Laptop's in with Mike to fix, due back tomorrow after a suitable amount of technical intake of breath and head shaking. I drove for miles for a 20 minute meeting then had a phone meeting on the way back driving down the motorway. This new deal's turning into a real trial and despite my best attempts to sidestep it and move on to the new role the deal keeps coming back to fill in every working moment.

Looking around at some of the photo and weblogs I read I'm getting frustrated that I should be a little more inovative here using video and sound perhaps like dailyexperiance or Secret Vlog Injection.

Perhaps words aren't all we need ?

Update :

Here's some more information on vlogs

Posted by Mark at 10:36 PM | Permalink

Well, despite all my best endeavours my laptops broken. At least broken enough to need a rebuild. It came close to being fixed but I can’t sort all the errors in the software hive and the fastest route back to my email at work is to pass it to a man who can tomorrow.

Today’s been a day of chores. I’ve cleaned out the garden, shopped for book bargins (one on curtain making for Fhai and one on black and white photography for me plus a new book to read) and washed the car.

Tonight’s a DVD and some planning to go out to see things in real life like films and music.

Posted by Mark at 6:26 PM | Permalink

Maybe you remember I told you about Mr Singh's closing ? Well someone had a great idea...

Fhai's been looking to do something other than keep house and look after Martin and the kids since she came back from Thailand. As a seamstress what she really needs is a place to set her sewing machines and lay out fabric to work in. Seems the old Post Office could be ideal. It's just down the road and would let her get out of the house and work on her own a little each day. We're all huddled around a copy of Excel working figures so watch this space...

Posted by Mark at 7:21 PM | Permalink

Things never go wrong at a convenient time do they ?

A busy day at work and home and today my work laptop decides to sulk and refuse to load the software hive making it an attractive doorstop.

I can hear the email piling up at work already...

Posted by Mark at 11:53 AM | Permalink

Things never go wrong at a convenient time do they ?

A busy day at work and home and today my work laptop decides to sulk and refuse to load the software hive making it an attractive doorstop.

I can hear the email piling up at work already...

Posted by Mark at 11:53 AM | Permalink

The railway tracks

I wonder how many of you heard a knock at the door today ?

Perhaps it was the postman, or a friend, or even a salesman trying to get you to buy something you really don’t need but which seems too good a deal to let it slip past.

Most of the knocks at the door today will have been welcomed. I’m sure a few brought sadness and sorrow, but mercifully to only a few people.

Sixty years ago today the liberation of Auschwitz brought to an end the knock at the door which called so many to death for so long.

It seems inconceivable that the Holocaust could start as simply as that. People woken at night or taken away in the day in front of other humans. Few people asked why or tried to stop it and, before long, the few knocks became many and then train loads of people were lost.

We have to remember the utter cruelty of what happened, but we also need to remember how it started. With simple actions, taunts, hostility and rumours.

For everyones sake we need to remember, and to pass the stories on.

Posted by Mark at 6:03 PM | Permalink

It’s unusual to pickup a book and sense that it’s a classic. Even more so when that book hasn’t been out long, but with this book you do get that feeling.

Zafon has managed to mix suspense with romance, gothic with thriller. He is a great storywriter and has the ability to keep the reader wanting to turn the page with every twist of the plot. The characters are well drawn and all set against the city of Barcelona through which they move and from which some try to escape.

Altogether a very enjoyable read.

Posted by Mark at 9:01 PM | Permalink

Back late with pages of notes and what seems like hundreds of actions, things to check up and stuff to learn.

I’m not sure I’m up to all this, travel, thinking and working but I managed today at least…..

Posted by Mark at 8:36 PM | Permalink

There’s something about the sea which keeps calling me.

I’d expected to be further inland, playing with the Zoneplate as it was a bright, sunny, cloudless day but as I drove I found myself closer and closer to the sea, until, at last, I got out and walked on the beach.

Despite the cold I watched the girl go in and swim. Not for long but a lot futher out than I’d have gone and with a lot less clothes on than I’d have managed. Her father was ready with the towel, gathering her up as soon as she left the water and rubbing her hard to get the warmth back into her. From the gravel walk above the shingle banks the people watched her amazed that anyone would go in this early in the year.

