What I Did On My Blog-Holiday

So what have I been up to during my extended sabbatical from dear old Blogville?

Well the fools let me loose on the Tudor panelled rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge and then plonked Norwich Castle in my lap.

The Castle project, called Royal Palace Reborn, intends to return the gutted Keep to how it was at Christmas, 1121, when Henry the First and his second wife, Adeliza of Louvain, moved in and threw a big old partay.

So I've been building this here model. It's a little unwieldy, being currently around three-quarters of a terabyte, but it's my baby. All the construction detailing and information is stored in the model so they can build from it. This view shows the new Great Hall with minstrel's gallery and the archæological exhibit below.

Here we see the King's Chamber (with the red curtains) and the Great Hall on the right. The tinkly light things above the archæology are "Ghost Arches"; the original arches having long disappeared, we're putting back ghosts of them with thousands of little LEDs.

We're putting a big viewing platform on the roof so you can see the whole city, and for the first time in 900 years, making the whole thing accessible to all, from dungeons to roof.

So anyhoo, as part of the project, Old Dive, as Architect and historic buildings expert, put together a side project: a series of lectures telling the history of the Castle. As these were for internal company use only, they tended to get a little Dive-ish and in places exceedingly silly and gross. 

In my next post I shall begin posting a potted version as I know Petrea especially loves old history.

Hope you enjoy it. In the meantime, the archæologists are digging furiously away in the basement and there's a massive tower crane looming over the Keep so that we can start work (Covid safely).

This is the view of it from my office, where I'm working on the Castle three days a week and hopefully posting some bloggery in between.

Distend, Then Tighten

So I woke up back in Blogville this morning after a looooong absence and continued trawling through old posts and comments in an attempt to recall what the world was like before Trump and Covid. I feel like Snowman Jimmy wandering the deserted streets in Oryx and Crake.

I've got as far as November, 2007 and found a doozy I had forgotten all about.

In trying to explain why I would never use BabelFish to translate my Japanese homework, I had run a French poem through it, from Nathalie's Avignon blog and the result included the line, "The treasures hidden at the bottom of you, Distend then tighten with the wire of time."

Here's the whole thing for you to treasure. Adopt a poet's stance and declaim it aloud:

"To say what makes me vibrate.
I will take you along.
At the soft hour one will take the accommodation ladder, one will go up on the bridge to breathe the salt of the life.

You feel like the air of the night is made velvet?
Here it is my kingdom.
That where the hearts are untied, where the bodies open, where the large things are achieved.
A rich black and chocolate flux with spangles.

It is the paddle with the fingers of pink which will bring back for us Ground of fire, will-o'-the-wisp, cow's milk, pigs, brooded Which odours will accommodate us, frangipanier, dried fish, gas oil spices spruce?
We will go to the meeting of these funny of others.

There are all these hands which are tightened in this letter box.
The treasures hidden at the bottom of you, Distend then tighten themselves with the wire of time."

Anyhoo; make of that what you will, I'm off to distend and tighten the treasures hidden in my bottom.

The Revenant

Well, bugger me with a splintered gatepost it's like Fallout 4 or The Last of Us in here.

The walk over to Blogville reminded me of Cormac Mc.Carthy's laugh-a-minute "The Road".

I've not visited for a long time, but reduced working days brought on by the planet-wide Choking Death gave me the spare time to go back to the early posts of 2006 and marvel over the wonders of comment-fests a yard long in the crowded and happy streets of Blogville.

Of course, some ex-Blogville residents now live quite contentedly in the trashy trailer park of Fæcebookland and we still keep in touch. Others have simply faded into the ether and their links lead nowhere. At least one has died and gone to Ankh-Morpork (where all good Pratchett fans go).

It's actually almost quaint to go back through what now seem like the good old days and read of our fear and loathing of Dubya and Bliar, as if they were leading us back to 1930s Germany and heralding the resurgence of Zombie-Fascism.

Well, we were right, only we were nowhere near frightened enough. Fascism is back with a bang; racism, homophobia, misogyny and ultra-violence are now government policy both sides of the Pond.

Trump? For fuck's sake! TRUMP? And over here we have Trump-Lite with Johnson and Rees-Mogg and their murderous clique of incompetents, running around like headless chickens, hoping Covid will miraculously go away.

Ah, yes … Our new plague. My mate Adrian's Mum died of it on a Friday and his Dad the following Monday. Happy days.

It's a fucking strange new world. We're all now living inside Margaret Atwood's head. It's Gilead and Oryx and Crake all rolled into one, with Fake-Haired-Fascists running the show.

There's an election coming up over in the Colonies; one can only hope sanity prevails.

Oh, by-the-bye; since last we met, Old Dive has been diagnosed with Asperger's. Yay! Explains my whole fucking life. At least I know now that there's a reason why I am what I am and frankly, it's a blessèd relief.

Anyhoo … I'm back. I've swept all the spiders out of my old Blogville residence, dusted off a chair, cranked up the generator and put the kettle on. I think I'll stay here for a bit and watch the world outside.

Is anybody there? Robyn? Sassy? Sharifa? Shan? Maria? Lynn? Katherine? Speedway? Prudence? Ms.M? Shazza? Vic (now Bruce - huzzah!)? Kate? Utsav? Crazy Ame? Old Knudsen?

Well, at least it's nice and quiet here.

No Business Like Snowbusiness

We've had the overture; the Beast From The East is due to hit us hard tonight.

This was my commute this morning.
I had a choice: take water, food, blankets, shovel, etc.
or take my "Donner Party" kit:
Stihl chainsaw (sweet), boning knife, camping gas stove, butcher's apron.

No contest …

Winter Wonderland My Arse

The view of the Cathedral from my office window (see previous post) this lunchtime.

Apparently "The Beast From The East" is due to arrive tomorrow, bringing the gift of blizzards straight from Siberia via the Baltic and the North Sea.

Hey ho …

Snowstorm Coming In

Office window.

Cathedral.

Rainbow.

Nuff said.

When 3D Printers Attack

So anyhoo … the orifice decided it was time to get a 3D printer … and this is how it made its first building.
A slightly more modern design than we had envisaged but hey … the client might like it like that.

NFN Take 2 …

As Petrea couldn't see anything yesterday when clicking the link (Norfolk websites don't like crossing water), here's a screengrab …

Normal for Norfolk

Words fail me.

A Cure For Autumn

I make no excuses for playing this again (and again). It's a cold, dull, miserable Sunday morning here and there's only one antidote:

Turn it up loud