Life begins at forty

I still remember being 16. I quite distinctly recall my clear understanding that anyone over the age of 30 was utterly pointless and totally incomprehensible. In fact Logan's Run should have been a documentary rather than a film. Myself and my best mates Matt and Phill used to spend hours plotting the downfall of the fascist Thatcher government, being proud Yorkshiremen supporting the Miners Strike (despite not really knowing what it was about), worrying about our untimely demise by atomic bomb due to the Cold War and generally setting the world to rights. However, perhaps the principal focus of our attention was the general desire to beat the system and resist the corrupt and cynical grasp of "The Man". OK, perhaps our principal focus was actually on girls and our seemingly endless quest to gain the attentions of one - but after that it was beating "The Man". Our future plans mainly revolved around our inevitable successful career as rock stars (our band was called The Strangled Wombats) whilst simultaneously writing worthy but witty novels and moonlighting as peace campaigners for CND and humanitarians bringing parity and fairness to the Third World. In short we were stupidly idealistic, impossibly opinionated and of course girlfriend less.

So what would my 16 year old self make of me now I have hit 40? I guess he would see me living with a huge mortgage in a twee suburb of London and think I had been a traitor to my Yorkshire roots. He would bristle at my "ostentatious" BMW since it is "Only a badge and that car could buy a house in Hull". I'm quite sure that he would be disappointed that the music career didn't pan out but disgusted that I ended up working in IT and worse still for a behemoth like IBM (perhaps softened by the fact that I work in the cool Lotus bit). I guess he would be ashamed that I had followed convention and got married rather that just "living in sin" but be secretly relieved that I had a kid since that showed that he was definitely going to get a shag sometime in the future. I'm sure he would be baffled that I spend money on white goods but quite chuffed to see I have a garden shed. And he might even like the goatee beard. But probably not. 16 year olds are a very difficult crowd to please.

Fortunately I don't judge myself like Mini Me. In fact I'm well happy to be 40. So happy I had a party with my twin sister. This was the invitation (don't worry if you didn't get one - the room was limited to 90 people for fire regulations - so not being invited doesn't mean I don't like you. Necessarily.)

Here are a few pictures from the party. We made some poster sized copies of some pictures from when we were little - so here are my sister and I in front of a picture of ourselves from when we were small and black and white (taken by my Mum).

This was the band that played the party. They are called Beautiful Losers (clicky clicky for Myspace Page). They rock!

Here I am approving of the band.

Here are Andy, Heather, Richard and Johanna.

This is most of the legendary indie rock band Angelfield. Lynne, Ian and Brian. Brian gave me a birthday card with a cartoon stegasaurus saying "From one dinosaur of rock to another". Respect :-)

Here are Helen, Pete and Alexis.

Ali (with the bag) talks to Simon and the band at the bar.

Oh dear - comedy headwear has come out!

Various folks start "cutting a rug".

Me and my idealistic foil Matt may have moved to London and forgotten our idealistic past but at least we both have cool goatee beards.

And despite what Mini Me might have though - being married is pretty cool ;-)

And so is the Beemer ;-)

Lucy

It's hard to believe that Lucy is already over nine month old. The childminder said yesterday that she is now more like a little girl than a baby. *sniff*. Everyone warns you when you have a kid that they grow up really fast but I guess you have to experience it to fully understand. And aren't the policemen looking younger ...

ZoneAlarms problem on Windows Vista

I have been using Windows Vista on my home PC for a few weeks now - I will write about my experiences and opinions of Vista soon. But I was about to upgrade it back to Windows XP because of the appalling performance and reliability I was suffering. It would randomly hang or start going slow despite being a new machine with 3Gb ram and Quad core processors. I would also get cryptic errors like this one.

I did loads of monitoring and analysis but Vista was giving no clues as to the source of the problem. However, through a series of troubleshooting steps that involved uninstalling just about everything and re adding it and then testing I discovered the the culprit was ZoneAlarms Security Suite. It was causing the machine to run like a dog. So if you are running ZoneAlarms on Vista Home Premium (32-bit) and are suffering similar problems then this may well be the solution to your problems.

The current (as of 22nd Jan 2008) gold version of ZA for Vista is 7.1.078.000. This has seemingly been the root of most of these performance problems. If you go here http ://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/beta/zavistabeta.html you will find a Beta release of version 7.1.247.000. This release so far seems to have fixed the problems and the performance has returned to normal - certainly sufficiently for me to persevere with Vista for a while longer.

