All entries for May 2008

24 Plans for my 24th Year

1. Go Climbing twice a week, climb a 6c+ and start climbing outside
2. Play the piano at least once a week and make sure I’m learning at least two ‘proper pieces’ at any one time
3. Keep in better contact with friends from far away.
4. Take better advantage of my weekends
5. Do some German once a week
6. Watch the first three series of 24 in German
7. Listen to enough opera to start enjoying it
8. Eat enough Stilton to start enjoying it
9. Run a 38 minute 10k
10. Befriend more Postgraduates
11. Don’t be afraid of mixing my friends
12. Write a short story
13. Stop buying chocolate bars
14. Stop being lazy about shaving.
15. Woo a beautiful lady atop a remote Balkan mountain.
16. Get 200 hits on my blog a week
17. Go to a conference
18. Write a paper
19. Host some parties
20. Put £3000 in the ISA
21. Support the team that wins Euro 2008
22. Make sure people cook for each other in my new house
23. Learn to cook a vegetarian meal that couldn’t be improved by adding some meat
24. Convert a militant atheist to agnosticism
25. Go to more amateur theatre (H.M.S. Pinafore was excellent)
26. Find a singer/clarinettist to play Jazz with.
27. Attain Adonis-like physique

The more numerically inclined among you may observe that there are infact more than 24 things in this list. But then some of them, such as number 27, are just reannouncements of old ambitions so they don’t really count. And yes I know this is a week late but Warwick Blogs was down on my birthday and i’ve been busy since.

: 31 May 2008 15:56 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Empty House Boogie

I went home yesterday and it was mad. While my parents are away the hall is being redecorated and Steve, the decorator, is currently right between the get rid of old decorations and the do new decorations stage of things. There’s scaffolding on the stairs to allow him to reach the roof and there’s dust everywhere.

I went in and removed the dust sheet from the piano and then the music I played echoed around the whole house because the acoustics were so good, what with there being no furniture. I don’t know if anyone has seen ‘48 preludes and fugues’ when it’s been on the BBC, basically a guy wearing a suit and sunglasses strolls into a cathederal, suit jacket slung over his shoulder, sits down at the organ and plays some Bach, gets up without saying anything and leaves. If I had a video camera and cameraman and could play the Chopin I’m learning I’d love to do the same trick. Alas for unfulfilled ambition.

: 30 May 2008 21:33 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Kempez triumphs over card handling fees.

Noelia, Mark, Ian, Ben and I went to see Indiana Jones last night, it was quite cheesy but definitely good fun and I’m really glad I went. What really annoys me though is that the Odeon charge a card handling fee of 70p per ticket, it can’t cost them anything like that much. Revenge was brought however by the fact that I accidentally booked us OAP tickets rather than students. This recouped fifty pence each and also prevented us having to queue to pick up our tickets to show our student cards. Evil laugh. Further compensation was brought by the fact that we sat in premier seats cause they’d oversold the seats we booked. Evil laugh again. Phwa ha ha ha ha ha ha.

It really depresses me that this is what passes for me fighting the system these days.

: 27 May 2008 20:16 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Tree Surgery

Does the budding (geddit?) tree surgeon in you ever wish your plants were a little less two dimensional. My Camelia (Chamelia? Chamelion?) is y shaped and I’d really like it to be more rounded. So the question is, can I by the ingenious use of elastic bands, string, scissors or superglue, or by turning the plant in a certain direction towards the sunlight, encourage growth into a third dimension. The biggest leaves are on the end of the branches and I’m concerned they’re going to weigh the branches down and I’ll end up with two nearly horizontal branches, can I cut them without making them die? Also why doesn’t it have any flowers? These are the kind of stressful questions I have to deal with at the moment.

: 22 May 2008 21:59 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I've got Skype

Crazily enough it’s on my phone and is free. Not that I have enough friends to use the free minutes I already have but you know, it’s always a bonus. I am t.kempton and I think that’s all anybody needs to know to add me as a friend or whatever the skype equivalent is. Plus you have to actually know me.

Looking forward to lots of conversations with irritating lag.

Tom

: 22 May 2008 10:05 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Swedes go mad for Kempy's blog

Follow-up to Hello To All My Swedish Fans from Kempez's blog

And I should spend less time on google analytics, but seriously three visits in a week. Below are some quotes:

Ulrika – Göteborg: I just love to read Kempez’s blog after a long day doing important work at the diplomatic office.

Bjorn – Helsinki: When I’m done playing jazz I like to get myself an ice cool beer and check out Kempy’s blog.

Sven – Manchester: Taking Theo to the world cup isn’t logical, but then sometimes in football you have to do things which aren’t logical.

: 20 May 2008 23:51 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Kempy's Phone Is In Derby

There was an old man in the pub and his hat had a large hole in the brim. He said “sometimes I like to pretend it’s a bullet hole”, with the air of one who regrets that fate has thus far not dealt him opportunity for heroics in a wild west shoot-out. And then he leant forward and asked me, “how are you going to tell your friends that you have left your phone in Derby and that, should they wish to tell of their undying love for you, this should not be communicated by text message?” And I replied, “I shall post an entry on my blog”. But he persisted, “will your readers not feel cheated that they have travelled far and wide for tales of adventure and are greeted only by a mundane entry about mobile phones?” And this troubled me so much that I had to invent a man in a pub with a hole in his hat.

: 18 May 2008 00:22 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I didn’t see her at first, the girl in the red dress. I had been telling my ducks that the hot weather couldn’t last forever and that we were bound to have rain soon and she came right up behind me and asked me whether I intended upon talking to the ducks all night. I told her that the ducks usually like to go to sleep about nine, I was going to get drunk and listen to Radio Three if she wanted to join me. She laughed at that and said it was quite the strangest offer she’d received in a long time. And then some other came and spoke with her in a language that I didn’t recognise. She smiled at me then and said that it had been nice talking to me but she’d have to be on her way. I haven’t seen her since, the girl in the red dress.

: 15 May 2008 23:26 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Question to the blogmasters

Hey,

I export my blog onto facebook so that more people see it but really I’d like the blog to continue to survive here and I want to try and keep all the comments on Warwick Blogs. Is there anyway I can embed into the code (check me with the technical terms) a little thing that will appear at the top of every entry that is exported to facebook saying ‘please visit the real blog’ and giving the address. And while we’re on the subject how does RSS work?

Cheers,

Tom

: 11 May 2008 10:52 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Hello To All My Swedish Fans

I’ve been playing with google analytics! I’d never heard of it until I read Richard Winskill’s blog and it can analyse all the people who visit and it’s very exciting.

Anyway in the 24 hours I’ve had it running I’ve had nineteen visits from the UK, four from America and one from Sweden. The Swedish guy only stayed for just under three seconds suggesting he maybe wasn’t impressed so I just want to take this opportunity to reassure any Scandinavians who stumble upon my blog that I too am a fan of flat pack furniture, ABBA, reindeer and…. actually that’s all the inoffensive Swedish stereotypes I have. But I holidayed four consecutive years in a place called Sven-Gorran Haven in Cornwall so you and I really do have a lot in common, maybe you’ll take a closer look next time you come to visit.

adjö,

Kempez x

: 10 May 2008 16:46 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem