John Walker's Electronic House

Please be advised: The difference between the smell of rats, and the control fur creature, the shrew, is 17 Baboons. That’s 17 Baboons.

Please adjust any charts to account for this – previous results were not as accurate.

Thank you.

I nearly wrote some tiresome introspective claptrap tonight.

It was a close call.

But instead, I announce my intention to try and write something here, every day. Just not today. Well, obviously today – this isn’t stapling jelly to a wall, this is writing something here. But I mean, the everydaynessiosity won’t start today.

I’m off to Holland for a few days on Friday, and so it would be churlish to begin such an endevour two days beforehand. It would look rubbish. And this doesn’t need to look any more rubbish.

I am unclear of my motives for this decision. Clearly (to me alone) I’m being inspired by (mimicking) Richard Herring’s daily blog, “Warming Up”. But having discovered his musings only recently, I feel safely ensconced in my own ways to not risk being called a silly copycat. The copying is in his intention for the site – a way of ensuring he writes every day, no matter his mood, health or desire. I think that’s important, as I’ve noticed I’m only writing when I need to, and not just because I want to. This = Bad.

Ooh dear, it’s getting introspective again.

But the confusion about motivation comes with my noticing the dramatic fall in people reading. Obviously that has a lot to do with the infrequency of posts, and the lack of much being said in recent entries. And also because it’s rubbish. Although I’m hoping the latter will not prove an inhibiting factor, as it won’t be changing.

Who knows how long it will last. Perhaps it will prove to be a phase, or fall apart as soon as September rears its ugly youthwork and final year of degree head. Or maybe I’ll forget to post upon returning on Wednesday next week, and feel dejected and give up on the whole idea.

But clearly, whatever, however, and whyever, I write because I want to be read. If I didn’t, I’d write it in Word and never show it to anyone. And I do do that, so clearly that’s not what this is for. Wanting to be read is always a reason for allowing writing to get beyond that stage.

So I say: read me.

Do I want to be read because it boosts my ego? Probably. Do I want to be read because I’m only writing for the sake of entertaining others? Definitely.

Yeah.

New They’re Back in the archive.

I quite like this one. The ABBA lyrics in this unedited version had to be cut down for print, as there was no way to fit them onto the page. Also, I love using the phrase, “and had a bit of a cry.”

There is no human logic to the readership of this blog.

During my flurry of posts last month, daily figures dropped to the low teens. Since I haven’t been updating, they’ve gone back up to the high 20s. I must be the only person in the world who attracts readers by not writing. I am taking it personally.

Plans for finding treasure are now definitely in August, since the site I wanted to stay at has failed to get back to me, making booking a little difficult. This should work out ok, as The Doctor has some spare time then too.

Paris tomorrow, London today. OH MY GOODNESS – my passport. I absolutely would have left without it. Phew. Saying that, do you even need a passport any more? I’d like to think an integrated Europe wouldn’t need one, but that seems enormously unlikely.

Oh bleaurgh, and as this further becomes a series of unfolding happenings as I write, I have just taken a swallow of coffee, and consumed a lump of… something. Oh, how repulsive a lump of… something truly is. There should be nothing of solidity in the coffee, and nor in the mug I just washed. Which means it is an alien lump that entered afterwards. Which suggests strongly that whatever it was, it was alive. No longer, as the cruel bath of my stomach acids will have put quick pay to such immodest claims of an extant nature. But it is in the not knowing that revulsion is found. If I knew it had been a fly, I’d think, “ah well, I’ve swallowed a fly”, and then not be able to resist adding, “perhaps I’ll die.” But instead, in the lack of knowledge, it becomes the most grotesque thing impossible, no matter how illogical: someone else’s bogey, a human tooth, some celery, and so on.

Still, I finished the coffee. It is coffee, after all.

I had intended to write all about my investigations into the Mystery of Brown’s Folly today. But that underground-lair-involving excitement will have to wait.

Today I nearly fell, and when I say “nearly” I mean it was so close there were squeaky noises, for a very clever email scam.

I have developed a high-minded nonchalance to email scams, believing myself fairly adept at spotting the things from a long way off, and tutting disapprovingly at people who send money to the daughters of Nigerian dignitaries. Now I feel stupid.

I’ve caught a PayPal scam before, but it was fairly poor. Today’s was terrifyingly good. Arriving in the HTML format of a PayPal email, with the correct layout, and the correct address, it told me that someone was attempting to access my account and that until I verified it, it would be frozen. I think on any other day I’d stop and wonder, but yesterday I bought a t-shirt from a US site via PayPal, and forgot to include international shipping. I emailed the company to say so, and they said that they could add the cost on. So I assumed it must have been something to do with this – reasonably, I would think.

