He shoots, he scores!

While I was all caught in in the joy of my new site logo, I forgot to mention, Ali and I are having a baby :-) As befits any spawn of mine, it is due on the 1st of April. Perfect. Ali and I are chuffed to bits. We have been thinking of names but it is a bit hard because we don't know what flavour it is yet. We are currently using Herbert. Here is a picture of the little fella. Just to show any of you comedians that he hasn't got a beard yet.


It's funny but the one thing that no one ever seems to complain about is the weeks when you know t'wife is "with child" but you can't tell anyone. More to the point you have to lie all the time to try and cover up. The rest of our Pub Quiz team thought that I had murdered Ali because of the increasingly lame excuses I was coming out with for her non appearance. And Ali's friends at her running club were getting increasingly concerned as she kept on feigning back ache to get out of exercises. What a relief it is now public!

New Logo

You may have spotted that I have been messing around with site logo and design for a bit. Well this was just killing time while I was working on the real thing. Smart eh? I bet no one will guess where I stole the idea from?

Just Fraking Google it!

Ever been asked a really stupid question which has prompted you to suggest that the questioner might like to consult the supplied documentation? Sometimes less politely referred to as RTFM. Well I have pretty much stolen this whole post from Julian Robichaux because I thought it was so fantastic.. In the new world of the web, stupid questions should be greeted by JFGI.


If you're interested, using Frak in place of the more robust alternative as in the title is stolen from the excellent new series of Battlestar Galactica

Cats really stink

I guess any one who knows Ali and I would realise how much we love our cats. Like most mogs they sometimes do naughty things which everyone would think are cute (e.g. chasing balls of wool or breaking wind (Barney is a real wind bag). However, cute and funny as Barney and Boo are they do have one major flaw. They shit on the carpet. I know - sounds a bit harsh and possibly a bit crude - but facts are facts. The dirty little boys seem to thing it is OK to hang their butt over the side of their litter tray and "fertilize the crops". Of couse we have no crops. Only a pongy carpet.

Having decided that the obvious solution was not viable (murdering cats can cause so much distress) we needed an alternative. Enter the Ferplast Magix litter tray. It is fully covered to prevent the hideous odours our furry friends are capable of producing and also has a front door to protect their privacy. Because it is their privacy that I'm worried about! Hopefully their smelly days are at an end (yeah right!). Incidentally - that is a stunt cat in the picture. Barney and Boo haven't figured the door out yet.

Bing Bong

One of the things which is nice about getting a bit older is seeing some things getting a little bit better. For example guitar tuners used to be horrible fiddly things with needles that only ever worked in absolute silence, whilst now you can get a fine Boss TU-2 tuner effect pedal that allows you to tune up on stage whilst a full band is playing beside you. You see - just a bit better. Another example might be cars. They just work better and a bit more comfortably than they ever used to. I guess geeky gadgets also fall into this realm. I shudder to think of my first mobile phone compared to my current slinky number which would certainly not disappoint Captain Kirk (well, except when he tried to teleport somewhere).

But the thing that has had me glowing with unexpected pleasure this week is our new door bell. I kid you not. Our old door bell was so rubbish it is a bit of a mystery why we put up with it so long. You needed the ears of a hound dog to hear it any distance from the door and the battery would suddenly fail with absolutely no warning leaving fuming guests waiting outside in the rain while Ali and I would continue watching television unawares (a problem often resolved by mobile phones!).

The last time the batteries gave out I couldn't bring myself to change them. It just didn't deserve it. But I was worried about how to install a replacement. I had visions of wiring diagrams and drilling holes through the front door. Had I only heard of Friedland I would have done it years ago. In the box you get a door bell that attaches to the door using a supplied stick pad. No screws here. Then the main alarm is pushed into any spare power socket. No batteries to run out here. And there is an extra portable chime which you can put in the garden or upstairs. All connected via the power of wireless. And you know what - it just works. No faff, no fuss. Out of the box to installed and running in less than five minutes. That's better.

Beach of irregular bottoms

My sister Pink and hubby Stew are on holiday in Spain the lucky things. Down on the beach today they saw this amusing sign which they sent me using the miracle of MMS from their mobile phone which I was able to forward from my phone to my Google Mail account where I could attach it too this entry. Much better than waiting for them to get back and going round to their house for a slide show :-/

The evils of the modern world (part 2)

I like a nice cup of Joe. I particularly like a nice cup of coffee when I'm on a long drive to visit a customer and I want to ensure that I'm as alert as possible since falling asleep at the week can cause all sorts of complications ranging from carnage to a long term in prison for dangerous driving. Clearly best avoided.

However, there is a catch. My car is magnificent in many respects but it does have a serious lack of cup holders. Specifically it doesn't have any. So when I get a cup of coffee from a Motorway service station I have to get a lid sealing in the contents so that it won't spill when I leverage the warp like acceleration. So good so far. Unfortunately I like my brew black so it doesn't benefit from the cooling power of milk. When such a super heated liquid is then placed in a partially sealed container, it maintains it's heat.



All of this leads to the actual problem. Take away cups are designed to feel cool so that we don't burn our fingers. This also means that it is imposible to judge the temparature of the coffee in the cup. So typically you will drive a couple of miles to allow the drink to cool down a bit. Then touch the cup to check it is a bit cooler. Then try and take a sip throught the little hole in the lid. And have a jet of scorching liquid sear through your skull like the burning fires of Hades.

Now drinks that need to be cool, for example Newcastle Brown have a sticker that turns blue when the drink is appropriatly cooled. Why oh why cannot coffee cups have a similar sticker to indicate when the contents have a half life of less than a thousand years?

The evils of the modern world (part 1)

As regular readers of this web log will realise, I'm quite an easy going chap. There aren't that many things that vex me. In fact foolish people have sometimes confused my near refusal to become annoyed with apathy. But read on in this occasianal new series of rants where I unleash the full power of my fury.

