Email Britain

So, the British Library (and Microsoft, although, I suspect only for the publicity) have teamed up to create a massive archive of email for use by researchers "from the future"...Apart from producing a wonderfully trippy flash website (that I scrabbed (inventing another new word) the picture above from)...there is also an email address to forward your "good, bad or interesting" emails (email@emailbritain.co.uk), but read the site first, as they want you to put certain words in the subject line to enable easy sorting in the archive.

Interesting project! They are hoping to collect over a million emails, so far they have just over 500, so I thought I would help to spread the word...oh and they will reject anything "defamatory" or "unsuitable"...you know what they mean... ;) Although interestingly they will collect spam examples, so now you have a good use for them!

Let the bombardment commence... ;)

Knee Injury...again...

Well, here's a novel twist to the knee saga, I just got called "rather stupid" by my GP (no wonder I normally go to the walk in centre)..."You managed to do one thing right" (she was talking about me self medicating anti-inflammatory drugs) "and then forgot about the most important bit - rest". "Going into London", she continued, "is just going to make matters worse, and as for a referral", I had asked her to recommend me to Bupa (as Flyingpops gets free Bupa cover for her nearest and dearest as a benefit at work) "the finest specialist in the country wouldn't touch that knee in it's current state, ask any medical professional and they will tell you the same thing"....("Oh", I thought, a little deflated)..."Now complete rest for one week, take one of these - twice a day" (Diclofenac Sodium, a new one on me), "Come back to me and I will assess you for suitability for exploratory surgery. Oh, don't worry", she said, spotting the fear in my eye, "It will be conducted under a general anaesthetic"...

Thank heavens for small mercies... :(

Digg killed by it's own users?

Striking a solid blow for freedom of speech (and fair use for that matter), following in the now distant wake of the cracking of CSS (the DVD encryption system), HD DVD has had it's "key" broken by "the hacker community(tm)"...it's a simple, short number (it's all just maths at the end of the day anyway), but it's a secret number which the MPAA don't want anyone to know...understandably...

Someone posted it on Digg, and digg moderators removed it...so someone else posted it, and it got deleted, and then - the world exploded - 50,000+ diggs and thousands and thousands of comments (mostly containing the secret number) later and the founder of Digg has waded in, basically saying - okay, we surrender, but because of you, this could well be the end of the line for the site...

The lawyers are baying, they have caught the scent of blood...

History in the making...?

Made it...

Made it...
Originally uploaded by finkangel.

...but no-one offered me a seat...as per usual... :(

Making a valiant effort...

Making a valiant effort...
Originally uploaded by finkangel.

...to get to my conference today, but my knee has been playing up again, badly swolen and very painful, going to have to see how I get on...not looking forward to the tube... :(

Surrey wild flowers

Took a little walk around East Surrey Hospital yesterday evening to see if I could see any waiting Paparazzi (Peter Andre is in hospital with meningitis at the moment, poor chap) but got largely distracted by the incredible display of wild flowers just littering the grass banks all over the site -




- oh, I did see one possible clue, no sign of the owner though...must have been hiding in the woods with a zoom lens ;)-

Nothing to see here...

So, I was going to blog about these, and how cool they are (got quite excited yesterday), but now they will have to remain a mystery (for the time being, at least) as Flyingpops has plans for them...if you are a regular reader you can probably guess what for... ;)

In the absence of much else, an update on the last two posts, as nothing else has really had much of a chance to happen so far today...!

Got up and headed out the door early again (Flyingpops on a jolly to Thorpe Park with her office...starting to think I'm in the wrong industry! ;) "Herr Inspektor" (why didn't I think of that name yesterday) was on the bus again today, funnily enough we picked him up at the hospital (hope he hadn't been there all night with a laser, levelling the cones up ;)...got to Redhill in good time, quick enough, actually to catch my normal London Bridge train, read the Metro (slow news day), then got on with "Beware of God" (on bus journey number 2), which is actually absolutely hilarious (even if I am having to get definitions for the odd Hebrew word as I am going along)...the sentient monkey had me wiping the tears from my eyes...and "Holocaust tips for kids"...just genius! ;)

