I left for Portsmouth at 9pm yesterday evening. I’m back in Maidenhead now. Somehow, I really enjoyed embarking on a grand journey - people do not usually travel on Sunday without good reason. This trip was aimless and thoughtful. I had a lot to think about.

I am amazed at how boring I have become in the eyes of people who would have been integral to my life twelve months ago. I suppose everyone grows. Still, people seem so tied up in fashion, art and the ‘celebrity culture’ that I can’t help but feel disillusioned. Why can’t we create our own experiences? Even I am struggling. I love technology and programming more than ever and it’s having a negative effect on my social activity. Andrew Boothroyd knows how it feels to repel girls with talk of C file pointers and recursive acronyms. I will not fall into that trap - I’m a PHP programmer. I’m supposed to be cool!

I found a perfect archway underneath a stone-built sea barrier in Old Portsmouth. These shots are so lovely. I am expressed beyond my words ~

The Last Train Out Of Here Ticket Scan

Bottomley’s first dip into theatrical waters left audiences across Oxford astounded. Yes, this is the news that Andrew made his dramaturgical debut last month as the lead in a play about three teenagers who are left to fend for themselves in a run-down council house in Burnley. It’s not exactly how I had envisioned the next meeting with my old friend but opportunities like this should never be missed. I HAD to go. Fortunately, Emma wanted to go too and we made the trip to Oxford on the second night of the play’s five night run. It all took place in the Burton-Taylor theatre in the centre of Oxford which boasts a comfortable capacity of about 50 people.

As the audience walk into the theatre, Bottomley (playing ‘Rob’) is lying naked in statue with co-actor Prudence Cauley (playing ‘Nikki’). Think Daniel Radcliffe on the cheap. The play progresses through sixty genuinely enjoyable minutes in which Bottomley scuffles with his younger brother (played by Tom Bishop), discovers the truth about his troubled childhood, uses the words ‘twat’, ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck’ and attempts to throw himself underneath an oncoming train.

TIH History was made.

Programme (thanks to Emma)

Dumb-struck rich girls reviewers from Headington Girls School didn’t understand:

“Bottomley’s Rob, on the other hand, was a thoroughly unattractive and uninspiring figure. The emotional fervour of a teenager who has just attempted suicide was undetectable, replaced by whiny vocal expression, which made it difficult to get a sense of potential variation.”
- Cherwell Review Online

“In the second scene he was marginally improved in his increasingly warm relationship with Sam, but this was ruined by Bottomley’s complete failure to act in a manner which could be reasonably expected from someone who has undergone as traumatic event as has occurred just minutes earlier. This isn’t to say that he’s awfully bad, just that he’s awkwardly bad. “
- Oxford Theatre Review

This Is Hope has been a little thin on the ground over autumn. I blame it largely on my natural cravings to get away from a computer outside of working hours. Now winter is arriving, I’m destined to spend a lot more time affixed to my computer screens and logged onto TIH. Lucky you.

You may also have noticed a significant amount of downtime, theme changes and general weirdness during your visits this site. I stupidly neglected to keep my copy of Wordpress up to date and a Russian billionaire robot compromised my Wordpress database. After several vein attempts to thwart the intruder I ended up having to export my content as XML, remove everything from my web space and import my data into a new Wordpress installation. AND… …it seems to have worked (cross two fingers, any two). This also explains why Understanding is temporarily offline - I do have everything backed up (i think) and I am in the process of working out the best way to upgrade to the latest MediaWiki with my limited backups.

I have, albeit on a cost-limited budget, built myself a new PC. This is really geeky and exciting and cool:

Okay, I couldn’t resist a photo with my ‘APACHE: Mirrored Wordwide‘ T-Shirt and Ubuntu Lanyard!

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E7300 (I wanted to go Quad but it was justtttt out of budget)
• Foxconn Motherboard with NVidia MCP73P chipset
• 2GB DDR2 RAM (I intend to upgrade to 3/4GB soon for my virtual machines - not a big job)
• Maxtor 500GB Internal Hard Disk
• I have borrowed my housemate’s old Radeon X1330/X1550 (128MB RAM) graphics card for now. I will upgrade later.
• VERY CHEAP DVD-RW.
• 6 USB ports / 1 HDMI / standard on board sound card.
• Edimax USB wireless adapter for internet (and it plugs and plays in Ubuntuuuuu. Woo!)
• Very stylish polished-pink wireless keyboard and mouse.

I have Ubuntu running as my main OS and it should be able to handle a couple more virtual machines running on top. I was surprised at just how easy it was to get Ubuntu working. It’s definitely ready for any home power-users who want to make the switch from Windows. It has media players, video editors and photo managers that all match anything you can get for Windows. Heck, I’m even managing my iPod through a piece of software called GtKPod and it doesn’t sparodically delete my library or regularly use up 90% of my CPU (See also: iTunes).

I will keep the posts up. uP. UP.

# top

Listening To: The Strokes - You Only Live Once

I took with me this predefined idea of who David should be. I knew we had a mutual appreciation for the kind of observational, cooperative art that he produced. I thought of somebody who might take the lead, generate ideas, thoughts, feelings. Somebody exuding enthusiasm for odd performances and off-the-wall routines. I wanted him to be his website. And maybe I saw some of that. In reality though, his attitude towards me was bordering on distant - which is to be expected when some stranger turns up in your country and wants to walk round aimlessly with you! I was naive and over prepared. It was as though everything between us would have been so much better if it had happened by chance.