First up - hotel Toilet Paper. I stay in hotels all the time as I wander the globe telling people about IBM's brilliant software from Lotus. Sometimes they are simple Holiday Inn Express's like the one I stayed in last night in the Middlands, and sometimes they are dead posh like The Hotel Versailles that I stayed in a few years ago. But they all have one thing in common. Terrible toilet paper. It is normally so thin it is virtully transparent and as course as sand paper. You need half the roll per wipe to ensure *ahem* cleaning takes place. Then they have the nerve to fold the end of the roll into a point to show what a classy establishment you are staying in. Now when I am paying over a hundred pounds a night I would have thought that they could have invested in some nice quilted loo roll rather than the hessian sacking they always cheaply supply.

When I remember I pop a roll of Andrex Aloe Vera in my suitcase if I know I'm staying at a hotel since at my stage of life I think I deserve something a bit more comfortable on the ol' Botswana.

Record Store Cats

If funny pictures of cats in headphones amuse you then you will love this site.

Record Store Cats

I'm particularly tickled by Techno Tim and Hardcore Steve

Stone 'enge

Ali and I had been planning to visit Stonehenge this holiday but due to one thing and another, just didn't get round to it. So today was our last chance. As luck would have it Southern England was being drenched with monsoon like rain so it seemed like our visit was going to be a wash out. However, with stereotypical British optimism we decided to drive down to Wiltshire anyway and hope for the best. It rained hard all the way and by the time we were within a couple of miles of the Henge we were stuck in nose to tail traffic on the A303. Everything was beginning to look a bit bleak. However, just as we parked up the sun suddenly popped out!

As can be seen from the menacing dark cloud in this photo - we really were in a small window of dry snugly niceness amidst horrible weather. Stonehenge is spectacular and English Heritage have done a brilliant job of compromising access with preservation. I have read loads of whining monkeys complaining that you can't touch the stones any more but they should be glad that the site is in such good condition. The free audio tour is very informative and even entertaining. Excellent value for £5.60. And not only that - when you get out you can get a fine bacon baguette. Mmmm.

After spending a lovely couple of hours at the Henge we hit the road back to London and within 2 minutes of leaving the heavens opened again. The Gods/Druids/Spirits/Gaia/Earth Mother/Merlin/Tooth Fairy (delete as applicable) must have been looking down on us.

BA Halts all flights from the UK

My frolleague Kieran sent this round. I don't normally repost jokes but I thought this was particularly well done.

3rd or 10th Anniversary

Today is Ali and my 10th Anniversary of being together and 3rd Wedding Anniversary. I ain't no mug, I ensured we got married on the anniversary of us stepping out together so that I wouldn't have another date to remember. Ali got me a big book about Doctor Who. Not very romantic but waaay cool. It's called Doctor Who: The Legend Continues and covers all the Doctors and his assistants from William Hartnell to Christopher Eccelscake. Well played The Missus. For my part I'm taking her to a top Barnes restaurant for some top scoff and fine wines.

My Mum and Dad very generously sent us a card and attached a few pennies with the strict instructions that they were to be spent on a "Nice Plant". So still being on holiday today, we took a turn round the local garden centre. This is the fine article (together with pot) that we came up with. I've no idea what it is but it looks nice as instructed. Thanks Mum and Dad xx.

English (United States)

Because I work for a software company and am a bit of a geek I install software programs a lot. In fact pretty much every day I will be installing a new build of Lotus Notes or trying out some obscure utility or program. However the arrival of my new Thinkpad has caused me to install or reinstall loads of stuff. Because we live in a world of many languages most software will give you the opportunity to specify which one you want to use. Brilliant. Sometimes they even go to the trouble of specifying different national variation in a language so for example you might be able to choose between French (Fr) for the French or French (Cn) for the French Canadians. Vive la Difference.


But what makes me incandescent with rage is when the default language specified is English (US) but there are no other English options. This occurs in way too many programs. The above example is from the evil iTunes. Now don't get me wrong, I have no objection to there being a US version of English. I have read Bill Bryson's excellent book Made in America which analyses the etymology of American English and also that it isn't just a poor mans version of English English but is a perfectly valid derivative. But the point remains, American English is not the only version of English. In fact there is a version from a quaint little country called England which has some claim to ownership prior to the States. Some Canadians just aboot speak English. Our criminal cousins in Australia also have a go as do those in New Zealand along with the Irish (to be sure). So why only offer English (US)? If you are just going to offer one version why no just call it English? It really winds me up having to state that I'm a Yank to install some software. The latest software to do this to me is the otherwise excellent Open Office which offers Welsh and Esperanto yet no English (UK)!

Warwick

So I got an eMail yesterday saying that my new Thinkpad was ready for collection. One of the nice things about working for IBM is that they keep us Techies on the latest versions of hardware. Of course I'm just starting a fortnights holiday so should have ignored the mail.

Yeah right! Knowing my excellent Thinkpad T40 was going to be augmented by a new T60p was too much for my geekyness to resist. My wife Ali would quite rightly have no truck with me spending a day of our holiday going to the IBM Warwick office to pick up my new hardware. But there is no way I could wait. So a cunning plan was required. How about a cultural visit to Warwick Castle. To be specific this is 1.3 miles away from the IBM offices. The perfect Geek crime :-)


Since I'm using the castle as subterfuge it make sense to take a nice photo of Ali next to a cool tower.


Here I am in the "Portscullis". Oh suit your self :-(


ROCK THE THINKPAD! Of course this is what it is all about. Watch that data move from my old Thinkpad to my new T60p. I guess it doesn't take a genius to realise that Ali wasn't fooled for a second but whilst a bit over commercialised and over priced (£18 per adult!) it was a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon. If you do visit though - don't eat the fish and chips - they cost six quid each and are truly rank :-(

The Hasselback

Nope - I'm not talking about the guy from Baywatch who used to have a car called Kitt. The Hasselback is a way of preparing a potato. Witness the majesty. Until last weekend I hadn't even heard of this magnificent roast spud. My mate Si told me how to do it. Just to take you through the details, here we see the bottom, then the top and finally the a side view.







