Bit of an update this entry.

So, I finished the trench and moved a bunch of gravel into the back. I think it’s the fences next, or the pond. This below is the completed trench.

That was before it rained. It’s currently filled with about 10 cm of rainwater, or ground water, as I suspect it has come up and filtered through the clay rather than down (it is crystal clear). Ho hum.

The next weekend I went to the Cycle Show. I saw this Moulton with a child seat on the way back. I like the way the child gets her own pedals, linked to the chain wheel.

I had a look at the hubs on the Shimano stand.

Nothing there for me really, no drum brake option on the Alfine, and the dynamo hubs only work on 26-inch and bigger wheels. I saw the new IF folding bike, remarkably expensive, some wooden rims, the new Moulton 50 and had a terrible ride on a Mezzo on the rather flat commuter test track.

I got there far too late to try the mountain bike track. I mean it was open but the queues were ridiculous. I should have known that from last year.

I visited Southampton the next week for a conference. Nice train ride down via Megatrain, which puts you on the normal train, but on the slow service, but at half the price. Shot from the train window below. It didn’t actually rain.

My hotel was down by the docks and the walk there took me through a huge new shopping development and then the old walls of the town, and Jane Austen’s house (or something near it, according to the plaque).

These walls were actually on the sea. It’s been reclaimed as a road now though. And from my window (facing the docks), this rather impressive sight.

Walking back to the station, I went through the main centre park. The main attraction in there was a crime scene:

I popped into the nice art gallery (some nice impressionism and a Monet in there), and then back on the very slow train back home.

Now, the bike. I got a puncture on the rear wheel, and on inspection it was clearly end of life. The external rubber had worn through, 2 spots of the blue pucture barrier peeked through:

So, when I took my new hub to Bicycle Workshop, I asked them to replace it, but they didn’t have any. I wished they had told me during the 2 weeks they had the wheel (so I could order one), but hey ho. I got the bike back from them on Saturday. I had to leave at 5:30 to get
there for the 7am workshop collection. I got totally lost on the way and it was almost complete chance that I found it. Anyway, fundamentally, they think, because of the width of the hub, I shouldn't be using v-shape rims. They say the Velocity Aeroheat I bought is a deeper V than the Alex DA-16 I was replacing (personally I can't tell the difference). They said the angle of the spoke at the rim is too much, and causes the spoke to bend, and indeed I can see the spoke bending into the eyelet when I look. So, they predict that the spokes will start breaking, especially as the wheel is slightly dished. (OH FFS not again!!!) When this happens, they'll order me a Sun rim — which I really hope offers me a longer term solution.

Well, that fills me with confidence!! On the other hand, they might not break, they've used high quality Sapim spokes, which look thinner than my front spokes and I’ve still got all the spokes. The hub brake is OK and the new gears are working well, smoother than the last one, but as with the last one, the very occasional slip in 4 and 6.

While I was waiting for the bike (I took it in a 7:30 and got it at 17:30), I visited Westfield, the new shopping centre in Shepards Bush/White City. The biggest urban centre in Europe, I gather. It is indeed big, although not big enough to provide rain cover for those coming on public transport or on foot. It rained and everyone got wet (except those coming by car, presumably). Inside it was horribly packed and had all the same shops, it seemed to me, as Oxford and Bond Street, where I had just come from, except without the sales. Only 2 things in there delighted me, 1 - the sight of children playing Nintendo Wii, and 2 - the Alessi store, the one and only reason I may return there.

On my way to Westfield, I saw that Monument is coming along well with its refurb. Its going to look nice I think.

Tags: Garden, Moulton

Through the top-soil into the yukky London clay.

I’m half-way through the second dig to get a depth of 40-50 cm. Well, more 40 than 50 I think. It will then be filled in to make a foundation for my shed. It’s not a wet as it looks.

Tags: Garden, House

Ah, Suffolk.

My best friend from school, Ross, has just married a lovely lady called Cath. Something must be wrong with me, since it did not occur to me the whole time I was at their wedding party to actually take a picture of them. Instead above is a picture of the back drop to the event. Not a bad spot I think, and by amazing unusual co-incidence for summer ‘08, fantastic weather that weekend.

