Possible Bugs episode title:

“Faraday Rage Effect”

It was suggested in our flat that it should be called “25″, and should be set on the day the clocks go back, meaning it would confusingly include two 1-2am episodes.

I was going to link to the story on BBC News Online, but I read half way down, and then saw “Warning, the rest of this page contains information about the ending of the current season”, so I thought I’d save you from accidental viewing.

By the way: they all die.

At the risk of sounding like a two-bit American comedian… “Banged Up With Beadle” – what’s that all about? And how did it slip through my television net? Well, quite easily probably… I’ve been busy.

It seems like some unholy mesh of Big Brother, Cilla Black’s Moment of Truth, that programme where celebrities stay the night with the public and then with Jeremy Beadle thrown into the mix. And “presented” by Ant and Dec. Except they seem to have less than zero interest in it, and even appeared to piss off during the show (when they should have been on the judging panel) despite it being called “Ant and Dec’s Banged Up With Beadle”.

Premise seems to be that Jeremy Beadle has been locked in a fort in the middle of the sea with nothing much to do. Each week a member of the public is selected (via a pathetic series of games, whose only purpose appears to lengthen the show) to spend the week with Beadle. If they succeed in a task (shown live on ITV1 – ooh, the glory) then they win £5000 and Beadle gets a book or something.

The overall point of this exercise is unclear, although generally to wind up Beadle seems to be the overriding objective. I think the presenter today perhaps slightly overstepped the mark when asking “How far do we want to push him? Are we looking at attempted suicide?” but you get the idea. The whole thing is fronted by Donna Air (and forgettable suicide-suggesting bloke back in the green room) with minimal graphics and goes out on ITV2. They’re just not trying.

Well, Dave has done his bit about night shifts.  Now I suppose I can talk about the slightly unusual aspect about my work – all the travelling.

Actually, the travelling is one of the things that really appealed about my job.  To be fair, more the glamorous thoughts of jetting to Canada and Australia than visiting all the towns of southern England but I can’t complain.  There’s still something great about travelling by train despite the delays and crowding.  The railways still seem to be fuelled by optimism in this country, somehow, and I actually find that trains journeys leave me feeling quite happy.  And because it’s a forced few hours where I can’t really work, can’t do much else it’s a great time to read which otherwise falls into the category of “would love to darling, bit busy atm”.

The thing that’s bad about the travelling is the tiredness.  I need my sleep!  If I could survive on a few hours then there’d be no question, I’d travelling to a client and back each day and do a few things in the evening and I’d be happy.  But it’s that feeling that as the week progresses I get more and more tired that means I have to give in and stay there.

But staying there presents a dilemma – what the heck am I going to do in the evening?  Y’see, ideally (and this tells you what kind of person I am) I’d spend my evening reading emails and newsgroups, writing this and other online activities.  But as soon as I stay in a hotel I lose all internet connectivity; even checking my emails is a hassle.  Sure, it’s possible but it’s an *expensive* possible.  So in the end I read some more, work a little later, read about the history of the hotel…

I miss my flatmates too.  I generally see them only a little as it is (working patterns never seem to synch…) and it’s a shame to leave such an ace flat for most of the week.  And then there’s the missed opportunities to watch Buffy and Rob Locke on QVC.  Um, those are two completely separate things incidentally, although Buffy on QVC would certainly be an interesing episode.

On the other side, of course, there’s definitely a fun side.  One gets to dine quite well whilst staying away on business, and there are plenty of opportunities to bond and go out with colleagues.  And you get to pretend you’re Alan Partridge too (yes, I did get a Christmas card signed by all the staff at the last hotel I frequented for a couple of months…)

So, it’s not a moan, just an aspect of my job.  I’m sure my views will change one way or the other, but for now I’m still hoping for that client in Vancouver…

Well, I mentioned that I’m on nightshift this week, so why not launch into a whole long Nightshift Blog entry.  I’ll probably ramble quite a bit on this one.

Nightshifts.  I get to seven nights, every ten weeks.  And when I do, I moan about little else.  But thing is, they’re not all bad.  In fact, for some things they’re really quite nice.  Here’s why.

1) Ever wondered what your building is like without the people?  On nights you can take a walk around your building, and it feels like you own the place, not another soul in sight.  Especially good if you work in a perticularly unusual or interesting building, and one thats really busy the rest of the time.

2) Peace and quiet.  OK, so I’m not always striving for a quiet life, but to sit in your office (or control room in my case) and not have the phones ringing, peoples speakers up, people shouting over each other, is just really nice.  Just you and one other person, you realise how noisy the air-conditioning is (especially in this place).  But it’s got a vauge sound of the sea to it, and that’s nice.

3) Do what you want.  Either just because you can, or because on nights, you have to work differently anyway.  Working shoeless for example.  It’s a real luxury, and makes a world of difference at 3am.  Or happily play with a peice of equipment that if you touched during the day, would probably get you fired.

4) Oh, I dunno, I can’t sum up (4).  Let me just explain.  There’s a box next to me, through which I talk to other people, in similar control rooms across Europe, through out the day.  Daytime, it never stops, people barking orders between each other.  Nighttime, it seams totally different, the voices are few and far between, and they have a different feel to them, floating across the continent.  When you call them, they greet you “Good Morning” in a strange accent and request things in a relaxed, sleepy tone.  You just know the people they belong to are alone in their control room too.  It’s like that feeling you get listening to the World Service at 2am.  The voice from nowhere, still with the same authority behind it, and yet you can tell that there is, at most, just one other person there, keeping that voice company.  It’s just nice.  Loanly yet comforting all at the same time.