435 bus into Redhill

So this morning, Flyingpops going in late again, I had to get on the bus, I set off a tiny bit early (better safe than sorry), not realising that it was raining before I stepped out without my coat and lacking an umbrella, walked (a little chilly and wet therefore) to the bus stop, where I waited (rather longer than I needed)...as I stood there, getting progressively more damp, I couldn't help but overhear the conversation that was taking place between a couple of the regulars, "Smoking lady" and "Wife of glasses bloke"...
Smoking lady - "Oh its awful"
Wife of glasses bloke - "He always keeps 'em talking at the hospital, don't he?"
Smoking lady "Right until the very second"
Wife of glasses bloke - "Yeah, he won't let them go until the very moment, always makes us late into Redhill"
Smoking lady - "And what for? Who does he think he is anyway?"
Wife of glasses bloke- "He thinks he some sort of inspector, but he's nothing!"
(Glasses bloke steps in here) - "Jobsworth, that's what we calls 'em!"
Smoking lady - "Oy, watch out, here he comes!"

I know who they are talking about, the chap that runs the enquiries office at Redhill bus station, and at this exact moment, he appears, walking around the corner into Bushfield drive, dressed as if he just stepped out of the dry cleaners (as always), and joins the queue. Slightly embarrassed innocent conversation about last night's TV takes place, oh and venom directed at the likes of me "there's always more people on the bus in the rain" (apparently) until the familiar blue and yellow livery swings into view in the distance...I get on, pay for my ticket and go and sit up at the back (getting my favorite seat, ah...)...

When we get to the hospital I peer up from my book to see what "The Inspector" is going to do. Will the ladies be right? I check on my mobile and we are indeed about 90 seconds early..."The Inspector" checks his watch and then looks up and spots that the line of cones (those that protect the racing line the bus follows from being blocked by illegal parking) have been slightly moved overnight, he considers for a second and then can't help himself but hop off the bus to run over and line them up neatly again. The seconds tick by...

The bus driver takes one look in his mirror, smiles (Wile E. Coyote-style) and puts his foot down, zooming off! I look back, just catching "The Inspector"'s open mouth as he is bending down to pick up a cone...I must admit I nearly joined the ladies in laughing out loud... ;)

To be fair though, as well as being a *confirmed* "jobsworth" (to quote glasses bloke), "The Inspector" is rather public spirited, I've seen him picking up rubbish on the estate, and he does voluntary work at the hospital from time to time - however, if you don't want to be my "post de jour" "Mr Inspector", next time I am standing in Redhill hands clasped in begging posture for the bus driver to open the door (while still at the bus stop), don't tell him to ignore me and then smile...my sympathy has boundaries... ;)

I don't know any Jews...

It's strange, I picked up a book in the book sale at work the other day, should have twigged as the "nom de plume" of the author was "Shalom Auslander" (which roughly translates as "Peace be with you" in Hebrew, "Foreigner" in German), it turned out to be a darkly satirical poke at a certain authority figure that those of the Christian and Jewish faith share (it was called "Beware of God")...

However, I tasted a few pages and felt a bit lost, not really having much of an understanding of the Jewish thing...it then dawned on me that I don't even actually know (nor have ever known) anyone who has openly told me that they are a Jew (either in meatspace or here)...This seems a bit odd...is this the legacy of genocide, or is it just that religion isn't really a topic of general conversation? It just seems absolutely stupid that all my contemporary experience of Jewishness comes from either South Park or Monty Python...

So I asked my local American (desk next door, just past Monkey), and she said she knew loads of Jewish people...even confessing to some (possibly indecent levels of) intimate knowledge thereof, so either I am blinkered, my bits of Surrey/London are Jew-shy, or (heaven forbid) there really aren't any around...

Ren - don't give that book away, I'm going to read it and try harder to understand it...

Don't judge a book by it's cover...