In the weeks following New York, I spent a lot of time with a girl called Anna (pronounced Anya). She lives almost 4600 miles away from David somewhere in the south of Moscow. She had been working in the office for a month, which is where I met her. And I can’t explain why she had an affect on me, but she did. I think that because I expected nothing from her, it made it easier to be friends.

SURE: I am not taking into account the fact that I am bound to have more interests with some people than I am with am others or that I spent more time with Anna than I did with David. I didn’t mean for my point to be exact - frankly the opposite. I’m just fascinated by the delicacy of our judgements. Such little things make everything change. The power of a greeting. ["The unbearable lightness of being"?]

What I am trying to get across is that the people I feel most comfortable around are unassuming and tolerant (label them ‘geeks’) whereas the people I am always trying to impress are far more arrogant and self-absorbed (label them ‘artists’). And it has always been like that. But I can smile about it.

I always run out of time. I’ve been meaning to write this for weeks.

Reading Is Dead, Long Live Reading

It’s been a slothful autumn and all the time I’m spending away from this website isn’t doing me much good. I recently bought myself a new computer and it’s inspired me to fight the cold weather and restart my blogs.

We will start with a wee offering from Reginald CD Bates. He has lovingly put together a bootleg of the Radiohead gig that took place at Lancashire County Cricket Club in Manchester earlier this year. The bootleg is a mix of several poorer quality recordings that have been floating around on the Internet. He offered it to me so I would go forth and share it with the world (restricted by reality):

Download from Megaupload

Approximate Unchecked Tracklist
01. 15 Step
02. Airbag
03. There There
04. All I Need
05. Nude
06. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
07. The Gloaming
08. The National Anthem
09. Faust Arp
10. No Surprises
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
12. Reckoner
13. Just
14. Bangers + Mash
15. Everything in Its Right Place
16. Fake Plastic Trees
17. Bodysnatchers

1st Encore
18. Videotape
19. Paranoid Android
20. Myxomatosis
21. Optimistic
22. Karma Police

2nd Encore
23. Pyramid Song
24. 2+2=5
25. Idioteque

Thank you Dave!

1 > Give away one free chocolate bar for each day of the week.
1 > 1.1 > Saturday - Ripple bar posted through next door neighbour’s letter box.
1 > 1.2 > Sunday - Twix twin handed to zealous ginger woman outside Saint Mark’s Hospital, Maidenhead.
1 > 1.3 > Monday - A straight from production Galaxy share-size handed to a ‘random’ Mars Associate.
1 > 1.4 > Tuesday - Two Galaxy Amicelli bars given to Emma Keeling.
1 > 1.5 > Wednesday - Milky Bar (Nestle!) handed to the man serving chips in Super Plaice, my local fish and chip shop.

2 > Post a picture of yourself or anything every day for a week

(Sunday reflects my wind blown shirt):

(Saturday is slanted):

i. this website

However annoying it may be, we will have to get used to the new design for This Is Hope. I’d much rather spend my time writing logs than spend it struggling with fiddly Wordpress templates. I have a project at work that involves Wordpress so any additional out of hours activity would render me insane. Maybe I could persuade my manager to allow me to use some of my time working on TIH?

You may notice that you can’t post a comment if it is too short or contains lots of words like ‘porn’, ‘vagina’ or ‘dildo’. This is down to the wp-spamfree plugin for Wordpress. It is supposed to eliminate the need for end-user-facing spam catchers like those on previous versions of this site - I’m not sure how well it works in practice. For now, just try to adhere to any rules it imposes upon you. It would be very useful if you could let me know if it refuses any of your comments.

ii. the job
i have to be careful what i say. See also: Understanding/3663

12 months - 2 months = 10 months left

I spend a lot of time at work in front of my computers. Type Type Type Type Type Click. Type. Double Click. It’s a lot better than it sounds. I found a guide last week titled, “Life with QMail”. As though QMail is some sort of mid-life crisis or annoying eye condition. I thought about how funny it would be to map the rules of QMail onto situations in your life. This is my life. Laugh or cry?

September involves a training course in London, a business trip to LEEDS and a return flight to New York (non-work). And all of the time I just long for my friends and my past and my youth. Even someone who has something to say when I want to talk about Belle & Sebastian music! I’m not allowed to be like this now I’m twenty-one. (and bust).

The training course I am attending next week requires me to take my favourite piece of music, an object that describes myself and a personal photo. This is impossible. I don’t want to think. Can’t I just fit in!

iii. music / night

I went to watch Conor Oberst with Linda Coombs last week. Conor played material entirely from his new album (that is, NO bright eyes) and it felt obviously refreshing. OBVIOUSLY REFRESHING? What does that mean? It means that in both foresight and hindsight it is obvious that a band touring as ‘Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band’ would only play ‘Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band’ songs but as a result I came away with a hopeful outlook - something that may not have happened under the influence of Bright Eyes’ material.

There are some other cool musical releases to note: Final Fantasy EPs, Of Montreal, Okkervil River and Department of Eagles.

i am really tired and not functioning. come back!

I thought I would publish a video - this one will always me smile (sound is essential):

A car alarm is sounding somewhere. I used to listen to car alarms until I fell fast asleep, circa 1997. The older you get, the fonder you look back upon childhood memories.

my recent posts have been forced and bitty.

