Tag: coffee

My Disappearance – Navalny –  Big Cheese – Cairo – South Kensington Dream – 28-03-2026

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Here is this morning’s dream again with little or no obvious connection to real life here yesterday which we spent wallpapering.

The dream opens in England in and around London. Some kind of missive has gone out, been circulated, concerning my whereabouts. I have gone missing, disappeared and cannot be contacted. Nobody seems to know where I am nor how to get in touch. Tim, Tom and Susan are involved in the search all of whom are “important”. Tim and Sue have made inquiries concerning me but are unsatisfied with the answers. “He just disappeared” does not explain. Other people from the academic clan are involved in the investigation and some of them were known to me. Those involved are mostly of a similar age to me, like Paula, my peer group. Though there are others. The inquiry is largely London based. Although not huge there are questions to be answered that just won’t go away. There is a pendant question of “where did Alan disappear to and why?” There is very mild press and media interest brewing. They, the inquirers, don’t like loose ends. There is a time pressure to solve.

The scene changes and I am in a brightly lit wood / forest with Alexeï Navalny. It is a crisp winter morning and the cold makes dragon’s breath of our breathing. We are sat at a small very basic table on two old-school school chairs. On the table is an open bottle of vodka and two small glass tumblers each of which is partially filled. There is a small plate of gherkins and a large cheese in a round wood circular box like a Camembert. Navalny lifts the lid off the box and places the wax paper wrapped cheese onto a wooden cutting board. He gets a hunting knife out of an ankle scabbard and proceeds to cut the cheese into wedges. He pauses and we take a sip of our vodkas. He is discussing how cheeses can cause problems for other people. All his problems have come from upsetting big cheeses. When you think about it, it is nearly always people who are cheeses that cause problems for others. The reason we are in the wilderness, in exile, is cheese. Navalny reaches down into his knapsack and pulls out a rough-hewn rye bread. He says that he likes vodka, cheese and bread.

The scene changes and I pull up in my car into a very smart posh area of Cairo. The cars in the car park are all expensive and I am driving a black one. I get out and know that this is the posh, upmarket financial centre of Cairo. As yet it is not busy. I go into an upmarket “private” bank usually for high net worth individuals. It is well swish. I go to reception and am ushered off into a side room where I have a meeting with an expensively dressed woman who is wearing a hijab of fine expensive material. She is very classy. She has attached between her subtle noise piercing and ear a fine golden chain. She speaks very good accent free English. She wants to know why I want to open a bank account with them in Cairo. I say that my other bank and utilities have given my information out to others without asking my permission. They have done so at the request of others without checking with me first. This includes my bank in Paris. I am looking for a more personal and reliable service, based on trust. We shift into speaking French. She guides me though the application form which she fills in with a beautiful fountain pen. She says that the bank is very pleased to have me as a customer and that I will always be welcome in Cairo. Outside in the main marble hall of the bank customers are coming in.

The scene changes and I am in a kitchen of a British house. It is my parents’ house only it looks nothing like . The place is a bit of a mess, a shit tip. On the counter top is a Gaggia style coffee espresso machine. I make myself a coffee and one for the wife. She is with me but  I cannot see her. We drink the coffee.

The scene now changes to South Kensington. In a kind of arcade is a coffee shop come café. It is very urban, chic and trendy. Sat around the table are those ~ a decade younger than me. They are gossiping about me. There are Jason Laura and Camilla. They too have been wondering about my disappearance. There has been a lot of gossip and tittle tattle. It is a hot topic.

I walk in with the wife and sit down at the far end of a long table from them They looked surprised. I explain that they have been making a huge to-do about not a lot. I have not disappeared they have just not been aware of where I have been. For instance, we have not long come from South Wales where we have been drinking coffee at my parents’ house. I say that they have turned the whole thing into a massive spy-whodunnit-drama. They are embarrassed. It is well out of proportion.

The dream ends.

South Korea – Quantum Perimeter – Dream 13-03-2026

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Here is this morning’s dream the subject matter of which is out of the blue.

The dream opens on a bright sunny morning in a campus like estate with mid-rise modern buildings. It is “Singapore” clean and tidy. Many young people are milling around. They are smartly dressed and of mostly of East Asian appearance. The place is alive and buzzing. There is a sense of hurry and of purpose. From the signage and the writing thereupon I can tell that we are in South Korea at a hybrid university – business – technology campus of which Samsung is a major part. The logo is present but not dominant. The young people are well dressed and there is a sense of going to work. I have been invited there.

