Refinishing, Book 1, epilogue

It's been another week or two since I last mentioned the guitar. In that time I completed the color coat and applied the clearcoat, buffed it to a shine and admired it... Then sanded off the clearcoat and reapplied the color coat, reapplied about half the clearcoat but then ran out, got more clearcoat, sanded off and reapplied the clearcoat, patched color, and reapplied clearcoat again.

Today I sat down in the garden with the offending instrument and checked it over properly. After about an hour of staring at it in the evening sunshine I concluded that it was back to the drawing board time. This post isn't really an update on the progress, more a post-mortem. That doesn't mean I've given up, far from it, but I want to make sure that I've catalogued and understood all the ways that I cocked my first attempt before I have another go. My pride compels me to add that the following pictures make the guitar look a fair bit worse than it actually does.

Sanding
When I started I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with the guitar. I didn't know what it looked like under the paint, and I was curious to find out. Looking back, I don't regret that—it might have looked awesome under that black paint—but I do regret sanding such a large area of paint away completely. The section that was stripped completely (which can be seen in the original post) covered most of the bottom half of the guitar. More specifically it covered the rough, open end of the grain where the wood was cut. This surface proved extremely difficult to cover with primer, and there were still traces of the rough texture of the underlying wood visible even after the colorcoat had been applied. This would have been ok, but it wasn't consistent, even after the clearcoat was put on the front, it was still possible, in the right light, to see the boundaries of the area that was stripped completely.
   In future I will assume that wood covered by opaque paint is not worth seeing unless I have good reason to think otherwise. If I really have to check, then I'll sand away a small area of the guitar, preferably on the belly-cut at the back. Sanding the wood away here would let me see a cross section of the guitar's construction—whether it has laminates on the front and back, that sort of thing—without leaving an area of completely unfinished wood somewhere important.

Priming
Firstly, I didn't make any attempt to fill the dings and dents in the guitar's body before I started. This wasn't particularly to do with laziness or inexperience, I just completely forgot about it.
   The problems I encountered at this stage were the result of a combination of bad materials and bad technique. The first can of spray lacquer I used was frankly rubbish, and was completely emptied long before the guitar was ready for the color coat. Lesson learned. I'll make sure to get decent stuff next time I do that, stuff that is specifically intended for priming wood.
   As regards the technique problems, these were rather inevitable when you consider that I'd never so much as held a can of spray paint before I started this project. I've since learned the very real importance of those "thin, even coats" people talk so much about.

This image shows more problems that I'd like to admit; visible primer, cracked clearcoat, bleugh.

Color Coat
This stage actually went largely without a hitch, so I'll instead take the opportunity to talk about the more general causes of shittyness in this project. The first was that, at least at first, I had no idea how long spray paint takes to dry. The stuff I'm using is typically tacky-dry after a few minutes and completely dry to the touch after an hour or two. What I didn't realize though, was that it takes much, much longer than that to harden properly.

If you look closely at this picture you can see the indentations left when the guitar was left leaning against some fabric for a few hours, a day or two after the finish was applied.

   As the guitar has a set-neck I didn't really have anywhere I could hold the guitar that didn't involve touching the paintwork. On days when I'd been working on the neck this inevitably meant fingerprints from carrying it up to the attic at the end of the day. On the first day or two of work, I left the guitar resting on a tabletop, not realizing that this would leave all sorts of strange imprints on the finish. I figured out a precarious arrangement after a few days that left the guitar propped up using blocks resting on the fretboard and inside of the pickout rout. This allowed it to dry properly, but required a great deal of manhandling to get it in place (usually resulting in yet more fingerprints) and was quite worryingly unstable.
   Towards the end of the project I made a hook from a bent coathanger that allowed me to hold the guitar without touching it and hang it up to dry. If I'd had this from the start, I'm pretty sure things would have gone a lot better.
The second big issue was that of masking. I did the masking right at the beginning of the project and, to be quite frank, ballsed it up something horrific.

 You hear that sound? Yes, that's baby jesus crying.

   I used regular (and very old) masking tape, which didn't mask as well as I might have hoped. It didn't give a clean edge, and paint seeped through in places, forcing me to sand the paint off those areas. Worse than the failings of the masking tape, however, was the cack-handed way I put it on. Rather than a sharp, clean edge, it was a sort of meandering, rough line that veered from the edge of the frets to about a centimeter off the fretboard. I uncovered this horror after the first round of clear coating. As an experiment in desperate damage management, I tried painting over the edge of the neck completely, to hide the monstrous join, but this looked just as dumb.

 Oh, the Humanity!

Clearcoat
At first, I thought that the clearcoat went on fairly easily. The truth, however, was in the drying. Coats that looked fine when they first went on, started to look progressively more shit as each day went by. The finish on the front cracked like a playing field on a hot summer and the finish on the back developed strange deep grooves, which were probably the result of cracks forming in the layer below. Kristen suggested that these problems were caused by the coat underneath not being fully dry, which sounds right to me, given what can remember of the order in which the coats when on.

 Eeeew. Gross.

Wobbly, Wobbly.








Another big mistake was not putting enough clearcoat on. It's a simple thing, but I didn't realise that you need to put on far more than you think the instrument could possibly need. Extra care should be taken to build up the coats on the edges and on cutaways with really thin layers. Where the viscious, semi-dry paint is likely to flow away from the edge.
   If the paint is put on too thick then the hardened top layer will crack when the lower, gooey layer shifts away from the edge.

Tectonic Paint Movements

This post may sound gloomy, but I'm actually in a good mood about all this. Once I'd got over the initial frustration of having cocked it up, I've become excited about the chance to try it again, better. If this was an instrument I had a burning need to play right now, then I'd be really annoyed by this setback, but as I'm an apathetic guitarist at the best of times, so I'm not in any real rush.

Interesting

I came across an interesting book while doing research today. It's called British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car by the American travel writer Thomas D. Murphy (1866--1928). It was written in 1908, when motor cars were still something of a novelty and not exactly the most practical of vehicles, but it's a well-written and interesting travelogue nonetheless. He covers a quite astonishing amount of ground considering the limitations of the technology and shittyness of the roads. His main problem, even in the wilds of scotland, was not mechanical issues, or poor roads, but the weather. Of which he notes


There is little danger of being supplied with too many clothes and wraps when motoring in Britain. There were very few days during our entire summer's tour when one could dispense with cloaks and overcoats.


