Welcome BackTo Sheffield Nick

Photo by Marek Allen 

At one point, I was staring through a gap in the security fence, and I heard an jowelly man in tweed behind me sigh and then say "The Trotskyist Middle Classes are at it again" to which in my head I thought "As too are the grumpy apathetic hasbeens".  At the risk of sounding condescending, I don't think many of the schoolkids there would agree heartily with Trotskyism.

What a lot of police though.

May 25th

Last.FM

Design based on West Side Story poster and Wallace's Rocket from A Grand Day Out.  More stuff on Sam Brewster's blog.

Vericola Exposed

After the 'Mark Stone' affair, its interesting to see a case closer to home.

Rebecca Todd, the CEO of private security firm Vericola accidentally outed herself as a spy by errm... copying in activists by mistake when sending an email from her Blackberry.

Amongst their targets were Climate Camp, London Rising Tide, Plane Stupid and Campaign Against the Arms Trade.

Sheffield Indymedia have the story here (along with embarrassing photos).

In the 80's it was MI5 that tried to infiltrate trades unions and campaign groups.  2011 is all about corporate spying.

Shop your local spook!

De iets te ver doorgeschoten liftolifant*

*Elephant Elevator Operator

I Knew The Borrowers Were Real

I found one of their breadknives.

Johnny Actually Flies!

Two years ago, I received this email at work:

"Hi,

My name is Johnny, am an Orphan and I love aviation so deeply.

I am applying for 2009 but honestly do not have any means of paying for my study.

Please how best would help and advice me [sic].

Warm regards

Johnny"

Which lead me to write this post and draw this cartoon.  In a strange twist of fact becoming fiction and then back to fact again, the Guardian newspaper recently published this article.

Johnny lives!

Subtle Juxtaposition

The Following Sunday

Everybody Loves Sunday Afternoon

Mathlete

Walk Tall, Chew.

They play songs like this.

Boids

Beard Wock

Season's Bleatings

An acquaintance, Sam Brewster is doing me a poster at some point. Here's a festive sample of his:

I Received This At Work Today So Now I'm Stealing It

"I received an email from you earlier, entitled The Use of Unfair Means in the Assessment Process. While, in general, it seems sensible, there is one sentence which is seriously wrong. I quote: Because the use of unfair means is such a serious offence (it amounts to the theft of ideas) ... This is legally illiterate. Theft is dishonestly appropriating things with the intent to permanently deprive. Copying other peoples' ideas does not deprive them of those ideas, not even temporarily. To be clear, I'm not arguing in favour of unfair means, just that it is silly to describe it as theft of ideas (just as it would be silly to describe it as grievous bodily harm of ideas). It's not theft, it's legally entirely unrelated to theft, and one gains nothing useful by thinking of it as theft. It should not be hard to write a legally accurate account, which does not contain this incorrect statement, but which is nevertheless appropriately forbidding."

Hydrogen Is The Answer

At work, a package arrived address to the 'conseil general' of where I work. Inside was a booklet like this:


Also attached was a letter, that seemed to suggest that I should photocopy this booklet and distribute it freely:



It was written by a French Canadian called Claude Deschennes, who has a bit of a thing about religion:



Not only that, he seems to LOVE rubber stamps, and using them:



He is also keen on drawing diagrams about how he views the world. I liked this one because of the distinction drawn between 'Plants', 'Beasts' and 'Humanity'. To the left, you'll see he's also written "Posters, please, for the classes of biology", as well as more rubber-stampage:



In case you weren't sure, this emphasises once again the importance of Hydrogen:



There's also frequent references to the 'Nebula' as demonstrated by this diagram (and more rubber stamps):



Claude has included a photocopied picture of (what I guess to be) himself:



And thankfully, on the rear, he explains the purpose of the book:



There's so much dense handwriting, rubber-stampage, religious critique and references to the importance of Hydrogen that I can't really do it justice in this blog, but consider this post Claude's first foray onto the internet, as I couldn't find any reference to him when I searched.

Hi Claude!

Cake Log 2009

In one of my workplaces, there has been a creeping trend of frequent and regular cake consumption. In previous years, its tended to happen on birthdays (not really that surprising), but from around last summer, staff have stopped giving reasons and bring in cake anyway.

I don't mind - I like cake.

The news of the cake is delivered by an email sent to all employees in the building, and thankfully, I'm well versed in reading emails as soon as they arrive. In fact, sometimes I can 'sense' an email being delivered, and I brace myself ready for its arrival.

This year, I figured I would take a more scientific approach to these emails, and I created a spreadsheet called Cake Log 2009, and saved it somewhere underneath about 8 digital trees worth of subfolders.

The log includes the date and time of the cake offering, the name of the bringer, the cake type, marks out of 10 and extra comments. So far there's just 3 comments on there:

"No staff were available to sample X's debut effort, but we're pleased to see a young pretender to the cake throne."

"Good moist texture, and well balanced by the icing" 8/10

"My judgement was possibly skewed by my consumption of strong coffee and a Mars Bar prior to the eating of the cake. A light fluffy sponge well complemented by the sweet creamy filling." 7/10

Hopefully, once I've collated more data, I will be able to provide statistics about who is the greatest cake-bringer, and which time and day of the week is the more likely to have cake involved.

I need a new job.

Tonight Matthew, Dave and I will make a cloud...

This is what happens when you don't keep an eye on a kettle.

No fun allowed.

Over the years, my office has had all sorts stuck to the walls. Now I have to take it down as its apparently 'unprofessional' (despite the fact no one can see it except me). Here's some highlights.


This is a sketch of a proposed uniform by my colleague. It originally also had a ceremonial sword.



A picture of Bono - the artist is something Chapman, or something.


An interpretation of our computer people.


A dinosaur made out of sweet wrappers.


'Jazz Hands' (also sweet wrapper-constructed)


My motivational sign.

Johnny Dreams Of Flight

At work I got an email from a a guy called Johnny. He wrote:

"Hi,

My name is Johnny, am an Orphan and I love aviation so deeply.

I am applying for 2009 but honestly do not have any means of paying for my study.

Please how best would help and advice me [sic].

Warm regards

Johnny"

It inspired me to draw this cartoon...