Anyway I started off foolish. They were having their party at Moat Farm, and rather than read the invite properly, I let Google suggest to me that it was near Diss. Diss! I checked for train tickets and got them for only £6. Of course, as soon as I’d booked them (non-refundable), I realised the mistake. Diss! I mean, really. It was actually near Sudbury, and despite being a bit closer, that ticket was £28. Hmm. Anyway the morning of departure came, and as per my last blog post, I was going to cycle to the bike shop in Notting Hill to drop off the new hub, and then straight over to Liverpool Street.

But it was the 1st presidential debate the night before, which I’d watched, so I woke up late and started slowly. I started packing and where is my pillow? My Tempur Travel Pillow. My expensive camping luxury that gave me such a good night’s sleep last year. Hmm, hmm? Well, I still haven’t found it, and I wasted several hours on Saturday looking for it. So I had to take my old light and useless Vango pillow.

In fact, by the time I left for Liverpool Street (no time now to deliver the hub!), not only was I too late to get the mid-day train, I was too late to cycle for the 1pm train too. Eek! I rushed over to Catford Bridge to see I’d just missed the Charing Cross train, but luckily a Cannon Street train was on the way. I made it onto the Sudbury train with under 5 minutes to spare. My bike shared the cycle space with a Pedersen, another weird one.

At Sudbury, I had quite the oddest accident. I managed to drop my bike, chain-ring first onto my ankle. It is still healing now, and made the 7 mile ride up to the farm a bit uncomfortable, but not too much though. That ride was mostly uphill, a bit tougher than I expected. I decided to use the iPhone rather than Viewranger for directions, and although I didn’t get lost, I did have a few moments where I wasn’t sure where I was along the route. Turn left after 2 miles it says. How far is that then? Turn right on Church Street (but there’s no street names!), and so on. But I was late, so I hurried on.

When I got there, there was a Punch and Judy show going on for the kids and wine for the rest of us, delightful! The whole thing was great, and in the hangar next door was:
this. Cripes.

Whoah! Hawker Hurricane restorations! I had no idea such a thing existed. Not preservation, but actual aircraft restorations as effectively new working planes.

Amazing.
That night the pavilion where the party happened was lit up with Christmas lights and candles. It looked enchanting. I took this awful pic with my iPhone.

I didn’t dance: so many excuses, wrong shoes - too grippy, cut up ankle - too painful, but mainly too shy. Silly boy.

Me and Ross

In the morning, I thought I left in such good time to get a midday train. So much time, that I decided to buy some lunch for a few hours later. Hmm, took a little while to find an open shop, and then somewhere to lock up, and then oh no, oh no, a one-way system in town, and such a big one! I managed to race around (as best I could on 2nd gear) and rushed down to the station, following the signs. Rushing down a road I didn’t recognise, rushing and, um, where’s the station? I had to ask a local, it was far back up the road. Annoyingly the last sign for the train was perpendicular to the road on a roundabout. Coming at the sign, I simply didn’t see it and took a wrong turn. I missed the train by 2 minutes. Argh! Next train was a full hour later. Ack!

So I had a look a the station. Turns out it’s a community partnership branch line, kept open with local support, partly demonstrated by the floral efforts on the platform:

Quite effective in terms of butterflies and bees. What you can’t tell from the pics is the cacophony of bird noises around the station, in the bushes behind. It was like a jungle back there. Yup, doesn’t take much to entertain me.

Lovely finish to the weekend though. Best wishes to Ross and Cath on their Irish adventure!

Postscript - hub

I finally managed to get the hub over to Bicycle Workshop today. I cocked-up a delivery there on Monday (closed on Monday), but had an exhilarating fast ride across central London doing so. You ride as fast as you can, with fingers on the brakes, staying ahead of the traffic, but out of the way of it (certainly not on the inside of trucks!). Riding cross Hyde Park and then back through Bayswater. A huge work out for the Moulton suspension and a big smile on my face.

Speaking of which, you can hear about the Moulton (and hear me for 10 secs at the beginning) here at the Bike Show.

Tags: Sturmey

I just sort of blocked the obvious hole on the left. I’ll see if it worked tomorrow morning at 6am.

I bought a spider catcher (see below)

and caught my first spider today.

It’s meant to be safe for the spider, and I think, when I released it into the front hedge, it was alive, but unfortunately it now has 7 legs. Oh well.