I notice that there is a lack of coffee shops and other outlets at ground level in the architect designed garden spaces. In the distance I can see a small kiosk come shop attached to the corner of one of the low rise buildings. I make my way there. For some reason I want to buy some cigarettes {I have not smoked in quite a while}. Looking through the window I cannot at first see any Marlboro Gold. I go inside the shop and ask if they have any Marlboro Gold. The man serving is an Asian man of a similar age to me. He is balding and has slightly unruly hair. He says in accent less {to me} English that he thinks he has some somewhere. I check my wallet and only have a limited amount of local currency. He finds some Marlboro Gold and brings them over to the counter. He gets the card payment machine and I make a payment using my dark blue French bank card. He then hands me the change, which is in the form of five gold coins, two of these are about four centimetres in diameter and three of these are about six centimetres. They fall on the counter in the form of the Olympic rings logo. The hue of the golden coins is slightly reddish like Welsh gold. This he says is the change and he hands me a packet of Marlboro Gold which contains fifty cigarettes. He says that these are all he has left, packets of fifty, and that they are especially for me. The coins morph into chocolate biscuits enclosed in a golden foil wrapper. I am able to eat the gold / golden covered biscuits if I want. I note again that there are five of them. I take out a velvet old school drawstring pouch-purse and pop the coins in. I pull the drawstring to and slip the bag in my pocket. I pick up the cigarettes and leave. There is a tremendous sense of confraternity with the man in the shop. We have known each other and do recognise each other. We bid farewell.

I am now upstairs at some trade delegation put on by the Korean government – university – incubator committee. It is top-notch with servers in traditional Korean costume. The buffet to one side is gourmet and presented with a marked attention to detail. There are a lot of “suits” there and the organisers are encouraging networking and deal making. I start having a conversation with a local big cheese and his wife. I am commenting that I find the spoken Korean language quite easy on the ear. It has a nice sound to it. In the dream I realise that I am actually talking Korean which the woman in particular finds very funny. She hides her mouth with her hand to chuckle. We return to English speaking. She wants to know if my wife is OK with the idea of moving to South Korea. I say that we have not discussed it yet but that the Korean woman can meet with her if she would like. There is a sense that they work to ensure the whole family is on board.

The scene changes and I am walking along a corridor in a low rise research institute. It has ceiling to floor glass windows and looks out onto the campus. The corridor leads to a  café come hang-out space. I am walking and talking with a man in a white coat who is some kind of prof / scientist. We are in the “Quantum Perimeter Institute” which is a specially funded new initiative here in South Korea. I know that in the basement there are a number of very high specification laser laboratories. To the side of the building is a purpose built refrigeration / cryogenic plant. It is high specification and can handle huge loads. We are talking about a theoretician, a recently recruited quantum specialist. The professor is suggesting that I work with him. I can add the experimental know how to his ideas.

In the dream I know that I am at the Quantum Perimeter Institute because of my left field and unorthodox thinking about some of the esoteric implications adjunct to quantum science.

We continue to walk down the corridor towards the smell of coffee.

The dream ends.

Food Mixer – Pilate – Carrier Pigeon Dream – 18-02-2026

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Here is this morning’s short dream.  Here Pilate is a term for unwillingness to take responsibility and only going through the motions

The scene opens with the wife and I visiting a large upmarket store. I am carrying a swish food processor / mixer which we have recently bought. It is not working properly and does not do a good job of blending food. We go to the appropriate department and explain that we would like it fixed, or an alternative model or a refund. It is not our fault that this mixer is not working.

The person behind the desk takes it off us and takes some contact details. He is being officious in French and I can see that he is a reluctant “job’s worth” character.  Instead of wanting to help and please the customer he exudes “put upon” and “do I have to” almost sulking. Moreover he is arrogant towards us because we are “English”. I explain to him that I am very unhappy with the mixer and that they need to sort this out, quick-time. He gets increasingly surly and promises that someone will get in touch with us. From his manner I can tell that this is unlikely. He just wants us away from his desk, out of sight and out of mind. I will not hold my breath.

We go downstairs in the shop and find a cafeteria. We join the line, order and pay for coffees and sit at a table. Suddenly the ‘phone rings and it is someone in the electronic goods department saying that they have “fixed” the mixer. We finish our coffees and head back.

Several people are there around what was our mixer base but with a smaller volume mixing jug. They claim it now works. In a mixture of French and English I explain that the reason that we bought the bigger jug was for the larger volume. We already have a stick mixer for small volumes.

They are upset because they have not instantaneously solved the problem. One of the young Frenchmen puts a blender jug, which I know to be ours, on the mixer base. He claims that it is one from the stores. He loads it with some food including sweet corn. He turns it on and it appears to work. I know it is just rotating the mixture and only part liquifying it. He says, “look it is working”. I say to him that he had better pour the results out into a bowl. This he does. It contains some liquid and mostly unmixed food including sweet corn kernels. I say to him that the mixer does not work. He is adamant that it does. I asks him if the contents look well mixed. He says no. I ask him if he thinks the mixer works. He says yes a bit. We are at an impasse. He just wants us out of his shop and is unable to offer any way forward. We stand there in an awkward silence in which he gets increasingly uncomfortable. His colleagues have disappeared. They do not want to solve the problem they want rid of us. They want to wash their hands of it.

