Tuesday 28 August 2007

Random jury thoughts...

There are only a few days to go in the court. I have been on one case since last Wednesday morning and the worker there thinks that it is very unlikely for us to get put onto another one at the end of the week. I'm not supposed to talk about the case to anyone, in case they influence my decision on what conclusions I reach, which is a big crock as they wouldn't know the details. Anyway, if you are at all interested you can read about the case here

(Ssshhh, obviously)

I feel that they're both guilty, but it is obvious that there are at least some who would disagree with this in my fellow 11 jurors. I'm not sure if I care enough to argue with these strangers with whom i share nothing but random twist of fate.

Highligths have included the Judge, who has been both superior and entertaining in equal measure, and being locked in a room with 11 complete strangers which was both surreal and slightly uncomfortable in similar volumes.

I am most surprised at how difficult it is to say something is true, 'beyond reasonable doubt' and the more i think about it, the more ridiculous it becomes. I think that this is because of my work. I spend all day doing science things, basically trying to attain some level of, if not absolute certainty about the result of an experiment. In court, you don't do this, you just listen to some people go,

'he did it'

and some other people go,

'i didn't do it'

and then hopefully there is some evidence to give you some sort of better clue. Then you think about it and go,

'yeah, i 'think' beyond reasonable doubt that they did (or didn't) do it'

Some of the people on the jury are nice, but really stupid, and I think that beyond any doubt whatsoever their thinking about it is 100% comprised of what the person next to them has just said. I swear I am not exaggerating. It bollocks, but I haven't got a better system to suggest so I'm just going to revert to the original idea for this post which was random thoughts I had while waiting to go into court:

1. Was there a big blog bang at the beginning of the blogosphere?

2. Is it possible to die of boredom?

3. Has anyone else come up with The Antarctic Apes as a great name for an Arctic Monkeys tribute band?

Case is very nearly closed...

Thursday 16 August 2007

Send them down

I have been summoned to perform jury service on Monday. The letter says it will last for at least two weeks.

This has brought about two unlikely coincidences. I was originally called to do it in the 'Stol, but since I have moved house, I was able to move it to down to the Scally-riddled Crown Court in Janner Land. I found out a few days after that if I had done it in the 'Stol, it would have been at the same time as my friend, or my now socially separated friend at least, JA4, would have been in court. This would have been at the very least extremely strange.

Even stranger is that I will also know someone in the dock down here. My ex housemate Andre the giant's ex boyfriend who I met about three times is going to court after he hit and killed two people on a motorbike whilst driving his car on the Moor at 3 am in June. I found this out when i saw is face on the front of the local paper, and thought, 'oh shit- this guy I made a cup of tea for is a murderer or something' and I might well have been right. Ive looked on the Internet and while the court date is there (31st Aug) there are no facts about what happened. I guess that this is what the trial is for.

I feel fairly sure that when I tell the court assistant the fact that I have met the guy before, ill be excused from the trial. Im sure thats how it works on American TV court dramas at least. Part of me wants to not say anything and see what happens. I suspect that being on the Jury may well not be as exciting as I currently hope, so it would be nice to have at least one serious case to ponder. I dont think id be influenced by the fact that I have met him before, but I suspect that there are rules about such things.

I only hope its not too boring after the novelty factor has worn off. I will at least enjoy getting some Chavs off the street (untill they legalise Chav hunting(!))

I feel slightly giddy with the power I have to significantly change the course of someones life.

Saying that ill probably get 10 persistent parking offenders.

We'll see.

Thursday 9 August 2007

A Rant

Brrrrrr. I'm annoyed.
I'm not really into getting wound up about stuff that doesn't matter, but I have to vent some frustration on the 'Top Dives with Tanya Streeter' programme that was just on BBC2. I first heard about Mrs Streeter a few years ago when a friend said she had broken the mens' world free diving record- and that it was the only world record in which the female record was 'better' than the males. This was quite a cool fact, although Ive just checked and both her records (there were two- the 'Variable Ballast' and 'No Limit' categories) have since been bettered by men.



Anyway, Shes a world champion, and shes hot, so some bright spark decided to give her a presenting job. Unfortunately, for the spark, she is a most annoying person, and while she looks amazing, I found the things she was saying made me swear more than i have in a long time. She was, much like her silver diving suit, so far up her own ass it was painful to watch.

