Below are the 16 most recent journal entries recorded in tombee's LiveJournal:

Monday, June 20th, 2005
10:45 pm	Feelin hot hot hot... Walked up Reigate hill yesterday in 30 degree heat- dsappointed to discover that it was just as hot at the top- but on balance the views were worth it. Would also recomment Batman Begins, although it is possible I am biased due to air conditioned cinema. (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 15th, 2005
7:03 pm	Shit. For the first time since I have known what a football was, my chosen club is no longer in the top flight of the English game. A year later than I thought it would happen, and six or seven one-above-the-drop-zone finishes that I can remember, but it finally happened. And well deserved too- too many old, slow and crap players. If we can keep the good eggs (Oakley, Quaashie, Crouch and/or Camara, Michael Svensson, and one of the goalies), lose the thirtysomething dead weights and bring the phenomenal pace of the academy players in (Blackstock, Dyer, Theo Walcott and so on), we might have a chance. Of the playoffs. In a season or two. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!! What made it worse was actually being out of the drop zone for most of the ninety minutes in the sure and certain knowledge that later events would contrive to fuck us up, as they have so many times this year. On the plus side, next season there will be some games where I actually expect them to win. Those amongst you who like pointing at furry things and saying "CAT!" may enjoy: http://www2.b3ta.com/catgame/ (Comment on this)
Monday, May 2nd, 2005
3:13 pm	Once again, Gordon shows worrying statisitcal ignorance Following on from their obvious recent error (a vote for the Lib Dems is not a vote for the Conservatives by the back door. TWO votes, maybe)- New Labour have come up with the statistic that "If one in 10 Labour voters don't vote, the Tories win". Unveiled by Tony and Gordon fresh today. Now hang on just a second. Picking holes in election statements could all too easily take up all of anyone's time, but I can't help wondering where they got this from. 1) What is our starting point? *2001? (a) people have switched views already and (b)Demographics- Tory voters are significantly older (albeit richer) on average- and overall have higher mortality as a result. Hence, you actually need some drift from Labour to Tory (over the course of a lifetime) for the figures to remain stable. *Opinion Polls? a) which ones, b) how far back in time can you go and still claim that they're credible, c) what counts as a "Labour voter", d) You're basing this on a sample in any case. Tch. 2)What are we counting as a win here? most votes? or most seats? For example, if the 1 in 10 all live in the South East of England then no-one will care, or even notice. If the Conservatives gain the largest number of seats but can't form the next government, is that a win? If Gordon needs someone to explain the hard stuff for him in between looking after his young family and taking over as PM, you know where to call. PS I hate German Kezboards. At least Iäm not trzing to tzpe a treatise on the use of the zyzygy. PPS If you vote postally and then exit the voting population (eg die or are convicted of voting fraud) before the election date, does your vote still count? (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 24th, 2005
9:35 pm	Naughty brain for trying to spoil the nice mass market movie So. Revenge of the Sith is nearly upon us (it should have been released on May the Forth - but there you go). Can anyone offer a reasonable explanation as to why, if an entire planet is covered in active volcanoes, pyroclastic flows and other similar fun, it has an atmosphere which is sub- gas mark 9, let alone breathable? Secondly, why haven't we seen any Nukes yet? Current Mood: mellow Current Music: Coldplay (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 16th, 2005
10:18 am	Although, after a short period of contemplation ...I realise that the model used is based on uniform national swing and therefore drawers at coping with large swings. (Effectively, swing is defined as proportion of overall population movement not specific population movement- a slightly more realistic model would be to assume a particular proportion (to be calculated to fit the overall result) of Labour/ Tory/ Lib dems change their alignment in a predetermined way, with some other parameter for overall volatility to give you your third equation to solve the 3 unknowns. Better still would be to weight the proportion of "changers" by historical seat volatility (adjusted for historical movements in population etc. as appropriate). I've just had an exam on models. You can tell can't you. Current Mood: Dagenham Current Music: Radiohead (Amnesiac) (Comment on this)
Friday, April 15th, 2005
