Month: July 2023

Monthly Recap July 2023

Poppy at Dudley Street Guns Village Station

The totals for the month: barely triple digits at 100 miles running, 17 pubs, 4 kebabs, 4 fish and chips, 2 short reviews. Here’s the cartoon of the month (not necessarily a monthly feature):

We got a new sideboard on which we put our turntable and speakers and inside of which we stored CDs and various electronics. The old tv stand must go, now, but we’ll make sure we’ve cleared it of cats before sending it on.

Ozzie the bull — from the Commonwealth Games last year — has taken up residence in New Street Station. Magnificent.

On a bus ride, I sat behind Bob Dylan from about 1965 for a few stops until he got up to depart and it turned out to just be some school boy:

The spaceman encountering the flower was a nice find. It brings to mind the future and the way I have, in this blog this year, been juggling time and discovering that it is screwing with my head. I’m never on the blog for something publishing today (except some rare stop-the-presses ones and these monthlies); things always happened ages ago or won’t be ‘live’ for ages.

Y’see, I’ve dedicated myself to doing one blog post per day all year. It doesn’t have to be just one but that doesn’t kick in until I have one scheduled for every day of the year.

As a result of this and my other 1-fish-or-kebab-post-per-week commitment (which ended when I reached 26 each), I stand today with only 55 posts left to schedule 153 days from the end of the year. Pubs are currently ‘done’ out to 18 October. The most recently published pub write-up, a couple of days ago, detailed a visit on 14 June. Similarly, fish looks backward to 04 April and kebabs to the day before that.

Once a full set of 365 are sorted, I’ll start pushing multiple postings until I catch back up to the current date on 30 December (the monthly/annual summary already earmarked for the 31st).

St Mary’s Church Selly Oak TP 19616 Plus a Cut Mark on the Buttress

The car park to St Mary’s is long and tree lined and the tree tops sort of frame the church spire, and intersectional Tiangulation Point (#19616). Looks like good use is made of the car park at least one day per year:

The grounds are lovely. “The space whereon thou standest is Holy Ground. It is also sacred to the dead whose bodies rest here. Try and speak and act reverently in it. It is a sanctuary for birds. Help to keep it and cherish the flowers. This is God’s Acre.”

The Cut Mark is on the NW buttress. Something primordial in me wants to giggle at Cut Mark on Butt, but that would not be solemn.

The Tilted Barrel, Coseley

Pub #2597:

I’ve intended to hit the Tilted Barrel since seeing it was up for sale. I finally got my chance in week 2 of the skin cancer meds, under the deadly gaze of the Sun.

The front was boarded up so I headed toward the bus stop, disappointed, whereupon I noticed a group hanging around out back. Walking past them to the one open door, I was cheered on and one guy slapped me on the back.

Inside, there was scaffolding and debris everywhere. And, cheap beer.

I wonder if it has finally closed for good in the interval between this visit (June 14) and publication (July 29). It would be a shame but not a surprise.

Short Book Review: Changing the World is the Only Fit Work for a Man

Yeah. You should read it.

Howard Gossage would have hated that, telling you what to do. He seemed to really believe that advertising — while still being dishonest at its core — should have a conversation with the end consumer.

He also had a more ‘event’ idea of ‘advert’ than just print or short video. The stuff about St Kitts and Nevis independence movement and his proposed advert campaign is minted. Literally, since it included generating a currency and a flag..

Gossage died, quite cheerfully, on this day in 1969. His friends included anyone you ever thought was hip from around then. Anyone.

Laser Safety Officer Training

I’ve been working with terrifyingly dangerous coherent light sources for 30 years now and I’ve been an institutional or departmental laser safety officer as a part of a couple of previous positions. I spent the last two days retraining to do this with a postdoc (who is destined for greatness) for our school and college until someone more senior — and responsible — takes over.

Pupil damage example, but our laser, at 10.6µm is more likely to start a fire than vaporise tissue. I actually want to cook something with it when it gets decommissioned in a few weeks.

I’m always uncomfortable with this sort of admin position. “Health and Safety” has very little to do with actual health and safety; on the contrary, it is about mitigating liability and protecting the institution.

The calculations were fun. They’re like a puzzle but there are also multiple paths to the same solution. Frustrating, I reckon, for scientists but the kind of no-real-answer abominations that give old school engineers like me massive erections. Or, THAT could just be a springback from the side effects of the meds I’m coming off of.

Two Cut Marks over the Ridgeacre Canal

After work run in the vicinity was going pretty well then I tried a section of the Ridgeacre Canal that is usually more passable (‘easily navigable’ vs ‘fucking overgrown’) and, since I was reduced to walking through the rice paddies/nettle grove I checked for nearby OS marks. Just ahead at the next bridge the legs still existed but the bench had suffered some repointing.

Continuing down the waters, Black Lake Bridge bore the stamp of the masonry supplier (guessing between 1870 and 1900 from this blog on the topic) on the capstones and, closer to the centre, the benchmark (faint, but still visible partly due to the vandalisation…bless ’em).