The secret of this top tuber is that the top is sliced through to about 2/3 of the depth of the potato. And that is pretty much it. Drizzle melted butter on them to ensure that they are crispy perfection after about 70 minutes at gas mark 7.

Why are they better than "ordinary" roasters? Firstly because they are much crunchier and yet still as creamy in the middle. And secondly because they are a little bit different. Some over the top chefs recommend that you should use Parmesan cheese for the last few minutes - but I think that is bonkers if you are having roast beef or chicken! Just slice and roast. Oh, and before you start asking which professional chef prepared the example in the photo's above - that was the last spare spud from our tea tonight. And I'll probably eat it cold later.

Easy Jensen

Whenever Ali is driving her red VW Polo too fast I cry "Easy Jensen!" to remind her that she isn't a Formula One driver and she isn't driving in a Grand Prix. Not very original or particularly funny but it makes me chuckle. However, unlike previous British F1 drivers like Lantern jawed David Coulthard and miserable excuse monkey Damon Hill, Jensen had never actually won a race.

I haven't been following F1 too closely this season because very often Ali and I are out on a Sunday, so I often just catch the highlights (with the obvious exception of my trip to the 2006 British Grand Prix). However, Yesterday Ali had popped over to see her Dad and I was at a bit of a lose end so I popped the TV on to find it was the beginning of the Hungarian GP. I had not heard any of the lead up so was very depressed to find out that Jensen was starting 14th after losing 10 places for changing his engine.

I almost turned off then thinking there wasn't much interest for me if Mr Button was starting so far back and with overtaking being so hard, but something made me keep on watching. You always know it is going to be interesting when the race starts out wet and then the track starts drying. But even without the Britons first win it was a great race. It's always a pleasure seeing Schmacher being overtaken and lapped. The fact that Jensen kept his nerve and made the win stick was magnificent and I was so happy to have seen it live.

Happy Birthday to Boo

Well actually - Happy Birthday to Barney and Boo. It really doesn't seem like 10 months since the little fellas joined our family. Today is their 1st birthday. The main change is that they are no longer little and cute like they were in October...


They are large and cute (and lazy)...

Over the last year Boo, despite being about half Barneys size, has shown himself to be top cat. He wears the furry trousers in that relationship. Boo is also by far the most adventurous. He is always the first one to climb a tree, catch an insect or jump on Ali or I for a cuddle. Barney just trundles on behind looking handsome. We have decided that Tabby is the precise cat equivalence to Blonde. Anyway - happy birthday boys. No more kitten food for you.

By Heck

Our top mates Si and Sally have moved from Boston to the little Lincolnshire village of Heckington. They have got a little cottage with a big garden for our God daughter Millie to play in. Ali and I popped up to see their new house this weekend and as luck would have it our visit coincided with the Heckington Agricultural Show which they claim is the largest village show in the country. It was like being in The Archers. Largest leek contests and displays of Falconry, sheep shearing demonstrations and the local farrier showing how to shoe a horse. Fascinating - especially for 5 year old Millie. Simon was more bothered about how good he looked.


After the copious tractors, tug of war, Sealed Knotters, show jumping and stalls the obviously centre piece of any agricultural show is a trip to the beer tent. Millie sat quietly on her Uncle Ports' lap and didn't draw attention to herself at all.


Later on, back at the ranch, Millie persuaded Sally that is was a good idea to have sparkly stickers on every nail and her cheeks. She looks very quiet and demure in this picture but as you can see above, that is the calm before the storm. Especially when she found out that her generous Aunty and Uncle had bought her a rather fab Tumble Time Tigger

Keep it simple stupid

Last week I met up with a whole group of frollegues at the annual IT Specialists Institute in Nottingham. It is a chance for a load of IBM propeller heads and geek types to come together and "network". The idea is to speak with folks who work outside your usual sphere of interest to broaden your horizons and expand your mind. As a result they employ every trick in the book to try and get people talking. This obviously starts with opening a bar to get the social barriers down and then following that with giant games like Jenga and Connect four. It isn't as lame as it sounds.

Anyone who has been on any kind of teaming event will recognise the next trick. After dinner, an envelope of "bits and pieces" was left on each of the 20 tables. Instruction on the envelope showed that the aim was for all the people on the table to work together to construct a self propelled floating vessel. Of course everyone on our table cynically mocked this task until it became apparent that other teams were really going for it. Unfortunately by the time we decided to take it seriously there were only four of us left. So our diminutive gang was Cali, who works with Content and Document Management systems (and who also knows every fact in the world), Stu who work with Portals for Banks, John who works with security and finally your humble correspondent. Not a lot of boat making experience here. Looking round the room it was apparent that most teams were attempting to use either balloon power or rubber band energy to power their craft. The problem was that their inventions didn't look very much like boats.

So we decided to keep it simple. We made the hull by cutting the envelope with the instructions in half (since it was already sealed at either end) and then put a mast into it with a piece of A4 cardboard for a main sail. A couple of corks taped either side and a plastic dinosaur attached to the mast and our mighty vessel was born. It had taken close to 10 minutes. We were far from confident that it would even float, never mind go anywhere.



Our propulsion system came from Stu and I waving a couple of laminated table labels. There were various whinging complaints from other teams because they claimed ship wasn't self propelled, but the judge quite rightly dismissed their pathetic moans. How can using wind not be self propelled? To our amazement HMS Dino actually worked and didn't sink. Each of the 20 tables had to see how far they could get their ship down the paddling pool. With herculean wafting with our place labels we managed to create enough wind to get Dino all the way down to the end which put us in a semi final sail off. We were stunned to win the semi and as you can see below, went on to win the final. Even though it was just a laugh, it felt really good to win and Stu, Cali and I were whooping and hollering like a flange of baboons.



