February 2003

February 28th, 2003. Campaigning Day

You might remember this article from back in December. Summary: we received a whole pile of spam from the Scottish Food And Drink Federation. The Boss phoned them up to complain, and they muttered the usual rubbish about "industry-standard practices" and "it was a contractor who did it, not us."

Well, they've just done it all over again, so The Boss went and phoned them up all over again. They came out with the same excuses, so he's now on the phone to EdNet, their hosting providers, trying to get them to cut them off, or at least Apply Pressure. Go Boss! Go Boss!

If you feel that it's important to remind the Scottish Food And Drink Federation that spamming is not an acceptable business practice, then you could always try writing to:

Flora McLean
Scottish Food And Drink Federation
4a Torphichen St
Edinburgh
EH8 8JQ.

Their phone number is 0131 229 9415 and their fax is 0131 229 9407. Their email address is SFDF@sfdf.org.uk - they don't publicise individual staff email addresses. Maybe it's to stop them getting spam.

In other news, according to this story in The Guardian, respected right-wing politician Norman Tebbit recently said that very few voters "have asked me to support the legalisation of sex in public lavatories, or instruction in oral sex in schools." My immediate reaction was: well, someone should do something about it! So, if you're a UK voter, why not write to Lord Tebbit, The House Of Lords, London, asking why the Conservative Party in general and himself in particular haven't done more to support sex in public lavatories, or the teaching of oral sex. Go on about the Tories being the natural supporters of the rights of the English race and the freedom of the ordinary Englishman; and how it's vital that they support the education and training of our children in the basic skills of everyday life. I'm sure it's possible to phrase it in such a way that it's impossible that it can't be a vital part of right-wing policy; you can do that with virtually anything, after all.

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February 27th, 2003. The good doctor

The new hospital is so far out in the country, I thought I must have missed it. The bus was zooming off into the countryside, sheep on one side and trees on the other, and I was sat thinking: "surely it can't be this far? England must be just over that hill."

Eventually, though, we reached a big, gleaming, white complex. It's still not all finished, and the outside of the building still sparkles, almost. I was half-expecting everyone inside to be dressed in futuristic clean-room suits, but in truth the inside is more like a modern cinema. The main corridor is broad and lit by hundreds of little blue lights. The foyer has a supermarket, and isn't a foyer at all: according to the maps, it's the "Departure Lounge".

Thinking back, I can't understand my nervousness about going. I was incredibly nervous about going to the hospital, finding the right department, having to talk to the desk staff and then the consultant. Now that's all done with, I can't even feel the nerves, much less understand why. The doctor is lovely and friendly to talk to, and I have my regular patient's appointment card.

My mother is unhappy. She was almost in tears when I was on the phone, in fact. She thought, I assume, that the doctor was going to be The Voice Of Reason who would validate all her own beliefs about me, and tell me that I just need to pluck up my ideas a bit, keep a stiff upper lip and find more activities to get involved in. Unsurprisingly, this wasn't what the doctor said. I'm fully expecting her to say "you know, I think you should get a second opinion," the next time we speak.

As I walked out of the hospital, I was still looking around at the building's sparkly-white space station exterioer. Here comes the future, I thought to myself.

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February 25th, 2003. Early photographs again

It took quite a while to persuade the office scanner to work, as it turned out. Stupid XP drivers. Anyway, it worked in the end, so here are the Scottish photos that I mentioned earlier.

These photos are of the harbour at St. Monans, in Fife, and were taken by a photographer called James Russell in 1910, the same year that Prokudin-Gorskii started work. They use the autochrome process, which had been invented a few years earlier and produced a single colour plate. It took an exposure of several seconds to produce each one.

The colour range, as you can see, is nothing like the Prokudin-Gorskii pictures. However, it's worth remembering that this is a reproduction of a 90-year-old colour plate. It wouldn't be surprising if the colours had changed over time - my parents have prints from 30 years ago whose colour balance has gone completely off over the years, even stored away in a cupboard. One of the benefits of Prokudin-Gorskii's colour-separation process is that his archival form was black and white prints, which have always been much more stable by comparison.

Here, for comparison, we have one of his photos; again, one that I've processed myself. I didn't alter the colour balance much, and the colours feel much more like your average modern photograph.

