved with Olympic projects."
To be honest, I smell (ahem) an attempt by the Environment agency to put pressure on the Government review by using the "Olympics need it" case. After all what's being discussed is:
"The preferred option — a 22-mile (35 km) — tunnel to intercept discharges from numerous overflows throughout London — would cost up to £2 billion and take 15 years to build."This scale of engineering works is staggering. It underlines the achievment of the early city engineers. ¶ 6:04 AM 81 comments
Easter Weekend and Serendipity alert...
So it probably wasn't the greatest idea to start a blog immediately before an Easter weekend in which you had absolutely no intention of updating. Ah well.
Still, this Easter weekend, thanks mainly to the energy of the Moll, was one of the more productive I've had, we fitted in three restaurants, two art exhibitions, one michelin star, two walks and a 7k run. the Moll also got me foru new shirts, so I'm slightly more fashionalbe than I was before easter. However, this is like saying luto is slightly closer to the sun at some points during it's elliptical orbit.
Anyway, for those of the newly massive readership interested in co-incidence and serendipity, the Times today has an article explaining how the Abbey Mills Sewerage works built by Bazelgette, discussed below are still discharging sewage into the Thames, and how dealing with this will cost in the order of £2billion and may disrupt London's Olympic bid.
Still, this Easter weekend, thanks mainly to the energy of the Moll, was one of the more productive I've had, we fitted in three restaurants, two art exhibitions, one michelin star, two walks and a 7k run. the Moll also got me foru new shirts, so I'm slightly more fashionalbe than I was before easter. However, this is like saying luto is slightly closer to the sun at some points during it's elliptical orbit.
Anyway, for those of the newly massive readership interested in co-incidence and serendipity, the Times today has an article explaining how the Abbey Mills Sewerage works built by Bazelgette, discussed below are still discharging sewage into the Thames, and how dealing with this will cost in the order of £2billion and may disrupt London's Olympic bid.
"Built in the 1860s by the engineer Joseph Bazalgette, Abbey Mills Pumping Station, at Stratford East, produces half the city’s total sewage overflow. It can discharge a million and a half cubic metres of waste into the Thames in a day.
"At low tide the creek in front of it looks like a vast mudflat: a glistening brown sludge full of compacted human detritus. A sign on the railings overlooking it reads “Olympic Walk”. The only visitors are tramps, under-age smokers and consultants involved with Olympic projects."
To be honest, I smell (ahem) an attempt by the Environment agency to put pressure on the Government review by using the "Olympics need it" case. After all what's being discussed is:
"The preferred option — a 22-mile (35 km) — tunnel to intercept discharges from numerous overflows throughout London — would cost up to £2 billion and take 15 years to build."This scale of engineering works is staggering. It underlines the achievment of the early city engineers. ¶ 6:04 AM 57 comments
Thursday, April 13, 2006
The Great Stink of London
Ok, so who thinks they'd like to read a book about sewers- for fun? Hands up? Guys? errr... guys?
Say you live in London in 1850 along with about a million other people. Your grandfather, who likes talking crap, tells you that in the old days every family had their own cesspit, which they would pay a lucky night-man to come and clean out every few months or so.
The nightman would then sell it to local farmers for fertiliser, but now there are no farms nearby, and what's more imported Guano from South America means farmers don't want human fertiliser, so prices of night men went up and people stopped cleaning out their cess pits so often. In poor areas, a lot of people lived above cellars and yards full of [censored], or as they liked to call it night soil. City life was fun.
But you're pretty wealthy, so you and your neighbours have just installed these new fangled water closets that flushes the night soil away- which is great, as because for the first time, the whole street isn't stinky.
Only trouble is you're dealing with medieval, (literally) sewerage systems. So what happens is that in about thirty years about half a million people start putting their waste directly into the thames unfiltered. Oddly, bad things start happening.
Did I mention you get your drinking water from the Thames?
It OK though, because the sewerage outlets are mostly downstream of the drinking water inlets. Though there are a couple of ones that sell cheap water that are after the sewers. Oh, and the thames is tidal, so the [censored] flows both ways.
Oddly, people start getting cholera. Still it's mostly poor people, and everybody figures they're dirty anyway. but then one hot summer the Thames gets really stinky, and because people believed disease was all airborne, this is bad. I mean, the house of parliament is right on the River- it's a damn DEATHTRAP!
So they decide to do something about it. Trouble is, there's no-one with the power to make it happen. All the old little villages that made up london run their own affairs. So they have to create a new kind of body, a sort of City council, with the power to raise taxes and build roads and sewers.
The council spend a fortune on build sewers to collect all the [censored] and take it downstream, where it goes straight into the river again. Because sickness is air-borne, remember. They rebuild tributaries, create reserviors and lakes.
