Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[the sicilian]

Lunch shortly, in the Staff Canteen Restaurant.

Last week our ears were assailed by a lady on a hirdie-girdie doing Xmas songs.

Yestrerday, it was Carol Singers, dressed up in Dickensian clothes, singing in that high shrilly voice that Carol-Singers prefer. Can't I eat my dinner in peace?

Food? Turkey, Xmas Pud, & Mince Pies.

Bloody balloons everywhere.

Normal service is resumed...Phew

[TightEnd]

Don't forget your meeting with me at 3

I have "Now 80 that's what I call Christmas" handy, for aural purposes.

[Jon MW]

...

Heard about a new number last night - a "quadrillion". May have been a level.

I tried to look for a documentary I saw about statistics but it's disappeared from iplayer; it had lots of impressively large numbers in it.

As I can't find that program I'll recommend this one instead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wltbm/Beautiful_Equations/

Artist and writer Matt Collings takes the plunge into an alien world of equations. He asks top scientists to help him understand five of the most famous equations in science, talks to Stephen Hawking about his equation for black holes and comes face to face with a particle of anti-matter.

Along the way he discovers why Newton was right about those falling apples and how to make sense of E=mc2. As he gets to grips with these equations he wonders whether the concept of artistic beauty has any relevance to the world of physics.

He basically just has a chat with lots of people and it uses nice simple illustrations and animations to explain things, it's very well made.
 
It sums up why I like maths (the good maths, not the grubby statistics and applied stuff),
as does this quote

The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

- G. H. Hardy

And if none of that is convincing - he uses trains to demonstrate Einstein's Relativity

[tikay]

Don't forget your meeting with me at 3

I have "Now 80 that's what I call Christmas" handy, for aural purposes.

I've just noticed that a whole HOUR is reserved in my Diary for it. WTF?

I have "Microsoft Outlook", & it cleverly makes Diary entries for me automatically based upon incoming e-mails. Very clever, but a bit of a bugger when the Reminder pops up & says a 1 hour Meeting has been scheduled for me.

[TightEnd]

Don't forget your meeting with me at 3

I have "Now 80 that's what I call Christmas" handy, for aural purposes.

I've just noticed that a whole HOUR is reserved in my Diary for it. WTF?

I have "Microsoft Outlook", & it cleverly makes Diary entries for me automatically based upon incoming e-mails. Very clever, but a bit of a bugger when the Reminder pops up & says a 1 hour Meeting has been scheduled for me.

Half an hour for discussion over Xmas Number Ones

Half an hour the business at hand

No need tot hank me

[tikay]

It'll be lonely this Christmas, without you to hold,

It'll be cold cold cold without you this Christmas.

Not sure, might be Elvis Presley? I wonder how many times in my lifetime I've heard that track. 63 trillion?

* * * * * * *

Heard about a new number last night - a "quadrillion". May have been a level.

Les Gray - Mud.

PS- How would you handle Christmas if you had kids?

That's quite an awkward one Tom. I think I'll mostly swerve the question.

Of course I'd approach it very differently, as I'd not want my kids to feel disadvantaged. Balanced against that, any kids of mine would have, err, my own values impressed upon them, & I would not wish them getting involved in shallow tacky stuff (Saturday night LE telly is a good example) until & unless they understood the why's & wherefores. I would hate them to expect presents & cards.

Do you know that Parents have little meetings to decide how much to spend on each kid at Christmas? (In fact, I guess you knew that).

And if little Cedric does not get an X-Box like Charlie next door, he'll be mentally scarred & disadvantaged? It's not fair, Dad.

Don't get me into this Tom, it'll get complicated!

Ooh - John Lennon is on now, "& So this is Christmas".

Noddy Holder due any moment.

[tikay]

I just got a Voicemail message.

Dialled 121, & listened.

It was someone singing.

"Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose".......

Oh how I laughed. Ho ho ho.

[tikay]

Lennon? Surely not.

Simply having a wonderful Christmas time

(Repeat ad infinitum).

[RED-DOG]

That's quite an awkward one Tom. I think I'll mostly swerve the question.


Don't get me into this Tom, it'll get complicated!

I hesitated for a couple of days, but you were building up such a head of steam that I thought I'd open a valve or two before you bust your Belpaire

[Dingdell]

I just got a Voicemail message.

Dialled 121, & listened.

It was someone singing.

"Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose".......

Oh how I laughed. Ho ho ho.

Can't understand why everyone hasn't done that yet. Oh and thanks for calling it singing, I'm pretty sure not one note was right ;-)

[tikay]

That's quite an awkward one Tom. I think I'll mostly swerve the question.


Don't get me into this Tom, it'll get complicated!

I hesitated for a couple of days, but you were building up such a head of steam that I thought I'd open a valve or two before you bust your Belpaire

Very wise Tom, you act as my reality-check man.

I think the old saying is "Christmas is for kids", & if I had them, I'd deffo approach it a shade more cheerily, though 100% NOT conventionally, with the burning complulsion to allocate £200 each, or whatever, to each kid, & not a penny more or less to each one, because "that would be unfair".

My kids would need to understand at an early age that life is not always fair, & the sooner they learn that, the better. A few cuts & bruises (mental & physical) work wonders, & are exactly what every kid must endure if they are to grow up fit to handle life. In truth, I'd prob be as soft as shite.

Best to steer away from the subject of kids altogether, actually, as I'm a bit out of step with conventional thinking. For starters, I'd not allow them to attend School, & I would take responsibility for educating them myself, especially now that the internet is a portal to so many wonderful learning tools.

And the chances of me approving their ownership of X-Boxes & other Video Game nonsense would be "pretty slim"........

 

I think we'd better move on.

[tikay]

I just got a Voicemail message.

Dialled 121, & listened.

It was someone singing.

"Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose".......

Oh how I laughed. Ho ho ho.

Can't understand why everyone hasn't done that yet. Oh and thanks for calling it singing, I'm pretty sure not one note was right ;-)

Phone now OFF.

[Claw75]

I just got a Voicemail message.

Dialled 121, & listened.

It was someone singing.

"Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose".......

Oh how I laughed. Ho ho ho.

Can't understand why everyone hasn't done that yet. Oh and thanks for calling it singing, I'm pretty sure not one note was right ;-)

Phone now OFF.

straight to voicemail then.....?

[tikay]

Dinner was excellent.

Swerved the Cottage Pie, they had, mistakenly one assumes, laced it with onion. Yuk. They also did something called "root veg mash" which looked like mushy carrots. O...M....G.

All this "veg is good for you, you MUST eat it" nonsense gets on my tits.

I had "wild berrry strudel" for pudding/sweet/afters. Fantastic. It's good for you, too. Which is twaddle of course, but no more twaddle than "vegetables are good for you".

I know a good few people around the Sky Campus, as I've been around here for getting on for 5 years now.

73 of them said to me today "if I don't see you before, have a lovely Christmas". I mean, they all said exactly the same words. Yes, yes, you too. No, really.

[TightEnd]

tikay

Do you reckon you are more cantankerous now that you were say a year ago? or the same?


fwiw, I am as you as to Xmas. However kids etc, and for that reason and that reason alone I look forward and enjoy it