I should say that even though this has fixed my problems it is Beta software so you should read all the terms and conditions and warnings carefully before you decide to install it. Beta software is rarely if ever supported.

The Bathtub Test

During a visit to the psychiatric hospital, a visitor asked the Director how do you determine whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.


"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

How do you make a Computer Monitor a TV?

Perhaps you can help me. I have an excellent Sony flat screen monitor which I no longer need to use on the computer. I wondered if it was possible to use it as a conventional digital TV. I realise that I can't just add a Freeview DVB box since those normally output to SCART or RGB and my monitor accepts DVI or VGA.

I have had a Google about and can't find an easy answer. Is there one? Any hints appreciated.

What does the colour of your car say about you?

The time has come round to order my new company car. It is almost four years since I got my current motor so I'm quite excited about getting a new one. Things have changed since then though, not least the fact that Lucy has come along so now I find I am much more interested in ISOFIX car seat connectors than top speed. The biggest change is that I will be getting an estate car because even though Lucy is only 2 and a half feet long she takes up an unbelievable amount of room. What with her car seat, pushchair, travel cot, baby bath, clothes, toys and nappies she has more packing than Posh Spice.

But the real dilemma is what colour do I chose. In my opinion, the best looking car I ever had was this one in green with beige interior. That was 10 years ago. Since then I have boringly stuck with a blue/grey combination. So I thought I would return to Green for the new jalopy.

But then I found this list here
Black cars denote an aggressive personality or someone who's an outsider or rebel.
Silver cars indicate someone who's cool, calm and slightly aloof.
Green cars can often be chosen by people with hysterical tendencies.
Yellow cars signify someone who is idealistic and novelty loving.
Blue cars are chosen by the more introspective, reflective and cautious driver.
Gray cars represent those who are calm, sober and dedicated to their work.
Red cars denote those who are full of zest, energy and drive and who think, move and talk quickly.
Pink cars are chosen by gentle, loving and affectionate drivers.
White cars represent status-seeking extrovert drivers.
Cream cars are the least likely to be involved in accidents and denote self-contained and controlled owners.

Notice that it suggests people with green cars have "Hysterical Tendencies"! Perhaps I should go with Pink instead.

Sideburner Video

6 years ago Lightning Tom and Al, my good friends and fellow bandmates in the awesome Alt Rock group Sideburner went with me to California for a rockin' holiday and shot some video. The idea was to mix some of it with live footage to produce a promo video to amuse friends and family. At last I have now got hold of a video capture device that has enabled me to grab the footage off the dodgy old VHS tapes. So here is my first effort at creating a film (using Pinnacle Studio).



Do you think Spielberg will be worried?

Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow

I first got my ear pierced almost exactly 20 years ago. I was 19 and it was the day before the interview which would result in my first job in IT. I was such a rebel. My employer was no fan of male ear furniture but they were far more distracted by my long curly hair so didn't mention it. Would you hire this man as a VMS Systems Programmer? Incidentally - this photo is not taken at the interview, it is at the legendary "Spiders" nightclub in Hull.

Over the following 20 years no one seems to have been particularly bothered. One of the comments I have had was a customer saying "You are the first IBMer I have ever seen with an ear ring" to which I pedantically replied "I'm sure you mean Male IBMer". On several other occasions IBM colleagues have commented that it was good because it made me look like a geek :-/ Mrs Ports thinks it makes me look more like a pirate being a silver hoop.

However, all good things have to come to an end and I have decided that the earring has to go. It has nothing to do with work - it is all to do with the baby. Every time I give Lucy a huggle she grabs it and she is getting very good at grabbing things and holding onto them. So I have given up. It is just a matter of time before she either rips my ear off or ends up swallowing it. I just don't understand how people with babies and lots of Jewelery, specifically jangly earrings, don't go bonkers.

iPod Touch: Object of Desire, Software of Derision

I have always liked the idea of Apple. I like the way that when IBM's motto was "Think" they made their motto "Think Different". I like the fact that when Microsoft stole all their ideas (e.g. Windows) they didn't just complain like so many of their long gone competition, they came up with some better ideas. I like that they always seem to be a step ahead of the rest. But more than anything else, I like it that Apple don't just make beige boxes that do accounts they make beautiful objects of desire. Having said all that, I have never owned anything by Apple.

