What are words worth?

I’ve always thought I was reasonably good at words. Not Shakespeare, not Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings – somewhere in between. Never a main flavour in the great cooking pot of literature, but perhaps a small spice near the edge that adds minutely to the overall taste.

But no more. How can I hold a candle to – how can I even live on the same continent as – the composer of this masterpiece?

“A key problem in the academic field of dance is how to capture and document the incremental development of ideas and their material manifestation in the creative process within practice-led research. In improvisational, embodied investigation, the mode of engagement is generative, pre-verbal, intuitive, experiential and fluid. This militates against types of cognitive engagement necessary for analysis, critique and reflection. The problem is most acute in the context of dance: however it is pertinent to all arts-based disciplines. This project is predicated on dialogic processes between dance and e-Science and the fluidity of concepts as they transverse the two domains, making use of recent advances in the visualisation and representation of spatio-temporal structures and discourse.”

If you want to know more – how it ends, whether the boy gets the girl – it’s the first paragraph of a research description here.

I will now retire to a small monastery and consider an alternative career. I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a pop star if I ever learned the guitar properly. Maybe a bit like Roger Waters but without the ego or the whining.

We must learn to weather the weather, whether we like it or not

The BBC weather site has had a revamp. Apart from new pretty pictures it now tells you where your weather is coming from. I entered the postcode for work, OX11, and was told I was getting Reading’s forecast, that being the nearest available for that code. Reading is 25 miles away.

I entered the postcode for Abingdon, OX14, and was told I was getting the weather for, well, Abingdon. Which is 7 miles away.

For the record, the weather in far-off Abingdon is scheduled to be:

  • 10:00 light showers, 14 degrees
  • 13:00 light showers, 15 degrees
  • 16:00 cloudy, 15 degrees

We Readingites are getting:

  • 10:00 cloudy, 14 degrees
  • 13:00 light rain, 15 degrees
  • 16:00 cloudy, 14 degrees

I think I’d rather be in Abingdon. I work indoors, so the light showers won’t affect me, and it’ll be marginally warmer when I go home.

The needle returns to the start of the song

“A two-day auction of art by Damien Hirst has set a new record for a sale dedicated to one artist of £111m,” says the BBC.

“Are you telling us that Ankh-Morpork is bankrupt?” said Downey.

“Of course [said Vetinari]. While, at the same time, full of rich people.”
– Terry Pratchett, Jingo

Or as Del Amitri put it:

… and computer terminals report some gains
On the values of copper and tin
While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs
For the price of a hospital wing
– Del Amitri, “Nothing ever happens”

In fact that’s such a good song that I’ll play it now, to take my mind off the depressing conviction that something is horribly wrong.