9:01 pm	Tetris eats scotland http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/  is a fantastically fun site for the geeks amongst us- the highlight is their marvellous electoral map made out of (conurbations aside) equal- size tetris blocks. At first sight, it looks like the map stops abruptly somewhere around Perth: this is, of course, largely due to Scotland being full of miles and miles of beatiful borealis buggerall. As if you were in any doubt as to how obscenely skewed the electoral system of the United Banana Republic of Great Britain and the Unpleasant Bits Of Ireland (TM) has become, observe the result of the model under the following parameters:  Party 2001 Votes 2001 Seats Pred Votes Pred Seats  CON         32.71%        165       31.00%      198 LAB           42.05%        403        31.00%     325 LIB             18.84%         51        32.00%       92  Yes, Labour have a majority of 4. This prediction is also built (you can change this) on the assumption of a complete tactical unwind: it's anyone's guess as to what assumptions it makes about the efficacy of Labour's (sorry, New Labour's) great Birmingham postal voting factories. Current Mood: (violently depressed) Current Music: Brahms. And Lizst. (Comment on this)
Monday, February 14th, 2005
5:45 pm	Your Blair-Foo is Strong. Fantastically impressed by the following piece in the Guardian- One day, maybe we will all be this bitter and disillusioned. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1412158,00.html Of course, there is an, oh, at least 75% chance you read the Grauniad anyway. But I can't just post puzzles of the week. Drove back roads to Southampton and back with my father to visit my 100-year-old (and sadly fading fast) Great aunt on Saturday, driving definitely coming on, hooray. If I can pass before Fivemack, I won't have to venture outside without the car. Safer that way. Aforementioned POTW: Deduce the property linking this sequence... C D E G H I K L N O P Q R S T U Y … The solution is just three extra letters. Current Mood: listless Current Music: Radiohead (Kid A) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
10:58 pm	On the drawbacks of governmental procurement. Discovered this weekend that, if you buy a car from the Inland Revenue (yes, them of the famed customer service abilities), What you is buying is Crown property, sunshine. Ergo, not previously taxed. Which means you're changing it's taxation class by trying to get a tax disc. SO instead of a trip down the post office, I need to make a trip to the local DVLA office. In local sodding Brighton. Sans car (see above... oh, and I can't drive on my own yet.) The irony is yet to be entirely appreciated by yours truly. And the sport all went awry this weekend. Bastards, all of them. On the plus side, my current obsession (Puzzletome.com) has generated enough puzzles of the week for six months, or (given my average posting frequency) nigh on four years. Thusly: Give the next 3 values in the series 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 3, 6, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, ?, ?, ? Current Mood: lonely Current Music: Portishead (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 30th, 2005
4:20 pm	Puzzle of the.... oh, sod it. Hmm. New year, new glasses, new gym membership and new car (pictures available of all the above on request): suspicions of the onset of professionalism here, which is extremely worrying. It's a slippery downhill slope. A puzzle, one more next week if I remember... what (and why) comes next- 2,1,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,1,3,2,3,4,3,? Current Mood: chipper Current Music: Koyaanisqatsi (Philip Glass) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 27th, 2004
11:44 pm	God Hates Shrimp Don't deny it, you know it's true. visit www.godhatesshrimp.com today! I've been busy at work recently, but this had to be shared... (Comment on this)
Monday, June 28th, 2004
6:14 pm	Control, you must learn control... Aargh. Why oh why do I let things upset me so much sometimes? I had a crank call from a colleague at work on Friday; It should have been laughable off, but it essentially ruined the rest of my day. Not a one-off incident, either; I can never quite tell what my mood is going to do next, and sometimes it takes disturbingly little to flip it. Bad things- random bad things- I can cope with; it's people being unpleasant (or convincing myself that this is the case) I can't cope with. Possibly I just need more sleep. Or a hug. Definitely a hug. On the plus side, a good one for Puzzle of the increasingly inaccurately named Week. What is the next letter in the sequence M Y V S E H M S J R S N U S N E P ? (Comment on this)
Friday, June 25th, 2004