Here are exciting things:

• My parents arrive to assess my ball pool tomorrow.
• Ruth is visiting me at the weekend. I will anticipate.
• Dave and Andrew are coming soon for free chocolate.
• Emma has purchased tickets to see The Hold Steady (almost killed me!)
• I am eating chocolate.
• I am stuffed full of chocolate.

Good night.

Tm xx

|

i am out of place amidst workplace politics and social rumours.

Collaboration > competition.

include everyone exclude everyone. PEOPLE

STOP! (you already have).

SECTION 1: THE SONG

I am delighted to announce that the first of my requests is fulfilled and Daniel Corsini has kindly recorded his unique version of “Where Is The Love?”, originally recorded by the Black Eyed Peas.

With supposed permission from the copyright holder, you can download this as a HIGH-quality mp3 ~

Download Daniel Corsini - Where Is The Love?

SECTION 2: VIDEO PROPOSAL

I share an affinity for this recording and I want to make a video to accompany it. However, I will need help. HELP me. Here are some of the themes I wish to pursue:

• Sean Delaney as he performs the ‘Robot Dance’.
• Sean Delaney as he climbs and falls off a tree in Hampshire. (Please can Rachel send me this?)
• A video of somebody walking across Clifton Suspension Bridge with the intention of suicide.
• Rachel O’Connell carefully browsing for something like washing powder in a supermarket.
• A gospel choir singing.
• Myself, in cameo.
• + plus etc …

WATCH THIS PAGE, FOREVER.

Tom!

My new ‘executive’ position has been keeping me very busy but it’s starting to kick in just how far away I am from everything I used to know. Home. People. Friends. Friend. You. I’m getting all muddled up over when people can come and visit me at weekends and if I’m not careful nobody will end up coming at all.

WORKING FOR MARS

The pressure of working full time isn’t really a pressure at all. I have everything I need. Water. Freedom. Chocolate. I like my colleagues. I enjoy the work. Everything’s smooth. One of the first tasks I have been allocated that could be described as a ‘project’ involves hacking together some extensions for the SupportSuite ticketing software. I am being paid real money to program in PHP. l33t.

I was working out of the office for three days of last week. I could get used to rolling out of bed at eight twenty five for an eight thirty start. Sadly, I have started work at the new office in SLOUGH this week - a far cry from the ghostly industrial estate in Reading that acted as my host for the last three weeks. Last three. Past three. Fifteen minutes.

I SAW

A cloud shaped like a palm tree.

Lightning taking over the sky on every side of the thicket.

A man running up an escalator the wrong way, going nowhere.

The tip of my finger as I rested it against the side of the sun.

A carousel of old friends spinning around my summer-sweet dreams.

People holding hands as they walk into the sunset. It was imagination. I wish it would really happen. It was pretty.

A trivial joke passed between younger people. We were younger once. Bitten.

Oh, and it should go without saying: -

IF YOU ARE NICE TO ME, I WILL GIVE YOU LOTS OF FREE CHOCOLATE.

This was

Not

Thomas: in the script.

$ bash

russetho@home:/# make me

…

russetho@home:/# make me complete

I AM NOT COMPLETE. I have not eaten anything nutritious today.

Meat me at the station.

I’ve mended myself using a bandage and a sprinkle of autumn.

“I don’t KNOW!”

I started my new job at Mars Incorporated today. Fundamentally, the idea of a nine-to-five office job opposes everything I have ever dreamed up for my future. However, I remain positive about the opportunities forthwith and all the vibes have been encouraging.

I have supposedly ‘settled’ into my new home. In the spirit of XKCD and Last.Fm, I’m in the process of making a ball pool in my bedroom [this acts as a good emblem for the 'spirit of Mars']:

Here follows a short breakdown of the negatives and positives of the new house, herein referred to as ‘my house‘…

Pros

• I have a respectably sized loft room with everything I need to make me comfortable (Three guests would be well spaced sleeping on the floor of my room).
• My house lies off road in a very quiet, suburban area not dis-similar to Grotton - very homely.
• I have a small but well tended garden for summer entertainments.
• Both of my house mates are amicable, accommodating people and I can’t foresee there being any arguments. They will also be driving me to work each morning. Woo!
• Maidenhead is MY kind of place. There are no students, plenty of backward thinking locals and the town centre stays very quiet, even at weekends. There is a good selection of shops with larger shopping facilities located in nearby Reading. There are twee olde English villages nearby in the form of Bray, Twyford and Taplow.
• For city reminiscing, Maidenhead train station has very good transport links to London Paddington (30-40 mins), Reading (15 mins), Oxford (50 mins) with trains running back to Maidenhead up to around 1 am each night.
• There is an excellent Chinese Take Away two minutes from my house.

Cons

• The bus service near to my house is useless and pointless (everyone has cars). I am just over a mile from Maidenhead town centre and it takes just under 25 minutes to walk to the train station. Fortunately, the walk is a very pleasant, ‘safe’ one.
• It costs money to get into London (£8.85 return which includes all tube and bus travel in London). This adds £8.85 to the cost of gig tickets - which isn’t too bad when you have a steady income.