Since I have started going to the gym I thought that perhaps this was the time to take my first faltering steps into mobile music. I had been tempted by an iPhone until I discovered how draconian the restrictions were (O2 only, 18 Month Contact, No 3G etc.) so the obvious candidate was the iPod Touch. All that is good about the iPhone, except without the phone.

I have to say that my first impression of the Touch was awesome. Even the box it comes in is a work of art (Except for Macy Gray on the cover - her music sounds like an Alligator gargling). The Touch itself is extremely slim but weighty enough so it doesn't feel dainty. The first disappointment is that I can't do anything with it until I have connected it to iTunes.

The second disappointment is that iTunes is a disgrace. Having downloaded the software it would not allow me to proceeded until I had given it my address and credit card number. I know muggers who make less demands on their customers. I have bought a media player yet it is forcing me to be a record shop customer. Absolutely disgraceful and I now start to see where some of the criticism of Apple comes from. That is not to mention the fact that it crashed my PC several times. And it is also about as intuitive as Latin. In braille.

This myth that Apple software is easy to use really is a myth. It is pathetic. However, if you search on the web you will find loads of good people railing about the evils of iTunes so I won't waste more time ranting about it any more here other than to say that iTunes stands in stark contrast to the excellent software on the Touch.

I have previously commented on the Web browser Safari being a bit rubbish on Windows but on the Touch it is a revelation, helped by the ease by which you can enable wireless networking. Being able to access You Tube is less useful but still quite amusing to show friends.



Getting back to using the Touch as a media player it is very good with the basics. Music played pretty well and it automatically picked up most cover art to make the "Album Flow" interface work well. Likewise I could download a few videos and TV Shows after I had converted them from .mov to .m4v format. I was disappointed that other videos and DVD's didn't want to transfer even though they were all legitimate. The curse of DRM.

The other major suprise was how crap the built in headphones were. I would have replaced them anyway since white earbuds just scream mug me, but the sound quality was awful. A pair of discrete black in ear Sennheisers has cured all that though.

The final addition was a Griffin iTrip. The current jalopy doesn't have an iPod connector so the iTrip allows the Touch to become a radio transmitter which can be picked up by the car radio so I can listen to all my new podcasts as I dive. Neat.

www.Build6000.com

A build number can be a quite interesting things in software. It represents the number of times that a computer program/suite has been assembled and compiled up to that point. Lotus stopped bothering with build number for Notes and Domino years ago because we normally have several versions that are being built at any one time (currently 6.5.x, 7.0.x, 8.0.x and "Next") and they are often built more than once per day. So we tend to go with build names that are version and dates - so I am currently running Notes V801_11152007. However, Microsoft has continued using build numbers for Windows and they have a sort of iconic status for Softie geeks. Windows NT 3.1 was build 528, NT 4.0 was build 1381, Windows 2000 was build 2195,Windows XP was build 2600 and Windows 2003 was build 3790. You can probably see why geeks make such delightful conversationalists at dinner parties.



Anyway, my mate Marcus is a royal expert on all things Windows and has set up the definitive resource for folks who are trying to find out about Vista and Windows Server 2008 and above. Not only that - but he has gorn and nabbed the domain name Build 6000 because that it the build number of Vista! Clever or what! The site is designed to embrace all the social side of stuff and become a community area so there will be blogs, forums, articles, links and such like as it develops as well. It is brand new though so bear with any teething troubles.

Dave

Several of my friends have derided me for not having Sky+ or some such 600 channel televisual extravaganza. Fortunately I have a "life" and so don't require such frivolous rubbish. Or more accurately Mrs Ports has forbidden it. Whilst this did make me feel like a second class citizen in this multi media age, I was able to mitigate it by purchasing a splendid Humax 9200T PVR. Whilst I don't get 600 channels, I do get 40ish and they are all for free.

However, what's been missing is a channel for the gentleman. I don't mean Playboy. I mean a channel about comedy and hovercrafts, cars and survival. But that was before the arrival of the excellent new channel called Dave. It is unbelievably genius. A typical night may involve a couple of classic episodes of Top Gear, then maybe a couple of Clarkson's Extreme Machines followed by QI and Have I got News for You. Perhaps this might be rounded up with Ray Mears explaining how to survive in a Jungle. Quality.

Dave TV is the best channel ever. Mrs Ports thought the Humax had gone wrong when she saw that it had recorded TopGear 12 times. Nope. Just obeying instructions. So if you are a bloke and wish you were still 16 then tune your Freeview box to channel 19.