7:35 am	Exam Passes I passed 3 of the 4 exams I took in April- small yay, although like the Portuguese equaliser some will surely be questioning the marking. the one I missed was the communications exam- which is famous for being taken twice by just about everyone- I'd tell you more about it but I can't. Obviously. The downside of this is that I will end up with a £50 bar bill for my share of the company success. Possibly the idea is that, since I no longer need the knowledge from the exams I've passed, It should be removed at the earliest opportunity. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 12th, 2004
4:00 pm	Wasted light Something was wrong with my mouse today: the tracker wheel sounded faulty, like it needed oiling. I'd thought it might be a weird sound effect from the webpage I was on or some semi-benign virus but no, the mouse was definitely causing it. Couldn't see anything wrong with it, though. I finally twigged that, every time I moved the wheel, my radio (listening to TMS on Radio 4 LW) was making the squeak. Current Mood: creative (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 9th, 2004
11:58 pm	?! "Livejournal" does not appear in the spell checker here. not including "Beckham", I can understand. (Comment on this)
11:10 pm	Puzzle of week/ rant all in one An oldie, but a goodie, I record it here as a matter of public (broken) record. Evian. Perrier. Bottled H20, slightly salty, bubbles and lemon twist optional extras. Global brands, right? Ok so far. So let's say some Californian starlet _insists_ on it when out lunching. one of the following options must apply: 1) US west coast Perrier, rather than being bottled at source in les Vosges or a small factory near Eurodisney or wherever it purports to originate, is actually a local brew, carefully modified and falsely bottled, 2) Water is being shipped across the Atlantic ocean, and possibly much of the continental United States as well, or 3) something yet sillier; say that the raw perrier- let's call it Alpine crude- is evaporated off to leave the dry residue, which is then air freighted for freshness and then restored- vampire style- to its full glory. Are we all quite mad? On this subject, and as an excuse for a bad taste segue, I am writing this as the radio speaks of the funeral of Reagan, and the practice of continually updating obituaries for the famous so that they can be done justice in the next edition should they happen to die. Well, not quite continually. That would look too much like a warped livejournal blog (...It was at about that point in his career that Beckham obviously felt a pressing need to go to the lavatory, and indeed...) Thank you. If you work for one of these companies, please feel free to reply with withering free market- based sarcasm. Football today was fun. Don't forget to vote. Current Mood: hot Current Music: Abbey road (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 3rd, 2004
10:28 pm	Seeing as it's a small world and all This point was driven home by my attending a housewarming party held by mr fivemack a couple of weeks ago. Good conversation, fried food, visit to Gloucester cathedral and the Anthony Gormley art exhibit therein (Field for the British Isles it's called. Go see it)... However, not only was I accosted (nicely) by someone I hadn't seen in about 10 years on the train there, but half of the people I recognised at the party were in fact guests of fivemack's housemate. Extrapolation of the curve, something which my chosen profession leaves me well equipped to do badly, indicates that by age 43, 65% of everyone I meet I will know... From some other context than the one which originally caused me to come to whatever place I happen to be at. Such a statistic would immediately suggest that my whereabouts would have to be a prison wing of some kind or another. I guess it's possible. (Ford open prison, ideally, if anyone in authority is reading this, thanks. Enquiries as to whether said instiution still holds an annual in-house Eton v Harrow cricket match were met with a dead receiver.) ----------------------------- This was sandwiched, week-wise, between walking the north downs of England and subsequent recovery; and visiting Louisa (fiancee) in Paris. The Centre Pompidou definitley worth a visit: it's a fantasically laid out building fron the inside, whatever your opinion of the exterior, with great views of the city; and the Joan Miro exhibition is still on. The permanent exhibition could do with being thinned out, frankly, but conains some brilliant pieces and the sculptire smelling of cinnamon was nice. To smell, at any rate. And if you're feeling fit, racing the funicular railway up the steps to the Sacre Coeur on Montmartre is also fun. Anyway, hi. Puzzle of the week (Rating: E) What links: "Troglodytes (or sailors)", "promise on oath", "an australian cricketer", "an animal trap", "admonishes", and "decreases in power"? more specifically than "They all appear in the question". Current Mood: mellow Current Music: I took up the runes (Jan Garbarek) (1 Comment |Comment on this)