For the most part, his descriptions conjure up an image of an England very similar to the one I live in now, occasionally though there's a really jarring reference to something that is very much not there anymore.


His description of canterbury, for example, is pretty hard to distinguish from a description of the city today. It took him longer to get there from london, obviously, but the route the road takes hasn't changed a great deal since Roman times. The city, equally, is fairly unchanged -- although it is a strange thing when he refers to victorian edifices as recent additions to the city.

By comparison, the description of Coventry, which I've copied below, is a eerie glimpse of a city that hasn't existed for a long time.

Coventry, with its odd buildings and narrow, crowded streets, reminded Nathaniel Hawthorne of Boston—not the old English Boston, but its big namesake in America. Many parts of the city are indeed quaint and ancient, the finest of the older buildings dating from about the year 1400; but these form only a nucleus for the more modern city which has grown up around them. Coventry now has a population of about seventy-five thousand, and still maintains its old-time reputation as an important manufacturing center. Once it was famed for its silks, ribbons and watches, but this trade was lost to the French and Swiss—some say for lack of a protective tariff. Now cycles and motor cars are the principal products; and we saw several of the famous Daimler cars, made here, being tested on the streets.

---

Other things I've learned today include what must be one of the most strangely named streets in Britain (up there with Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate in York), "Bullet Loan" in Kelso, Scotland.

 

Refinishing Part the second

I've been meaning to update this for a while now, but I've been busy painting, working, and playing Red Dead Redemption. I've done a lot to the guitar in the week or two that has elapsed since the last post, and I'm probably not far from finishing the job (the painting part of it anyway -- the new electrics are another job entirely) After sanding away the paint to look at the wood, I decided to do a more sensible job on the rest of the guitar.I worked with a succession of lower and lower grades of sandpaper and wet n' dry. By the end the guitar was as smooth as a teflon dolphin. In the process of sanding it down I was able to confirm something I'd noticed when I first got it.

That little black dot is the filled-in remains of a hole drilled for a left-handed strap button. This means that at some point in the last 30 years, my guitar was owned by a left handed, but not hugely picky guitarist. This is one of the things I love about getting an old guitar -- there's more mystery, I feel like a musical archaeologist.

The first coat of primer didn't go on very well. The patches of bare wood just seemed to drink it up. I ended up using the entire can without getting it anywhere near smooth enough to put the color coat on. I think the paint (made by Keen) was not very well suited to the task. I went out at the weekend and bought some more white primer -- this time by a company called "painter's choice" -- from homebase. I've never bought spray paint from a shop before. I had to ask someone to go and unlock the case they keep them in, and got eyeballed by the cashier when I went to pay.

For all that work though, it was much better paint. I had to learn a different technique for applying it, as it was much thicker and more runny than the other stuff. The first time I tried to use it I got runs and drips all over the guitar which essentially meant I had to sand away everything I did that day. I found the best way was to apply it in short sprays, adding more layers every 20 minutes or so. Over several evenings during the week I used this technique to get a good, even coat over the whole guitar. After a week of spraying the finish was nice and smooth and covered the texture of the wood effectively.
 
One thing that it didn't occur to me to do, which I will certainly do next time I'm working on a guitar, is to get some kind of woodfiller or glue and fill in all the dings and dents before I start finishing. Although the thick layer of paint has covered up the smaller dents and scratches, the big ones (which has guitar has more than its share of) are still noticeable.

Today I had a go with the green spray paint. This was the same brand as the fairly useless white primer -- so I was worried that it wouldn't be enough to cover the guitar properly. It seems these fears were unfounded though, as it covered the guitar brilliantly and fast. In fact, if rain had not forced me to bring the guitar in before it was properly dry (putting some smeary fingerprints on it in the process) I think one coat would probably have been enough.

I don't know if the weather is going to cooperate tomorrow, but if it does, I plan to get the color coat finished. I wont bother putting the clearcoat on yet though. That can wait until later in the week. I need to get some rubbing compound too, or it will not look sufficiently shiny.

The color looks a little strange in this picture, almost metallic. It's a trick of the light -- in reality the color is exactly like this, which is the look I was going for.

Graphic Design, 1800s style

"I need it to look exciting and eye-catching"
"hmm. How about I use every typeface and dingbat I have?"
"Won't that make it a little busy looking?"
"nah, it'll look great"

A Microcosm

From the talk page associated with this Wikipedia subject sidebar

The template is fantastic, but I have a bit of a concern about the picture of Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built by a Mughal ruler out of love for his wife. The Taj Mahal is not a mosque and it is more of a symbol of love, and has got little to do with Islam. I suggest this be replaced with the picture of the Ka'aba or other more prominent Islamic monument as the picture of the Taj Mahal is misleading. -- Shijaz 12:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about Islam, it's about Islamic culture, what Muslims have done because of the influence of Islam, even in non-religious areas. If you read about the Taj Mahal, it is considered one of the greatest representations of Muslim art and architecture in the world by historians. The Kaaba is religious not cultural, it isn't considered a part of Muslim art. --Enzuru 03:24, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I fail to understand how culture is any different from religion - when it comes to Islam (which is a 'way of life')! -- Shijaz 10:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Refinishing

I like to tinker with my guitars, this is well known, but I'm never really done any refinishing. The closest I've come is the very silly artwork I doodled on a guitar a while ago, but that wasn't so much refinishing as messing around. I've decided to take the plunge today, after umming and erring for a while. The instrument that is getting the treatment is my 1980 ibanez Studio ST-50. It's a nice instrument, but its age is showing badly. The pots are worn and crackly; the hardware is filthy; and the finish (none more black) is covered in cracks, chips, dents, and weird blistered patches (it looks like a previous owner spilled some kind of industrial solvent on the back).

I bought a load of sandpaper, a few cans of spray paint (white primer, racing green paint, and clear laquer), and decided to have a go with it. Firstly, I had to dismantle the electrics and take off the hardware--which didn't take very long, but did leave the guitar looking very weird.

There's something really unsettling about a headstock with no tuning machines.

After that I started sanding off the paint. I'd done a fair amount of research on my guitar and figured out that it was one of the last of its model line made. It was probably cobbled together in 1980 out of parts left over from the previous year's models. While it is ostensibly an ST-50 (the entry level-model), it has a few features (the swanky tuning pegs and brass truss rod cover) that only usually featured on the more expensive models. This meant that I wasn't certain what I'd find when I stripped the paint off. I figured it was worth a look to see if it would look good with just a natural finish.