A number of weeks ago, I was getting on the bus (on my way home), and was a little...well, let me explain - it was the end of a long day, my knee was throbbing from the repeated strain of all the stairs on the commute (combined with my recent injury) it had been a busy, stressful time in the office, the train had been packed out, it was hot, I'd had to run to actually get on the bus before it pulled away (had to wildly wave to the driver, who had kindly stopped), had managed to drop my change fumbling in my bag as I bounded up the step...anyway, you get the idea (just a bit of a crappy day)...so when I peered, hopefully, up to the emergency exit seat (where the good leg room is) and there was a hoodie sat in it, my heart didn't exactly sink, I just sort of thought "Well that's about right"...he was also playing shit rave music loudly from the crackly speakerphone he was clutching (again, "about right") his face was a mask of indifference.

So anyway, peering around, I noted (with *some* dismay now) that the rest of the bus (leg room seats) were also occupied, so (not wishing to stand) I walked up to the back of the bus and crammed myself sideways into a no legroom seat, stuck in my headphones (so I didn't have to listen to the painful, tinny, indistinguishable racket coming from just behind me), grabbed on for dear life (as the drivers on my route seem to all think they are Lewis Hamilton), and off we went...(for 20 minutes of roller-coaster action)...

No more than one stop later, I felt a tap on my shoulder, I looked round - it was the hoodie - I probably frowned, and removed one of my ear buds - "'scuse me, do you wanna swap seats mate? Bit more leg room here"...

Faith in Human Nature +1

Goring Beach, West Sussex

So on Saturday afternoon we packed up Colin (after a bit of an out-of-the-blue invitation from Flyingpops old friend Dawn) and zoomed down to the sea-side at Goring (just outside Worthing) to enjoy some of the (continuing to be) fantastic weather -

- I took the opportunity to walk around and get a feel for the place, following the hedge tunnel into the distance and gazing out through little gaps towards the beach -

- to the other side is a large green, sporadically studded with small groups, either sunbathing, playing gentle sports or picnicking, all covered by the haze from countless charcoal BBQs -

- others enjoyed the ocean swell, ignoring the blatant warning signs -

- or just gazed out to sea -

I managed to score a couple of bottles of cold beer from a small shop at the end of the grass area (£2.50 each though, so bring your own if you come along!), then had a little snooze on the grass, really relaxing place...

NTL Virgin media broadband - Great deal for an existing customer

Well done Flyingpops...

Here is pretty much the perfect script to bargain Virgin cable (as witnessed by me this morning)-

"Oh hello there, I just wanted to talk to someone about the price of our bill, we seem to be paying a lot more than the deals we have seen in the newspapers","yes, honestly we've spoken to BT and Sky and both of their broadband services (which is all we really use you for) are significantly cheaper","I mean, obviously it's a lot of hassle to change over to another provider, but we don't really use the TV channels you offer, and frankly we could get the same sort of stuff with a freeview box, nor do we really use the landline, our mobile providers give us loads of free minutes. We do like your service, but we really feel like we are going to have to jump ship if you can't offer us a better price for what we already get, say around £25"...(last bill, with phone calls was just over £40 for the "L" TV pack, 2Mb unlimited broadband and the standard land-line phone package)...

(so, Flyingpops has distilled the value of their whole offering, by this point, down to the broadband from a negotiation point of view, the TV and phone now being moot points, her aim being to be put through to the disconnection department, in time honoured fashion)... ;)

The first thing that happened, though, is that she was offered the exact same deal for £30! An immediate saving of about £12 a month - at this point, I would have hung up, smugly satisfied, but with my note (saying BT was £17.99 pcm for a similar broadband offer) tapping beneath her pen, she pursued - politely, but relentlessly...

"Well, that's alright, but I don't really think we can stay with you if you are going to be that expensive, I mean, if I went into town now and bought a freeview box, that's the same money as you have charged us for services we haven't used for the last two months, isn't it? I think I'm going to have to hang up now and talk to the other providers again..."

(and literally, that was all it took!)

"Oh hello, is that disconnections?"

(repeats the same arguments, jovially)

"Oh, twenty two pounds a month for the same deal and an upgrade to 4Mb broadband? Fink, is that okay?"

(I nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide and mouth agape)

Better blooming deal than the new customers are getting!!! Hahaha!