The Spoils of War. We actually won two bottles of quite nice Champagne to share with the whole table. Of four people :-)

A sporty little number

Well after the problems of Wednesday when my car seemed very poorly, you can imagine how happy I was to be accelerating down the motorway back from Liverpool at 90 70 mph. No longer were hills causing the car to slow down to 45mph and all an sundry were passing in my wake like when the Millennium Falcon enters hyperdrive. The only problem was that I was in a Vauxhall Astra whilst my beloved BMW was sitting embarrassed on a tow truck being returned to Heathrow. My previous unmitigated praise for HR Owen might have been a little bit premature.

By the time I had got to the customers in Liverpool the Beemer was struggling to even manage 25mph. It was clearly on the way out. The AA man who turned up was very friendly but when he plugged his box of tricks into the car it reported that there were no faults. Clearly it was lying. So there was no option but to arrange a hire car to get me home. Given that the trip back from Liverpool is around 220 miles I was hoping for something equivalent to my current car - so my heart sank a little bit when this gaudy Astra coupe came round the corner.


Despite looking a bit boy racer the 1.8 16v SRi was certainly quite fast. Being about the size of a roller skate and a similar weight it sure does shift but it doesn't feel quite as sturdy and safe as the BM. Also it is missing some rather nice features like four doors, a sunroof, 6 gears, comfortable seats - not to mention the credibility afforded one travelling in a machine from the Bavarian Motor Works. On the other hand I shouldn't be ungrateful since it got me home in one piece and was a whole lot better than walking.

The Need for Speed

Just lately my car has felt as bit under powered. It's very difficult to be sure though. It can still manage to cruse along the motorway at a bit over the speed limit so it clearly isn't a major problem, but I have found myself being out accelerated by cars which I would not expect my 2 litre turbo diesel to be left standing by. I'm talking Nissan Micra's and VW Polo's. Anyway, I wasn't too worried because the ol' jalopy was due for a 36,000 mile service and I hoped that this would sort out my embarrassing little problem.

I have been using the BMW Heathrow (HR Owen) for servicing for over 10 years and they absolutely rule. Not only have they never put a foot wrong in terms of the standard of their servicing but they also pick up the car from work and drop it back before the end of the day - so no queueing or waiting for me. They also wash the car AND valet the interior. If they would only put the car seat back in the position I left it before they took it then they would be perfect.

So today they came and picked up the car as courteous as normal. However, at about 4pm I got a call. "Hi it's Fred at BMW Heathrow, I'm glad to say that the oil change and break service has all gone fine. When we plugged in the diagnostic computer it reported that the air compressor do-jam-ma-flip* (*not the actual name of the part he mentioed - can't remember what it was) needs replacing. We think this is the cause of your performance problem and why people are laughing at you when you are left at the lights by Smart Cars* (*He may not have said the last bit). Unfortunately since replacing the new part your car won't start.". Gah! They have broken my pride and joy. Fred* (*not his real name) started explaining that I would not be left in the lurch and that they would make sure that I had a replacement vehicle if they couldn't fix it. Fred was doing a good job and I felt he was looking after me properly and he was only slightly undermined when I heard his technician in the background say "I don't know why the f*ckin thing won't start. Let's just reboot the f*ucker.". So they rebooted my car and I got a call from Fred 15 minutes later to say the car was now fine. It's just like I remember when I worked in support :-) Bring on the Smart cars!

Hot Jock

I have been up in Scotland this week spending a couple a days visiting some of our Lotus customers. I've been to Glasgow loads of times in the past and pretty much every time I have been their it has been drab, grey and washed in a miserable mist of drizzle. Because of this it has always impressed me how warm and friendly Glaswegian folks are in the face of such a cruel environment. Don't get me wrong, they are perfectly happy to have a pop at me for being a filthy sasanach but it is always with a wink and an offer for me to buy them a pint ;-)

So what a revelation this week has been! Along with the rest of Blighty the temperature has been a bit tasty but in Glasgow it was 29 degrees. To put that in perspective I'm told 30 degrees has never been recorded in Glasgow ever! So on Monday night my frollegue Simon, who has been on this Scottish tour together with me, and I were sitting out side in an Italian restaurant off Buchanan Street at 10:30pm in our T-shirts. In Glasgow! It could have been any cosmopolitan city in Europe. And the real revelation was that with a bit of sun on the case Glasgow is a really fine looking city. And it is really nice to seen all the people who are normally blue turning a bit more brown.

Welsh Wales

So I was visiting an IBM Lotus Domino customer in Wales today. I won't go into the details of how much they love Domino and consider the competition to be initially slick but lacking in real enterprize deliverables. Because what I wanted to comment on is actually about the return of my Tom Tom One Satalite Navigation system. My poor TomTom went wrong a couple of weeks ago and to put it mildly I have missed my little navigational friend whilst it was off being repaired. However, I didn't expect this journey to Wales to overly stressfull since the trip basically involved travelling down the M4 from London until just before Cardiff.

But a few miles into the journey the radio started reporting that the M4 was closed between Junction 18 and 19 because of a lorry fire. Doh! Obviously I'm going to be late for my meeting. Not at all - at junction 17 I told the TomTom that I wanted to avoid the M4 and low and behold it charted me a new route that missed all the trouble. Welcome home little TomTom. You have been missed.

The only way it could be improved is if it could find a route that doesn't involve being charged £4.90 to enter Wales whilst it is free to return to England. I can't help feeling that the Welsh did this to wind up the English.

The Reoffenders

I've never seen the Reoffenders before but my friends Glastonbury Jon and Heather are the singers and they have modestly told me that they are very good. Glastonbury Jon and I used to work together about 15 years ago when we both lived in Hull and we used to write depressing folk songs and play them at The New Adelphi Club amongst other places. Jon used to tell me that he used to be a Punk and used to play in a punk band when he was younger. I never believed him. He programmed computers.

