Blue Witch

The Friday Question

A year or so on from when it was originally in the news, there have recently been renewed sightings/hearings of the 'live with only 100 possessions' phenomenon. I've read it on the BBC news website and heard it on Radio 4 and our local BBC radio station.

Every small ads noticeboard I look on seems to have at least one advert for 'professional unclutterers' to come and help people sort out their junk. For a price. There are books showcased in every bookshop (and even a display in our local library I noticed earlier in the week), decluttering websites, and even 'clutter-diets' run by email tips and encouragement for $15.95 a month (I think that last one currently only exists in the US, but, it will surely come to our shores). And let's not forget the TV series.

Uncharacteristically, I'm not linking to any of them. Because I'm unconvinced.

I have lots of stuff. It comes from being from a family where teaching dominates the female line, and engineering/skilled practical trades (eg blacksmith) dominates the male. All professions where stuff is needed to carry out one's job, and which has to be provided by oneself. The more stuff one has, the better one is able to do one's job.

Most of all this stuff is neatly filed or sorted into labelled filing cabinets, storage boxes, photo albums, bookshelves etc etc. And I know what and where every single bit of it is. Unless Mr BW was the one who put it somewhere, in which case it's almost impossible to know where it is, as he (seemingly instantly) forgets where he puts things (and indeed if we still have them).

Mr BW now has stuff too. 1,000 tools. At least. If not 2,000. Mostly (it seems) for Mi1dred (aside - whose major open-engine operation is this morning. The lead surgeon and his junior doctor are arriving in less than half an hour and Mr BW has just gone to administer her pre-med. And shoo kittens away). Mr BW knows where his stuff is (workshop, b33-5hed, desk, or a corner of The Studio) and whether he has something, much more than he knows where my stuff and general stuff is. Strange that.

Anyway, the long and short of all this stuff is that we never, ever, have to go out and buy something when we need to do something, make something, or mend something. It's part of our living without over-consuming philosophy. Be-preparedness. Reuse and recycling. Self-sufficiency. Our chosen lifestyle. One day it will all come in useful.

Which is why I just don't understand why anyone would want to live with only 100 possessions. It means you have to go out and buy things every time you want to, for example, send a parcel. And that, surely, is against the whole philosophy of living lightly, where all this is supposed to have started?

Could you live with only 100 items? Would you want to? How much stuff do you have, and how organised is it?

Thought for the day

If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it.
The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

- Henry Ford

Falling standards

The colleges around here are clearly short of appropriately qualified people to teach [my subject] in the next academic year, and appear to be desperately trawling lists from the various professional bodies in order to unearth some hidden talent.

I've had three emails from three different names at the nearest college in the last week. These days I tend to ignore emails about work that doesn't interest me (ie most of it), as there are just so many of them that I treat them as spam.

But, I stupidly replied to the third email yesterday, to counter their assertion that, "I'm sure you'll agree that £17.93 per hour of student contact time is an excellent rate of pay." I pointed out that, in order to teach to the level they were requesting, I'd be doing at least 2 hours of preparation per hour of lecturing, and probably another 2 of marking/paperwork. Therefore, they were only actually offering a rate of £17.93 for five hours of work, or something around £3.58 per hour, which was well below the minimum wage and considerably less than half of what I pay my cleaner per hour.

For some reason the person who rang me in response to my email (not that I was looking for a response, I was just making the point that after 25 years of working in education, I was worth a lot more than £3.58 an hour) took this to mean that, if they offered me more: the princely sum of £19.39 per hour of student contact time (and this was at a non-contract self-employed rate, so no other benefits like sickness, pension or holiday pay) - I would jump at the fabulous chance to help them out of their 'lots of students and no lecturer' dilemma.

"Why," I asked, "would I want to come and work for you, teaching a syllabus I have never taught, requiring up-to-date research knowledge that I don't have, to an age group that I find trying to say the least, and to which I've never actually taught my subject, when I have offers of at least ten times more work than I can physically cope with, all very much more interesting than actually teaching, and all paying at least three times the amount you are offering?" "For your career development?" the voice on the phone suggested. I laughed. Actually, it was more of a witch's cackle. This didn't seem to deter the voice on the phone.

