small ritual

weather forecast

i'd always wondered why the weather forecast in my dashboard [set of widgets for macs] was so optimistic in its sun and temperature forecasts. turns out it was giving me the forecast for london arizona not london england! good job i wasn't relying on it for anything.

the forecast to the widget is supplied by accuweather.com [oh irony], who along with the usual air quality readings give their US readers this frizz index to warn of a bad hair day caused by atmospheric humidity. over here the bbc doesn't concern itself with such things, and i can't say it's an issue for me anyway ;)

accuweather also features the unfortunately named joe bastardi. "Mr. Bastardi is one of the most influential forecasters in the business. He is referred to as 'almost a legend' by colleagues." that's not quite how he'd be referred to by colleagues in england, but americans are so polite ;)

i also note that brett anderson has been working as a meteorologist since leaving suede

interior design

the relative lack of blogging or any other creative activity lately is because most of my spare-time energies have been going into sorting out my flat. my delicious links tell the story [of inspiration more than purchase, i should say!]. hopefully the wall panels will go up this weekend. then it will be finished enough to take some photographs.

in the meantime take a look at this marvellous 60s home. the stuff's mostly mass-market kitsch, but put together so well it's a design triumph. in this country one would call the national trust and ask them to preserve it for ever. the house is in los angeles, but almost every aspect of the interior is familiar to me from my childhood in england - clearly this idiom was universal. it brings back nagging non-specific memories - that wood wallpaper behind the dining table - who in my childhood had just that, and similar dining chairs too? my mum would know.

transfer of affection

my new flat is only 5 minutes walk from the old one, which made it possible to move by stages over a week or so. but this gradual process also revealed the degrees by which i transferred my sense of 'home' from one place to another.

on the first day i moved three-quarters of my possessions to the new flat, leaving pictures, fragile items, and clothes behind. and the old place was still home. the next day i moved most of the rest, leaving only items for disposal and cleaning things. and the old flat was still home, even when empty [which surprised me a bit]. i went back a couple of times during the week to clean, and it was still home. the new place was nicer, but like a hotel to me. i was among boxes, still cleaning after the previous inhabitants. in someone else's home. the next weekend i cleared the old flat completely and finished cleaning it for handover. it was still home, still a pang to leave for the last time, even though it was not a good place. it had its qualities, which made me take it in the first place - the tall windows and shutters, the balcony, the afternoon light, the birds in the yew tree outside. which sometimes held their own against the shabbiness and encroaching dirt.

on saturday i went back to collect stray post, looked up at the balcony, outdoor furniture, shuttered windows and thought "mine". and then on sunday i changed the lightbulbs and lampshades in the new flat, and now it was home. and the old place is not home any more. inhabitation's a gradual process, but for me it seems to be changing the lights, more than any other single action, that takes possession of a place.

moving in

back online in my new flat after two exhausting days. still some cleaning and shifting to do but a livable environment is appearing from the chaos. then i have to clean up the old place before handing it over.

celebs

had my [highly favourable] annual review over lunch in the jerwood space cafe which is just round the corner from the office. ross kemp and ewan mcgregor were there [though not together]. i always thought of the jerwood as a gallery, but i see it's got rehearsal spaces.

new flat

today i put the deposit down for a new flat. i move on december 1st. it's only 5 minutes walk from this one, but very different - late 1960s modernist, to go with my furniture ;) of course there will be photos later. meanwhile i have to set things up for moving.

diwali

right now it sounds like a major battle is raging in west london - a cannonade of gunfire and explosions and flashes in the sky, hour after hour unceasing. i'm reminded of accounts of the somme, or waterloo as heard from brussels. in fact it's diwali tonight and every asian in west london [and that's a lot] is setting off fireworks. the greatest contributor to the din is the suburb of southall a couple of miles away, which erupts with huge displays, but there are five or six domestic versions going on within sight of my windows here - not close enough for my liking, sadly. i can hear more than i can see, and i can't see southall at all from here. one year i must go, or at least find somewhere i can see across the rooftops.

this video from last year captures something of what you can't see. imagine five or maybe ten displays like this going off a mile away... i love the surreal patter of the fairground stall guy.

diwali can vary widely in date across october and november, which extends the local firework season for weeks. guy fawkes night is eclipsed, its displays few and brief by comparison. the availability of large powerful fireworks for domestic use round here has contributed greatly to the Grace annual firework party. at the moment we're still using guy fawkes as an excuse.

it really is noisy out there.

brand new vigorous worship

if you want to purchase a vacant domain name, domain direct very helpfully generate a list of similar names that you might also like. i tried this with the old grace slogan freshvitalworship. it produced a list of about 100 names, including:

brandnewimportantworship.com
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brandnewvigorousworship.com
brandnewvitalveneration.com
coolcriticalworship.com
coolvibrantworship.com
coolvigorousworship.com
coolvitalhomage.com
coolvitalsupplication.com
coolvitalveneration.com
freshcriticaladoration.com
freshcriticaldevotion.com
freshcriticalhomage.com
freshcriticalhonor.com
freshcriticalreverence.com
freshessentialdevotion.com
freshessentialinvocation.com
freshimportantadoration.com
freshimportanthonor.com
freshindispensableadoration.com
freshvibrantsupplication.com
newcriticalhomage.com
newimportanthonor.com
newvibrantdevotion.com
newvigorousdevotion.com
recentcriticalworship.com
recentimportantworship.com
recentnecessaryworship.com

so if you're looking for a new emerging church domain...

paul wainwright's stag weekend

so having got back from moscow friday night and stuck my photos on flickr, i slept in saturday morning then went to wales with naz to be part of paul wainwright's stag weekend. the rest had gone friday night to brecon and did outdoor activities on saturday. we arrived 5.30pm at saturday night's hostel, which as you can see is a very beautiful place. when the others returned we went to a comedy club at cardiff bay, which turned out to be an hour and a half's drive away. one car had satnav which took us on the country route across the national park - the other car had human nav and took the A roads. satnav won by half an hour. after the club we had a curry at midnight [below], then the long drive back - this time everyone following the satnav route.

most people were supposed to be up at 8am to go paintballing, but they were too tired from the outdoor activities and overslept. me and matt had work-related reasons for tiredness so had opted out of the paintball anyway. when the others left [several hours late] we went to the reservoir, then to the village, walked along the canal and through the fields, and caught the start of the rugby [south africa vs fiji] in the village pub with a cup of tea. however, we knew the paintball centre was an hour's drive away near cardiff so we couldn't stay for lunch - there would be a barbecue there so the plan was to meet the others at the end of their game, eat, and go home. by the time we got there the food had finished, so when we finally tore ourselves away there was nothing for it but to eat at the next motorway services [who had mostly run out of food]. after seeing people's paintball injuries i was glad i didn't bother - paul got a nasty neck wound that needed a dressing. but he said he didn't mind. got home 9ish after dropping people off at paul's on the way.

certainly wouldn't mind going back to that part of the country - i'd never been before - matt found another good place to stay between the pub and the canal, so something may be arranged.

howies shop

walking down carnaby street today i saw the howies staff getting the shop ready. here's dave hieatt and ade:

wanted to say hi but couldn't think of anything intelligent to say. i feel like i know these people well, but i don't. such is the power of blogs and marketing. maybe if they'd not been busy setting up i would've said hi anyway.