The House Husband

I read with interest today (in The Times) that the inventor of the Black Box Flight Recorder died on Monday. He really had to work hard to get anyone to buy into the idea but he really believed it was the way forward. A way to record, not just the state of a planes instruments but also a record of the talk in and between the cockpit and the ground.

His wasn’t the first invented, though. In 1939 two French chaps made one that used photography. While their device was tested in France for 30 years, it was never used in commercial flights and it didn’t record any voices.

David Warren (his full name was David Ronald de Mey Warren) was an Australian. He was the first child of European descent to be born on the island of Groote Eylandt, off Arnhem Land. From here went to Tasmania then Sydney and ended up in Melbourne where he became established as an electronics expert.

Although Warren’s device was first created as a prototype in 1957 it wasn’t introduced into commercial planes until 1960 following a crash in Mackay.

It was originally called the Red Egg (because it looked like one) but, for some reason not known, it became the Black Box.

He lived a long and rewarding life, dying at the age of 85. I bet he was very pleased when, in 2008, Qantas named one of their Airbus A380s after him.

The reason I took to his story is the fact that he perceived how important his device could be and didn’t give up even though most people in the industry were not interested. A very important man who was awarded the Order of Australia in 2002.

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As well as reading The Times, I had lunch with Dawn today. We had a jolly good natter while Polly nattered to the garden fence and Basil relaxed on the lawn. Once the rain had fled, the day was sparkling and lovely.

Ages ago, Dawn suggested we all go and see a one woman play called Nun the Wiser. Last night we went and saw it. It was in Chichester so we decided to all travel down together from Dawn & Nicktor’s place. This grew into having dinner at theirs beforehand.

Nicktor cooked up a storm…actually, he heated up a storm and cooked one of the dishes. Very nice it was too. All very Indian. And lots of beer. Mirinda duly wandered around and looked at all the changes to the house and garden since last she visited. They appear to have the biggest apple mint leaves in the world. A herb suffering from gigantism.

The play, while being very funny in parts, was not really the sort of thing I enjoy. It is a rare one-person show that keeps my attention. I missed a fair bit of this one as I was asleep. According to the others, it was very good.

For reasons that I didn’t quite get, this woman became a nun and the play is about her life during that time. I think she lasted a year then stopped being a nun. That was it, really.

It was performed in the Bishop’s Kitchen, behind Chichester Cathedral. Outside is a lovely green where we had pre-show and interval drinks. We then had a long drive back.

So, today, Dawn and I attended a day course in forensic archaeology, ostensibly about Egyptian archaeology. I think I’ve been spoilt by university. The debates, the cut and thrust of opinion, agreeing and disagreeing with the lecturer. This wasn’t like that. Our lecturer (and I use the term loosely) was an ex-teacher of primary school children. And you could tell.

Her experience was excellent. Her slides were of actual Egyptian burials and her anecdotes were about digs in Egypt. All very interesting. The group of attendees was varied but generally not particularly scholarly. I’m sure they all had a lot more from the day than I did and, to be completely honest, I would have been just as happy had I not attended. I was tempted to not go back after lunch but Dawn was getting a lot more from it so I put up with the second half. Actually I struggled to stay awake because of the windows.

When we first arrived, I was amazed at how airy and cool the room was. Perfect for a lecture, I thought. Big windows around the ceiling were wide open and a lovely breeze ensured that the air was fresh. A good chance to stay awake, I thought. About five minutes into the talk and a fussy woman in front of us started coughing. The lecturer, full of motherly concern, asked the woman if she’d like some water.

This wasn’t the only interruption. The first hour was dotted with silly little technical problems which involved changing overhead projectors, shuffling the skeleton around and wrestling with a portable white screen. Had it not been a serious lecture, it would have been hilarious. Actually, it was hilarious without meaning to be.

The thing about this day course was that last time it ran it was oversubscribed and proved very popular. I’m not really sure why. But, anyway, the organisers decided it was so popular they would run it again. And that’s the one we were on.