Cats

My mate Matt sent me this cartoon which has been doing the rounds on the Interweb. If you have a cat you will know how accurate it is. Specifically it is Boo.

Fit as a fiddle

A few months ago I was down at the Doctors getting an MOT. I was obviously feeling quite smug having given up smoking cigarettes over two years ago and figured that I would pass with flying colours. I was not unaware that I weighed slightly more than was ideal and that I occasionally slipped over the recommended alcohol limit. Neither had my fondness for cheese and roast dinners escaped me. But I was rocked to the very foundations when the Quack explained that I suffered from "being fat".

What's more, the medical profession has devised a new and hideous treatment for this ailment. Apparently it is called "exercise". I asked for a second opinion but he would not be shifted. I was sentenced to a regime of "Gym" attendance and "dieting".

I can't say I have much enjoyed hauling myself to the gym twice a week, but I had my three month assessment yesterday and it appears to have done some good. I have lost about a stone in weight, my resting heart rate has dropped by 12 bpm and my flexibility has gone from 33cm to 46cm. Whatever that means. Cutting down on the booze and cheese was hard at first but I haven't exactly turned into a Monk.

So all in all I'm glad I gave this "exercise" lark a try. I think I'll keep it up and see where I am in another 3 months.

Back to Work

So a very symbolic but also slightly sad day today. Ali is returned to work and that means that Lucy will be spending her week days with a child minder. I've been working for the last six months so this isn't a great change for me - but it is quite a wrench for Ali who has spent just about every waking hour with the little fella since she was born.

Our child minder is lovely and clearly adores children. We know that Lucy will have a great time with her and fortunately she just lives round the corner. We have checked her impeccable ofsted report and talked to her awesome references. But the fact is that she could be Father Christmas and we would still feel a bit guilty about not being able to look after Lucy forever.

But wages need to be earned because the mortgage needs to be paid (the banks seem very insistant on this). I'm sure that this is just the first of the many difficult things that we have to do, for instance I'm not looking forward to explaining why she can't have a pony. Anyway, it will always be nice coming home from work knowing that we can give the Spocket a big huggle.

Music Everywhere

I have a fantastic computer (as you might imaging given what I do for a living) and I have ripped all my CDs onto it giving me a reasonably impressive music library (if you are impressed by Marillion and The Sisters of Mercy). However, I have been struggling to find an easy way of listening to this fine library of sound anywhere else, for example in the garden. In the past I have put a guitar amp in the garden and draped a long lead out of the living room window to connect it to the computer, but the sound is not great and the aesthetics are worse. Of course I could just feed CDs into a ghetto blaster but that is soooo 90s!

I knew there must be a better way but I couldn't find it. There are systems like the Sonos which will enable you to play music in every room in the house but an "introductory" pack to get two rooms going romps in at nearly £1200. That is a bit steep for listening to "The Temple of Love" while munching a burger at a BBQ. You could virtually hire the band for that.

I also looked at devices like the Squeezebox and Transporter but again, starting at £200 they were just over engineered and over priced for what I wanted. I was starting to think that perhaps I just wished for a product that simply didn't exist. Until I came across these fellas yesterday. They are AQsound Wireless Speakers from the appropriately named I want one of those.

As you can see from the pictures, they look mighty fine sitting there in the garden pumping out a bit of Oasis.

Obviously, no wires in sight. They run on 6 AA batteries each. This enables them to be very loud with great sound quality. They have a claimed range of 100 meters. I don't know if that is true - but they still worked with no sound degradation at the bottom of our garden. If you are worried about them eating through too many batteries then they come with an adapter for each speaker as well so they can be powered from the mains.

All you need next to the computer is the wireless box (the little silver space ship thing in the middle) that plugs into the headphone socket. Smart. Of course this could also be used with a hi-fi, iPod or any other noise creating system that has a output socket of some kind.

Over all, very highly recommended.

Wii Madness

At the weekend my frolleague Darren helped me out big time. He had heard me bemoaning the lack of Nintendo Wii's around my neck of the woods (despite being in the market for 9 months). So when he spotted one available in Camberley he bought it for me. Good man.

I have never been a great one for computer games. In my line of work sitting in front of a computer for fun seems like a busman's holiday. But the Wii really is better fun that all that other tosh. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 may have all the power (although actually all three devices use IBM processors) but their games are so realistic now that you might as well watch a movie. In fact these machines are more like HD Media Centres rather than games boxes. On the other hand the Wii is just a games machine. The innovative Wii Remote (wiimote?) controller really does manage the magic of sensing movement so you can stand up and flail around the room like a mad thing and make your custom avatar (Wii Mii) do the same.