The colour effects around the smoke show that the pictures were not all taken at once, but rapidly one after the other. The washed-out looking sky is probably hazy weather, but it does make the picture look rather more like a modern photograph.

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February 24th, 2003. I could do with a holiday

On Friday, incidentally, it's this month's National Pop League. As usual, it's at the Woodside Social Club, North Woodside Road, Kelvinbridge, Glasgow; and because it's right at the end of the month don't be surprised if you turn up late and don't get in. I'm not sure if I'll be there or not, because I was thinking it might be nice to go away somewhere for the weekend; somewhere apart from Glasgow, I mean. I might go down to London again to see W. and Catherine, and then maybe to Brighton to finally meet Archel. I feel like doing something spontaneous.

One thing I love about National Pop League - apart from the incredibly loud music, the dancing on the packed dancefloor, the hot sweaty atmosphere and so on - are the little freebies you get if you turn up at the start. The first (so many) people through the door get a wee fanzine, a sweet of some kind, and a badge. The badges are always different every month, and they have some really good designs. It's given me a few plans for doing some merchandising of my own - watch this space.

People watching: on Princes St yesterday: a woman busking outside the old Marks & Spencers. Mid-20s, long dark hair and a long black jacket, playing an amplified acoustic guitar and singing with a lovely touching voice. Her guitar-case, on the ground in front of her, had a spread of small change on it. I walked back again the other way a few minutes later to hear some more; but she was packing her equipment away by then.

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February 23rd, 2003. From Russia With Love

I managed to find the pictures I was talking about at the end of this entry, about early colour photography, but my scanner seems to have died. At least, its adapter card isn't being spotted any more. My motherboard has been slowly falling apart for months; this is yet another sign that I need to get a new computer.

On the other hand, I have managed to colourise a few of the black-and-white photos from the Prokudin-Gorskii Archive, as described in the same entry. As I don't have broadband at home I only used the wee JPEG files, not the orignal enormous ones, but it still works nicely even if the results are fairly small.

Of course, as all the titles are in Russian, I don't really have any idea what they are. Here's a railway station somewhere in the depths of the Imperial countryside.

This was taken somewhere near Samarkand; I could work out that much from the caption. I assume it's a ruined mosque.

This came from the same place in the archives, and is also from Samarkand. This is only a detail from the original, which showed mosaic decoration round an archway.

I'll try and get those other pictures scanned in at work; and produce some more Prokudin-Gorskii photographs to compare them with.

Update: My Ace Life now has more detailed instructions on one method to produce these images, using Photoshop. I'm having trouble still thinking of the right word to describe the process - "make" and "create" aren't right, and "enhance" sounds like a special effects lab term.

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February 22nd, 2003. What The Paper Said

It's Saturday, so of course I have to sit back on the sofa, watch What The Papers Say, and read The Guardian. And then, go to the computer and blog about it, because I can't think of anything else.

Today, though, they had an article about blogging. You can read it, if you like. The basic idea is: blogs are the new fanzines. Which, I'm sure, used to be the new something else. I'd like to have had a fanzine, but it does seem to be so much more like work. I mean, getting words and design down on paper, into hard copy, stapled and distributed seems much more difficult than putting words on a screen. You don't have to worry so much about distribution. And there's not so much pressure to keep to a regular schedule - just blog whenever there's an idea to be blogged.

(of course, that doesn't apply to webzines like Friends Of The Heroes, who can design and edit a new issue every week and have it published right on schedule. But that's not really a blog, as such.)

The article was right about another thing though, too. You can't hold a blog in your hand and flip through it. It doesn't drop through the letterbox. It's nice to have an object you can hold.

Oh, one other thing that was in the paper: an article on cats and music - both music inspired by cats, and music written for them. "Professor Hermann Bubna-Littitz, animal behaviourist at the Vetinary University of Vienna, has been researching feline musical appreciation. He has produced a CD ... that he claims is scientifically proven to help cats relax." Hermann Bubna-Littitz. I just love that name.

(and just as I finished typing that, the caat started miaowing to come inside. Awww!)

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February 22nd, 2003. Countdown

Four days until my doctor's appointment now. I'm getting more and more worried about it. Just about silly things, like: maybe they didn't get my email confirming it. Maybe I won't get there in time. Maybe I'll just get lost in the hospital and not be able to find the clinic.

