Catmachine

Anyone who has seen any of my social media streams will know that every so often I spent some time proselytising the website 750words.com . For anyone who doesn't know it's an aid to writing, a kick-start to the productivity. It taps into the addictive power of social media to force the user to write at least seven hundred and fifty words every day in pursuit of badges and an impressive streak. Since I first started using it in December 2010 I have filled it in every day religiously. Even though the site does now include the facility to schedule time off I am too superstitious about the whole process to make use of it. Suppose it doesn't work? Over the last 700 or so days I have variously used it to finish a novel, put together blog entries, write short stories and ramble incoherently. When doing the latter I often completely forget about what I'd written and so if revisiting the archive (not something I do very often) I can often be taken com...

One of the most depressing things about today's society is how genuine achievement is looked down upon. Knowledge and learning are regarded as something embarrassing and best not talked about. I'm not talking about the age old jocks-versus-nerds thing - this is a phenomenon that has started appearing in all strata of society recently. Mention something that isn't run of the mill and perhaps could even be considered clever or interesting and more often than not the reaction you'll get - if you're lucky - is something along the lines of: "Oh this is obviously WAY above my head!" Fake little self deprecating chuckle and roll of the eyes at others there present. Subtext: Who does this fucker think they are knowing stuff? If you're unlucky... well I leave that as an exercise for the imagination. The problem seems to be that the lowest common denominator is now aspirational - a standard now being applied in areas outside knowledge and learning. Peop...

Exoplanets - planets circling other stars - are being discovered by the dozen these days. Back in the dark times of the eighties and earlier some scientists doubted whether any other stars were accompanied by planets at all. Now you begin to wonder whether there's even such thing as a planetless star. Since the discovery of the first one in 1988 the number of confirmed exoplanets now approaches 1,000 and given advances in observational technology can only grow at an ever increasing rate. As such the news of another discovery is hardly a matter for excitement any more. Except the latest one. They've found a planet in Alpha Centauri . Alpha Centauri! A system whose official stellar classification echoes down the annals of SF literature, film and TV like the name of an old friend. Everyone's heard of Alpha Centauri. It's not that remarkable a system in itself - just a bog standard double star each of which is approximately the same size and magnitude as our own sun,...

At times like this it is sometimes very handy to know the future. Certain aspects of it anyway. All I am trying to find out is what the weather is going to be like over the next four days or so. Shouldn't be too difficult in this day and age. There are any number of up to the minute websites all too keen to tell me what the forecast is and if that's not enough, there's also an app for that. No bother at all. Except that none of them agree with each other. They don't even agree with themselves from minute to minute and  right now  the little icon on the phone screen is blatantly contradicting what I can quite clearly hear rattling on the skylight above the bed. It's raining again. As has been the case for the entire history of humanity, it is still quicker and easier to stick your head out the window. The big problem of course is that you can't stick your head out of the window into tomorrow. Predicting the future has been an overriding obsession of the ...

Sometimes it is hard to think positive - as we are all frequently told to do - when you feel so awful. I am not talking about physically awful and am aware that by complaining about this whilst there are people in real physical pain and discomfort there is always the danger of coming across as a moaner. But having a broken brain isn't really any fun either. Sometimes it can make you feel like life is merely a case of keeping going out of sheer bloody-mindedness in the hope that perhaps a wonderful happy time is just around the corner. The problem comes when you realise that it has been just around the corner for twenty years or more. Is this is a disease or disability or is it just the way things are? Someone with a bad leg spends their day limping as a matter of course and will be happy to take painkillers, use a stick or crutch and attend any number of physiotherapy clases in an attempt to make it better. Hell, they may even have an operation. And none of these att...

The smells of September always stir in me memories of going back to school for the Autumn term. It wasn't all bad; there were the occasional subjects I enjoyed. Well two subjects, English and Art. And fifty per cent of the time English was boring so it was more like one and a half subjects. One problem with Art was that even though I liked it I wasn't exactly talented at it. Despite being one of the few good guys, the teacher kept expecting us to paint and I usually ended up making a mess. Drawing I enjoyed and could be quite good at. But we rarely did drawing. The other problem with Art was that they seemed to think it would be enough if we only did it once a fortnight. Never mind that we had History or French every bloody day . On the weeks we didn't do Art we did something much worse. Woodwork. I still remember my first Woodwork lesson very clearly. We were ushered into the hallowed basement of the wood shop and gathered around as this rough voiced bloke who appare...

Life seemed bleak and I was feeling sorry for myself - there didn't really seem to be much point in anything I was involved in and I could see no hope for the future. Then scrolling past in the Twitter stream came the news that Neil Armstrong had died. The sad news instantly took me back to childhood where my heroes were all scientists and explorers rather than sporty types or warriors. Neil Armstrong was the first and the only one with whom I felt a real time connection. Along with most of the rest of the species who were alive at the time and had access to television receiver, I clearly remember watching Armstrong step onto the surface of the Moon. It was the middle of the night but my parents had the foresight to wake me up and plonk me in front of the set. Despite my young age I knew exactly what was going on. Back then the Space Race was everywhere and I knew in my bones that it was only a matter of time before we were all living out there. It is a shame that collectivel...

