Dr Who Exhibition - 2005 Retrospective

Well, how is this for tardy? It was back in *2005* when I posted this proclaimation of excitement...was visiting the (then rather small, stretching to the pub half way up the front) Brighton Breeze (now *very* large, stretching almost from Brighton Pier to the marina!), had seen everything there was to see and then decided to go and have a nose around the other attractions -

- spotted this upon coming out of an "Olde English Drinking Establishment" hovering over the sea -

- and was helpless but to pay my money and wander around - had a camera, obviously, and fortunately only one bored looking memeber of staff seemed to be in attendence in the entire place, standing on the door, chewing gum and issuing tickets (with half closed eyes) only expressing any sort of sign of quickness by occasionally raising an eyebrow in the direction of pretty ladies passing by)...I shrugged, suprised he had even managed put out a hand to collect my money, and then walked into the gloom...finding I had the whole place to myself, and no-one to tell me I wasn't allowed to shoot...excellent... ;)

Believe it or not, I even got so far as posting the pictures onto Flickr, didn't catalogue them, or put them in a group though, so they kind of got forgotten and never made it as far as the blog...(well, until now anyway)...wonder how many others are lurking, forgotten (time to spend some time in the organiser, perhaps)! Oh well...It wasn't a huge place, and I'd say at least one sixth of it was taken up by a store selling merchandise (which although now *inescapable*, was fairly uncommon at the time)...anyway, turning right at the entrance, the first thing to greet me was this solitary "classic" Dalek -

- (sorry for the low-light shots, these were taken way back in the Fuji A201 days when low-light and digital cameras were fierce enemies, and I owned nothing in the way of a tripod) some Robots from (I think) the episode "Bad Wolf" -


- although it's a while ago now(!) then we walked into a *partial* replica of the interior of the Tardis housing an original concept model from the (slightly defaced) Art Department -

- and the Doctor and Rose's costumes -

- then along a walkway, past displays talking about the Doctor's various enemies, noticing a leering threat from way up on the ceiling -

- more Autons (on the rampage) -

- and then the very prop bin (although of course it changed to CG when it actually *did* anything) that ate Rose's other half (complete with suspicious stains on the carpet) -

- and his (highly unimpressive) decapitated head (really didn't work in real life, and thus probably wouldn't work in HD either), all from the pilot episode "Rose" -

- next it was through a doorway and into an ancient tomb where the recently departed were laying on the cold slab from the episode "The Unquiet Dead", threatening (at any moment) to rise from the grave and attack! Quite spooky actually... ;)

- next into probably the largest area in the exhibition, a large number of aliens of various species (along with make-up) -



- lots of spectacular modern Dalek props -



- including this one which was "flying", well suspended in some mysterious fashion (walked all round it and couldn't see quite how, but that doesn't mean it was a "Dalek Levitation beam" or anything) -

- and an absolute classic, from the first Dalek motion picture, which looked rather like it had been stored at the back of someone's garden shed (under the mower) since that time though -

- and then it was into the last of the rooms, past some Slitheen from "Aliens of London", looking a bit fat and stupid -

- and the transformation skin casts used -

- and then finally some special effect models, like this one that was taken to bits when the aliens crash landed in London -

- and some full size props from "The Empty Child" (another really spooky episode)...

...and then it was into the shop, and back out into the sun...

So there we go, better late than never...just wish I had been there at the opening, apparently they had Daleks all over Brighton frightening people! ;)

Walkers Brit Trips promotion

Well, this is pretty cool, probably wouldn't have even read the blurb on the packet if not for spotting a rather good ad for the promotion running on the internet, but looking at it, as we *do* eat a few bags of crisps each week, it's quite possible to save rather a lot of money! Basically, on the inside of each multipack bag they have printed a unique ten digit code, all you do is go to http://www.walkersbrittrips.co.uk, register and then type in this value, thus crediting your account with a certain number of "points", little multipacks give you 6 points, large ones give you 21 points...and considering that 20 points means half-price entry to Chessington, 15 points gets you a free "Day pass" to any National Trust site, or as little as 10 points will get you into a Sea-Life centre for half-price that's actually an extremely good deal (considering I'm eating them anyway)...now combine that with Tesco doing a "loss leader" on Walkers crisps at the moment (buy one get one free) and we've actually got quite a lot of points already without even realising it until last night!

