Words

I got to use the word "polytomous" today. It makes being a statistician almost worthwhile. I'm still not sure where to put the stress when pronouncing it though (my use was in an email). My paper dictionary doesn't include it, and it baffles the spell-checker.

I'm still working on an excuse to use heteroscedastic, or leptocurtic.

You mean I have to do this myself?

I keep changing my mind about whether recruiters are the best thing since sliced bread, or just completely hopeless. As a person who is really rubbish at finding jobs on my own, the obvious solution is to get a professional to do it for me. A few years ago, when starting on a previous bout of joblessness, I was warned to ration my use of recruiters, because they would pester me all the time. Fat chance.

Steven Campbell

I'm taking advantage of my half-idleness just now to go to lunchtime talks. Today we looked back on the work of the painter Steven Campbell, who died last year. The talk was significant for me as he was one of a remarkable generation at Glasgow School of Art in the early 80s who were held up as an example when I was at school. He was in the same year as Ken Currie, who won the annual Newberry award. Since Steven was also clearly exceptional, they invented the Bram Stoker award for him. These and other figures meant that when learning about art in the 80s, I had some local examples that gave me a connection to new developments in painting. As a result I never questioned that figurative painting was worthwhile, and am probably still working out of an enthusiasm born at that time. Scotland in the 80s could be a right miserable place, so some genuine heroes (mostly working class too) went down very well.

To be honest, I've never been a completely consistent fan of Campbell's work - it often seemed overblown and a little pretentious. Today's talk did address this somewhat: he was more versatile and thoughtful than I probably gave him credit for. Now what we need is a proper retrospective.

Midweek mountaineering

Just for once, I made an accurate assessment of the weather forecast on Wednesday, and predicted good weather in the West. And just for once, I was able to act on it, given my present state of semi-employment. My reward was a walk up Beinn Eunaich and Beinn a' Chochuill on a clear, crisp day that felt more like spring than February. These are next to Ben Cruachan, which is always a photogenic chap, and looked almost Alpine yesterday with its snowy corries and horn peak. Look:

Fine views towards the cloudier part of Scotland too. This is looking towards Beinn Eunaich, with Beinn Lui prominent on the right. I think that's Ben More and Stob Binnean poking up in between.

I need to get a decent digital camera: I could have taken twice as many pictures, but ran out of memory.

Oh, and Loch Awe has to be a contender for more picturesque station in Britain. It's ridiculously small, squeezed between the loch and a huge mock baronial hotel, and has a cute (presumably original) iron footbridge.

Rudolph knew his pictures

During my visit to Prague in December, I learned about Rudolph II and his famous collection of paintings. I'd only vaguely been aware of this before, but learned a lot during my visit to Prague castle, where they are trying to reunite as many of Rudolph's paintings as they can. This is a big task, as they have been scattered by such forces as: bickering relatives, disgruntled Swedish armies who need to get some looting in before peace breaks out, and objects ending up in different countries when an empire breaks down.

I'm now going to see references to the man everywhere. Last week Melvyn Bragg did a program about Rudolph's court. Yesterday I went to a show in the Queen's Gallery in Holyrood Palace, and what should be there but Breugel's Massacre of the Innocents. It was part of the royal collection in Prague, where R had the dying children painted out and replaced by animals and bundles. Charles II later bought it. Him and his dad were responsible for a lot of the good gear in the royal collection.

The conclusion

My telephone line had a fault, quite apart from my old phone being very dodgy. Two BT engineers called this morning, and after ritual sucking of teeth and some impromptu reconfiguring of the window shutters, an ancient Bakelite box was revealed, bearing the inscription GPO. I wonder why these junction boxes are traditionally placed in bathrooms? One of the engineers reckoned that it had been there for fifty years.

The wizzy new cordless phone took a ridiculous time to charge, and somewhere in the confusion, I swapped it for a traditional one. I'm happy now.

Shopping

I must be getting middle aged, because I will use the flimsiest excuse to visit John Lewis. However, my excuse this time was quite a good one: my house phone completely stopped working this morning, and I felt that wasn't a good state to be in. It has been a temperamental beast for some time, with the ring coming in a random variety of patterns, often having crappy and very directional sound quality, and usually requiring several attempts to actually dial a number. But I forgave it all these because I got it for nothing.

So for under £20, I now have a digital cordless phone with caller display and who knows what else. I do resent the fact that it needs a power source though. The traditional phone was a very elegant design in that respect, needing only the tiny line voltage to make it work. The modern home is full of plugs with step-down transformers.

Today's art

I expected to like the current exhibition of Carol Rhodes' work at the Modern Art Gallery, after leafing through the accompanying book. However, this is an example where reproduction is very kind to the work. I expected large monumental landscapes, but they were quite small, looking rather forlorn in the large rooms. They also strike me as lazy and dull, combining a number of pretentious features: the lack of frames, the deliberate "naivety", and an ironic distance from the subject. At their best, there is an echo of Edward Hopper, but only just.

Never mind. It was free and the cafe downstairs is excellent.