I’ve managed a few shots with the Zoneplate. It’s very different from what I’ve done up until now. The camera has a fixed lens of around 55mm with a fixed aperture of f34 so you have to balance shutter speed and film speed to get the image that you want. It’s going to be very much a learning process but I’m ok with that. The very first images are here.

Most of the day inland was taking pictures of churches in the sun so it was nice to wander along the beach and admire the different types of beach huts, all in different stages of repair.

I’d not been near the sea since Bulgaria so it was nice to be back. Wandering along the beach I came to one of the huts with a veranda and sat with my back to the pillar, watching the sea and the shadows on the flaking paint.

Posted by Mark at 9:19 PM | Permalink

Today has been a real day of mixed fortunes, ups and downs, goods and bads. I guess it was always going to be that way today …

• I lost the eyepiece off the camera, and it seems it’s impossible to track down a new one
• I tried to pay in money and they didn’t want it.. now that’s a first. It seems the interest on the account is good you can’t add to it, so a call to the financial advisor on Monday
• I had a neatly wrapped package from the States waiting for me containing my Zoneplate. OK 6pm on a Winter’s eve isn’t the best time to try this but I did. It looks odd on the camera and turning off focusing, metering and switching to manual feels odder. I need to brush up on the basics of f stops and exposure to get the best from it. I also need to find something to protect it - both the hole and the cover are too fragile.

• My search for something to enhance the edges of my pictures led me to some plugins on Limewire, after a good start at 80% downloaded I’m stuck on one modem host with a download of 2 Kb/s, when it works

• I realise I’ve gone from someone who was cared for and wanted to someone whose no longer special. At least you’re perhaps better, you’re out and I whoever you’re with I hope it’s a special day

Posted by Mark at 11:29 PM | Permalink

It feels like Spring is on the way. The ground’s warming up and the bulbs are rising. There’s a little more sun every day and things are begining to grow and flower. Perhaps soon I can eat outside again and sit and read.

I’m really impressed with The Shadow of the Wind. It’s characters are well drawn and the descriptions of the city make me want to go back to Barcelona. To walk along it’s streets and see it at night as I showed you all those years ago in June 2003.

Posted by Mark at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Guardian Unlimited | Onlineblog

“If you’re a blogger (or a blog reader), you’re painfully familiar with people who try to raise their own websites’ search engine rankings by submitting linked blog comments like “Visit my discount pharmaceuticals site.” This is called comment spam, we don’t like it either, and we’ve been testing a new tag that blocks it. From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists,” says Google’s blog.

“We hope the web software community will quickly adopt this attribute and we’re pleased that a number of blog software makers have already signed on.”

Hooray! At last an end to the spam comments…

Posted by Mark at 2:16 PM | Permalink

Well not real snow but as close as we seem to get nowadays. I should have looked out earlier but I got lost online and when I did look out the sun was up and the snow was starting to melt.

Posted by Mark at 5:36 PM | Permalink

Well not real snow but as close as we seem to get nowadays. I should have looked out earlier but I got lost online and when I did look out the sun was up and the snow was starting to melt.

Posted by Mark at 5:36 PM | Permalink

I watched a copy I made of the BBC program On the Frontline in which the BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen looked at the impact war had on the people who reported it.

I’d only really noticed him from his work on breakfast time, a job he was never suited to, so discovering his war work and the fact that his best friend was killed moments after he stepped out of a car in the Lebanon was shocked to hear and worse to see.

If I told you the story of how I read War Junkie last summer and got a little closer to understanding how to use my Nikon at the balloon festival you may remember the name Jon Steele. After reading his story it was good to see him on this program as well, looking happy and well but telling Bowen something of the darkness he had seen and how it affected him.

How, as he said, he had, “lost count of the number of times the eyepiece of may camera had filled up with tears as I filmed”. We’re all fortunate that these people go there, risk life, health and sanity to report on and question what is happening but we have to remember there are lives and tragedies there for them as well.

