Last weekend as well as attending my paternal grandparents second diamond wedding party (to accommodate my grandmother’s family) we visited my maternal grandparents home. When I saw this item (seen below) while taking a photo of it I said “I remember doing this at school and making things like this, I think this is in fact mine.” I was however incorrect, and it was my mother who made this, and my grandfather liking it so much framed it. So there you go.

Mother’s Home Made Bookmark
Originally uploaded by clarkalastair

This weekend saw the second of my paternal grandparents diamond anniversary parties. The family members on the right are from my grandmother’s family (her sister and sister’s daughter’s family), on the left are my grandparents, parents and myself.

Diamond Wedding Party (Part 2)
Originally uploaded by clarkalastair

For this my mother (with the aide of my sister) composed a poem called “Ode On The Occasion Of Charlie and Bett’s Diamond Wedding Anniversary” (14th March 1950-2010)

Far more than 60 years ago, the story started. Let us go
Back in time for 90 years, before this day of toasts and “Cheers!”
Back to Ibrox where there grew two families known to me and you,
Two families of Dyce and Clark, in the shadow of Ibrox Park.
When Bett and Charlie think of then, they share the memory of when
They started at the self-same school (where neither of them played the fool).
And many peacful days they had until war came to make them sad.
Though not a courting couple yet, one special thing was done by Bett.
A butcher’s shop was her employ — for Charles’s mother’s golden boy
She kept aside, would you believe, whenever he was home on leave
A lovely piece of pork to roast (“His favourite treat,” his mother’s boast.)
So long before they were a pair, his life was better thanks to her.
Charlie went to France and Belgium; his medals 5 I’m glad to mention;
He arrived to fight for our cause, just as Brussels liberated was.
Bett meanwhile her skills did hone; with a cleaver she was in the zone;
At butchering she was a star, better than Jamie Olivar!
Fast forward: 1948, and tales of a romantic date.
Here comes Charlie, chocs in hand; Aunt Cis said that the match was grand,
“Look no further!” she exclaimed — “He’s brought you chocolates,” she explained.
To Giffnock they went, off for a dance — an evening filled with sweet romance.
Then Charlie went to Ilford town, which made both Bett and him feel down;
At weekends he continued wooing. Long distance love — it took some doing.
But soon enough he popped the question, on a holiday — Finzean the destination.
They arrived in the village late at night, and en route to Aunt Lottie’s Bett got a real fright.
A mooing cow caused her alarm! She held on tight to her loved one’s arm.
But their courting had a happy ending (all bovine frights notwithstanding)
And a date was set without delay; 14th March, hip hip hooray!
The wedding was a grand affair; 150 folk were there!
Friends and neighbours and family; with Bett a beautiful bride to see.
The reception was at the Georgic Hotel; toasts of lemonade were swell.
They can’t remember what they had for dinner, but a telegram said, “This Bett’s a winner!”
Charlie agreed — he’d won the prize. “Charlie is my darling,” Bett replies.
A memorable honeymoon ensued, starting with a kindly dude
They met upon the Wemyss Bay train; dropping confetti was not in vain.
The railway carriage he did vacate, leaving Charlie alone with his mate.
At Greenock, snow had them stuck on that train, but the honeymooners did not complain –
They found a way to pass the time until someone could clear the line.
To Bute they went, to the Craig Mohr; by then their fame had spread for sure:
A mugshot in the local rag caused all the natives’ tongues to wag.
I needn’t recount their married life; at Charlie’s 90th I spoke of him and his wife.
I spoke of them in terms of praise; now make sure you all have a glass to raise.
Those 60 years of married bliss, with many a sweet and loving kiss,
We’re here to celebrate today; to Bett and Charlie — hip hip hooray!

Some of the rhymes require a change in pronunciation to make them work, which my family quite enjoyed, and everyone quite liked it. Indeed my mother is an English graduate.

Another post from the ongoing job search applications!

Degree gave knowledge of programming concepts, and provided projects for completion in different languages which illustrates my ability and flexibility: Pascal, C, C++, VHDL and Handel-C, Java, Prolog, Matlab and Assembly. I’ve had paid project work in MS C++, Qt, and ImageMagick, and a personal project developing a board game on Google App Engine.

I host my own website and email, work with projects such as Drupal and WordPress, and have overcome various technical problems of the Great Firewall of China. I therefore gained some knowledge about DNS, Linux admin, PHP, MySQL, proxies, and VPN. Through completing my degree, and doing science at school, I attained good knowledge of MS Word, and Excel.

Passed a TEFL qualification, and taught for 2 years, showing good public speaking and leadership skills.

• New Podcast: My Weekly Twitter Roundup – New Podcast: My Weekly Twitter Roundup New Podcast: My Weekly Twitter Rou… http://ow.ly/16R31f #
• @JENNIXON9999 Yes, I can see that now. Haha. Sorry for that! in reply to JENNIXON9999 #
• @LiverpoolToday Thanks for the retweet! in reply to LiverpoolToday #
• The Sequel To Bill Bailey -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarkalastair/4348011011/ @RealBillBailey Is this a weird way of self promotion?:P #
• @cfnoble QUAD!!!!! (espresso) That's crazy talk! How can you manage that at once? in reply to cfnoble #
• @DaveGorman I just wanted to say thank you for coming to Liverpool and doing signings afterwards. I was a bit starstruck last night. #
• @cfnoble I'd compete, but I'd not sure I'd like to do it at $tarbucks. I think there'd have to be medics standing by with defibrillators. in reply to cfnoble #
• @8a22a I'll think you'll find that Expats in China are more active than locals near where I'm living at home in Liverpool. in reply to 8a22a #
• @DaveGorman Thanks for the reply. in reply to DaveGorman #
• Watching Episode 5 of Serenity with sister. Really enjoying repeat viewing esp with family. #
• @cheesemeister97 Yes indeedy. That was a period of temporary insanity for me to get that wrong. I feel suitably embarrassed. in reply to cheesemeister97 #
• Listening to "Just A Minute" on the iplayer @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rdxlz/Just_a_Minute_Series_56_Episode_12/ #
• Apparantly the best fish and chips in the uk. (@ Atlantic Fast Food) http://4sq.com/dphnqM #