The scene fades. I am left with the strong visual image of a carrier pigeon with a small white message tube tied with two thin white cords to its left leg. The pigeon is in good condition and athletic looking. It is a messenger pigeon.

The dream ends.

Wet Memory – Intrinsic and Extrinsic Entropy Dream – 30-01-2026

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Here is last night’s dream which is out of the blue and does not relate to the day to day of fence repair after another visit by the wild boars. Where this came from I have no clue.

I am walking through central London, Mayfair Piccadilly. It is a bright sunny day. I notice people converging on an ornate building in light coloured near white stone. It is a hybrid of Burlington House the old Royal Society of Chemistry where I spent many enjoyable hours in the library and of The Royal Society. People are gathering for some kind of scientific meeting. There is a mixture of academics and industry figures. I am not invited to this meeting. Through the doors and in the atrium I can see a reception desk which is being staffed by some women whom I used to know, a generation younger than me.

On a whim I walk in to say hi. They greet me and I ask if there is any chance of a cup of coffee. They get me one and warn me that it is not all that. I see that the conference is on “New Frontiers in Memory”. It has the theme of molecular architectures and memory and is of a think tank type of conjecture meeting. Rob walks in with one of the invited speakers who is a yank around 40. He is some kind of big cheese at the conference. Rob and I recognise each other after all these years. He introduces me to the speaker who is going to talk on protein molecular architectures and memory storage in the brain. He tells me that memory is all about entropy. You have to work against entropy to remember.

Rob invites me upstairs to look around. There are academic posters and a coffee service area. We queue and get a coffee and then stand at a pub style chest height table. In my mind’s eye I can see the way the cheese tries to address a memory array stored in a synthetic gel matrix. It is his way of modelling a wet memory, a mimic of biological memory which he seeks to incorporate into the next generation computers. I say to him that the encoding is of two types and that there are intrinsic and extrinsic entropies. The intrinsic entropy relates to where an individual amino acid is found along a protein chain and the pattern of its neighbour molecules. The extrinsic entropy is related to its local environment, degrees of folding and how space filling it is, how many gaps and voids are incorporated in the macroscopic protein structure. He says that he not previously thought about the molecular location entropy within a given protein strand. It might answer one of the questions he has. I can see in my mind’s eye an address matrix or tensor in mathematical form which defines coordinates for a given amino acid in a 3d protein amongst a wider gel matrix. The intrinsic lack of entropy is how a memory is stored. Memory works my comparing entropy. Anything not expected entropically is a memory. Low entropy is memory.

I say that the coffee is poor and that I hope they enjoy the meeting. I am off in search of a Starbucks, Costa or Caffè Nero.

The dream ends and I think WTF was that…

Travelling Light  – Group Chat – Shenanigans – Dream 30-10-25

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Here is this morning’s dream. As I was typing the title I looked at the date in the bottom right hand corner of my screen and noted a numerological internal consistency.

The dream starts at some kind of motorway service station in the UK. It is like an old style Tebay but now there is a pub attached. I have parked my car which looks like an old-school 911. It looks beat up but can go fast. {Think Big Chill}. I have with me only my day sack. I have lost weight and am moving freely. I am travelling light and fluid.

I go into the services bar and there I meet A6. He is sat drinking a tall beer with two friends roughly the same age as him. I say hi and join them at a high bar table with stools. They are joshing about. A6  is planning a party back in London, to which he invites me even though we are hundreds of miles away. He asks if I can lend him a few thousand pounds, five or six. I think this odd because I know that he is now loaded and has been on a good salary in America. His mates now have comedy false noses on and are taking selfies. A6 gives me a large modern looking clock-watch which he says that I can have as collateral for the loan. He says that it is his father’s watch and that it means a lot to him. I am unsure as to if he is taking the piss in a Pulp Fiction sense. He and his mates get up and leave. I say that I will get back to him.

On a table nearby is the ex-wife. I am surprised to see her and not overly pleased. I go over to see what it is that she wants and is after. I explain that A6 is after some money. She says that I should not give it to him. This is because she wants it. In the dream I am mightily surprised that anyone could imagine that I have any money, money to spare. She is pressing that she should benefit from the money. I find the situation cloying and leave.

I go back to my car and drive off. I am heading towards London. I getting a little tired. So I pull into a service station just outside the M25. I queue up and get a coffee waiting in line at an old-style cafeteria. With my coffee in a paper cup I go outside onto a pub garden lawn. There is a pub style table there and a fairly glamorous woman is sat there smoking. I ask if I may join her. She says yes. I note that unusually she is smoking using a cigarette holder, femme fatale. We have a brief chat and she suggests to me that all may not be as it seems. This concurs with my gut feel. I spark up a cigarette and drink my coffee.

