Category: General

It’s been a packed one, really.

I should be working. I promised myself I’d work until it was late enough to reasonably ring John, and then stop. But no…

Blah.

Anyway, the weekend. The weekend did righteously rock. (more…)

One Parma Violet Milkshake.

The world is a good and happy place.

That is all :)

That’s my plan for today.

Swimming, nip to Maplin for a new stilus and belt for the Rotel RP-1300 (which, frustratingly, isn’t in Rotel’s otherwise rather good list of manuals. I *think* it’s fitted with a Garrard SP25 Mark 4 cartridge; I *think*. Unfortuantely, the Mk4 and Mk3 stylus appear to be (at least, photos look) almost indistinguishable. I’ll take the old one (which is minus it’s diamond) with me.

I’ve measured the circumference…approximately… it’s difficult to do! The original belt had wandered off somewhere before I got it…. Which means, well, it’s about 64 cm in circumference; which I make about 20cm diameter. Which leaves me wondering if I should get the 195mm or the 210mm drive belt :-/

It’s probably going to end up costing me more than the Maplin 30 quid turntable. Of course, Maplin are lacking in the whole… sense thing. Their page says “stylus cross reference chart” – but it ain’t there; and the e-book doesn’t have that bit scanned. Blah.

So, I posted something yesterday on Freecycle, it was a plea for a Record Deck. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday touring charity shops (apart from an hour photographing an abandoned cathedral and school – I really want to see if I can get permission to go inside there); and y’know what? I saw exactly 2 record players. They were both in god-awful midi systems.

So, thoroughly frustrated I returned home and posted a Wanted on the Freecycle list for Bristol.

And y’know what. Someone replied – they said they’d check it was still not working the way they thought it wasn’t working and get back to me today.

So of course, every time an e-mail comes in I bounce around like a leapy bouncy thing.

And then it’s not from them.

It’s very distracting.

So, it’s a very limited survey; 808 people is not a big number compared to the whole of America, but still how can less than half of the population believe in Evolution?!. What is wrong with America’s educational system?! Geeze guys! Join Darwin in the 19th century.

*Shudders*

In other news, it looks like it might be an okay day today; so I might pop out later and photograph things – as well as hunting for a moving magnet or moving coil cartridge / deck for my record playing joy. I’m also considering locating a copy of the utterly dreadful Making Your Mind Up – a record I disposed of in my teens, which I now regret. I’ve found a copy for 2.49, which seems excessive.

Bah.

I’ll have to hunt for that in the charity shops today too.

Otherwise it’s an exciting day of Maternity EU Pack. Woot.

# Don’t let your indecision take you from behind (?!)
# Trust your inner vision
# Don’t let others change your mind…..

Raaaaa! So 80s!

Okay, I’ve not got a paid account, so it’s not a poll, more of a survey.

Junk food right.

We all know what Junkfood is don’t we? Only Trey and I disagree on this matter.

Junk food for me is: KFC, Burgerking, Kebabs, Burgers, Chips, the majority of fast food. On which basis, Trey does not eat Junk Food.

Trey claims that Junk Food includes deserts, for example, Icecream, Cheesecake, Gateaux. etc.

Who is right?

In more of my obsessive rambling about the pool that’s now shut, (original photos, second gallery, third gallery, another rambly post about it), I spent a long time last night talking to Trey about it.

I guess, or I think… When my dad died a few months ago, I had a lot of anger, a lot of hurt, and I needed some space to work that out in. Bristol North, because I’d just learned to swim, provided that space. I could beat crap out of the water (almost literally given the level of maintainance it’d had), I could swim until I was tired, too tired to care, and I could swim along the bottom of the pool in a silence and at a level of concentration which I just couldn’t get anywhere else.

It ridded my mind of the struggle to cope. All I had to do was swim. All I could do was swim.

And that place, that place was the kind of building my father would have loved. All function and form, beauty as part of the design. None of this bland utilitarian modernism. Quality as a function of longevity, not quality as a function of price.

And perhaps that’s why I’m so attached to it.

Or perhaps I’m attached to it because I have no desire to move into the modern world. And “getting real” is something I’d rather not do.

My pool shuts tomorrow.

Bristol North Baths will entertain it’s swimmers one last time before Bristol City Council gut the building of all salvagable material (hrm, preventing anyone else easily reopening said pool) and completely destroy 90 years of Bishopston’s history.

Thanks Bristol Council.

Fortunately, there’s a completely uninspiring and dull non Bristol Council owned pool (South Glos owned) which I can go to. So I don’t have to give them any more money to destroy things I love.