No doubt my mother will be on the phone again today with: "well, you don't have to go, you know."

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February 21st, 2003. In the name of the tsar

This isn't new, but it's wonderful. Yesterday it was amazing everyone here in the Tat Emporium office. I found it via Alex McChesney, who in turn found it on Troubled Diva.

What it is, is: colour photos of the Russian Empire. Colour photos, taken 90 years ago. A Russian photographer (called Sergei Mikhailovitch Prokudin-Gorskii) went round the country with a specially-built camera which produced a triplet of colour-separations for each picture. He had no way of printing them in colour, but recently someone realised that if they were scanned, and each of the separations tinted and recombined digitally, they could be converted into colour prints. The archive of all the pictures is here, at the Library Of Congress website; but this site has more pictures and information about how to make your own colour pictures from the originals, assuming you have Photoshop and can handle 60-megabyte image files without your computer or net connection fainting.

The pictures are very impressive, and extremely detailed. I have a bit of a strange reaction to them, though. I'm so used to assuming that genuine 'the past' pictures are always in black and white, that these all feel like reconstructions. I have to keep reminding myself that they are *real*. What doesn't help is that the digital compositing process tends to give the pictures much higher colour-saturation than I'm used to seeing. Look at this picture, for example - bright blue sky, deep green grass. It almost looks more like a 50s Technicolor movie than reality.

Somewhere I have a National Galleries Of Scotland book which has a reproduction of an experimental colour print from about the same period. I should try and dig it out for a comparison.

11:31 Comments (3)

February 18th, 2003. Accidental (and too lazy to Google too)

Sunday, I went shopping. Rather than get what I meant to go shopping for (new clothes, and a present for someone), I ended up in bookshops. I prowled through the shelves for a bit, and bought myself a few books. Reading More is my Tuesday Resolution.

Anyway, today, I was having a conversation with someone else who loves books - in fact, she'd recommended one of the ones I bought. It started off something like: "Guess what I bought at the weekend!?" and went on from there. The trouble was, before long it got to: "um, I think you've just bought the book that I sent you as a present the other day."

Gah! I've been kicking myself! Not only will my present not be a surprise now, but it'll be something I already have anyway. If only I'd waited a couple of weeks *just in case* that book was in my present. I'm feeling really guilty about it.

To change the subject completely: I vaguely remember reading that there is a Finnish broadcasting company which produces news bulletins in Latin. Does anyone know if transcripts of these are available on the internet anywhere?

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February 17th, 2003. Mother on the phone

Her: So, are you feeling cheerful at the moment?
Me: Um, yeah.

[long story about how she made the church children feel jaw-dropping awe by making them think the Voice Of God was coming from a bush in the churchyard]

Her: Have you got anything interesting coming up this week? When do you go see that bod at the hospital?
Me: A week on Wednesday.
Her: Well, if you're feeling a bit more cheerful now, you could cancel the appointment. You don't have to go.
Me (thinking): AAARGH! Stop being in denial! I'm not going to cancel the appointment after being on the waiting list for over six months. It's not just going to go away if I ignore it, you know - that's what I've been doing the rest of my life.
Me: Um ... well, it wouldn't be very nice of me just to cancel. They have very long waiting lists, you know.

11:35 Comments (0)

February 15th, 2003. Site Update

Incidentally - as I mentioned Friends Of The Heroes - although they still haven't published the results of their last writing competition, one of the editors whispered to me that I've won. As they didn't seem very sure whether they would bother publishing the results or not, I've put the story I wrote for it up on this site. It's a little odd, because of their competition rules, but it clearly can't be that bad.

(and I rewrote all the other Words pages whilst I was at it, because I'm a a Big Geek)

Another thought: maybe I just don't like politics because I'm terrified that people will just laugh at my naïve political views. Keeping them to myself avoids all that.

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February 15th, 2003. Biting my tongue

I really, really, really don't like to talk about politics. It's a natural aversion. The politicans who I don't agree with are all bastards. The politicans who I do agree with are still bastards, because they're politicians. I think about things, and I have political views, but I'm scared it might be contagious so I never talk about them unless absolutely pushed. Even if I'm with people who agree with me.