As you can see from this, the wood doesn't look that great. I'd guess it's a maple cap on the top and bottom with a core of laminated mahogany. It confirms something I'd figured out a while ago -- if a guitar has a solid opaque finish, then it's there for a reason. This guitar, with its mismatched laminates and big ugly join, would not have made the natural finish cut. That's not to say it sounds bad, or it's generally bad wood, it's just not very pretty. I did a quick test with the white primer on the back of the guitar and it doesn't seem too difficult to do (famous last words) as I'll probably only do a plain solid finish. I've run out of daylight today though (hangover stole most of the daylight hours) so I'll have to continue my experiments tomorrow.

The first Rule of Editing

Putting jokes in the Dummy text?

Don't.

Ever.

It's a pretty simple rule, but surprisingly hard to follow. I wonder how many people get fired every year for stuff like that.

Mixed Messages

 From the Wiki page on Denatured Alcohol.

It's a nice bottle, not very... industrial though, is it?

In Poland, where this bottle is from, the additives they put in denatured alcohol are not toxic, just disgusting.

Under "Upload Information" in the file page, it says simply "Own Work. Own Bottle"

The Farewell Sermon

The other day I found myself trying to find an authentic source for a text that is repeated on Muslim websites from across the english-speaking world. It is a full version of the last sermon of Muhammad, commonly known as the Farewell Sermon. I found examples of it here, and here, and here, and here.

I've read a fair amount of Islamic scripture over the last few months, and this doesn't read like anything I've encountered before. I don't get the impression, from the scriptures he left behind, that Muhammad was a man inclined towards lengthy prose compositions--he seemed to prefer epigrammatic pronouncements and verse poetry. The reference to "black" and "white" as ethnic groups struck me as a little anachronistic, but it could equally just be an unorthodox translation. There are other things that made me suspicious of this text from the start, the biggest one was the fact that these texts are almost identical, they've got the same caps or boldface for emphasis, the same phrasing, and the exact same words. To me this smells of unthinking copy pasting, like an endlessly forwarded email.

The second thing that bothers me is the citation that most of these texts have at the bottom. It goes like this --

See Al-Bukhari, Hadith 1623, 1626, 6361
Sahih of Imam Muslim also refers to this sermon in Hadith number 98.
Imam al-Tirmidhi has mentioned this sermon in Hadith nos. 1628, 2046, 2085.
Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal has given us the longest and perhaps the most complete version of this sermon in his Masnud, Hadith no. 19774.

The references are fascinating. They look authoritative at first glance---they mention real Hadith collections and are formatted in the right way---but if you subject them to a moment's scruntiny they undermine the authenticity of this text more than they preserve it.

Hadith collections are not exactly scripture, they're probably best described as reasonbly trustworthy anecdotes about the prophet for use in a theological tiebreaker scenario. Where Chrstianity has Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Islam has the major hadith scholars. Both sets of texts were compiled a long time after the events they describe, and both are fourth- or fifth-hand information. The big difference between the two is that people like Muhammad al-Bukhari and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj documented their sources and didn't make any claims that their texts were, ahem, gospel. As a result, hadith collections are huge and messy. For the sake of completeness, Hadith scholars often include several versions of the same story, sometimes dozens. Each version has a different chain of narrators (known as an isnad) and reached the collector from a different source. What this means is that three separate hadith about the same event, even it they're from the same collection, are likely to differ. Sometimes this difference is minor -- just a few words changed -- but quite often it's a completely contradictory account. If there was just one citation, perhaps two, then this might be authentic, but this many suggests that, at best, the text has been cobbled together and inferred from several fragments.

All of this, of course, assumes that the hadith contain a full or even partial text of the sermon. The last reference, interestingly, says that one of the hadith is "perhaps the most complete version," suggesting that the others are just fragments or passing references. Hadith collections include all the information that the hadith collector thought seemed authentic enough, regardless of whether it was interesting or useful. This means that some hadith document amazingly banal everyday conversations with no obvious theological importance other than that one of the speakers was Muhammad. They also include incredibly vague narrations. It is quite possible that a hadith that "mentions" the farewell sermon may consist of something like:

Narrated Big Dave
"I heard someone say that the prophet gave some sort of sermon when they all went to Mecca. I have no idea what he said though, sorry."

The last, and most important part of this is the Hadiths actually say. (It took me a while to track them down because not many online hadith collections sort them by number. As a result, I'd written the previous paragraphs without knowing the content of the hadiths. I would go back and rewrite the whole thing, but I'm lazy and that feels too much like work.)

Here are the sources mentioned, and what they actually say --

Sahih Bukhari 1623. Narrated Ibn 'Umar:   

Allah's Apostle (SallAllaahu `Alayhi Wa Sallam) (got) his head shaved after performing his Hajj.

Sahih Bukhari 1626. Narrated 'Abdullah:

The Prophet and some of his companions got their heads shaved and some others got their hair cut short. Narrated Muawiya: I cut short the hair of Allah's Apostle with a long blade.

Sahih Bukhari 6361. Narrated Abdullah:

Allah Apostle said in Hajjat-al-Wada, "Which month (of the year) do you think is most sacred?" The people said, "This current month of ours (the month of Dhull-Hijja)." He said, "Which town (country) do you think is the most sacred?" They said, "This city of ours (Mecca)." He said, "Which day do you think is the most sacred?" The people said, "This day of ours." He then said, "Allah, the Blessed, the Supreme, has made your blood, your property and your honor as sacred as this day of yours in this town of yours, in this month of yours (and such protection cannot be slighted) except rightfully." He then said thrice, "Have I conveyed Allah's Message (to you)?" The people answered him each time saying, 'Yes." The Prophet added, 'May Allah be merciful to you (or, woe on you)! Do not revert to disbelief after me by cutting the necks of each other.'

Sahih Muslim 98. Narrated Tamim ad-Dari:      

The Prophet of Allaah (may peace and blessings be upon him) observed: Al-Din is a name of sincerity and well wishing. Upon this we said: For whom? He replied: For Allaah, His Book, His Messenger and for the leaders and the general Muslims.

I can't look up the citations from the Sahih at-Tirmidhi because the only translations I can find go from hadith numbers 1-360 and another from 5000 to the end. I can't find the Masnud of Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal anywhere. The only references to this work appear to be repetitions of the Farewell Sermon text, and the one link that looked promising is in Arabic. Ahmed bin Hanbal was a real, and significant, Sunni scholar, however, so I'm sure there must be some actual collection they're referring to.

