Trundling through time

Posted on by inkbiotic

 

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Word of the day: Emberlucock – to confuse; to bewilder

“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I’ve enjoyed my bubble today. I did a YouTube workout. I thought I was fairly fit, but I nearly died. Felt smug though. I ate a garlic bread baguette that has been clogging up the freezer for a while. I tried to learn some new insults, and discovered that neek is a cross between a nerd and a geek.

Now to those (like me earlier today) who don’t know what the difference is between a geek and a nerd. A geek is more of a collector and consumer, excited by things such as movies, music and the memorabilia that comes with them. A nerd is more academic, obsessed with accumulating knowledge in their specialist field. Both tend to be obsessive. nerd

Here’s a graph from Slackprop, here (the whole blog on the subject is worth looking at too) showing words collected from tweets with orange words showing geeky subjects and words, while the blue shows the nerdy.

The picture at the top is from my work, because I miss it, such beautiful plants. What have you all been up to? As productive as me?

 

I’m forgetting how to talk :D

Posted on by inkbiotic

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“Yossarian was flabbergasted. His leg went abruptly to sleep.”

Catch 22

Word of the day: Bloviate – to write or speak windily

After returning to blogging last week, I came to a standstill. Because if I’m not working at my loopy job, what am I supposed to write about? And my three flatmates ran back to their respective countries just as all the trouble was starting, so now I’m in the flat on my own. Isolated. And more importantly, boring.

It’s a good life really, I’m doing much thinking and meditating. Watching videos and snoozing. I’m putting the finishing touches on the book that I wrote. I’m cleaning all the nooks and crannies of the flat. But none of that makes for an interesting blog. And even if it did, I’m aware of the humongous amounts of scary shit many people are going through, so it feels heartless to chatter on.

Being isolated, I do need to talk to people though, so I’m going to try and blog, then hope it provides some distraction or company for others and doesn’t annoy.

I’m going to carry on putting up interesting words and quotes, plus any photos from work I didn’t use. I hope you like those. And if I do have any thoughts or events worth sharing, I will.

So…

Is anyone else enjoying the little moments of connection with strangers that happen in a crisis? Exchanges of raised eyebrows and grins when things go wrong. Or a shy smile when I step out of someone’s way so we can maintain space. When the big interactions stop, the little ones become more significant. Is this how we get communities?

Final words…

For all of you out there who are scared, lonely, in danger of losing a job or a loved one, my love goes out to you. I’m so sorry. I could well end up in the same situation soon, but while I’ve got things easy, feel free to vent.

 

In London in the lockdown (everything is fine)

Posted on by inkbiotic

dont stop panicking

So my boss has sent a few of us home, while the rest stay working.  It’s ridiculous that many people with non-essential jobs are still going into work, but the problem is how contradictory the gov.uk information is.

Here it says:

Only go outside for food, health reasons or essential work

From gov.uk

But also:

Following on from the government’s guidance on social distancing in relation to COVID-19, people should avoid travelling unless it is essential.

Also gov.uk

So, draconian measures, but for any boss with a construction or gardening company who wants to keep his non-essential business open, the line saying you can travel to work if you can’t work from home is a get out.

More frustratingly when Gove decided to clarify things, he only added to the misinformation. Reported in the Guardian

Gove said construction workers should still be going to work while staying two metres apart and tradespeople, such as plumbers and electricians, could attend emergencies in people’s homes.

Ok, so construction workers should carry on. But then in the same article:

Gove issued a series of stark warnings about the consequences of flouting the ban. Shown pictures on Sky News of construction workers gathering close together, he said: “Unless you stay at home, then the people you love most may die.”

Which is just a way of giving the bosses an excuse to carry on while demonising the actual builders doing the work.

With an economic depression looking inevitable, I get why the government are trying to keep it vague. Maybe it’s time the grand rulers of the world tried sorting the flaws in our economy. People shouldn’t starve while food is going to waste. If A.I. and robots can do our jobs, why is it still a problem for anyone to get fired? How can a global recession happen anyway? If we’re all broke, then we’re all equally rich, right? (Note: my understanding of economics is patchy.)

Do you have any solutions?

And to soothe my rattling brain, I did another http://weavesilk.com/ painting.

The Citadel

 

Let’s watch the world burn together…

Posted on by inkbiotic

silk paint 2

So I’m in London, land of blitz spirit and denial, greed and disaster. Hunkered down in England’s plague-pit, I promise you all, everything is going to be absolutely fine.

Mood: Sort of itchy and news-obsessed. Waiting for doom to knock on the door.

Weather: Sunny, blue sky, little fluffy clouds. Distinctly inappropriate weather for a global catastrophe. Anyone would think nature was fine about our impending ending.

Word of the day: Impest – to infest with plague or pestilence.

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

The Year Of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion

It’s been a while since I posted. I just finished writing my book yesterday (woohoo!) I’ve got my head to a somewhat settled place, and a huge disaster is sweeping through everywhere except Botswana and Yemen. The UK government is doing a great job of making a plan up as they go along, London may soon go into lockdown, but I’m still working. Working is actually pretty nice, it feels like we’re a lifetime away from danger when we’re out with the flowers and the robins.

How about all of you? (going to have a look in a minute) Are you isolated? Healthy? Scared or complacent?

Note: for anyone isolating and bored, the above picture was made using the website http://weavesilk.com/ If, like me, you like making beautiful and impressive pictures, but don’t really have any talent or skills, then this is the website for you. Click and drag ineptly as you like and the results will be delightful. The controls in the left hand top corner give you enough variety to keep it interesting. A seriously soothing site.