One day we’ll have a pond in the garden. We’ve got all the bits to do it, it’s just (!) a matter of Niall finding the time (and the right weather) to do it. My ambition, of course, is to have lots of frogs in it. That ambition got a little bit closer to being realised this week when Niall gave me a frog home. Here it is out in the garden with some plastic frogs (another present from Niall).
Pic by me CC-BY-SA-NC
Today’s Daily Create: Write a fictional backstory for a death reported by @DeathMedieval
Geoff the Mason, a mason, died 1298 for stealing vestments, surplices, books & other ornaments from the church of St Leonard of Leicester
— Medieval Death Bot (@DeathMedieval) April 24, 2016
Geoff never wanted to be a mason. “Stone is boring”, he moaned to his mum. “I don’t wanna be a mason. I wanna be a pirate, or ahighwayman, or a priest – somebody with fancy togs”. But mother mason was a firm believer in family tradition. “It was good enough for gramps, and it’s good enough for your dad, so it’ll be good enough for you, young man. Besides which, we’ve got the name now – I can’t be doing with you getting a different job. I mean, whoever heard of somebody called Mason who wasn’t a mason?”
Geoff gave up. It was never any good arguing with his mum. She just talked louder and louder till you gave in because your head was thumping. Better just get on with it.
Time passed, and Geoff went on masoning away. Though he never came to love it, he took pride in his work and became known as the person to go to if you wanted that special bit of stonework to wow your family and friends. So when the bishop of Leicester looked at the church of St Leonard and decided it needed a brand new fancy font, Geoff was the natural person to ask.
Geoff set up his tools and stone in the graveyard and started chipping away. Soon he’d made a fine font decorated with eagles, and frogs and even a little baby Jesus.
The bishop hated it. “Frogs”, he shouted. “I hate bloody frogs. I’m not paying for that monstrosity. P*** off.” “But what about my money?” Geoff asked. “That stone cost a pretty penny and I’ve been working on it for weeks”. “Tough luck”, said the bishop. “Not paying, can’t make me.”
Geoff went home and told his mum. “We’ll see about that”, she said. “If he won’t pay fair and square there’s ways and means of getting what’s due to us.”
So that’s how Geoff ended up coming out of the church with his arms full of vestments, surplices, books and other ornaments just as the thunderstorm started. The lightning came down the church steeple and latched onto the ornamental goblet Geoff was holding. Bam! Geoff was dead as a Dodo.
“That’s what happens to those who go against the will of the Lord”, chuckled the bishop.
I expect that, like me, you’re familiar with the wisdom of the crowd – but have you heard of it’s opposite? Until recently I hadn’t.
Glancing through tweets the other day I came across this tweet from Ron:
@sensor63 @jennymackness Ever heard of “Schwarmdummheit”, social process in groups that leads to a group decision worse than any individual?
— Ronald_2008 (@ronald_2008) April 17, 2016
Yes! Swarm stupidity. Exactly. This is what happens to intelligent people when they’re forced to spend all of their time in meetings with managers, or being managed by managers.
it’s not about stupid individuals forming a swarm, but about intelligent individuals who surprisingly behave stupidly as a group. Gunter Dueck
Do you have a manager who likes to ask you to give 110%? Be warned – you are in danger of falling into Schwarmdummheit. Managers, according to Dweck, avoid thinking by going to meetings. Do you know a manager like that?
In his longish presentation Dweck also introduces us to SABTA individuals (this quote is screenshot from the presentation below).
I’m sure this will resonate with some of us. These individuals, he says, often suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Here’s a version of the presentation in English (thanks Ron)
This week’s Daily Create has been all about Shakespeare as it’s the 400th anniversary of his death today. One Monday it was about Yorick, and I did a quick gif. Tuesday I riffed on “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”
Wednesday I experimented with a comic which I made using Make Belief Comix:
On Thursday I decided that Bottom’s dream would be an endless pit (black hole) of carrots and used my elderly copy of PaintShop Pro to make this:
On Friday I decided it was time I got to grips with GIMP so I downloaded it onto my work PC and did a quick mashup to amuse my colleagues (well, maybe). I didn’t get around to the daily create though.
Today I downloaded GIMP onto my hole machine and used it to create a Loch Ness Shakespeare:
I’d been wary of using GIMP, as folk had told me how hard it is – but to be honest it’s as easy as PaintShop Pro. OK. so I haven’t found out how to resize images yet (I cheated and did that in Paint first), but making quick mash ups is fairly easy and I love the fact that I can Google for tips easily (the copy of PaintShop Pro I was given has no user manual, so I’ve been proceeding by trial and error).