A dose of art

I should be more grateful for living in Edinburgh. There aren't too many places where you can pop out on a whim to see some Turner watercolours. These are part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery, but are only show in January when it's dim. Mr Vaughan was very kind to do this, but he obviously never realised that the light in a gallery could be artificially controlled.

I like the way the Portrait Gallery always has some wee exhibitions in the gaps between the headliners. In particular the quirky things they put on next to the cafe are always a delight. They currently have some portraits generated from death masks in an Edinburgh collection. The results are eerie, beautiful "photographs" of people who, in most cases, died before the invention of photography.

I am a lazy blogger

The parents seem to be settling down now and need only occasional maintenance. The weather is classic Northern Europe in January: dark (I have the lights on and it's 11am), damp, and cold. (Surely, ancient humans used to hibernate? If not, surely they at least spent a lot of time in the cave under the prehistoric version of a duvet, living off body fat?) I also keep forgetting my password for Blogger and it's quite an exercise to reset. But enough excuses.

Still here

I know, I've been a bit quiet recently. A mixture of giving up my job, having to be nursemaid/butler to aging and ailing parents, and visiting Prague over Christmas, probably accounted for this. It's been a miserable month or so (though Prague was good). I just hope 2008 gets better. Focus on the positive: at least I don't have any more commuting.

Lucky

The man ahead of me in the newsagents has won £97 in the lottery. Unfortunately, they don't have enough cash to pay him.

Nostalgia

Today reminded me of a lot of my childhood. It was raining when I woke, raining on the train in to work, raining and only half-light all day, and is still raining now. Ah, my country!

I work with professionals

Apparently, there's some kind of football match on today.

Our office backs onto the Radisson hotel, where the Italy team are staying. Friday afternoon consisted of female coworkers shriekingly speculating if any of the team had their curtains open.

If you swaped the roles of the sexes here, the behaviour would of course be quite unacceptable (think Les Dawson, circa 1976).

Joan Eardley

I expected to like the Eardley show that is currently on at the NGS, and this can be a prelude to disappointment. Luckily, this was not the case, as it is excellent.

I was quite carried away by a roomful of paintings of children from Townhead. It never really occurred to me that they encapsulate an era that was almost over. Townhead was mostly demolished to build the M8. JE's paintings are now a record of a world where children played in the streets and seemed to have a sense of togetherness that you'd be hard pushed to find these days. The children would all be about 60 now.

Go home!

A particular pet hate of mine came up today. My colleague, J, arrived at work full of some cold-like infection. Several people I work with have gone down with (presumably) the same bug recently. She took great delight in pointing this out, and in speculating who would be next. When the obvious question (why did you come in?) came up, she proudly stated that she hadn't had a sick day this year, and she certainly wasn't going to start now! Well, thank you J, the rest of us will sacrifice our health to your perfect record!

Later, I heard her talking on the phone to the other office and telling somebody else with lurgy to go home. She seemed unaware of the irony.

Back to the future

I really enjoyed the current exhibition of Basil Spence's work at the Dean Gallery. For one thing, I live near several of his notable buildings, including the gleaming white ex-garage in Causewayside, where, coincidently, I bought some beer this morning (it's now a beer/wine merchant). The whole show was a succession of "I didn't know he did that". By the late 70s and 80s I think he had become a bit embarrassing, like an eccentric old uncle who you have to be polite to at Christmas, so I didn't know anything about the man, despite encountering many of his works. But recently, that rule has kicked in whereby a building that survives maybe 40-50 years will be appreciated on its merits.

Not featured other than in passing was the Natural Philosophy department of Glasgow University, where I spent a lot of 1990-94. This could be because they screwed it up quite a bit during an unsympathetic refurbishment in this period. This was just before BS's star was in the ascendant, so there were few dissenting voices. At least it's still standing.

Happiness is...

...finding a fiver in the pocket of an old pair of trousers that you are about to throw away.

Dave's busy day

This morning in work I have a long rambling impromptu conversation with a colleague about life, work, education, the Civil Service, and me. It's one of these exchanges when some things fall into place. I realise what it is I don't like about this, and my last public sector job. Maybe I should just look elsewhere--my previous best job was in private industry, and I think that it suited me better. Despite the greyness of the day, I feel happy. Self-knowledge is always worthwhile.

This evening, I attend an event at the Queen's Hall. David Lynch is promoting his new book, and answering questions from loads of art students about transcendental meditation, film-making and everything else. He is supported by Donovan, who sings and reminisces about being with George Harrison and the Maharishi in the ashram. Another odd Queen's Hall experience for me, almost up there with Stockhausen. I got the invitation through work, as well as an invitation to the after-show reception, so my life seems briefly glamorous.

Good to see

There's a nice exhibition of Alasdair Grey's work in Cafe Cossachok in Glasgow. Great to see some original versions of book covers, and some very early work from the 50s. It's just a shame that somebody of this status has a retrospective in the downstairs room of a restaurant (albeit a very nice one).

A quick visit too, because it's only on till Saturday, and I only found out on Tuesday, and I'm busy.

More please, but organise better next time.