Anyway, the coughing woman replied to the offer of water with the comment that it was because the windows were open. There was then a mad rush to shut them all. This more or less guaranteed I’d be asleep in the afternoon. Clearly the woman was allergic to air. I purposely had a minor coughing fit about half an hour later, waiting to be asked if I was ok, so I could say I needed the windows open. Sadly, she didn’t care about my well being and I remain unasked.

Lunch was great. We wandered down to a pub that, while it served 6X, did not do food on a Saturday and ended up at the next corner in an Italian place which did an excellent Fiorentina pizza and Peroni. So far, this was the highlight of the day.

It was also Ladies Day at Ascot today. So arriving at Waterloo was like Friday night rush hour except everyone was dressed to the nines. It was ridiculously crowded and strange at the same time.

The afternoon at the lecture was pretty dire. We had a big quiz thing where we had to look at a very large collection of objects and write about them. At the end of the day we were asked what we thought of each of them. This sounds like it should have been quite interesting but it was bit ‘Show and Tell’ if you ask me.

When it finished, I was quite glad to get out. The tutting of the self confessed vegan sitting in front of us, activated whenever I whispered to Dawn (not often and only where relevant) helped. We went to the pub that served 6X and had a grand time drinking and chatting about the stupid lecture, the Weasels, Nicktor and trying to remember the name of the woman who measured the bones of the Korean War dead for her PHd. We didn’t and it was Trotter.

We sat on a lovely high padded backed bench which, like a bench in a church yard, had a dedication plaque on it to a chap who used to like to drink in the pub. A lovely spot. After a while we realised it was getting pretty late so we wandered to the bus stop and left for Waterloo and home.

Though, somehow, we ended up sitting on a train for about half an hour, thinking it was leaving for Portsmouth Harbour in five minutes. It turned out to be going to Weymouth. Fortunately we found out before it left and switched trains.

To sum the day up, the company was delightful, the lecture was a bit dull. And here’s a photo of Dawn drinking a pint and a half of 6X.

I am not going to talk about the football except to say it’s the most dismal performance by a team of supposed international class footballers I think I’ve ever seen. I am stunned. They wouldn’t have beaten France the way they played tonight.

So, today was my induction into the Art Project at work. Though Nick worried me when I turned up and he said there was good and bad news. The bad news was that I hadn’t actually finished the Location Project because he’d found another load of records. The good news was that there were only 108 of them.

We had tea and stickies at 11am but I felt a sham. I hadn’t finished. Actually we had a jolly time just chatting, something I don’t get to do seeing as I only come in on Fridays. ‘Tea and stickies’ is lots of cakes with something wet to wash them down with.

Anyway, I’d completely finished the Location Project by lunch time. Since I started work at the museum (May 7), I have updated and entered 1,377 records. Yay.

After my usual lunch surrounded by hordes of school children eagerly screaming while stuffing food into their conveniently open mouths, I sat with Nick for the rest of the afternoon while he explained the Art Project. This is going to take some time. This project. I’m pretty sure it will not finish within my lifetime.

Essentially, I will be transferring information from a 1,000 page Word document, which represents the old database, and putting it in MIMSY, the newer database. But it’s not just a simple copy and paste. Oh no.

The information has to be disseminated throughout the proper fields and joined up with Places and People and Things. And if the information isn’t there, I have to research and enter it myself. Way cool! I’m really looking forward to starting next Friday!

I’m off to a lecture on Forensic Aspects of Ancient Egypt with Dawn tomorrow, which should be fun.

Did I say how bad the English played tonight? No, REALLY, they were awful.

I had a lovely day today. Apart from the usual shopping, dog walking and talking to mum and dad, I had lunch with Dawn.

Normally we go to a pub for a meal, either over here at The Albion or over in Haslemere at The Mill. I thought this was silly when I could easily whip up something similar so I suggested we have lunch in the garden. This was especially tempting given the lovely weather we’re having at the moment.

I decided to make tabbouleh with a crisp leaf salad and oak smoked salmon. Actually, I only decided on oak smoked when I saw the packet in Waitrose.

I remember a long time ago, going to a family party, celebrating the successful escape by some Armenian political refugees, given by James Balian who I met…to be honest I can’t remember how I met James but he was a film student and I was in a few of his class projects.