So, apparently, if I agreed, because I am a qua1ified teacher (even if I don't teach adults my subject as a 'pure' subject at the level they wanted), and a member of [respected professional body] I wouldn't have to be interviewed, I wouldn't have to fill in an application form or submit a CV, or proof of my qualifications, and I could just appear on the first day of term for a faculty meeting (for which I wouldn't be paid), and thereafter just turn up to teach for an hour or two on four separate days of the week. They could send me a copy of the syllabus, but there wasn't really much else as the person who taught it last year didn't really make much of an effort. They also couldn't tell me how many students would be in the group until the first lesson.

I don't know why I led the voice on the phone on as I did. It was a bit naughty. But, not once did she ask if I was interested. It was like she was cold-calling to sell some undesirable product (not that we get calls like that these days, so I'm just imagining what that would be like), and was prepared to push the product benefits and change the price until I said yes.

Is it any wonder that further and higher education in this country is in the mess it is, if that's the way they recruit, and the level they expect to pay?

The worst thing that ever happened to post-school education in this country was the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act 1992 that allowed polytechnics and colleges to become universities. Degrees are now given out in the way 'O' Levels were in my day. On second thoughts, I think 'CSE's would be the better comparison. And how are employers expected to now understand that some degrees are more worthy of the paper upon which they are written than others?

I regularly see students on degree courses whose general intellectua1 and academic abi1ilties are at least one standard deviation (and frequently more) below the mean. Twenty years ago, such students were often placed in specia1 schoo1s or specia1 units, and then helped into supported w0rk p1acements. Now they are wet-nursed through degree courses by colleges more desperate for the tuition money than they are interested in upholding standards. I despair. And I'm not convinced it will change when we get a new governmint.

Thought for the day

The Ten Commandments for Reducing Stress

1. Thou shalt not be perfect or try to be.
2. Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people.
3. Thou shalt leave things undone that ought to be done.
4. Thou shalt not spread thyself too thin.
5. Thou shalt learn to say “NO�.
6. Thou shalt schedule time for thyself, and for thy supporting network.
7. Thou shalt switch off and do nothing regularly.
8. Thou shalt be boring, untidy, inelegant and unattractive at times.
9. Thou shalt not even feel guilty.
10.Thou shalt not be thine own worst enemy, but thine own best friend.

- Sarah Myhill

Thought for the day

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

- William James

Thought for the day

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

- Dale Carnegie

On the road to nowhere

"What," said Good Friend BW, "on earth are you going to do with all those pictures of Mi1dred that you're busily ironing onto sticky paper?"

"I," I said, "am going to iron them onto the back of Mr BW's shirts. He loves her so much, you see, that he can't bear to be without her all day."

"You're not?!" said Good Friend BW. She's seen me do dafter things, after all.

"You're right, I'm not. They're actually for Mi1dred's Mat. Which is my latest project, but it hasn't turned out quite right as it was a Mystery Qui1t in a Day, and the colours don't show off the basketweave design effectively.

The small BW Blue squares don't stand out enough against the larger dark print rectangles.

So, rather than qui1t it in Mi1dred shapes on the light rectangles, as I intended, I've decided to use printed onto fabric images of her to jazz it up a bit. Going in two directions, so it looks like she's driving down a long road."

Look, it even has feet!

And here's a detail of the design, so you can see how the blues aren't differentiated enough for the design (it's not quite as bad as it seems, in the flesh mat, so to speak though). That's always the danger of Mystery Qui1ts, as you don't know the design until it appears during the course of the day. For many patterns, those colours would have been excellent, but not this one.

Still, Mi1dred likes her 76th birthday present. And it will keep her company while she is in hospital. She had been promsied a free bench in an exclusive local private hospital, but unforunately she got bounced in favour of cousins with more money. So she's currently in pieces in the Coven Workshop, with 7 week old kittens playing nursey. Oh dear.

