A-Z Reflections - #atozchallenge

Dear Reader,

Now the A to Z challenge is over, I've had a little sleep, it was long overdue. Now I am awake again. It seems I spent quite a lot of time during this challenge bemoaning how difficult this was. Some of my friends have pointed out that if I had planned in advance this would have been so much easier. One of these friends is still in intensive care. Apparently getting a flea out of your ear can be quite serious if it has been buried deep enough. Anyhoo...

The Dear Lady Wife has been affected as well. She was often to be found rocking on the sofa knitting A-Z Widow paraphernalia during this task. As a result I have four pairs of mittens, (size: random), two sweaters (size: too large for a human), twelve beanie hats (size: well, not exactly head-size) and a number of other barely started knitting objet d'art. Search for A-ZWidowShop.ebay.co.uk  and see how you get on. She has stopped swaying now and more importantly she has stopped knitting, thank [insert major deity here].

It is only right to thank the people who organized this madness and as a result started me upon it:

 Arlee Bird and his A-Z Team, a big thanks goes out to them! 

Alex J. Cavanaugh (Alex J. Cavanaugh), Amlokiblogs (Damyanti Biswas), Coming Down The Mountain (Karen Jones Gowen), Life is Good (Tina Downey), Retro-Zombie (Jeremy Hawkins), Cruising Altitude 2.0 (DL Hammons), The Warrior Muse (Shannon Lawrence), The QQQE (Matthew MacNish), Author Elizabeth Mueller (Elizabeth Mueller), No Thought 2 Small (Konstanz Silverbow), Pearson Report (Jenny Pearson), Breakthrough Blogs (Stephen Tremp).

An extra special thanks to Jenny Pearson who found the time to pop over and comment whilst undoubtedly doing this for many other blogs as well.

As previously stated, I seem to be a little negative about this whole experience. I don't mean to be. It was hard (for me) but that doesn't mean it wasn't good. If you considered this year and refused, or are considering next year for whatever reason expect some changes to your world. Stats may be required:

• Visitors per month - doubled my highest month ever. Thank you all.
• Followers via Google Connect - gained twenty-seven during the month, welcome aboard. I had twenty-five previously so doubled again.
• Followers via Feedburner - a difficult stat as it seems to go up and down based on some metric that i don't really fully understand. All I know is that I look at a nice graph for the last 30 days it was about a third higher than it was at the start of the month. So, welcome to you as well.
• Comments - Oh the joy of comments. My dear little diatribe had received fifty comments in the best part of two years. Add another hundred for the last month. All from lovely people too, thank you every one for taking the time.

Whatever the reason you have for writing stuff down, one of the stats above may mean something to you. It is not all about stats though, it is about connecting, which is why the comments stat means so much to me.

On a personal note I posted more things in one month that I did in my first two years of blogging. Which means I have learnt something, although I am not sure what. Once I have worked out what that thing is I will be sure to report to you what it is, if I remember.

More soon Dear Reader

xx

PS: There isn't actually any knit wear for sale, that bit was made-up. Sorry.

Zoomorphism

Dear Reader, 

So, finally we have reached the letter Z. For me, the A-Z Challenge has been just that, a challenge. It is a challenge I may have technically failed, but for me, once this last one is completed I have succeeded on a technicality. That being said, it has been very useful in a number of ways, which I will share before the end of the week. There are a number of positives I will take from this as well as some lessons learned. 

So just to finish off this little odyssey I am camped in a bar in a London train station as I am shortly meeting some friends with the intention of watching the Manchester derby. Go City! Once again I have set myself a ridiculous target. Oh well.

Anyhoo, back on track, so the letter Z. Another big spender in the scrabble world, again there is a bit of shortage of options. I was prepared though. Right at the beginning of this I posted about anthropomorphism, the very human habit of applying human traits and behaviours to animals, in my case, my pets.

There is a logical opposite to anthropomorphism, which is zoomorphism. This is the habit of applying animalistic traits and behaviours to humans, amongst other things. Wikipeadia is a little sparse on this subject, which, although slightly disappointing, allows me to draw on my huge personal store of knowledge on this subject. Ah, damn spell checker. In the last sentence the bit after "allows me to" should read "make stuff up". Technology, eh? Getting distracted, must stop doing this.

So, zoomorphism. There is an example in classical literature I can draw upon that demonstrate zoomorphism.  That example of classical literature is Viz, a comic that satirised the British comic style of the 40's and 50's but made it modern, and in somewhat bad taste. One of the regular strips that ran in this fine publication was Billy the Fish. Billy the Fish was the goal-keeper for a struggling fictional football team called Fulchester United FC. 

Billy, in all his glory.

Billy would always manage to save Fulchester United FC from difficult situations with his fishlike skills. Well, until he died anyway. No matter, as his son, who looked just like him and was also gifted wish fish-like skills soon followed. This paragraph sort of sums up Viz for me.

I may soon, return to this post and update with some more zoomorphic entites but for the time-being that is  it for the A-Z Challenge anyway. I will, however, be back with a little analysis of the process quite soon. Time and battery life is against me as the biggest football match of the premiership season calls. 

