Mark Carroll's Journal

This morning, I got out of the bedroom at a leisurely pace. I had a dream in which a security camera had caught Claudia Winkleman (British celebrity) fast asleep in a chair at some garden show she was helping to present, which caused some amusement among viewers of the footage, then I awoke and took a bath. After toweling off, I usually lie on the bed a little to finish drying. During this, I indulged in having Alexa play me David Bowie's Life on Mars, Ultravox's Vienna, ELO's Twilight (from back when we had concept albums), and Elton John's Nikita which, together with the The Rocky Horror Show earworms I've had lately, probably ages me well.

Another thing that probably ages me is that, when I was thinking about the results of our dog L.'s breed test, in interpreting the percentages in terms of ancestry, of course I was thinking in powers of two which comes quite naturally to those of us who grew up with early microcomputers. I suppose that people in the Antebellum South would be good at such arithmetic too but I am not that old. Anyhow, L. is indeed largely Shih Tzu with, quite reasonably, a bit of Lhasa Apso among great grandparents. I was pleased to read that L. is not at risk of any of the medical conditions that they tested for.

I still see new things from the railway carriage, or at least things I forgot seeing previously. This morning I saw some fields that had actual scarecrows. I wonder how effective they are.

I also saw somebody leave their bag on the seat beside them when we stopped at a station and people boarded to find a seat. I used to have a list of ways that drivers annoyed me but it grew so long it seemed a bad idea; I shan't start a railway passenger annoyance list.

Our building has communal areas, our flat's front door is within. Recently, the locks stopped working well, as if the door suddenly didn't quite fit any more. I peered at the door in some puzzlement, opening and closing it, trying to understand what had changed, if a hinge was failing or whatever. It was R. who figured it out and fixed it: a small stone had somehow lodged under the thin piece of wood running along the floor under the door, pushing that wood up a little.

We have been somewhat lucky with the weather recently. We had a lovely day for when my two children visited for some walking and shopping in Glasgow city centre. We similarly had a lovely day for visiting Edinburgh, we finally got to explore the botanic garden. Our luck runs out this weekend: we had planned to go camping again. Last time went well but the weather forecast for tomorrow looks grim so we will get things done here at home instead.

( Listening to old music )

( Playing more with AI/LLMs. )

( Money is tight. )

It occurred to me to try to remember all fifty states of the US. I thought I would do better, I could recall only forty-seven, my daughter did better and faster. I shan't disclose which I forgot in case a reader wants to try. It was annoying to note those I did forget: a reader here lives in one and I was open to moving to it a few years ago, and I used to work with a couple of people who hail from another.

It was interesting to hear of the flight chaos caused by London Heathrow's power loss, so many flights diverted and passengers ending up all over Western and Central Europe. That must have caused all sorts of problems and taken the airlines quite some effort to recover from.

We had a pet food delivery from Amazon (insert hisses and boos to taste) shortly after half-past seven on a Sunday morning which impressed neither me nor R. At a glance, I failed to find a summary on their website of when they think is reasonable to make residential deliveries but at least we now know that it may happen again.

Recently we had a remarkably foggy day. The morning started off fine then the fog moved in and lingered for the remainder.

I was reminded of my later years of walking to my first primary school. I would arrive by crossing the playground. On the foggiest mornings, from the far side of the playground I could not see the school. As I crossed it, the junior school building would come into view, first its lights then its outline.

In one dream, I was reading a book about how to uncover the government's UFO conspiracy. I awoke just as I was starting the chapter on how to use boats, and the items thereon, in furtherance of the cause.

In the other, I was participating in a battle to resist an(other) alien invasion of Earth. The proximate alien war machine had large barrels that launched powerful shells or somesuch at us. There was a concrete structure with a straight, wide tunnel leading nearer the foe. Observing that the barrels were to the side of the tunnel's far mouth, I wondered if the tunnel could thus shelter our closer approach. However, then I realized that the war machine could move sideways so we would become sitting ducks along the tunnel's inner wall.

I had an odd evening recently in which I watched episodes of Picard (2020) and Twelve Monkeys (2015) and noticed both Terry Matalas writing and Todd Stashwick acting in each. Todd's appeared in plenty of things I've seen and is always welcome, like when I discovered that Michael McKean's in The Diplomat (2023), he gets around too, though Rufus Sewell (whom I've liked since Dark City (1998)) and Keri Russell are already enough of a draw there.

This morning, I caught myself pronouncing lever in the American manner rather than the British. To date, I've spent most of my adult life living in the US. Now that I am in the UK for the foreseeable future, I'm trying to shift back to my prior norms. R. does quite well with switching because they spent their life living in countries that were once American or British colonies and retain some of that legacy.

Update: … and this evening I caught myself saying slaughterhouse instead of abattoir.

With family arriving from the tropics, I had some grocery shopping to do, also some stocking of the car of things like warm coats. With ordering various items for them, bedding and whatnot, I also had plenty of recycling of packaging to do, and the communal trash had previously been overfull, causing me backlog. Last night, after work, I did the shopping then, with living in a top-floor flat, I found it worked well to put on a coat, carry recycling down, leave the coat in the car, then bring more groceries back up, ready to pick up another coat and more trash. Helpfully, there was a substantial piece of cardboard that worked well as a carrier, folded at the bottom, for packing smaller cardboard and whatnot into on the way back down, so that got disposed of on the last trip to the trash.

At one point, upon seeing the DPD van, I paused so that I could be sure to be present if a delivery was coming to me, but no. Of the various couriers bringing me items, the only problems have been with DPD, who seem variously dreadful. Perhaps it's partly a local issue but I'd be glad to know who the courier would be before ordering. Of course, my online ordering coincides poorly with the holiday gift-giving season and postal strikes.