Thought for the day, extended version

"It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today...The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date...nothing since Apollo has come close to the excitement that was generated by those astronauts - Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them hopping around on the Moon or driving their buggy over that rocky terrain."

- Professor Andre Balogh (Imperial College London)

(Although technically, the 40th anniversary isn't until early tomorrow morning in the UK; see also here, here, and here.)

We got our first black and white TV in May 1969, probably because of the interest I was showing in all things space-related. Every day I cut relevant stories out of The Daily Telegraph, and stuck them into a scrapbook. I remember being allowed to stay up later than I'd ever been allowed to stay up before, to watch, laying on my front 3 feet from the TV, propped up on my elbows, transfixed, as the crackly grainy pictures from the Moon reached Earth. I can't recall now whether TV broadcast all night for the special occasion (a Sunday night/Monday morning), or whether I watched the landing the next day. But I can recall that none of the other kids in my mid-infant class, at approaching the end of the school year, were anywhere near as interested as me. At the time I knew every last fact that there was to know about the mission. I was obsessed.

Reliving the experience recently through the excellent various TV and R4 programmes that have been made, it is clear that nothing like this will ever happen again. The quote up at the top sums it up perfectly, I think. Of many new facts I've heard in the last few weeks, the one that surprised me most was that Neil Armstrong's words were his own choice, rather than those of some overpaid PR company (happily, they didn't run the world in those days), and apparently no-one knew what he was going to say until he said it.

And if you've ever wondered which of the astronauts is still alive, here's the answer.

The Apollo programme cost the US taxpayer $150,000,000,000 (£91.6 billion) in today's money. The total cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is currently heading towards $889,000,000,000 (more precise figure here). So, in the past 8 years, six times more has been spent on killing people for no justifiable reason, than was spent on extending our knowledge of the world beyond. Just one example of the short-sightedness of the world today that I just cannot comprehend.

Do you recall the day?

The Friday Question

What's your favourite way to eat potatoes?

Me, I prefer in their jackets, oven-baked. And I can't remember the last time we peeled potatoes. So unnecessary, and removes all the goodness.

Through the post-box slit

One of my favourite television programmes when I was a Quite Small Witch was this.


In particular, I was drawn to one of the thirteen, fifteen minute, episodes called The Letter. Unfortunately that particular episode doesn't seem to exist online, although several other of the episodes do.

I loved the way that M1dge, the mouse, was posting a letter for M@ry when he fell in the post box, and was then able to follow the letter through the posta1 system to its destination.

I've always wanted to do that, and, last night, I realised that ambition.

Well, almost. Thanks to a friend who works in Letter Central, and a senior colleague of hers, the Nice Ladies were accorded a privilege never previously accorded to an adult group, and were allowed to tour the Regional Mai1 5orting Centre. I think the fairly-new-in-post manager was keen to build some understanding of the process, and enlist some support from some Pillars of The Community, even if (as it emerged) he hadn't a clue where our rural outpost was within his service area.

Amazing machinery (£4M for the latest 20 metre long machine for sorting p@ckets), and speed of sorting that shook my 30 year old memories of assisting with post at the FOTCR™. After one of the main small 1etter sorting machines jammed for the third time in ten minutes, right near where I was standing each time, our guide asked me, "Are you magnetic?" "Yes, very!" I replied. I don't think it jammed again in the whole of the 75 minutes we were being shown round. Clearly my Powers conflicted with theirs. Must have been the junk mai1 that was offending me.

"One of our favourite things is when we get envelopes marked 'PHOTOGRAPHS - DO NOT BEND'. As we see them whiz through the jaws, belts and chutes, we think, 'Oh yes they do!'" proclaimed our guide. Apparently addition of the word, "please" makes all the difference.

I know that there are widespread strikes planned for tomorrow over the introduction of new working practices and other attempts at 'modernisation' within the business. I knew there were problems, but what I hadn't appreciated before was just how much of a dinosaur the organisation actually is.