More soon Dear Reader,

xx

Yak

Dear Reader,

I don't why Y is so difficult but it really is. Put "Y is for" into Google and you get a bunch of recent blog posts from A-Z Challenge participants. Judging by some of the results, yo-yos, ytterbium, it may not just have been me that has struggled.

I have a list of words beginning with Y, it's a depressingly short list. I have just googled "yonder", which is (wave arms theatrically in one direction, pointing,) over there somewhere, apparently. 

I am scanning the wikipedia entry for Yttrium which has all the endearing features of a really dull, relatively common, non-precious metal. None, in other words.

Oh, how about Yggdrasil, Norse cosmology anyone? It was an immense tree that held the nine worlds of Norse cosmology together. Yup, thought not.

This is the problem with Y. It doesn't provide much to work with. How about Yak then? Well I have already posted about Llamas this month, so why not another random furry beast?

Yaks are the default beast of burden if you happen to live in the vicinity of the Himalayan Plateau.

Young yak.

 Penny for your yak, sorry thoughts, I meant thoughts .

Interestingly new sports are springing up with the yak central to them. Take yak skiing, a wonderful idea. Attach a rope to a herd of yaks, feed the rope through a pulley. Get the yaks to wait at the top of a snow covered hill. Attach the other end of the rope to yourself and wait at the bottom of the same hill. Rattle a bucket of yak food loudly. Watch as a herd of yaks stampeded down the hill, dragging you at high speed up the hill. Oh what fun, I wonder when they are having a health and safety audit.

Yak skiing, obviously.

Disappointingly I couldn't find a photo which properly does justice to the madness that is yak skiing. We will just have to use our imagination. It doesn't take quite so much imagination to understand yak polo. Remove the horses, replace with yaks and you get a slightly slower, hairier and more horny version of polo.

Careful with that mallet.

So, that's the yak. Adaptable to all manner of sporting endeavour. Synchronised swimming might be a bit of a stretch though.

Back later Dear Reader, when I will be considering the zen of Z

xx

X-Factor

Dear Reader,

Onward, ever onward. Here we are at the letter X. Given the relative sparsity of words available X-Factor has proved convenient subject matter. It is also a Dear Lady Wife suggestion so I can always blame her if this goes horribly wrong.

X-Factor then, where do you start? Well, if you haven't seen it then I guess I better explain. It is, on the face of it, a talent competition. It is judged by pop svengali Simon Cowell, accompanied by which ever group of pop luminaries are currently in favor.

The X-Factor plays out in three phases, the auditions, judges houses and finally, the ultimate prize, the live shows. Let us deal with each phase in turn.

The Auditions.

Auditions take place across the UK or US, depending on which one you are watching but follow a similar formula. There are good auditions, OK auditions and bad auditions.

Good auditions first, these will either be really good or OK. Good auditions are delivered by people who have a shot at the live shows. A good audition example:

Not too shabby, Danyl was good enough to make the live shows, but did not win. A good audition does not guarantee success.

The OK auditions are normally accompanied by a story. A story can get you a long way in the X-Factor. The story normally involves misfortune, the type of misfortune that is guaranteed to get an emotional response from people watching. If Kayla is doing it for her recently deceased mother or father then she has a shot. If Kayla is doing it for her recently deceased father and her very much alive mother who is in the audience tonight but doesn't know that Kayla is auditioning because they became separated at the age of four by social services and only made contact again last week and her dog has got cancer and her cat saved the lives of four hundred people by dragging them all from a burning building using nothing but his tail, then, you have a guaranteed audition. That, is a story.

The other side of the coin is the bad audition. Bad auditions are the car crash moments that allow Simon to give full rein to his wit and biting sarcasm. Bad auditions are normally attended by people who have an over-elevated view of their ability, quite often they are also a little bit mad. This combination makes good telly apparently.

Beware the holistic vocal coach bearing gifts!

Much wittling of this nature happens over a four to five week period. Two-three weeks is spent travelling around the host country, followed by a more focused set of auditions which eventually leave us with the acts that move on to next significant stage.

Judges Houses.

The acts that have reached this stage are nearly all competent. During this phase the judges have been allocated their mentoring categories. The categories are as follows:

• Girls - Regularly win.
• Boys - Regularly win.
• The Overs - I call them the overs as the age range for this category is fluid. It could be over 35's, the over 30's, so on and so forth. Never seen a winner in the UK anyway, but commercial success can happen for one who reaches the latter stages.
• The Groups - Rarely win but, commercially are one of the strongest categories.

There are normally between 5 and 10 acts per category. You would think that by this time everyone in the competition would be able to hold a note and this is largely true. There are however, a couple lurking (normally in the Overs category,) who can only hold a doctor's note. These observations are UK specific, I have not had the pleasure of witnessing another competition unfold.

During the Judges Houses stage of the competition contestants are apparently shown a little bit of the celebrity lifestyle, and perform to the judge allocated to their category. What they are not shown, however, is the judges houses. These are very nice pieces of property rented for the show.

The hook with judges houses is the decisions. Each judge must sit down with each act in turn and tell them the good or the bad news. There will be many, many tears. Tears will often come from the judges (not Simon obviously, he is above all of this.) Tears will always come from the acts though, story or not.

