The One Where Lewis Nearly Crashes A Bus...

I wished they'd hurry up.

Lewis, Martin, I and the rest of the coach full of people were in a hurry to get to something (cycling-related, probably, given the company) and this *joker* of a driver was taking his sweet time during the driver change-over.

 As a bit of a laugh the outgoing coach driver (Who looked in ALL ways like a coach driver, that is to say that he was bald, portly, wearing a huge white shirt and dark pressed trousers and probably about 50.) had left the steering locked all the way to the right and first gear engaged. As the behemoth engine ticked over, the coach was slowly rumbling 'round so that, if the new driver hurried, he'd get to us just as we completed a 180 and were pointed the right way to leave the rest-stop and get back on the motorway.

We were now on a third rotation. The back wheels had hardly moved and neither had our new driver, who, apart from having slightly more hair, could have been a clone of the old one. Realising that stopping the coach with it pointing outward might make a bit of a statement to the jolly, jabbering, drivers. I plonked myself down in the driver's seat, surveilled the myriad pedals on stalks (like tractor pedals, see below), picked one, turned to Lewis and said "Clutch?"

"Probably" - Replied he and I depressed it just as we hit 180 degrees. The engine pitch changed and the wheels stopped crawling over the tarmac.

The drivers looked up from their brews which, somehow, they'd used their northern powers to magic out of nothing. And then looked back down and continued talking.

"Right" - Says I. And threw the coach back into first, spun the wheel back to central and started to crawl away to the slip-road, hoping this would outrage the new driver into some sort of action. I was, of course, bluffing. And that git of a driver called it. He looked over, waved his arm in a way that clearly said: "Go on, then. I dare you.". I knocked it back into neutral and put on the handbrake, dejected.

But, as I walked back to my seat, defeated and annoyed, I was lurched suddenly off my feet. Silently, Lewis had dropped into the cavernous drivers seat and we had all taken off down the slip road like a rocket. 1st, 3rd, 5th - He wasn't hanging about.

The Rumbling V12 (14? 16? Don't know, just going by sound and size of vehicle) engine sounded like a Volvo Penta being attacked by a monster made of treacle and blew black smoke like a dragon.

 Indicating, according to dream-Lewis (possibly real-Lewis as well, I'll ask him) is something that should be done when one is NOT driving a MASSIVE Green double decker coach. We joined the highway and cars moved out of our way. Rolling from lane to lane we destroyed the miles between the rest-stop and our turn off.

When the time came, Lewis left it as late as he could, before swerving violently to the left and flicking the wheel to the right. With all four wheels (probably, I wasn't counting) screaming, the bus drifted sideways towards the end of the turn-off and the beginning of the metal barrier. Lewis had a calculating look in his eyes and, after grinding the bus along the metal barrier like a skate-board on a rail, he gunned the monstrous engine once more and we took off up the exit slip.

But this bus-driving-wünderkind wasn't done yet. Using the incline of the exit slip to aid him, he shifted down into fourth (possibly third, I wasn't watching, but the noise changed a lot) and pushed his foot to the floor, launching the gargantuan vehicle into a wheelie, which he sustained until stopped by the lights at the top of the long exit slip road, when gravity took back over and the front wheels slammed back down.

At which point I had a short bit of a dream about being aboard a Klingon bird-of-prey, but I'm not sure it was connected, and if it was, I have no idea how.

The One With With The Odd Stereotypes

Walking home. Nothing exciting. Just starting to get dark. There's a march happening in the city centre. Students or something, campaigning for or against something, very worthwhile, I'm sure.

One thing I am paying attention to is Guen's dress. It's black with tiny blue flowers on it. Very floaty, but fitted at the waist. Perfect for a warm summer evening.

Dribs and drabs of post-march...er...marchers, wonder past us carrying rolled-up banners under their arms, plus or minus face paint.

One particularly vocal lady with close-cropped blonde hair, in scruffy cargo/jean things with a dark grey t-shirt filled with with rather too much belly and showing the faded black and white logo of some chick-rock band or other, is attempting to stir the dissent of her two marching sisters who were regarding her with more and more embarrassment as the trio walk past us.

I don't remember the exact wording other than "Worthless Scum", but the sentiments stuck with me, in her mind not only were men the root of all evil, but their monuments should be torn down, pictures of them torn up and all women who had ever loved or lusted after one exiled from society. Her marching sisters were less than convinced and moved like people torn between supporting their friend and distancing themselves from a noisy lunatic. The trio disappear from view.

Lovely.

