sunday 31st december
i can't remember anything of today. the days seem to drift by at the moment. i'm sure i'm meant to be doing something constructive with them. but what?

saturday 30th december
today we shoplifted. intentionally. twice. we are such rebels! but do lightbulbs count?

new light for the table, new cushions for the seats, new box for minidiscs. plus a viewing of unbreakable. pondering on the way home how to report it i'm not sure i can provide an accurate review. it's nature was interesting - the comic book references were nicely supported. samuel l. jackson was a let-down in jackson terms and willis' cape was shockingly poor. shayalama cast himself in a brilliant role suggesting huge implications into his psyche whilst echoing the story and his last line, 'hope you find him', demands nothing but thought. and the obstructed perspectives he used whilst writing and directing were stunning. willis returning returning from the dead over a dying person was an engaging introduction but unfortunately it still followed his previous film's formula. having known to expect a twist would have detracted more. two films most definately based on mortality, then.

oh, and if it's true that big-eyed people are evil due to them implying they have a different view of the world then i'm in a lot of trouble. or, rather i'm not. we put the bulbs in the light's box then forgot about them. honest.

friday 29th december
today is nav and kitchen appliance day for those plastic pop people who like hot food and flash. it's stunning what you can get out of 10,877 bytes these days. so now you can see what i got up to christmas day, boxing day and for six hours this afternoon and evening. any feedback would be nice. or not. or whatever. heh.

appliance-wise it's a new microwave, toaster and iron time at 188b. exiting but only a small distraction from the annoying realisation that the stupid ntl people still haven't fixed our digital cable.

tursday 28th december
i was singing perfect blue buildings (more tunefully than i actually can, in fact) lying in my parents' spare room bed whilst wondering why i'd never noticed the plug socket on the wall partially painted minty green-blue. suddenly mum woke me up and i snapped out of sleep but not the dream. this is how i remembered and for the first time in years i brought it with me. but the best part of this is that mum's wake-up news told me what had happened during the night. this is what i saw.

oh, and the plug socket is on the other wall.

on return home, relaxing with paul we heard this and i wondered what it read like:

"something's going on, some kids playing pranks, trick-or-treating, partying, getting high..."
"i have the feeling you're way off on this-"
"you have the wrong feeling."
"-well you're not doing much to prove me wrong."
"what more do you need? i watched him for fifteen years, waiting for some secret sign. death has come to your brittle town, sheriff. you can either ignore it or you can help me to stop it."
"more fancy talk. doctor, you know what the heck the deal is..."
"families. children. all lined up in little rows up and down these streets. you're telling they're lined up for a slaughter house."
"they could be."
"all right. i'll stay with you here tonight and if you are right, damn you for letting him go."
"what have you done?"
"i haven't done anthing."
"you let him out! his own god damn doctor!"
"i didn't let him out. i gave orders for him to be restrained"
"you let him out!"
"the primary concern is that we stop him. i can't stop until i'm certain that he's dead. he was my patient for fifteen years. he became an obsession with me until i realised that there was nothing within him, neither conscious nor reason that was even remotely human. an hour ago i stood up and fired six shots into him and stood up and walked away."
"you shot him six times?"
"you think i'm lieing, sheriff?"
"i think you missed him. no man can take six spots."
"by god this isn't a man! it's the unconscious mind; we're all afraid of the dark inside ourselves."
"damn you for letting him go."
- aim, cold water music

wednesday 27th december
with a scandal in bohemia, a case of identity and the red-headed league completed, at 1.02am it's time for the boscome valley mystery...

paul and i lost on crakcer's name otherwise that million pound mint chocolate bar was ours.

tuesday 26th december
i can rarely create exactly what i picture in my mind but every so often it happens - by chance more than skill i would guess. today that didn''t happen. i'm struggling to make this new navigation thing just how i pictured it. and i won't rest until i do. and the clock is ticking. my aim is to complete it before i leave cambridge. which is two days and i'm out most of tomorrow. so: likely? er... no.