So I was totally surprised that at the tender age of forty something he has started a new punk band, but more specifically, that they are really great! Ali and I travelled down to Devon this weekend where Jon and Heather live for the gig (I must stop calling him Glastonbury Jon - it is heroically inaccurate these days). It was a great weekend with great weather, great company, lovely location (Topsham if you fancy a nice historic village), great beer and wine. On the downside - terribly un punk vegetarian food - bleugh ;-) Anyway, back to the music ...

Heather looks like a punk Dennis the Menace


Like so many other bands, they perform lively and accurate covers of punk songs old and new. However, the thing that sets the Reoffenders apart is that they don't just play the songs - they put on a show. They are a show band for Punk in the same way the Blues Brothers are a show band for blues and Bjorn Again are a show band for Abba. They are that good.

Obviously there is nothing more punk than playing a Children's Dining Area :-)


The musical selections are inspired. The Sex Pistols "Pretty Vacant" may be followed by The Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian" - then Green Day may be followed by Brittany Spears "Toxic". For the purist, the band also features some more obscure numbers like "So What" by the Anti Nowhere League or "Dress" by PJ Harvey. I won't list any more because I hope you will be pleasantly surprised. You will certainly be entertained. Go and see them next time you are in Devon. They play loads of gigs - just look here

Yeah! Niki has spawned!

Fantastic news. My sister in law Niki has given birth to Nathan Hugh. He's a little boy. Obviously. Niki sent a camera phone picture of the liddle fella to Ali and this is more or less what he looks like. Like all little sprouts. Without the bow tie. Obviously.


For some reason it is the form to mention his weight, which was 8 pounds. Like wise, mentioning that mother and baby are doing well seems to be the done thing. They are back home now. Hurrah! So good luck little Nephew dude - over time you will realise how lucky you are to have such an excellent and cool Uncle. And your Aunty Ali is already plotting how to spoil you. Expect to be cuddled :-)

Commit the crime - do the time

Hey - I'm no hippy. If you commit a crime then you have to be prepared to do the time. So when I was photographed by a sneaky camera van on the M4 in Wales doing 93 miles per hour 3 years ago I didn't complain about it, I forked over the £60 and took the 3 points on my license. I was in the wrong and I admitted it. If anything I was fortunate because I subsequently learned that if you are caught doing over 95mph then it is an instant ban. Having those 3 points elapse off my license allowing it to return to its previously unblemished state was most gratifying a couple of months ago. So imagine my chagrin this morning when a new speeding fine presented itself in my post box!

Had I once more been hurtling along the Queens highway like Jenson Button? Had I been throwing caution to the wind and catapulting myself as if I had no fear? No. I was travelling at 53 miles per hour on a nearly empty M6. Now I know in America 55 mph is considered pretty racy, but here in Blighty that is virtually walking on a Motorway. And why am I being subjected to this ridiculous trumped up charge? Because apparently there were roadworks and the speed limit was reduced to 40mph. This reduction in speed being presumably to protect the traffic cones which are arranged neatly across the back of the hard shoulder. There were certainly no human beings performing any work or even in attendance. The supreme irony? I was on the M6 on the way to visit a northern police force :-(

Barnes Grill Review

A little while ago I mentioned that AWT's Barnes Grill had opened and that we were going to try it out due to the inducement of a free glass of plonk each. Well last week Ali offered to take me there as a treat. To get the obvious over with, the food was superb. Ali braved steak tartar for her starter. She said it tasted a bit like pate. I had prawns which were very nice. Obviously since it was a grill restaurant it was steaks all round for the main course. Ali' s filet was so tender it was almost like slicing through butter and my sirloin was just as good. The main meals were very filling and neither of us finished the enormous side order of home made thick cut chips. Not being a pudding man I opted for an Irish Coffee whilst Ali opted for Creme Brule which turned out to be the only culinary disappointment. Whilst it tasted fine it did not have the crisp top which is clearly mandatory. Tsk Flump. Must try harder.

The said flump was not in attendance but had he bothered to turn up I would have complemented him on the excellent steaks and also the rather fine wine. The free glasses of House red were sufficiently nice that we ordered a bottle and it complemented the food superbly. However, where I would have to fault the little fella, it would be on the decor. The place is a mess. It has scatter cushions like a Moroccan banquet but then purple chandeliers that would get laughed off Antiques Roadshow and then the walls were covered with pictures of lions and tigers! It's like he asked Timmy Mallet to design it. So all in all a good place to go for a treat if you like good food and don't mind quirky stylings.

Table Tennis Tournament

So as promised a few posts ago, we held the first Barnes International Table Tournament yesterday to coincide with Ali's birthday. A few beers and a BBQ made sure that the atmosphere was spot on. Obviously the huge crowd of 12 people were waiting for the singles but we had the doubles first and Mr and Mrs Ports triumphed over a woefully poor Pink and Dawn. After some tight matches in the early rounds the final was set.



Marcus features a near oriental level of ping pong skill when it comes to fiendishly spinning of the ball but he hasn't really played seriously since leaving school so he needed to get his eye back in.


Ligntning Tom doesn't have Marcus' technique but certainly has youth on his side not to mention extra length gangly limbs that can almost reach the other side of the table.



But despite being as lithe as a gazelle, Lightning Tom was no match for Marcus' guile and spinning technique. So proud Marcus wins the prize which in this case is a couple of inflatables that Ali and I won for coming 3rd in a pub quiz last week.

Ozzie to replace Gates at Microsoft!

Microsoft have just announced that in July 2008 Bill Gates will step down from being Chief Software Architect to be replaced by Ray Ozzie, the inventor of Lotus Notes, who immediately gets that job title and will spend the next two years working with Gates to transition the role. I guess we now know why Microsoft bought Groove Networks.