Posted by Mark at 11:27 PM | Permalink

More tinkering here to :

• add an Atom feed
• setup ping and syndication to Technorati
• credit the other components I use for this site in the Powered By section, which I have also reformatted
• add in some new categories for entries
• updated the sideblog with whats new in listening, reading and watching

It’s well worth dropping by Technorati to see what they are doing with Tags which reminds me a little of Newsmap. With a listing on Technorati and Moreover we seem syndicated, at least for now.

Posted by Mark at 11:05 AM | Permalink

Times Online - Travel

“In the same way as The Da Vinci Code, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s complex thriller The Shadow of the Wind has proved a runaway, word-of-mouth success across Europe. In Zafón’s native Barcelona, you are the odd one out if you haven’t read it.”

“The story is about a boy who sets out to discover the truth behind the strange past of an obscure writer. But its success is due partly to the way it evokes the Gothic gloom of post-civil-war Barcelona.”

Sounds a good read, you can get it from Amazon as well.

Posted by Mark at 6:12 PM | Permalink

Well after a little searching around I found a place to purchase a zoneplate rather than struggling to make one.

Basically, a zoneplate is a way of turning a normal camera into a pinhole camera.

With this you can make images like this or like these.

The plan is to use it on the digital and see what I can come up. I need some nice locations to take pictures in and I’m guessing it has to be with a tripod as you are more or less working with a fixed aperture. So, when it’s arrived from the States we’ll take it out and try it.

Posted by Mark at 12:55 PM | Permalink

I can still remember the time I called my Mother a Nazi. The frustration and hate in my voice at being different, half German, in a small town with small minded “friends” who taught me a word and passed on the hate.

I got more of an understanding of the war in the moments she took to sit me on the edge of her bed, opposite the ash veneered dressing table, and explain than I was to get later in history lessons. How the faces of the Russians, cold and desolate, trooping past her house from the front line still haunted her even then. How she had lost her friends, the Jewish children from the village and how she had to listen from afar to the Cantor singing. The horror of Kristallnacht, which we remembered every year with a candle burning all night in the window (many years later, when she died, I found she still had the date in her diary with birthdays and more happy anniversarys) and of course the personal pain of the loss of her brother, conscripted to be a Nazi, taken by force and lost forever somewhere in Europe.

I sat there, mouth open, listening to the stories. It all fell into place. Why we used to go to Petticoat Lane to eat Latkes at the Jewish deli, why we were so tolerant of Poles, Indians, even gypsies that turned up at the door. Why we shared.

We all make mistakes when we are young. I’m sure Harry didn’t mean anything by it. But, in a media savvy culture, where images rule and remain it’s amazing to think that this has happened. Someone must have advised him. Warned him.

What I’m sure he under-estimated, as I did, is the impact the war made on people, the memories they carry even to today and how words and images can upset people.

I’m sure if my Mum was here now she’d sit down, take out the old photographs that I now have and explain.

Posted by Mark at 10:01 PM | Permalink

A frosty start to the day today so I went out with the camera. There’s a field near by with these sunflowers left from last summer, all covered in the hard frost we had last night.

Posted by Mark at 12:49 PM | Permalink

I've dug out my pictures of Barcelona to share here Maybe we all need a little warm sun today ...

Meanwhile here's something all about derelict London

Well, a good film tonight, one DVD left for this week. I managed to clear some work as well as all my travel reading so I have a hugh pile of paper to re-cycle now. The next DVD is being rendered on the PC ready to burn and test tomorrow. So that leaves reading and sleep.

See you all tomorrow.

Posted by Mark at 10:43 PM | Permalink

This is getting to be a habit. Back late again after a drink with Bev and Holly, delayed by a decorating disaster with masking tape. All sounds way to Changing Rooms for me. It was fun evening, we talked about old college friends, the state of the world and came up with a few advertising concepts and a few names for bands. Luckily this time we wrote them down rather than forget them. Nice to see Pete in the bar as well, Friday I'll take Martin along so we can all meet up before Pete goes to drive a bus over Europe....

Posted by Mark at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Back late from a local concert in aid of the victims of the Tsunami.

