Ports Thoughts

So I understand that I haven't given anything up by stopping smoking. I have simply stopped doing something that was stupid, expensive and injurious to my health. Following my decision to give up on Sunday night I have started to read Allen Carr's famous book "Easy Way To Stop Smoking" . It is actually designed to be read by someone who is still smoking, but it is still very helpful if you are using it to reinforce your commitment to stop. In a sense, the opening sentence of this paragraph summarises Carr's point. But it is far cleverer and useful than that pithy sound bite. I am stunned by how much of his analyses directly corresponds to my experience. The guy is clearly quite full of himself but he really does has a lot of understanding. Likewise, I have also watched the excellent Russell Crow/Al Pacino film The Insider which shows the utter contempt the Tobacco industry has for it's customers and human life. They see cigarettes as a nicotine delivery syste...

I'm not proud - but I started smoking when I was 11 years old :-( My mate Harry Lines had a job as a paper boy and miraculously every now and then he would turn up with two hundred JPS (John Player Specials) . I'm not suggesting that he nicked them, but let's just say I never saw any receipts. Anyway, we used to stand on the corner of Chanterlands Avenue and Loveridge Avenue in my home town, Hull, looking kinda like James Dean. Or so we thought. Until two big lads beat Harry and I up and nicked our stash of cigarettes and pointed out that we should be sucking rather than blowing. Because up until then we had been blowing. Scoff as you might but there aren't any instructions on a pack! These days the advice on cigarette packs are pretty is explicit. The pack of Silk Cut Silver I'm currently looking at says "Smoking Kills" and "Smokers Die Younger". My good mate Brendan decided to give up the smokes yesterday because when he asked his daughter what...

As the regular reader may recall, our DVD player packed up a few weeks ago. I was exploring all sorts of options to replace it but then we decided to buy a house. So we're skint. However, I was really missing playing my challenging European art house films. Ok, so I haven't got any challenging art house films, but I have got loads of dumb American action films and I really miss not being able to play them. So as a stop gap, I decided to get a £35 Mico DVD808 from Sainsburys. I expected it to be rubbish but I am astounded how they have packed so much performance into such a cheap package. It even has a Optical Digital output to pump the sound into my surround sound HiFi. I watched The Aviator on it last night and there was no fragmentation, artifacting or dodgy colours. For £35! That's less than the cost of 3 DVD films. My last player cost £970. Me thinks I may have been ripped off last time.

So Tim Henman crashes out of Wimbledon whilst new hope Andrew Murray defeats the 13th seed . Like most British folks, I suspect, I'm only really interested in tennis when Wimbledon comes round. But all these years of watching Henman have done nasty things to my nerves. Even when he is on top he still manages to throw sets away to make us think he is going to lose. So it is a breath of fresh air to see Murray winning in straight sets and never seeming to lose his confidence. That is not to knock Henman's achievements. Staying in the top 10 in the world for 10 years is an outstanding achievement. So even if Murray loses to Nalbandian in the next round I think it is fair to say that Murray has taken over from now on. It might take him a while to get into the top ten but I don't think his ranking of 313 will stay for very long.

I have to travel from my home in South West London to the North quite a lot for customer meetings. Getting to the M1 which starts at the top of North London is a doddle. Just follow the North Circular road. Some bits of Hangar Lane are just a single lane, but for the most part it is two or three lanes. It's about 15 miles and normally takes me about half an hour. But today I had to go south to Chelmsford so had to take the South Circular road to the Dartford tunnel and the M25. Again - this is about 15 miles but this morning it took me 1 and a half hours! In fairness there were road works in Wandsworth and Lewisham, but the real problem is that the South Circular isn't really a road - it is just a set of confusing road signs. I kept finding myself doubling back on myself when I hit signs that pointed left saying "South Circular (E)" and right saying "South Circular (W)". I don't know if I need to go East or West! Just tell me where they go to. Getting fr...

My good mate Glastonbury John (who ironically lives in Topsham) and his main squeeze Heather are in a bonkers punk band called the Reoffenders . They're mighty fine whether you like your Punk classic (as in the Pistols or The Clash) or modern (as in PJ Harvey or Hole). Anyway, John has just bought a PA system for the band from some geezer in Morden via the power of eBay. Now Morden (which if you don't know it is in South West London) and Topsham (which if you don't know it is just near Exeter) are about 200 miles apart so a trip for John to pick up the PA would be around 400 miles. Not ideal. So he asked me to pick it up and keep it for him until next time he is down in the Big Smoke. Morden is only 8 miles from Chez Ports. Obviously my saint like generosity meant that I was only too happy to help out my chums. But also I was quite curious. I have never been to Morden but it was one of the areas Ali and I had considered moving to before we realised we could stay in Barnes (...

As the regular reader of this web log will know, I am a huge fan of the new series of Doctor Who. To bring the series back after 16 years and manage the amazing trick of appealing to the adults who remember the classic series and also to appeal to a new generation of children who are viewing it as something brand new is amazing. Obviously the greater budget and improvements in technology have had a significant result on the look of the show especially the special effects. The writing has been excellent and under the stewardship of Russell T Davis, the series feels consistent and in safe hands. The acting and actors are brilliant and there are plenty of laughs, scares and surprises. This is of course great news for a Whovian like myself. I so hoped that they would get it right and they have. But what has surprised and delighted me even more is how the show has adopted the Internet as an additional route to the viewers. It started of with the leaking of the first show "Rose" a ...