Goodwood

For my Christmas last year, my wife got us two tickets for the Goodwood Revival, so yesterday at some ungodly hour for a Saturday we got in the car and went off to Goodwood. The AA reckoned on two hours, we did it in 75...

Goodwood do two events a year, the Festival of Speed which is a massive hillclimb in the grounds of the house, no cars excluded and is a huge event now. Loads of F1, track and rally stars, and has a great atmosphere, we loved it when we went. But this was the first we had gone to the Revival. It's at the Goodwood circuit and it's only for pre-66 cars (although, they bend the rules slightly, if the car was built after that but looked and was mechanically the same, your allowed to run). Everybody makes an effort to dress up too.

Essentially, it's a classic car weekend, so plenty of GP and saloon cars, along with some really expensive motors! I'd never seen a 250 GTO until yesterday, when I saw 4! Two race cars and two road cars (one was apparently Chris Evans, but nobody confirmed it).

Highlights for me were the practice for the RAC TT event, the cars in the field for this race is valued at about $85 million! The pace these guys drive in these cars is full on, no holds barred as it's all ex racing drivers (Brundle was there sharing the drive on Adrian Newey's new toy, a lightweight Jag E-type - which they put on pole), or big petrolheads as most races featured cars from Nick Mason. The other highlight was the last race, which started at 5:50 and finished at 7:30ish. These cars were of a type that raced in Goodwood's old 9 hours races into the twilight, and this was to let everyone see these cars in that same light. Was awesome watching them ping on in that light! Emmanuelle Pirro was flying round in car number 8, an Auston Healey and just thrashed everyone (he lapped he second placed car within an hour!).

Final highlight was the airshow - two spitfires and a Lancaster were the real stars, though the Mustang made a great noise!

Brilliant day, ended a great day by having chips in real paper cones on the walk back to the car park - got home about 9:30 last night with no traffic holdups on route as people had drifted away during the last race so we had an easy trip home. Tired but happy!

Loads of photo's on Flickr, but a sample:

Currently, I'm on a bit of a fitness kick. There is a motivation for this, which is a monetary one, and will be explained later, once the level has been met. This has been helped no end by having a cottage to stay in during the week instead of staying in hotels, which means I can eat properly and not curry and weiss bier all week! I miss the evenings with the team though, and I've not had curry in weeks!

Off for dinner tonight as it's our friends 30th birthday today, he's 30 going on 50 but my suggestion of slippers and a pipe as a present didn't go down well. Some people have no sense of humour!

Well, that was a hectic weekend!

Friday my wife was arriving to our little place in the midlands, and as I had some time to spare I did an Ikea run to Coventry, picked up the things we forgot last time we were there. Which means tea lights, another beside lamp and a foot stool. The place is looking good, just needs a few pictures up to make it feel more homely. Popped out to the pub to meet up with some friends in the village, and the scientific result is that there is a pub equidistant from both places, a massive 10 minute walk. Which is handy!

Saturday morning a bike ride on the Grand Union Canal was planned, which runs from behind the village from Birmingham to London. We didn't go that far, but it's a fantastic place all of 5 minutes ride from the front door. Back in time to watch the qualifying for the GP, before heading to Stratford with friends to see Hamlet, with David Tenent and Patrick Stewart. It was superb, long but once you tune into what's being said it's very enjoyable. Not my usual thing but would go again. Stratford itself is very pretty, obviously a lot of money there! Dinner was in a very nice place called Lambs, on Sheep St. People in Stratford obviously need to work on the naming of things!

Sunday was a bit lazier, bit of shopping and the GP, and then over to friends for a Sunday roast and wine, and a little celebration as it was 2 years since the now wife and I got engaged. Time flies...

Would seem I'm slipping again...

So what changes in 10 days? Well, in the grand scheme of things, not that much! Work's moved on to the new module, which is moving along nicely. Healthwise is a worry, been getting solid headaches most days which the doctor is putting down to tension headaches. I put it down to peering at the laptop screen, so I'm trying not to do that! Seems to be getting better though and not anything more serious. Family health worries no doubt don't help. These things are sent to try us though.

Good result for Scotland last night. I had fears, Iceland is never an easy place to go, but with a bit of a makeshift team the right result came out. Norway at home next, a game you'd think we should win as they only managed a draw with Iceland at home.