At the same time scietists are looking at London water under a microscope- and finding -[censored]. they're also noticing that the closer to the Thames you are the more likely you are to get cholera and die. As the new system comes into place, they notice that only the areas without the new sewers get cholera, and begin to make the link. In the last outbreak only 6,000 people die- all in areas where the sewers aren't connected yet.
I won't even talk about typhoid.
So the change in the city meant a stinky, deadly problem was created, then a new council, a new law and millions of pounds had to be raised to prevent thousands of people from dying and the River turning into a slowmoving shitstream.
At the end of it all, they finally stop putting untreated sewerage into rivers and the sewers they built are still serving london today.
So if you are taking a dump in London today, in the reasonable confidence you won't have to drink it- say thanks to Sit Joseph Bazelgette, his sewers, and the taes raised by the metropolitan Board of Works.
¶ 9:48 AM 57 comments
Say you live in London in 1850 along with about a million other people. Your grandfather, who likes talking crap, tells you that in the old days every family had their own cesspit, which they would pay a lucky night-man to come and clean out every few months or so.
The nightman would then sell it to local farmers for fertiliser, but now there are no farms nearby, and what's more imported Guano from South America means farmers don't want human fertiliser, so prices of night men went up and people stopped cleaning out their cess pits so often. In poor areas, a lot of people lived above cellars and yards full of [censored], or as they liked to call it night soil. City life was fun.
But you're pretty wealthy, so you and your neighbours have just installed these new fangled water closets that flushes the night soil away- which is great, as because for the first time, the whole street isn't stinky.
Only trouble is you're dealing with medieval, (literally) sewerage systems. So what happens is that in about thirty years about half a million people start putting their waste directly into the thames unfiltered. Oddly, bad things start happening.
Did I mention you get your drinking water from the Thames?
It OK though, because the sewerage outlets are mostly downstream of the drinking water inlets. Though there are a couple of ones that sell cheap water that are after the sewers. Oh, and the thames is tidal, so the [censored] flows both ways.
Oddly, people start getting cholera. Still it's mostly poor people, and everybody figures they're dirty anyway. but then one hot summer the Thames gets really stinky, and because people believed disease was all airborne, this is bad. I mean, the house of parliament is right on the River- it's a damn DEATHTRAP!
So they decide to do something about it. Trouble is, there's no-one with the power to make it happen. All the old little villages that made up london run their own affairs. So they have to create a new kind of body, a sort of City council, with the power to raise taxes and build roads and sewers.
The council spend a fortune on build sewers to collect all the [censored] and take it downstream, where it goes straight into the river again. Because sickness is air-borne, remember. They rebuild tributaries, create reserviors and lakes.
At the same time scietists are looking at London water under a microscope- and finding -[censored]. they're also noticing that the closer to the Thames you are the more likely you are to get cholera and die. As the new system comes into place, they notice that only the areas without the new sewers get cholera, and begin to make the link. In the last outbreak only 6,000 people die- all in areas where the sewers aren't connected yet.
I won't even talk about typhoid.
So the change in the city meant a stinky, deadly problem was created, then a new council, a new law and millions of pounds had to be raised to prevent thousands of people from dying and the River turning into a slowmoving shitstream.
At the end of it all, they finally stop putting untreated sewerage into rivers and the sewers they built are still serving london today.
So if you are taking a dump in London today, in the reasonable confidence you won't have to drink it- say thanks to Sit Joseph Bazelgette, his sewers, and the taes raised by the metropolitan Board of Works.
¶ 9:48 AM 57 comments
Gambling for Money- Part 1.
I gamble. A lot. Not for big stakes, not in bookies, but in online poker.
I started about two and a half years ago, with the vast sum of £35 deposited in an online poker account. Today, I have cashed out just over £3000 lifetime, and have £835 in 4 different poker accounts available for play at a moments notice. This makes me winning small fry.
Britain, is, by the way, one of the best places in the world to be a gambler. Gambling profits aren't taxed, and even better, you get free healthcare. If i were a professional, I'd want to live here.
As I sit here now, part of me is thinking that I could be playing poker. It takes an actual effort not to fire up the poker cient, launch my tracking software and start playing.
Whay does it appeal to me so? It's not because it's a game of skill, though it is over the long run. Trouble is, you don't really know how long the long run is. For example, one of the best poker players I know had a losing streak of 100,000 hands of poker. For perspective, I've played maybe 150,000 hands in my entire life.
Think about that. He's a superb player, in a far higher league to me and plays for much larger stakes, but a slight shift of the universe against him and all the advantages of his skill, knowledge, tenacity and inner calm were wiped out, not once, but again, and again and again.