-

“Yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do? Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute…”

Miserable humans attending a really rubbish TLP

Student Flyer

In spite of this unique situation, I refuse to let the heavy burdens of my lazy lifestyle get me down and what better way to celebrate my indolence than to receive a RA D IO HEA_D ticket in the post. Even better, it only cost me twenty pounds. The radiant euphoria of ME is evident for all to see (this is one for the family photo album)…

The week has shaped itself perfectly. I merely advised it. I will brief you (the audience) on events using my digital history journal. relax. inhale smoke.

w e e k l y _ d i a r y

s u n d a y , j u n e _ 2 2 n d

I convene at Andrew Boothroyd’s house in plenty of time. We abandon plans to go skateboarding due to probable flooding at Churchill Playing Fields Skate Park. Instead, we decide to walk around for a little while in the wild-wet and end up drinking lemonade in a local hostel. The conversation flows more freely than a computer game rendered in OpenGL and my enjoyment level remains high throughout.

m o n d a y , j u n e _ 2 3 r d

5:15pm. I walk to the Grange Arts Centre for an exhibition that includes work on show by Hannah Kershaw. There is free red wine and I talk to Hannah and others about the occasion. Hannah has used a picture of Emma in one of the canvases. I notice a very cool painting of a white train colliding and stretching itself on top of a black canvas. I speak to the girl who painted it (Kayleigh) and embarrass her by being overly enthusiastic.

* (i would like to see Sara’s photographs from this exhibition).

t u e s d a y , j u n e _ 2 4 t h

Meet Irja outside The Palace Hotel in Manchester. We rush down Oxford Road and back to her apartment. Her new bunnies are adorable. We go to Trof in search of John Calvert and find him. Irja makes conversation with the Mancunian poet (and Celtic fan) who delivered angry prose to the crowd. I recorded the Calvert set on my video camera. Listen to it here.

w e d n e s d a y , j u n e _ 2 5 t h

David arrives on my doorstep. We decide to go to RA D IO HEA_D together this Sunday. We walk around the brick works in Grotton (no ice cream vans this time). Before filming this unworthy and utterly pointless video of me, he leaves with a letter and a paper crinkler…

t h u r s d a y , j u n e _ 2 6 t h

m o r n i n g

My final PDP meeting with Rob Lloyd Owen is extremely rewarding. Ironically (and this is an in-joke), I spend the rest of the morning battling with BT call centre operatives about a new phone line.

e v e n i n g

Another open mic night but this time at The Grotton In The Hollow. I arrive with Kate around 10pm and there are no more than seven people in attendance. An old man plays some tired folk songs and an awful cover of “Space Oddity”. Silence prevails.

f r i d a y , j u n e _ 2 7 t h

I am FREE. In the improbable situation that anybody is short of something to do tonight, you could visit me at my house.

i am mySELF.

John Calvert’s cult status precedes him. For the first time ever, you can download his hits onto your computer with the release of this limited edition bootleg, “Calvert, Lake & Palmer”:

Download The Music!

This was recorded with permission during an open mic night at Trof, Fallowfield in Manchester on the 24th June 2008.

John will be releasing his new single, “Madeline Smith” sometime before the sun sets. Support independent artists!

Discounting ‘Gangsta’s in an Oxford Paradise’, this is my first bootleg. For better or worse, track two is dedicated to me. I feel happy to be able to share this with people - it captures the spirit of the Star & Garter Open Mic nights of old.

Thanks to: Irja, James, Madeline and Mr Calvert.

On the 1st of July 2008, I am leaving to live at this address:

After my move, it is likely that I will have to communicate with you over a large distance. A network of points from me to you. The best bit about distance relationships is opening mail to find a love letter. I want to start our new relationship by writing you a love letter.

You will receive your love letter on paper (and in an envelope) made from recycled Indian cloth. I will write all the letters in red ink with a Uni-ball Eye UB150 Rollerball pen. I have also bought some special packing tape that I will wrap awkwardly around the back of your letter to seal it:

All you have to do is send an e-mail to reformedjuly@thisishope.co.uk and I’ll take it from there. If I don’t know you yet, I probably won’t have your address so you’ll have to include this somewhere in your e-mail.

The first four letters will be sent 1st Class using the limited edition Royal Mail ‘LOVE’ stamps.

The first person to e-mail me for a letter will receive a limited edition mix-tape - a sure sign that we’re in love.

Listening To: Ben Folds Five - Army

(Retro).

I have just eaten a full box of Thorntons chocolates. I had to cringe my way through the sickly-flavoured Turkish Delights. I only ate them because I am a greedy pig. If someone were to translate that last sentence into Estonian, it would sound like a Eurovision song lyric or a Värttinä song.

Chris wants to make a trip to see the Eurovision song contest in two years. This probably means a trip to the Eastern Bloc and I like the idea of following him on such a journey. Unlike Chris, I wouldn’t be going for the ‘good’ music.

I haven’t been At Ease-ing for a while and on my return I’ve been pleasantly surprised by recent album news, leaks and releases. Here is a selection of brand new albums I am enjoying:

• Tilly and The Wall - O
• Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood
• The Hold Steady - Stay Positive (I didn’t even KNOW this was due for release! Kate, you need to get it.)
• Laura Veirs - Two Beers Veirs (This is an unexpected covers EP and if it wasn’t lazy, I’d probably send it to Arabella)
• Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Additionally, Morrissey is due to release a new album later this year under the title Years of Refusal. Does it get any more exciting?

-

Part II

I am about to include some photos. Most of them were taken during my time in Düsseldorf earlier in the month - a journey I have written very little about here. You will notice some photos of me and James in a recording studio and although it was tempting to make claim that James had joined a band, I cannot be bothered keeping up the rumour. Please pay especial attention to the photo of James next to a public web cam screen - he hates it.