the deer has vanished. we think a fox had it for christmas dinner.

monday 25th december
it's not really the same without the benn clan around. tottering back from 22 dolphin close in wavy lines caused by one too many snowballs and prawn vol-au-vents on christmas eve seems to set you up just right for the following morning's unwrapping session. but now they've moved and taken a bit of the sparkle with them. bastards.

i'm always amazed at the familiarity christmas day has. it's routine is much practiced and it's easy to remember clearly what happens and in which order, and this is followed almost religiously. ho ho. this year was no exception. i think that the nice thing about today is that despite the routine, despite the knowing and the confirmation of that knowledge at scheduled intervals through the day, it still seems like a new experience. same but different.

surpisingly, a baby bambi killing-fest with a gruesomely clean head shot awarded to the driver of a white nissan micra. the 20 points go to kate, my sister. oh deer.

sorry, i couldn't resist.

but i only got one pair of socks! yay!

sunday 24th december
new navigation working:


it's now 11.45pm.

i'm at my parents' house in the countryside and today from here the world looks very different: easier. less complicated somehow. the small things here really are the important things - uploading the site to filmfour is a thin mist hanging low over the sheep fields that will drift. yet a worthless game of cards is a breathlessly cold winter's day; so sharp it cuts your throat and so clear there's perspective across the fields. the world through wiped eyes after a blink and a swallow then contrast turned up full. it replenishes the armour you had as a child; that feeling of being able to run at a million miles an hour knowing that you were safe beneath your invisibility shied.

if i listen i can't even pick out the sound of cars along the bypass through the night.

on any normal day i probably would have just written the following first sentence but it's been a while since i've felt positive so i've kind of already explained it above. my point is, a simple sentence on q.r. is only because i haven't explained things fully for a reason.

today i noticed something. this may make me sound like a complete wack job but whilst drying my face on the towel hanging from the bathroom door i noticed the small row of silver hooks holding them seemed very low. time warp. having never noticed that they were at chest height before it rapidly occurred to me that they hadn't changed; i had. the hooks seemed low because my parents moved here when i was less than five and i grew from below the hooks to above them. the magical part is that i can still remember washing my face and looking at my reflection in the hooks: they used to be at eye level. the mirror above the sink had been too high. but i can't remember growing out of being able to see my reflection in the hooks. why is that?

plus (today has a plus! yay!) i got an email today that cheered me up. it's nice when it's not just reciprocal. :-)

...and it's now christmas day. half an hour of rattling a keyboard with more deletions than content and i've missed it all. didn't even catch a glimpse of white fluff or a dash of blurred scarlet. how does he do it? every year.

happy Christmas everybody.

saturday 23rd december
I've wrapped my gifts for the day after tomorrow but i haven't written the labels yet. so? well, you see, people - nosey people - can't guess what's their present is if they don't know which their present is...

err... which one's dad's again? damn!

friday 22nd december
wrapping presents without a tree with the teevee on silently in the background. recording minidiscs. beginning to pack. washing the car. Washing clothes. phoning film four. uploading stop for a minute. drinking tea. blowing my nose. i so badly want to be in the holiday mood but so desperately am not although i know that if i don't get into the mood then i'm just wasting my time, and the repercussions of that are terrible. (ie, going back to work unrefreshed.) maybe tomorrow when i drive to linton it'll feel more like holidays. And maybe turning this laptop off wouldn't be a burden...

below is ascot (the mascot), at a very early stage. he's something I'm messing around with while I've got this awful cold. he'll be blinking soon. And then he'll probably sit around doing very little. not unlike me this Christmas



thursday 21st december
'spiteful, but a fact of life. Not everyone you meet...' the answer is in there courtesy of miss halliday, for the curious.

today was weird. being in a bad mood from this cold dulled my senses a bit but I'm still sure there's something, well, missing. I've got this constant feeling that I've forgotten to do something but i know it's not real. It's just a feeling not a thing. wonder how long it will last... makes you kind of phased-out. but it could be just the chemicals in the cold relief I've taken today. whatever. a long sleep is in order. "waiter: one rip-van hough, please!", then "comin' right up..."