It seems like a year of Weddings, with my friend Nick earlier in May, my former colleague Andrew in early September and my old Friend Ross a month or so back. This time though, it was my sister, Caroline’s wedding to Tennyson, and it involved a trip to back to beautiful St. Lucia.

We were going from Gatwick via Barbados, staying my mothers unfinished, and largely unfunished place there and then flying out via LIAT to SLU and originally, back via Air Jamaica. But Air Jamaica decided to drop the UVF-BGI route and put us on their code-share partner (LIAT) back to Barbados. This was a bit annoying, because when I booked the tickets, there was no flight on LIAT back to BGI. If there was, I’d have booked it, as LIAT was half the price of Air Jamiaca!

So, the flight out was uneventful. We arrived and were picked up after a snafu at immigration. Remember to get the address where you’re staying before going through BGI immigration folks! We only got through because my mum was on their systems already (passing through a few weeks prior). Due to her being at another wedding on the other side of the island, we stayed in a hotel that night, the Hilton. I dipped into the Caribbean sea which was rough and quite exhilariting, the waves were huge, and later on I took some night pics. The hotel was across from the capital, Bridgetown:

Night

Day

Next day, I ventured into town with my Brother to confirm the flight out to St. Lucia. Since the JM ticket said, ‘confirmed’ I didn’t check that segment of the journey. Mistake, as we’ll see later.

Downtown Bridgetown (Parliament is the building in the middle with green shutters)

Anyway, that took a little while, but went smoothly. I decided to see if we could inspect our heritage at the Parliament (one of the oldest - from 1639). We could! In fact, one half of the parliament has been turned into a modern interactive museum of parliamentary history and the other half has a guided tour of the House of Assembly, a lower chamber of elected politicians and then the Senate (appointed), composed of the great and good. The Senate chamber had a massive portrait of the Queen. I thought this was a bit puzzling, since I keep hearing that Barbados wants to be a republic, but apparently the lure of honours keeps the great and good from going for a full break with the UK, which suits me fine.

Photos were not permitted inside, so all I got was this picture of the mailbox (or was it a stamp dispenser, I’m not sure).

We then visited the cathedral, St. Michael’s, for a few minutes rest and to inspect the tomb stones, this one from 1673! And then over to the Synagogue (below right), which now has a state-of-the-art and fascinating museum of Judaism in Barbados.

What’s that you say? Jews in Barbados? Well, no-expects the Spanish Inquisition! They forced the Jews from Spain to Portugal, and then from Portugal to Brazil where they learnt how to grow sugar. The Portuguese inquisition pushed them again, and they migrated, with their knowledge to Cromwellian Barbados, where they taught to English how to grow sugar. Sugar production was labour intensive. We know what happened next.

Sugar was regarded as a spice along with ginger, cinnamon, cloves. As the market for sugar fell, many of the Jews migrated again. Those who didn’t migrate on to the US intermarried with the black population and mostly dwindled away, except for their names and places, Swan Street, Da Costa, Abrahams, Pinto, Barrow.

Synagogue Cemetary

The following day, we flew to St. Lucia. It was a bit crazy, as we took buses to the airport. Both were crammed with school kids and although I had hand luggage only, everyone else took suitcases. Somehow we all fit.
Everything else went smoothly, including the flight. Quite right too, as we were accompanied by the CEO of the airline, Mark Darcy (seen above at the front of the plane). Interestingly, the cockpit door remained open for the flight. Over St. Lucia, I got a picture, under the wing, of the famous Pitons (dual volcanic peaks).

In St. Lucia, we got a taxi to Gros Islet, the tourist area in the north of the island. SLU gained independence in 1979, and it showed, bus stop signs had the TfL roundel, and all the other road signage would look at home in the Highway Code.

The hotel was rather better than I expected and the beach (down the road) was beautiful (iPhone pic).

The wedding was the next day, and the fantastic reception was on a mountain top. The view back over Gros Islet was astounding.

Next day, was a tour of the island, similar but longer to the one I took in 2006 from the Easy Cruise boat. First, we went up to the top of Castries, the capital, for a view down and to see some of the older French architecture:

Past the Chavez funded oil facility, we stopped to have a look at a Banana plantation (from which locals are allowed to pick, so long as they don’t sell any), and that’s me in front of one of the sweeping bays along the coastal route.