Of course the down side of that is the potential for collateral damage. So catching this lampshade with a particularly committed forehand smash whilst playing Wii Tennis is probably not the last item to be broken. It is worth it though. This Wii is brilliant.

TV Adverts

Most TV adverts drive me nuts. They tend to be very irritating and painfully unsubtle. Like most people I would imagine, I just mentally tune them out (if not fast forward/Tivo them). The agencies that are commissioned to create them appear to be idea vacuums as they constantly plagiarise each other or steal the latest idea from innovative movies. The fact that these people are called creatives rather than pretentious thieves is beyond irony. And oblong glasses don't make you look clever, they make you look like a cliche.

Anyway - it is always the exception that proves the rule - and this is superb. The folks at Cadbury (sorry, don't know who their agency is) have created this piece of genius (clicky).

If you don't have broadband or are not inclined to play the video clip then here is part of the transcript:
"We realize that the Gorilla is sitting in front of a massive drum kit. One of those Eighties big kits with loads of things to hit. Loads of tom-toms, hi-hats, double bass drum, etc.

We know that the best drum solo in the whole history of rock - ever - is coming. The Gorilla knows it too.

The Gorilla hits the drums with passion and vigour. Elegance meets power. He's phenomenal on the drums - feeling every beat.

The camera leaves the ape and his drum kit in the studio."

And what had a Gorilla drumming along to Phil Collins got to do with chocolate? Well as it says on the site "There's no clever science behind it - it's just an effort to make you smile". Which is of course all the more delightful because there is a lot of clever science behind it. It may be brilliantly funny, but it doesn't have it's own viral web site by accident does it!

Also, when the gorilla is playing he looks quite a bit like Neil the drummer in my band Sideburner.

Make your own entertainment

My home computer is about as stable Britney Spears riding a unicycle. On a bouncy castle. In fact it is back at the manufacturers at the moment being repaired because, they tell me, it is "broken". So me and the wife are having to remember how to make our own entertainment. Ali is reverting to reading "books".

I'm just staring at the cats in the hope that they will bring in a mouse. Unfortunately they just stare back. It is nice to see the cats back on the web log though. Since having a baby they seem to be getting slightly less attention.

Sat nav leads thieves home

This story has been making news of late (See Ananova here). Cheeky coves stole a car from the car park at Alton Towers. While the owners happily cavorted around the theme park, the villains tapped "Home" into the satellite navigation system and were led to the victims house where they stole another car off the driveway.

The Police suggest (as they have done for years) that you take your satnav with you when you leave the car. That's fine advice if you have a portable device like a TomTom but not so helpful if it is built into your dashboard. So what else can Her Majesty's constabulary think to suggest? "Only put in the town and not the full post code". I suspect that the good yeomen of Staffordshire are unaware of the size of Ye Olde Londone Towne. This is not a helpful option. So if anyone lives near me in South West London can I suggest you use this postcode: SW18 3HS. It should get you near something you recognise so you can find home - but it will direct our larcenous friends to the front gates of HM Prison Wandsworth.

Idiot requiring a history leason

This country drives me bananas! A few idiots who were disappointed that a Rave was stopped threw coke cans at the Police. What is the BBC's breathless headline? Mob lays siege to Police Station. That would be a huge mob of 15 people vs. 200 Policemen.

Always level headed, The Sun proclaims "Anarchy in the UK as yobs rule". It is true that there have been some nasty incidents of late, but I think it is a bit premature to declare Anarchy across the nation because a few hippies are waving tofu at the airplanes outside Heathrow.

Anyway - I was listening to the rather over excitable Radio 5 Live on my way into work this morning and I heard this brilliant exchange:

Victoria Derbyshire: "Listener Matt has a comment about British society."
Matt: "This country is going to the dogs. It's not safe to go outside any more. And it's full of immigrants and criminals."
Victoria Derbyshire: "Come on Matt, surely that's an exageration?"
Matt: "No it's not. I've had enough. I'm going to leave this country."
Victoria Derbyshire: "Where are you going to go Matt?"
Matt: "Australia."