As you can see, only one of these sources actually makes a direct reference to the Farewell Sermon, and that one tells it as a brief call and response between Muhammad and his followers.

My guess is that this isn't mentioned in the citations I couldn't read either. I think it's most likely an example of Muslim glurge, something which I suppose must spread quite quickly among the many Western Muslims who are separated from the bulk of their religious texts by a pretty inpenetrable language barrier. I'm surprised though, by how often it gets repeated. I mean, Muhammad was quite adamant that anyone who put words in his mouth would get an everlasting arse-kicking for it (See Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 56, Number 667)

I should have realized, I think, when you got on the train. Like.You were talking on your phone, cradling it against your shoulder while manhandling your bag into the luggage rack. Like. It would have been easier to put the phone down while you did that, but you didn't even stop talking. You know, like. That should have thrown up a red flag, I should have run away down the train in search of somewhere else to sit. Like. Even so, it soon became apparent that you were a Dynamic, Proactive Person, whose time had to be spent Constructively.

Once in your seat you were able to straighten your neck out and speak in your normal voice. Like, you know. Your clear, loud, and above all penetrating voice. From Oxford to Reading, you informed your friend, me, Kristen, and anyone else within about 5 rows of you how your weekend went and how life was going, generally. Like. You weren't shouting, not being deliberately obnoxious—your voice carried because you were Assertive and Proactive and Dynamic. You know. These very same traits, after all, had just earned you a Role at a Media Consultancy. It was only a small Role, but it would allow you to Network and gather Contacts in The Media. Like. You weren't going to ask for less than Twenty-Three Grand a Year, of course, because you were the Outstanding Candidate after all, and less would be Taking The Piss. You know?

If you'd stopped talking just because you were eating your lunch then that would have been Boring. Like. I mean, who cares about talking with your mouth full these days? We're Modern Dynamic Trendsetters, we don't mind the wet smacking sounds of your mouth while you chew, or the grunts and meaningless noises you make when too full of crisps to manage even a muffled response. You know.

It was terrible when you lost signal just outside Reading, really annoying, you know? There was nothing to do but look out of the window and watch the sunny countryside move by. To sit in silence and think. To rest. Time Wasted. Terrible.

Mr Sheen

Righteous indignation does not come easily to me. I'm generally too lazy and apathetic to get worked up about anything, even when I probably really should. I think that it's something I'll take it up when I get older, you know, as a hobby. I'll get laser eye surgery in one eye, take to wearing a monocle, and make sure that it falls into my tea everytime I see a picture of a young lady doing something indecent in the sunday papers.

Nonetheless, every now and then I see something that is sufficiently tasteless and offensive that even I'm shocked. When I saw this advert in the Metro today, for example, my future monocle fell right into my lap.


Bleh. I can't be bothered to explain all the things that are wrong with this. Just bear in mind that Two and a Half Men is a show in which Charlie Sheen plays a character called Charlie Harper. He's pictured with lipstick on his face, mud and rips in his shirt, and a halo...

You see what they did there? They've used Charlie Sheen's notoriously violent conduct towards women to promote their show! Oh how very nice.

Shooter's Hill, Autumn

Picture, if you will, a small, oddly shaped bedroom in Plumstead, 1993. The room is roughly square, but the walls curve and kink. The furniture--a desk, some shelves, a wardrobe--has been concientiously adapted to the room with offcuts and glue.Generations of thickly-applied paint have settled like snow on the fastidious edwardian woodwork around the door and window. Through the window you can see a garden that rises steeply: at its summit an asbestos garage stands level with the room, distorted by climbing ivy, gathering darkness, and lumpy, postwar glass.
On the bed sit two boys, one eight, the other ten. They are listening to a small radio. Not so long ago, they would have listened to stories, curled up and cublike. Now they wait for songs. They have favorites, but not the pocket money to buy them. Once, they tried to record them by holding a cassette recorder up to the radio's small speaker. This failed, because the younger one wouldn't stop chattering over everything, singing along, barking like a dog. So they wait, hoping that the unpredictable playlist of Capital radio will bring their songs back around.
The radio--a strange black Sony, with a jagged hole in the plastic of one corner--is propped up against bedside clock covered in stickers from the Young Ornithologists' Club. Their interest in birds passed quickly, just like the dozens of other hobbies that these boys had applied themselves to for a few short days; drawing, carpentry, knitting. The fearsomely armed model-kit warplanes that dangle from strings above held their attention for longer than most; they appealed to the older one's neatness, and the younger one's love of chaos and destruction.
After a time, their mother comes into the room. She persuades them to switch off the radio, the younger one protests effusively while the older one gets into bed. Still protesting, he is half carried, half dragged across the hall to his room, where he runs-hops-leaps into bed (on account of crocodiles). It's not fair, you see, they never play the songs he likes when he listens to the radio.

Me and Kristen were in TK Maxx* today, while she rummaged around for a pair of cheap but wearable shoes. Shoe shopping, generally, is one of my least favorite activies. I don't hate it as much as I hated, say, the process of buying new trousers back when I was a fat bugger, but I do dislike the way shoe shops operate. The whole process can usually goes thusly: First, find a shoe you vaguely like the look of, then spend five minutes trying to get the attention of a clerk. Once this has been achieved you wait five minutes for them to come back with the shoe, at which point you invariably find that the shoe is the wrong size. So you spend a further five minutes waiting for said clerk to return with bigger/smaller size. They then inform you that the shoe is out of stock in your size. Repeat until too bored to think, leave.

It is this process that led me to get my last pair of shoes from marks and spencer (it was a freak event -- I was in there buying some smart clothes and happened to come across some shoes that looked to have been designed for/by someone under the age of seventy).

At TK Maxx you get the simpler approach of just pulling stuff off the shelves, combined with the cheapness of a shop stocked only with things other shops couldn't sell. So Kristen got some cheap new shoes, and I got to marvel at some astoundingly ugly footwear. I took pictures of my favorites


This isn't a particularly unusual boot, until you realize that you're looking at what Doc Martens would have looked like if they were invented in the 19th century. Think of it, victorian skinheads! Twirling their moustaches and moshing to some punk piano rolls.


What you can't see in this picture is just how heavy and inflexible these shoes were. I know they look heavy and inflexible, but they were actually more so. They look like the ideal shoes for people who have a tendency to blow over in strong winds, or take off when they fart.


