Strange Thoughts of a Strange Man

Monday, when it was raining rather heavily on the way to work, I did a bad thing.

I took the tube to avoid the rain and when I got out at Tottenham Court Road I was trying to get to work (and the dry!) as fast as I could. Unfortunately, at a narrow bit of the pavement where there is some building work I got stuck behind a really large woman who had decided that she, and anyone behind her, had all the time in the world to get to where they were going.

All very lovely for her but I was getting wetter and wetter. I wasn't happy.

Then, at the point the narrow part widened out, I was able to pass her and this is where the bad thing happened.

As I was about to pass her, I noticed there was a puddle. It was right where my foot was about to fall.

So I put my foot down rather forcibly in the puddle and splashed her.

Yes, it was childish and probably unjustified but it felt good.

I had an epiphany this morning. People buy The Sun even though there are free newspapers available.

This must mean they actually like it.

This is something I wrote a few days ago on the Newsshopper blog...

I am gay. I do not try to hide it nor, more importantly from my point of view, do I flaunt it. I only mention it now because it is relevant to the story and it uniquely qualifies me to make comments that men who walk on the straighter side of the street cannot make without angering the PC brigade.

Last night, I shared a carriage on the train with a young man who made sure no-one was in any doubt about his sexuality. His voice, the way he dressed and his whole body language screamed "I am gay" at the tops of their metaphorical voices.

This annoyed me.

Why did he make it everyone's business that he was gay? Did any of us care? Did he think the men in the carriage were interested in him? I certainly wasn't even though he tried making eye contact several times during his extremely loud conversation on his phone.

That probably would have annoyed me on its own. As you know, I'm not a great fan of people who need to share their conversations with the world. That he conducted the conversation in in one of those awful affected voices that sounds something like a cross between a navvy on helium or a lady who gargles with nails, annoyed me more.

I'm not sure why he annoyed me so much. I think maybe that I felt he was letting the side down by acting like a stereotype from the seventies.

OK, I suppose it is good that the guy felt comfortable enough with himself to be able to be so open in public and there is an argument that people should be themselves and not feel repressed but I can't help feeling that this boy was being nothing but selfish.

He was forcing people to see him as gay first and a human being second. How will that affect the way other gay men are seen?

It's people like him that make me want to hand in my membership card and ask for my money back.

Gordon Brown wants a motto for the UK. The BBC has asked people to suggest some.

My favourites so far are:

Britain - all it needs is a coat of paint
Amamus Cuppa (We love Tea)
Fluctuat nec mergitur - It is tossed by the waves but it does not sink
UK: Obesité, Apathé, Hostilité

This was an email purporting to be from a Beatrice L. Crabtree.

Strange girl.

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There are female penis enhancement pills?

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Today on the BBC News site was a report that the Police are beginning to realise that too much time is spent on paperwork than in catching criminals and that assessing individual officers on targets (e.g. number of arrests) is counter-productive.

See: Police condemn 'target culture'

This is effectively, the quick win scenario. Why should an officer spend months tracking down the cases that matter when he or she can get loads more brownie points arresting someone in possession of a water pistol?

This target culture is prevalent all over our society. We are told that we can only be seen to succeed if our success can be measured and our success can only be measured if it can be quantified, i.e. produce lots of paper.

I have to do it in my job by writing requirements, design and test documents. The fun part, writing software, is often buried. We have a Quality person here who once issued a timeline for a software project that included time for writing hordes of documents but managed to neglect the time to actually write the software. She was so focussed on how the software development process was to be documented that the actual process of writing the software was neglected.

We've seen it happen elsewhere: Schools (exams, exams, exams), Hospitals (you're on the waiting list - you're next - oh, sorry, we've had to cancel your appointment), Customer Care departments that are more interested in issuing form letters than actually solving your problem ... The list goes on.

I'm trying to see the Police comments as a sign that the tide could turn and that we return to a sensible balance between doing what we do and documenting what we do.

I hope that's the case. There is a place for records. They are useful but they are not an end in themselves. They assist us so that we know what we've done and can prove to others what we've done but when they get in the way or actively cause good work to not be done then we should question their worth.

Last night I was kept awake by a bit of stomach pain at about three in the morning. As there was an accompanying burning sensation in my guts and a sort of feverish feeling, I was a bit concerned and resolved to type my symptoms into the Internet to see what I had wrong with me. There's nothing like middle of the night illness to prompt all sorts of worries, is there?

Anyway, just now I went to WrongDiagnosis.com and entered the closest to what I had, which turned out to be abdominal swelling, regurgitation (not quite but there was no reflux listed) and hot flushes.

Turns out I'm pregnant!

There was me thinking I'd been eating too much or had drunk too much tea. I suppose they're not called WrongDiagnosis.com for nothing.

Labels: Health, Pregnant, WrongDiagnosis.com

Well, that was my fifth. I love it every time I go. This year was the second time I also went to the rehearsal in the morning. I like doing that, it means I get to hear most things clearly and see the artists a little closer than from where fate and the Proms booking system place me.

I very much enjoyed the pieces where Anna Netrebko sang. She was amazing. Not only did she have an amazingly clear, effortless voice but beautiful diction and a fabulous sense of humour. Most times I hear sopranos sing, the words are just a blur but with her, everything was clear.

Her second song, Meine Lippen sie küssen so heiss by Léhar, was a joy. Essentially the song was a woman wondering why she is so attractive to men. Anna delivered it in such a way that you didn't need to follow the translation to know what she was singing and you couldn't in any case. There was no way you could take your eyes off her while she was on the stage. She had such a presence and was obviously having a ball.

She drifted around the orchestra, draping her arms over the men and striking their heads or chests. Then she threw roses into the prommers and at the men in the side stalls.

The Albert Hall loved her and she knew it.

Labels: Albert Hall, Proms. Music

I am deeply angry with one of my colleagues. He said something yesterday in a meeting in front of the rest of the developers in the company which implied that my team's product, something we have been working on for the last six years has been a complete waste of time.

I don't like being angry. When I am like this I find it very difficult to relate to other people, even if they have done nothing to annoy me. And everything is irritating.

Yet again, we have a tube strike and, yet again, we have people walking, yes, walking on the streets of London. They are easy to find, blinking in the unfamiliar daylight, clutching their A-to-Zs or their PDA's running Google Earth and stopping every so often for a rest.

I would probably feel differently about this if I needed to travel more than two stops on the Northern Line and normally walk in any case but until then ... tee hee hee!

You're obviously not doing it right

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If you're telling the world about it, love, then I very much doubt it.

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