Anyway, check it out, would be a shame to miss the opportunity! ;)

Two Gold Rings...

Well, that's about it, (apart from the actual physical performance) everything for the wedding is now pretty much sorted...The last two important meetings have been had - final conversation with the caterer (confirming final numbers, tweaks to the buffet, presentation of the alcohol license and letter from the police saying they have no objections to us gathering in the church hall (yes, really!)), and the list of formal shots we want from the photographers were both completed on Sunday morning...Flyingpops' final dress fitting happened on Saturday lunchtime...so from here on in we can (pretty much) just relax and enjoy it (well, I haven't written my speech yet, but that can wait until Easter I think)...!

When we are finished, I might actually be able to post some of the epic preparations (mostly Flyingpops, it must be said) that we have been through during the run-up, there has barely been a weekend when we haven't been doing *something* in preparation (for the last eleven months!), be it shopping (wine/table decorations/confetti/ribbon/shoes/outfits/table cloth/cameras/favours/favour bags/etc. etc.), trying to learn how to fold napkins, wedding fairs, Hatton Garden to choose a diamond and design the rings (to be custom made), meetings with caterers/florists/choir/church hall administrator/various members of the clergy/disco and other entertainment/photographers (oh the confusion), testing the table layout in the hall, researching, planning and booking the honeymoon(s), writing countless lists, designing/printing/packing/posting invites, deciding on the order of service/hymns/readings and getting that designed and printed, planning and enjoying the stag/hen do's, suit fittings...even over our summer holiday re-mortgaging the house to free up some equity to actually *pay* for all this...it's just been absolutely all consuming, and *I* haven't been the one having to go out dress shopping(!) -and- this list really only scratches the surface (as there are a number of things we are doing that I am forbidden from talking about) but you begin to get the idea...there is really no doubt at all that there is a firm and comfortable (albeit chaotic) role for life for anyone that decides to make a career out of being a "Wedding planner"...

Looking forward it's almost impossible to imagine a time when it's all going to be --**done**--...but time waits for no-one, and March the 29th is now well under two weeks away...and then, in the space of 48 hours, all this work and preparation will have come to fruition, and we'll be left with two gold rings, half a terabyte of RAW images, and the rest of our lives together...

Fink's Links - World Wide Wonderment...!

(rather embarrasingly, another freebie today, this time a fortune cookie from HSBC to promote the "China Design Now" event at the V&A, but anyway, it's Friday)...!

So, to save you the bother of surfing all hither and thither (lost, as if at sea, between the countless cute feline images choking the web), I sweep away the cats (largely), draw together the far flung and interesting, and place them as morsels for your delectation, thus -

A rather lucky American gentleman who hit a patch of ice while driving his pickup truck and...well, you'll see...I like there being cameras everywhere now...perform a FAIL and *someone* will be there to snap it... ;)

Nothing better to baffle any simple natives than to gift them with a "magic question box" on a pole in the middle of their village, actually we could probably do with a few in the UK... ;)

Sticking with exotic India, enjoy with me the warm *welcome* sign to a humble restaurant...(still, at least it's "Free sample day")... ;)

WIN - Man builds vigilante robot to battle drug dealers (and it works)!

Fancy signing up for a one way, one person mission to Mars? The proposal was real, and even had a code name - "Spirit of the Lone Eagle" after Charles Lindbegh's solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927...

Awesome video of some experimental modular snake bots, just need fitting out with venom sacs... ;)

A morphing model plane based on mother nature's very own Swift (with bonus video goodness)...

Exactly what happens if you decide that you fancy a nice "sip o' beer" while on the New York subway system (and it ain't pretty)...thank God I always took a cab... ;)

Now, how about a Japanese Horseraddish fire alarm (and yes, you read that right)... ;)

Fancy some nice DRM-free MP4 downloads direct from BBC iPlayer?

Watch the worlds largest shotgun cartridge being fired (bonus - high speed video photography thereof)

Seven brand-spanking-new deadly sins from the Vatican, including "meddling with DNA"...*face+palm*...

And finally, a nice piece on the history of photography (with a number of "firsts" there pictured)...