I should have been going to Trof tonight in search of John Calvert and Chris Steele. Unfortunately, a long list of people were busy, poor or physically tied up and going alone just wouldn’t be the same. Talking of Mr Steele, I went with him to the open mic in Greenfield two weeks ago where he played a super-short set in front of an unappreciative Saddleworth crowd. More positively, Railway Rev was still present to ‘keep the tradition alive’! A week later, Chris posted me two short films that he had both directed and written music for. In the unlikely event that you ever see him perform anywhere, ask him if you can purchase a copy of these films. They come highly recommend.

These photographs are in no particular order.

I have come to realise that I do not have the patience, equipment or skill to excel as a video editor.

This may be amateur, strange, tired and unfinished - but I challenge you NOT to smile:

-

I will copy the content that lay here into a protected area of my site. I maintain that none of it was ‘offensive’ or ‘damaging’ - quite the opposite. My memories of 3663 were of fondness and warm tongue-in-cheek humour. It is unfortunate that you have felt the need to act aggressively to one of the hardest working teleorder clerks you will ever see on your payroll. I didn’t think corporate bullying was your style.

Cold Regards,

Thomas.

I stitched the stills together to create the world’s first game of WINDOW PANE BREAKOUT!

The effect would have been better if I had worked a little more meticulously, but I only wanted to spend a couple of hours on this video.

CREDIT TO:

• Streets of Rage 2, for providing the music and for keeping me entertained on the Sega Mega Drive of my youth.
• Chris E : For being cool-y un-cool.

Kate Smith wouldn’t see me on Saturday Night, so I booked myself a room and jumped on a train to Birmingham. Broad Street is, apart from Oldham town centre, the worst place in England to find yourself on a Saturday night. There were topless women intoxicated to the point of no return, clubs filled with dance music and streets lined with glasses and vomit.

As I walked through the mayhem I listened to [insert Darren Hayman or Xiu Xiu or The Robot Ate Me]. I thought to myself: ‘I can do better than this. Surely there is somewhere to go that will provide more interest than these people’. [I had already exhausted the gig listings].

I walked aimlessly around the Tesco Metro in Birmingham City Centre at around 9:45pm and ended up buying an elongated honeydew melon for £2.04. I walked the melon back across Centenary Square and up Broad Street. I felt triumphant and proud. This was my insurgence against the binge drinkers, party-girl sluts and seedy nightclub owners. They all had drunken friends, mid-week careers and hair-gel aromas. I had my melon. They could never beat this bizarre offensive against their monotonous Saturday night out.

I caught a bus into Edgbaston and found a relatively quiet ‘table for two’ in a very friendly Indian Restaurant. This didn’t seem as weird as it feels writing about it now.

The day after I stayed with Rachel and she used the melon in a fruit salad. Fitting. My time in Birmingham induced some thoughtful ideas and conversations:

1. I talked with Ra-Ra about the difference in thought processes between somebody writing an essay and somebody working on a mathematical or programmatic project. I made the point that with mathematics it is easy to break a large problem down into quantum pieces that can be solved on their own without any regard for the rest of a problem. In contrast, every sentence in a good essay can only be written by always considering how it relates to the wider picture. You always have to think BIG when you write an essay.

   This got me thinking about a conversation I had with a post graduate student at The University of Huddersfield earlier this year. He was working on a project that looked into whether some people had a natural aptitude for computer programming. He had administered tests on first year students at the university and his provisional results suggested that students taking arts and literature subjects were less able to ‘think like a programmer’. Perhaps this result is obvious, but it is interesting to think about WHY people have such vastly different ways of thinking. Do these differing thought processes transfer into everyday life? Does Rachel think about cutting up an apple in a completely different way to the way I might think about cutting up an apple?

   Discuss this. Don’t discuss this.

2. I had a dream about girl who was soon to be married. In the dream, I was very close to this girl and I was helping her to prepare for the big day (I wasn’t the man she was to marry). She was perfect in my eyes - attractive and charming in every way. The relationship I had with her felt sister like. Maybe she was my sister in the dream.

   The wedding was to take place in Paris and on the day of the wedding all the planes to Paris had been cancelled because it was during the World War II Blitz and the Germans were on an offensive. I was left to try and sort out alternative arrangements for everybody and I spent a lot of time with the girl in some very desperate situations. I felt happy about our relationship.

   Read into this. Don’t read into this.

3. Remind me never to trust directions and distance estimations from a stranger ever again.

   Trust this. Don’t trust this.

4. The media are starting to create a whirlwind of worry about protecting your personal information on-line. There was a segment on Monday’s episode of The Wright Stuff on Channel Five about whether or not internet ‘blogging’ is a positive activity. I think it’s a shame that so many people restrict their opinions, photographs and interesting SELF from the world because they fear that it might affect their future careers and reputations. I have more to say about this.

   Expand this. Don’t expand this.

Sitting on a train yesterday, I felt too tired for work but too alert for sleep. I created this image to fill the time:

(it may take a while to download on slower connections)

The past week was a sour celebration. I have spent a lot of time looking at the sky and the night. Two evenings remain undocumented. They can be loosely summed using these photographs:

I am glad I chose a Mt Eerie show over an evening of football hooligans and Manchester United. We all sat down in a dark room and Phil (Mt Eerie, above) played a beautiful selection of songs on a classical guitar. He showed videos on a projector -mainly of the sun shining through trees that were shrouded by fog. I was absorbed.