In case we're all a little jaded by it all here's just a small reminder of what the devastation is like...

Posted by Mark at 11:55 PM | Permalink

The cake

If you’d have been here earlier I’d have let you lick the spoon.

Well, the cake wasn’t bad. Perhaps too much cream, if that’s possible, but all the chocolate made up for that. The meal was excellent, a huge spread and loads of people to share it with. Turkey, gammon and loads of roast vegetables. Christmas all over again.

It was nice to catch up with Ann and Paul and see James and Daisy. In the end we all over indulged, one of those long leisurely meals which seems to last and last, lubricated of course with the odd glass of wine.

So, the end of another week. Looking ahead I have to sort out the fact from fiction with this new role, try to get out a little, produce some more DVDs for Martin, and get the car MOT’d. A packed schedule but for now, sleep.

Posted by Mark at 9:54 PM | Permalink

“There’s a hundred pounds off that one, plus some free film”

Of course it’s totally impractical. I don’t “do” film now, and my film scanner couldn’t manage that format in any case, but still I get drawn. Ever since I was allowed the back copies of Amateur Photographer from my father the name Bronica has called me.

I love the look of their cameras and the quality of the images you get from the larger negative. But I’m getting used to the immediacy of digital now, the fact I can take some pictures, bring them back here and then upload them to show you. I’m not sure I could wait until I finished a roll, then wait for development, spotting, scanning : hardly what I’m used to now.

Now a Bronica with a digital back ….

Ok so the cost is, well, expensive. Another dream to put to one side.

Actually, I have more than enough to keep me going photographically at the moment. There’s a few things I want to experiment with as well as finishing off the course and getting some things published.

I’ve been trying to do a little research on the ‘Net today to get ideas for places to take photographs and assignments which may be sellable.

I should really have gone out. I got conned by the cold, wet, windy start and a fight to get the cover back on the chimena. By the time I was back from Sainsburys with the ingredients for a chocolate cake to make tomorrow morning the day was bright, blue skyed and still windy. Instead, I have been pottering around finishing off things here, shopping and selecting the week’s DVDs from Blockbuster.

So, grab some popcorn, light the fire and settle back to watch with me.

Posted by Mark at 7:05 PM | Permalink

I'm really not sure about a new job which has sales in the title. I'd expected a lot more technical aspects to the role, this seems to be, well, selling. I think my reluctance goes back to when I worked for SMS and we sat and listened to what the salesmen then had sold. This system linked to that, fabulous new interfaces and a load of vapourware we'd struggle hard to deliver on. True, solutioning isn't really for me and it only has so long you can do it before you need to move on and nothing is for ever. Next week I need to ask around and see what the reality is behind the job description. For now it's a DVD, a malt and wondering what to do with the bare patch on the mantlepiece where the christmas decorations use to be.

Posted by Mark at 7:45 PM | Permalink

Well clearly after 3 hours of sleep I didn’t look that good this morning. I walked around the block to get some air and met up with Bev to discuss Kate and Johnny’s windows, got a paper and settled down to try to get some work done. Seems the New Year has meant everyone has a new job in some form so we are all shuffling pieces of work and hoping that new responsabilities will bring challenges and a better vibe in the team.

I’m really lucky to still have a few people around me who care, after a knock at the door and an attempt to invade (stopped by Fhai) I was given a food parcel to keep me going. Spring roll anyone ?

Posted by Mark at 10:26 PM | Permalink

I've converted this blog to use SQL, there's no real difference but for some odd reason rebuilds had stopped working on the default Berkley database. Odd.

Next on my list is the grey block at the top ....

Posted by Mark at 7:55 AM | Permalink

This year Mr Singh’s Post Office at the bottom of the road will close. There’s been a Post Office here since at least 1910, and when I moved in it was matched by a dairy and vegetable shop across the road. It doesn’t have a great range of stuff for sale, mostly the essentials of life and it’s one of the few places I know which sells fuse wire, one of the essentials if you live in an older house with all ther electrical vagaries. What it does do is offer a service to the old and infirm. From the old people who can’t make it to the main Post Office to pick up the pension or send a grandchild a card or the mentally handicapped kids from the group home up the road who proudly walk down the road to pick up sweets or post a letter. It’s things like this which don’t make it onto a balance sheet but are, neverthless, important to providing a service. It is, like a lot of things in life, a matter of balance. Between price and performance, service and profit.