This shoe is truly the masterpeice of the whole store. I mean, just look at it.What's not to like? It's got inexplicable woodgrain vinyl, a strange photographic print of a forest and a deer, and it's lined with white fake fur! What possible market, what hypothetical consumer group could this shoe have been designed for? Is it for urban ghetto kids who want to express their desire to live in a cabin in the Canadian wilderness? For geezers who secretly want to become gamekeepers in the Scottish highlands? Sadly, this is a mystery we'll never be able to solve, because I don't think anyone will ever buy them.

EDIT: It has just been brought to my attention that the "Deer Shoes" pictured above come in an even uglier hi-top version.

-Ben

*I have no idea why they changed the name from TJ Maxx to TK Maxx in the UK. I've known two people who've gone by the name TJ, in both cases it was an abbreviation of Tajinder. I can only assume that in focus groups the name TJ Maxx made Londoners think of a Sikh superhero.

Poetry

I like poetry, I like hearing poetry read even more. You can imagine my glee, therefore, when I found a huge collection of recordings of poets reading their own work. It's here, at PennSound.

I recommend the Allen Ginsburg and the William Carlos Williams.

-Ben

The Winchester House

I read an article a few weeks ago by a technology writer which asserted, essentially, that the internet used to be lovely, but now it's all gone to shit. I can't remember his name, but he was apparently a big evangelist in the early days of the internet -- one of those people who went on earnest late-night discussion shows and tried to persuade people that the internet (that churning, slowly-loading sea of animated gifs, embedded midi, and browser frames) was going to revolutionize politics, culture, and generally change the course of human history. In his view the modern internet, with all its commercial success, has abandoned the anarchic personalized spaces that made the old internet (web 1.0, if you will) so exciting and powerful.

This isn't something I've ever really given a whole lot of thought, as I'm not really inclined toward nostalgia, but now I think about it, the internet has changed a lot in the last 5 years. However, I don't think that it has got worse -- even if you accept the basic tenet of this bloke's argument (commercial success and user friendliness bad -- a line I hear from hipsters all the time) I don't think it's true that the internet no longer allows for strange and personal spaces as well.

I was reminded of this when I discovered this amusing website. It's rather enigmatic, no idea who wrote it, or why. But it's written with a clear, likable style, and provides an interesting perspective on a subect (the winchester mystery house) that always seemed like it could do with a little more incredulity.

-Ben

intermission

As this blog functions as a sort of journal for me, it's not surprising that I often find myself thinking about the subject of memory, specifically mine. I won't link to my previous ramblings on the subject because they're pretty tedious, suffice to say that while it takes months for my memories of interesting or unusual events to become blurred or vague, it only takes a week or two for the individual memories to fall out of my mental card index and get shoved, unsorted and heaplike, into a shoebox somewhere. As a result, the next post will probably just be a heap of scenes, probably in the wrong order. The last post was the same, I just forgot to put this disclaimer at the start. Some of the things that I said happened on the Thursday probably happened on the Friday (or the Saturday) and vice-versa, some of the things may have happened slightly differently to what I remember, and some of the things may not have happened at all. (In case you hadn't guessed, Kristen didn't really demand a car with a keel, although she should have done).

Also, I feel I should apologize for the length of these posts. I used to strive for economy and brevity in my writing, but these days I live by the pen, so to speak, and get paid by the yard. The work philosophy of "write as much as you can, then edit it down" is a good one, but unfortunately I can't be bothered to edit my writing when I'm not at work.

While these posts are intended to be about the Gevelow wedding, the actual wedding will probably only play a fairly minor role. This is for a number of reasons. First, as someone's plus-one I didn't really have much of a role to play in the proceedings other than to be there, so my viewpoint is very much from the fringes of all the planning-type drama. Second, although I was on the fringes of the chaos and the drama, it did occasionally sweep me along with it, as chaos tends to do. This means that the build-up to the wedding is at least as memorable to me as the ceremony itself, and so the Great Event of a Lifetime has to compete for mental space in a way that most weddings probably do not. Thirdly, I don't pay a lot of attention to what's going on around me, so I'm a pretty terrible witness.

Gevelow vs. Ida part the second

The following morning I woke up, fully clothed, lying on a sofa in a room I didn't recognise. The room was large, and lit only by the cracks of light that shone round the edges of the curtains and blinds. I seemed to be in a sort of half-kitchen half-livingroom about the size of my parents' house.

To my right there was a heap of sheets on a sofa. The heap of sheets was moving up and down in a slow, rhythmic manner. At this point the higher brain functions were starting to shamble into my consciousness, bleary-eyed and wearing their bathrobes -- one of them pointed out that, as sheets don't breathe, the breathing pile of sheets was probably Kristen. Another higher-function switched on my memory and explained where I was, and why. I remembered the journey, the late-night introductions, and the power-cut. I could remember carrying candles around and I could remember the discussions about air mattresses. I didn't remember going to bed.

I didn't know what time it was. Due to the power cut, all the electrical devices around me were flashing "12:00" and waiting to be reset; my body-clock, after 24 hours of non-stop traveling, was doing the same. My phone told me it was one thirty in the afternoon. After the bit of my brain that does maths and knows about time-zones turned up for work a few seconds later, I figured out this meant it was about eight thirty in the morning, which seemed a reasonable time to get up.

---

I've eaten a lot of breakfasts in my time, although probably not as many as I've had hot dinners. Usually they consist of cereal, or, more commonly, toast. The toast is usually rendered edible by some form of butter, but in a pinch cold gravy, mashed potato, or custard will do. Breakfast, in case you hadn't already guessed, is not a meal I take particularly seriously and definitely not one that I've ever spent more than a minute preparing.

You can imagine my shock, therefore, when I reached the top of the stairs and was hit by the smell of all manner of cooking. Various early-rising food pixies had prepared a mountain of tasty, which included everything from bacon to what appeared to be bread and butter pudding. It was easily the biggest, tastiest, and most fattening meal I'd eaten in a few months. A few more introductions were made--an assortment of aunts, uncles, and friends who had gone to bed before we arrived. They were all friendly, and I think I managed to make a reasonably good impression--well as good as could be hoped for, considering that I'd traveled halfway across the world, slept a night on a sofa in my clothes (I was wearing the clothes, not the sofa) and still hadn't showered.