(If you don't understand why this is dripping with irony have a look here Transportation or here Convicts to Australia)

Addiction

Crack, Heroin, Cocaine, Nicotine, Gambling. I'm not interested in any of that junk. I know from my many years in the past of smoking that things like nicotine can be quite moreish, but then I managed to stop a couple of years ago so it can't have been that addictive. Not like Ebay! Cripes, I can't put it down. I watch my bids/sales every night to see what is winning and who is buying what. I wouldn't mind - but most of it is going for around 99p - so it doesn't even matter. Bonkers. If you fancy buying any of the shmutter I currently have for sale then click here .... Go on, join in the madness.

Notes and Domino 8 ship

Today sees the launch of the greatest version of the greatest collaboration software ever.

Find out more about Lotus Notes and Domino 8 here.

Brand abuse explained

I'm sure that we can all think of companies product names which have ended up becoming verbs. Hoover for vacuum cleaner or Biro for pen are probably the most famous examples. But what will be next? iPod for media player? Powerpoint for presentation? Flymo for Lawn Mower? Bush for incompetent president? ...

See the source here at Hoodyhoo.

Potter

So I just finished the last Harry Potter book. I'm glad to say that I didn't whistle through it like some breathless teenager on the day it came out. I was much more restrained. It was quite enjoyable as well. The second half of the book almost reaching some of the gripping excitement that the earlier installments reached before J.K. Rowling's editor seemingly lost the ability to restrain her occasional aimless meanderings. I know that many folks will look down their nose at someone nearly 40 reading a series of children's books, but they are clearly a social phenomenon and if you want to get shirty I only just read The Gruffalo last year.

To the other folk that point to The Dark is Rising, His Dark Materials, The Hobbit and other superior children's fantasy series and say kids would be better off reading them, perhaps by getting involved in reading fiction through Potter they will leave their PlayStation's and Nintendo alone for a little while longer and try them as well?

If you can't be bothered to read HP though - this is an excellent spoiler. If that is too long for you then this is an even more concise version. I'm not joking - they really are spoilers!

Binary Marble Adding Machine

We all know the old joke. There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't. Well I think I might have stumbled upon something that might help those folks who don't understand or at least have a problem visualising it. It's not quite Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, but some eccentric Canadian dude has built a 6 bit binary adding machine out of wood using marbles as the bits. It is really rather smart in that it actually isn't a million miles away from how a digital computer does it - obviously without the marbles! - but it is also a lovely bit of woodwork.

If you like this then you can visit the dudes Web Site where he explains exactly how he did it.

Al and Lynne's wedding

I always love it when I get invited to a wedding. Especially when it is two such smashing friends as Al and Lynne. Here they are receiving the first of many barrels of confetti outside the church.

Both of them looked radiant.

Being slightly unconventional folks they decided that the appropriate way to feed the masses at the reception was a fantastic hog roast. Don't worry, there was some tofu salad for the vegetarians.

Well that pig doesn't eat itself! Here are Laura, Ellen, Marcus, Lightning Tom and Damon troffing.

One of the lovely things about weddings is getting to see those friends who you don't get to see half as often as you would like to. So it was great to catch up with my god daughter Millie.

Of course all good weddings end up with everyone making fools of themselves on the dance floor. Here is Julius, Ali and Sally.

Doh!

You may have heard that the Simpsons are making a little filum. Well as you can see I have managed to get a part.

I also managed to get a part for Boo the cat.

OK. Not really. But this is fun. Create your own yellow fella simpsonizeme.com.

Sadly none of this stuff appears to work in Firefox. Tsk. That really isn't good enough for a show that constantly lambasts monopoly and the casual abuse of power.

Al's Stag Night

So for Al's stag night 8 of us started off with a couple of liveners in Kew before heading out in couple of taxi's a Mexican restaurant in central London where we consumed 5 pitchers of margarita and some lovely food.

Here is the gang on the way to Somerset house where we were going to see a gig. We weren't going to see the Lion King incidentally. We were just saying that Al was the Lion King for the day. Not that I've ever seen a lion is a waistcoat.

We had managed to keep the event a secret from Al. He dreaded the thought that we would be taking him to Stringfellows or something cheesy like that. Like we would have got in! Instead we took him to see Bert Jansch with Beth Orton and Bernard Butler at Somerset House. That might sound a but dull for a tag night but the atmosphere was amazing and nothing is dull after 5 pitchers of Margarita. As you can see, Al approved.

For a folk singer Bert lays on quite a light show.

The final surprise was that we had laid on taxis to take us all back to Al's favorite pub near Guildford where we had negotiated a lock in and another twenty or so Friends we waiting for him. Surprise!