According to The Guardian,

“The closures have been sanctioned by ministers concerned at mounting losses at the Post Office. A switch to paying pensions and benefits direct to bank accounts is estimated to cost the Post Office £400m a year. This loss of business spurred the Department of Trade and Industry to spend £2bn on IT systems and other initiatives, with the aim of turning post offices into mini- banks able to handle basic account services and sell foreign currency and travel insurance. However, the profits from these were not expected to match losses from ending the old passbook pension and benefits payments.”

I can’t see Mr Singh’s as a mini-bank. It has whitewashed wood cladding on the walls, a freezer with icecream in a tub for kids in the summer and a display which has nail files and string. Besides, where else will Smokey the cat get so much attention, sitting on the freezer watching Mr Singh weigh parcels, frank post and take time to listen to people and how their day is.

Posted by Mark at 10:52 PM | Permalink

So, today has been a day of lazing. I finished off a film and took it back. I have rebuilt the PC for Martin and Fhai after they made a decision that 2005 was the Year of the Net rather than the Year of the Rooster in their house. So, new operating system and all the anti-virus, popup stoppers and firewalls you could hope for have been loaded onto it. I wandered off to PC World and got thinking about a Belkin Wireless Pre-N router as a means of sharing my Net wealth and finished off the list of goals I have for at least part of the year. It's a wierd cross between the mind maps of Tony Buzan and the personal organisation ideas of David Allen but I'm kinda happy with the way it's turned out. At least having things set down means I can see what I am achieving or what I'm not.

There's not so much laughter around and not as many smiles now but at least tomorrow I'm back at work ....

Posted by Mark at 8:56 PM | Permalink

I went to the Tate Modern today to see the exhibition of Robert Frank's photography. It was a wide ranging exibhition covering his still and movie work. For me the best part was The Americans, his journey across the country which Jack Kerouac said "sucked a sad, sweet, poem out of America".

This evening I have been sitting here with a copy of Freemind trying to sort out the goals I have for the New Year. I'd started last year and planned to unveil them sooner but as things turned out I had to change a load and remove even more. It's hard to see any dream dashed but a whole set so early on isn't how I wanted to start the year. Let's see how it goes....

Posted by Mark at 9:35 PM | Permalink

I can still see the signs in the staircases, “No durian allowed in the rooms”. It was a new hotel, already crowded out by the shopping mall being developed next door but the staff did their best to keep the dust down. I was sitting at the bar, under the shade of the awning talking to the manager and making notes for a piece I was to write for Lonely Planet. “This is a busy year” he said, and it was. The whole of the town was being rebuilt with new pavements, shopping malls and hotels to cater for the waves of tourists. I’d already walked along the beach and a little up the hill to see the latest hotel, set back from the road with the small, white concrete shed which served as the local Thai Airlines office from which I’d bought tickets to explore the flower festival. It was all a little different from what I expected. The boat owners on the beach had a co-operative which ensured no fares were undercut and there were more places to enjoy European food than Thai.

Now it looks like a war zone. Destroyed and piled high with bodies. I tried to look for the names of the manager and Nava, the local fixer and tour rep, but I can’t find them. I’d like to hope that means they escaped but looking at the pictures of the area it’s hard to see how anyone could have. The more you read the more humbled you feel by it all. From the picture of Karin Svaerd rushing towards the waves to save her children to the desolation faced by Jess Maulder as she works to re-unite loved ones with the bodies of those they have lost. No more than 20 years old she is a medical student who walks the lines of bodies trying to see a tattoo or a scar that a relative has described.

Maybe I was harsh on Krabi when I was there, too anxious to comment on the pavements which were yet to be finished and the German and Swedish restaurants. One thing it did have that year though, happy, smiling people enjoying a wonderful, safe holiday.

Posted by Mark at 3:28 PM | Permalink