No, the appeal is that you are testing your skill, your nerve and your knowledge against others. The pleasure lies in competing, and in beating others. It's not a nice game. In a single table tournament, for example, you buy a seat, sit down with nine other people and your aim is to take everything they have. All of it. Last man standing wins. When that represents some signifincant amount of money, the tension of keeping your wits about you, of trying to work out the motivations, the reasoning, the skills and the awareness of the other players is a wonderful stimulant.
When I play poker I notice two things. First, I am completely focussed on beating other players. No part of me wants to go easy on a bad player who sits down at a table with no clue about what they're doing. I don't worry if they can afford the money, I don't care if they're happy, sad or sublimely indifferent. If they're making mistakes they're giving away money and I want some of it.
Second, I see my own flaws reflected in my play. I'm easily bored, so I too often fire up two, three tables at a time, read a poker forum, read political websites, buy music or even read a book. this is a huge error. Second, I thin I can bend people to my will. When I have a good starting hand like Ace-king, raise, get called and the board brings rags, I believe by force of main will that I can drive the weak caller into folding. When they have hit their cards you never will, and this misplaced belief in your own potency and puissance is expensive.
My skills? I have a good awarenes of what's happening, I'm good at judging other players and understanding why they bet the way they do. I'm a good reader of people and styles. I'm aggressive when I should be and I take calculated risks. I can risk everything when it's needed and retreat when it's useful to preserve your forces for another time. i usually know when I'm ahead and behind and act accordingly. I'd like to think I have those same qualities in life too.
Yet there's another appeal. The victory is illicit. it's taking without working, without producing, without adding one iota to the sum of human knowledge, sensitivity, felling or creativity, it is a victory self contained and unrelated to the world outside, yet measured in the currency of the world- and that feels good. It feels good to feel like youve found a way to cheat the system, to have hundreds of dollars pushed toward you because of luck, postion, a modicum of skill and the mistakes of others. Conversely, defeat can sometimes be sweet. I hate losing at poker. The Moll (to borrow from Anthony Holden) will tell yu that when I lose repeatedly I'm shocked by the unfairness of it all, filled with self doubt- but without that possibility there would be no thril.
Let me put it another way. I currently average a winrate of 2.67 big bets per 100 hands at limit hold em. If I sat at the table and the other players offered to simply give me that much mony to no play against them, I woudn't want to take it, even though it would be a perfect deal. I want their money yes, but i want to beat them too, and that means I want to risk losing. ¶ 7:07 AM 122 comments
I started about two and a half years ago, with the vast sum of £35 deposited in an online poker account. Today, I have cashed out just over £3000 lifetime, and have £835 in 4 different poker accounts available for play at a moments notice. This makes me winning small fry.
Britain, is, by the way, one of the best places in the world to be a gambler. Gambling profits aren't taxed, and even better, you get free healthcare. If i were a professional, I'd want to live here.
As I sit here now, part of me is thinking that I could be playing poker. It takes an actual effort not to fire up the poker cient, launch my tracking software and start playing.
Whay does it appeal to me so? It's not because it's a game of skill, though it is over the long run. Trouble is, you don't really know how long the long run is. For example, one of the best poker players I know had a losing streak of 100,000 hands of poker. For perspective, I've played maybe 150,000 hands in my entire life.
Think about that. He's a superb player, in a far higher league to me and plays for much larger stakes, but a slight shift of the universe against him and all the advantages of his skill, knowledge, tenacity and inner calm were wiped out, not once, but again, and again and again.
No, the appeal is that you are testing your skill, your nerve and your knowledge against others. The pleasure lies in competing, and in beating others. It's not a nice game. In a single table tournament, for example, you buy a seat, sit down with nine other people and your aim is to take everything they have. All of it. Last man standing wins. When that represents some signifincant amount of money, the tension of keeping your wits about you, of trying to work out the motivations, the reasoning, the skills and the awareness of the other players is a wonderful stimulant.
When I play poker I notice two things. First, I am completely focussed on beating other players. No part of me wants to go easy on a bad player who sits down at a table with no clue about what they're doing. I don't worry if they can afford the money, I don't care if they're happy, sad or sublimely indifferent. If they're making mistakes they're giving away money and I want some of it.
Second, I see my own flaws reflected in my play. I'm easily bored, so I too often fire up two, three tables at a time, read a poker forum, read political websites, buy music or even read a book. this is a huge error. Second, I thin I can bend people to my will. When I have a good starting hand like Ace-king, raise, get called and the board brings rags, I believe by force of main will that I can drive the weak caller into folding. When they have hit their cards you never will, and this misplaced belief in your own potency and puissance is expensive.
My skills? I have a good awarenes of what's happening, I'm good at judging other players and understanding why they bet the way they do. I'm a good reader of people and styles. I'm aggressive when I should be and I take calculated risks. I can risk everything when it's needed and retreat when it's useful to preserve your forces for another time. i usually know when I'm ahead and behind and act accordingly. I'd like to think I have those same qualities in life too.
