Last night I dreamt....

....that I was a worker in the Prine Minister's office. I may have even been a junior minister (and thus a member of Parliament). However, there was turmoil in the office. It was the end of the parliamentary year, and the Prime Minister was going through all those who worked in the office and judging whether they should continue or not. One by one those who worked in the office were called in to his office and told of their fate; some left smiling, others in tears. I wasn't called until next to last. At that point, I went in, some Prime Ministerial aides hovered around, then l sat down, the aides left, and the Prime Minister lookd me straight in the eye and asked, "Chris, is life but a fly?" I became quite indignant and told him of my friend Richard, who had just died at a tremendously young age, and ended: "Prime Minister, life is very important; it is not just a fly." He smiled and said, "I'll see you Monday." (meaning that I had kept my job, I guess). Another co-worker and I then went to a party for the office.

Now, I'm not a Labour voter (I'm a Liberal Democrat) and I don't admire the Prime Minister, so there must be a deeper meaning to all this. I don't usually remember dreams very well, so the fact that I've remembered the situation and the phrase about the fly must be significant, in some way.

I think I've passed some sort of test, anyway.

RIP, Six Feet Under (in the UK)

Perhaps the content of my dream (see below) came from watching the last episode of Six Feet Under. I know it was shown months ago in the US (I even knew how it ended) but we're always a bit behind.

I thought the last scenes, where the deaths of the main characters were shown, was touching. HWMBO, on the other hand, thought they were silly. This is the difference between Western and Chinese culture, I guess.

I think that one aspect of the show that is very important is the commonplace way in which it dealt with death as a part of life. Death was the Fishers' life. And, for several seasons, it was part of ours too. Death is sanitised these days. Years ago, when people were waked in their front parlours, you couldn't escape it. When Grandpa died, they put him in a suit, in his coffin, with a block of ice beneath, and had visitors come to the house to pay their respects. Today you go to a funeral home, where everything is taken care of, no ice is necessary, and you don't have to go upstairs and sleep with Grandpa dead in the front room (unless you own the funeral home, that is!) Death is often messy, horrible, and terrifying, but it's the last chapter of life and is one that we'll all have to read, sooner or later. As I get older this is often brought home to me forcefully because of the deterioration (slow but steady) in my own health.

I'm sad that it's over--I wanted to watch the kids grow up a bit more; am curious as to how Keith and David dealt with one of their sons' homosexuality (note that in the scene at the end where Claire was getting married the son on the left was holding hands with his Asian boyfriend).

I guess it's better to leave 'em smiling through their tears rather than keep a show going until the bitter end. That's especially true about a show that was all about endings.

My ISEB pass average

Regular readers of my lj may remember that I conducted an ISEB Foundation Course in Software Testing in Wiltshire a few weeks ago. I had doubts as to whether the majority of those in the course would pass, judging from their responses in class and the results of their mock exams. Well, I got their results today, as well as the results at Searchspace. In Wiltshire, 11 out of 13 passed; at Searchspace, all 8 passed. So my lifetime "batting" average is 90.6% (58 out of 64 delegates to my courses have passed). I am really pleased for all the delegates who passed and hope that my good lifetime pass rate will continue. Good pass rates mean more work for me. The agency that developed the course and also delivers it has about a 76% pass rate overall. Congratulations to all!!

This kid is a genius!

He tracked down his sperm donor father using his own DNA test and the Internet.

I think he's a really enterprising kid and should go far.