The week ahead is packing itself up in a tattered and unimaginably uncool travel bag. I am still in a rush to answer my friend’s question. I will be travelling to Birmingham tomorrow night which means I will miss the Eurovision Song Contest. Instead, I intend to spend some time alone with the city.

I am ungrateful to anybody who worries about being ‘cool’, ‘bored’ or ‘frustrated’ around me.

Yours,

Tom.

An Aside

There are some moments that you may always wish hadn’t happened on the morning after a late night out. Weary and unaware, this picture is especially and exclusively for a friend:

Thomas and John Calvert (of Madeline Smith fame) in Oxfam, Manchester

——————————————

I went to the Xiu Xiu concert in Manchester last night.

I thought that by covering our eyes with these pictures, we could watch the sun setting together (XX:Thank you):

After the show, I walked around Manchester and gave out the free sunsets to anyone who would accept them. There are pictures of the last few sunsets and the very last sunset that I gave away (They travelled 5200 miles [8368 kilometres] to be here.) :

——————————————

Here are David’s original sunsets (with permission, maybe):

• Mr and Mrs Harding
• Mr Bottomley (Blue Coat)
• Alice Walton
• Dave and Alison Cheetham
• A boy who goes to Saddleworth School and gets on the early 184 bus.
• Richard Barker (ego)

It’s rather disappointing that I had nobody in my home town to walk with tonight. It’s not as though I am socially INACTIVE! It started raining hard after half an hour. I tried to hand out some of the free sunsets that I had with me but the first ten people I walked past weren’t interested in accepting them as gifts so I gave up (plus, my camera was getting wet).

I would like to share this photograph with you:

I took it from a train in the evening which means it’s been spoilt a little by the reflections. It was so beautiful and my eyes were shutting on and off / on and off as I thought about everything. I do not know what I would do without sunsets. And clouds. I am still taking a photograph of my hand every day. Everybody I have spoken to about my hands hasn’t been interested. There was one last week where I held a bottle top in front of the sun and it looked like I was pinching the sun. I wish I had done this without the bottle top. I find this funny:

I want to make it known that Andrew Bottomley challenged me to three games on Monday night. I won all three (on his home turf!), rendering me the better sportsman. We took a trip to Wheatley and found food in an empty Indian Restaurant. Later on, I drank pear cider and Cosmopolitan cocktails - almost as though I too had been popular at university.

There will still be no exemptions for disabled badge holders on this car park!

Floral.

English.

Twee.

And you’re in Wilmslow, Bacup, Twickenham. Stockport, Kingston-upon-Hull, Crewe. I love being on an early morning train and listening to The Elected. It is the perfect antidote to a boring life. I have taken a photograph about this feeling:

As I was writing this web log on the train, something remarkable happened. I had started writing in Notepad and I saved this temporary file with the file name ‘Doweneedhope.txt’. A few seconds later, I looked over at a solitary gentlemen in the chairs opposite to me and he had his newspaper opened on this page (Speedy camera work to capture this!):

I have with me what is left of the TIH magnets. It occurred to me that strangers who find my magnets might think they are advertisements for some sort of Christian evangelist movement and discard or ignore them. They wouldn’t be far wrong. One could theorize that the inanity of my writing on this website isn’t much different to insanity organised religion! I don’t know who would want to theorize that. Inanity. I like that word.

Do not read below this line.

I am going to buy a scrapbook to store any photographs, tickets, notes and other points of interest. I want it to be about extremes. This is an extension of other people’s work. For every place I visit I want to find an extreme - whether that be the top of a hill or the end of a road or the last stop on a bus route. For each extreme, I want to find some way of recording myself arriving and leaving that place. This will involve, but is not limited to, a video depicting me walking to and walking away from said extremes.

I want to include other people in this. Other people do not want to be included in this. I have this idea where I make videos of me walking off into the sunset with whomever I am with (obviously, when I see Andrew, we would be hand in hand). I could create a mirage of people walking off into the sunset. At worst, I would just have a collection of lovely sunset videos. If I filmed the sunset in a location and sped it up like I did here and then filmed two people walking in the same place in the morning (when the sun was behind the scene), you could layer the two videos and be left with two people walking slowly into a rapidly progressing sunset. This is romantic.

I want to make a video in the dark of two people facing one another - one with a video camera and the other with a static camera. The person with the static camera will take a photograph with the flash as the other one records it on the video camera. You could then put the video onto a computer and extract the precise frames before, during and after the flash.

I want to collect things, just to make me uncool.

I love her.

For anyone who received postal mail about round three today, here are the reservoir scenes mentioned in the letter. I apologise for the poor sentence structure and coherence of those letters. I deliberately snapped them without any care or attention:

I made a video on the beach too (alternatively known as ‘Don’t Waste Your Bandwidth’):

There is an area near to Dovestones reservoir that has an aura of Jurrassic Park. It’s very woody and there is very little grass. There are abandoned pits, derelict out houses and an old overgrown tennis court that looks like a breached dinosaur enclosure. With the right people and a good script, it would make a great place for a Jurassic Park comedy video spoof. I took a photo of the place and created an inartistic impression of pre-historic Greenfield (yes, that is me):

Read above this line.