Previous posts here and more linky goodness next week... ;)

Ultimate Goodie Bag - Canary Wharf

Wow, nice surprise this morning, opposite "Oi! Bagel" lots of Canary Wharf "crew" were handing out these little goodie bags, in what *has* to be the ultimate freebie day (well, thus far anyway), the contents being as follows -

• A load of vouchers for money off at various stores and restaurants (although most expire at the end of the month)
• A sachet of free Carex anti-bacterial hand wash
• A "Virgin Active" sweat band
• A selection of "Charbonnel et Walker" truffles
• Some Givenchy Eau de Toilette
• An Alpen light bar, summer fruit flavour
• Some Nivea Gel-Cream
• Two kinds of Body Shop lipstick
• A small bottle of "Molten Brown" bath/shower gel
• A 125g Galaxy smooth dark chocolate bar
• A couple of "Yorkshire Tea" tea bags
• A "Cabot Place West" branded bottle of Welsh mineral water
• An FT.com "newspaper of the year" travel card holder (with nice composite fake city-scape, notably sans One Canada Square)
  

- not a bad haul (although rather girly), Flyingpops should be pleased anyway... ;)

As word spread around the office so little gangs of people set off (indignant at having been left out) towards the lifts at a gentle trot forging an orderly queue of people waiting by the doors into the guts of Cabot Place, pouncing on the crew members and grabbing handfuls of bags before they could even get into the corridor... ;)

Things that should be deleted #1 - The pull along briefcase

Lazy Dog
Originally uploaded by Mark A. Scholl.

Well, I guess if the shoe were on the other foot, and I were scooting around an airport or zipping along a hotel corridor I would be very pleased to have my little pull along briefcase, taking the weight of the oh-so-heavy mobile phone, wallet, pen and small pile of papers from my tired shoulders and placing them on those squeaky casters or roller-blade wheels, and in those situations, I'm sure they are most practical - however - when moving at speed as a (and I make up a word) "commuter-raptor" whipping through the pack of equally aggressive hunters, all making our certain, rapid and steely-eyed way with practiced familiarity through tunnel, across street and plaza, the occasional sudden trip (or even stub) when encountering the stupid little blob on the end of flimsy aluminium rod, flipping over every few steps as it wobbles pitifully along behind some confused, diminutive and lumbering "business traveller" who is frankly perfectly capable of picking the pathetic item up and using the handle makes my blood boil...

DELETE.

Fink Blog is *Three* Years Old!

Wow, another year is gone(!) well almost...my first post was actually on the 21st of March back in 2005, I'm posting this a bit early as the run up to the impending wedding (29th March) means I'll almost certainly miss the date, and this kind of post takes a little while to compile... ;)

First off, I can't fail to mention that this third "birthday" post marks the occasion of mission:"smell the roses" being accomplished for another 12 months. It's far too easy to just put your head down and get on with life (as I wrote about previously in some detail, not that I can find the post as my titles and tagging were *terrible* for the first year) but thanks to being a blogger I pretty much know, not only exactly what I have been doing (day-to-day) since I started, I have pictures of much of it, and have also succeeded in forcing time to slow down around me (to an acceptable degree) rather than running away with itself in gay abandon, as it had been doing (wasting several years as a virtual blur)...naughty continuum! To your bed!

Now, some statistics (feel free to switch off here) - traffic-wise, there has been (unexpectedly) amazing growth - looking at "all time" (well, when sitemeter isn't down, as it sometimes is for days at a time), this blog has entertained 83,626 visitors (37,486 last year, just for reference), so that's almost double(!) and equates to an average of 293 visitors each and every day (equalling, year-on-year, a 42% increase)...! Oh and this is despite Google slapping down almost every blogger's page rank in punishment for a naughty minority prostituting their writing talents (paid to hype up products or movies)...I wasn't involved, those miserable few that *were* mostly (as the bottom fell out of their world) fell to a page rank zero - mine slipped by one point - which wasn't a disaster (as I'm not in this game for money, just my own amusement), but if you check the graph, I bet you can guess when it happened ;) -

- anyway, these visitors (yourself included) have come from 83 different countries -