---

After the gargantuan breakfast, I was left at a bit of a loose end. I can't sew, can't bake, and I'm not much good at organizing things, especially things I don't really understand. I had no errands to run, and no important matters to discuss, so I spent a long time just wandering around the house, pushing buttons and giggling. Once that got boring I sat and talked to anyone who'd listen and checked my emails. I watched the heaviest rain I've ever seen bludgeon the landscape, and stared, amazed at the kiteboarders out in the sound -- to whom a hurricane is merely a patch of really good wind. They stayed out there for the whole time we were at the house. Even on the days when we had to batten down the hatches and rope ourselves together if we ventured outside, they were out on the water, leaping off huge waves and jumping over entire islands wearing only wetsuits.

---

Beyond the poolhouse there is a little wooden jetty. It goes out about 20 meters before it ends with a square deck. The deck has two chairs bolted two it and some mooring hooks around the edges. In the afternoon, after the storm abated, me and Kristen walked out there. It was a beautiful day, not something I'm used to in November. The Pamlico sound was glass-flat and the sky pure blue. For an hour or so we sat on the edge of the deck, dangling our toes in the surprisingly warm water and watching the pelicans flapping about on the shore. My body was deeply confused by all this, seeing as it had just got used to the British winter dispensing with the niceties of the indian summer and settling down to some good old-fashioned, pissing-down rain. Nothing on the same scale as Hurricane Ida's outbursts, but somehow wetter, and more insidiously unpleasant; coupled, as it was, with cold winds and steel-grey skies.

After a while Kristen was called into the house for some reason, and I was left to amuse myself again. To this end I wandered back down the jetty in search of pleasingly flat rocks. There were not many -- I'm guessing many others had rummaged among the shoreline pebbles before me -- but I found a couple of reasonable skimming-stones and one pleasingly boulder-like rock. I walked to the edge of the deck and sat myself down by the completely flat water. Conditions were perfect. There was a small patch of ever-so-slightly rippled water about 60 meters off the shore, but that wasn't yet disturbing my reflecting pool.

Stone by stone, I picked my heap away until nothing was left but the boulder. I'd pick each one up, feeling its weight and shape in my hand, then send it skimming across the water. For few moments after each stone sank I watched the ripples dissipate and interfere with each other. I think I managed to get one stone to bounce seven times, but there was no-one there to see it, and I'm a bit too old to impress anyone that way. Once all the flat ones were gone I allowed everything to settle. I kept my feet as still as I could, and tried not to breath too much. I then picked up my huge boulder (it was about twice the size of my fist, roughly spherical, and weighed about 6kg), raised it over my head like a caveman, and heaved it into the air.

I have to admit, it didn't soar like a bird. It flew with the uninspiring ballistic trajectory of a heavy rock thrown by a rather feeble man. If I'd wanted to see something soar, however, I would have watched the birds. I wanted to see this fall, and fall it did. Splooshing into the water like a giant raindrop. The water was momentarily forced down and out, forming into a crown. It held it for one perfect millisecond then -- with a glooping, flopping slopnoise -- it collapsed and sent another sphere, a clear mirror image of the one that went in, flying up into the air then landing in the disturbed water below. I was still watching the water pull tight and flatten when Kristen came back down the jetty to see what I was doing. We got some more stones, and repeated the process. I was impressed to find that, with sufficient force behind it, you can skim a roofing tile quite a long way.

---

Later in the day I decided to make myself useful in whatever ways a generally not very useful person can. I held things, chatted to people, and tried to get a kite off the roof. I spent some more time pushing buttons and wandering around the house before it was time once again to eat tastyfoods until we could no longer stand.

Not wanting to sleep on the sofa again, me and Kristen decided to set up camp in the poolhouse after dinner. We brought an airbed the size of a high-jump crashmat and a heap of bedding. Once the bed was inflated and the stereo fiddled with (even the poolhouse was filled with buttons for me to push), Kristen, loaded down with Jetlag and food, fell asleep at 9pm.

I went back up the house and had a fun evening drinking beer and playing a strange card game that I didn't really understand at the time, and don't remember now. I recall that I seemed to be winning at one point purely because I was able to give my explanations in an english accent.

That night I had the strange experience of sleeping in the middle of a hall about the size of the gym in my primary school. After a while the sounds of the sea were drowned out by the sound of the wind in the trees, and then both were overwhelmed by the rattling of rain on the roof once again.

Gevelow vs. Ida

I went to a wedding last week. This is my attempt to record what happened. It will take some time, and probably not do the event justice.

Weddings have never figured much in my social calendar. My family are a pretty godless bunch, for the most part, and my friends are not yet at an age where they crave nuptials, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. As it turned out, even an encyclopedic knowledge of wedding customs wouldn't have helped me understand what was going on. The whole event managed to be nothing like any wedding I've ever heard of while at the same time being the kind of experience that all other weddings aspire to be.

This is not the yet story of that wedding, however, this is the prologue.

---

For a long time the wedding was a vague and nebulous thing in the potential future -- along with Kristen's arrival in the UK. I'd been told that I would be invited if Kristen came to England, but otherwise not, which seemed fair enough. This pairing of events meant that once I was a confirmed guest, with the wedding a definite fixture on my mental calendar (I've never been organized enough to have a real one), I was inevitably rather distracted. Between a newly tangible Kristen, work, and the need to occasionally eat and sleep, Rachel and Ben's wedding remained largely out of my mind until about a week before the event.

The day of our departure lurched unpleasantly from "some time next week" to "tomorrow morning" in that way that such things tend to do. For me, November 11th, 2009, was the first day in years that started at four in the morning. We dragged our suitcase out of the house in the dark, wearing lots of layers. You get a special sort of silence in pre-dawn suburbia that is smashed into little bits by the rattling rumble of a heavy suitcase's plastic wheels. The little wheels were bucking and jerking the bag around from the start, and by the time we neared the station one of them had gone on strike and stopped turning completely. Kristen tried swiveling it to see if it was jammed with something, but the friction-heated axle scorched a big blister on the fleshy part of her thumb. This seemed a bad omen to me, but as I was facing down at least 20 hours of intercontinental travel I decided to keep such observations to myself. I made sympathetic noises and heaved the bag up to the platform.

The train to London Bridge was pretty dull. Like going to work, only with less people and more baggage. There were two off-duty train drivers sitting on the seats in front of us. Eavesdropping on their conversation taught me a number of things I didn't previously know (but most of which I could have guessed): First, train drivers aren't very interesting; Second, Southern railways are locked in a behind-closed-doors argument with the train drivers' union; and third, train drivers are really interested in trains. Like, really, really interested in trains -- more than I realized you could be interested in any mode of transport, even the cool ones like helicopters, hovercraft, and segways. The second train was equally dull, but more brown.

