* to understand why “not normal” is funny, you will need to inspect jhay’s recently purchased butthole surfers (sorry, i meant [expletive deleted] surfers) record. some of this was heard in the phouse last night, i rather enjoyed it.
People have always thought I was a bit weird. Not everyone, some people think I am normal, but quite a few people. Like, at school, they thought I was weird. I know this for a fact, mainly because my parents had to come into school and discuss me with the headteacher one time, because all the teachers thought I was a bit different or something. Sometimes they even had good reasons.
Mainly it is Jhay, or my parents, but mainly Jhay that have reason to think this stuff, because they know more of the things I do than most people. Jhay especially, because he even gets to hear my MAD THOUGHTS (this is a Peter Baynham reference, it’s really funny if you *get* it, but most people won’t).
So, anyway. Think what you LIKE, but earlier I discovered that I could not only listen to live (but not really live, there’s a 5 minute delay) air traffic controllers and pilots talking to each other, but also see a nice radar thing with call signs, speed, altitude and things on. How amazing is that? It’s quite addictive. Why? Why have I been listening to it for so long? Do other people do things like this? Obviously someone must do, otherwise there wouldn’t be a website, but they probably have sensible reasons or something. I don’t. So, next time a myspace quiz asks me what I do to relax (actually that might have been a thread on waffle) I will be able to write, “I play scrabulous while drinking gin and listening to air traffic control frequencies.” Thus making my answer both mediocre and random.
Next time I am in a hotel room, late at night, on my own and unable to sleep I will listen to this. Previously I have tended to go for Radio 4 / BBC World Service, the shipping forecast is particularly pleasing if you can’t sleep and are in a Holiday Inn and on your own and the bar has shut. The shipping forecast is great, it’s like one of those comedy shows that you only really *get* after watching them for quite some time. Only it’s not funny. The ATC stuff isn’t funny either. Listen to the WHOLE shipping forecast some time and concentrate on it, try and understand it, then listen to it again the next day. Try and really understand it, compare it to the last one you heard and have forgotten. It’s not got many memorable moments.
Of course, there are people who understand the shipping forecast, who USE it and to whom it matters. Here’s a bit of the one on the BBC website at the moment: “Tyne Dogger:
East or southeast 4 or 5, decreasing 3. Slight or moderate. Mainly fair. Moderate or good. Fisher: Variable 3 or 4. Slight or moderate. Fair. Moderate or good.” Not exactly sure what that all means, but to those involved in shipping it is, no doubt, important. I know where some of the places they mention are (and I mean the ones that no-one ever seems to know of) because I once helped make a windstorm catastrophe model when I had a proper job. This reminds me of several amusing stories about the term ‘cat modelling’ being misunderstood by non-reinsurance people, and the time that I thought some people in my office didn’t understand how to pronounce ’statistics’ when they were actually saying ’stochastic’, but I digress…
At times, I imagine the shipping forecast must be extremely important, and ATC is blatantly so. It differs from the shipping forecast in that it goes on…well, forever I suppose, depending on what area you’re talking about. Also, the shipping forecast hasn’t got gaps in it, whereas this does. I’m hesitant to actually recommend doing this to anyone else, I will probably end up telling someone about it when I am drunk or something, Then they will look at me like I am weird, but I can tell my blog! You can tell a blog anything you want, it won’t care. You might end up finding out that someone read it and people now know you’re NOT NORMAL but hey, I spent a short time today convinced I was going to prison, and that was worse. Other worse things include pleural effusions, food poisoning and having to call your parents to say, “I’m in hospital, I’ve done something to my back,” when they ask you how your holiday is going.
Chin, chin xXx