Chicken Jalfreze

It's not as hot as the Jalfrezi... ;)

PG Tips Monkey

Monkey is HUNGRY! ;)

St Peter's Church, Tandridge

A few shots of the church (taken over the Easter weekend), this is the likely venue for the ceremony early next year... ;)

Silly Search Terms #9

Another batch of silly search terms for our mutual enjoyment (those referrals I spot from the major search engines which make me chortle) -

"rover metro loo" (is that an option on the metro then? Passenger seat conversion perhaps?)

"t25 breasts" (Sorry, well not on mine anyway, his name is Colin)... ;)

"preacher's bench used for BDSM" (eh?? While I'm sure it's very enjoyable, not here mate!)

"psp tatty bear brushes" (Well, I happen to know that "brush" is a commonly used word for a 3D object template in the gaming industry, thanks to training myself on an early version of DROMED (the unfriendly, crashy Thief level designing tool) still not entirely sure what they were after though)...!

"does marwell zoo have security guards in it's zoo?" (and why do you want that bit of information, eh sunshine?)

"vending machine love meter" (Urm, again, I think you came to the wrong place!)

"+'number of tendons' +duck" (May I refer you to the Appendicular Myology of the Camptorhynchus labradorius, which should answer your question a little better than anything I have written about ducks (which most likely isn't a lot more than "here is a duck" (or something about quacking)) perhaps refine your search a little more... ;)

"pics of pink cars with playboy bunny logos on them" (I'm plagued! Although I have actually mentioned playboy once or twice)...

Previous entries are in this direction...(if you like this kind of thing)...

New Forest Mini-break - Day #3 - Christchurch and Lyndhurst

So (apologies, a little late), back to our last day of the break, managed to pack up in about one hour flat (after waking up fairly late and enjoying a leasurely breakfast (the camp site doesn't insist you clear the pitch until half twelve, which was nice))...we set the TomTom for central Christchurch (not strictly-speaking actually in the New Forest, but near enough)... ;) After just one tiny mishap (being directed into a car park which was height restricted a little too low for Colin to squeeze into), we managed to find our way to the marina car park (which was rather expensive, but it did mean there were plenty of spaces to choose from, unlike the other car parks in town), and then we walked along the harbour wall into town, and I have to say the whole place is just staggeringly beautiful -

- (might have been the wonderful weather painting things a little artificially sunshiny) but it just seemed everywhere I looked, the whole place was picture perfect -


- walking down the high street was like walking back through time, I think the only mainstream high street store in the entire length of it was a single retro-looking Woolworths -

- all the rest were tiny independent stores (well, and a few charity shops/banks, but that's allowed) -

- I mean, how many tiny towns that you know still have their own little local theatre?

Anyway, we wandered around the farmers market (and did actually discover where the chain stores were, the council seems to have managed to force them all into a little hidden arcade by the multi-storey car park right on the edge of town, amazingly good town planning resulting in probably the only really traditional, largely untouched and truely independent high street in the country (well, that I have ever seen, anyway)! A visit is therefore strongly advised for that spectacle alone... ;)

From there we drove to Lyndhurst in search of some lunch, and found it at the "Fox and Hounds", a "smoke free" pub(!)...where I had a very reasonable Fillet steak (price more reasonable than presentation or flavour (standard pub grub), but I had been rather spoilt for the last couple of days, so not suprising it didn't shine comparitively) -

When we were done we took a walk down the high street, poked around the excellent camping shop in town (but didn't buy anything), and then stumbled upon this little gem -

- a proper, old fashioned sweet shop, hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of sweets, shaming even the largest supermarket with the sheer range, so we stocked up on interesting and retro goodies to give away as novel easter gifts, then back to the camper -

- and home, which took about 2 hours, so an easy hop, considering the massive difference in lifestyle, scenery and culture, a visit to the New Forest (I'll say it again) is like stepping back through time...wonderful... ;)

