…I gave you my heart.

Merry Christmas everyone, happy holidays and all that jazz. I trust you all had a good year and I look forward to another fine year with you all as we go on.

My efforts to be inclusive this year extend also to the Norwegians, Finnish and Swedish.

• Merry Christmas and a happy new year
• Frohe Weinachten, und ein frohes neues Jahr
• Joyeux Noël et bonne année
• Nadolig llawen, a blwyddyn newydd dda
• חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה
• God Jul og Godt Nyttår
• God jul og gott Nytt År
• Hyvää Joulua ja Onnellista Uutta Vuotta

I’ll see you all in the new year for more fun and games and of course, serious hard work :-)

…The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Today I went to see this film and I have to say that I really really enjoyed it. It was bright, beautifully shot, delightfully scored, well translated from the book to the screen and overall a joy to watch. Georgie Henley Skandar Keynes William Moseley and Anna Popplewell did superb jobs as the Pevensie children and Tilda Swinton was very very good as the white witch, despite the fact that many feel she wasn’t “evil” enough. I came away from the film feeling buoyed up on the emotions and very satisfied by the whole experience.

Interestingly, one actor stuck in my mind. James McAvoy who plays Mr Tumnus was someone who I knew I’d seen before but could not place. Fortunately once I got home, IMDb was indeed my friend and reminded me of the fantastic Inside I’m dancing which I had the pleasure of watching once on a plane. By far and away the most rewarding of any in-flight film I’ve ever seen. If you get the opportunity, watch it. Do.

Today while driving into Cambridge, to work with my friend and colleague Daf, I was listening to the radio to fill the quiet in the car and was subjected to what I was told was a popular track among today’s youth.

I couldn’t help but be amazed by its apalling lack of redeeming features, indeed by being in “english” it is only made worse.

Black Eyed Peas -- My Humps

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps. (Check it out)
...
My love, my love, my love, my love
You love my lady lumps,
My hump, my hump, my hump,
My humps they got u,
...

Urgh

…ravishingly beautiful hair with manageability you never before thought possible

Yeesh!

Today sees the second pre-release of Aranha — “The Siberian Hunting Spider”.

Aranha is a FastCGI responder based on the Lua programming language and is under heavy development. The language has been extended and various other joyful changes have occurred since the previous release in June.

The HISTORY file details the major changes.

I encourage you to get a copy and have a good play. You can find a tarball to download here so the only excuse is not knowing how to configure your webserver to have a fastcgi responder. Also if you like Bazaar-NG and want to have a play with the history of aranha, you can get a devtree by following the instructions on the aranha software page linked above.

On Thursday, myself and Nattie cooked up a mango curry which turned out to be really rather good. It is, for those who know what I mean, it is a thought=4, word=6, deed=5 curry.

…Don’t know when I’ll be back again.

Once again my work demands that I jet off to foreign parts. In this instance to Montréal for Ubuntu Below Zero where I shall be partaking of much geekery, card playing, RHPS viewing/participating and, I suppose, a certain amount of work.

This time, as a parting shot^Wgift I offer you the first rough-cut of “Je m’en vais sur un avion” as murdered^Wtranslated by myself and teh_nattie one sorry evening after much curry.

Je m'en vais sur un avion

Mes valises sont remplis, je suis prêt Devant ta porte je me mets, Il ne me plaît pas de te réveille. Mais l’aurore vient, le matin tôt, Le taxi attend, klaxonnant, Déjà suis-je si seul que je pourrais mourir. Donc bise moi, sourire pour moi, Dis moi que tu m’attendras, Tiens-moi comme tu ne me laisse jamais partir. Car je m’en vais sur un avion, Sais-pas quand je retournerai, Oh chérie, comme j’haïsse partir. Il-y-a tant de fois que j’t’ai déçu, Tant de fois que j’ai triché, Je te dis que cela n’a rien a dire. N’importe ou je vais, je pense a toi, Chaque chanson que je chante, je chante pour toi, Quand je reviens je porterai ton anneau. Donc bise moi, sourire pour moi, Dis moi que tu m’attendras, Tiens-moi comme tu ne me laisse jamais partir.

Car je m’en vais sur un avion, Sais-pas quand je retournerai, Oh chérie, comme j’haïsse partir. Maintenant c’est l’heure de te laisser, Encore un fois, oh, laisse-moi t’embrasser, Et ferme tes yeux, et je m’en irai. Rêve donc aux jours qui suivent, Pendant que je ne dois partir tout seul, Et de quand il ne me faudra jamais dire. Donc bise moi, sourire pour moi, Dis moi que tu m’attendras, Tiens-moi comme tu ne me laisse jamais partir. Car je m’en vais sur un avion, Sais-pas quand je retournerai, Oh chérie, comme j’haïsse partir. Et je m’en vais sur un avion, Sais-pas quand je retournerai, Oh chérie, comme j’haïsse partir.