Just another Sunday

IBM sponsors all sort of events. From what I have seen this is mainly golf days. Even though my brother-in-law Stew is a fanatical golphist, I agree with Winston Churchill that golf spoils a nice walk. However , just recently I heard that IBM would have a Suite at the British Grand Prix. Now that is more like it. Unfortunately, a technical monkey like me would normally never get to attend one of these marketing events. However, for reasons I won't go into I managed to blag justify my ticket.

Brilliant, I thought, I get to go to the Grand Prix. It doesn't get much better than this. Or so I thought. I then got an email starting with "This is the time for your Helicopter transfer to Silverstone ...". Wahey!

Obviously the regular reader of my musings would be aware that from January this year I have move beyond mere helicopters since I had tasted the joy that is a Jetcopter. But I was prepared to swallow my pride and slum it in standard Heilo. Here is the one that I flew into Silverstone in.


After a 15 minute flight from a country house near Milton Keynes I was plonked in the middle of the track. Apparently helicopters land approximately every 10 seconds. It was like a motorway for aircraft. We were then transported to Copse paddock where the hospitality suite was located. Here you can see the sign to the IBM suite.


Much to my disgust, even though it was only 10 in the morning, I was forced to consume multiple glasses of lovely champagne. That loosened things up. To be honest I didn't pay much attention to the GP2 race since I was breathing in the atmosphere and the champagne, but at 11am the Red Arrows started an awesome display and Copse was the idea location to watch from. I have seen the Red Arrows many times, the first being with my Dad at an airshow for British Aerospace employees and their families when I was just a little sprout. In the intervening 30 odd years they have learned a few tricks. For example, do you remember the bit in Top Gun when Maverick and Goose fly their F16 inverted above a MIG and Goose flicks the Russian pilot the "bird"? The Red Arrows did this - except they did it in a 720 degree roll. And then they held the inverted position as they did a full 4g loop. That's just showing off. No photo can encapsulate a 25 minute display but here is one of the "classic" formations when they are flying approximately 6 feet apart.


Of course the reason for being there was the Formula 1 Grand Prix and it didn't disappoint. As soon as you arrive at the track you are issued with ear plugs and it is a good job you are. These machines create an amazing amount of noise. In fact, I have heard many "civilian" Mercedes cars over the years but the safety car sounded more like a Messerschmitt as it tore round. But that was nothing compared to the GP Cars. Obviously I was rooting for the home side so I was very pissed off vexed when Jenson Button's Honda blew it's engine after 10 laps when he had started in 19th position and fought his way up to 11th. Still, Jenson has never had much luck at Silverstone.

Because Copse was such a good location, being the exit from the Pits and just before a chicane, we got to see plenty of action. Alonso won the race with the ubiquitous Michael Shumacher trailing a few seconds behind. It is very difficult to take F1 pictures with a digital camera because of the lag but this is Shumacher's team mate Massa (because if the green helmet) followed by Fishicella.


On the way over to the heliports my boss Brian and a guest and friend also called Brian spotted a Lotus sports car. An obvious photo opportunity and so fortunate that we hadn't passed a toilet .


I think I mentioned earlier that whilst I am prepared to slum it in a helicopter I really require a JETcopter these days. So I was well chuffed to see that my ride home was a 5 seat Eurocopter. Shweet.


But did it make me happy? Wadda you think? And a big thanks to Mrs Ports for getting up at 6:30am on a Sunday morning to chauffeur me to the heliport and back so I could enjoy the punishment that is a free bar.

English Garden, Munich with John and Kevin

Cheers!

Ticketless Flight

I'm flying to Munich tomorrow for a very difficult training course and most certainly not to drink vats of Weissebier out of gigantic steins. Oh no. At IBM we have a fantastic system for booking travel. It is called the Online Travel Reservations (or because we are IBM, OTR). You just go to the travel page on our Intranet and using the drop down menus select where you want to fly from and where you want to fly too. It figures out the best airports and the best times for you, works out what class you should use (in my case normally cattle) and books it for you. Of course it will also book hotels, hire cars and just about anything else you need for your trip.

However, the one thing it won't give you is a ticket. When you get to the airport you hoof your credit card into the self service ticket machines and it allows you to find your booking, pick your seat, check you in and spits out your boarding pass. Now that is really smart. Virtual service all the way through from booking to climbing on board the plane. The only problem is that I still can't get used to turning up at the airport without a ticket in my hand.

Posh Nosh

I like eating out. Whether it is Steak and Ale pie in a local pub or moules and frites at Belgo, Japanese steak at Benihana or a cheeky curry after a couple of ales. However, what I don't like is restaurants which are totally over priced and over hyped because they are affiliated with some TV chef. So it was a little disturbing today to have a post card pushed through the door advertising Barnes Grill, the latest venture from celebrity flump Antony Worrall Thompson. This makes it one of the closest restaurants to our house but do I really want to eat at Chez Flump? Of course we will because the post card entitles two people to a free glass of posh wine each. Yup, that's how shallow I am.

Lotus is cool

I was out last night at my best mate Matt's birthday bash in a Chinese restaurant off Oxford Street in London. Mainly the group comprised the usual suspects but Matt had also invited 4 super geeks who are studying for an MSc in Information Security with him. It didn't take the geeks very long to notice that I was wearing a T-shirt with IBM on it.

"Why are you wearing an IBM T-shirt?" they enquire.
"Because he works for IBM" interrupts Matt.
"Eeeugh", sneer the geeks, "why would you want to work for a behemoth like that?".
"Actually", I explain, "I work for the Lotus bit."
"Oooh" nod the geeks with reverence, "Lotus is cool"

Sweet Jesus

There are many folks that have sincere and committed beliefs in a religion. I have absolute respect for these folks and would never ridicule them despite the fact that I don't personally think that organised religions can ever pass common sense, logic or any test of evidence. The reason I respect them is that I understand the concept of faith (which by definition demands a lack of proof) but more to the point have found that in general the religious folks I have met to are really nice people. Obviously I'm talking about proper religions like Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and Scientologists are idiots and deserve to have L.Ron Hubbard read Battlefield Earth to them for eternity.