- the vast majority are from the UK and US (as you would imagine), then other bits of the Americas and Australia, followed by the EU and ROW (although I'm clearly now completely blocked in China and still terribly unpopular in Africa)... ;)

This traffic comes from various sources, breaking down (roughly) as follows -

- 57.47% comes from search engines like Google and Yahoo (people type in their query and my content is ranked high-up and relevant to it, thus tempting folks to click), 33.74% comes from sites who directly link to my articles (like other sites/blog pals, forums and the occasional newspaper like the Guardian, Die Zeit and the Telegraph, who seem to like linking to my content from time to time) and all the rest (8.80%) is people putting "http://finkangel.blogspot.com" into their browser address bars (which I never do, preferring to vanity-search myself, but some people obviously do, or have me saved as a favorite)...thanks to those welcome few!

Posting-wise, I've written a total of 1243 posts over the last 3 years (some good, some bad), or an average of 1.1 per day (so I have slowed down *quite* a bit, as last year it was roughly 2.6 per day), but I actually think one post per day is a pretty good rate to try and maintain (considering some bloggers I could mention don't even manage one post a month)...heh... ;)

Popularity-wise, of all my writing, it's my technical procedures that get the most sustained hits - how to un-DRM AA files and turn them into proper MP3 files, what I tried to do when my xbox 360 broke and how to get the N64 emulator going on the PSP (that sort of thing)...under that it's my exhaustive reviews and clear step-by-step recipes...so I know what I have to do if I want even more traffic (not that's in *any* way the point of this exercise, but) - it's obviously to write easy-to-follow procedures (with lots of pictures) and review places (with lots of pictures), and clearly not taking funny pictures of cats or moaning about the commute (these make big spikes, but not sustained traffic steams)...so whatever...I'll probably just carry on writing whatever I feel at the time rather than foolishly trying to forge a career out of it... ;)

Okay, so that's the blog (if you are still here, frankly I'm amazed you're still with me (yawn)!), onto it's partner in crime - my Flickr stream - at this time last year I had posted 2920 pictures (viewed 83,576 times, or about 30 times each), this year, the stream has grown considerably to 4933 pictures, viewed (between them) a staggering 427,404 times (not including me!) or about 87 times each...! On average (at the moment) 435 different pictures are viewed each and every day...Although obviously some pictures get more attention than others...still, it's great to be part of such a great community, and I know my photography has really been helped out by being aired (both good and bad) in such an honest, transparent "Web 2.0" environment...thanks Flickr for all the feedback, both statistical and commented...! ;)

Oh, and through all of this, I got a nice little "cherry on top" a little while ago - a cheque for just over £50 from Mr Google for hosting his little adverts with my content (so they must occasionally be relevant, or no-one would have clicked them) this I have handed over to be put into the wedding budget, as it's meaningless money for nothing - I would be shooting and blogging regardless...

So here's to another happy year filled with self-improvement and equally amazing experiences ahead, and let's hope I can maintain my enthusiasm and just occasionally have something to say that other people might find interesting!

Just for reference -

What I wrote when this blog was one year old...

What I wrote when this blog was two years old...

Hollywood Bowl - Canada Water in pictures

So we had a nice corporate night out the other night (all expenses) to the Hollywood Bowl in Canada Water (ooo!) -

- now, never been out to that bit of the docklands before, and my goodness is it a contrast to the hustle and bustle of Canary Wharf - almost deserted in fact...architecturally it feels almost like the periphery of Crawley, low industrial units (like the Metro newspaper printing plant), the odd large shopping centre, 3 or 4 storey apartment blocks, and vast swathes of (very clean) empty space...in the time it took us to get to the entrance to the bowling -

- we only passed about 5 other people, a fairly nice and quiet (but actually rather lonely) place, flying in the face of the tag line to "Field of Dreams", "if you build it, they will come"...Anyway, when we arrived the bowling alley was similarly echoing -

- we got a few drinks at the almost deserted bar -

- and relaxed, waiting for everyone else to turn up...and then, without any warning at - all *hell* broke loose...unbeknownst to us, this night was the grand bowlerama for the whole of Canary wharf's bankers "Champion of champions" competition, they even had their own (rather sad) bank-branded bowling outfits (like we were in the USA!), I think the Meryl Lynch ones were the best, but I'm afraid it became almost too crowded to take a picture, let alone get anywhere near the bar again - one of my colleagues spent about twenty minutes waiting (at the front) to get served, and got so frustrated he ended up just walking away (well, crushing through the pressing crowd looking rather red-faced, anyway), so we largely gave up, went and put on special bowling shoes -