Just before Soufrière, the obligatory tourist shot of the Pitons:

and at the bottom of a Swiss-like valley, a volcano gently smouldered.

After visiting the stinky sulphur pits and nearby botanic gardens, and a Creole lunch, we headed back to the Airport, via Magriot Bay, film set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Back at the airport, it turned out that Air Jamaica’s ‘confirmed’ mark on the ticket meant nothing and we weren’t booked on the LIAT flight back. Everyone stayed calm, and when I failed to get through the Air Jamaica’s office in Barbados (un-suprising on a Sunday afternoon), the LIAT supervisor phoned the LIAT check-in desk at BGI, which is next to the Air Jamaica desk. Thank you, LIAT, for cutting to the chase there, and all was sorted in about 10 mins.

The next day was Concorde and cliffs. Barbados was the only regular (each winter) destination for Concorde other than Paris and New York. In recognition of this BA made a permanent loan of a Concorde to Barbados, and they have built a museum of flight around it. Aside from the museum, which had a replica Concorde departure lounge with menus and faux celebrity announcements, and an impossible to fly Concorde flight simulator, we were taken on-board and given a proper little taste of the flight experience. For once we could actually sit in the plane seats in a plane museum!


That afternoon I visited the cliffs on the rugged east coast. That’s me listening to the iPhone:

and the next day, it was back to Bridgetown to visit a sugar mill.

Errol Barrow and Independence Arch

The bus on the way out of Bridgetown went past the new cricket stadium before shooting up Highway 2A towards Speightstown.

So, as we know, the Jews taught the English how to grow sugar. Babados being a flat island was superb for sugar and a boom developed, which quickly bust as the soil went fallow and the market depressed with falling prices. What followed was a steady development of more and more technology-led efficiency. Barbados led the world in cultivation and harvesting techniques. And that was basically what the museum was about, one sugar technology break-through after another all the way from the 16th to 20th century. Barbados was the world centre for sugar, ending with complete mechanisation today.

Unfortunately, it seemed I picked the wrong sugar museum through (this is the right one, next time maybe). This one was the museum of the main actual working sugar factory on the island, but the sugar was still in the field growing. I could see the yellow hats, implying a factory tour, but the mills were idle, waiting for ripening and cutting to begin. Instead I saw a DVD, an old Pathe style production from the 1930s with sound showing the last remnants of the cane cutters singing and loading sugar into the last working Windmill, and then onto a railway to take the sugar to Bridgetown. Wait...a railway? The only railway I heard of was from my passed-on Grandmother. The video was a bit haunting, thinking of the terrible struggles for liberty and food of the cane cutters (not shown in the film). Still, we know there is a fairly happy ending. Not least demonstrated by the number of spanking new Japanese trucks on the highway.

On the way back, I was enchanted by a view out of the bus over St. George parish. It was a view of Barbados I had never seen before, a valley with fields and hedges, just like England. So the next day, my last day, I went back to have a look.

Getting there was easier said than done. I got off the bus far, far too early and had to walk at least a mile till I got to the high ridge over the valley (near to a water pumping station). Behind me was a sugar cane field and it was readily apparent that the island is indeed built on coral rather than volcanic rock, the “bedrock” below the muddy sugar cane field was exposed at road level and the fossils were laid bare.

After all that walking, I was thirsty, and it was close to midday. So I walked what I thought would be a short distance to a shop selling drinks with a bus stop outside. Mistake, it must have been 2 or three miles. There was nothing till Gun Hill (which was an early warning station for slave control), and when I got there the shop was closed. Still there was a nice view of the island up there.

Not to worry through, back out of Gun Hill, there was a fabulously cheap convenience store where I got a huge bottle of lemonade (for the price), and soon enough the bus came to whip me back, in good time for the journey to the Airport and home again.

Tags: Planes, Buses

And so it was, that the only really stylish DAB radio you could get for your bedside (assuming the PURE retro wooden models weren't for you) was the snappily named SONY XDR S1, which has a custom and bad interface, no alarm and no record, but instead, a high price.

Never mind, it's discontinued now, so there is no Sony option in this space.