One of the things about Armenian family parties is that everyone mucks in with the food preparation. I was given a big bowl of minced up meat and, what I can only describe as ‘stuff’, and told I was making the kofta. It was very squishy and quite difficult to make stick on the skewers. Everyone thought it was very funny and a few helpful ladies gave me pointers. Now I make my own koftas and I thank them for showing me ho to do it properly!

Anyway, while I was squishing around in my bowl, one lady was busy chopping up bits of tomato, cucumber and mint very, very finely. She had a nice pile in front of her. When I asked what she was making, she said tabbouleh. She then let me know how difficult it was and how it was very important to get everything cut up nice and finely. I fell in love with tabbouleh that day.

In saying that, I’ve not had any for many years so decided, a lovely summery day was just the time to re-acquaint myself with it. I found a rough sort of recipe and adapted it to what I had then spent the morning preparing it.

I feel obliged to say it was pretty good! Dawn was so impressed she asked me for the recipe and insisted she was going to force feed it to Nicktor, who, as we all know, doesn’t do salad. It made a lovely accompaniment to a gloriously (not too hot) sunny day, on our patio, under the big umbrella.

Today I saw two Cansfields. Here’s a photo of one of them:

Dawn in the good room which is rapidly becoming a library

I popped over to Liphook on another one of those mercy dashes I’m so good at. The ones involving IT problems which I can never seem to fix. Which is all of them. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The time I went over to rip out an old hard drive I was very successful.

Anyway, the problem was with a laptop that just refused to see the router and, therefore, was bereft of any Internet of any kind. It was my first exposure to Windows Vista and now I know why I hate it so. No wonder there was such fanfare and exhultation after the arrival of Windows 7. I’ll not go into all things I hate about it as it would probably make a longer entry than the snooker one.

But before I failed to fix the IT problem, we went to The Mill at Shottermill for a lovely lunch and a pint of fff. It’s odd but when pubs chalk up the beer from this brewery they write ‘Triple fff Alton Best’ which, unless my maths is worse than it usually is, a total of nine fs or fff fff fff. The brewery is called Triple f or fff. Not that it matters much. Their beer is all that matters. And it’s very, very nice. The brewery is just down the road near Alton.

Lunch over, we popped over to Liphook so I could pretend that I knew what I was doing and managed to score a mug of coffee and a mauling by Basil. That’s a friendly mauling which is more than I can say for Polly! Apart from barking all the time I was there (almost), she just barked! Crazy dog. Her tail wags all the time too. Dawn reckons she’s undecided. I think she’s right.

The photo is to show Nicktor’s Billy construction. I think I mentioned in a previous post about his gargantuan effort to erect 400 IKEA Billy bookcases in the good room and there is the evidence! Dawn was gracious enough to pose so I could splash her all over the Internet. Behind that smile she’s all sufferance.

And, of course, it being a Tuesday, Nicktor is due soon for his weekly dose of Gaz Movie Madness. But first, the pub. And I think I hear his gentle pitter patter on the door just…about…now.

I had lunch with Dawn today. She’s all excited about doing her PHD again. She’s gone off the Romans but is thinking of doing prehistoric Sussex. We then talked about my dissertation and got all excited about that too.

And then she told me the horror story of her recent trip to Oxford with Trudi, whose navigation skills leave a lot to be desired. When they found themselves in Central London, she realised she had the map upside down. It took them for ever to get back on the right track.

Eventually they arrived in Oxford but then had major problems finding where they had to go to for the conference they were attending.

The conference was fun and then they set off back for home. This time, rather than Central London, they were almost at the docks at Southampton when Dawn insisted they turn round and go back in the opposite direction. Trudi wasn’t sure until Dawn pointed to the sign which indicated that there was nothing but water in front of them.

They eventually made it home. And Mirinda says bad things about my navigating. Bah!

As I sat here wondering what to post for today, listening to Norah Jones lightly singing her own brand of smokey-voiced tunes, the following thought occurred to me. I wonder if Norah has to sing at Christmas while the Jones family are busy trimming the tree. Or do they give her a break? I could hear her singing Silent Night and Away In a Manger but that’s about it.