wednesday 20th december
snowdome bound in the dented car. And a parking ticket on arrival at said car in the morning, too, that i got from the permit company people not actually sending me a permit. which is clever and so thankyouverymuchanyway. twats.

tuesday 19th december
in the Christmas present i wrapped for my grandfather today - a dictionary of place names - it gave the following breakdown of linton, where I'm from:

linton, usually 'farmstead where flax is grown', oe lin + tun; examples include: linton, cambs. lintune 1008, lintone 1086 (db)

and yes, little blue car is still dented. i shall be driving it to linton very unhappily.

monday 18th december
for some very unlucky reason i've become a member of the knackered and bruised car club of brixton and lambeth. after getting out of the car on my way to all-day Christmas shop with paul and steve, i noticed a foot-long dent in the side of the car. great. in one year it's been stolen, bumped, scratched, dented and thrashed. perfect. needless to say i wasn't in the Christmas spirit of giving (apart from the if i find out who did it i'll give their car more than a scratch type if giving). and to top it all the windscreen washer fluid ran out on the way home somewhere in the vicinty of the docklands (which, i might add, i couldn't get out of even though i lived there for over a year. hmm). but fortunately the visibility deprivation situation was resolved with the help of a sunroof, a bottle of evian and a cunning plan by Steve.

the evening has been filled with a fierce rake of 'way-hey's and a few too many 'warning! penalty!'s for our liking (and our lap time's likings) courtesy of this little gem.

the car's still dented though.

sunday 17th december
kate came over for a time today and then had to go.

saturday 16th december
today i can't even remember what's gone on. my eyes are scratchy, as if they're getting used to looking at things other than a monitor's glow and the metamorphosis hurts. Maybe it's because i haven't caught up with sleep, i dunno but there are feelings floating around suggesting work hasn't actually finished despite me being very conscious that it has. i can't shake it. So i think that a long bath may be in order, together with good food. And an early night. Which, by the way, I'm sure i won't get.

friday 15th december
last day of work for the year. there's nothing like seeing good friends that have been absent for weeks to make you feel all warm and glowy inside. nice lunchtime, bradley jay!

thursday 14th december
looking through the window i can see the now vanished wind has left a clean, pure, flat blue sky. the clouds have whisked away and the heat they were insulting us with seemingly vaporised. nothing is filtering the sun so consequently it's bright, clear, still and stone cold. In the shadows is winter whilst in the sun a summer-styled glow warms your cheeks. feels like the day has been freeze-framed at it's brightest.

company a is an old client of ours. company b is the design team they now use. b can't even spin a's logo and so b keeps ringing us, asking if we can do it again, this time for them, on the quiet. a doesn't know b can't spin it. i call a to tell them about b, just so they know what's going on and to tell them to stop bothering us. if i was a then i think i'd have a right to know. so a apologises and there's no problem. i put the phone down. it rings. it's b. can we spin a's logo for them, please? and they need it today. i ask them what it's for. they say they don't even know that. what kind of company is b?

wednesday 13th december
Paul is ill, lying on the sofa almost asleep.

the sixth sense on dvd didn't work, so arlington road was put on as backup film. In the recent spate of movies I've seen a large percentage have followed a similar theme: twists in the tail. parallel narrative. examples? the matrix: the real world is not as you think. fight club: tyler durden is not who you think. sixth sense: the boy is not psycho; he knows something we don't. arlington road: the neighbour has another life with evil connotations. entrapment: sean connery is not who you expect him to be, and on it goes.

is it the latest cinematic trend to have plot twist - to entice the audience into a false sense of security before divulging the truth and pulling the rug from under them? is it really necessary to make us reevaluate our position to the film - to invariably trick us? i don't disagree that it's a clever use of writing but half the time it just annoys rather than entertains.

And Paul woke up and it wasn't a dream; he was still ill.

tuesday 12th december
we have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction...


fig 1. guess the song then guess where i got these: