The Barnum Effect

Six months have washed by, on their one way journey into history. The river of time flows inexorably, sometimes meandering placidly, often in full spate - turbulent and roiled by events.  I find it usually manages both at once, which I dub the "slow/fast duality of time".  In an "At-Risk" category, I've spent the majority of my time sheltering at home.  The metronome of work still ticks and tocks, back and forth.  Start work, finish work Start work, finish work Start work, finish work Start work, finish work Start work, finish work Weekend Weekend ... The days waltz by, working from home, with the odd day of annual leave to break the rhythm. It is all somewhat muted without the hurly burly of the commute and the hubbub of the office.  The constraints on my activities external to the house seem to constrain me within the home. I'm oddly stilled. Held quiescent. Time slows. Blink. It has been 6 months. It went by in a flash. Where did the time go?

The day after my last post I fell ill with flu, which delayed my operation by two weeks. I'm now two days post-surgery, back home, and recovering. I had breast cancer operations in 2001 and again in 2008. Those were traumatic experiences, my post surgery recovery was tainted with feelings of loss, and fear for the future. Each of those operations were just the heralds of more debilitating treatment - the long hard slog of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Following on from that were the yearly scans and tests to check for new cancers and secondaries, a regular cycle of building tension as each appointment came due, plunged back into the medical world for the tests, then the gruelling wait for results, hoping to hear those precious words "all the tests came back clear" and feel the giddy relief once more. This has framed the last 18 years of my life. I allowed it to box me in. I focused on getting through each day. I made no long term plans. I did not peer in...

The local library hosts an "Open Mic" to tempt us to come along and share our work. I've written stuff and I'm sure I could read some of it, out loud in front of folks, if I put my mind to it. Looking back at the blog for candidates I spot a clear correlation between creativity and sadness. Some of the most hauntingly beautiful things I've written were crafted in the midst of misery. Suffer the rain to appreciate the sun, the trope of the tormented artist. There's too much sun in my current disposition, creating arid times for inspiration. Yet would I wish for a forecast of rain, so that I might be more fertile in my imaginings? I think not. This Mental Health Day, don't suffer alone. #Itstimetotalk Laying down reserves, 4 May 2010 The odd sock that disappears, 10 May 2010 Fettered, 26 May 2010 Retreat, 23 June 2010 A blink reveals, 16 November 2010 Crank the orrery on, 21 December 2010 Folly laid bare, 24 January 2011 Premonition of incip...

For years I commuted to-and-fro via the London Underground, squeezing into jam packed carriages, holding a book betwixt myself and the horrid hoards. Too short to steady myself by holding onto the hanging straps, and too mild-mannered to muscle my way to a seat, I generally hogged a position in the doorway, where I could lean against the door and sway with the movement of the tube. At each station stop, I would step backwards off the train and side-step out of the way of those needing to disembark, allowing everyone else to board before once again taking my doorway spot. There's an art to deciding where on the platform to wait: away from the entrances to the platform, yet close to one of the destination platform's exits, whilst being mindful of which parts of the train would already be crowded on arrival. There's a joy to deciphering the London Underground map, being able to plot the most efficient route with a single glance. With the map you can work out the various po...

This is the latest blog entry to be converted into an animation, based on Fettered . I wrote this during a train journey, returning from London to Leeds. A number of railway metaphors seeped in, as the feeling of being cooped up in the carriage reminded me of similar emotions during cancer treatment.

I have begun a new project, taking some of my blog entries and turning them into animations. This is the first, based on Retreat . When I'd finished it and watched it through, I had an uncanny moment where I almost expected Eamonn Andrews to come in with a red book and say "Harry Caper, this is your life!" It is strange to think that I wrote Retreat over two years ago, about events that had happened two years earlier than that. It highlights to me just how far I've come since then, and yet serves to remind me how immediate and powerful those emotions still are.

It's been an age since I last blogged. Plenty of water has flowed under the bridge, but the scenery looks much the same. I became a dog owner for the first time ever, when Poppy came to live with me last September: At about the same time I became a share holder for the first time in years, a topic on which I've recently become quite animated: So how did you get into GKP? So tell me about GKP and the muppet business? So tell me about GKP vs Excalibur? So tell me about the GKP forum trolls?

I’ve been maintaining radio silence for a wee while now, but today I’m free to wax lyrical. Well, I say I’m free, but I suppose I’m only as free insomuch as anyone is truly free, given the behaviours we must forgo in order to participate in a social community. For instance I’m not free to murder, maim or create mayhem. Alas. On the plus side I get to reap the benefits of participating in civilisation, and this should not be underestimated. Imagine a world where there was no cooperation, where it was each person for themselves. You could take what you want from anyone else, as long as you had the might to take it, and the strength to keep it, but would there be anything worth taking in such a world?   We cooperate on a massive scale to produce even the most humble of objects. A door is simple thing, but if I had to make a door from first principles with no assistance how would I fair? I’d need to chop down a tree, so first I’d need to make an axe.  I could go stone age, and ...

Unfit for work this week, I've been comparing the nuances between co-codamol and trammadol for a spasmodic symphony of pain from a cricked neck. Co-codamol seems to ease the spasms, it also makes me queasy and dopey. Trammadol, aka tremmadol, relegates the pain to something of an irritation, whilst hitting me with the buzz of a dozen double espresso's. Back at the ranch, it seems the rumoured axe has manifested and culled the herd. First they came for the poor performers,     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a poor performer. Then they came for the long of tooth,     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't long of tooth. Then they came for the weak and sickly,     and I didn't speak out because I wasn't weak and sickly. Then they came for me,     now just another weak and sickly, long of tooth, poor performer. Someone up top is divorced from the ugly reality of a demoralised workforce, brutalised by repe...

