The Barnum Effect

Pumpkin flaying has been marvelous fun this year...

I've been busy flaying poor pumpkins again, this time with a devilishly tricky Escher pattern...

I've been using XtraNormal to produce animations for the last nine months. Their slogan is "I f you can type , you can make movies." This was my first effort using the Create facility on their website : After that I switched to the XtraNormal Desktop product, and have since published 28 animations which collectively have had over 18,000 views to date. This is one of my recent efforts: I start with the basics - dialog and camera angles. Then iteratively I add expressions, gestures, character movement, noises and so on. I'll play the animation frequently as I go along, in order to tweak the dialog and timings. Once you press the play button you have to wait for the program to render the animation. Every time you make a change and press play that rendering process takes a bit longer than it did before, until you find yourself waiting several minutes before the animation starts playing. The only cure is to close and re-run the application (which itself takes a ...

With Hallow's Eve fast approaching, I'm flaying once more. First the crown is sliced open, then the guts are ripped out. Taking a scalpel I trace my devilish pattern across the skin, finally with tender care I incise the wounds, rending skin from flesh to reveal the pumpkin's inner demon. This ram-horned devil will be going to the Myrtle Tavern, who're holding a pumpkin carving competition. 1st prize = £50 in beer tokens. How could a pumpkin serial carver resist?

Why commemorate Frank Zappa on a pumpkin? Well why not? For those of you who need definitive answers may I direct you to the 818-PUMPKIN hotline, and recommend you play "Invocation & Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin"

Two more pumpkins carved, that leaves just Frank Zappa outstanding. The Aslan pattern turned out to be quite a challenge to carve, with lots of narrow close cuts it took four hours to transfer to the pumpkin. The horror themed Janus was a much easier task.

I carved these two pumpkins yesterday for Aiden & Millisa, who have a great Halloween & Firework weekend ahead of them at Shell Island . The Owl and the Pussy-cat are off to Shell Island In a beautiful Purple VW Camper Van...

It's amazing what you can find to while away the hours on a dull Saturday afternoon. I've been taking inspiration from Google images to see if I could create some pumpkin patterns. I hadn't realised just how beautiful tattoo designs are until today. I can see now why people feel the urge to get some ink. Shame they have a tendency to fade to blue and stretch as we bulge and sag.

With nine days to go before All Hallow's Eve I've started the preparation for this year's pumpkin carving fest. Each year I buy a couple of patterns from Zombie Pumpkins who have an awesome selection. My dad is an avid fan of the late great Frank Zappa so I'll be creating an FZ pumpkin especially for him. First I search for a suitable photograph from which I can create a likeness that can be transferred to the pumpkin. I have no particular artistic talent, so transforming a photo into a two tone pattern takes me quite a bit of time. When I come to carve this pumpkin I'll remove the skin but leave the flesh behind, varying the depth of my cuts. When lit by candle it will create a portrait effect. Next week I'll scour the shops looking for perfect pumpkins. It is always a tough judgement call - leaving it late enough to get fresh pumpkins, but not so late they've all sold out. Then of course I'll go hunting high and low for my carv...

A rather supercilious customer services person told me that the B&Q timber cutting service is only for store bought materials, so I took my cupboard doors home. As so often happens, a solution came to me in my sleep. This morning I abandoned the useless Workmate, and used my solid dining table as a workbench. I was able to clamp the doors tightly enough to use the jigsaw to shave off the 12mm. It isn’t a perfect job, but I’m happy enough.

We have had a pretty dry spring and summer so far, all corrected in the last hour by torrents of the wet stuff being flung from the heavens along with thunderbolts and lightning. ♪♫♪ "Very very frightening me." ♫♪♫ Ahem. Got a little carried away there. The dog is glued to my heel, and the cat is hiding in the basement. The afternoon was spent investigating how I’m going to shave 12mm from two cupboard doors I’m installing in the basement to cover the electricity meter & consumer unit. I can either take 3mm off each side of both doors, or take 6mm of one edge of both doors. I bought a Black & Decker Workmate a few months ago, and I’d just like to state for the record that I whole heartedly regret ever laying eyes on it. I feel my fingers are at risk of being sliced off every time I have to unfold or collapse it. Whatever I’m trying to do the holes for the orange plastic material clamps are in the wrong place. The two wood surfaces don’t seem to be flat and level. Eve...

So hopefully I've managed to get the right fluorescent bulb at Maplin's today. Proof will be when I'm teetering on the stool trying to reach high enough to plug it in. I didn't sleep so well last night. Confused dreams of hospitals and doctors who were unwilling to communicate have left me jittery today. I've felt better as the day has gone on, but this morning I was getting random shooting pains, aches and discomfort. My left eye has developed a nervous tick, which periodically starts fluttering. It scares me that I'm in such a shambolic state after just two days with a sleep deficit. I have been trying to stay focussed on the two week break I have coming up, the light at the end of the tunnel. If the 'one day at a time' mantra is best then I should focus on getting the light at the top of the stairs working tonight, and let tomorrow take care of itself.

