So at the end of the day, what's it all about then . . . And wallpaper

Last night as I sat chilling watching Stargazing Live on the BBC, I got a phone call asking if it was possible for me to visit a member of my family to hang wallpaper on one wall in order to create a feature. Caught slightly on the hop so to speak I did not have time to make up a cunning and brilliant excuse so in a sort of mad babble I agreed and was told that it was easy and would only take an hour of my time. I mean it’s wallpapering and therefore dead easy. Well that is sort of true except there is a strange black art to really good wallpaper hanging, which I do have, only it has been a while since I did an entire walls worth of it.

On my arrival I did find that one of the reasons that they had asked me was due to a bit of a disaster the evening before when they had attempted to hang the first piece themselves. Then the painter who is doing the rest of the room and putting together some large flat pack wardrobes for them said  . . . . . Oooooooo I don’t do wallpaper hanging far too dodgy and it can take ages.  . . . . I did agree with that, it is indeed a fickle thing to do well.

So three hours later the task was complete and all were pleased looking at the wall and saying well that is a good job done. . . .But how come it took three hours. . . . . Well of course it does take time to line up each drop and ensure nice clean edges top and bottom making sure that the paper is square to the wall so the pattern does not run up the wall at an angle and the like. And I do like to do a job well once I start one.

Anyway that was earlier and I have just watched Stargazing Live again where I discovered I did not discover a pulsar, but two small children did. It can be tough trying to make a small impact in the world. It would be nice to know that every now and again someone would say . . . You know that thing, you Know that thing that Rob Z Tobor did, wrote, discovered, sat on, ate, created, he was a cool chap . . .  I guess I will have to keep working on it for now and write more poetry and make more cardboard stuff and the like.

It is why I have mixed feeling about the sadness and shock that so many express about the likes of Lemmy, David Bowie and sadly today Alan Rickman. It is indeed very sad but in many respects they have been lucky enough to have left their mark on the world when so many live and die and are remembered by so few. It was after all the very sad death of a very talented twenty one year old called Svetlana who never got the chance to truly achieve what she might have  that first made me think I should write a blog. At least I know that in years to come when folk read my blog and I am off in another universe or what ever,  they will stop and think. . . . . Ooooo I just fancy a decent curry now. . . .    

The return of BBC Stargazing Live, a tale of aliens and cloudy skies

A couple of years ago when the BBC Stargazing Live programme with Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain was on the television I wrote the following post on my blog. This was before I was a grumpy old bloke and still the Slightly Eccentric Child of Cyberspace, Although I may have also written several slightly mad poems by this stage. . . I cant remember that far back anyway, so who can tell.  I will be watching this as it is a jolly interesting show even if they all seem a bit too happy to me and never turn up ashen faced and telling us about . . .  The End of the World. . . . I mean you could make such a cool spoof BBC Stargazing with aliens and the like. But No No they are all keen and enthusiastic and point at stars and go OOOOo look . . . .AH DAMN its cloudy.

AH I got a bit distracted . . . . As I said I will be watching this so I have cheated and this is an old repeated post. . . I hope you enjoy it, all I can say is I dont know what I was on about, but the universe is complicated particularly when the plucky Brit spills a cup of tea into the ISS main control panel

It is Wednesday today and School has returned to a state of stability, I know this because the Mathematics teacher showed us Newton’s formulas for the stability of nature, In an ideal world this would result in the entire school being all enthusiastic and leaping about particularly as the BBC Stargazing Live is on the television again tonight after what turned out to be jolly cloudy night last night, where no aliens were seen, and no stars or even the moon. But of course The Lagrangian Formalism (The Principle of Least Action) takes this into account and the result was lots of pupils wondering which class they should be in; and why the physics teacher was sweeping up mud in the playground, apparently it was the caretaker in a similar jumper with a pink reindeer on it, it appears the headmaster gave the same jumper to most of the school staff. . . . . . That is all well and good but if they all look the same how can I tell which lesson I’m in.  

So in a nut shell what I am saying is that Newton’s formulas for the stability of nature will state that my three slices of toast fall on the floor at lunchtime butter side down but the Lagrangian Formalism (The Principle of Least Action) states that by adding some curry and peanut butter to hide the fluff they tasted fine and the school cat will lick the floor clean.