But anyway. I didn't go to the demonstration in Glasgow today. I almost did, with Rachel from Friends Of The Heroes, but she suddenly decided she didn't have time to meet up with anyone beforehand. I really didn't want to spend the whole day on my own in the middle of a shouty crowd, so I decided I'd be better off spending the whole day on my own at home instead. I did want to go, because I *really* don't think starting a war making the war worse than it is already is a good idea. But I'm sure there will be enough people there anyway.

In any case, even though campaigning against war is a good idea, I had second thoughts. As I said, I really don't like politics, so I try to make sure people can never claim I'm behind one cause or another. Humanitarian causes (no war, equal gender rights, etc) - no problem. Political causes - nope. So I'd have been very uncomfortable marching under a banner with anti-war slogans on one side and "Free Palestine!" on the other. Why have they been glued together anyway? They may be related, but they are two separate issues; and one is much more political than the other.

(yes, I know, you could argue that freedom for the Palestinians is a humanitarian cause. I'd say it's probably both at the same time, and I still wouldn't be happy.)

Maybe when I say "no politics!" I'm just running away from the difficult questions. Saying "I'm against the war! Stop killing innocent people!" is nice and easy to say, so I say it.

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February 14th, 2003. Hearts, flowers and all that rubbish

Today (we're told) is the day that you're supposed to show your undying love for That Special Someone by deluging them in enormous padded greetings cards, flowers, and big boxes of chocolate. At the Tat Emporium Intergalactic HQ, however, there's not much evidence of it. I asked The Boss, and he said: "bah, I suppose I'll have to make some token gesture later. I hate commercialised holidays."

In fact, everyone here seems to agree with what Lyle said on the subject, which is: "there's no special day to show your partner you love them." Any bitterness on my part about V-Day is completely unrelated to me being single forever and ever. No, definitely not. No, honest.

If you *do* want to celebrate it, an enormous box of chocolates would go down very well, thank you. Or some Andes Mints (whatever they are). I'm not very fussy. I do rather like Sue Bailey's seasonal splashscreen, even though I haven't seen any of the Harry Potter films. And Green Fairy has a few good misanthropic links. I also like what Vanessa said to me: "I want someone to ask me 'who are you spending Valentines Day with?' so I can reply: 'my vibrator'."

Personally, I'm just going to curl up on the sofa. Now, where did I leave all that chocolate?

11:50 Comments (5)

February 13th, 2003. A Vision Of Britain

World Book Day is next month, and its organisers are running a poll to decide which books best describe the current state of the nations of the UK. I'm a bit doubtful that you *can* sum up a country in a single book, especially in a novel; but it's still an interesting concept. There is a hint of newness-fever, especially in the England shortlist, but not too much.

Anyway, my nominations (from their shortlist) would go to Lanark by Alasdair Gray (for Scotland) and What A Carve-Up! by Jonathan Coe (for England). As I've not read any of the Welsh or Northern Irish books, I'm hardly qualified to judge.

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February 12th, 2003. "Woof!" said Timmy the dog

As I've probably said before, I've been getting search requests recently for "Famous Five" slashfic. I always like to make sure my readers are satisfied with what they get, so I've decided to write some. Of course, because this is supposed to be the sort of blog you could use to lull a small child to sleep, I'll have to edit out the dirtier bits.

As night fell, the Famous Five went to bed in their tents on the edge of the moor. "I do love these heather beds!" said Anne to George. "They're so much more comfortable than ordinary sleeping bags."

A reader writes: Get round to the sex already!

Julian and Dick laid back in their beds and listened to the sound of curlews calling across the moor. Dick turned over on his heathery bed. He couldn't get to sleep, although he knew that when he woke up the following morning he would have forgotten completely where he was. "Julian," he said, "Do you enjoy the way that all the younger boys at school look up to you?"

"Well," Julian replied, "it can be a little queer. It is good, though, when some of them visit my study after lights out."

"You've never told me about that!" said Dick. "What on earth do you do?"

Julian smiled in the dark, and moved his hand underneath the blankets. He gently touched Dick's ****.

"Gosh!" shouted Dick. "That felt ... nice!"

"It gets better than that," said Julian. "Don't you lower-school boys do this sort of thing to each other all the time?"

Anne suddenly awoke. What on earth was that noise? It was an unearthly howling and groaning, and it sounded very close to their tents. "George? George?" she whispered, "did you hear that noise?" George looked fast asleep. Anne tried to shake her by the shoulders.