Still, it makes better reading than that farce of a Grand Prix result. Amazing race, superb driving skills and very exciting, the best last 5 laps this century even. And then the FIA try and f**k it up by deciding the Lewis cut the chicane and gained an advantage. I'm fed up with the FIA interfering with races in a manner that is not consistent, and nor fair to the viewer. If F1 is a sport, let them race. If it's entertainment, let them race and not become pantomime.

Anyway, an interesting thing came my way about Canon cameras. Turns out, some bloke has worked out how to hack the humble IXUS. The genius bit? It runs on the SD card. Take the card out and the camera is factory fresh. I'll try it out next time I've got my camera nearby. LINK

So just back from a wet holiday in the UK. A few days walking up round Hadrians Wall was certainly very interesting. You forget that there is also so much other Roman stuff up there to look at as well as just the wall. They were also so very clever with their engineering. For example, they built every fort in the same design as visiting soldiers would immediately know where everything was. That's very logical. They were big into the baths, and you can see the same design for the heating of the water in the forts near the wall as we saw in Crete and Cyprus, with elevated floors for the hot air to get underneath. They also had to build water storage tanks and to get the flow right, they built them at the exact height and size to maintain a constant flow. That's genius, and I know plumbers here who could do with looking into that...

A couple of days in the lakes followed, which has some amazing scenery. It's just a shame that so many people go there, it was mobbed in the towns every day, but quietened down in the evening. If you wanted to park and go walking you had to be there by 10 which wasn't an issue for us. The walking is very good though, really enjoyed it.

All in all, a good week, relaxing and nice to avoid airports for a change!

Went to Ikea last night to get some stuff for the new cottage. Why is it you ALWAYS have to buy candles in Ikea? We've still got about 500 tealights (and that's not an exaggeration!) left over from the wedding in a combination of colours, but apparently that's not enough! We usually burn 4 at time, so that's going to take us 125 days to get through that lot. Which is a long way away yet!

The new Verve album comes out next week, but they've put it up in full on MySpace so while I've been writing some slides I've been listening to it. It's epic. Proper old school music. It's good to have them back.

My car is in for an oil service today, so I've got a Mini Cooper Clubman for the day. It's good fun, and the interior is still as classy as ever (although I think there were aspects of the old interior that looked more expensive - a fair amount of plastic in this one on the center console.) It's slightly underpowered for me, I drove an old Cooper recently and it was a real rocket compared to this. But then it does have a lot more doors and no more interior space. It's quite funky though, so if I was in the market for an impractical small car, this would be it :-) It does have some very nice alloys on it though - powder coated black JCW special edition wheels, which are at least £1000. I'm so careful parking it, but why on earth would you fit them to a loan car!!!

Todays news is that there is no news!

Apparently we are moving desks in the office. Now, I have a nice desk in the office as it gets lots of natural light, which is brilliant. I'm apparently moving to a desk which has no natural light whatsoever in an area where you can't open the windows! Deep joy. But with my current date it's only for two weeks so will see. I'm not really sure why we are moving tbh, people want all the module team together but it's a bit late for that. Ho hum, I'm sure our great and wonderful leaders know what they are doing.

My car is going in for it's service tomorrow, so I'm being loaned a brand new 3 series saloon which is going to be interesting as it's an option for when I eventually replace my current car.

Holiday soon, so plans are afoot for some walking in the north of England for a few days which should be great so long as it's dry! After the honeymoon we decided that we'd probably flown enough this year on holiday so staying local is the plan.

A good weekend, Saturday was spent discovering the local area where the new cottage is. Ended up watching some Olympics on the new TV (it's SO nice!) with some friends who were cooking us dinner on Saturday night. On route we have to pass 4 pubs. We know this as we tried a couple, and have worked out a nice route for one lazy Saturday, which will end up in the Indian at the end of the route. Perhaps one for the forthcoming holiday!

Sunday was spent at Silverstone watching the GT racing. It was a good race, plenty of action with the Ferrari just beating the Viper who ran out of fuel on the in-lap after the race. Morale victory to Aston no 42 though, who was leading for 90 minutes until the driver change and never came back out as they couldn't get insurance for the 2nd driver and of course, no insurance brokers for race cars are open at the weekend. Which is surely a bit of an error on their part! Highlight though was the VW race, where any VW can enter. They are then equalised by weight, so you get a brand new Golf GTi competing with a Jetta, Beatles, Polos and perhaps my favourite, the Caddy van. Hilarious.