Arm in arm, Guen and I turn a corner to walk through the double-doored "airlock" into the shopping centre which constituted part of the walk home. It was a pair of doors that worked as a valve, only opening inwards so as to control the flow of people in the centre. Trying to make the airlock look less sterile the mall had put a couple of large pot palms in the ocrners and painted a deep dark red onto the walls. One of which currently prevented the backward escape of the two moderates, being verbally pinned up againste it and yelled at by their portly, blond-cropped comrade.

She wasn't happy. Her chubby cheeks blotched red with fury. She was livid that ladies weren't siding with her. I *can't* imagine why, thought I to myself as I strode ahead of Guen to open the door at the far end for her. As I hefted the door open I turned to look back and my blood ran cold.

The blonde mentalist had a pair of kitchen scissors open and was pressing one blade to her friend's throat while swinging another blade around in a dangerously confined space. Guen was trapped between the closed "In-Only" outside door and a knife wielding lunatic. Knowing I couldn't reach her or reason with the lunatic, I leaned past the inner door and shouted for help.

Hearing the shouts, three heroic girls came running. All tall, athletic and courageous they pushed past me. One wasted no time subduing the assailant, her dark skin, obvious musculature and rampant black hair a stark contrast to the the pale-skinned corpulence topped with a yellow buzz-cut. The other two went to help the two other marchers, while I went to retrieve Guenevere, who'd tried to hide behind a 5ft palm.

Huge, brown, worried eyes peered at me as I uncovered her face from behind a protective mop of hair.

A stark image to wake up with... 
     

The One With The Dream...

...was a bit of an Inception style thing.

There's no-one recognisable in this one, so I'll keep it brief, it's a bit dull.

The One With The Dream

So, I was in class. For some reason all of the other students were toddlers. And the Teacher was crying, he seemed really upset.Obviously, after class I followed him from the room to check he was OK, only to find that the door he'd just left through led to a dead end room with three HUGE server towers in it. I wondered why a school with less than 1,000 students needed that much server power. Possibly they were doing some hosing on the side, who knows.

Anyhow, the next day I went to his office to offer an emotional support I could. He invited me in, offered me coffee and we sat on a fawn-coloured set of arm chairs, facing one another. I stated my concerns and he smiled, thanked me for my concern, told me that not only was he not depressed, but he'd not had a class with me yesterday. Then he sat and looked at me as if he was waiting for me to realise something...

...Which slowly, slowly I did. The rest of the class being toddlers? The dead end vanishing trick with the HUGE servers. Absurd! It had been a bloody dream realised I and said as much.

The teacher agreed with me and nodded and I went to get up let him have the rest of his afternoon to himself, but he stopped me with a motion of the hand. I sat back down. I smirked with his own inner-joke and continued looking at me, as if waiting for the penny to drop.

So I thought.

And I thought.

Wait a second...What the hell am I doing in School, didn't I graduate university two years ago? And how did I get in this office, I was in a room with huge servers! I sighed at my own stupidity and saw the twinkly-eyed teacher look at me with amusement as the world dissolved around him...
 

The One With The Pearlised Urchins...

Right, once again, quick as I can. This time I have to go get on my bike for a couple of hours, but I have time enough to write this out, I think. I'll lop off the beginning, which is pretty unintelligible and I think may be leftover chaos from an earlier dream.

The One With The Pearlised Urchins

The internal conflict was raging, but I didn't say anything. Not that it mattered, Guen had seen my expression and "suggested" we head back home, quietly guiding me away before I either punched the guy or jumped in the boat to capsize it or bought his entire stock. Neither of us were sure which I would have done.

The guy, a tanned boat-dweller with tattered trousers held up with string, had a small wooden boat and an obvious skill for free-diving. The evidence was a collection of 8-10 GLORIOUS marine gastropods from the reef. Vast and baroque Queen conchs, spiny spider shells and massive tritons amongst others more incredible than I could name. Just one of them was worth hours spent studying it.

They were alive, constantly trying to haul themselves upright and off the boat and the adjacent dock. But every time they a grip the boat-man would jab them with a blade to make them retract their foot and their movements were getting slower and weaker as they ran out of oxygen.

You can see why Guen hauled me away.

We wondered back to the house that the family was renting. A light coloured American style beach-house with three storeys and a porch large enough for 10 to dine around a long table. I sat on a white-cotton-covered double in the front-most top-floor room, feeling a mixture of guilt that I hadn't acted and guilt that I'd felt it was my right to dictate how this man made his living. Guen, probably to distract me, pointed out a number of interesting bikinis wondering by on the beach below and we sat enjoying the warm breeze blowing through the open, circular windows and admiring the beach population's many ways of filling swimwear.