Because of the sensitivity of the subject I would not normally dream of commenting on such things. However, the Da Vinci Code movie has caused me to break my silence because of the unbelievably outrageous demands of the Catholic Church.

In the UK, leading Catholics have demanded a "health warning" after a survey of 1,000 people suggested that reading the original book could undermine a belief in Christian traditions. The research claimed those who had read Brown's novel were twice as likely to believe its central theme - of Jesus being a father - than those who had not. "For many it is fiction," said Dr Austen Ivereigh, co-ordinator of the DVC Response Group, which comprises priests, monks, theologians and members of Opus Dei. "But an alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed."
So what does Dan Brown say? A 36 year old middle Eastern man called Jesus may have shagged his good mate Mary and they had a kid. Could that be possible? Maybe. Or the competing argument - an omniscient GOD felt the need to make his "son" incarnate on earth and take on all the sins of mankind. Catholics thank "Christ" by drinking his blood and eating his flesh for communion. L Ron is starting to look normal.

The funny thing is that by criticising the depiction of the Catholic Church (and the weird Opus Dei freaks) in this film the Catholic Church and Opus Dei have received more attention than they could possibly have gained in any other way. If Dan Brown worked in advertising he would get a pay rise.

Ping Pong

Blimey! As I wrote a couple of posts ago, I had a nightmare getting hold of our new Table Tennis table due to the incompetence of Argos-Sport.com. Still, it arrived a few days ago and I decided to forget about the past and live in the present. The instructions seemed pretty straight forward and it even helpfully stated that it would take just 45 minutes to build. I should have guessed that things were not going well when it took a hour before I realised I had the wrong screw driver :-( How was I to know that a Pozidriv Screw Driver is different to an ordinary Phillips? Here is the evidence. Anyway, with Ali's help I managed to get it constucted, but as you can probably see from the photo's - by the time it was built it was too dark to play :-( And not only that but those cheeky Argos scamps had out done themselves by forgetting to include a few parts as well.

As luck would have it, I was then very busy for the rest of the week so still didn't get a chance to have a play on our new table! But I knew that the weekend was coming so not to worry. And what happens on Saturday? Rain all bloomin day. Bad luck doesn't last forever though and this afternoon Ali and I got to have a couple of games. It was fantastic but just as we were emulating Chinese olympic team - it started raining again. When does summer start?

Those cheeky scamps in the media

I read with interest that the media, particularly the UK tabloid press, are blaming the Football Association for the failure to appoint Luiz Felipe "Big Phil" Scolari to the job of England football team coach. This makes me incandescent with rage. There is no doubt that the FA have been a bit disorganised, but lets have a look at the facts. Why are the England team looking for a new manager 5 weeks before the World Cup starts? It's because the tabloid press have been hounding the current incumbent Sven-Goran Eriksson for months to say if he was going to stay on in the job after the end of his current contract. Now it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Eriksson would probably and quite rightly have liked to have decided whether to stay on after the World Cup but he was forced into deciding before the World Cup by the ridiculous argument that he owed it to the fans to let them know. What! Why? And the media just wouldn't let it go until he decided to tell them he was leaving, presumably just to shut them. Thank you the media.

So having hounded out our current manager the media criticise the FA for chasing a few English also rans from the middle of the premiership (Curbishley, Allardyce, McClaren). Come on! We are talking Chartlon, Bolton and Middlesborough. They are all plucky teams that are currently punching above their weight, but we need a world class manager for England. What they didn't realise was that the FA was actually chasing Big Phil Scolari who had won the World Cup with Brazil and Euro 2004 with Portugal. Exactly the sort of coach we need to get for England. The FA made a formal and secret request to the Portuguese FA to approach Scolari because he was about to run out of contact following the World Cup so they agreed.

The only proviso was that this all had to be kept under wraps for the time being because Scolari didn't want to show any disloyalty to the Portuguese fans. But as luck would have it our friends in the media followed the FA representative to Lisbon and the next day "Scolari to accept England job" is on all the back pages of newspapers across Europe. Not surprisingly, the next day Scolari pulls out of the job stating that the press intrusion had screwed it up. And the newspapers headlines? "FA incompetents ruin it all". Thank you the media. You hypocritical lying wankers.

Compact Cassette Horror

At the weekend we replaced a dodgy old chest of draws on which our TV sat with a fine sheesham wood table. Since the chest is going to the rubbish tip I needed to remove and relocate all the contents. Two of the draws contained photographs which were easily moved, but the third draw contained loads of unmarked or partially marked cassette tapes. I haven't played any of these tapes for at least 10 years, mainly because I don't possess a cassette player. The fact that these tapes had been ignored for so long means that they aren't very important and that most of them will be filed in the bin, but I wanted to check what was on some of the tapes for incase there were any lost gems, particularly home recordings from my early musical days. So I hot footed it to Curry's to find the cheapest tape player I could find. They no longer sell "pure" tape players so I had to resort to buying the cheapest combined cassette/CD/radio which was just $16.

Well there were two horrors to be discovered. The most predictable one was some of the music that I had written and recorded in my yoof. Ropey 3 chord music with 6th form poetry lyrics abounds. I did find a few gems which I will be copying over to the PC for old times sakes. A very ragged but strangely cool version of "The Breath of Fate" featuring myself with Matt and Glastonbury Jon. Also a few early demo's from my first proper band Crazy Uncle. But the second horror was how awful it was using tapes again! I couldn't believe it - 4 minutes to rewind a TDK D90. No way to know where the tunes are. If you are playing an album from beginning to end then no problem, but if you are trying to find something or are attempting check out what is on an unlabelled tape it is a nightmare. Thank goodness for random access digital media for killing this rubbish.