I'm in the calm at the centre of the storm. I've been badly buffeted by the storm's arrival, and there will be more distress before it's over, but just now I'm enjoying the respite. Ordinarily I'm so tired, caught up in the drudgery of working and commuting, that I fail to raise my head and take in the scenery. Today, my mind is settled, and I'm at peace. In this oasis all things seem to sparkle with intense vibrancy under the solstice sun. A premonition of incipient nostalgia perhaps. This brief moment in time feels like a gift. One last chance to value what I have before it becomes what I had.

I love the perfect duality of the word spring. It is the name for the season of regeneration and growth. It also means to rise, leap, move, or act suddenly and swiftly. Both senses of the word come together in me as the season of Spring arrives, and I can fly into action after months of being constrained by the bleak winter weather. 

I'm in a dark place. Storm clouds have rolled in to block out the sunlight, leaving the world tinged in that sickly yellow light that precedes a thunderstorm. Gulls circle overhead, and beneath me the waters swirl in a vortex that threatens to suck me deep into the maelstrom, where I would surely drown. Suddenly, my folly laid bare, I realise the ocean despises me and will not tolerate me to stay in its demesne. The strong might be allowed to swim its waters, but the weak and ill are fools to believe the sea to be as supportive as it appears. You might paddle in the shallow bay awhile, rising with the gentle swell, but tarry too long and the sea will test you, falter and the riptide is merciless. I had been so sad and lonely on the beach, watching my friends swimming back and forth, slowly recovering from the grievous injury that had washed me ashore. Fear and longing held me immobile for the longest time. 'Come in, you can do it,' urged the swimmers....

With my scientific background and logical mind I'm practically duty bound to denounce horoscopes as so much bunk and twaddle. Indeed, I have no problem doing so. Horoscopes epitomise the Barnum Effect. Here a few Scorpio horoscopes I’ve pulled together from the internet, covering the week and month ahead: http://www.cainer.com/weekly/scorpiot.html Think about how hard you have worked. How much effort you have invested. Has it all paid off? Of course not. Nothing we ever do is 100 per cent successful. It's the same with the money we spend. Not every penny can be parted with wisely, no matter how frugal we try to be. We either accept this or we drive ourselves insane in an effort to achieve unattainable perfection. Now, think of an aspiration that you are all but ready to give up on; a campaign that you have lost faith in. Put more energy into your great dream this week, it won't all work out... but some of it will. http://www.homepagers.com/daily/scorpio.html You are ...

Astronomy was scuppered by meteorology today as clouds obscured last night's Quadrantid meteor shower and this morning's partial solar eclipse. To add insult to injury I didn't feel the 3.6 magnitude earthquake which hit Yorkshire yesterday. We've had an uncanny number of portents and omens in the last month. In addition to meteors, solar eclipse and earthquake, we had an eclipse of the moon on the winter solstice which has not occurred in nigh on 500 years. On New Years Eve 3000 blackbirds fell dead from the sky in Arkansas, while 125 miles away 100,000 drum fish washed up dead. The end of days? Today we're intellectually curious about these events, but in less enlightened days we would have been disturbed, fearful even, and looking around for a suitable sacrifice to appease the obviously angry Gods. I might be hard pressed to pick just one person if someone had to be ritually slayed. We have so many figures we love to hate who would do nicely. Polit...

Last night, as the clock struck midnight, revellers all across Leeds set off fireworks. After the fireworks faded, the sky gradually filled with Flying Chinese Lanterns, which drifted south east across the city, forming orange constellations of hopes and dreams in the clear night sky.

The eclipsed moon hangs ghostly pink in the sky, strange and seemingly transported from the cover of an old science fiction book to hang above our heads. On the opposite horizon, glorious dawn colours announce the approaching sun. It is these orange and red sunbeams that light the setting moon, our atmosphere bending the longer red wavelengths round the earth. Orbital mechanics crank the orrery on to its next position, and we whiz along. Sun risen, moon set. Shortest day begun.

I’ve been out in my Fiesta sleigh today, delivering presents, just like Santa will in a few days. Afterwards I called in to see the folks, enjoyed a laugh, a bowl of homemade chicken soup and a slice of lemon drizzle cake.  Driving home after dark through freezing fog, I wondered whether all would be white come the morning. Will the fog crystalize in the night? Will I wake to an ice sculpted world? Arriving home the house felt warm until I shed my coat, and then the chill was apparent. The radiators cold, the boiler dark and silent. Despite desperate resuscitation attempts, I fear the boiler’s life has fled.  All doors and curtains are closed against the cold. It's 14.5 ° C in the house, I can see the mercury falling.  Jack Frost may get his claws inside my home before this night is out.

Our concept of reality is determined by our senses. Through our eyes we perceive that the universe consists of objects that we can interact with, confirmed by our sense of touch registering pressure when we make contact with another object. We have a construct of time because the input from our senses varies, and we can recollect the differences. As each combination of sensory input is never repeated precisely we determine that, as objects can move in relation to one another, so too does time “travel”, though only it would seem in one direction, and not in the same three dimensions we register physical objects moving in. We recognise that there other forces at work based on observing how objects move in relation to one another. We deduce gravity as a force that attracts objects to one another. An object forced up and away from the planet will gradually slow in its ascent, and then accelerate back to earth. We observe that some objects have a gravity like effect on a limited subse...