I told Mirinda, if I could be any famous singer, it would be Norah Jones. Her voice is amazing. That’s surprising because I do love so many raw, screechy voiced singers. And there’s always Frank (Zappa). But, no, Norah’s it! Of course, she has the advantage of being alive.

And the poodles seem to love her too. They are asleep down the back of the lounge, as usual. Day-z is all a-twitching while Carmen is making these strange exhaling noises. I guess they are just SO chilled by her singing. Which reminds me, for no reason at all, except that it popped into my head as I typed that last bit…

It was a red letter day for Dawn today. She graduated with her MA! She is now Dawn C BSc MA. I’ve told her I’ll not be able to associate with her in public until I get mine. Interestingly, the Chancellor at her university is Sanjeev Bhaskar, the actor/comic/writer guy from The Kumars at No 42 – he plays the son. He hands out the degrees so she shook his hand. She reports that his speech was very funny. He grew up around Southall and his dad worked at Nestles!

I’ve now moved upstairs and have changed from Norah to Florence from Florence and the Machine. Very different but still very enjoyable. And so, I read my weather station data and find that today we had 6.7mm of rain and the temperature tonight is down to -1.6 with little cloud and a promise of sun tomorrow (the last bit is from the BBC, the rest comes direct from the weather station).

Actually, we went out tonight and looked at Mars (and the grass was crunchy with frost). It’s the closest it will be for many years. It was sparkly and red and right next to the biggest, brightest moon I think I’ve ever seen! And for this reason, Mars just looked like any other star, even through the binoculars.

When we lived in Haslemere, we became aware that, because of the surrounding countryside (mostly woods and hills), we were locked in our own little world of weather. Of a morning, it was imperative that I note the London weather before deciding what to wear because the weather in Woking was always different. I should add that Woking is only about 24 miles from Haslemere. All of this was brought back to me today when I once more visited Haslemere.

As I left Farnham, the day was a mix of grey and sleet – a truly grim day. As we (me and the three other passengers on the number 19 bus) trundled through Frensham, white began to appear where it remained on the countryside. This, in itself was not unusual. As we crossed the A3 at Hindhead, the snow started and the white either side of the road was thickening. By the time I left the bus at Shottermill, snow laid all about, thick and even. It was like I’d travelled to another country.

The reason I’d popped over to Haslemere today was to have lunch with Dawn (my second Cansfield this week). I haven’t seen her for ages while I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time with her husband recently. My first task, however, was to take the hard drive out of their old PC. And this meant braving the vicious Polly.

Polly is a Westie, just like Basil, but unlike Basil, she hates everyone. She barks and bites and snaps and…well, she’s generally pretty antisocial. That is until she calms down, then she’s a lovely little dog. So I had to wait outside while Dawn put Polly behind bars. Basil, of course, came running up to say hello, all shaking with pleasure. Secretly, I think he was looking for Mirinda, who he adores, but he always hides his disappointment quite well. Polly remained behind bars while I went upstairs to de-brain the PC. Having had a sticky at their new kitchen, which is LOVELY! The cooker had me very jealous.

Apart from getting covered in the inevitable dust, the hard drive was a doddle and I soon had it cradled in my hand, telling Dawn to put it in a box somewhere and forget about it. I also told her the computer horror story of the man who’s information was retrieved from a PC he’d taken to the dump but which had ended up in Africa.

I foolishly offered to fix her read wiper but my enthusiasm was a bit hardier than my automotive repair skills and it beat me. Sad and defeated by a silly little bit of plastic, we then went to the Mill for lunch.

I love the Mill. It’s a wonderful, very English pub. And they had Alton fff as a guest ale. Excellent choice. We enjoyed some of this, me more than Dawn…who was driving. Lunch was lovely though I think I hogged the conversation a bit, reminiscing over theatre days…which always makes me miss it…for a little while.

I then took the bus back home. Again, the snow stopped as we crossed the gridlocked (as always) A3. I was greeted over-enthusiastically by the poodles who, no doubt, wanted to know why I’d been to visit Basil and not taken them.