I was chatting to the manager afterwards, and discovered that, at this office, there is currently no revolving shift pattern, and staffing levels at various times of the day come from the patterns that worked 20 years ago. Operational jobs are allocated according to how long one has been there, rather than one's ability or performance. The most senior (in years of service) get to pick their holiday dates first, leaving newer entrants to pick up the weeks that are left, with no negotiation allowable. There is no requirement for section supervisors and managers to co-ordinate their leave, so there can be weeks when the eleven senior managers are all off together. Senior managers are only allowed to talk to junior staff about work issues through their immediate managers. So, if someone at level 4 wants to talk to someone at level 1, they have to communicate with the level 3, who talks to the level 2, who talks to the level 1 involved. Unbelievable in 2009.

A most illuminating and interesting evening.

If you're wondering why I've used Google-avoiding letteration for this post, it's because I used the beginning tale in my end-of-evening vote of thanks, and, knowing that many of the Nice Ladies were taught how to use search engines by me, and had memories stirred by my MMM story, I don't want them dropping in here while researching.

Thought for the day

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

- Judy Garland

Validation at last

It seems that I'm not the only one who finds the whole current obsession with fluffy unreal electronically-based "life" less than fulfilling and completely unstimulating/incomprehensible.

Firstly: "Twitter is... for helpless PR and Marcoms-types short of an original idea to promote themselves and their clients."

And then:

"China has 300m internet users, the largest number in the world, and the government has become increasingly concerned that excessive internet use is not good for them. Internet addiction has been blamed for everything from lower academic performance to disrupted family life, especially among the young.

In a country where both the state and families still place considerable restrictions on what people can do, chatrooms, online gaming and social networking are looked on as providing dangerous levels of freedom and escape.

Last year the country’s doctors formally defined internet addicts. They were, it said, those who spend over six hours a day online, find difficulty socialising, concentrating or sleeping and have a desire to be online when they are offline...

In capitalist China, hundreds of organisations have sprung up to treat the new epidemic. These offer everything from army training style boot camps and ECT to more conventional psycho1ogy and medicines to combat depression and anxiety."

More

Also: "Social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook are full of "inane chatter" and are no substitute for real friendships, a leading Roman Catholic bishop has warned."

And those of you who believe in giving away your data freely to the world, do watch out: the other day I was filling in an online survey, and one of the questions was about one's perception of the idea of, "An insurance quoting engine, for a single company, that allows you to sign in using your Facebook account username and password. This then has limited access to your Facebook data in order to pre-populate fields in the engine to the extent to which you permit this." Just imagine how insurers could then use some people's Facebook data to reject future claims...

What one does online now will undoubtedly come back to bite one on the bum in future years. To put it mildly.

With thanks to Mr BW and to Steve for fuelling this post.

Thought for the day

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.

- Pablo Picasso

Thought for the day

The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them.

- Lao-Tzu

Palaces. Or not.

I think that all the traffic cones in the south-east decided to instruct their workmen to take them on an outing in honour of the full moon last night. Mile after mile after mile of cones on the M25 on the way home from Hampton Court late last night. In places the road was down to one carriageway out of four, and there were absolutely no signs saying why, and no visible workmen other than the cone putter-outers. Road surface inspection is my best guess, but, who knows?

Here's me flying around the show:

The grey skies were the remnants of the torrential rain that hit as we were in the car park munching our packed dinner around 5.30pm. After that it cleared up a bit so not a bad evening, although I was glad I wore my wellies rather than stilettoes. Not that I have any stilettoes, but a couple of spare pointy hats upside down might have done the trick, had I wanted to adopt the Usual Uniform for the event.

The Awards had been put out early this year - before the hoards arrived at 6pm, anyway, rather than at dusk, as has been the case in the past. That saved us having to run round again at the end to see what medals our favourite gardens had been awarded, and meant we could make a quick getaway, before the fireworks.

The BBC were out in force filming as we got there. I've not seen that on Gala Night before either. 'Celebrities' spotted (because I know some of you care about this sort of thing ;)) included Joe Swift and Rachel de Thame (filming) and that annoying Wesley bloke that I dislike (also unfortunately seen at Chelsea) (wandering around, seemingly following us everywhere we went, making ridiculous big-headed comments to exhibitors).

