A short book review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

(You can Google the blurb too if you really want to...)

548 pages of deeply but delicately intertwined dark and twisty-ness. This page turner will not allow a single word to be left unread. Deemed a Dickens-esque historical fiction, the narrative is so well defined with complex key characters exposed through heart-breaking, powerful story-telling. Waters’ creates such atmosphere and leads the reader beautifully through each chapter to become completely immersed in the desperate lives of Sue and Maud. A handful of gob-smackingly-good twists are carried off effortlessly which results in an extremely satisfying read.

Wonderfully written. Hooray for Sarah!

Disclosure:

I had quite a few nightmares whilst reading this. FYI it is pretty disturbing. I take no responsibility if you read it and find it just as intense and then suffer the consequences like I did. Worth it though.. Oh and PS it has lesbians.

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Spring is coming...

Time for the lawnmower to come out of the shed. Oh wait, it's still half-broken from September. And the grass is really too damp to mow. And now it looks like the lawn has had a bad bad shave with a blunt scabby razor... still, smells good!


Time for birds to get frisky. All day long. This morning two pigeons actually bumped into my window as a result of flapping and flitting so much. The female was having none of it, you see. Pigeotto chased her from tree to tree and eventually settled on a TV aerial. Stable.

Time for clothing confusion. The brave wear shorts and t-shirts, the lame hold onto their scarves and 4000 denier tights. Some shops keep the heating pumped up, others whack on the air-con. Spring is usually a sweaty and/or shivery combo. Be prepared!

Time for sweeping. Any kind of sweeping. Difficult though because the dirt is sticky and cold from the winter, hidden in the shadows and in the cracks. So many dead thorns and spikeys too. Must. Brush. Away. Winter.


Time for uber-leg-moisturisation. Ugh. The powdery white skin on my calves quakes in fear of being exposed after the long winter. This is why I heart leggings.


Time for the washing line. A two to three person job to put up - depending on rustiness - so in our case, it takes fourteen. Then realising the sun's not strong enough to dry 1cm square of washing so having to plop a load in the tumble drier after 6 hours outside. *Global warming warning*


Time for daffodils. And time for them to die. Tip: Never pick daffs from a Brownie hut garden. Brown Owl will shout at you and make you feel so so awful (even at 22 years old.). Think of the children.


Time for sunshine and showers. 'Changeable', innit.


I look forward to the sun on my skin and a breeze that doesn't pierce my skin like an icicle! Hmph.

Jordie is happy in any weather (but is useless at helping putting up the washing line).

(Kathryn Beadle © 2011)

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Morning

Radio murmur slows the rush

of morning chaos.

Bran or wheat or other husk

in the bowl of promise

but the milk is warm.

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Canine Partners

Canine Partners assist people with disabilities to help enjoy a more independent lifestyle and improve their quality of life.

After a long day of pats and cuddles, we managed to raise £891.31 at the Chelmsford event - a fantastic result!

There are many events coming up this Spring to raise money for the charity including the Bluebell Walks which take place around the country. Bring yourself, your dog and your wonga to help raise funds whilst taking part in something fun, healthy and really worthwhile. All the money goes towards training new puppies and helping Canine Partners to cope with the demand of people on the waiting list.

See the list of current walks here: http://www.caninepartners.org.uk/bluebell_walks

For more info or to get involved with volunteering, visit the website and fill out an application form: http://www.caninepartners.org.uk/

(All photos Kathryn Beadle © 2011)

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3-D Multi-touch: Apple become even more obsessed with the touchy-feely

Apple have hurriedly patented their portable stretchy napkin-esque device: the multi-touch skin. Apparently, this technology could pave the way for...

‘a plethora of future product concepts.’

Plethora, schmethora. In this post, I’m going to point out the disadvantages and downsides to this type of invention, just because I’m in that kind of mood.

(NB. I’m hoping you’ll also find some sensible critique that’s not influenced solely by hormonal fluctuation.)

Here is a technical drawing of the multi-touch skin (yes, really) :

Good.

Application in sporting equipment and training (i.e. Tennis)

‘The multi-touch skin is wrapped around the entire circumference of the handle and extends along the length of the handle and in this manner spans three dimensions of the object enabling multi-touch input as a player grasps the handle during play.’

Kit Eaton (tech writer at FastCompany) says the skin could be ‘darn useful’. Darn useful for CHEATING more like. As this kind of technology excels, athletes will rely more heavily on machines and computers to determine what’s right and what’s wrong. Human error will be unacceptable and technology will be ready and waiting to point out a 0.0001% deviation from perfection.

What happened to natural talent?