Her general chitchat always started with stuff like, 'when people ask me...' and then went into some self worshiping delusion like 'how I manage to hold my breath and stay calm for so long' or 'if I get scared when I dive so incredibly deep' or 'why I'm such an arrogant posh fucker' and she was grating me with her, 'is it me, or am I just so fucking wonderful' attitude.

Worse of all though she was just so stupid.

At one point they went looking for Whale sharks in the Maldives and while Tanya was looking for a 'pure' encounter, the only one available was with a juvenile (still probably 6-7 meters) that had 10-15 tourists in tow, snorkeling along thinking 'oh my god this is amazing'. They had, like Tanya, been waiting all day for their opportunity to swim with the biggest fish in the sea (I know - I've been on 3 whale shark snorkelling trips and never been lucky enough to see one), and Tanya was fucked off because she couldn't swim with it on her own. Then one of the tourists reached down and touched the sharks dorsal fin. Tanya was distraught. She said it was an 'invasion of space' and a 'crossing of the sacred boundaries between their world and ours'. She was also banging on about how the tourists were chasing the shark, scaring it, and 'not letting it escape'. The next scene she is crying at how fucked off and posh she is.
What a crock.



I agree that the guy shouldn't have touched the shark, but lets get some perspective here. Without the snorkeling tourists, a lot of the sharks would have been killed for their fins. Its because of the tourists and their money that the locals have a high incentive to look after the sharks and their environment. If the odd one gets touched in their conservation, OK, it probably shouldn't happen, but don't cry about it- be glad that this amazing species is still alive (unlike the Yangtze river dolphin, for example). Anyway, that isn't my point. In the next scene Tanya starts going on about how shes wants to 'study the sharks natural behaviour' and eventually they find one that she can swim around and look pretty with. In doing so she swims below and in front of the shark, at one point obviously forcing it towards the surface- something the tourists certainly didn't do. Then she narrates saying that she was careful to always allow the shark to retreat to deeper water, and that the interaction was on the shark's terms, not hers. This was, obviously not what had just been shown. She ends the scene talking about how wonderful she is for emulating the shark with her free diving.

In the end, the icing on her rimtard cake, she swims with sharks. We hear Tanya explaining how she is terrified of sharks, and very nervous about the encounter. With her tears after the whale shark touching incident still fresh in my mind, we see the reef sharks come to investigate her. She panics, freaks out and kicks them away with her fins.

Kicks them away!

Then she does it again! and again! I nearly exploded I was so angry with her. What a colossal idiot. On the boat she got off her high horse, and was like, 'oh i was so scared i just had to get them away from me'. Right, so its OK to lash out at animals, 'breaking the sacred bond', so long as you can justify it by being scared- of a reef shark that dont ever bite people. You could always get out after the first time you fucking airhead.

I hope she drowns.

Not really, obviously. I hope she doesnt make any more TV shows.

Not really, obviously. I hope she only makes TV shows with no sound.

Tuesday 7 August 2007

The Spanish Bruce Willis

We've lost a few housemates of late, in fact its only me and L upstairs who are left from when I first moved in only 4 months ago. That seems a very rapid turnover for such a nice house. I hope I don't smell.
Andre the giant left without a trace, and I couldn't be happier that ill never have to put up with that giant drama queen ever again. French T's room has a new girl in it, Vosam, while M and N downstairs have also just left, and been replaced by Catwoman. Catwoman was named, some say ingeniously, I say it just comes to me naturally, because shes a woman and she owns a cat. We have also got Spanish D, who is here for 3 months to do some work of his PhD studying aquatic beetles.

And so, with the intensely boring introduction done and dusted, I can finally reach the point of this so far, at least, disappointing post.

Spanish D and I are watching Unbreakable last night, a Bruce Willis film about a guy who part realises and part always knew that he never gets ill or injured, and that essentially, that makes him a superhero.


I couldn't work out if it was good or shit- bits I enjoyed, but a lot of it didn't quite sit together, but anyway. Spanish D explains that in Spain, all of the American movies are dubbed into Spanish, and that each English speaking actor gets assigned a Spanish voice over actor, who will, to aid continuity, dub all of this actors films through his career. I find this fascinating.