Trends from the show: vegetables galore, in front gardens, tubs, tyres, flower beds; trendy creepy crawly homes made from tile, brick, bamboo, wood with holes etc:

lots of use of piles of stones, rocks and pebbles; squares of untrimmed sacking as a hanging basket/tub liner:

orangey echinacea (3 different near-identical varieties, but I'm so tired this morning that I can't recall their names without referring to the plant lists which I haven't yet unpacked):

posh gardens for stripey buzzy familiars (this is a detail of one of the beautiful pebble floor mosaics):

sempevivums (which I've adored since I was a Tiny Witch); using unusual 'pots' as containers:

(cup of rosey rosy lee anyone?)

(yes, those are Y-front and bra 'pots' on that washing line); tiny weeny pellets of black glass as floor covering; hens; gardening and dairying bygones galore. Oh dear, suddenly the things we've been doing for years have become very trendy. What can I do?

In celebration of Henry's 500th, there were some themed gardens (mostly very twee), and a kiddies' Henry's Wives scarecrow exhibition (recycleds + plants). The one shown is Anne Boleyn. I loved the spurting neck stump plants. Very spooky in the almost-dark as we got to them.

But, comparatively very few gardens this year, and no large water gardens at all - evidence, I suppose, of the recession hitting the corporate sponsors - a couple of "quite nice's" but only one truly spectacular, totally original one. Of which more sometime soon.

Continuing the Saga of the New Summerhouse, this morning we discovered that the gazebo that had been over all the treasures from the old summerhouse (years of collecting old irreplaceable objets) had blown off in the wind/rain in the night. No gazebo has ever blown down in all the years we've been using them. It rained here in the night, meaning everything is wet. 14 years of Country Smallholding magazines (my best sources of animal husbandry related info and numerous recipes for natural products that I use a lot) now only fit for the recycling, and umpteen little books and treasures ruined. If I wasn't so tired I'd cry.

I think we've hit one of those shitty patches that everyone gets from time to time...

Rain rain go away...

After several weeks of gorgeous blisteringly hot sunshine, it is unsurprising it's raining today. Tis traditional for the Hampton Court Flower Show Charity Gala that we go to every year, after all. Not sure if this is the third or fourth soggy one in a row. Spare a thought for us this evening watching fireworks in the rain.

Today is not going well so far. Having spent the weekend taking down and cutting up the old rotten summerhouse, the new summerhouse went up...

...then had to come down due to *ahem* "variations in base height" that had to do with it comprising two paving slab bases from where the previous summerhouse had been at various times and a new bit of extending concrete. No more than a centimetre of so overall, but a dip in the middle that couldn't be packed out enough to ensure structural rigidity. So, they'll be back on Friday and between now and then a lot of cement mixing and pouring has to take place. Another reason it's going to rain this week.

I haven't dared touch today's other project, and I'd welcome some advice from any Techie Souls out there.

I gave up on P1pex's ability/willingness to solve my connection problems, and have now had broadband put onto my second line. The idea being that I could ensure no break in service (too many horror stories on forums about P1pex cutting people off immediately they requested a MAC, rather than wait until switchover day). Once I have it all up and running, I can then change my email addresses to download into the new place (I don't ever use the supplied email addresses at all, other than for mail forwarding, for ease of change in just this sort of situation) and, provided it all works OK, then give the 30 days required notice to P1pex. And complain to Ofcom, not that it will get me anywhere, but it might make me feel slightly better about the whole sad saga of customer dis-service of the worst kind I have *ever* heard, let alone experienced personally.

Today the new service went live on the second line (and I know that it is live as I can no longer use 18185 for calls on that line). I have a new supplied 'free' wireless router (a D-Link 2640R).

Now, has anyone experience of having two broadband services from different suppliers, coming down 2 separate lines, into one PC/network? Or any idea of the best way to go about setting it up?