Now to start refining my skilz. Thanks to Sandy and her partner Peter for the daily creates this week – they’ve been fun.
I couldn’t listen to Carole King for a long, long time. It was Nick’s (my brother’s) music, and hearing it took me back to a hard time of hurt, and pain, and misunderstanding. But two events recently made me realise that it didn’t hurt any more. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those dark days, but I can talk about it now without it tearing out my soul.
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A couple of weeks ago Niall and I were down south with my folks. As we drove through Southampton to visit the Solent Sky Museum, I realised we’d be travelling over the Itchen Bridge, and I said nothing to my parents.
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Then last week I came downstairs to find a card from Kevin with these words on it:
carole-king flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license
Lovely words – from one friend to another. And they didn’t hurt, and that made me smile even more.
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(Trigger Warning – suicide attempts)
In 1995 I was studying for my philosophy finals. I was living in a small and chaotic house with my friend Jeremy, his girlfriend (our landlady) Sonia, some hockey playing lass whose name I forget, and Nick. Nick’s marriage had broken down and he’d come over to Southampton to do a degree in Maths. We ate a lot, drank a lot, argued a lot (Nick and Jeremy in particular banged heads about philosophy), smoked a lot and were generally students. We were happy, or so we thought.
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Jeremy and I walked home from Uni, chatting about stuff. Sonia met us at the front door, white faced. Nick had attempted an overdose and she’d found him. He was alive, out of (physical) danger, in hospital.
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As I sat in Nick’s room the next day, picking up the empty pill packets and vodka bottles, I flicked on his CD player:
Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow
Shit. Shit. Shit. I didn’t know. I had no clue. I was a crap sister. My brother was hurting and I hadn’t realised how much.
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We patched him, up, somehow. He tried again twice more – another attempted overdose next, then a jump off the Itchen Bridge.
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While we were down south Niall and I helped mum to put up some of her pictures in her and dad’s new house. On the sideboard was one of Nick and Helen’s wedding photos. Helen is laughing so hard and Nick looks … happy. His second marriage is a happy one. My brother is happy. I realise I don’t worry about him now.
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I spent a while worrying that Nick might try and kill himself again, and then a long time realising that there was nothing anyone could do to help. But I don’t think he will, not now. Not with that lovely orange vest to wear.
BRBB flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license
And, as I wrote this, I’ve been listening to Carole King – without crying.
Pic of Nick with his wife Helen, their daughter Bron and his son Luke in front of their Big Red Bus Bar earlier this month.
Back from a day away, so rushed for time, but wanting to do something with this from today’s Daily Create:
“Alas, poor Yorick, for I knew him well…” Creatively interpret this famous line with something involving a skull.
Never read/seen the play, but think that Yorick was a jester. Google and find hideous actor associated with him (not even linking this one!). Hmmm … off to Flickr.
Jester: flickr photo by duncan shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
Skull: flickr photo by jordan_lloyd shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license
Today’s Daily Create is to re-enact a famous painting. As soon as I saw a lute I knew what I wanted to do. This is my great grandma’s mandolin and I love that it hangs on my walls next to my modern one.
Feeling better today, so was out in the garden for a while and not needing to lie down so much (though I did not enjoy Cagney and Lacey’s attempts to wake me up from 6am this morning). I experimented with colour for today’s grid, but did not like the result, so reverted to black pen. Thanks to this #CLMooc/#Rhizo/ #DigiWriMo etc. community I am far more confident than I used to be about sharing this stuff.
More on the Grids and Gestures activity by Nick Sousanis – behind on this coz I was at a conference on Tuesday then in bed all day yesterday with a temperature and stuff.
Today Nick Sousanis has teamed up with the Daily Create folk to introduce his Grids and Gestures activity. In this, he asks us to:
… take a single sheet of paper (any size, shape will do) and drawing with a pencil or pen, carve it up in some grid-esque fashion that represents the shape of your day… The emphasis here is to do your best to not draw things.
I found it very hard not to draw things. Funny, because I usually doodle shapes and not things, but suddenly I wanted to draw ukes, and daffodils, and yarn. Still, I tried to resist, and here’s my representation of yesterday:
I woke to sound of a cat purring on my shoulder and a cuppa from Niall. Played music and looked at the flowers in the garden in the morning before being driven to the mum-in-laws for lunch then knitting. Driven home, folded washing, tidied paperwork, more music. Then TV dinner before bed. The last thing I recall is Lacey cat curling up in her bed at my feet. Bliss.