So I follow the link, and it takes me to the PayPal log-in page – familiar and accurate.

So having logged in, I get to this page.

I’m casually filling in the details – PayPal already knows my bank account details, so this doesn’t set off the obvious alarm bells you’d expect. Until I see “PIN Number: (For Bank Verification)”.

And I freeze.

Because nowhere asks for your PIN number (tautological a phrase as it is).

I was *that* close to giving all my bank account details to someone.

Compare how convincing the fake site is, with a similar page from the genuine PayPal. Of course, a couple of major clues which prove me to be the the Mr Thicky I truly am, are the random URL in the address bar that has now appeared, and the fact that I had to dig out IE6 to open the page properly, as it wouldn’t work in Firefox (which all PayPal pages do). It was a combination of knowing that there was the situation with the US purchase (which I now realise was saying that they needed *me* to make another payment), and that some pages occasionally don’t work in Firefox due to poor coding, that I didn’t twig.

So if all this serves any purpose, it’s a handy warning to others that the scam is about (similar versions for Barclay’s Bank around). Details about this can be found here and here.

But more importantly, it proves that master criminals will always go that extra step too far, and get themselves caught by amateur, afternoon television detectives. If they hadn’t asked for my PIN (which would surely be useless to them, unless they were planning on cloning the card itself), I’d have given them my bank account details, and hence sent them on a shopping spree across the known internet. The idiots.

But instead, they now look meek, heads hung low, arms handcuffed behind their back, being marched off by a friendly if somewhat officious police officer, who says, “Thank you Mr Walker. I don’t know what we’d do without you. PIN number indeed! Who’d-a thought it?” To which I reply, “It’s just ‘PIN’ – the ‘N’ stands for ‘Number'”. And then the policeman rolls his eyes and says, “Mr Walker… oh YOU!”, and we all laugh, freeze, and white names start pouring upwards through our reality, terrifying us, all unable to move and escape their gradual ascent across our visage.

Such is my international jet-setting lifestyle, that finding the time to go to France is becoming quite tricksome. Which seems weird.

July 12th I’m off to Paris for the night, for WORK. Oh, such hard, hard work. POOR ME. Send money.

And then July 23rd I’ve been bullied into going to Amsterdam for an overgrown weekend. Seriously, bullied. We get to go there and back by an overnight ferry, and I love ferries. I’m not sure if that’s weird or not. I’ve no time for all that nonsense about being seasick. What rubbish. It’s just people trying to spoil fun. Like hayfever – the psychosomatic need to spoil a sunny day. (And don’t come at me with your “scientific proof” – you can prove anything with accurate evidence – I know what you snivelly red-eyed people are really up to).

So that leaves me the time inbetween, which isn’t so much, really. Hopefully the two daft people who have suggested they’ll come will be free those days, or the whole thing falls apart. That’s not strictly the case – it means it has to happen after August 21st when the prices come down again, but then one of my compatriots will be doing his silly job as a doctor. Pah.

It should all at least provide some exciting stories to put here, if nothing else. And I will be able to use my time in Paris (approx. 7 minutes) to deliberately not find out any information that might be useful, at all. On that matter, I’ve been leant a big book on the Templars by the kindly Alec. I’m not sure whether reading it will constitute planning ahead, so I’m a bit wary. I might read the historical parts only, and if I think it might be about to suggest anything useful regarding the current location of the treasure, I shall fling the book at a wall, run from the room, and sleep for at least six hours.

This is all proving amazingly cheap. If the place I’m looking at in France is available, it’s only going to cost about £50 each, plus food and the petrol to drive down. But there’s a little kitchen in the trailer thing, so we can buy all the ingredients for meals beforehand, and then leave them on the side to rot while we go and buy chips. Paris is work, so no expenses at all. In fact, I get paid! I only just remembered. And Amsterdam is amazingly cheap too. Especially since Nick’s paying – then paying him back over the next few months. Hurrah! Send money.

Here are just some of the treasure-concealing locations I intend to plunder:

A Castle Somewhere


Another Castle Somewhere Else


Almost Certainly Another Castle

I’m not sure if I’m one for posting IM conversations on blogs. Oh, I am.