I'm thinking of completely turning off the old wireless router, so it's not active at all, then installing the new service by allowing it to set up a new wireless network using the PC as the initially cabled part, as per the router's set-up CD (or maybe I should just point the new router at its IP as some people on some forums have suggested?), and seeing how it goes. But I'm not sure if/how that will work? If it all goes base over apex, I'll still be able to run the netbook off the old wireless network until it can be sorted out (as I'll leave putting the netbook onto the new network until last).

The Friday Question

Mr BW does sta1ned glass. Pictures of it have appeared here before. I've done the courses with him too, but breaking glass and bending and soldering metal just aren't my thing. I know the principles, but the practice doesn't inspire me the way things texti1e do.

Yesterday, with my usual group of sewing cronies, I made sta1ned glass in fabric, with only machine sewing. I've done it before using made bias tape and hand-stitching, but I'm too impatient to enjoy hand stitching. This was great fun, and really easy. Which, given that it was hot hot hot in our workroom was extremely fortunate. There's a super book on the technique (with photos that could inspire many other things, including traditional sta1ned glass or wrought iron work) here (Mr BW please note, my WitchDay cometh, well, cometh in 6 months - cheapest place to order is here).

My lead (as in led not dog's lead) was purple, rather than the traditional grey/black, but, I'm a colour junkie. And ever so slightly unconventional. I think this is a wonderful way of displaying a piece of fabric (either bought or hand-painted/dyed etc) that one cannot bear to use in a cut-up way. I'm sure some of you will understand what I mean by that :)

As yet another cushion added itself to The Studio Couch, I wondered how many cushions we have at The Coven. I reckon there are 20 or so outside ones, there are 22 in The Rest Room, 15 in The Studio, 2 in the lounge, 3 in our bedroom, 1 in my Inner Coven, and 2 in Mi1dred.

Making a total of 65. Is that a lot?

There are also about half a dozen innards from IKEA (a bargain 58p for the small size, and £1.79 for large) awaiting further projects to cover them, but I'm not counting those. I'm also not counting the 10 large ones that came with our large and squidgy sofa.

How many cushions do you have in and around your home?
Did you make any of them yourself?

On a related note, for anyone interested in creative texti1es, there are currently 20 or so wonderful short clips of workshops here. Some wonderful colours and inspirational ideas from leaders in the field.

Phew what a scorcher!

Mr BW clearly thinks I need to post something, so he was outside at 6pm yesterday evening taking photos, and suggesting tablog style headlines.

This large wall thermometer is in direct sun, but it has never been above 40 degrees C before. 4 more degrees and the blue liquid would have hit the jackpot. 46 degrees C (it went 1 degree higher after the photo was taken) is 114 degrees F for those aged or foreign amongst you.

I think I'm the only person I know who loves this weather. You won't catch me moaning. I just hope it's not all of the summer, as the hot spell of late June/early July was in 2006.

We are busy working, crafting (dye1ing, card1ng, fe1ting, qui1ting, patchw0rking), Mi1dreding (unfortunately she has to have open heart surgery sometime soon), gardening and garden opening, animaling and building. And sometime soon I may just post a few pictures of some of it. Possibly. If I can muster the enthusiasm.

In the meantime, if anyone wants two spare cocks, please let me know. But, they are not for eating, only for breeding as they are very beautiful. We thought we'd found a local home for one of them, but I was pulled from my slumbers by a phone call one morning last week, "Hello BW, do you mind if we eat your cock if it gets too noisy?" Now, usually I am a very quick awakener, and can answer the phone without sounding as if I've just woken up, even when I have, but to be awoken by that particular comment, completely without other context, stumped even me.

Because I can't cope with the, "Kittens!" cries, here's one photo of the first escape. The Dark Tabby Familiar is extremely unimpressed that we taught her children (then 4 weeks old) how to escape from their box last weekend while Mr BW was digging foundations with an axe.

Note how we re-use the Swimming Familiars' feed box as a home for them, and give them hose ends as toys.

Thought for the day

Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.

- Dorothy Thompson