So today my wife gets the keys to the cottage that will see us no longer staying in hotels and eating out every night in the week we're away. It's going to be great! The place is ideal, in the village we are looking to move to when we eventually sell up. And perhaps most excitingly, it doesn't come with a TV which means I finally get to buy a big screen LCD TV! So a 32" Panasonic is on the agenda for tomorrow which will then be plugged into the Wii for some big screen Mario action!

I see that one of the North Koreans has been stripped of his medals at the Olympics for failing a drugs test. Which made me wonder - what drugs does someone who won medals in air pistols need to take?!? I assume it's something to stop him getting itchy trigger finger but the last time I did air rifle shooting I was awesome and hit anything and everything I was aiming at, so how hard can it be!!! And it was snowing, with gloves on, so hardly ideal conditions. Olympics? I could have been a contender ;-)

Fuel

So with the increasing fuel costs I've been keeping track of my fuel usage (ah, spreadsheets :-)) for the past couple of months. It's interesting reading, as it calculates average MPG and miles per tank. On average, I put in 48 litres per fill, and get 338 miles from that, which works out as an average of 33.9MPG. Not fantastic, but for a large fast coupe it's almost respectable! Not that long ago 30MPG was considered excellent! What is scary is that since the 14th June I've paid out £580 just on fuel, most of which I recover from work as I do very little private miles these days, but it makes you think.

Of course, I could change the car and get a diesel, however no amount of MPG improvements will get me in one as I'm just not convinced that they are any better for the environment than petrol as the particulates are just too unknown. Plus, the additional cost of buying a diesel car and the extortionate cost of the fuel itself would mean any savings are pretty marginal. As such, I'll take a car that sounds great, gives me reasonable MPG and drives better - who wants to change gear at 4000rpm anyway?

In saying that, I'm driving my car a lot more considerately recently, and you know what? It makes nearly no difference to the MPG I get! How crazy is that? Madness to me....

So, I've not posted on here in a long time, sorry but things have been manic!

Summary since April? Well, got married (all went really well, had a brilliant day!), went on honeymoon (which also went really well, amazing scenery and animals in Botswana, and amazing food and beaches in Mozambique), went back to work and all back to normal!

Been keeping busy at home with some DIY as the aim is to still move away from London, but the current economic climate may make that tricky, so will see what happens. However we've managed to do all the little jobs to the flat that we've been putting off for a while, so it's all good really.

Family - not seen my folks since the wedding, so we're planning a wee trip up there sometime, soon hopefully.

Work, well it was all going well but the project seems to be taken over by accountants and as such, isn't the place it was. There is a very weird atmosphere at times and it's not conducive to what was a very enjoyable place to work. It seems client knowledge isn't valued anymore, and some very good people have left the project, which is very disappointing. It will be interesting to see what happens, as I'm only covered for another 3 weeks. Can't really say too much more, but work itself is a bit of a disappointing place in general which is having an effect on morale.

Anyway, will try and keep this going again, since I got my new phone (Sony C902) with a cracking data deal, I should be able to do it remotely!

Right, back to the grind...

Well, last post for a wee while as I go off to get married and then honeymoon. The weather is looking like it might just hold for us and everything is in place.

Can't wait.

I'm knackered! Yesterday I drove up to Worcester for the last time before I get married. Pleasant enough drive, usual hatefulness of a Monday morning in London though. I'm sure it takes people till Tuesday to engage their brains round here. Anyway a good days work in a quiet office and then a gym trip before heading to a local pub for dinner. However, plan B was quickly engaged as they had just shut the kitchen! So we went next door to an Italian I've driven past for 2 years but never been in. Turns out to be a find, with good traditional Italian food, simply cooked and all fresh stuff. Just what you want!

A good nights sleep was interrupted at 6am by the lorries emptying the bins in the street. Rather than waste the time, I got up and headed to the gym for a workout.

So today I'm feeling slightly virtuous but still knackered! Still, last day in Worcester for 4 weeks is always a pleasant feeling :-)

Bit of a schoolboy error this one. Driving the only Aston Martin in existence for the new Bond film, the driver drops it on a bend and ends up in Lake Garda.

Now, you can picture the poor guys dilemma.

I'm on an Italian lakeside road. There are lots of great corners. There are mountains all around to rebound the sound. Maybe I'll just nail it the once. Arrg!!!!!


Bet he's gutted. And very wet.

