You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2008.
In my list of interests, beer and wine feature fairly heavily. There are few nicer things in life than a good pint of English ale – it’s one thing the English are good at. I’ll discuss the other in another post (watch out for comments on that one!)
And if I’m not in a beer mood, you just can’t beat a decent red wine. If I’m ever stranded on a desert island, my luxury will be an endless supply of decent, heavy red. Unbeatable.
As an aside, with all the wonderful things that the Irish do, (and they are miriad, ‘cos we’re the greatest race on the planet) why is it that the only options in a pub are Guinness and lager? Come on guys, are you going to let the English get the better of you when it comes to alternatives? Lager is a cop out – you’re not trying hard enough.
Anyway, I saw this quote and it tickled me.
A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money.
Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine,
something Brussels sprouts never do.
–P. J. O’Rourke
That time of year is rapidly approaching, and if you’re going to buy Christmas cards, why not support Mencap as you do.
This year the charity has abandoned the huge catalogue and gone for a smaller range of really good stuff. Give it a try – click here to go to the online shop
I just downloaded Shazam onto the iPhone. I’ve said this before – I spent most of my adult life in a very high tech environment, but…. this is gob-smacking. I expect it’s relatively simple to implement, but the effect it has on the end user has to be taken into account.
There’s a song on the radio that you don’t know. Kick off this program, hold the phone to the radio until it vibrates and then wait a couple of seconds and the phone tells you the song, the artist, the album it’s on, and what the writer had for tea the day he/she wrote the song.
Just amazing.
PS – I lied about the tea thing.
Age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm
It’s a sad fact, but this quotation is more and more relevant at my time of life
I wish there were a way to constantly bombard insurance companies with emails saying “I don’t want insurance – if I want some, I’ll look for it. So STOP BOTHERING ME!” This simple little blog has been bombarded with insurance spam letters (well, I’ve had 6 so far, but that’s 6 too many in my book) and it’s getting up my nose.
…and another thing – if I hear one more moron going on about the end of the world because some physicists are conducting the most exciting experiment in my life time, I think I might say “Bother!”
It’s not as much fun flying as it used to be. There’s the interminable tedium of checking in and the long queues at security. These days they want coats, belts, shoes on the x-ray belt. How long is it going to be until we’re all strip searched before we’re allowed into the airport?
But sometimes you spot something that lightens your life a little and takes your mind off the question “How come getting through security can take longer than the flight?”
Today, waiting at Belfast City, there was a chap sitting in the area where all those people who are meeting passengers sit. Each held a piece of card with a name on, inviting “S Jones” and “M Lewis” et al to step this way and be whisked away to their final destination.
Not this chap. On the side facing him was “Tina Turner”. That made me smile. Was this wishful thinking, something to keep him going as he dealt with a daily dose of businessmen? That might have been so, but the other side, the side facing the arriving passengers read “I like cheese on toast”
It began as an innocent question. My daughter wasn’t feeling well, so when I got to work I texted my wife to ask if she (my daughter) had got up and was she any better this morning. A simple question, and one to which I expectedi a fairly quick answer, since the boss and I frequently communicate quite effectively by text. But today would be quite different. Today, that innocent text would spend untold hours doing who knows what in cyberspce, not to reappear in our world until 11:30 that evening.
So what was it up to all day?
Had it been captured by rogue cell bandits, taken to their cave on the shores of Nokia, subjected to Samsung for hours, while having it’s Moto rola’d? Had it been released back into the system when the bandits knew it would be too late, when they knew I would have returned home and seen my daughter, and any text reply would have no value?
Or did the text exploit some unforseen hiccup that gave it freedom for a few hours, freedom to roam the network, calling in perhaps at exotic locations around the world – Sydney, Berlin, Los Angeles, Swindon. Did a sense of guilt finally persuade it to find its true destination and cause the boss’ phone to make that most irritating of little chirrup noises.
Who can tell? I suspect it will for ever remain a secret, known only to the O2 computer, never to be revealed to us mere mortals.
