Pete Ashton’s Blog

Typical really. Just as I get broadband Audiogalaxy gets Napsterised and becomes useless, so the search is on the for the next one. Anyone got any tips?

Kate’s reading a Philip Pullman book from 1982 which her company are republishing and the first line reads as follows:

Peter crouched over the fire, stirring the embers so that the little sparks swarmed up like imps on the rocky walls of Hell

How cool is that!

Took an night off the sleeping pills last night so I could have a few drinks with Mum, Sis and Bro-in-law and had a rather fitful sleep. Fell asleep pretty well but kept waking up through the night. Might have had more to do with a bad tummy in the morning than anything else, but I did have vivid dreams, which you don’t get with the pills. Woke up feeling shitty.

Just taken one to start the week well 15 minutes ago and typing is getting harder… can’t focus… swaying from side to side.

It’s soooo easy………

Just shut off the brain and everything is easy…….

Drugs are good…..

We have broadband.

Fun on the broadband front. Did I mention we’re getting broadband?

First off, Parcelforce couldn’t deliver the modem because they didn’t understand our address so I had to get it redelivered to the local post office who nearly didn’t let me have it because I had no proof it was mine other than an email from BT.

Then, after installing it, it didn’t work, so I phoned the help desk. Turned out the manufacturer had included the wrong drivers and I needed to download them from the site. Which I did. Still didn’t work and I went to bed.

So far so unexceptional. Everyone I’ve heard of who’s got broadband has these tales to tell.

So, this evening I try and phone the help desk again it’s engaged for ages. Eventually it rings… and rings off leaving me with a dead phone. I try again later and get past the ringing and into the queue. After 20 minutes of reading a book I wonder if I should hang up, but the thought goes through my mind that I might be just about to get through, so I’ll give it a little longer. Gradually I drift off to sleep and wake up 40 minutes later to the same music and voice informing me they’ll be with me as soon as possible - I know this because there’s a clock on the phone. I was in the queue for one whole hour. The absurdity of this actually stops me being annoyed, or perhaps the fact that I was resigned to this all happening the moment I phoned the order through. Fact is, I know all the other companies offering broadband would be just as bad and I’m prepared to go through all these hoops to get it.

Welcome to the future.

Neat little thing from Stephen’s Web I’ve got going down at the bottom of the page. It’s a public list of all the sites that people have come here to more than once in the last 24 hours (so no Google searches). Of interest to some, and if not, it’s at the bottom so you don’t have to bother with it. (via PlasticBag.)

If you’re going to take the piss out of a major international financial company, this has to be the only way to do it. Inspired.

Woo hoo! Just been to see Sonic Youth. I’d kinda forgotten about this. Helen’s brother Rob phoned Kate and asked if we’d be interested and she said yes. I registered the fact and then suddenly remembered this weekend. And it was good! Nothing like a big wall of feedback for an hour or so to kick your spirits up!

discovered that Cornelius is/are playing on 15th July at the Shepherds Bush Empire. I’m definitely up for it and can think of a few others who might well be. Anyone interested?

Thanks to the four people who informed my I’d posted a personal entry to the BugPowder blog again. And thanks to Jez for deleting it this morning (and refering to it as a “brain fart”, a phrase I approve of). Must remember, if it seems like Blogger has lost a post, it’s probably gone to another blog.

The sleeping experiment is not working as planned. Once again I’m knackered on a Wednesday and went to sleep at 6.00pm while Kate was at the gym. Just taken a sleeping pill so I should fall down in 20 minutes or so. Have decided to not go out at all for the rest of the week and to take the pills at 9.00pm or thereabouts.

However, I have a feeling this is going to take a while to crack.

In other news, the BT Broadband pack finally made it’s way into my possession, but it’s not working and the help line is busy. It looks nice, though. Like some kind of alien pod.

I have a rule on this site that I don’t talk about other people I know except in passing. I never mention what I think of them or my relationship with them or what I think their thoughts are. This is because I’ll invariably get it wrong and it’s not right or fair to do so. However, I have this need to ramble about such things. Maybe I should get a blogspot blog and keep it anonymous. But I’d probably get found out. Thing is, I think it’d be helpful. Hmm…

No sleeping pill tonight. Today I felt really groggy all day and kinda irritable, despite getting a good 7 hours sleep. While drugs are at the end of the day a good thing for me, this one isn’t a course as such. I’ll take one tomorrow though. Andy says I need to just not sleep during the day and eventually a pattern will evolve. Easier said than done, though he acknowledges this. Maybe I should start bugging my friends in the afternoon to keep me active until 8.00pm.