Guen's distraction tactics have never failed and we returned downstairs to find that the younger members of the present family, that being Chris and Lucy, Lauren, Flo and Ben had gone down the beach a little to swim where the shingle turned to sand. After aiding my father and grandfather with some quick repairs to the VW Camper that my grandparents had arrived in, Guen and I set off in pursuit.

(Art by the talented: Declan O'Doherty at http://declanod.wordpress.com/)

While walking along I saw a dog playing with a whelk, the size of a shoe. It was old and dead and beaten by the waves. I re-considered the man in the boat. All of the shells were going to die anyway. They were all huge adults that had done their breeding. Why not die and leave a beautiful shell for study and admiration instead of dying to leave a knackered-out piece of CACO3 for the dogs to run after? But I just couldn't agree with him.

Just as we reached the shingle/sand transition I noticed tiny shining coins on the floor. Bending down for a closer look, they were circular fragments of urchin shell, but shining with the opalescent hue of mother-of-pearl nacre. Incredible! No urchin in the world makes mother-of-pearl! What on earth was going on?

Just then, I looked up, I'd heard Chris call my voice from the middle of a water fight between him and Ben, while Lauren, Flo and Lucy looked on in that faux-unimpressed way that women can get during a water-fight. The fight ended and Chris waded over while Guen and I dropped our clothing by theirs.

When he got to me, he handed me something. A tiny piece of urchin shell about the size of a postage stamp.   -  "I found this and thought you might find it interesting" He said. "I didn't know urchins made pearl..."

And there, right there in my hand, was the answer to my quandary: The shells in the boat belonged to their wearers and we had no right to them. But also, we had no need of them. A tiny broken fragment could hold scientific curiosity, artistic wonder and emotional resonance, all in a tiny package that would be missed by no-one.

The One With Javier Bardem

I'll keep this brief, because I'm just back from training and I have to get in the shower before I congeal:

The One With Javier Bardem

We scampered through the corridors like rats in a maze. The whitewashed Moroccan walls reflected the blazing sun in so the dust we scuffed up hung in the air and sparkled. On the other side of the compound (Monastery? Old hotel? Ancient palace? Not sure) we could hear doors being kicked open and boots pounding the packed earth floors.  Maybe thirty officers by the amount of noise they were making. Against two men and four women, we were running for our lives.

Finally barrelling into one room without an external door, the girls darted over to check the windows and saw only a four storey drop to the azure waters and the red rocks below. The chase had gone on long enough, we formed up to take a stand and heard the thin wooden door being tested from the other side.

(Like this. Only no Dash. And no lycra. And in a whitewashed room)

We held our communal breath.

But the door didn't splinter and fly open. Instead the air started to crackle and the walls bulged. With the dull rumble of heavy stone the outer two walls and ceiling of the corner room exploded outward revealing two helicopters. One of which held the now crumbling remains of the walls and the other one of which fired two bolus/lasso type affairs at my father and I. The helicopter sped away and the coils of slack line were rapidly removed.

In a well-rehearsed instant we linked arms and shins with Anne-Marie, Hannah, Chels and Emily, before the line went taut and the interlocked ball of us was yanked out of the room and hung from a helicopter speeding away over the Mediterranean. We held fast for a couple of minutes before the aircraft pulled up suddenly and cut the line, launching us in a parabolic ark toward a gaping hole in the roof of a huge warehouse on the docks of the mainland.

From blazing sun into darkened warehouse takes your eyes by surprise, but it didn't matter: We were falling and completely unable to do anything about our landing point even if we could have seen it. As it happened, the landing point was a steep, padded slope and we tumbled, painfully but without injury, to a concrete floor.

Immediately reforming into a fighting unit, backs to backs in a defensive circle, we lashed out at the crowd of thirty or so fighting men advancing on us. Diving from assailant to assailant, barely touching the floor in between, we held our ground. Elbows connected effectively with jaws, knees with abdomens and groins. If you could spring off a chest and connect with another man's throat you did so.

But we all noticed at the same time. Applause. One slow, approving clap. A man in a light brown suit, seated on a cheap folding chair. We looked around, none of the family were down. The assailants had been holding back. This Javier Bardem Bond Villain Person had obviously set them the task of testing us, before he had his part to play. We'd never been in danger for our lives.

Until now...

The One With Lieutenant-Commander Doig...

...was one of three dreams I remember from last night. I have about a 4/10 on detail for all of them, so, I'll give you a quick run-down of the other two and then a bit more detail on the last one (which, chronologically, occurred in the middle).

