Steve's LiveJournal

(Posted at 12:51pm)

Time for a spot of Chesterton:

St George he was for England,
And before he killed the dragon
He drank a pint of English ale
Out of an English flagon.
For though he fast right readily
In hair-shirt or in mail,
It isn't safe to give him cakes
Unless you give him ale.
St George he was for England,
And right gallantly set free
The lady left for dragon's meat
And tied up to a tree;
But since he stood for England
And knew what England means,
Unless you give him bacon
You mustn't give him beans.
St George he is for England,
And shall wear the shield he wore
When we go out in armour
With battle-cross before.
But though he is jolly company
And very pleased to dine,
It isn't safe to give him nuts
Unless you give him wine.

ETA: Connections - Chesterton wrote about Lepanto, at which Cervantes fought, and Carlos Fuentes - who should surely know better - speculated that Shakespeare and Cervantes were the same person, ignoring the fact that while they shared birth dates, they didn't share calendars (iCal presumably not having been invented).

(Posted at 12:00am)

• 00:09 Old times! In the Troy! #

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(Posted at 12:03am)

• 22:34 Corollary to Rule 34: there are no erotic Googlewhacks... #

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(Posted at 12:04am)

• 08:51 Killing time in cafe just up from Janet Central - round corner from the Yorkshire Grey. Deja vu all over again! #
• 16:23 Meeting over. In Yorkshire Grey for pre-train pint: Deuchars IPA! And lovely, too! #
• 23:25 And 24 hours after leaving the Hoose, that's me in the Dagda. Long productive day, then beer. What's not to like? #

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(Posted at 12:04am)

• 23:01 Just like old times, nearly. On the sleeper to London. Meeting in Holborn, then 5.30 back to Edinburgh in time for a glass or two in the ... #

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(Posted at 04:22pm)

Late to be asking, but is anyone else doing the torchlit procession?

I'm just heading out as soon as I finish mulling a flask of wine.

(Will probably head for the Dagda once the fireworks and things end - unless anyone has a better suggestion?)

(Posted at 12:04am)

• 09:51 @bugshaw somehow I see Tux as being far more co-operative than, say, Iorek Byrnisson.... #

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(Posted at 04:00pm)

Just seen this on a mailing list:

To .htaccess, add:

addtype x-httpd-php .css

To your css files, add:

<? header('Content-Type: text/css');?> (corrected: thanks, drplokta)

There's one "feature" to look out for - these CSS files aren't cached, but generated each time they're served. You can either take advantage of this, or Do Stuff in httpd.conf to fix it....

Now, where's a nail I can test my nice new hammer on?

(Posted at 12:04am)

• 10:15 Useful new toy .... jottit.com - sort of an incredibly minimalist blog #

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(Posted at 12:08am)

• 16:19 Off to see ex-Beltane folk do Christmassy stuff at Ocean Terminal - then Pond #

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(Posted at 12:01am)

• 11:56 @bugshaw I'd have expected the archetypal Python hello world program to say "Ni!" #

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(Posted at 12:03am)

• 20:43 On Castle Esplanade: ready to go in about 15. #

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(Posted at 12:01am)

• 00:23 @wolfette G'night! #

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(Posted at 12:05am)

• 09:26 @devilgate Sympathies - got that just as i arrived at EDI for flight to AMS #
• 09:57 At airside bar: practising for Amsterdam by avoiding Amstel ... #

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(Posted at 06:34pm)

Well, the original plan was to combine this celebration with a 30th anniversary of arriving in Edinburgh one, and use my old pub guides from 1977-9 to produce a list of pubs that were good then and still are (much like I did with my 20 years delayed leaving Edinburgh drinks). Just as well, really - the pressure to drink, dress and behave in a 70's manner could have been overwhelming.

Instead, the plan is to leave work as soon after 5pm on Thursday 18 October as is humanly possible and head for Bierex (1 Grange Rd EH9 1UH). From there, to Drouthy Neebors (1-2 West Preston St EH8 9PX) and The Abbey (65 South Clerk St EH8 9PP), before diverting to the Auld Hoose (23-25 St.Leonard's Street EH8 9QN) for food, and then heading to the Dagda (93 Buccleuch St, EH8 9NG) until closing time.

After that, who knows?

As ever, if you can see this, you're invited....

(Posted at 12:07am)

• 13:21 Hindu festival with fireworks and burning of giant statues on Calton Hill 6pm tonight #

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(Posted at 04:23pm)

Well, that's odd. I've just started getting some rather odd texts - about 2-3 a minute - from a number of the form '1910338xxxx' [last four digits, slowly increasing].

Each text consists of 2-3 parts (but they don't all arrive completely) and consist of exactly the sort of email you get when your address has been used as a from address in a spam. And each one of them wants me to autoreply.

Anyone got any ideas what may be going on?

(Posted at 06:37pm)

Just about to head off to the coach station. Tomorrow morning should see me in Bristol in plenty of time for the train to Castle Cary. Shuttle from there to the showground where we sign in before heading to the festival site itself.

Basically, the idea is that we do three eight hour shifts stewarding, and after the second one we get a wristband and can enter the festival site when off duty. Of course, knowing my luck, I'll have 3pm-11pm on Fri/Sat/Sun and not see much, but that's pretty much a worst-case scenario (and if I miss out, there's always the DIY Glastonbury to consider). Of course, if I'm lucky, I'll get to see the solstice sunrise from the (admittedly fake) Glastonbury stone circle.

I wonder if twitter will be much use....

(Posted at 12:55am)

Things definitely looking better: very pleasant dinner last night chez protocol_rain and decomposingsoul, followed by a decent night's sleep.

Morning good, too: managed to sort out most of my packing for Knockengorroch (including repairing the tent by bashing in a new metal eyelet to stop one of the poles escaping).

The festival weather's not looking brilliant:
On the other hand, the lineup....

Current Mood: cheerful

(Posted at 05:41pm)

At the Spring Equinox fundraising club in the run-up to Beltane I had my cards read - something I probably do once every half decade or so on average. This time, though, I rather liked the look of the deck ("classical", rather than "classic", if you see what I mean) and took a picture of the spread with my handy-dandy mobile phone. On looking at the picture at home, though, it was apparent there wasn't enough detail to identify the cards, so I had another idea and pasted over the "classic" Rider Waite images:

( The spread )

I've screened comments, so if anyone with the appropriate levels of arcane knowledge wants to have a bash at guessing my question, or even answering it, on you go!

[Comments will only be unscreened with the permission of the author]