Measure twice, cut once (and the crab that time forgot).

Building an aquarium system this last week has had its ups and its downs. Sometimes I feel happy with my day’s practical work, and get a sense of satisfaction in creating something physical rather than just reading papers or playing in the lab. Other times it goes unbelievably wrong and I look very unprofessional when I find myself laughing at things that aren’t really very funny.

Yesterday morning we had to cut the main air feed into the aquarium, take out an unused junction, and reconnect it back up. We measured the diameter of the pipes (I’m using ‘we’ here to dilute the blame, obviously), got two straight connectors for either end, and cut a bit of pipe long enough to join up the two connectors. Easy.

I did get slightly nervous when I felt that there was so much pressure in the main air-line it was hot to the touch. Then the distant vibrations of the compressor transferring into my hand began to stir up further worries in the back of my mind. Unfortunately, these instincts were quelled by the ‘it’ll be fine’ thought that was currently on a hot streak of form in my frontal lobes, and kept putting a hat-trick past the doubts every time they got up to anywhere near actionable strength.

I took the trusty saw in hand and began to cut. Once the blade had breached the pipe interior the noise began and this soon rose up to the level the Killers attained when on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury (Yes! back of the net for that topical reference! I thank you). The resonating woodwind-type whistle got lower as the saw cut deeper, but was regularly interrupted as the motion of cutting blocked then let through the escaping air. I was making air-line music, so loud it shook me to the bone. It reminded me of being at playschool as a child and blowing raspberries down a long cardboard tube, which amplified the noises I was making and led to about a year’s solid entertainment. This time, the tube was much longer and wider, and the mechanical blower had the power of hurricane Katrina.

I finally got all the way through, and with my stress response in full fling I frantically tried to push the connector onto the pipe.

It wouldn’t fit.

Oh total bollocks.

I madly cleaned away the rough bits of plastic left on the cut edges and tried again.

No. Too big.

Double total bollocks.

Cue ten seconds of doing that looking around in disbelief thing, hoping you’re about to wake up. This changed into some not fully committed laughing (which although inappropriate, was better than the other available option). We then managed to find some duct tape (crikey thanks for duct tape) and after wrapping three quarters of the roll around the cut managed to block off most of the escaping air. Then by a mighty stroke of luck, a random connector lying about in the ‘bits and pieces’ box fitted both the thicker and slightly thinner pipes, and our noisy fuck up was finally silenced for good.

While having a tidy up, we moved a long trough of rubbish away from our side of the room which had been there since the beginning of time. We uncovered a dead, mouldy mouse, and more interestingly the remains of a dead crab.

Despite his collapsed shell, it was still easy to see his classic crab pose, wedged backwards into a slight hole, with claws at the ready, saying, ‘im a crab, I dare you to disrespect my personal space.’ He must have got out and thought, ‘shit, its nice to be out of that tank, but it ain’t very wet out here, or salty, for that matter.' Then a few days later he must have thought, ‘oh shit, I appear to be dead’

Where he came from is a bit of a mystery- they’ve kept crabs in the aquarium before, but nothing as big as this guy, and none have gone missing (they have, by all accounts a crab register (imagine them waving their claws from the back of the class, ‘Here Miss!)). They do have some on the sixth floor, but how on earth would he reach the lift buttons?

4 Weddings and a Stag do (Anon)

[I was writing the below post about weddings and for the first time had to stop and think the annoyomous bloggers worse thoughts;

What if this ever got out?

Id initially wanted to remain a completely anonymous blogger. The internet cloaking device of anonymity is a good one. Ive felt confident writing anything about anything, safe in the knowledge that the subject matter would never be able to put two of my posts together with two uncanny resemblances to themselves and make a very uncomfortable foursome. However, as it has gone on (and I’m still just beginning, to be fair) a few of my friends have found me out, usually because of a few, ‘I’m so blogging that’ comments (No, really) down the pub. This is fine; they know the score, plus Ive got nothing to write about my friends that I wouldn’t say to them anyway (well most of the time). I’m more worried (not sure if that’s the right word... yeah, worry it is) that ill reach the point where I cant write what I want to because there’s a chance the subject of the post might read it, and if so it would be unfair on them. It’s difficult, as if I have to hold back the point of it seems reduced.]

Anyway, back to the weddings

Wedding number 2 in the series of 5 this summer is on Saturday. I am only really a ‘oh we’ve got a space left, lets invite... oh what’s his name... you know, JP’s friend... the fish guy’ type of invite so am only going to the evening do. My friend actually suggested that I might only be invited as the bride would like to tell people shes friends with a (insert my distinguished sounding title) and that another friend who is a Lawyer was invited for the same reason. If that’s the case she’ll almost certainly be disappointed when I break out some knee slides and air guitar on the dance floor.