I wonder how the voice over actors get assigned. There must be huge competition to get Hollywood's next hot property, simply because you'll be quids in doing his movies for the next few years. I guess Bruce Willis must be a good actor to 'get' as you'll get loads of work, but then again there must be high demands on your time as they cant delay a film release because you're off on holiday. I wonder if they copy accents, or if there is no need to, as its being translated anyway. I wonder if they go to premieres, or what happens if they die before the actor? What do they do if their actor sings, and they cant? Is there an official governing body who control all the voice artists and who make sure Bruce Willis is always Bruce Willis. I wonder if they can get assigned two or more actors, and if so, whether a curious casting incident has ever led to an actor talking to himself offscreen, onscreen. Or, on the same lines, since most voice over people are actors, they might not be able to get real acting work in films that their English speaking stars are in.
D explains its funny hearing the real Bruce Willis's voice for the first time, and that his Spanish counterparts is completely different (in addition to it being Spanish, obviously).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about last night.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Fishing, drinking and dressing up adventures

It got dark and i retreated into my bivvy (den) to keep warm. My rods were ready, two baits in the margins and one about 30 yards in front, all single, sinking, caramel flavoured boilies. The bite alarms were waiting to alert me to a carp taking line. I was too on edge to sleep, so made a cup of tea, fidgeted, and eventually got out my phone. I randomly clicked my way through to the new recorded videos section. The dark screen shot of MOV00030 seemed unfamiliar, and said it was from 3.14am on Friday night. I clicked it twice to get it playing and saw an image of my (silver- I'm getting to this bit) face swing into semi-focus out of the blackness. The timer said it would go on for 2 minutes 12 seconds. I was walking back from the club, alone. The first ten seconds was me explaining, in a horribly drunk voice that I was doing a video diary of my thoughts as I was obviously not going to remember anything the following day. I was, evidently, right, as I had no memory of making this video, and became curious and slightly nervous as to what i might come out with.

I should explain a little background. There was a leaving party on Friday night with work and a Superhero theme for fancy dress had been called. I went as the Silver Surfer- I spray painted a rash vest and pair of boardies silver, got some face and body paint for my head and legs and then silver hair sprayed my hair. I also made a board out of a polystyrene sheet and wrapped it in tin foil. To be fair, it was a good costume. I got on the wine and quickly arrived at the village of Too Much Wine, which I decided looked like a rubbish place to stop for the night so carried onto the next town. I arrived at Far Too Much Wine quickly and then really started caning it, and then got on the beer and eventually spirits. By about 1 am, I had, as a friend once so insightfully described, 'gone to the other side'

I paused the video and got into my sleeping bag as the clear sky was making the air cool a lot faster than my jumper alone could warm it. MOV00030 continued and I squirmed with embarrassment and disbelief as I described my thoughts on:

1) The difficulty of walking in a straight line and how I kept stumbling to the left.
2) Girls at the party; I apparently 'fancied' Lara Croft and something about trying to dance with another.
3) The fact that I was worried about the lack of sleep aspect of getting up for the camping trip the next morning.
4) The fact that I was worried about whether or not I would remember to have a shower when I got in (I didn't, my quilt and pillow is now also silver).

At one point a car goes past and beeps at me and someone shouts something at me, but its hard to hear or see what happened as the video and sound gets blurred.

Of the 4 points above I vaguely remember half of point 2 (Lara was hot, if a little posh) but nothing about making the video. I told my workmates this story and they thought it was funny to record yourself when drunk. They also laughed at the thought of me walking up a road with silver surf board in one hand and phone in the other, filming myself talking to myself about myself.* I have to agree that is slightly unusual behaviour. They wanted to see the clip but I made an excuse as I didn't want them to hear the bit with about point 2.

I lie back and eventually relax. The black closes in and I'm asleep.

Zzz

Zzzz

Zzz

ZzBEEEEEE-EEEE-EEEEEEP BEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEP and my middle rod has screamed off. I fall out of bed, out of the tent and eventually make it to the rod and strike into the fish. 15lbs 4oz, a mirror carp. Steveo also gets a run at 5 o'clock ish and it turns out to be a 26lb 4oz beast of a carp. Im chuffed for him, and immediately our yearly night fishing session is a success.

*It seems crazy, but at that point in the post a iwas talking about myself filming myself talking to myself about myself. The chances of this happening again seem very remote.