Aside from coffee and company, anyone got any tips of keeping awake?

Oops! At the computer at midnight thirty. Bad.

I decided this evening I wanted to start writing about comics again but not in any existing forum. So I reviewed six books sitting by the bed, scanned in some samples, and wacked it on the BugPowder site as Pete’s Picks. I like the way the grids have slowly built into something major and figure this will hopefully do the same with all these great comics I want to recommend to people.

So I started it and, fearing if I stopped I’d never complete it, carried it through.

Now to pop a pill and go to sleep.

Chemical attraction

Matthew picked up on this Observer article and rightly damns it for lazy journalism. Since he doesn’t have permalinks, here’s Matt’s view:

It’s charmingly naive, really. I mean, it’s whole ‘anti-depressants make you happy’ angle. They’ve never made me or any other depressed person I’ve known ‘happy’. They’re just there to to smooth out the rough edges of the personality so ‘proper’ (ie psychotherapy) treatment can work better. If some people expect to be prescribed them when feeling ‘down’, that’s wrong. And even more wrong if they’re actually given a prescription. And what’s this about the pills suddenly working and making everything easy? I know that it often takes trying several different anti-depressants to find one that works (witness my experiences of the 90s ‘wonder drug’ Prozac). SSRIs (prozac, seroxat etc.) replacing valium, librium etc.? Maybe in the sense that they’re used by doctors to stop anxious people from cluttering up their surgeries. But as a treatment for depression? I mean, really….

The article didn’t quite have that effect on me but I agree on the whole. As I’ve said before about other articles of this ilk, it worries me how easy it is to get on anti-dees and how they’re being prescribed for feeling a bit down. Like Matt said, they take the edge off. They don’t cure you.

I’m finding it interesting how being on drugs (that’s medicinal rather than recreational) affects how I criticise myself. It’s like I’ve relinquished responsibility to the drug meaning I can get on with my life. Certainly, the Paroxetine/Seroxat is altering the chemical makeup of my brain, but there’s something more psychosomatic going on.

Take, for instance, the sleeping pill I’m taking this week to try and stabilise my sleeping patterns. The problem is, I have difficulty getting to sleep and I have to be up at around 7.00am, so I often get about four hours sleep. This means that when I get home from work I’m exhausted so I fall asleep for a couple of hours on the sofa. Then, when it’s time to go to bed, I’m wide awake and the cycle repeats. Because this is a problem I often get a little depressed or resigned to my fate and feel that in some way I’ve failed once again to sort myself out.

Last night I took the first pill and, while I could feel my mind fighting it for an hour, I had a really good night’s sleep and felt good all day. However, I’m still exhausted from the weekend so when I got home after work I found my eyes closing. On waking up I wasn’t pissed off or annoyed. I was happy and ready to get on with the evening, doing the washing up, dismantling a piece of old furniture I’d been putting off for a while and burning some Pizzicato Five CDs for Dave as a thankyou for putting me up on Saturday.

Why was this? I’m content because I know that, at 11.00pm I will take a pill that will send me to sleep. I do not have to take responsibility for this - the pill will do that for me. I’ll then have a good night’s sleep and wake up ready for work, unlike normally.

Does this make me dependent on medication to live my life? Or am I just using it as a crutch?

Jo’s back after a month’s break. Good-oh!

Once I’ve posted this and taken a shower, I’m going to take my first sleeping tablet in an attempt to regulate my sleeping patterns. The drug is Zopiclone which sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel. I may feel drowsy, according to the label. With any luck I’ll be out like a light (I’m feeling pretty dopey already after a hard weekend of traveling and drinking) and sleep through to 7.00am.

Let’s see if it works.

Advance warning though. I intend to take this at 11.00pm every night this week so, unless I manage to get online earlier than normal, I might go weblog silent for a bit.

A busy few days. I haven’t managed to write it all down but I did scrawl this into the handheld on the train back from Brum tonight:

Travel tip for Londoners venturing outside the M25 in the summer - take a jumper. It really is 3 or so degrees colder out there as Matt & me discovered when we drove up to Birmingham on Saturday night in t-shirts. Lovey sunsets all the way up due to it being the day-after-the-longest day and plenty of minor low rain clouds passing in front of the setting sun.

We were driving up for Jamie & Chris’ leaving party. I worked with Jamie at the Birmingham New Street store a few years back and knew there’d be a load of old mates I hadn’t seen for ages. Everyone seemed in good spirits and it was nice to slip back in time for a while.