- and got down to business -



- luckily the table service started up shortly afterwards, so we didn't take any chances, buying by the jug -

- had a nice bite to eat (actually very reasonable, like £3 for a passable chicken and bacon burger with fries) -


- and then I took the opportunity to wander around playing with macro -



- getting home again was a bit of a pain though, tube was alright -

- but had to wait for half an hour at a very cold London Bridge for an absolutely packed 4-coach Thameslink train (thought I had seen the back of those idiots...bah) -

- then fluked the last bus (by running like crazy from the station) and just got back to the house for about half past midnight (despite leaving at 2230hrs)!

Anyway, a jolly good night... ;)

UK Storm - Live Beach Cameras

Phew, so after driving through a nasty hail storm yesterday (with a half broken wiper blade flapping around) on our way to meet the wedding photographer, who (even after getting stuck in the traffic on the M25 behind a large crash, which would have made me very grumpy) described the church as "set in fairytale land", we've had a very disturbed night...wind and rain lashing the house, odd crashing noises from the back garden (turned out to be the dead vegetable contents of the garden repositioning itself firmly under the patio furniture) and then creaks and groans from the roof as it struggled to hang on against the elements...this morning the weather was *still* terrible, garden was flooded and we couldn't find any umbrellas (all in the camper, most likely), got absolutely soaked running down the plaform to find a carriage that wasn't completely "full and standing"...cheeked a couple of seats together when someone luckily got off at Redhill and then that was it, the train was full...all the way in no-one could join, at East Croydon a couple of people switched places between platform and train, but only a very few...lots of very disgruntled commuters this morning then, just lucky we live so far away...lunchtime (somehow) we were looking out the window to blazing sunshine and beautiful blue skies, and now the fog is moving back in, sky darkening again and I'm bracing for a nasty commute and an even *worse* night to come...

ITV have got some really fast live webcams running, check out this one of Brighton Beach (saw the swell wash up over the pier at lunchtime!), lots of others on there too...Newquay was scary earlier, but it seems to be completely dead now, hope it hasn't been washed away!

Fink's Links - I can haz internets...?

So another week is almost over (the tenth since the new year began, if you can believe that) and so to celebrate, another nice collection of the wonderful things the internets has wafted in my direction - and it's a real mish-mash (but in a good way)...!

Thanks (firstly) to El Reg who managed to track down the elusive footage of a wind power turbine (in Denmark) suffering a *teeny* little problem with it's rotational speed limiting system (making me wonder quite why the largest fans in the world don't have any guard mesh *shrug*)...

An amazing collection of pictures from National Geographic entitled "Extreme Earth"...with brief descriptions (so you know what you are gawping at)...number 7 is my fave I think, but all good...oh and for bonus points, you can download the full sized images to use for wallpapery goodness!

A striking satellite image illustrating the tangible impact of bottom trawling (nice to see the fishermen are being so accurate, and thoughtful - looks like a fly walking in ink)...

Now, if you are hungry, how about putting on your chef's hat and making your very own (highly original and perfectly American) "bacon cup" to eat your avocado salad out of?

Swiftly onwards to hear the hilarious tale of a Freeconomist - the group that "Wife Swap" made look like layabout "dole scum" who rob from supermarket bins, claim they don't need money, and yet still mysteriously manage to put petrol in their clapped out, un-taxed deathtraps - who innocently decided that everyone else should pay for him to have a nice trip to India (blogging all the way, again *somehow* for free?). He managed to talk enough people into giving him food and lodgings (amazingly) to get all the way from Bristol (where he started) to Calais before he met an impenetrable wall of FAIL in the form of the French (who had no trouble at all seeing him for what he was - a free*loader*)... ;)

A gathering of excellent Wired articles now (who have had an extremely productive week), starting with a bit of investigative journalism that has uncovered a new synthesis between psychology and computer science (and all in aid of you finding a nice movie to watch)...