After the usual tedious business of check-in we shuffled, shoeless and saggy-trousered, through security. Things went in trays, laptops were removed, and liquids were scrutinized one last time -- just to be certain that there wasn't a liter bottle of lighter fluid among the shampoo bottles. I checked my pockets for change and keys, checked my feet for shoes, and my waist for a belt. All clear. I step through the scanner...

BEEPBEEPBEEP

It's got to the point now where I am completely unfazed or even remotely embarrassed by the beeping of the metal detector, or the subsequent semi-friendly interrogation and pat-down that the beeping brings. I have no idea why it is but I always set them off. There are no plates in my head, no pins in my bones, and I've never, to my knowledge at least, swallowed any coins. Nonetheless, I get searched often enough to put me right off the idea of becoming a narcotics mule. Once they were satisfied that I didn't have a rocket launcher in my pants, me and Kristen fumbled our shoes back on, refilled our pockets, and stumbled off for some overpriced but sanitary airport food.

The journey from here to Atlanta was pretty much par for the course -- if you've ever flown long-distance then the tedium and discomfort will be familiar. Including the peculiar culinary efforts of Delta Airlines I ate about five meals over the course of the day. In my defense, the day lasted for about two days, so it's not like I'm a total porksnorter. I watched some films on the plane (Harry Potter and the Arse of Beelzebub* and 500 Days of Summer -- which was very good) and slept a little in a neck-crackingly strange position. In Atlanta we had to go through security again for some reason. I guess they were worried that somehow we'd got hold of explosives on the plane and were going to use them to blow up America. Again, shoes were removed, pockets emptied, laptops taken out, and liquids stared at. I stepped forward and...

Nothing.

I was waved through, slightly bemused. I felt like I'd been snubbed. This sense of confusion only increased when I realized that I'd forgotten to take off my belt with its huge metal buckle, or take the coins out of my back pocket. It seems that I make metal detectors work backwards -- perhaps a career as an international smuggler is on the cards after all.

The flight into Norfolk was stomach-distendingly rough. Like trying to sleep on a saggy water-bed that is being carried down a mountain by a group of drunks. Not a particularly pleasant experience. It was like landing in a hurricane or something. Funny that.

While waiting for our bags at Norfolk we looked outside -- Bangladesh-style monsoon rain, Scotland style wind, Southern-style chicken wings -- none of these things seemed to bode well for the drive down to Buxton, NC. Wedding control was contacted, word was that we were go for launch regardless. The weather kept turning uglier by the minute and they wanted us in the house that night in case the department of transportation closed the roads at high tide the next morning. Kristen got an upgrade on the rental car, "something big," she cried to the representative, "with the engine out of a flying fortress and the keel from a goddamn racing yacht." The lady behind the counter gave Kristen the keys to a Chevrolet Malibu, we decided to compromise.

The car smelled of cigarettes and salesman-funk, but our bags disappeared into the cavernous trunk and there was an exciting range of lights, knobs, and switches to play with on the dashboard. After about 20 minutes of pressing buttons we figured out three things: 1. It had no ejector seats, 2. The keel had to be wound down manually, and 3. It was an automatic. Armed with this important information we set the windshield wipers to what my family call "Holiday Speed"** and set off. Kristen driving, me doing some slightly, but not disastrously, incompetent navigation.

We sloshed onto the highway and headed out of town, stopping for some coffee and hash browns at a Waffle House on the way. By the time we reached the top of the outer banks I was already a little nervy. The visibility was low, the roads were under about 2 inches of water, and the wind was literally howling. At this point, just as the roads got smaller and more curvy, the wind picked up to bastard-force, the rain reached an intensity I've only ever seen in films, and giant puddles appeared, lake-like, across the roads. I started wondering if Budget would let us go back and upgrade to a tank.

I'm still not entirely sure whether the rain actually continued to get heavier the whole way, or whether the wind just pelted it harder and harder into the windshield as we got out into more exposed stretches of road. Either way, it wasn't long before it was so heavy I thought it was going to crack the windshield and come rushing into out little haven of dry warmth. In fact, I had quite detailed visions of this happening in my head. I kept this to myself.

We got a call from Kristen's mom. She told us that there was worse to come. I assumed that we were already in the really bad patch she was referring to, and took this to mean that we were making good time. Turns out I was wrong. The conditions did get worse. What was really impressive was when the storm managed to go that extra mile, and get even worse than that.

When we passed Kittyhawk conditions were bad, going on scary. The rain was sloshing around the road, and all the other cars about were leaving swirling, turbulent eddies of water in their wakes. Get too near to another car and the wash would roll up the windscreen like a wave up the beach, totally swamping the wipers for a few seconds and leaving you almost completely blind. At times like that I found myself staring at the blurry patches of red coming from the lights of the cars in front, waiting for them to grow and fill the windscreen, getting suddenly closer... crash! I kept this to myself, and made conversation about the Wright Flyer, particularly the groundbreaking, but fundamentally flawed efforts of Otto von Lillenthal. He hadn't considered the need for a large rear stabilizer, you see, so he ended up tentpegging into the ground...

Over the next hour I went from teeth gritting, pulse-racing, terror to some sort of plateau beyond that point. After driving for a while we reached a long causeway bridge, I couldn't see anything on either side of it, so I have no idea what it was over. Here the wind picked up to such an intensity that the puddles and lakes were gone. The wind was instead flicking the water around in whirlpooling clouds a foot or two above the surface. The road was periodically dotted with strange looking grey blobs, with little smudges of grey spread on the road around them. It took me a while to realize that they were seagulls, surrounded by little trails of feathers, lying where they had fallen after being dashed against the railings of the bridge.

After that we hit a stretch where the road was essentially all there was to the island. A cross section would look like this:

ATLANTIC OCEAN - SAND DUNES - ROAD - SAND DUNES - PAMLICO SOUND

Here the puddles covered the entire road. Kristen had to slow almost to a halt and aim for the center of the road. I held my breath and hoped that they were shallower than they looked. On a few occasions the water was washing across the road like a shallow, slow-flowing river. Driving through these was probably the scariest part of the trip, I ran out of humorous anecdotes to entertain and amuse and just tried to keep my breathing steady.