Im probably more looking forward to number 3, for which I’m an Usher, and doing a reading at the church. I decided that because of this reading responsibility I should be known as ‘head’ usher, and after much self proclamation this title has stuck, much to the annoyance of the (now known as) ‘inferior other’ usher.

Number 2 will be good though, don’t get me wrong. Weddings have a certain sheen about them that seems to make all the expense worthwhile, and observing the families raw emotion up close can be really moving. On top of this, having an entire group of friends together in one place is recipe enough for a magnificent evening. I wish the couple a wonderful rest of life.

Even the cake is in tiers.

Boom Boom.

Over analysis of a 4 second incident

I take a sip of my drink and look over to see the Stag laughing and dancing his way around the dance floor. Five minutes earlier he had been told that two of the ladies in this bar were the ones we had danced with in the previous evenings karaoke club.

‘Hiya, we were in the same pub yesterday’ said the Stag, ‘I was wearing a dress.... do you remember?'

The lady looks back, questioningly. The eight of us not on the dance floor are grinning, then laughing, then struggling to not pass out laughing as the Stag realises that this isn’t the pair from last night.

Suddenly, I get kicked in the back. The short sharp pain makes me wince as I fall down the two steps of my vantage point at the bar. My mind races. Adrenaline flows. I look back behind me in search of an explanation...

Poland was a fantastic trip. I went expecting (naively) a bland European country, like Belgium or Holland and found it to be anything but. However, while I am again experiencing a low-after-the-high feeling of a weekend done well, the good times were due to the company, not the hosts. All of the laughs came in spite of, rather than because of the locals we encountered. I have never felt less welcomed as I have explored a city.

I guess id better get explaining.

The females were simply beautiful; very pretty, amazing bodies and always immaculately turned out. The few 'nice' locals we met were of the female variety- the two hostel receptionists, for example, were always chatty and helpful and interested in what we were up to.

The males were very, very dismissive, and probably 60-70% of them skin heads with an obvious devotion to pumping copious volumes of both iron and steroids in the gym. They were not friendly.

Back in the bar and I can see that the owner of the foot that has just dispatched me on a stair-surfing escapade belongs to one of these locals, who along with his friend stares coldly back at me, goading me into retaliation. I fight the urge to react instinctively and fight. The protagonist remains on his stool, I look around and recognise that only one friend has seen what has happened. He, like me seems unsure of what action should follow. In the next two seconds a tidal wave of thoughts crash through my head.

I decide that the best thing* to do is to ignore him. I turn back around and warn a few of the friends nearest to me, but don’t want to cause everyone to look around, which might be like waving a naked flame next to the barrel of petrol that sits behind me. A few minutes later and the two guys push past me, and then through the dance floor, knocking two local women over as they leave. I’m boiling like a kettle that has had the switch jammed on.

Later the same night another local guy nonchalantly pushed past a toilet queue and takes great offence at me when I ask him what he thinks he’s doing (I normally wouldn’t have cared, but was still upset from before). On the last night another three meatheads push through the group when we are outside, then walk around and do it again, just to be sure we weren’t up for a fight. Luckily the group were all sensible, really sound guys and we were finding the whole aggressive thing quite funny by then, calling it ‘Polish hospitality.’ We also experienced a lot of hostility from shop owners, waiters and the like, who either ignored us completely or asked us to leave before we’d even sat down. The public, especially at the airport, were also difficult and would queue jump, push and shove or just tut and do anything other than stand in line and wait. Being English, good queue etiquette is in my genes and I get really wound up with people who don’t respect it.

I guess that one explanation is the supply of brain dead Stag parties that come through the city, acting up and giving the Brits a bad name. This seems likely, but I don’t want to let Krakow off the hook that easily- other popular Stag destinations I’ve been to, such as Amsterdam, Prague, Cardiff and Barcelona have all managed to remain user friendly, despite probably getting far more groups than Krakow does.

*There is obviously a balance between letting a complete idiot kick you in the back and not reacting to it, and maintaining certain core principles of what is right and wrong, even if standing up for them means definitely getting into a fight. Ive thought a lot about this over the last few days. Ive only ever been in 3 fights and a few sport related skirmishes in my whole life, all of them stemming from similar situations where someone has stepped so far over the line that it found it impossible not to retaliate. However, I can see that if it had all kicked off in the bar (which it probably would have if the same guy had done the same thing in my local) the chances of me or someone else in the group getting hurt suddenly gets very high, which would obviously have spoiled the weekend. The very fact that I did find myself able to ignore him, suggests that I probably should have, and it all turned out alright in the end.

Andre the Giant....

Oh dear, more negativity to deal with. Not Mr N this time, I havent seen him for a bit, but this time my housemate Andre the giant idiot. He really is such a tool.