Wound up crashing at Dave & Alison’s, staying up ’til 7.00am talking. On deciding to just stay up all day I promptly felt all tired and went to bed. A very good night all in all. Just such a shame I won’t be able to do this stuf if my sleep patterns ever get sorted.

Just discovered you can use the ‘title’ tag in images and not just in links. Obvious really.

Glebe’s Thrift Funnel: another neat Chris Morris tribute page found by Jez

Quite a bit to write about, so let’s go.

First up, monthly doctors appointment today. Progress is good. I’ll be going up to 40mg of Paroxetine (didn’t get the branded Seroxat this time - even my medication is No Logo) in a couple of weeks when the 30s run out, which is normal. Then I’ll be on 40 for the period of treatment being until sometime in 2004. Talked about other things like sleep and eating and I have to try and improve my patterns in both. To help the former she prescribed me a weeks worth of sleeping tablets which I’m going to start taking on Sunday before I start work again. The idea is that no matter what time I get up or whether I fall asleep in the afternoon, I can knock myself out at midnight and get 7 hours straight sleep. After a week of that I’ll hopefully have broken the waking-up-at-11.00pm habit. This might affect my weblog entries in the short term so be warned. As for food I have to try and have a substantial meal at a regular time each day. I’m going for 6-7.00pm. If I’m off out in the evening I’ll come home first. All this is slightly alien but I’m prepared to give it a go. Otherwise things are good. It was only when she asked about the tearfulness and the anxiety and other things that I really realised I hadn’t had them for a good month or so. Progress indeed.

This week we’re on holiday for Kate’s birthday which just goes on for ever. I have to work on Friday (it was already booked off by football people) which ironically is her birthday (anyone who knows her get in touch about the do) but otherwise a nice week off in the nice weather. On Monday Kate was having all the hair on her body ripped off by a person with wax for some reason so I met up with Matt Abbiss who was traipsing around London selling his new comic Fidget. Being someone who deals with people coming into the shop to sell their stuff and giving them the brush off it was quite illuminating seeing him go through the motions. We wound up walking from Bethnal Green to Brick Lane to watch the Brazil / Belgium match in a nice pub/bar/club called 93 Feet East which is apparently rammed on a Fri/Sat but which had about 10 people there on Monday lunchtime. They have beanbags scattered around the room and cook a mean fry-up sandwich on the camping stove at the bar. Perfect start.

After visiting a couple of cafe’s to sell Matt’s books we wound up in Hoxton at a shop called, I think, The Small Press Bookshop, or something on Pitfield Street. It was closed (only open Wed-Sat, 1-7pm) but looking through the window, it seemed like home. Loads of small press pamphlets and artists books of the variety I like. Must try and pop in there tomorrow. We then decided to go to the Magma bookshop in Clerkenwell and, since it was a nice day and quite a way to the tube station, we walked there. Then we walked to Gosh on Great Russell St and after spending a lot of time and some money in there, got the tube back to Bethnal Green for a few pints in The Approach sitting outside as the evening breeze took it’s effect. A very nice day indeed.

Today, a bit more walking. Met up with Helen and Matt at the Whitechapel Gallery which is just around from Helen’s shop (which I apologise for calling “shitty” to the caretaker/warden bloke who Helen told to check out BugPowder for the comics and stumbled upon this blog). After a nice little lunch, Helen went back to work, Kate and her brother John (who stayed over) went shopping and Matt and myself started home. Since it was a nice day and I’d just started a fag we decided to walk to the next tube and wound up walking all the way back to Mile End, taking in the bizarreness of the street market (it seems like chaos but it has it’s own rules which outsiders just don’t get), picking up a floor mop for a quid and popping in to PC World to check out computers for M&H. While there, Korea won the match, which just proves why people like me are getting into this World Cup. Unlike most competitions, it’s actually getting interesting. Later, Kate said that she saw loads of Koreans dancing down Oxford Street with flags. Nice.

Then, after seeing the doctor, Kate came home and we went off to Hampstead for drinking with the booksellers there who Kate worked with 18 months ago. A really nice evening.

The London Bloggers Tube Map is top. Interestingly, Mile End, being my station, has the most weblogs, and, shockingly, it turns out Darren of LMG lives in my area. What a small world!

New in grids: grid 008.

Jez’s review of the Bristolian eatery we chanced upon is spot on.

Bookshop humour

“You just can’t turn these fucking things,” Warmington gasped from the floor, where he lay kicking and grappling in a desperate attempt to turn the unit, covered in cascading Mr Men and held fast to the floor by the buckled white plastic-coated aluminium unit which appeared to have him in a strangle-hold.