World Cup Replay - 2007

Driving to Tesco yesterday morning (slow cooking myself in the sizzling summer-boost afforded by black-car ownership) I passed lots of car fulls of people, pit-stopping for fuel/leg stretching/cold drinks at the large petrol station on the roundabout in Horley...the vast majority were obviously on their way to the beach at Brighton and had also fairly obviously mostly done the same as I had - i.e. spotted that the weather was going to be as good as Saturday and pulled all the jumpers and long trousers etc. out of their cupboards/drawers in an attempt to find *something* (towards the bottom) to wear that suited the conditions outside - the result (amusingly), in my neck of the woods anyway, was a total flashback to World Cup fever (it of last summer), those garments being the most recently worn "heatwave" clothes in most peoples wardrobes - almost everyone I passed was wearing either an "England" t-shirt (in one form or other) or St George's cross shorts...time to go shopping for some new clothes perhaps...

Anyway, when I got to the supermarket (arrived at 1015hrs feeling very pleased with myself for getting up so early to miss the crowds) I was most put out to find that the car park was absolutely packed! The majority of people inside (mostly called "Beckham" judging by their stitched name tags) were forming an impatient, tutting throng around the freezer section after realising (as I did shortly thereafter) that the entire BBQ area in the fresh meat row was empty (looks like there will be some explaining to do by whoever is responsible for the stock ordering) meaning each time a woolly-gloved shelf stacker appeared carrying a cardboard box to fill up the "£2-a-bag" frozen ribs/chicken wings/salmon skewers, a mini-football fan food riot ensued...when I actually managed to snatch a bag of Moroccan Lamb it wasn't exactly what I would refer to as frozen (more sort of slushy) but there wasn't a lot of choice...not that it mattered anyway, when I went to look there were zero bags of anything capable of making fire that didn't contain any propellant (don't want to eat petrol-marinated Moroccan Lamb particularly), either at Tesco, or the two other petrol stations I stopped at on the way home, so last night ended up being roast lamb, but that's probably it for roasts (if the weather keeps on like this), time to switch to Mediterranean food in keeping with the conditions...

Surrey Heatwave

It is scorching here...three degrees centigrade lower than it is in in Bahrain (where today's F1 race is, yes, in the middle of the desert!), and they obviously have a lot of wind over there...not a breath in Whitebushes...anyway, good luck Hamilton! ;)

The Feathers, Merstham, Review

So, last night I got told off by Flyingpops' mum for not updating my blog...*blush*...

Suffice it to say, yet again, things have been conspiring against me, being very busy at work, then annoyingly getting sick, then yesterday was spent helping Flyingpops' brother move house (typical that it was the hottest day of the year so far *pant*), but about 4*1.5 hour round trips (between the lock up where all the furniture was stored and his house in Merstham) later (filling Colin and Golf to the absolute limit each time) we were all done...hot and tired and dehydrated, for dinner, he kindly treated us to food and beer at "The Feathers" pub (just up the road from where he now lives)...and it really is a cracking pub, the selection of drinks on offer is both staggering (in it's diversity, beers from all over the world, both on draft and bottled) and shocking (in the odd things that you expect to be on offer, but are missing (Chinzano, for example)), the decor is inviting, the selection of board games (free for use) is second-to-none in Surrey and the food is largely rather accomplished.

From our covers the clear winner was the Chicken pie, fat and fine shoe pastry and full to the brim with chunky poultry, vegetables and gravy (but not what I ordered, curses...) the battered fish looked a little on the limp side (looking distinctly floppy in appearance), and was served up missing it's side dish of mushy peas, a quiet reminder to the (definitely new) waiter, resulted in it's appearance a (rather microwave obviously) short while later...the burgers (which I was rather disturbed to NOT be asked quite how I would like to be cooked upon ordering), turned up just on the well done side of medium (which was acceptable), on a nicely toasted bit of ciabatta, almost drowned in strong cheddar cheese (not sure I need quite so much, but at least it was completely melted), and served with a small heap of slightly overcooked (abandoned in trendy London pubs at least 18 months ago) "jacket wedges"...but I can let that slide, Merstham being out in the partial-sticks (just half-way between the real quality rural pubs and real gastro-London restaurant pubs)...