It is of course typical that when  I write an entry making a big song and dance about how I am going to temporarily return the blog to its original purpose by writing about my short trip to the Edinburgh Fringe it mainly covers my journey up and then before I get the chance to write part two I get so distracted by space knockers that I have to write a blog in defence of the Mars Curiosity Rover . And then do nothing for several days. Of course it's not strictly true to say that I haven't been doing anything. I have been very busy. For a start, I have been writing, just not blog entries. And when not writing I have been commuting back and forth between Dolphinton and Edinburgh on the local buses. This means that I haven't been able to stay in town as late as I would have liked as the last bus is at 9.35pm. Nevertheless I have managed to see a few good shows - some of the best being  Bad Musical , Michael Legge: What a Shame and My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver...

I am pleased to see that the Curiosity rover landed safely on Mars after such a long journey. And having seen simulations of the landing itself I'm impressed with the technology involved - the rover was winched down to the surface from a hovering descent section. That's a far more exciting and suitable example of unsupervised robotic drone technology than some I could mention. I hope we can look forward to at least five years of planetary trundling and would like to think that in my lifetime I'll see TV pictures of Curiosity being retrieved by the men and women of the first human mission. Of course every time something exciting happens in the space programme there is a backlash from people who think the money would be better spent curing disease and feeding the hungry. Whilst I  applaud and share the core sentiment - who doesn't wish the sick cured and the starving fed? - as soon as I start unpacking this assertion I find it's riddled with flaws. For a star...

Far back in the mists of time when I first started this blog its main purpose was to make sure I didn't forget things. That was six years ago. But then it evolved and I started waffling on about any number of old things, often to do with philosophy or science. Then I started becoming busy with other forms of writing and blog frequency was one of the victims of my lack of time. In an attempt to remedy this I am now going to temporarily return the blog to its original purpose. I'm off to Edinburgh again to, amongst other things, see some shows on the Fringe and it would be nice to have a record of what I end up managing to see. I hope it's more than I used to - previously I seemed to simply end up sitting in bars drinking with the idea of going to see a show hanging over me like an unpleasant obligation. Ridiculous. After all, I can sit in a bar and drink any time. Of course I have to get there first. The trip did start suspiciously well when a Brighton bus driver l...

I am writing a short story for a competition at the moment. Whilst in the past I have always had trouble reaching a word count rather than squeezing down into one, on this occasion I have a rough idea of more or less everything that is going to happen in the story. As the narrative progresses this is beginning to seem as if it might cause a number of issues. I've barely scratched the surface of the events that are to occur and yet have already used up a full third of my word allowance. However this need not be a problem. I have decided to just go with it, write the story as it comes naturally to me and once it's complete then embark upon the editing with a vengeance. In the past I didn't used to like editing at all, feeling that it was a crime to discard whole passages of prose that I had sweated over, certain that the omission of certain facts or sequences would somehow leave the tale incomplete and incomprehensible to the reader. However the experience of editing m...

There seems to be an inherent impatience in the heart of humanity. You only have to be waiting at a pedestrian crossing to see it in action. Generally when I'm waiting at a Pelican (a bad portmanteau of PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled apparently) crossing I wait for the lights to change in my favour, no matter how empty the road is. You never know when some maniac is going to come tearing round the corner. Plus if there are young children with their parents waiting at the crossing I feel it's preferable to set a good example. After all, the parents are trying to drum a bit of road safety into their children's brains, brains which tend to see things in more of a binary fashion - things are either wrong or right. The last thing they want is another adult inspiring awkward questions about the important lesson they're trying to teach. "But Mummy, why is that man crossing when the red light is showing?" As I stand there motionless beside an empty road some pe...

The other day was a nice illustration of the way the online community - and particularly Twitter - is prone to react sometimes. The scientists at CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs-Boson. Unfortunately they did so with a Powerpoint presentation using one of the worlds most talked about fonts, Comic Sans. There then followed a stream of tweets - some amused, some outraged, some eye-rolling - about such a perceived display of unprofessionalism. That was the first wave. Then came the second wave. The second wave usually has far less of a sense of humour. This wave told people participating in the first wave that they were kicking up a fuss about nothing, that they should grow up, that only when they had discovered the secret of the universe themselves would they be in a position to criticise. Lightly peppered with a few Comic Sans apologists who, lets face it, are only doing it to be contrary - opinion as trolling mechanism. This is quite often the way things play out. It...

I don't like it when people describe plants as weeds . When I was a kid I thought that weeds were actually a specific variety of plant - the evil kind as it were - and that we had to fight them at every turn to prevent them taking over the world as they strangled and replaced the good plants. Then when I discovered that it was only a human definition it felt incorrect to me, wrong, and I could no longer accept it. No plants are "weeds" - who are we to say they are? Similarly, the judgement of certain kinds of animal that some people make, calling them vermin or pests sits equally uncomfortably with me. Who are we to judge? Just because their behaviour doesn't fit in with our plans - with our own animal behaviour - doesn't mean they have any less right than we do to display it. A common instance of such unfair judgement is when you hear pigeons described as "flying rats"; the implication being that they are worthless vermin and that our natur...