Just installed the YACCS commenting system. Is it working?

Kick off, Kate’s on the loo, I turn the radio on.

First goal.

Kate’s in the shower.

Second goal.

I suggest we go to a pub for the second half cos this looks good. Kate agrees.

We get dressed and get on the tube.

Third goal.

We arive in the pub.

I must say I never thought I’d be standing in a pub cheering at the final whistle. Ever.

And I never thought I’d be rather annoyed at having to be at work during a football match (Friday).

If anyone has been trying to email Kate at her bugpowder address in the last month, it probably hasn’t gotten through. It’s working now.

Helen phoned tonight at 7.40pm. Kate was working late and hadn’t gotten back yet and, as is my fucked up wont, I was asleep on the sofa. After greeting Helen I looked at the cooker clock, which is a 24 hour clock only we set it 12 hours slow, and panicked. Shit, I said, I’ve got to be in work in 20 minutes. Helen naturally got confused and thought I’d just not gotten up at all today. What day is it? I asked. I was completely discombobulated. I came back to reality and said yes, it would be nice to go to the cinema tonight and Kate should be back at 8.00 or so, so we’d meet in Stratford at 9.15.

Kate comes home at 8.30. I comment that she’s a little later than I was expecting and she says she phoned me to let me know. Thing is I had the knowledge in my head but could not remember the phone call that put it there.

The last two days at work I’ve slept through my lunch break.

I have GOT to sort this out.

Anyway, we went to Stratford (that’s the East London Stratford, not the Shakespeare Stratford). As the tube pulls into the station it comes out of the tunnel into daylight. It’s like landing, only backwards. Very strange and cool. And we finally saw Star Wars.

And I really really enjoyed it!

After seeing The Phantom Menace in Brum with some mates we went for a drink. I stood at the bar with a pint in one hand and my head in the other. Mark, who could always find a good phrase, said I looked like a wild west cowboy who’d family had just been gunned down by bandits. He was right.

Whether it was the lowered expectations or not, I enjoyed the whole of Attack Of The Clones. Admittedly I was giggling through half of it but there was also the childish wonder. The battle scenes were incredible and the finale with the Clones-as-Stormtroopers marching into the proto-Star Destroyers while Palpetine watched on was chilling. And Yoda kicked ass much more than I expected. Anakin was a farce and the script was awful, but somehow the lack of irony was refreshing in this day and age. Three years ago George Lucas killed my childhood. This year he gave it back. Let’s hope he doesn’t fuck up the last part.

Next up, Spiderman Evil Dead style. Yea, verily this is an action adventure summer.

Couple from Mr Tom. The first is dumb but funny, and yes I too would buy one. The second is more serious for Uk residents. Rather than repeat it all here, go read Tom’s post on the new Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) and, more importantly, do something about it. Certainly, it won’t make much difference to your life in the near future, but thin wedges and all that.

Tom’s prepared this handy cut’n'paste thing so without further…

Post Office To Steam Open Your History File [from stand.org.uk]

One of the more extreme powers the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) handed out two years ago let government agencies obtain “traffic data” without a judicial warrant.

Traffic data is best described as the writing on the envelope of a message, instead of its contents. It can be the list of phone numbers you have called in the last six months. Or a full list of Websites you have visited. Or the times you log on, and from where. Or who you e-mail, or what programs you’ve downloaded, or what newsgroups you read. Or the position of your cellphone last Tuesday at five.

Because the risk of abuse of this power (there’s no judicial oversight - all that’s needed is the permission of a suitably high-powered boss), those who could wield it were strictly limited. Only the police, Customs and Excise and the secret services were allowed access to traffic data in the original act.

Not any more.

On Friday, the Home Office petitioned parliament to add a vast array of organisations to that list. If their passes, everyone from the DTI, any local authority, the Food Standards Agency, the Home Office themselves (of course), and staggeringly enough, Consignia. The final entry in the list says that “A Universal Service Provider within the meaning of the Postal Services Act 2000″ has the same power as the secret services to read your traffic data. There’s only one USP in Britain right now, and that’s the provider previously known as the Royal Mail.

If the idea that the fricking Post Office has access to your web logs (access which would cost a competitive company millions, and would probably get them investigated by the Data Protection people), let alone every minor apparatchik on the block, you might want to kick up a fuss about this. It’s due to appear before MPs on June 18th, and the Lords a little after.

How do I find out more?

