Occasionally I make some kind of claim to being able to string a sentence together. It’s been a while since I’ve had anything published, but a recent article I wrote has now been published over at ak13. It’s on the death of Christopher Reeve – and indeed the death of Superman – and I’m quite pleased with it. Do check it out.

Wow. You can move a file to a new location whilst it’s open under OSX. That’s something I didn’t expect to work at all. And I completely love the fact it does.

The joy of moving to a new computer platform is that you learn a new thing every day. (Sometimes they’re a bit less underwhelming than this one).

John Peel has died at 65. Not much more to say, but it’s a huge loss, to radio, to the BBC, to music, and to everyone who ever listened.

Still, he was working to the end: I couldn’t ever see him retiring. I’m not sure he could have beared to.

Matt Webb pointed out a weird way of folding tshirts a while back on his mini-links. Now Matt Jones has posted a video of Webb performing the feat. Several times.

I’ve now sussed how to do it. It’s really graceful, a lovely way of doing things. The trick behind it is that two folds get performed in just one movement. At the same time, when you demonstrate to someone (or watch the video the first time) it doesn’t quite seem to make sense.

The stumbling block is that whilst you fold the tshirt over its own front, the resulting fold leaves the shirt-face up and puts the bend in the back of the t-shirt.

The first time I did it right, I jumped. You just don’t expect action a to lead to shape b. The fold at the beginning is fine; it’s the pull-through that’s weird, because so much of the topology seems to change in that single pull. It feels like you’re doing something inside-out, except you’re not at all, and it’s the pull-through that makes it all work out. I’m reminded in some ways of an un-knot; it feels like doing a knot but just doesn’t work like one.

That’s why I think it seems so strange and incomprehensible, to begin with, anyhow. It also is neat, elegant, a great way of doing things, and a fun thing to show friends. And hey, it makes me smile every time I do it.

Contents of my iPod’s On-The-Go playlist as of 16/10/04:

• Disco Cubizum (Daft Punk Remix) – i:cube
• Story of You and Me – Tim Deluxe
• Our Time Is Coming – Masters At Work feat. Roy Ayers
• Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough – Michael Jackson
• Girl-Boy Song – Aphex Twin
• Drop The Pressure – Mylo
• Different Drum – London Elektricity
• Sister Saviour (DFA Vocal Remix) – The Rapture
• Soul Dive – Aim
• English Summer Rain (Freelance Hellraiser Remix) – Placebo

This is what I have been jolting my brain into life each morning. Uptempo, funky, dance. Because that’s what it makes me want to do.

I get off the train, and I want to dance.

There was a car crash outside our house last night.

We live right on the South Circular (a big ringroad that goes right round the south of London). It was about 11.15pm. I was reading some webpage or other in the corner of the living room; the girl was reading her book.

Then, a screech of tires, and a loud, dull, boom.

I waited for something to come through our front window.

Nothing did. I went to the curtains. There, just across the road, was a red car, on its back. Glass across the road. Another car, pranged, by the little junction outside our house. I guess the red car had turned safely, and the brown car was coming up the road far too fast – loads of cars take it far too fast at nighttime.

I think people were OK, but I have no idea. The driver of the red car had got out himself, and just had a cut to his head; he said his son was still in the car. They eventually got him out of the back seat through the back window.

We went inside after five minutes; there were loads of witnesses and not much anyone could do. It’s a very busy road and does scare me a little at times. We were both a little shaken up by it, and we didn’t even see it happen.

We told each other we’d look after each other. Then we went to bed.