Astonishingly, once this final wittling is over there will be still at least one basket case left in the competition. They will be able to sing a bit, have some charisma and can entertain. They will, quite clearly never win. They are normally in the Overs category. They do however give the live shows some comedy moments, where we shall go to next.

The Live Shows.

So, the X-Factor moves into the final phase. This is where the judges/mentors can only influence the outcome with the help of song choice, styling and production. No matter what they do, it is the public who decide.

In the UK each live show is played out over approximately 5 hours spread evenly between Saturday and Sunday. Filling that time clearly gets more difficult as time goes on. The live show has a host, who is really peripheral but sort of necessary. What this stage is all about is the story. Every week, every artist has a story. It may be a re-hash of a previous story or it may be an illness. It could be that the contestants' cat can't stop coughing up furballs. The contestant may have lost his / her voice for six days. The mentor is with them all the way through all of these mini-traumas if the story is to be believed. They might even be catching those furballs.

Each live show is also played out in the press. All contestants are now under the microscope, their past and present laid out for all to see. If one of them falls out of a nightclub at 3 in the morning with a lady on his arm, the public will know about it. If there is a lot of press coverage, you can be sure that their story for the next week will include this.

It is a perilous weekly journey that finishes with the public vote. Eventually there will be a final three and someone will win. That someone will sell records, without a shadow of a doubt. The someone who has sold the most to date is a diva. This return to the stage for a results show proves that occasionally these shows find someone amazing. Leona Lewis is proof of that.

So when the show is over, some will win and some will lose. It is supposed to be a singing competition, sometimes it is. In reality once you get to the live shows it is a popularity competition, pure and simple. This competition gets played out over the newspapers, forums and the web of the participating country.  

All of this is good for Simon. Many participating acts end up on his record label Syco, a fifty-fifty partnership between himself and Sony, who just want to sell records, as many as possible. Any arriving act who has just spent the last twelve to fifteen weeks on prime-time telly touting their wares is in a good place to start a recording career. This is good business.

I could spend a bunch of words being negative about this show, which begins as a circus and ends being something more akin to a money making machine. It's a guilty pleasure though, at least the latter stages. For the Dear Lady wife, I don't think there is any guilt at all. 

Onto later Dear Reader, as I attempt to yield all of the mysteries of the letter Y.

xx

Wormhole

Dear Reader,

I seem to be on a bit of a science bender at the moment. I like to stick with that unclassified blog thing that makes professional bloggers throw their arms up in the air and talk about marketing. . That always happens when someone mentions marketing in my presence. Anyhoo, you have waited and waited some more, because I am late, but finally I am back to talk about wormholes.

Science seems to be high on my agenda at the moment, I am not sure why. I talked about the Universe and threw in a particle physics joke in the last two days (the latter of which I will always be proud of.)

One thing that must be abundantly obvious by now is that none of this is planned, the A-Z Challenge continues to be precisely that, a challenge. Maybe my W post should be about whining...

So, wormholes, what are they?  Wikipedia says the following:

"a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional (2D) surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it allows one to picture a wormhole "bridge". (Please note, though, that this is merely a visualization displayed to convey an essentially unvisualisable structure existing in 4 or more dimensions. The parts of the wormhole could be higher-dimensional analogues for the parts of the curved 2D surface; for example, instead of mouths which are circular holes in a 2D plane, a real wormhole's mouths could be spheres in 3D space.) A wormhole is, in theory, much like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in spacetime."

I hope that has cleared everything up! If not then try the practical version. Take a piece of paper and lay if flat on a surface. Put a dot near the left edge and another near the right edge. Lets pretend the dot on the left is our Sun and the dot on the right is the nearest star to us that has some planets (albeit proposed), Epsilon Eridani. Epsilon Eridani is 10.5 light years away give or take which in spaceflight terms is a long way away. So the distance between those two dots is 10.5 light years. Using technology that we haven't invented yet, but at least exist on paper we could get there in a couple of centuries(ish.) Wormholes offer the possibility of dramatically shortening the distance, simply by folding the piece of paper and making the dots touch.

What a wormhole might look like, or not, obviously.

There are some problems, though. No wormhole has ever been observed. There is room for them to exist on paper but we have as yet not observer them. The may well exist, but not near enough for us to leverage their function. This is a little like knowing that I could get a tube into central London from Heathrow Airport in 40 minutes, but living in Australia, this information really isn't much help.  

There is another problem as well. Assuming that wormholes exist as proposed, anyone brave enough to take the shortcut would not only be travelling through space, they would also be travelling through time, which would make scheduling meetings a huge headache. 

Regardless of the problems regarding wormholes they have made interstellar travel, even intergalactic travel possible, in science fiction at least. This is a good thing. How many seasons would Star Trek have run for if they couldn't get out of our own back yard. Doctor Who would be a total non-starter.

It's the Moon, Jim. Just like last week, the week before and the week before that.

Without wormholes, my childhood would have been dull indeed, much of my adulthood as well. Salute the wormhole, even if they don't exist.

More soon, Dear Reader when I shall be X-raying the letter X

xx