Read the Order before Parliament. It’s very short (although the list of allowed organisations is very long - two minutes should do it).

Flick through our quick notes on the original RIPA law. (The notes are based on an earlier draft, so the section numbers are a bit off. But you get the idea.)

What can I do?

Fax your MP now. The Order is to be debated next Tuesday, and these things are usually rubber-stamped. Tell your MP which groups you don’t want to be spied on by (list them all), and tell him why. Explain what traffic data means (your MP might not now how wide-ranging it is). Explain it in terms he or she can understand - if they’re a Conservative, explain how it’s government prying into people’s lives. If they’re Labour, talk about civil rights. If they’re Liberal, say what you like - the LibDems are usually down with this sort of nonsense. Ask for a reply.

It’ll take twenty minutes of your time. It’ll make a difference. Members of Parliament hate having this sort of wide-ranging power sneaked past them as much as you do. If you’re feeling a bit lazy today, you could forward this message to one of your more overactive friends. And then write your letter tomorrow.

Experts

If you’re a journalist, or want to write a detailed piece for others, you can contact Ian Brown (+44 7970 164526) at The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR). As ever, they were the ones to spot this piece of nastiness first. And if you’re feeling flush, for £25 you can join the Friends of FIPR which will get you advance alerts and a warm feeling about these issues.

Some good news today. Kate phoned me at work to say that Helen had gotten the Amsterdam job. I worked with Helen in one of the bookshops in Birmingham (I worked in two) a few years back and we’ve stayed very good mates since then. Oddly enough she and her chap Matt live a mile away in Stratford having moved to London just after Kate and I did, which has been supercool. She’s been managing a shitty little academic branch the size of your toilet for the last few months and recently applied for the Assistant Manager job at the Amsterdam branch, along with shedloads of other people. And she went and got it. So well fucking done to Helen!

Of course this means weekend breaks in Amsterdam on a regular basis. She made us promise to come a visit, which is entirely unnecessary. A cheap flight, have the good times, crash on her sofa and come back.

Of course we went out for drinks, though she was working late until 9.00pm. And I did have other plans. Took Kate out for a meal - a decent one because I felt I owed her it plus we hadn’t spent much time together recently what with my sleep patterns and stuff. Was very nice - Italian Kitchen on New Oxford Street. Then on for drinks with Helen and Matt and Fopheaded Stuart.

Thing is, I’ve been knackered all day. I got a good nights sleep - a whole seven hours straight for the first time in ages - but felt like crap all day. After the meal and a few beers I started perking up and here I am at two fucking aye em on the internet writing this.

Is there any hope for me? I spent the afternoon bumping into things and getting confused about directions and here I am as awake as a pigeon dodging traffic. Ah well. One step at a time I guess.

Book tip. Just finished Carter Beats The Devil and it’s an amazing book. Reminded me a LOT of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay not just in subject matter but style and pacing, but in a really good way. Both of them come into a short list of the best books I’ve ever read. Go read them. Now.

Other good books I’ve read in the last 12 months include The Wrong Boy and Revolutionary Road. All these books are written by men. There was an interesting piece by Tim Lott in today’s Guardian (the link for which I cannot for the life of me find and this is not the first time…) about the Orange Prize and how men don’t read books by women and vice versa, which I’d agree with though I don’t know why. I’ve been meaning to read a Margaret Atwood novel Rebecca the fiction buyer at work recommended but haven’t got round to it yet. Interesting.

Correspondence corner:

Jez writes: Could well be dirt, but I don’t know how you actually go about
cleaning it. One of my machines has a similar problem, largely
because it was sat on and running while the house was gutted so it’s
full of plaster dust. On the other hand, it could be a duff batch.
CDs are odd things, so it might well work in one drive and not
another. Does it read older disks you cut from previous batches?

I think it’s a combination of the two. Where the drive is, I suspect I’ve blown a lot of smoke at it over the years plus the disks are cheap. It’s fine with some disks, like the ones I burnt at my dads, but not with these new ones. I think you can by CD shaped pieces of lint to clean the lens with which I will try.

Matt writes: Sorry to hear about the
sleeping-pattern problems. The phrase ’sleeping pattern’ only used by those
who have a bad one, as it’s automatic for most people. I can manage
‘normality’ for 4 days a week, but by Sunday I think “Now work tonight - I
can stay up.”. It’s probably too late to change now, as it’s been this way
since 1991.

I think that’s probably true. I always “wake up” around 10pm and start getting active unless I’m REALLY knackered, in which case I need about 12 hours sleep. I really need a night shift job…