...their Science blog compiles a nice collection of the top ten science videos that have been posted on YouTube, (one or two of which you probably saw already) and no, not all of them are things exploding (boo) but they are all very entertaining (yay)...! ;)

The always entertaining "Danger Room" published two great "what if?" posts off the back of Cloverfield, "How to stop a 500 foot monster" Part 1 and Part 2 (where reader suggestions are evaluated), all good fun...

...and just before we sweep away from Wired (until next week, I guess), the fascinating tale of a 17-year old, blind phone phreak and "swatter" (if you don't understand the terminology now, you soon will)...thank God we don't have these guys in the UK (at the moment)...

Now marvel at a balloon tank...

Next, how about taking a walk with me down into the site of a 100 year old, abandoned, hydroelectric power station that still lies under Niagra falls? We'll follow that guy with a nice lighting rig and a decent camera, it'll be a bit dark otherwise... ;)

Sure you haven't missed this story entirely (but I have a couple of sweet extras you may have missed) an excellent, hi-res shot of the contact made by the pilot having a *rather* hairy time (in extremely high winds) trying to put his Airbus A380 down at Hamburg airport in high winds...(with added video goodness, bonus points for a nice roundup of other scary landings - the best one is at the bottom)...

Journey to a geeks bedroom (near you) to look at his classic wall decoration, disclaimer - if you haven't played Half Life (where have you *been*?), you may struggle to get this (bonus points for the medkit)... ;)

A funny cat pic entitled - "they wait"...

And finally, (and *finally*), traffic jam "shockwaves" have been recreated experimentally (using real cars) for the first time *ever* by some Japanese researchers...now if only they could find some way to stop it happening on the M25 the world would be a *much* better place!

Anyway, that's more than enough for this week (we'll run out of teh internets otherwise!), previous entries here and more fun from the wonderful world of the web next week...

Now go outside and play... ;)

Robinson Crusoe - First Edition

So I just finished reading Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"...it wasn't as easy as I imagined, the last version of the story I probably picked up would have been at least 60% cartoon illustrations and begun "There once was a young man called Robinson Crusoe who dreamed of being a sailor"...this version (being a *very* slightly tweaked version of the first edition copy from the Library of the University of London) is notable for several reasons -

• It's actual title (in full) is "The life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York. Mariner; who liv'd Eight and Twenty years all alone in an un-inhabited ifland on the coast of the americas;near the mouth of the great river Oroonoque. Having been caft on Shore by shipwreck where-in all the Men perifhed but himself. With an account how he was at laft as ftangeely deliver'd by PYRATES"...(titles not being required to be quite so punchy in those days then)...
• It is credited as having been "Written by Himfelf" and was passed off as a factual, autobiographical piece (but apparently this wasn't unusual at the time - it being 1719)...
• The style of writing is seriously rambling, page after page being turned over to huge amounts of repetition, in fact, it takes 5 pages to explain to the reader that his father wasn't keen on the idea of him going to sea, and is littered with conjecture (although this could just be in keeping with the intended autobiographical style of the piece)...oh and after *86* pages, the story starts all over again from the *beginning* when the character of Robinson Crusoe decides to reproduce exactly the journal that he kept on the island (until he ran out of ink)...
• Rather surprisingly, spoken words are in italics, for example "Well then said I if God does not foresake me, of what ill consequence can it be, or what matters it, though the world fhou'd all foresake me, feeing on the other hand, if I had all the world, and fhou'd loose the favour and blessings of God there wou'd be no comparison in the loss?" (the work of a lazy type setter at the printers, perhaps)...?
• The spelling (as you may have already noticed) of a lot of words has dramatically changed, "ld" as in "would", is largely represented as "'d", "s" is replaced with a sort of slightly swirly "f" shape at the start of some words, "ugh" on the word "through" is lost, and even whole words are spelled entirely differently - "Murder" becomes "Murther", "Human" becomes "Humane" and "clothes" is spelt "clothe"...
• Further compound this with the fact that the meaning of a lot of (obviously commonly used at the time) words have been completely lost to modern use, for example - "meer" meaning "complete", "amuse" meaning "to be deceitful", "hanger" meaning "short sword", "physical" meaning "medicinal", "salvages" meaning "Pagan natives", "perspective" meaning "telescope", "pickle" meaning "to rub salt and vinegar into the back of a flogged man" and "motion" meaning "an impulse"...
  