Yet there's another appeal. The victory is illicit. it's taking without working, without producing, without adding one iota to the sum of human knowledge, sensitivity, felling or creativity, it is a victory self contained and unrelated to the world outside, yet measured in the currency of the world- and that feels good. It feels good to feel like youve found a way to cheat the system, to have hundreds of dollars pushed toward you because of luck, postion, a modicum of skill and the mistakes of others. Conversely, defeat can sometimes be sweet. I hate losing at poker. The Moll (to borrow from Anthony Holden) will tell yu that when I lose repeatedly I'm shocked by the unfairness of it all, filled with self doubt- but without that possibility there would be no thril.
Let me put it another way. I currently average a winrate of 2.67 big bets per 100 hands at limit hold em. If I sat at the table and the other players offered to simply give me that much mony to no play against them, I woudn't want to take it, even though it would be a perfect deal. I want their money yes, but i want to beat them too, and that means I want to risk losing. ¶ 7:07 AM 122 comments
The value of recuperation.
This week I'm on holiday. It's been an odd holiday because I've done almost nothing. I've not gone away, not had a project at home, I've just read, rested and slept. Oh, and gambled. but more on that anon.
I suppose you could say this is a rather stupid waste of the precious few days granted me by the gods of leave. It is really, but I've backed up so much leave I don't know what to do with, going away on your own is fun but ultimately there's no-one to share it with, and It's been a long year and I was run down.
I didn't know until this week how run down I was. Four days of mostly resting and suddenly I have ideas again, I'm making plans again and I can see things I need to get done. This is one.
I'm planning to use this to review books, talk about things that happen, muse upon gambling, relationships, situations and stories that don't involve British politics. I think that self denying ordinance will be good for me, and for my writing. I'm obsessive about politics, know a lot about it, and to be pushed in this way to expand my horizon will be good for me. ¶ 6:26 AM 60 comments
I suppose you could say this is a rather stupid waste of the precious few days granted me by the gods of leave. It is really, but I've backed up so much leave I don't know what to do with, going away on your own is fun but ultimately there's no-one to share it with, and It's been a long year and I was run down.
I didn't know until this week how run down I was. Four days of mostly resting and suddenly I have ideas again, I'm making plans again and I can see things I need to get done. This is one.
I'm planning to use this to review books, talk about things that happen, muse upon gambling, relationships, situations and stories that don't involve British politics. I think that self denying ordinance will be good for me, and for my writing. I'm obsessive about politics, know a lot about it, and to be pushed in this way to expand my horizon will be good for me. ¶ 6:26 AM 60 comments
This is not a test.
So Here we go again. I used to be a blogger. One of the first, but I had to give it up. I was blogging about my job, and well, it just got a bit too successful. I'm politically active, and when people started asking me if I was me, and I had to come up with a story about why it wasn't. Well, I like my political career, am good at it and wanted to keep it. So it all had to stop.
Of course, I sometimes wonder if I made a safe choice there. There was the time the comment editor of the Times asked me to write a piece for them and I ignored it. After all, I couldn't be an actor and a commentator. Actually, scratch that, I couldn't get too known and not get caught. So in the end I made my choice, and it was the right one. I've seen others, good writers, smart people build a reputation for themselves and been pleased for them, but I don't really want that for myself.
What I have missed since then is the chance to be creative. the chance to talk into the void. I suppose there aren't many places that a reasonable person can just sketch, just wonder, just debate with themselves. So I'm back, with just one big rule, no politics.
Maybe that'll reveal me to be staggeringly dull outside politcs. I don't mind that, and if you do, let me know what's wrong and what you didn't like so I can improve as a writer, then move on with my thanks and good wishes.
So here goes. Thanks for dropping by. ¶ 6:15 AM 2 comments
Of course, I sometimes wonder if I made a safe choice there. There was the time the comment editor of the Times asked me to write a piece for them and I ignored it. After all, I couldn't be an actor and a commentator. Actually, scratch that, I couldn't get too known and not get caught. So in the end I made my choice, and it was the right one. I've seen others, good writers, smart people build a reputation for themselves and been pleased for them, but I don't really want that for myself.
What I have missed since then is the chance to be creative. the chance to talk into the void. I suppose there aren't many places that a reasonable person can just sketch, just wonder, just debate with themselves. So I'm back, with just one big rule, no politics.
Maybe that'll reveal me to be staggeringly dull outside politcs. I don't mind that, and if you do, let me know what's wrong and what you didn't like so I can improve as a writer, then move on with my thanks and good wishes.
So here goes. Thanks for dropping by. ¶ 6:15 AM 2 comments