The recent discussion surrounding homelessness and democracy have served as an abnormally interesting sideline to the norm. Special thanks go to ChatAvenue and the guy from ‘Souff London’ who concluded that I must be a posh, homeless homosexual. Closely related, I am shocked and surprised that the only person to have sent me a photograph of the TIH magnet is James. Despite the apparent disinterest, instructions for round three will be posted on Friday morning. Here’s his image:

You will have noticed that I have moved TIH onto WordPress. This transition is slow and unwieldy but it will ultimately benefit my sanity. No more horrible CuteNews.ru templates, out of date editors and other unsupported features. I have written a custom PHP script to move my posts (with comments (and categories if you want)) from Cutenews.ru to WordPress. It works quite well but doesn’t bother with xfields or other special Cutenews.ru features. In my quest to make the move, I came across a number of people across the internet who also wanted an easy way of moving their blogs from CNr to WP. I may turn my script into a WordPress plugin but anybody looking for help in the meantime can e-mail me.

Ten things you (probably) didn’t know before you read this.

1. Andrew gets more and more ridiculous (sorry Andrew!):

2. I called the emergency services for the first time in my life today.

3. It is Arabella’s eighteenth birthday today.

4. I never made it to Colin MacIntyre.

5. David Bates is in a band.

6. I will start my distorted two month journey on Monday.

7. I am related to an ex Coronation Street star.

8. I am not wise. I wish I was younger.

9. I took 50 pictures of the sky over the six days. I only had 6 printed and I faked the dates to make them all contain blue sky.

10. THERE IS HOPE (in Huddersfield).

I voted yesterday. On my way to the polling station, I was told by a hooded thirteen year old that I was a ‘a fucking geek’. We have just hit bottom. Standing there, in front of this boy and his friends, I became disillusioned with everything - with him for being such a pillock, with my home town for having nothing to offer and with my country, in which I lost all faith.

I fail to recognise the point of most politicians and as such my vote acted only as a (futile) protest against all the Liberal Democrat middle class big-wigs who insist that littering my neighbourhood with sickly bright orange signs is the way forward. The last thing I need is The Liberal Democrats trying to shove hollow propaganda into my psyche. I do not care for anyone who claims political prowess on the strength of poorly lit playgrounds and deceased husbands.

Last night, I partook in an on-line conversation with, amongst other people, Yellow T. He brought up the idea that it is important for people who attend university to do their utmost to educate and enlighten those who are not so ‘privileged’. He argued that university is one of the only places in modern society in which free thought and other intellectual talent can truly develop. For society to improve, it is important on a personal level to positively interact with everyone you meet. The ideal being that everybody eventually goes through the same life changing phenomenon that should be the result of obtaining a university degree.

I want to put more thought into some of these ideas over the next few posts - I can certainly think of people who would staunchly disagree with Yellow T’s point of view.

Here are some questions for you:

If you were about to give some money to a homeless person but just before you handed it over you found out that they would spend the money on drugs, would you still give them the money? Are you being morally hypocritical if your answer to this question is ‘no’?

calmdown&listentoher&feedyourinterests&stopworrying&beyourself&ifyoucantthen[dont]belikeme

April is a period of non-stop coursework catch up, paper clip binding and musical ignorance. Unique situations aside, I am determined to take a little time to write to you.

Thursday 17th April

Andrew Boothroyd catches the 8:50am train between Greenfield and Huddersfield. His freshly cultivated Richard Stallman beard acts as an interpreter that converts lines of C++ code into human speech, allowing him to have a conversation with me about XKCD, font libraries and Mars.

Wednesday 16th April

Mars, Waltham on the Wolds. Pedigree HQ. An induction day for the students undertaking an Industrial Placement with Mars this July. Free chocolate dominates the agenda with team games and compulsory dancing humiliation filling in the gaps.

We are treated to a tour around the Waltham centre for pet nutrition. Wearing an oversized white laboratory coat and blue plastic overshoes, I somehow manage to retain self-esteem. I come away with a doggy bag (de-dum) and a sense of overwhelming relief that I had kept my spirits high amongst strangers and predictable social cliques.

Tuesday 15th April

I’m sitting in a bar in a hotel in Grantham, courtesy of Mars Incorporated. DISCLAIM In case they reach this page through Google or Facebook: I love your company and your chocolate and am eager to start making positive contributions to your business. RECLAIM. My probable future flat mates are talking about something. Something. Something. Where’s the heating? Which way is North? Sorry, what did you say?

Now

I haven’t forgotten about round three. It’s here (in my head). Contrary to unpopular opinion, the delay is not down to the numerous negative comments that have been made by doubters and shallow-thinkers. I look forward to visiting all the cool people who have replied to the group mailer I sent out last week. This isn’t a cry for help, it’s just for fun*.

I waited for the sun to shrink. It didn’t…

*credit: Linus Torvalds.

I have an idea for a new project. It will involve travelling over many different locations. At these locations I will stand in a single position for a small period of time and take pictures in the direction of points on a magnetic compass.

Today, I stood for ten minutes in the centre of Huddersfield and took a photograph of the same location from six view points (in three dimensions - well, four dimensions if you take into account the progression of time as I took the photographs). The centre of the map records the position in which I stood.

This is the start:

From: T.Russell C0672628
Sent: 08 April 2008 23:29
To: Rob Lloyd-Owen
Subject: Re: What we become?

Good evening.

Apologies for my delayed reply. I have spent the past few days commenting code that I wrote over two months ago - a laborious task at the best of times.