So you can understand it was far from a simple matter to try and translate this relatively recent text (in historical terms) from the English of the time into anything close to recognisable, processable and thence enjoyable prose...still, it was a fun exercise to go through (easier than "Mrs Beetons book of household management" even if just for it's diminutive size in terms of pages, harder than Poe or Lovecraft, for roughly the same reason) even prompting a random stranger on the London Bridge train one morning to comment that it was odd to see someone reading such a book outside a classroom...

...now if only I can find a copy of Robinson Crusoe part II...which, believe it or not, does actually exist... ;)

Metropolitan Police - The war on photography and UK Photographer's rights

(this picture originally found here)...

Oh no...please don't let it end up with everyone getting stupidly paranoid...*sigh*...first (the worst bit of counter terrorism advice...*ever*) we have to keep an eye out for anyone with two 'phones (like both Flyingpops *and* me, and probably countless other people who either have just got a new one or have to carry a second 'phone for work), but *now* we need to add to the list anyone that is wielding -*gasp*- a camera...a camera? In London?

Well, let's just (for the sake of arguement) take a quick look at me - two 'phones? (check) - Camera? (oops - double check!) - Lurks on public transport or around other high profile targets like Canary Wharf shooting off pictures? (check and check) - bonus points? I *even* carry it all around with me in a large *rucksack* (BAM)...! I guess this would put me firmly in the -*very*- suspicious catagory - if I wasn't arguably "white" (apart from in the summer if I manage to get out enough) - so, apologies to anyone of middle-eastern appearance that works around high profile sites in the city and has an interest in photography - you'll need to shoot subtly from now on, making you look even *more* dodgy on the CCTV footage that ends up getting you a visit from PC Copperfield... :(

It reached the point in the US (well, in New York at least, yes, the "Land of the Free"), after 9/11, paranoid subway workers/security guards would come up to me and tell me I wasn't allowed to shoot pictures...even though I *knew* US citizens had a law-given right to do so (as they have clearly defined "Photographers rights" based on their happy "Freedom" concept) but I didn't have a leg to stand on being a British visitor, rather than a US citizen (and didn't wish to risk being arrested over a point of principle, even if I was in the right)...

Anyway, for those of us here in the UK concerned, thanks to Linda Macpherson (a lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University, specialising in IT, Intellectual Property and Media legislation) we do have a (although somewhat untested) legally sound UK Photographers rights document...want a summary? We basically don't have much of anything...(not that any of this is enforced in any way)...but did you know it could get you in seriously hot water if any picture you took while on "a railway" could be demonstrably useful to terrorists? That's it, I'm going down, mine are all even Geotagged! How about the fact that it's 100% illegal to take any pictures of bank notes??? Why did no-one mention this when I bought my camera!!? Probably because no-one in the UK is aware of that fact...! Most suprising? We have *extremely* wooly privacy legislation in the UK meaning you can take a picture of anyone, as long as they are in a public place, without any fear of reprisal, they can't even claim harrassment (well, unless you take *two* shots)...

Somehow, I think this needs firming up, even if just a little...and asking the public to keep a close eye on people with cameras? I refer the police to their appeal for pictures that were taken just prior to/and of the events of 7/7 (to which I contributed)...make people nervous about shooting in the capital and that evidence stream is depleted, if not deleted...folly...

Gary Gygax fails his saving throw...

Feeling unexpectedly overwhelmed at discovering that Gary Gygax has passed away, failing his final saving throw vs Death yesterday...

R.I.P. Gary (unless we can find a high level cleric or a ring of wishes of course), and thanks for all the adventures... ;(

Moo Easter Egg Hunt

Ooo...check out the moo.com blog, they are running an Easter Egg hunt competition, follow the clues and then search all over the internet looking for where the tiny eggs might be hidden, if you find one, you submit it's secret number and the URL where you found it and you may even win a prize (free cards/stickers, Flickr Pro accounts, even a digital SLR)!

I've only managed to find one though...oh for more time! :(

Leathal Tree Care

Spotted in Redhill last night, doesn't inspire one with much confidence, does it? ;)

Weekend in pictures