I happened to look again today and I was pleasantly surprised to see that that better designs are now coming along. The Tivoli model came out last year and is rather expensive. I tested it out in John Lewis and was disappointed to find that the fabulous big dial only operated the FM radio. The DAB worked through the cheap feeling buttons.

But this VITA R1 is thirty quid cheaper and looks fabulous!

But, cheapest of all, and now on my wish list is the Revo Uno. At £70, with radio alarm, weekday and weekend settings, and audio-in for the iPod, I think I found my simple 'wake to BBC Radio 3' box.

Tags: Revo, DAB, Technology, House

I voted in the Deputy Leadership Election today. I voted for all the candidates, but my first preference went to Jon.

Tags: Labour

For zis hub, ze war is over.

I was riding across London from Holborn to Marylebone, along the fast Liverpool Street to Paddington route. After Harley Street I noticed some rumbling in 7th gear. I approached the next set of lights and switched down to 3rd gear, as usual.

The lights went green, I pushed off and:

Ping-pang-bedoowwn....crr---uuunch.

So, it'll have to be replaced under warranty.

Then tonight I'm on the Interweb, and I find that Nokia have delivered salvation to me! Nokia Media Transfer for Mac, iTunes and iPhot integration and access to the phone and card file system through the USB cable. I am smitten, and I've just put the Russell Brand podcast on my phone. Yay

Tags: Sturmey

Well, it was indeed 4th time lucky. The Kingston card works fine. I am quite worried though. It seems the Nokia suite locks up if you try to transfer too much data. I was only able to move over my test Viewranger maps on the second attempt and I wasn't able to copy across a Podcast. This doesn't bode well for when I buy the full Viewranger (300+ MB!).

Aide-Memoire - shopping list next month:

• Solar Charger
• Viewranger
• Zip Off Trousers (you know, it's really hard to google-find certain things when you don't know the proper name for them)
• Gossamer Gear Polycryo Ground Sheet

Tags: Nokia

• The Memory card it comes with is only 64MB
• The 1GB I bought it corrupted. Literally dead within 5 minutes.
• The next one I bought it won't recognise (must be the wrong voltage, works fine in the Mac!

So I've bought a 4th! 4th time lucky maybe??!!

It doesn't appear as a mass storage device on the Mac, in fact it doesn't appear to be accessible from a Mac at all. Except through Parallels and the irksome Nokia PC Manager. The Nokia Music manager is so bad I shouted at my iMac for the first time ever. Windows is terrible, it really is. But Viewranger is great.

Here's something I want to do before this summer:

And this made me laugh:

Tags: Nokia

So, after 4 lost auctions I finally got one, a Nokia N70 and a new one too.  I have wanted a GPS for a few years now. I was going to get an Etrex Venture cx, but the map on it only has major roads, river and lakes.  I wanted the GPS for my first cycle tour in September and that is almost completely off road.  I looked into Garmin's more detailed Topo map and that apparently is very expensive rubbish. I came to realise that the proprietary US/French created maps on Magellan and Garmin devices probably wouldn't do for me.* The usual solution is to buy software on your computer, make your map on that and then export the route to the GPS. The best software for this is on the PC, Memory Map with full OS Mapping, and on the Mac there is Route Buddy which has the (not so good for cycling) Tele Atlas Maps. But I don't want to leave my map behind on the computer and I don't really want to pay for 2 electronic maps one at home, one on the GPS.

Infact, I would rather take advantage of online maps when I'm at home, like Google Maps or Street Maps, or Multi Map, to create routes while I'm at home and focus on having the proper map on the GPS. This is possible of course, but most the options require a PDA, in most cases running Pocket PC. I do not, under any circumstance, want to run Pocket PC voluntarily, so I thought I was sunk. Then I found View Ranger. Viewranger runs on Series 60, has OS Maps, and can connect to a GPS via Bluetooth.

You can record your tracks, but you can also upload way points and routes to the phone. I tried out their custom map tool and I'll be able to buy OS maps of central Wales, London, bits of the west country and the south downs for about £35. I should be able to get a better bluetooth receiver than in the etrex for about the same again (£35-45). So hopefully I'll get what I actually wanted for rather less money.

*My intial decision was to get an old GPS, a Sportrack Pro and wait till an iPhone based solution to get digital OS maps in my hand appeared. It turned out that the Sportrack and N70 are of the same Vintage, 2005 models and around the same price. I suspect my wait for the iPhone will be rather more pleasurable with the N70 that it would have been with the Sportrack and my Motorola SLVR.