The week before you sent me your last e-mail, I was in contact with an old friend. My friend was telling me about a new web log he had set up under the pseudonym, “The Presence of Mind” (.co.uk). Imagine my surprise when I read your e-mail and saw that you had quoted a passage from a different website with the URL, http://www.presenceofmind.net/. A coincidence that feels far from coincidental!

The quote I scribbled onto the post-it is actually from a song by Jesse Malin (I’m afraid I can’t impress you with any of my own philosophical gems). The links you sent went a long way to putting into words my own thoughts. The human condition is a continuum of paradoxes. I worry often that I am a hypocrite but it is so difficult to strive for ideals without breaking them along the way.

Last night, I was inadvertently reading through a web-magazine interview with Damien Hirst (I am not specifically interested in his art). The interview ended like this:

“HIRST: … But the answer to how to live is to stop thinking about it. And just to live. But you’re doing that anyway. However you intellectualise it, you still just live.”

I found this quote especially poignant in relation to our recent conversations. It echoes the messages I took from the Wayne Dyer quote. Sometimes, I think I would be much happier if I could somehow free my mind of grand thoughts and transcendental theories. It’s not that easy though.

All the best,

Tomas.

Each month, I will post these pictures in the gallery. I am going to continue taking these photographs for an undetermined period, as a record of my life. I am hoping to print these photos and use them in some sort of real-life work or installation. If anybody is interested helping me with this or has any good ideas, please e-mail (tom@thisishope.co.uk).

You can view the hands for March here:

It is interesting that our perception of others is based entirely upon how we act ourselves. I have been thinking about that today. Last night I posted a very ‘emo’tional comment on this site. In the morning, I thought that if people were to read that comment, these reactions might follow: Dave and SMayer would be sighing at me, Chris and Andrew wouldn’t have the time to understand and Rachel and Arabella might be worried. Of course, these preconceptions are unfounded and in all probability no-one would care about a hazy comment I made in an insignificant corner of the internet.

If I steep so much importance on this website, how does everyone else make themselves interesting? Comment.

An Unusable Video

Here lies a video that mashes together bits of video that I won’t use anywhere else. It didn’t take long >

..and for the benefit (or detriment) of ‘anna Kershaw this post will be made.

From: Rob Lloyd-Owen
Sent: 02 April 2008 08:27
To: T.Russell C0672628
Subject: What we become?

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the return of the book, on your post-it you wrote:

“I sometimes lie awake until sunrise, wondering why we’ve become what we despise”

Sounds very Jungian to me our own shadows presses our own buttons when we project it onto others!

Anyway, I went looking for a response and found this:

“I love humanity in principle but I loathe much of it in practice. And that is the sort of statement I normally rebel against. The implication is that there are two universes, one perfect but unreal, one real but inherently imperfect. I don’t believe in unreality and I don’t believe perfection is beyond our reach. I love what humanity can become, but for the most part has not. One of the reasons we revere great artists is because they have nurtured the seed of greatness that each of us carries within us. One of the reasons we despise great artists, sneering at their human imperfections, is because we despise ourselves for having failed to nurture the seed of greatness that each of us carries within us. I love to envision a humanity that rejoices in its potential for greatness and therefore never has cause to despise itself.” –Greg Swann, 5/20/96 @ http://www.presenceofmind.net/GSW/Psalm.html

Very yin/yang also very Jungian!

Any way I also like a quote from Wayne Dyer that resonates here:

“We become what we think about all day long. The question is, ‘What do you think about?’” — Wayne Dyer

Cheers,

Rob.

The Answers

Click to download a copy of the exam with answers

The Results

You can download a full summary of the results in a neat table here:

Examiner’s Comments

• I was shocked the number of people who didn’t include a beer mat. It was such an easy mark (or has EVERYone lost their self confidence?)
• Part B, Question 5 was well answered by most candidates.
• How did Ruth burn her exam script?
• I feel sorry that I had to knock “The Stick” out of the competition. His attempt was probably better than Bottomley’s. If only he had included the beer mat.
• The hand that Emma stuck onto Mr Bates was the funniest image of the Round.
• I would give a more detailed review of each multiple choice question, but I am too tired.
• Oh and here is James in a modern art gallery in Ddrf (and he never saw me take this photograph):

Candidate By Candidate Breakdown

Mailboxes will be filling up tomorrow morning.

This is about the disparity between real-life and virtual communication in the life of a 21 year old middle class student living in 2008 (irony):

The Future’s Bright…

This is about orbits:

Orbits in Albert Square

You would do well to notice the latest photo album that has been added to the TIH gallery. They represent a collection of photographs that didn’t make the grade for my logs but deserved something better than an anonymous gallery on FACEbook. The collection incorporates a mini project called ‘Thirty Photographs’ - the idea being to spontaneously take thirty photographs in Manchester city centre at night (admittedly an appalling idea).

It didn’t go to plan.

A few notes:

• Professional photographers (or those who spend too much time with ‘the latest’ zoom attachment) are arseholes. Amateur photography, impulsive shots and ‘idea photography’ is a better way to be.
• If you make the decision to run away from a broody cow, make sure you run. They will not give up pursuit lightly.
• Whilst organising meetings, never rely purely on text message technology.
• Girls Can Tell

I have always wanted to do this but it doesn’t snow very often in these parts. Please indulge my highly predictably and unimpressive day…

Tom’s Snow Angel (with insect wings)

The sky above the snow

I went back at night and wrote ‘SOS’ above it using a rake. This is a message for passing aeroplanes or other rescuers…

Later in the night