"Mmmf blrggh!" said George. "What's wrong?"

"There was a horrible noise!" said Anne. "Listen - there it is again."

The girls laid back in their beds and listened. "Oooohhhhhhh!" it went, "Aaaaahhhhh ooooohhhhhh! ooooooohhhhhh yes yes yes yes yes!"

"I'm sure it's nothing," said George, "just Julian and Dick in their tent. Go back to sleep."

Anne tried to get to sleep again, but she was still puzzled. Why on earth would Julian and Dick be making noises like that? And why did her cousin George seem to know what was going on? It was all very intriguing.

A reader writes (again): That wasn't much sex! Come on, you can do better than that.

Caitlin replies: Look, I told you, this is slashfic for all the family. Anyway, I'm getting round to it.

"I think I've heard that noise before," said Anne, drowsily, "coming from the games building at school."

"You didn't work out what it was?" said George.

"No," Anne replied. "Why should I? I ran away as fast as I could - it sounded like some wild animal was trapped inside."

"It's not a scary noise," said George. "Shall I show you why?" And without waiting for an answer, she shuffled her body round underneath the blankets, so her head was ******* Anne's ****.

Anne was getting drowsier every minute, but as soon as George ******* her ***** with *** ******, she jumped. "Oh!" she gasped, "that feels so lovely!" George didn't reply, because *** ******* *******. Instead, she ***** ****** **** **** deeper and deeper, before ***** ***** with her ***** ******* ******* against Anne's ****. Slowly, she ****** ******* with her *******, ****** **** *** *****.

Anne couldn't speak, but started to make a low moaning sound, with short gasps each time George ***** *** ******. With each gentle stroke, Anne **** *****. She ran her fingers though George's hair as George reached up and ******* her *****. Next, George **** ******** with ****** ******, before **** ******* and ******* ***** ********. *****, ***** ****** *******. "OH!" screamed Anne, "GOSH!" because George's ****** ****** were ***** ****** her ******. George found the tips of Anne's fingers, and guided them to her ****. "It's so ***!" said Anne, in amazement, before ***** George's ***** and puttting her ******* ***** ******* *******. She ***** ***** with the *****, before ***** ******** ******. They both exploded with screams of pleasure, and kept ***** each other's ***** as they did so. The ********* in Anne's ***** was ****, and she had never dreamed that anything like this was possible. It seemed to go on for *****, before the ****** finally subsided and the two girls laid back on their heather, sweaty, intertwined and blissful.

"That was so amazing!" thought Anne, as she drifted off to sleep, "but I was so looking forward to making cucumber sandwiches tomorrow."

The End. I might write more eventually, if I can be bothered.

17:04 Comments (9)

February 9th, 2003. They've gone away again

Yesterday was the last day with The Parents, fortunately. By the time I said goodbye to them I was incredibly pissed off with them, just because of them being themselves. They always want to come and visit me, but never know what they want to do whilst they're visiting. So, we end up having conversations like this, on a busy street corner:

Caitlin: So, where do you want to go now?
Mother: We don't mind, we're here to visit you! What do you want to do?
Caitlin (thinking): Gah! I don't want to do anything, but I have to keep you entertained otherwise we'll end up sitting in my living room, in complete silence, all afternoon.
Caitlin (aloud): I don't know! You're the ones that are on holiday. You have to choose what you want to do.
Mother: Well, it's up to you and your dad. He might have something he wants to do.
Father (shaking his head): I don't mind. It's up to you two.
Caitlin (thinking): AAARGH! GET ME OUT OF HERE!

I've probably gone on in the past about how much I get annoyed by the tourists and shoppers who always block up the city streets by ambling along at a snail's pace and going "ooh, what a lovely view". One of the worst things about going round the city with The Parents is that I get turned into these people. Now, my mother is getting older, and rather short, so it's understandable that she doesn't walk too fast. What isn't understandable is that whatever speed I walk at, she will always move just a bit slower, so I have to keep stopping and pausing for them to catch up. Even if I'm going at a slow amble which I know she can manage, I still turn my head to find that they are now a hundred yards behind.

Yes, I realise that I'm sounding like a whiny teenager whose parents are constantly embarrassing her. This is a frightening sign that my relationship with my parents has hardly changed in ten years. They still do embarrass me, constantly.