Tags: Nokia, GPS

Blurry Pic, but definitely visible from my house.

Tags: Eclipse

Rageh - Inside Iran - BBC4

Tags: Iran

I had my lower wisdom teeth out today at Guys Hospital (great view of London from the 23rd floor!). 

Anyway I wen through to theatre and I was on the table starting to feel some cold in my arm and then I was having a dream, thinking, 'I've got a toothache again, I must make an appointment to see the dentist in the morning'.  And I thought, oh no, it's only a dream, I'll be ok when I wake up.  Then I opened my eyes and 'oh no, it's real'.  

So, I had a headache and jaw ache.  But I could feel my front teeth, lips and jaw, so no nerve damage.  Russ accompanied me home and I had a little soup.  I'm going to sup liquid, rather than using straws - straws are too much trauma right now.  I'll have to blend the soup - too many bits.  Bleeding hasn't stopped yet (it's not heavy though), I'm meant to mouthwash with salt (not tonight though, I want those clots to form fast - too much information?)

I have 4 sets of pills to take: paracetamol (500mgx2); dihydrocodeine (30mg); ibuprofen (400mg); Amixocillin (500mg).  Complicated, but no pain!

The consultant told me that 'They didn't want to come out!  But we got them out'.  Eek - good thing I was asleep.

Tags: Wisdom Teeth

Believe it or not, £14 from John Lewis

Tags: House

Um, so I got a new computer and Rapid Weaver lost its sense of where the photo albums were, so I just left it, but now it's fixed, although RW has put a pixel of white at the top of each picture now. Pfft - a bug I guess!

So my new iMac lets me do this:

That was Vista RC1, and it was/is dog slow, but I only have 1GB of RAM, so that was not unexpected. There was nothing compelling or new in Vista that I saw though. As per the screen shot I also got Ubuntu. It runs nicely, but nothing compelling there either. I wanted to install that NeXT interface, but I couldn't figure it out. Heres a direct comparison of Vista and OSX:

Hmm, Vista text is lighter but Mac OS X text looks more...real. What else is new? I've got one of these on order:

Over £1000 of TSR, but with custom components and a custom fit. I'm super-excited, as they say. I have three words to say about the people I'm buying it off (Villiers-Velo): SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE - it is excellent!

Speaking of Moultons, you can barely see it, but I went on a Critical Mass last Friday and saw a Mark 1 Moulton with a beatbox on the back rack - very trendy.

And today, I was on strike for the first time ever. As I said to my boss, it's not about the money, I don't think the efficiency drive in the service at the moment should lead to compulsory redundancies. Simple as that. Hopefully that'll be the last time we're called out.

Tags: Windows, Pashley, Critical Mass

iTunes Link

Tags: O.K GO

I've spent too much time this weekend pouring over a Rover (Austin etc.) history web site. Really in-depth stories about the development and prototypes of the cars like the Allegro, Montego, Marina and other ugly/dull cars from the past. Some of them weren't designed ugly (I'm looking at you, Allegro), but became ugly in the development process. Maybe it is all hindsight, but it seems so clear what should have happened in the 70s...market research, rationalisation, more (any!) quality control.

The history goes right to the end of Rover and then turns into a news site on goings on with SAIC. Anyway, on the site I found this, and I felt sad.

Looks familiar? It was Rover's replacement for this:

But BMW had a different idea, which we all know about:

The difference between them is simple. Rover wanted an economic city car, and BMW wanted a sports car. Rover wanted something radical and BMW wanted something pastiche. The last point is what makes me sad, the question was, should the mini look like an updated MINI, or should it be a re-interpretation the ideas and ideals of the Mini? Well pastiche sells, clearly.

But that Mini prototype was really radical. It had hydragas suspension, a sub-floor rear mounted 3 cylinder k-series engine, rear-wheel drive and 4 seats in the same space as the old Mini (the new MINI is not really a mini car). The MINI on the other hand is conventional and has a brazillian engine. Does the MINI progress car travel in the way the Mini did back in the late 50's? Does it address the issues of today: emmisions, fuel prices, space constraints?