5) Watching the world wake up.  Seeing everything slowly wind up.  From where I work, I can see the sun come up in Norwich while it’s still pitch black in London.  I can see a bright sky in London, and street-lamps lighting the way.  I can see Bristol eventually catch-up, but still see Aberdeen under a duvet of night-time cloud.  Again, it’s something thats just, I dunno, just nice.

6) The time off afterwards.  There is no feeling like the pure jubilation of falling in to bed at the end of your seventh night.  You think you know what that must feel like.  You don’t.

7) The money.  Hey, I gotta be honest, they don’t keep you up all night without making it worth your while.  OK, it’s not loads, but over the course of a year, it makes a nice difference.

And now the bad things.

1) It takes over your life.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do in that week, other than work, and sleep.  Just write off the week.  You’re not going to be able to acheive anything else.  Best get the shopping in before it starts, or you will starve.  And because of this, you family and/or flat mates have to put up with hearing about nothing else.  I’m sure I must become unbareable, because I never shut up about being on nights for that week.  But they don’t say anything.

2) Sleeping in the day.  Evil.  Great if you can do it, but if you wake up 3 hours in, thats it, you’re awake for the day, and two or three days of that, and you feel like you’re about to explode.  This is what I actually hate about the nightshifts.  I like the nights, but I hate the days.  Dread them in fact.

3) Over Night telly.  Why repeat the same two hours old programmes throughout the night.  Thats the last thing night workers want.  They want entertainment, just like your peak-time audience.  It can even be the same entertainment….they slept through it the first time.  PLEASE.

There.  I think that just about sums it up.  This is night one of seven, so I might blog some things worth reading if I’m not busy.  Apart from that, I hope you’ve found this little insite into nightshifts interesting.  Oh, no, of course you haven’t.  You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said.  It’s 05:56.  You’re still fast asleep……………

Well, it’s nightshift time again for the next week, so I might actually get round to blogging a little. Seven hours in to night one, and still wide awake. A good start.

Anyway, as Pauly says below, I went with Mark to see Divine Comedy on Monday. Now, I’m only a partial fan, but I must say, it was very very good. Just Neil Hannon on keyboard + vocals, three violins, one chello, guitar and picussion. Excellent. They were supported by a band of 27 smock-wearing, bouncy, happy Texans, called The Polyphonic Spree, who were, shall we say, interesting. They did seem to like their own tunes a little too much, and each song appeared to last for twenty minutes, but they did impress me: when the sound failed half way through their set, they looked sheepish only for a few seconds, before nervously launching into a song without the aid of any electronic intruments or microphones, and even in a large place like the Royal Festival Hall, it sounded pretty damn good. Not many groups could have pulled it off, but when the sound crackled back into life for the final verse, and the simple voices and wind instruments where suddenly backed by drums, keyboards, electric guitars, and a PA system once again, they received instant applause from the audience, and well diserved.

Oh blimey, there’s a woman givin birth on BBC2. Thank you, The Learning Zone.

Where was I.

Ah yes, music. It’s been good coming down to London. Been able to see a few bands, and this Friday is going to be the best yet (in my eyes), as I once again return to the RFH to see Supergrass, who are always amazing live. I’m really looking forward to it, even though I’ll be off the planet having just finished nightshifts.

Seeing a lot of Comedy, the other thing that I was looking forward to when I moved to London, hasn’t quite happened. Just not got round to it. Luckily that’s going to be made up for in a few weeks, as we move our flat (and a few other people) up to the Edinburgh Fringe festival for a week. Not yet decided what to try and see, although Trever and Simon looks like a distinct possibility. We may also try and see this man, but only because he’s got the same name as this man, who we know, and who is uniquly disturbing. Actually, reading that Grunuad article, they seem pretty similar. Maybe they should meet. Anyway, thats all to come, and I’m we’ll keep you up to date, one way or another.

Yay! Added another blog to my growing sidebar for Mr. Fadefast. Well, it’s a link to his homepage anyway since he employs all that URL masking frame bobbins. But you’ll see the link. And follow it, yes?

Ooooh, and another! This time to paranoidfish.org/notes where you can find a bunch of interesting thoughts about the technical side of the web. I only pretend to understand some of it ;-)

I was also going to have a minor whinge about travelling and it causing me to miss The Divine Comedy who I was meant to be seeing in concert tonight. But I’m in a positive mood so… if it’s good then my housemates will have enjoyed a concert by my favourite band; if it’s bad then I won’t be sorry I missed it. Ah, I could be a spin doctor ;-) Anyway, I’m hoping to go and see them (him!) when they tour with Ben Folds in October. Don’t know what it is about the music that’s inspiring – I think just that it’s different and a lot of it contains a lot of actual thought which I guess is something that’s missing in a lot of music…

Woo. Well, the cycle ends and I find myself back in a busy period. As a consultant, these things happen and I’ve been posted on a 6 month project a reasonable distance away from home. I say this, not because it’s interesting, but more as a fairly lame excuse for my anticipated sparsity of entries.

Still, at least my longer train journeys give me some time to read (something I have long neglected). I’m currently enjoying Joe Nazzaro’s collection of interviews with some of science fiction’s greats. All quite interesting stuff, but I’m not sure what kind of pattern emerges of a successful scifi writer.

Ah, I’m sure there’s been loads of things I was going to Blog about / Rant about recently, but I haven’t had the time, and now that I have, I’ve forgotten it all. Ah well.

For now, I’ll blog this. It’s geeky, spoddy, but I’ve found it really interesting, and whatsmore, I LOVE the interface – Java, yes, but with lots of nice smooth scrolling and left/righ mouse-button action. Its The Secret Life Of Numbers, charting how many times each number appears on the internet. Yes! Oh, as long as you don’t want to know how many times the number 2387 appear on the 1997 survey, because they have no data for that.

Oh dear, 2 minutes of random web-surfing and I come across this.