Our house bills get paid by M downstairs who is happy for us to pay her back the cash. I think it’s a bit unfair on her, but seeing how she insists on it (she likes being in the centre of the involve tree) im happy to carry on. Anyway, Andre the giant fraudster owes M downstairs £105 from various bills, dating back about 4 months. Andre the giant liar claims to have no money, and always promises it at the end of the next month.

This is strange. Andre the giant swindler regularly comes home ‘bragging’ - im not sure who to exactly, but he’s talking to me - about getting £30 or £40 or £50 worth of tips from his waiting job. He is also always buying designer clothes, accessories wine, more wine and even more wine, which seems incredible when you consider how often he steals other peoples wine.

He used to be best friends (his assessment, not hers) with L upstairs, but now has fallen out with her because she won’t spend every waking hour massaging his ego. The other day he was being Andre the giant bitch and said, ‘Ooooo, you’ve got fat!- you’re mum must have been feeding you up’ when she returned from a week at home. This is a bit rude, obviously, but then L told me she was a bit upset, because she ‘used to have a bit of an eating disorder’ which Andre the giant nob head knew all about. What a complete prick.

Worse of all, he really likes horribly bad music, like Euro-soul-swing (that category Ive just made up), and plays it excessively loud when hes feeling 'so depressed’ or ‘just so happy’ which are the only two moods he’s ever in, usually at stupid o’clock in the morning.

Anyway, rather than dis him any more on the internet, which I was taught to do better than by my mama, much like Destiny’s Child, I’m going to try to talk to him. Ill probably have to talk to his hand, in the full knowledge that his face isn’t listening, but talk I will try.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh well, that’s the week done. Im off to Krakow for a 4 day stag do, so theres a fair possibility ill never be the same again.

I think the kids say;

‘Laters’

Bring in the lobster pots, Im coming home with crabs.

I learnt to snorkel as a fish-loving child while on my family holiday in Minorca. I remember clinging onto my dad’s hand as I felt a strange sensation of vertigo while watching shoals of sea bream 40 metres below me in the crystal clear waters around Cala galdana. That holiday I went on to see a shark-shaped dogfish (Shock! Ahh Help! No, panic over he’s not coming to eat me), an octopus, and countless other beasties living in amongst the rocks of the shoreline.

Snorkelling has remained a great favourite of mine, but only on holidays in the tropics where the water is warm (and the DVDs are copied). Back in England I always assumed that the sea would be too cold, the water too cloudy, or that the standard of marine beasties on offer would not be up to scratch.

I was wrong.

On Thursday night I went to Wembury with Big J. We arrived, donned our neoprene, and swam out from the beach- our fins enabling thorpedo-like speed through the shallows. The cold on my head seemed severe at first, but then I started to see some fish and I soon forgot about it. Here I was in England, looking at brightly coloured wrasse, shoals of sandeel, gar fish, pollack, mackerel and at least 3 other species that I didn’t recognise. It was amazing.

Big J found a huge edible crab living under a ledge. I dived down and clung to the rocks, the air being the only part of my body wanting to get back to the surface. I watched the crab for a bit, then realised how peaceful it was under the water. Behind me a field of seaweed sloshed forwards and backwards as the waves passed overhead. The rhythm was hypnotic, there was so much seaweed moving together in perfect unison that it made the exposed rocks appear like they were the things moving. I enjoyed confusing my brain and I wished I could hold my breath forever, but quickly realised I couldn’t. We swam on and saw loads of spider crabs, which weren’t scary, despite their large size and likeness of giant spiders. They were so easy to catch that I wondered if they'd make good eating. An investigation of a Lobster Pot showed me my first English Lobster that wasn’t in a restaurant and I was tempted to free her, but didn’t.

We drove home and wondered at the possibilities.

The Drum and the Bass.

[Having chosen this title, part of me wishes the post was about a fishing trip where I caught a Bass and perhaps saw a drum floating by in the sea. As will become obvious, this is not what has happened.]

J of the French couple fame is leaving the house. This is a shame. However it did mean a going away party. We had a BBQ* in the back garden and drank, in descending order of quantities, Stella, Wine, Pastis and Vodka. After the BBQ we went to a Drum and Bass club, as chosen by the departing J. We got back at 3 am, and I am, needless to say, feeling completely ruined today. I was singing to Fall Out Boy’s ‘thnks fr th mmrs’ embarrassingly loudly on my walk in. Oh the fun of alcohol lasting till the morning.

I’ve never been to a real drum and bass night before, and can report that I was pleasantly surprised. It was kind of like speeded up rock music. I found it hard to dance to as it’s so fast. Rock music is good, as the beat fits our anthropometrics (whey-hey! anyone having that?)- you can nod your head, jump up and down, tap your hand on the bar – and all these things seem to happen naturally and easily within the timeframe set out by the beat. For Drum and Bass, they’ve got 4 or sometimes 8 beats in the space that there’s one for Rock. If you nodded your head you’d look really silly, and probably strain your neck. Gravity isn’t strong enough to fit a jump into time with the drum, and hand tapping that fast just isn’t enjoyable.