Ah, the witterings of a lefty greeny. But I think it's a real shame, although at least it's certainly keeping those Cowley workers in jobs. Ironically, it is other German cars that do seem to address the modern agenda, but the Smart is too small and the A-Class too big. Oh well.

In other news, check out this '86 version of the Police's 'dont stand so close to me'. I really like it:

Tags: Rover

Just another tinned fish in the shop, it seemed to me. But I got a shock when I tipped this tinned fish over my chips this evening. Something looked like little baby's arms came out. Oh god, no, can't be right, but it was:

http://www.frostsfish.com/roes.htm

Tasted fishy, but I gather it's not meant to be eaten neat. Yuk.

Tags: Fish

Before:

After (clearance mostly done)

The pond has been broken and skipped. Pond? You can't see a pond? Exactly, that's why it had to go. Not for long though! The frogs (now counting between 12 and 14 (and mostly adolecents I think) have been re-located to a trug. Most seemed to ignore it and just hopped off, but I could see a few under the water-lilly.

Tags: House

Cripes, have been clearing the garden for 3 days and it looks like its been bombed. Amazing, I can walk the FULL LENGHT of the garden. All the fish are dead though. But I have 8-9 Frogs and a Toad. And 100 million spiders (urgh!) and dozens of....Crickets! Because I don't have an alley, I had to drag the plants through the house so I have spiders and Crickets inside now :-/ The Dyson is on standby.

Oh and I got the bike back - FINALLY. But the cost was astronomical - £214!

Tags: House

I went to St. Pancras today to get tickets for my trip to Nottingham tomorrow (another meeting). On the way there, I passed by the new Western Entrance to Kings Cross Underground, and on the way back, I passed through it. It is quite nice and airy, lots of space, certainly compared to the cramped roundel there was before. Spotless and clean too...until you get past the ticket barriers and into the actual tube.

I also dropped into the LCR exhibition on the channel tunnel rail link. This is located in a building called the Gymnasium, next to the entrance to St. Pancras. Quite a nice free exhibition with lots of scale models including one of Stratford circa 2012, and a coffee shop.

Tags: St. Pancras

I got there about 16:00 and just a perfect time to arrive too. Nice cool weather and the entertainment was gearing up for adults.

This Music stand had Klezmer!

The Insect Circus Museum - the detailing was exqusitie (for adults) and the exhibits a marvel (for kids)

The Young Mayor's stage - all very hip, street music 'no violence please' - not my thing

It was the most popular stage

Fantastic - 'Spanish Bullfighters' They could hardly contain their glee at their antics. Great fun!

Brilliant soul music in the Pride tent.

Tags: Lewisham

Did some hoovering (or should that be Dysoning), and tried and failed to fit the mudguards to my bike on Saturday. No instructions came with them, and only some of the screws made sense. What flummoxed me was/is how to secure the rear mudguard to the rear triangle. The little bag of screws included these rubber blocks, which look like they should be used back there to absorb some of the road shock, but nothing came with which to attach them. This is a bit worrying, as I had to thus attach the guard direct to the frame. Hopefully it won't break to bits before I can take it to my bike shop.

That happened on Sunday evening. Sun-day was spent largely sleeping, after getting up early to accompany Russ and his twin brother to Gatwick. Saturday night was Eurovision. Well done Finland, although I quite liked the German entry this year.

Enough boringness though. Film Four is coming to Freeview in July! Yay! No more DVD rentals needed. This isn't news, of course, but the first stage has started today. More 4+1 (a filler channel if there ever was one) is now off the air. Apparently a Big Brother Channel is going to take it's place in the meantime. Speaking of Digital TV, I was in Comet today. I am amazed, there are hardly any CRT TVs left. It was row after row of LCDs and Plasma displays. At the front was something that I guess was a HD demo. It didn't blow me away. Maybe it wasn't really HD. Also noticed the new Miele washing machines. Hmm, plastic doors, well it looks sleeker, but I'm not sure.

Tags: Pashley, Eurovision, Freeview, House

24 hours of FedEx flights in the US. Cool.

A380 seating plan wow.

I think I'll take the bus tomorrow. Can't believe that Bike Fix didn't have my new tyres in today, this is the second time they told me to come and then not had them. Last chance on Friday guys!