I know I should be writing loads more at present but in keeping with The Principle of Least Action we are at the time of year when the least happens, it is a northern hemisphere thing the further north you get in the winter the less things are happening particularly in quiet rural communities where we keep our heads down until spring appears. As it happens there are signs of life poking out of the ground as things like daffodil’s start to grow and the Lemmings of Petrograd start singing the old songs of home. 

Sorry I stopped to watch the BBC Stargazing Live show so am a little later than planned with the post, I was interacting with The Principle of Least Action in way that shows its overall effect rather well.

David Bowie, the Squirrel and the Telegraph Pole

Well as the world knows David Bowie died today at the age of 69. Now although sad news to us the fact is he did have an interesting and at times good life. I think also there were more than a few times when he was somewhat off the rails in term of conventional lifestyle, but such is . . . or was the rock and roll life for many at one time.  Musically David Bowie’s music covered a huge range of styles, but most remember the old classics. . . . . It was ever such. Anyway all I can say is it’s a fickle world and Mr Bowie made his mark in it in his own way. And if there is an afterlife right now Lemmy will be playing a huge noisy bass guitar riff at Mr Bowie who will be smiling trying to look happy and asking if Mr Lemmy has seen his old mate Lou Reed about. . . . . . 69 may not seem old (well not to me), but lets face it only gnarled old blues men still have their mojo in their eighties and beyond.

So what did I do today . . . I fixed a small torch and took a photo of a squirrel up a telegraph pole and drank a mug of cocoa in a garden centre sort of place, removed a load of tools from my car that a cat refused too last night and ate cornflakes and some other things.  Life in the fast lane is sometimes quite slow.

That squirrel by the way is the little one the great fat beast is huge from eating all the peanuts we put out for the birds.

Not Winning the National Lottery

I will be back here in June, its a grand place

near Inverness

Once a week I buy a Euro millions lottery ticket on a Friday and a national lottery ticket on a Saturday. Now you might say that these days since they sneakily added extra numbers as well as increasing the price to two pounds, the odds of winning as so long that it is almost pointless doing it. Well I would entirely agree with you except for one small issue which now has me trapped. You see since the lottery started a few years ago, probably a few more than I think. I have always used the same numbers on the grounds that based on the principles of probability I would win a modest sum sometime in the next thousand years.  Well that would have been true until they added all these extra draws and then added extra numbers, which now means the principles of probability state that I am more likely to win a tap dancing competition on the moon that win the lottery in the next five hundred thousand years even if I bought a thousand tickets a week.

I refuse to buy more tickets but if I don’t buy my ticket on Friday and Saturday how would I feel if the numbers I use and have always used actually win . . . . I would not be a happy chap so I am well and truly trapped not so much by the dream of winning but by the dread of not winning on the basis that I might actually discover that my numbers did come up on a week I did not have a ticket. I bet (no pun intended) there is a fancy technical name for this but sadly I don’t know it.

O course we all have our little dreams about what we would do if we won the lottery although I do have to point out we should all pursue those dreams as best we can and not think . . . . When I win the lottery I will. . . . . As I have stated you could wait many thousands of years.  But even so, I do have my little dreams about what I might do if I won.  I would not move house I am lucky to live in a nice place but I might buy a small second home near the coast up in Scotland. I love the sea and worked offshore while living in Scotland so it sort of makes sense to rekindle some of those old memories of being an old seadog leaping from boat to ship to platform to crane barge and back again.  And although it’s a stereotypical thing to do I would buy a posh new car. No not some stupid supercar that you cant even get a cat basket in, but a decent 4X4, I have owned a couple in my life and in both cases they were great but as fickle as a car can be, and if I was not nice they would do odd things. They never actually let me down and the V8 Range Rover was a hell of a beast as long as I never ventured far from a petrol station.  It once saved a wedding by ferrying everyone between the church and a house deep in the winter snow.  Sadly Range Rovers have gone all footballers’ wives in their image these days so no good to me.

I would also probably have to get a haircut as it is likely I would be told I could afford a decent haircut, and I suspect protesting would not convince my family that I would be much better as a wild reclusive and slightly mad lottery winner. No they would point at my shiny new posh car and say . . . You can’t drive that with hair that looks like an electrocuted ferret that has been run over a few times by a bus. . . . . . . . You see there are some things even winning the lottery can’t change . . . . Remember money will not make you happy, but it can make it easier to be happy you just need to know what is important.  And even if you do win I suspect you will find you still have dreams that you will be chasing it is sort of what keeps us going. . . . .