Once I was drunk though, I started to get it. I tried to dance faster than normal and to get with every two beats. Occasionally I tried to get every beat, by moving alternative arms on each beat, or doing some small karate-chop type things I saw some of the regulars doing. Luckily, I couldn’t actually see myself, so (in my head at least) can only assume I was looking good.

The MC wasn’t what I had expected either. I thought he’d be just saying stuff up the front like, ‘Come on Plymouth’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Yeah’ ‘One love(!)’ etc, but he was almost singing - making a load of really fast noise over the music. My other French housemate T, who struggles with his English, was saying something over the noise,

‘I can’t understand what he says, its too fast’

and I was replying,

‘Mate, its not your English, I can’t him understand either’

My housemate L upstairs was really good at dancing, she was pulling all sorts of moves id never even seen before, and somehow she overcame the limits of speed my body was struggling with.

Im glad I went though, its good to understand what other people are into, even if its not your first choice. Plus, its not every night you go to a club in a Bus Station, and for that alone it was better than a night in the cheesy chart music type place.

*We have been trying out different makes of disposable BBQ, and last nights effort from Asda scored the lowest yet, despite being a relatively hefty £1.80. So far, the ranking in terms of maximum heat output and duration has been Sainsburys, Morrisons, Aldi, Trago Mills then Asda. The cheapest is Trago Mills at 89p each. That is a brilliant BBQ bargain.

Days of Wonder

It is now 7 weeks since I moved, and overall would say that I am enjoying being back in Janner-land. I previously lived here for 3 years while doing my degree, which in September will be (quickly-check-the-calendar-oh-my-god-it-is) a decade ago. Its strange how you remember things when looking back so far. Certain aspects of what happened at Uni, like the way I acted, the things I said, and did, seem similar to today, but others appear completely foreign. I see myself in some of the memories and find it hard to recognise the guy there. Its me, of course, but much like a severed arm must look like to its owner when its on the floor, seeing things from such a starkly different perspective can make them hard to recognise. Other memories seem more familiar, and make me wish I could go back to that time. They’re as clear as Blu-Ray, and cast a picture into my brain that can still make me smile even ten years on.

Like yesterday, for example:

I was walking up some steps in the centre of campus. They have had an extra flight added since my first stint here, and I started wondering why I would notice such a strange detail. As I was about half way down, a memory flickered a few times, jammed on, then off, and then came through in a clear stream:

These were the Bread Crate steps.

And suddenly I'm back in 1997.

Upon leaving the Union on a Friday night, usually with an obscene amount of snakebite and black swirling in our stomachs, my housemates and I would be on the look out for something amusing to do before the takeaway – puking – sleep – hangover cycle of the weekend would kick in. Occasionally we would be late, and lucky, enough to be around these steps when the previous morning’s bread crates were stacked up outside awaiting collection. The crates were heavy duty red plastic, about two and half, by three feet long and their length meant that when placed longways on the steps, they were always in contact with at least 3 of the step corners. This facilitated a smooth(ish), continuous slide down the steps as if they were a solid 45 degree slope. However, the small area of step corner in contact with the crate meant that they’d slide down at some pace, and this pace was considerably increased if you sat in them.* They were the luge for the concrete generation.

Breadcrates?











Check.

Extremely drunk competitors? Check.

Steps with a central handrail separating the track into two identical racing lanes? Check.

Race-on? Ahhhhh-Ch-eeeeeeeeaaaaa-ck

The chanting would begin, ‘Bread-Crates! Bread-Crates! Bread-Crates!’
And before too long a crowd would form and take bets on who would win, fall out, or just kill themselves.

I remember once (though how much is snakebite memory im not sure) rotating around 180 degrees on the way down and doing the final flight of steps (at considerable speed, by now) backwards. Another time I spilled out of the cart and did the final flight on my head, then shoulders, and then back, as I rolled, long-ways down the track. Whatever happened, however horrendous the crash, or narrow the defeat I always found Bread Crate Racing a pure delight. If Id have broken my neck, I would still have been telling the doctor about how much fun it was when you reach the bottom and see how far you can skid out on the flat.

Back to 2007 and Ive reached the top of the steps. I get out my phone and text a fellow Bread Crate Racer from back in the day,

‘Mate they’ve extended the Bread Crate track by 10 steps’

To which, 10 minutes later, he replied:

‘You are to Bread Crate Racin’ what Ali was to Boxing. Youre a gent and a Scholar, and of course a complete cu nt. Do some work you old student wannabe’

Which I thought was a bit harsh, but probably fair.

Im already looking forward to when the next memory hits.

*Ive just checked, and of course you tube has come to help my poor explanation...click here (don't blink).