Week 165: dropout

Monday 16 May 2022

Some work. The big bustimes.org news: now, for some timetables, instead of a list of dates like

there’s a simpler list of what are called OperatingProfiles in TransXChange:

Only some timetables for now, because sometimes the data makes it hard, but it’s still an improvement. And it turned out I’d already done most of the work eight months ago, it was sitting in a stale branch, that was nice, like finding money in forgotten jacket pocket.

You might well ask “is that it?”, and no it’s not, but I think you’ll still be disappointed.
Art! Well, the arts. There was a giant domino-topple here to open an arts festival, I mean you’d struggle to play a tabletop game with the unmarked blocks of aerated concrete which snaked across the city centre, but it was impressive. I was more into the spectacle of the spectators – excitedly dashing down alleyways, chasing the progress of the topple – and the pubgoers going “wahey” each time a motor car had to U-turn because the road was blocked.

I’d been worried I was becoming a miserablist, but here I was upbeat about this bit of communal fun, in the face of a few dissenting voices about it being pointless rubbish and what about the embodied carbon. At least the used dominoes will be recycled, maybe to fill in potholes or build a hospital, who knows.
Watched The Dropout, the “tale of ambition and fame gone horribly wrong” about the Theranos and the Elizabeth Holmes. (It feels strange how they call eight episodes a miniseries, I know everything’s bigger in America but still.) Apart from some cringe at the start, and I got bored at the end, it’s some satisfactory drama, well done to everyone. I’m left wondering exactly how many fun little details correspond with exactly what happened – you know they have a legal disclaimer saying it’s all made up and any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, which is poppycock.

Of course I was expecting it to be about a slot in a bicycle frame for attaching a wheel, ha ha. Because they too are called dropouts, like the people who abandon their university studies. Remember when I was having trouble with them some months ago until I realised the wheel itself was buckled.
This is a sort of social medium, so it’s filtered, just a list of glamorous events, we don’t talk about ennui. But I’ll share one bit of mild desolation, cos I feel I can now it’s more than a week in the past: fishing through a bag of similar T-shirts, trying to find the clean one, and the relief of finding a salty outline, the high water mark of my back sweat, so I could eliminate it, leaving the obviously clean remaining shirt. Life on the road.
Of a midweek evening, normally a poached egg and something is plenty entertainment, but quite spontaneously I went to see Confidence Man at the local venue. They scrub up well and put on a good show, the two at the front with their outfits and dancing and the two at the back dressed as gothic beekeepers. (Supported by Mind Enterprises, with their vintage tracksuits and their demeanour.)

Last time I was there, an old woman spilled drink on me and apparently I was much less angry than the last person she’d spilled drink on. This time, at one point Sugar Bones sprayed some of a bottle of sparkling wine/Appletiser everywhere like a celebrating racing driver/cyclist, which wastefulness I don’t approve of, I took a big splosh, but you’ve only yourself to blame if you go out wearing soluble clothes.
No waterside observations, apart from the little green bugs who arise from who-knows-where and crawl all over when you sit against a tree. The grass these days is long enough that, after a gorgeous day, the riverbank’s bed-headed and you can see the respectfully spaced flattened-grass silhouettes of where folks sat, all the best places to sit. And the discarded bottle of sherry – surprising choice of tipple, but no judgment! – casting a bluish shadow, some light refraction going on.