1st International Barnes Table Tennis Tournament

So a couple of weeks ago I ordered a table tennis table for the back garden. Table tennis is always fun because people generally think they are better than they really are and tend to get a bit competitive. Just right for when your having a barbecue and a few beers with some friends on a sunny day. I asked for it to be delivered last Saturday. Maybe I'm getting too cynical, but it didn't really surprise me that having spent all day waiting for it - it didn't appear.

So I shot off an email to the supplied address asking when to expect it or if they couldn't say, give me details of the delivery agents and I'll contact them direct. It's kinda important to know - it's not like they can pop it through the letter box or hide it behind the bin. The silence was deafening. So having had no reply for a couple of days I rang them up asking why they still hadn't contacted me to say when the delivery was scheduled. They said they would ring me back with the information. They didn't. So I rang back the next day asking for answers. They said they would ring back in 15 minutes. 2 hours later I rang back pointing out the difference between what they were saying and what was happening. They got a supervisor over - they said that the person who should have rung me had now gone to lunch. I asked why no one could just tell me when it was going to be delivered? She said she would ring me back in 5 minutes. She didn't. Eventually I got a call from someone who sounded very sulky saying there were delays because of Easter and it would be delivered in the middle of next week. So, no question of an apology for ludicrously bad and ill mannered service. I didn't bother asking why Easter has caused such a run on Table Tennis tables. Perhaps Jesus rose again to have a couple of matches?

Anyway, it appears that I will get the table soon and we can set up the inaugural Barnes International (well if Irish Marcus turns up) Table Tennis Tournament. I bet they are getting worried down at Wimbledon. (Incidentally the company behind the bad service is Argos-Sport.com if you want to avoid them.)

The Sisters of Mercy

The Sisters are a band that have been worshipped and ridiculed in equal part over their 25 years history. Variously described as gothic miserablists and a shimmering industrial groove machine. I am fortunate to fall in the camp that can fully understand how preposterous they are and yet love them all the more for it. Any band that enlists bonkers Bat out of Hell producer Jim Steinman to produce their some of their singles (This Corrosion, More, Dominion) have to have a thick vein of humour running through their work. Likewise when band leader Andrew Eldritch enlisted the much derided Tony James to join after he had masterminded the heroically bad Sigue Sigue Sputnik. But beyond all that, the music is the thing. Mixing heavy metal, psychedelia and dark brooding dance beats the tunes rock along at a might pace but the barbed intelligent lyrics are what really make the songs stand out.

I've seen The Sisters play live a few times, headlining the Reading Festival, selling out Wembley Arena and even seeing the "secret" 10th anniversary gig at Leeds University. They make for a mesmerising live experience. Currently on a 50 date world tour to celebrate their 25th anniversary ("Biting the silver bullet tour") they hit London in early May playing the Astoria. I really wanted to see them again for old times sake and agreed to go with my good buddy Lightning Tom. Imagine my chagrin upon discovering that I was not the only one with this plan and that the gig was completely sold out! Fortunately the day has been saved by the power of eBay which has produced two reasonably priced tickets. So I'll have to start brushing down my Cuban healed winkle pickers and smoking jacket.

Bill Gates is an Alien!

Big news with the return for a second series of the rejuvenated Dr Who next Saturday (in the UK) is that Bill Gates will be making an appearance. This link from Silicon.com explains that "Gates will be revealed as an alien who had been living undercover on Earth with a secret mission to take over the planet with a line of ubiquitous software". It all makes sense now!

Such a shame that a quick squint at the early April publication date rather gives the game away.

Audio Books on the Move

For the last few years I have found CD audio books to be a life saver when I driving long journeys. A nice 8 hour thriller makes a return trip to Manchester a pleasure rather than a chore. The good thing about using the CD in the car is that it always remembers where you where when you start the car again after a stop. I now want to repeat this trick with a mobile device so I can listen to books as I go for walks. I have downloaded loads of free audio book which are in MP3 format - however, I'm curious how other folks do it and what mobile device they may have chosen.

Firstly, the books are typically broken up into one MP3 file per chapter of a book. I know that many MP3 players default to shuffling the tracks. This may work nicely when your listening to tunes but may get a bit confusing when it is shuffling chapters. So how do you get it to play in order? Create a play list - seems a bit of a chore. Likewise, I don't want to add audio books into my music library - the last thing I need is a chapter of Frankenstein being read out in the middle of a party. So what do folks do? Install two different media players? (I use Media Monkey).

If anyone out their listens to mp3 based audio books on a little device I would love to hear how you are doing it and how successful it is.

All About Eve

Like most people, as a youth I had some pretty suspect musical preferences which I would most likely not play today. I'm not, of course, referring to perennial favourites like the sublime Marillion or the genius of The Sisters. Oh no. I'm talking about the embarrassing stuff. I have some Jethro Tull albums which should never have been released and The Enid is frankly unlistenable. How did I ever think King Crimson was any good and as for Kingmaker! (Notice I'm not putting in links to prevent an awful aural accident).


Anyway, a guilty pleasure from my past has just popped up again. I first got into All About Eve in 1987 when I bought their outrageously hippy "Flowers in our hair". However, they toned down the hippyness a bit as they went on, ultimately being classified as a bit too poppy to be alternative and a bit too alternative to be poppy. But this just goes to show how meaningless classifications are. A 2 CD + 1 DVD retrospective of all their work has just been released and is called Keepsakes. What is amazing is that you get all 40 songs and 20 videos for £12.99. It is packed with great tracks, best known probably being the beautiful Martha's Harbour. However, there is also the dramatic "Are You Lonely" featuring the little known guitar wannabe David Gilmour. There are too many top tunes to keep picking them out but if you remember and liked All About Eve then you could be far worse that spend a couple of quid on this. I'm sure you will be as pleasantly surprised as I was.