I was so chuffed with myself yesterday evening. I got back to the flat, got the light fitting dismantled, got the bulb out, and got down to B&Q in time. When I got back to the flat and realised the bulb had got the wrong number of pins I got pretty cheesed off. It is a folded fluorescent that makes sort of a U shape. They have the same clip connector, and look identical from the front, but on the back there seems to be a number of possible pin variations. The one I need to find has 2 pins closest to the clip. The one I bought has 4 pins set a bit further away from the clip. Fancy making several incompatible light fittings and giving them the same name. Why do they have to make consumer light bulbs such a minefield? I imagine the head of the sales department shouting 'Gotcha!' everytime some poor dumb shopper is tricked into buying the wrong thing.

My plans to scoot straight from work to get back to my digs nice and early have been scuppered by signalling problems and security alerts. I'm just leaving London Bridge 45 minutes after leaving the office on a train that is running 40 minutes late. Amazingly the train is virtually empty when every other train departed with a full complement of sardines. My plan tonight was to replace a light on the common area landing which has been defunct for the 3 months I've been staying there. I need to take a screwdriver to the light fitting to get the bulb out so I can see what I need to buy from the B&Q down the road. Given the delays I'm not sure that I'll have time to get to the store before it closes tonight, so I might end up trying the mad dash again tomorrow.

I suffered several headaches over the last 4 days in Leeds, most likely stress related. My complexion is poor, and the skin sore and red where the lymphedema tape takes it's abrasive toll on my hand. Clearly I'm run down. I'm usually so restless after 3 days pinned to a desk in London that I can't wait to throw myself into activity and projects when I get back home to Leeds. This doesn't really give me any down time, as even when I'm physically resting in Leeds I'm working out what is next on my 'to do' list and planning my approach. My Leeds activities over the past 4 days included: teleworking on Friday, two trips to the DIY store, a supermarket shop, buying a father's day gift, an afternoon and two evenings at my dad's, a morning trying to sleep off a headache, putting up hooks, painting a door, painting skirting boards, removing paint from a light switch and two sockets, putting up a new light fitting, cutting a new window board, removing...

I’ve taken this week off work as vacation time, hoping to catch up on rest, and get some home improvements done. I’m having limited success on both fronts. I’ve reluctantly scaled back my ambitions on the DIY front, so now instead of decorating 3 basement rooms, I’ve acknowledged that it will be just the one room. I’ve taken down some shoddy shelves; removed uPVC window boards; cut and glossed the replacement window boards; patched and painted the walls and ceiling (two coats); caulked, sanded and glossed the skirting board; wired in a new light fitting. Finally I’ve purchased some Ikea Ivar shelving units, which I’ve sanded down and started to wax. I suppose that isn’t so bad an achievement in a week. The lymphedema clinician wasn’t very happy at the state of my hand when I saw her today, and the new compression glove she’d got for me wouldn’t fit over my fingers. By the time she’d completed the MLD, we were both happier about my hand, and as I was able to get the glove on, I decided ...

I return to work tomorrow after a week off. I haven’t been anywhere but I have had the best vacation. Mainly I’ve been doing green fingered stuff. I bought some tiny little succulent plants, but drew a blank finding pots for them. I was stumped for a while, but then remembered I had some old china packed away which had been passed down to me. Now some of those plain old tea-cups are making quite dainty plant pots. As I may have mentioned, I have a sizeable area of decking. Gradually I’ve been filling it up with flower pots, but I had in mind that I’d like to have flower baskets hanging from the balustrade. Well of course it turned out that nothing entirely suitable existed unless I wanted to fix brackets to window baskets. Then I stumbled across a product called Flower Pouches, which are bags that you can plant with flowers and hang from fence posts & walls. Inspired, I bought some tarpaulin and got the sewing machine out. I hereby trademark the result “Flower Panniers”. I’m hoping...

A weekend of domesticity; visiting the folks, cutting the grass, and swabbing the deck. Perhaps I've gotten obsessed by this particular phrase, but to be fair I did spend a couple of hours today cleaning the decking with a pressure washer - if that doesn't count as swabbing the deck - what does? Not an April Shower to be seen this weekend, just blue skies and summer temperatures. Down under they're heading for winter, and I have just posted a wee parcel to some Aussie friends to keep them warm in the coming months. I'm really happy at how this lapghan turned out, considering it is my first major crochet project: I created this DAZY pattern in honour of DA ve & su ZY , my sun drenched Aussie friends.