Steve Kemp has been playing with lua again and now has come up with an httpd in lua; Go Steve! Clint Adams says however that one can write a more functional httpd in fewer lines of Z-Shell.

pike% apt-cache show zsh
Package: zsh
...
Installed-Size: 5816
...
pike% apt-cache show lua50 liblua50 liblualib50|grep Installed-Size
Installed-Size: 180
Installed-Size: 176
Installed-Size: 120
pike% echo $((180+176+120))
476

So yeah Clint, you probably can write it in fewer lines, but zsh is a tad bigger (has more that comes with it).

Steve Kemp said recently that lua rocks and me being me had to agree.

Lua is a little known and yet very very widely used programming language with a teeny-tiny interpreter (yes there are smaller, but I likes this one) and yet a very powerful expressiveness which I just love.

To answer your question Steve… ’‘ANYTHING’’ :-)

…So tell me what to do now, ‘cause I want you back.

The current ‘net meme seems to be to google for ”Your name needs” and then select either the top few, or the best few to share with your blog readers.

Thusly, all Daniel ever needed was:

• Daniel's needs are like any other two-year old.
• Daniel needs time and understanding that he has many feelings of grief, loss, and abandonment. Daniel needs a permanent family to call home!
• Daniel needs a helping hand to get that basket.
• Daniel needs some advice on being sued by a buyer. — erk?!
• Daniel needs a loving home that can provide good supervision and help him continue to heal from the wounds in his past.

All in all, google thinks I’m a pretty messed up person in need of lots of comfort and advice. — At least that means I should get more hugs. ({)

Quick redux of the past few weeks…

• Went to Manchester, saw dks, ed, etc.
• Saw various houses.
• Saw a house I wanted.
• Put in offer
• Had offer tentatively accepted.
• Been in London working for a week.
• Ranted at estate agent to get them to try harder to sell my place.

In more detail, I saw various houses in Manchester and among them was a property which is being done-up. I liked the promise of the place, and the lack of “finishing” means I don’t have to undo someone’s dÝcor in order to put in what I want. I now really need someone to buy my property. I’m in a position to drop the price on my place in order to make it sell more quickly. If anyone is interested in buying a two-bedroom house in a village in Cambridgeshire, contact me about it and I may be able to cut you a better deal than the estate agents currently know about. The offer I have put in on the place in Manchester can’t be binding until I can instruct my solicitors, and I can’t do that without a buyer for my place.

Today I rang the estate agent of the property I was looking to buy in Manchester to put a higher offer in than the last one I placed (I hate all this pansying around with agents, but it’s the way thing are done here in the UK) only to be told that the owner had withdrawn the property from the market to do work on it before re-listing the property (at a potentially higher price).

Now, this is a property which was on the market for 85k. I and some friends did some maths having viewed the property and decided it needed ca. 10k of work doing to it, so I offered 75k along with the explanation (which was rejected). Now (I’m guessing) the owner will do maybe 5k of work on it and expect to re-list it for 85k to 90k when in reality, with the work finished on it, it’ll be worth about 80k tops anyway.

So now I have to go and look for other properties with my extremely limited time and even more limited funds.

Why can’t life be simple?

I was considering the process of waking up on my way home. The fruits of that ponderance are here on my website.

Today at approximately 13:00 I made an offer on a house in Manchester. Assuming all goes well, I’ll be moving as soon as I can get a buyer for my house in Cambridgeshire and assuming my offer on the house in Manchester is accepted.

To some of you, this information comes as no surprise. To others, this will be the first inkling of my dissatisfaction with my life in Cambridgeshire of which you will have been aware. If you have anything constructive to say on the matter, then feel free to update my moving house wiki appropriately.

If you know of anyone looking to move into a reasonably sized two bedroom house in a village in Cambridgeshire, then please do let me know. Obviously, not having to pay estate agents fees will make me very happy.

Labour MP Mo Mowlam died today. It’s not very often that I actually like a politician. Mo Mowlam was one of those that I had respect for and actually liked. Her irreverence both amused and intrigued me. Her work towards peace in Northern Ireland impressed me even though the Good Friday agreement was never implemented. She set up a charity (MoMo) for providing help with treatment costs and respite for carers. She was always a fiercely family-oriented person.

I hope you will spare a moment of silence for one of the more decent politicians this country has lost recently.