The criminal’s address.

Our first house party went quite well. The flat by the sea has been threatening to open its doors ever since we have moved in, but the summer came and went with nothing but clashing dates, and the idea’s momentum was burnt out. DPsyc turned it around when one of his course mates, Zil, had a birthday coming up and was reluctant to do anything for it. He stealthily Facebooked, emailed and called up her old and new housemates, some friends and coursemates, and we all stood together in the darkened lounge while Zil came up the stairs. Her illusion of a few quiet drinks round ours then out into town were shattered with the sharp sounds or party poppers and shrill voices of SURPRISE!

Then it was all over. I had felt more tense than I had hoped, and spent a fair bit of time in sight of some undergrads that I feared might be in danger of breaking, or puking on, some stuff if left unchecked. We played a good party game where you have to pick up a piece of card off the floor using only your mouth, and only your feet can touch the floor, but there were some bendy girls who were better at it than me. I chatted to a guy from the Wakeboarding club, who by chance was also one of Zil’s new housemates. The land of the Plym is a very small place. Then I left on my drive to A’s and Veggies for the Grim8 – a race I had entered at the last minute – and stayed at theirs for the rest of the weekend.

On my return late into Sunday, DPsyc told me that his car had been ‘done over’ sometime on the Friday night. He had called the police and they had informed him that he was one of 12 who had reported something missing or broken from their cars over the Friday/Saturday night. We were later to learn (through a variety of unreliable sources) that a ‘Druggie’ who was new to the area had been out stealing things that could be shifted quickly in exchange for his next hit. What a fucker. DPsyc’s side indicator bulbs were gone, his wing mirror glass removed, his lock destroyed with a screwdriver, but this unsuccessful entry attempt had led onto his back window glass being smashed – even though there was nothing in the car to steal.

Amazingly, the police called back to say that some of the items had been recovered. The guy had apparently been caught, and some of the items, including DPsyc’s side indicators were found. These were returned in a sealed evidence bag, which was obviously some sort of mistake, as it had the address of where they were recovered from, in fact they had the exact location, ‘On coffee table, front room’ of where they were recovered from. The address was about 20 houses down from ours. I once did 6 months work at the Crown Prosecution Service and remember they were incredibly paranoid about sending out witness statements to the defence, as each one had to meticulously checked for any hint of a location as to wear the Witness might be from. Each one had large bits blacked out, and were checked several times by different people before they were posted. The police here obviously didn’t care too much about giving out this guys address to the one of his victims. The guy himself is probably too smacked of his head to care about anything.

I was quite angry about the cars that got broken – thousands of pounds worth of damage – all for one individual who has gone wrong. I don’t know if I should feel sorry for him, or if it’s OK to feel like I do, that he should be put in jail for a long time. I understand that that isn’t really the solution, but I struggle to see what is. We half-to-quarter-joked about what we should send him in the post, or what we should put on his doorstep at 4 in the morning.

Im still not sure.

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...

For the first 10 mins, this post had no title

I had my staff induction today, and it was absolute bollocks. I hoped I had left behind all the corporate rubbish in my last job, but it seems to also have a stronghold at the Uni training centre. If it wasn't for an amusing incident with a spider, I might well not have made it through the day.

It didn't start well, as I was hungover again after another trip to the Drum and Bass empire that is known as the White Rabbit (my dancing had not improved, BTW).

I got a coffee, sat down and introduced myself to my table. Within 1.5 seconds there were 3 middle aged women whinging at me about how shit their jobs were, and how under valued and under paid they felt at work. This was depressing, at best. I looked at the floor in the hope that they might stop, but only succeeded in noticing a spider (quite large, maybe a category 2) that had suddenly appeared (as they do, probably out of a His Dark Materials -type window from another world) and was bundling his legs towards me. I tried not to panic, got my feet up off the floor and followed his every move like a hawk. My behaviour attracted some attention and I felt that I had to say something. I interrupted the conversation of the women, which had continued (probably on auto-moaning pilot) in spite of my evasive actions,

'Sorry to butt in, but theres a spider down there' I pointed out, now trying to casually shuffle my chair out of his predicted path of terror. In a moment of genius I decided to move my bag too as I thought he might be trying to get to get under it as a shelter. He was, and I took a brief, but sweet moment of celebration as Spidey's plan was foiled, and he changed course towards the organiser’s bag, which upon reaching he promptly disappeared underneath.