Oh yeah, hope you like all the badges, RSS etc, I consider this site to be phase 1 complete now. All my pictures, I wanted up from my holiday, are up. Phase 2 is moving over all my travelogues from my old website - gonna put those in a new blog I think, then the old site will be deleted (bye-bye Freeway, twas over-kill for me!).

Tags: Planes, Schwalbe, Blogging

Big disappointment, no Bluetooth support on a Mac.

Hmm, what else? You've got to turn on Discoverable each and every time you want to receive something by Bluetooth. You can't access the card memory from the address book (e.g to add a photo to a contact). The card isn't writeable outside of the Phone.

Bascially, I need a cable for the prividege of slow USB 1.1 uploads.

The font is too big (and ugly) and only the top level of actions are represented by icons, so e.g. bluetooth control on Nokia is an icon (that you can move to the main icon grid, and on Moto, it isn't (so you can't). When using WAP, I can store a link to a page, like a favourite. But those links aren't accessible from the menu button, bizzare! Luckily, Orange agree. They have put a 'home screen' on the phone, which is an overlay on the main screen with all the main phone functions with little notifications (calendar, messages, address book). This means I can put my two shortcuts (bluetooth and WAP shortcuts) onto the two shortcut buttons (previously occupied by Message and OrangeWorld) on the phone.

So, some relief. It's a shame they couldn't just put this on it, it looks much nicer.

Update: Woo! My camera's mini USB cable works, so I've sync'ed and even better, the music player supports songs direct from iTunes in M4a format, although it seems to ignore all the tags - iTunes this is not!.

Tags: SLVR

I got a call from a company offering me a phone upgrade. This is the nth time I've had one of these, but this time it was a friendly English voice so I thought I'd play along. I asked which phones could I upgrade to? Well, only one caught my interest. I went to an Orange shop to look at the phone, and I asked if these callers were scammers: apparently not, and I was due an upgrade, so I got one from the shop.

And here it is charging on my Apple Keyboard. It's a Motorola SLVR L7. It has all the features that were state of the art two years ago (MP3 player, Bluetooth, Quad-Band, high-res colour display, VGA camera). So, in this mega-pixel, 3G, WiFi, hi-fi world, it's not exactly cutting edge, and its got the old Motorola interface (although when I tried it in the shop it seemed OK, and friends with Motos thought it was OK too). It has one feature though that got me:

It's just so THIN. I know, the RAZR was thin, but I hate flips and this is even thinner. It's less than half as thick as my old phone (Nokia 6600). My Housemate thinks I should have got a Nokia, and I would have, if they made a small thin phone that's free on Orange upgrade. Maybe next time.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it also comes with headphones and a 64MB card for music. Reading on web forums, a fair few people got this phone thinking it was the iTunes phone. It is the iTunes phone, of course, but only on Cingular in the US.

It doesn't matter anyway, because I found iTunemywalkman, which I'll be testing out tonight. The key feature of this program is re-encoding, although I think my phone does some form of AAC.

Just turned on comments, if that works, and hope you like the new theme.

Tags: SLVR, Thin

Well, I voted Labour in the election (although not for the mayor, who seems to have balls'ed up the school/pool situation). But I woke up to find I'm living under no overall control. Well, it's a good thing if it hastens Mr Blair's retirement, and maybe the new council can do something about the appallingly low level of recycling in this borough.

Tags: Labour

OH! Well, that's good to know. When I finally get around to changing the front of my house I'll be able to paint the windows a dark colour and so match the stone colour I'll paint the walls and not look naff. Lots of ideas from Sarah Beenie tonight, fixing up a victorian terrace that looks rather like my road. Neat.

Garden first though, no, Bathroom first!

Tags: House

See here, mostly done on my own, but using Russell's ingredients. I'm sure frying the boiled eggs is a mistake, it makes the skin go hard. Ho hum', I'm no cook!

Tags: Cooking

My Third Blog, third time lucky huh?

Got up at 11 today, which is good, finally some sleep! Did some shopping and cooked dinner for both of us tonight, a bit more tasty than last night's disaster:

Tonight's menu:

Chicken with Bajan seasoning,
Pilau rice (thank you Knorr)
Oxo granule gravy
and a side order of Tesco finest coleslaw.

Of course the gravy turned out a bit lumpy, but it all tasted nice.

Tags: Cooking, Blogging