Touchy-feely-sweepy-slide-swish

It seems we are unable to make any finger movement other than swish and slide these days. It freaks me out when young kids already have this movement ingrained in their motor memory. I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room and looked over to a little girl furiously playing Angry Birds on cool Dad’s iPhone. She must’ve been only three or four years old and was wearing Velcro shoes; I wonder if she could tie her laces. Tenuous analogy? Oh well. Even though cool Dad was getting five minutes peace, there was clear disconnection between the two of them. Little girl’s blinkers were on and up – nobody was going to interrupt her!

So anyway, Kit goes on to say...

‘Imagine a remote that merely relies upon the brush of your thumb to change channels.’

No problem! That’s pretty much what we have already, you doorstop! I’m not sure about you, but I don’t notice a greater difficulty in pressing a button cl-ick than a sweepy sa-woosh. But I guess we’ll eventually say bye-bye to the faithful button.

Boo hiss. I’m never going to be able to relieve any frustration by swoooooshing away from the One Show.

Replacing buttons with thumb sweeps make some things more ergonomic for some users. Those who are born into this touchy-feely techno-world have no problem picking up this way to interact with such gadgets, but to try and explain this kind of function to an older demographic just wouldn’t work.

Multi-touch skin guitar lessons for the super-unsociable

Using the napkin with a guitar could mean that...

‘The user could perform chords on the guitar fret in conjunction with instructional software shown on a display. The player’s chords on the multi-touch skin could be tracked and then analyzed by the instructional software to determine if the player is properly performing the chords. That would work nicely with Apple’s Garage Band ’11 iLife app for Guitar Lessons.’

Learning to play music through a screen and analytical software? My survey says NO. In my experience, music teachers are one of two breeds: scary and brilliant or lovely and useless. Without a combination of nagging, pestering, scolding and... crying, I don’t think I would’ve learnt as well as I did. I know that I wouldn’t have had the same relationship with a display screen anyway – computers are either off or on.

The influential presence of a human cannot be matched or replaced by a technology (at the moment), and it’d neverrr be able to be exactly the same. In addition, the words ‘tracked’, ‘analyzed’, ‘properly performing’ would rarely be heard within a musical teaching environment. Because music is so expressive and personal, it requires a human touch and human ear to guide a pupil through the learning process, and sometimes that doesn’t always mean playing all the correct notes all of the time.

So?

Yes, napkin technology is clever and perhaps useful in some contexts (you can research these for yourself) but it’s important to look at technology in a negative light sometimes. Because so much hype surrounds every new development; it’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement. So, to conclude this post, the multi-touch skin and its potential application would discourage social interaction, it would cut out important life-experiences, and continue to endorse laziness with even greater dependence on computers and technology.

End.

Diagram and all excerpts in purple taken from http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/01/apple-delves-into-three-dimensional-multi-touch-skins.html and http://www.fastcompany.com/1722569/apple-imagines-3-d-multitouch-everywhere (02.02.11)

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Brownies

After two days, our batch of twelve is down to four and a half.

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Massey-attack!

So Andy Gray has been sacked by Sky, Richard Keys remains just about in-tact though mounting pressure has left Sky in a difficult position following the revelations of the past week. Where does this leave Sian Massey?

‘Apparently, a female lino today, bit of a looker’

‘A female linesman? [...] No, I wouldn’t. I definitely wouldn’t... I can see her from here.’

‘What do women know about the offside rule?’

The conversation between Andy Burton and Gray ahead of Saturday’s match between Wolves and Liverpool.

‘The game’s gone mad. See charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism? Yeah. Do me a favour, love.’

Keys, on the newspaper column written by the West-Ham vice chair.

These comments and quips have not been blown out of proportion, they have been presented for what they are, and that is sexist. The term itself is flung about and used blandly to cover a number of sins, but the issue that’s most upsetting is the result of the media circus that has erupted around a qualified professional official who has done nothing but get on and do her job. Sian Massey has not uttered a word during the whole palaver, and unfortunately decided to step down from her match on Tuesday officiating for Crewe Alexandra and Bradford City. A completely unfair consequence which meant a highly-competent and experienced individual was not able to do carry out her employment duty as an assistant referee.

Even through the statements were captured when the men thought their mics were off, it’s a shame now that journalists are rummaging through old reels of footage, scavenging for quotes from any male presenter that has ever been in the limelight. There’s no need for the media to rub it in our faces that these kinds of remarks are made – we know already! But the fact that such an old-fashioned and shallow point of view is still prevalent within the sports world just shows how slow people adapt to change. On-air or off-air, it’s still an ideology that hinders a fair portrayal of women in today’s ‘modern’ society.

The fact that women have had to struggle for years to make it just about acceptable to have a female presence within a male dominated sport is bad enough, but why is it the norm to still be judged and talked about with all remarks based purely on gender?

Boring!

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