My ongoing hopes and aspirations at trying to generate some interesting and good photos! I’m sure this kind of reflective photo is quite common (or popular according to what you think), but I quite like it, shame the iPhone camera isn’t sharper.

An Effort Towards Being Artistic

Date on an old laptop I was using to charge my iPhone was set incorrectly, thereby setting the date on the iPhone incorrectly. I got a message on the iPhone saying that the date on the computer was wrong, but the time still changed anyway.

It’s nice to be back in the UK with wonderfully clear blue skies away from the air pollution in China and it’s nice to know that the iPhone can take a nice photo in good conditions after all. Happy Days! I still miss the good quality photos from the DSLR that Miao and I bought together though.

Yesterday we came up to Scotland for the second of my paternal grandparent’s Diamond wedding anniversary (that’s 60 years for those of you who were unsure). Yesterday morning my Dad took the day off and went to my mother’s work to help her with various tasks around the school. I got up and did various packing tasks and installed some server software on my laptop so that I could get access to media on my NAS over the internet on my iPhone. I also prepared my materials for going to the JobCenter for my Job Seekers Allowance meeting, had lunch and walked to the job center and discussed my job seeking status with the man who’s been assigned to me.

We discussed why I might have been refused on the basis of my National Insurance contributions (and the fact that I hadn’t paid for 2 years since I’ve been out of the country). There are apparantly 2 options, one of which is based on NI payments, another not, and how the man at the other end of the telephone assumed I wanted the NI payments one when I said I wanted the other one.

I told him what I’d done recently, apply for the jobs he’d given me on my initial JSA applicatory meeting, join more online Job searching websites, had my CV checked at the place I’d been told to go by the job centre, joined some job agencies, phoned some companies up to confirm they’d recieved my application and my status, looking in the local papers and not finding anything appropriate, and not hearing anything back from anything I’d applied for. He said to keep going, that he couldn’t help me futher, he showed me some jobs of the categories I’d previously selected and he printed out all the jobs descriptions that we read together and I told him matched my qualifcations, and I left, phoned my parents to come pick me up as it had started raining and went home. The family packed the car, we all got in and left for Scotland.

Yesterday I went for a run with my new Nike shoes, with iPod sports sensor in place, and iphone strapped to my arm with an appropriate iphone compatible band. It was a quite painful experience.

In China I became accustomed to exercising in the manner of walking to the gym, getting changed, running with my headphones in, on a treadmill, warming down, showering, getting changed and going home. This became my routine for most afternoons I had off from work. I slowly jogged at 6.5-7 Km/hr for 45 minutes, and was responsible for most of my recent weight loss.

However when I went out yesterday, I found that jogging on real roads (or pavements), when it can go up and down in a way that isn’t even, wearing new shoes that are meant to be supportive of my way of running (gait and foot type) and with the rain threatening -> turned out to be a really less pleasant experience. I find myself sitting now with quite sore rubbery legs, which I admit might be more to do with the fact that I haven’t been doing said routine for the vast majority of the last 2.5 months rather than the changed circumstances.

The new shoes felt like they were giving me cramps, though the shop assistant said they were perfect, and the iphone worked the way it should, except that I couldn’t hear the traffic, which while pleasant enough when walking on pavements was a disadvantage when walking along the lanes to down to the local beach (as pictured above -> taken on my trip home last August with Miao and not on this trip with my iPhone camera).

On this occassion, although I completed my objectives -> i.e. to start running again and to test out the new kit, I was really very discouraged by how painful it all seemed. Here’s to improving physical condition and less painful trips in the future.

Having returned home from living in China for two years, it’s a welcome thing to be able to be with my family to just sit down and watch some TV.

Along with some other recent purchases, I now have a cable that lets me plug my ipod/iphone into the TV. This is significant in two ways. It makes it pretty convenient to watch stuff with my family that had previously been restricted to a computer screen. Secondly it provides me with a second viewing platform and reason for all the MP4 versions I made of DVDs that I’d purchased.

This indeed maybe self-fullfilling i.e. to have a reason to convert DVDs to MP4s and copy them to my iPod to then watch on the TV which I could have done with the original DVD and buying a cable to let me do that and justify the process doesn’t really work.

The arguments against that is that I’m now able to plug my ipod into any TV with a AV component/scart input -> which is basically any TV within the last 15 years, in a way that is more portable than a DVD and provides protection from scratching that carrying a DVD might entail.

It also allows me to continue watching a series or film on the move/in a portable way, that a DVD does not. For example my sister and I were watching Firefly in the car to Scotland, on the train to Liverpool and at home on the TV. Portable DVD players are alot more conspicuous than a lowly iPod/iPhone, and I can have more content on my portable device than on a singular or even many DVDs.

This has all been by the by, as the reason I sat down to write this post was to say I love how good Firefly is, and I am very happy that my sister is enjoying watching it with me.