Alexander's

Having lived in England for several months I picked up a fondness for traditional English food. I'm not talking about the stuff that looks like cat food and smells even worse.[^1] No I'm talking about something like a traditional english breakfast with bacon, eggs, beans and black pudding.

One of these days a hunger for high a fat diet struck me and I decided to treat myself some delicious Fish'n Chips. Only, problem since someone spilled, what I presumed to be cheese, in the oven a few weeks back, an evil stench filled the air whenever one of us decided to use it.[^2]

I already know this dilemma from previous experiences in this flat. The best way to resolve a situation like this is to just keep using the oven. After a month or so of regular use all the organic waste will have burned and the smell will be gone along with it.

What I didn't know was, that this time the cheese didn't drip, but instead erupted in the oven. Given the recent events I'm sure you all know how bad eruptions and the spewed out particles can be. This cheese was no exception, but instead of blocking air travel over Europe, it got stuck on the ceiling of the oven.

As I mentioned above England has taught me many strange things when it comes to food. I actually like my fish'n chips with vinegar and mayonnaise instead of ketchup, but the burned food particles raining down on my Fish'n Chips[^3] were even too much for my acquired taste.

[^1]: I guess the reason computer spam is called spam is because it's just as undesirable as it's canned eponym.

[^2]: For various reasons none of us is willing to clean it up.

[^3]: When the English say chips they are actually talking about potato chips and not burned food particles chipped from the walls of the oven.

While reading TIME magazine I stumbled upon an interesting article[^1] about how kids that get spanked grow up to be more aggressive. Apparently children solve problems by mimicking their parents behaviour and not by listening to what they say -- who could have guessed?

Groundbreaking as this insight might be for the average psychology student, it leaves an interesting question -- What is the right way to teach children?[^2]

Any method applied should not only stop the child from acting in an unwanted way, it should also set a positive example on how adults are supposed to solve these problems themselves. This raises a much bigger question for me:

How are adults supposed find a consensus, if one party is not willing to listen to logical arguments?[^3]

How do I argue with someone that tells me my point of view is invalid, without giving me any reason? How do I break through that thick skull, without actually breaking it, or damaging the relationship in some other way?

A passive aggressive approach seems to work great, but it will poison a relationship really fast.[^4] So lately I find myself more and more drawn to the japanese way. Smile, nod and just avoid that person. If I can't talk rationally with a friend, why talk at all and if I don't talk why is he still my friend?

But I still wonder isn't there a better way?

[^1]: C Taylor, J. Manganello, S. Lee, J. Rice. Pediatrics, Apr 2010

[^2]: Don't worry I'm not thinking about getting children anytime soon. I just find it easier to treat other adults like children when they misbehave.

[^3]: I should probably watch political debates, but there is little that bores me more than current politics.

[^4]: Also would you use passive aggressive methods with children?

The flat I live in now has a charm of it's own. Build in the sixties, when the architects still used the concrete recipes and outer wall thickness customary for flak towers and bunkers in WW2.[^1] Knowing this, the interior designers used construction rubble[^2] for the inner walls and hid it all under some garish colors[^3] and modern plastics like linoleum.

All in all an interesting mix -- especially when you consider the master-builder who was obviously high on LSD when they erected this thing. A line that is parallel to the floor is not necessarily parallel to the ceiling and there are weird supporting structures all over the place. Most of the walls are also not parallel -- or straight for that matter and I'm not yet convinced that we actually have one right angle anywhere.[^4]

I noticed this all years ago. When I first moved in I was highly motivated and decided to draw a great floor plan. Finally -- after days of measuring -- every conceivable length, width and hight was accounted for, but when I finally sat down to enter everything in the great computer program^TM I was using, I noticed the unspeakable. This flat was so crooked it was distorting space itself.

Now Georg has the same idea I once had -- map this non-Euclidian geometry in a puny program build to help modern day architects realize their unimaginative ideas. But to make it easier he went to the magistrate and requested the building blueprints. Turns out some walls were moved some time ago and the plan also indicates these changes.

Wait the scale must be wrong, this plan does not fit the measurements written on it.
Snicker
No this must be a mistake -- if they move the wall to make the room bigger, the length of the room must also increase.[^5]

Sometimes I can even hear his sanity begging him to stop, but the voice is getting weaker and weaker. Now when his insane laughter wakes me up at night and I see him hunching over the floor plan with this wide grin, I just go back to sleep and say to myself: just till October -- you can make it Alexander.

[^1]: When we were renovating the bath the construction workers destroyed their hydraulic hammer -- twice! [^2]: I know because I nearly knocked down a wall when trying to hang a picture once. [^3]: I'm talking violett, neon green and bright orange here. [^4]: I'm not kidding -- ask Julia who helped me renovate this monster! [^5]: They actually made the room bigger on the plan, but reduced the indicated length and it is the real length of the room now.