Later on we were informed that we hadn't been driving through rivers formed by the rainwater overflow. Apparently the waves were breaking over the dunes and washing onto the road. I think if it had been light enough for us to see this we would have screamed all the way to Croatan Ridge and spent the next few days curled up in the fetal position. Luckily for us, and for the wedding (a traumatized, catatonic maid-of-honor wouldn't have been much use to anyone) we carried on unaware of just how scared we should have been.

By the time we reached the dirt road that led to the house, trailing Mark's truck through the headlight-deep pools of water, I really couldn't have cared less whether or not the car went down like the titanic. I knew that we were within walking (or swimming) distance of the house and that was enough to stop me from worrying anymore, my suit could get eaten by fish for all I cared. The void that the absence of fear left in my head quickly filled up with anger. I think this is a built-in automatic reaction with me (something along the lines of "someone has put me in a situation where I have become this scared, someone is going to get a kicking"). By the time I got out of the car I was in a mood to punch someone and scream. I kept this to myself.

There wasn't really anyone I could be reasonably angry at, however, so I tried to keep it to myself. When we got up the house I made a rather theatrical show of being shaken up, I downed a beer and then immediately asked for another, not because I needed to steady my nerves, but because I needed some way of excusing myself from talking for long enough to calm down.

Everyone was lovely and friendly, however, so my urge to scream rapidly faded to nothing. Me and Kristen were led on a tour around the house, or at least around some of it (I didn't realize quite how much of it there was at that point) and received hugs, handshakes etc., from Rachel, Ben, and those of the friends and family who were still awake.

I expect that more happened along these lines, but I was so completely exhausted that I didn't really take any of it in. After a few minutes the power went out, and me and Kristen were led by candle-light to a pair of sofas that had been made up for us. Kristen left the room to find something, and by the time she returned I was out cold, fully dressed, and could not be woken for love nor beatings. During the night the power came back on, along with the lights and a stereo that had its speakers right by my head. I didn't stir.

-Ben

*The newest one - I don't remember the name, or the film, come to think of it.

**Yes, I'll be honest, a holiday marked by apocalyptic storms is not an occurance I'm unfamiliar with -- I've been on holiday in Wales.

Fun with Parcels

On tuesday a DHL man tried to deliver our new broadband router. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't in, on account of me having a job. Things went downhill from there. I was left a note expressing their surprise and sadness at the fact that I wasn't there to say hi. I was given two options, either have it delivered again (on a weekday) or go and collect it from my "local DHL office [Map on reverse]".

I looked at the map on reverse. I laughed. Local? It's in an industrial estate next to the battersea power station, who the fuck is that local to? The only people it's local to, now I think about it, are the people in the various other parcel distribution warehouses in that area. Other than the royal mail vans and UPS trucks it's a godforsaken wasteland of abandoned railway sidings, four-lane roads, and unlit, barriered-and-concierged office complexes. Oh, and the battersea dog's home. Nonetheless, I call their hotline and select "collect from office" because that option would still be quicker than getting them to continually redeliver the parcel until one day a delivery happened to coincide with me or kristen calling in sick.

The next day I decide to go there after work. It takes about half an hour's tube ride to get to Vauxhall station from my office. From there it's a fifteen minute walk through a biblical deluge, being continually soaked all the way by the lorries roaring past on the dual carriageway. Once I arrive at DHL's office I find it has all the charm of a prison. I'm buzzed through the main gate and have to walk down a path to the "customer reception" surrounded by razorwire-topped metal fences.

"hi, I'm here to collect a package that was sent out for delivery yesterday"
I give him the number on the slip I was given, he types it into the system.
"I'm sorry sir, but that package is not here"
"what do you mean? where is it?"
"it has been sent out for delivery"
"I phoned your call-center last night and said I'd come and pick it up here today"
"it has been sent out for delivery, look"
At this point he turns his monitor round and jabs his biro at a line of text that says SENT OUT FOR DELIVERY 07:38
"That's nice, but I'm not questioning whether it has been sent out or not, I'm asking you why."
He holds up the slip left by the driver
"packages are sent out for delivery three times, if they are not received by then, they remain at the depot for collection"
To help me understand, he jabs his biro at the relevant line on the slip.
"I know, I can read. What I want to know is why it was sent out for delivery when I asked you not to do so"
"did you call the number on the slip?"
"yes"
"was it an automated service?"
"yes"
"I'm sorry, the automated service is unreliable, we do not always recieve notifications"
At this point he scribbles a phone number down on the slip
"this is the number for this branch"
"why don't you just put this number on the card in the first place?"
"We have asked management, but they have not printed new cards"
"It would have been useful to know all this before I came all the fucking way out here in the pouring rain"
"I'm sorry sir, call during business hours tomorrow and you can arrange collection"
"Can't I just arrange collection now?"
"no sir. "
"Why not"
"I do not have access to the necessary systems"

There is a pause while I count to ten in my head.

"The vans leave before business hours, yes?"
"yes sir, they leave before 8"
"so if I call you tomorrow, it will be too late to stop you sending it out again"
"yes sir"
"so even if I call you tomorrow the earliest I'll be able to pick it up is friday?"
"yes sir"
"That's not fucking acceptable, how many times does this happen each week?"
"I don't know"
"Is there no-one here who can stop this being sent out tomorrow?"
"not at this time sir"

exasperated pause

"ok, fine."

I give up, pick up my slip, and stomp back to the station, shaking with rage. Despite running at every interchange, I still miss every connection home. This makes me angrier. When I finally get home, just before 8pm, I stamp around the empty house shouting at the air and struggling to resist the urge to smash something. I pick up the pile of mail on the doormat and notice that this time the DHL guy didn't even bother to leave a slip. I go to the kitchen, take a beer out of the fridge and turn on the radio.

The doorbell rings. I see the yellow and red of a DHL uniform through the glass. Iopen the door and sign for my package.

He must have been running late.

I have internet, and I'm glad I won't have to go back to Battersea. But I'm still annoyed with DHL.

Englishness

Like every British tank since the Centurion, and most other British Armoured Fighting Vehicles, the Challenger II contains a built-in boiling vessel (BV) also known as a 'kettle' or 'bivvie' for water which can be used to brew tea or produce other hot beverages. The BV is a design requirement for all armoured vehicles of the British Armed Forces, and a feature almost unique to the armed forces of the UK.

We may not be a military superpower any more, but at least our Main Battle Tank has adequate tea and coffee making facilities as standard.