The One When I'm Sherlock Holmes - Very simple premise: I am Sherlock Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch and a fantastic grey greatcoat with slightly darker grey scarf, and I am fleeing hostile gunmen down back alleys. An unbroken line of sight means my untimely demise due to lead poisoning. Simple. Chuck into the mix the standard dream-type lack of running ability and alleyways filled with time consuming tangle-type obstacles and you've got a pretty archetypal running-the-fuck-away type dream.

The One with M. Night Shyamalan - Was short and intense. It was set in the hallway at the base of the stairs at my Mum's house in Basinstoke, where my mother the inventor (IRL) had called in the help of M. Night Shyamalan the next-door neighbour and also inventor (not-IRL) to go over some plans for a child's buggy (stroller for our USAsian pals) which had to be made of a gel. After a little use of Wikipaedia, I pointed out that gel could be any of a number of substances and didn't have to be standard Jelly (USAsian: Jello). My mother agreed, stating quite plainly that the "Buggy didn't have to be transparent". Well, *OBVIOUSLY!*. But MNS disagreed. Insisted that we stick to the oldschool and use Jelly. Argument ensued. I poked him with a 2H (4H possibly?) pencil, which I'd sharpened for sketching out buggies, but the lead was off-centre and that had annoyed me. Drew blood. Woke up.

Which brings us to the One With Lt Cdr Doig - Setting: Royal Naval Base - 2035 (ish). All warfare and peacekeeping missions are done by drones (aerial and land-based) controlled remotely from a command centre in the UK. I passed-out of the cadets to a placement in Drone-Control (DC) due to quick reflexes and lateral thinking. On this day, I have advocated that a group of cadets be allowed a single days observation privilege in DC to inspire them to continued excellence in the academy.

Needless to day, all does not go as planned. The group of cadets are late, poorly turned-out and do not listen attentively as the Commodore IC (played by Mr Ralph Fiennes) reels off an inspirational less than 2 metres from them. One of them, acting on a severe and obvious hangover (and being played by my cousin Erica. Sorry Erica) goes to far as to vomit within inches of the Cdre's incredibly shiny shoes.

All eyes are now on me, as my suggested group visit rapidly descends into chaos. The cadets are wandering all over DC, playing with controls, getting in the way, breaking things. As more and more officers are taken from their posts to control the unruly youths, more and more drones in the field will be going dead or unresponsive.

Which wouldn't be a problem, normally: They can be put onto auto-pilot. But one of them, an exceedingly difficult station being run by Lt cdr Doig mission (I can't remember if it was a very powerful drone, or a very delicate mission) can't be left unattended. And with a fire now having broken out and ASBO-Youf running riot, the long-legged and very-beautiful Lieutenant-Commander Doig (played, in full-uniform, by my stunning house-mate Guen) has been forced to abandon her post.

Not a problem, think I, jumping into the nearest seat with a terminal. The system is set up so that any terminal can be used on any drone. You use a program something like a browser to select the link that opens a pop-up window and control the drone from that pop-up.

But, unfortunately for me, Lt-cdr Doig is a very competent programmer, she's written an embedded executable onto "her" drone's control page, which hijacks my terminal and starts to re-configure all of the settings to her preferences. Screen colours and contrast, cursor speed and control aspect ratio. The mouse changes to black cross-hairs. Very accurate, but not very visible. The UI is now yellows, oranges and ochres. The information scroll rate is *far* higher than I can process and every time I try to change a setting back to something I can understand, the executable auto-heals. A very clever, time-saving move in a crisis where she is forced to act from another terminal, but very difficult for me to control the tense situation developing on the other end of the line. So, tense, in fact, that I woke up.

Re-booting...

Morning folks, thought I'd just update since it's been *days* since my last missive.

What's new? Now living in Manchester, cycling a lot. Trying, as I was before, to get into the Commonwealth games. Still dreaming the dreams. Still inventing things in my head., but now I get paid to do it.

Vetting happened, I qualified, went to Cornell, studied genetic engineering and proteomics. Came back, did some work as a vet, loved it.

But you can't both cycle and be a vet, so I'm cycling first and vetting second.

In other news, I've released an art book, so if you're in Cambridge, look out for it in all the bookshops there. And I've got an Oxford version of the same on the way.

It's a compilation of a set of photos of Cambridge College Chapels (pretty much does what it says on the tin, really) and has writing by each of the college chaplains and/or deans.


The Oxford Edition is in the works, I have all of the photos, but collecting the writing takes FOREVER.


And now, on, on to greater and greater things.



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