peteashtondotcom

Well, I appear to have hit a dry patch blog-wise, which is fine, but while the link-farm keeps plodding away on the sidebar this main bit in the middle is looking somewhat un-dynamic. So since I’m not finding myself fascinating enough to write about I’ll take this opportunity to point you towards some other blogs that I like.

Hydragenic: I met Stuart at a London blogmeet over a year ago and while no real contact was maintained I’ve been following his blog pretty regularly ever since. It works on a number of levels. Most importantly there’s a sense of self there - the style of writing, choice of links and selected quotes build up a nicely rounded image of the man. This is something I’ve always looked for in blogs and zines, something that’s not conversational and not formal and seemingly impossible to teach. But it’s Stuart’s subject matter that keeps me returning. Calmly obscure but never inaccessible he introduces me to things I’ve never heard of be they music, art, literature or simply ideas and ways of looking at the world. Above all Hydragenic shows that it’s not enough to just pull out the usual links and write about the minutiae of your life (um… anyway…). In order to achieve greatness you need that something else. Stuart gets close to this while giving the impression that he’s sitting in a big comfy chair smoking imported cigarettes and wearing a rather natty dressing gown. Which is how it should be.

More recommended blogs to follow, and feel free to mention any you like in the comments.

I’ve gotten my first paid website commision job thingy, a cash-in-hand gardening job for the weekend, and Buffy season four is in the house.

In the meanwhile you may wish to heatedly debate the Footprint.org post.

In the last year I’ve been having more and more contact with my parents. Not that I hadn’t had much contact with them before but due to various things (Dad gradually moving to the UK, neice Isobel being born, me being more transient) I seem to be seeing them more than I did. Which is cool, but due to step-parentage I’m finding there are too many syllables involved in the whole process. So from now on there’s “the Maternals” and “the Paternals”, as in “I’m visiting the Maternals this weekend”. Then for Isobel there’s the Maternal Maternals, the Maternal Paternals and the Paternal Grandparents (or maybe the Granmatmats, Granmatpats and Granpats). Trust me, if it’s not simpler it can’t make it more complicated.

My Footprint calculates how many global hectares you use for food, transport, shelter and services. The average for the UK is 5.3 hectares. I came out with 3.3. “Worldwide there exists 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person.” Pre-packaged food seems to be my biggest problem here, which I knew. Must try harder.

Cartoonist chum Matt had been working at home all week and wanted to go for a walk in the countryside. The notion appealed so on Saturday we drove to Tanworth in Arden to follow a route in one of those countryside-walks-centred-on-a-pub books. It was very pleasant indeed and photographs were taken…
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I’m back at the tampon factory again, though I’ll definitely be leaving at the end of this week. For sure. Last week the factory was closed for Easter (they close the whole operation at specific times during the year which I assume means no-one can book holidays outside that time) and had it been open I would have been on an early shift, which means I wouldn’t have been there since I’ve said I won’t work that shift again. This week it’s the late shift so I’m there. But only for four more days. I mean, I’ve been in this job now since March 15th. It’s time to move on.

As ever not much to report, though I did find the novelty of working in the warm quite refreshing (how tedious that today was really nice as opposed to yesterday when I could have done with it being really nice). Everyone asked if I’d worked over the break and the otter story went down well - even spread around the management a bit. People there still labour under the delusion that I’m a full time member of staff rather than a monkey-temp but I’ll show them. Come next week they’ll know how much of a temp I am. Oh yes.