[15:21] sian: John…
[15:21] John: yes
[15:21] sian: I am your father
[15:22] John: NOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!
[15:22] sian: JOIN ME
[15:22] John: NEVER!
[15:22] John: …
[15:22] John: OH YUCK!
[15:22] John: That means I… KISSED MY SISTER!
[15:22] John: with tongues and everything
[15:22] sian: you ming
[15:22] sian: that’s rough
[15:22] John: oh that’s so gross, I’m going to have to destroy you father
[15:23] sian: bring it on
[15:23] John: mmnnneeowwwwwww
[15:23] sian: I’m not evil master of the universe for nothing!
[15:23] sian: mnnnnnnnnnnnnnnEEEEEEEOW
[15:23] John: ffsshhhhhhhhneeeoooooowwwwwww
[15:23] John: fsshhhhhhh
[15:23] John: ffffffshhhhhh
[15:23] John: tisshhhhhhh
[15:23] sian: woooooooooorrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOM
[15:24] John: OW! my hand. I can’t remember which fight this happens in, but let’s assume it’s now. OW!
[15:24] sian: MWAH HA HA
[15:24] sian: [cuts the other one off]
[15:24] John: Oh, if only I’d paid attention in these films to know what to do now
[15:25] sian: oh if only I’d ever watched them
[15:25] John: LOOK OVER THERE!
[15:25] sian: WOW
[15:25] John: [reaches for giant SpaceGun]
[15:25] John: KA-ZAAAPPPPP
[15:25] sian: it’s my huge army come to save me!
[15:25] sian: >sets 1000000 soldiers onto John< [15:25] John: oh crap, I knew I should have thought of a better distraction than hiring the opposing army to come en force [15:26] sian: I knew that i should have sent you to a better school [15:26] John: well, you win it seems, dad. Congralulations on your new universe [15:26] sian: cheers dude [15:26] sian: fancy a pint? [15:27] John: is this another of your tricks? [15:27] sian: I absoloutely promise that I haven't spiked it with cyanide [15:27] John: then yes, sirreee

There appears to be a fine line between genius and complete laziness.

In tidying my flat, I hoovered the kitchen table.

It’s anyone’s call.

I suppose this works out as something of an update, since it’s been soooo long.

Year 2 of the degree is over, and the youth work qualification is complete. Whether it is passed or not remains an exciting cliffhanger ending until August. This of course finished in one of those hideous all-night days, in which despite being certain that things are on course for a midnight completion, the sheer scale of the task was never realised until, well, gone midnight. I think I clipped the final shiny plastic envelope into the folder at about 7am, Friday, then faffed around until the rest of the world arose, handed it in to my fieldwork tutor in Bath, and then went into the Gamer office, drunk with insane tiredness, and received frustrated stares from all present. Being that tired is an amazing feeling. There’s a vivid joy about knowing you could literally fall asleep anywhere, at will, that you could meet the Enid Blyton cliche of “falling asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow”. And yet not. Having not been a consumer of the Drugs, these are my occasional highs.

My other occasional high is that garnered from being dizzy. This is so quickly dismissed by those who smoke acids or inject the weed as ignorant foolishness. But it is they that are the ignorant fools, refusing to embrace the free ride of roly-polying down a hill. As adults, opportunities to stand in the middle of a park and spin around until you cannot stand any more, are rare. It is frowned upon as childish – one’s time should be better spent filing accounts or taking out the bins. But I charge thee, go about your public thoroughfare and rotate until unstood. Feel your brain swirl, giggle in confusion, and soon drive safely home without having to go to prison for killing a roadsign.

I’ve drifted. This morning, despite being late with over one thousand different items of copy, I am tidying my house from side to side (as I live on a single floor) for the arrival of the first evil horrid people who want to buy it, thus forcing me onto the streets to DIE. Little of this is strictly true. I’m moving to Bath in a month or so, as this flat is being sold from under my swivel chair, so the sellers wish to show people around. My house is particularly foul at the moment, rendered thus after the last couple of months of endless coursework/writing/youth work, and no cause or time for tidying. I have an ingenius plan, you’ll be relieved to hear: I have collected large cardboard boxes, and shall scatter them about my abode to create the impression that this mess is due to packing, and not the regular, everyday squalor I live in.

All is looking good for treasure hunting. I have found a place that rents a cottage for a ludicrously cheap price, and one person who will almost definitely accompany me on my quest, with another considering. Soon the treasure shall be almost entirely mine. Thank you very much for all the comments and emails about this – they have all been hugely appreciated and really helpful. Sorry if I haven’t replied yet – see above. And of course, this appreciation will be shown through the previous sentence, and not reflected in the selfishly small share of profits that will reach you. I have pledged that I will let money change me, and it seems important that this is clear.

Now, I must arrange the terror of mess into my house into piles, with cardboard boxes put nearby.