Ah look !

One thing I've noticed about cricketers over the last few years when they're doing interviews is their habit of saying "Look" or "Ah look" before they answer the question they've been asked ...

I'm scratching my head as to why they do that, I'd usually use "look" in that context only if I thought I was being got at by the interviewer, which is almost always not the case in the ones I've watched. And Michael Atherton in particular is outstanding for pulling out the cheeky question that
most other interviewers wouldn't have the courage to ask :-)

Another case for the "Ah Look" is Hancock - went to see this one yesterday and it's as spectacular as you'd wish for in a Summer Blockbuster. It'll make a lot of cash this one, in both cinema (probably best there for the scale) and on dvd. It scores through consistency with itself, it makes as much sense as sci-fi usually does and there's a massive plot twist half way through that turns this from run of the mill into something really rather special.

Well recommended, this could well be the pick of the summer blockbusters. It definitely hits the mark better than Prince Caspian and it's more serious than Kung-fu Panda.

What else have I been up to ? Monday and Tuesday were testing days, which involve representatives from my place watching the subcontractors assure themselves that the multi-million pound piece of software is a) working and b) working as expected. It's a very complex beastie the thing under testing this week, there's at least 50 discrete pieces of computer hardware that all have to talk to each other and get along without something going bang that shouldn't be going bang.

That's the real trick in my particular line of work, making sure all the different systems made by a collection of subcontractors all play nice with each other without throwing the toys out of the pram. I don't have personal experience with autism but it's probably a fair comparison - computers can only work by the rules that they are programmed with, which includes their ability to communicate. If the message is slightly garbled, they can't even use human experience or our wider set of rules to decipher the message. They'll either bin the bad message (good) or complain bitterly and give you the Blue Screen of Death that most Windows users will know all too well.

It's a challenge and we've got a good bunch of people working on it :-) Plus being disconnected from the usual blogs and forums in the hotel room allowed me to finally finish Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. It's not a terrible book but on numerous occasions, I lost the ability to visualise precisely what was going on. It wraps itself up fairly nicely at the end but I couldn't avoid feeling that it was a rather contrived finish. I've got plenty of other books in the collection to read before buying more Alastair Reynolds. It's currently Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein, this one is a definite Must Read. Just put all thoughts of the Paul Verhoeven film out of your head, there isn't actually that much alien shooting in this one, the strength of the book is its discussion on ethics and morals.

The rest of the week was a bit of a blur unfortunately. I suffer from a mild form of manic-depression. The manic times are great, although I have to put the watchkeeper on to help me avoid upsetting people by going too far on windups. On Tuesday though, just about when I started driving the depression kicked in, which is definitely a Bad Thing when you're about to do a 2.5 hour motorway trip ! I managed to resist the Evil Voice inside me that was telling me to sideswipe the tailgaters as they overtook.

I've dealt with my depressive cycles for a good few years now, when they happen I feel worthless, slow, past-it and just plain ordinary. That last one "ordinary" is the most crippling, as I don't have the looks or the physique to get ahead through that route, I have to depend on my ability to think rapidly and out of the box to shine. When the depression hits, I have too much of my mental run-time thinking about rubbish and not enough left for useful thoughts. I get to feeling useless and my patience and understanding can suffer to the point where other people feel the edge of my depression due to me getting waspish.

It isn't bad enough for me to need pills to balance it, the cycle will usually end thanks to an external trigger or stimulus. Like seeing Miss L in the queue for the coffee machine :-) She's a very special person is Miss L, although she probably doesn't think that herself. I missed having a natter with her by about 10 seconds, she'd disappeared into the lift about that long before I got there. Mrs C is also a great help, she's got enough experience to be One Of The Boys and at the same time be a very Girlie-Girl. Having a "Hello Pete" from Mrs C as she walks past the desk really brightens the day :-)

Hmm - Wall Of Text probably gives a big clue as to how interesting the cricket is this morning !