I was pretty tired yesterday too, which didn't help with irritability and grumpiness. I'd been to a rather good party the night before, of which I can remember roughly three things:

• Trying to explain the words 'tipsy' and 'squiffy' to a Japanese girl, whose name noone could pronounce correctly.
• Meeting Nine for the first time. For a few months now, Sarah has kept saying "I'll have to introduce you to Nine," and it was very good to finally meet her, although I was a bit scared and so didn't really say much. This was purely because of me being crap, because she's not scary at all outside my own head.
• Someone telling me how they used to smuggle drugs into the Isle Of Man, undercutting the local prices by 50%. "Then we found out that the dealers in the Isle Of Man were supplied by the IRA, and it all got a bit scary."

15:52 Comments (3)

February 7th, 2003. Aaargh!

For some reason, today is the day of inexplicable failures. Something on one of the work websites went mysteriously wrong in the middle of the night. The office's heating controls have a mysterious lack of electricity in them for no apparent reason. The Boss is mysteriously stupid when I try to explain what I am doing to fix the website, and why his quick "let's just do this to get it half-working for now" fix broke the proper fix that I was in the middle of. It's a tearing-my-hair-out kind of day. Aaargh!

Yesterday I saw The Parents again. They are still steering well away from Serious Conversations; the closest it got was a "Do you still go to church?" from my mother. No doubt if I was still a Good Little Christian believing everything I was told, my life would be smooth and trouble-free. Um, yes.

15:40 Comments (1)

February 4th, 2003. People watching (an ongoing series)

For lunch we went to a little cafe just round the corner from my office, and whilst we were there I spotted a girl I'd been at university with, drinking a coffee. As I remembered her, she'd been all bleached dreads and army surplus clothing; but now she's changed a lot. Short, dark reddish hair. Slightly rumpled clothes; not quite office-smart. A skirt and knee boots; I don't think she'd ever have been seen like that as an undergraduate. Buisinesslike, she sipped her coffee whilst making notes in her diary, then pulled a copy of Renfrew & Bahn out of her bag and started flicking through the pages. Every so often, she would smile.

I think she noticed me, but neither of us said hello.

Afterwards, we went shopping and my mother bought me some albums. She was a bit reluctant to go to the counter with a New Pornographers CD. "I'm not buying that! It's vulgar!" Mother, it's only a name.

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February 4th, 2003. Happy birthday to me!

The Parents are being The Parents, as you would probably expect. Lots of long silences and gaps in the conversation, before my mother says "we do worry about you, you know" for the 647th time. We went to the Tollcross Favorit for dinner, which was pretty good.

I'm planning to spend the afternoon with The Parents today, but I'm not sure how it will go. I could end up tearing my hair out by tea-time.

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February 2nd, 2003. Paranoia is the only option

An article in The Observer today seems to be supporting the idea that all new computers should come with keystroke-loggers pre-installed and spying on everything that goes on. To Protect The Children, of course. Because if you don't know exactly what your children are doing online, how can you live with yourself? Clearly, teaching and trusting your children to look after themselves is out of the question, as is not letting them near the 'net unsupervised unless you think they can. That's just too obvious an answer.

(The Observer does have a bit of a history of Getting It Wrong about the internet, of course, as you can read at Need To Know.)

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February 1st, 2003. News travels much faster on the Internet

It was a dark Tuesday evening, and we were coming home from the judo class that my mother taught after school. I must have been 8 years old at the time. The dad of one of the other judo kids was giving me and my mum a lift home. As he drove out of the school carpark, he said: "did you hear about the Space Shuttle?"

Now, I'm nearly 25, and I'm sat browsing the web on a Saturday afternoon when I come across a news item posted ten minutes ago. It comes as a shock.

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February 1st, 2003. Happy New Year

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

According to my site statistics, I haven't had any visitors from .cn or .tw lately; but that doesn't mean there aren't any Chinese visitors at all, of course. Happy New Year anyway. I'm told that it's now the Year of the Ovicaprid.

(which is a made-up Latin word which means 'sheep/goat'. It's used by archaeologists to cover up that they can't tell the difference between them, because their skeletons are extremely similar.)

(I really hope noone is going to start talking about sheep/goat slashfic now.)

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