I get back in my car and drive further into another service station with a pub attached. I go inside and sit at a table for coffee. I am joined by a tall Asian man in a suit. He looks city finance. I show him the watch and explain that someone I know is asking for a loan imagining that I have come into money. He says that the watch may be worth something but that is about time and not money. He suggests that I have a look at my ‘phone to see if there are any messages from A6.

I boot up my ‘phone which I almost never use. Up pops a quasi-secret group chat which unencrypts so that I can read it. I have accidentally been included. It is an application which I am unfamiliar with. The screen fills with message after message to and fro, in a bright green small font. Encapsualted within the text are brief video snippets and images. I am the subject of the group chat and its contents are all about me. I remember when I last interacted with A6 it occurred to me that given the modus of people I was once acquainted with that these interactions were being more widely reported. Indeed A6 may even have been put up to it, encouraged. I know that this is a part of a much wider information gather and I am not pleased even though I know it typical. I think that they are fucking things up. There is nothing I can do about it. I know in the dream that it is a very bad idea for them to do this.

I am to carry on my journey. I need to go to the bathroom. In the back of the pub there are three toilets whose signage I do not understand. I eventually work out that there are one female, one male and one tranny. I go for a piss and while I am at the urinal one of the pub staff comes in. I say that the loos need a clean. He is offended and rude to me.

I  know that I left the last place early. I go back to my car. I check the day sack in the boot. In the back pocket I find my caduceus and the keys to my old house in New Mills #30.  Even though I no longer own the house I still have keys to it and can go back to unlock it at any time. I know that together with yesterday’s dream there is a reminder that things are not always  as they seem. I note the jewel of awareness and that this could be the card in play.

The dream ends.

As I am typing this the Ian Dury song “Clever Trevor” springs to mind. And I think here we go again…

Patents-VCs-Dream-19-02-18

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Here is this morning’s dream. Last night we watched Dragons’ Den on TV and I had another dream of its ilk earlier in the night which I cannot recall.

I arrive at some swanky offices in London and go into reception. It is plush and modern with a glass fronted airy atrium. The security guards at the desk take my name and give me a badge to wear. They direct me to a holding area / outer office. I am suited and booted but with no tie.

The PA greets me. In the holding area there is another man sat. He is clutching documentation and a tablet computer. I tell the lady, who is smartly dressed, that I am here for a 10 o’clock appointment. It is 9:24AM. The other guy is about to go “in”. Knowing that I am, as per usual, early, I ask the PA how the timing and schedule is going. “Is it Swiss?”, I ask. She says, “not quite” with a wink. So, I say that I will pop out for a coffee and come back. She points me in the direction of the canteen. I say I would rather go to a coffee shop; she is unhappy about this as it threatens her scheduling. She doubts I will be back on time.

I head off into town and find a coffee shop. I sit at one table and am joined by three other people. They do not notice me and are deep in heated discussion. I can see that they have a design for a beam steering column to be used in conjunction with a microscope. They are discussing a possible patent application. The younger one is talking the others through the design drawings which are in clear view on the table.

Just as they are about to leave, I say that the design looks OK but that is doesn’t look all that novel to me. Anyone “skilled in the art” might have come up with it, they need to find a better angle or way of doing it. They are a bit shocked.

I look down at my watch it is 9:55AM. I had better leg it back. I get in my car and drive fast through the traffic back to the office.

As I arrive the other guy is coming “out”, clutching his documents. I wish him luck.

I sit in a chair close to the open door which leads to the inner office it is now 10:02AM.

Through the ajar door one of the posh geezers says that I had better come in. In the room there are a number of men (~4-5) dressed in expensive suits and “Rolex” type watches. They are having their coffee refreshed. The first man ushers me towards some chairs facing the men whom I know to be rich VC types. I say that I would prefer to stand. Which I do facing the semi-circle of investors. I have no documentation or IT. Just me. I am very relaxed.

The PA leaves the room and one of the men there says that I should tell them about myself.

I start off on the cancer and tutorial story. I can sense their eyes glazing over and the thought “time waster” starting to manifest. One says, “That explains why we haven’t heard anything from you or about you!”

I then say that I have also been looking at and delving into patents. I know a patentable idea when I see one and I have a couple sketched out. This sparks their interest a little more. The tone and the mood in the room suddenly changes. One of them who is the lead turns to another and mutters something under his breath. I have their attention now.     

At that point I start engaging them in a very relaxed manner. “What kinds of investment opportunities are you (plural) looking for? “

Because thy have been sat all morning listening, they welcome the chance to speak for a bit, so they begin.

The dream ends.