Semi relief. *

'Sorry, I don't like spiders much' I said, and the women all gave me a look which suggested I had lost all of my credibility as someone who was worthy of having them whinge to.

2 hours later and I was sitting through the 3rd talk that was presentation-rohypnol and decided that I had actually reached the point at which I had no further will to live. At this point the organiser guy, who was changing the PowerPoint slides for the speakers, decided for some reason that he wanted to have a fumble in his bag.

Aaarrrggghhhh..... not good.... My mind was desperately grabbing at anything that might have kept it awake, so I started thinking through the possibilities of what lay instore for the next 10 seconds.

If he fumbled too much, spidey might have got hurt, organiser guy might have seen spidey next to his hand and panicked, or worse still, and most likely, spidey might have run out from his hiding place and resumed his march of death towards me. I’m not sure if it was my hangover, or my brain craving for something to do, but I thought it would be a good idea to warn the guy. Since 'Equal Opportunities in the Workplace' lady was in mid-speech, I thought that maybe I should write down a warning. I got my pen, and scribbled down this on the back of my staff induction timetable:













and tried to catch bag fumblers eye as I tentatively put it on the floor with the arrow pointing towards where I had seen spidey disappear.

Bag fumbler wasn't expecting this, and I got my second strange look of the morning. After an uncomfortable 30 seconds of me trying to whisper an explanation that a spider had run under his bag earlier, and that this was not a good thing, organiser guy decided it was best to not talk to the weirdo who was whispering something about a giant spider and turned away to continue his slide swapping over.

Phew, that was close. I had almost looked a bit silly there.

50 more minutes and 'Volunteer Coordinator Widening Participation' woman had overrun into lunch by 17 minutes. She seemed awfully chirpy about this, which, needless to say, I was not. I began considering which of the things available on the tabletop I could have used to kill myself with quickest if she had carried on speaking for more than another minute. Finally she gave out a copy of her presentation in case we ever wanted to refer back to it (yeah, as if) and offered the critical words,

'So, has anyone got any questions?’

Surely not.

Please no.

'I wonder if you could just explain again about where I can find you on the intranet' says the woman who taught me what hate really is.

'Oh now let me see... if you go onto the intranet, I think we're under the 'volunteering' tab’ says chirpy. 'Now just let me check..'

Yeah, funny that, id have never looked for volunteering info under the volunteering tab.

Lunch was good. I didn't go back for the afternoon.

I need some sleep.

*No not that sort (honestly, your dirty minds), I meant I was partially relaxed.

Music to walk in by

Since moving and starting my new job I now a walking commuter (which takes between 17 and 19 min) and have been enjoying the free time I get to listen to music. My mp3 player is on my phone, and has only 512MB of space, so thus far (yes, I just said ‘thus’) Ive just been uploading my fave singles. Ive got some killer* play lists for running, which are quite upbeat* and some more chilled out walking-in type stuff.

*Yes I'm down(*) with the kids.

There’s a really good Saab advert on at the moment, and after a quick look I found that the song is called 'Release me' by a Swedish band called Oh Laura. You can download the mp3 for free from the Saab website (www.saab.co.uk). I am grateful to Saab, as I love this song and it’s unlikely I would have heard it otherwise. Similarly I am grateful to Sony for doing their bouncing balls Bravia add (www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviaextcommhigh.html) last year and introducing me to Jose Gonzalez. This got me thinking about where I first hear music.

I remember a few years ago watching an episode of Scrubs and loving one of their songs that played out over a funeral. After some searching I found out it was 'Winter' by Joshua Radin (www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Z1Zk4zXNg) who is now one of my favourite artists, and I have still never even heard him mentioned over here. He is, in my humble opinion, of Damien Rice (who himself has had songs on Lost, and the movie Closer) quality; and that is praise indeed.

Putting your song on an advert or TV show always used to be considered a bit naff, or some sort of sell out by the artist. My cousin used to be in a band that had their second single on a Sony advert. At the time they got a load of stick over it from some of the music press, who said they had lost some credibility. I think the Internet (myspace, youtube etc) and music technology (file sharing, mp3s) have driven this attitude away. The exposure and availability of music nowadays makes it easy for someone like me to pick and choose from a much bigger range of music than I did 10 years ago- and hence (yes, I just said 'hence') hear stuff that I otherwise would have missed out on. For most artists, having an advert, or being available online is now essential, rather than an nice extra.

If I was in an up and coming band now Id cut my arm off to get on the next Sony or Saab advert- and use it to beat some sense into anyone who thought it was a bad idea.