Photo cube

Take one set of photos, take one template, add a sprinkle of good inkjet printer, and you too can make your own photo cube!

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2007/11/05/cube-a-rific/

Mr Amazon has let me down.

I ordered two new ipods last week for myself and my future wife. Duly dispatched, I checked my order today to see when they would be delivered. Apparently, they were delivered yesterday by the hugely useless Home Delivery Network. So a call was placed to Amazon as you cannot phone HDN directly. Turns out they had been left on the dorstep. 300 quids worth of ipod left in the street. Is it any wonder they went walking? That's if they were even delivered.

My Amazon apologized profusely, and a case will be opened against HDN and the driver. My new ipod will arrive next week now, first class registered post with no questions - Amazons customer service was brilliant. Frustrating as I will now struggle to get it all setup as I wanted before the wedding, but still, better than nothing.

Now I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it's looking great for another Aberdeen European adventure :-)

A mighty win at Celtic park keeps the dream on track, just when the season was beginning to look flat. The one real benefit of working away from home is that I have easy access to hotels and bars who have SKY sports and Setanta sports, which means I can watch the games!

Now, just need to beat Queen Of The South, who are sitting 4th in First Division in the semi to setup a likely final with Rangers. As they are going to finish 1st or second, we'll get a euro place for reaching the final.

It's important to do this, as the club are planning a major restructuring this summer so European football will be a draw for us, plus the money is always helpful. And as Scotland are so high up the world rankings now, we'll have less pre-qualification to do for the cup as well, which means group stages will be potentially easier to reach.

It just gets better and better!

Busy weekend of wedding activity. Saturday was spent in Brighton, shopping for various presents which went very well. Brighton seems to have a cracking feel to it, I've been there only a few times but enjoyed the atmosphere every time. Lunch was had in Food For Friends, which is vegetarian but don't let that put you off! I had an amazing frittata while the missus had a very good parsnip and goats cheese tart.

Sunday was up early to head to Kingston to buy our honeymoon luggage, as we've only got 15KG each, including hand luggage, for the trip. This will seriously affect the packing! So a lightweight bag has been bought so we can squeeze in those essential extras. It's actually been an interesting experience as we've had to look at everything we are taking with us and how heavy it is, so the camera is much lighter than the other options, same for binoculars and even walking boots! I don't think that I'll need them on the beach, but while out on safari I don't fancy walking in elephant poo in flip flops!.

The rest of yesterday was spent doing wedding paperwork which is very dull but essential. Nearly done though...

A trip to the nations capital today, with the aim of cracking on with various pieces of work. So a meeting room was booked and an early train caught.

So far, all is well, but it amazed me that the office was still dead by 8:45. I'll need to bear this in mind for the future when I can never get a desk! Still, at least the trains were consistent as there were no seats to be seen anywhere. It scares me sometimes that there is an 8 carriage train every three minutes from my station to Waterloo, and yet in the morning every carriage is rammed, every seat taken and people standing up all the way. Usually me. Where do all these people go? Where do they all work?

One for another day to ponder.

So, I've spent a lot of time recently suffering from work overload and personal life overload. It really can grind you down!

Work is mad, trying to get project stuff sorted out, and then on top of that there is the admin. In all my time I swear it's getting worse. This year I'm trying to get a promotion. To do that, they seem to have made it as tedious as possible to put people off. You have three documents to complete, all of which are long and cover essentially the same thing. And you just know it's not going to be worth all the time and effort, the sleepness nights.

Wedding plans are coming on, guest lists still cause grief though. That's the single biggest one just now!

Had a great birthday weekend last weekend, which included my stag do in Edinburgh. It's always nice to catch up with my mates as I don't see them all that often, and they were all on good form. It starts the eternal pondering, why do I live so far away from them all? The answer? So I can get good work on projects (which are great) and complete the mundane paperwork. Which drives you mental.

On the upside, it's less than 7 weeks now until the wedding and I'm getting a bit excited by it now - there is light at the end of the planning!

Right, now back to the paperwork...

A busy weekend that, I'm still recovering!

Friday night was spent in John Lewis, doing gift list things - sounds fun, is actually hard work! So many decisions to make, not helped when your trying to furnish a house you don't own yet (we'll move this year - definitely!). Saturday was spent in London, doing present shopping before heading up to the British museum to see the Chinese Terracotta Warriors. While it was very busy, it was well worth it and really gives you a sense of the scale of what Emperor Qin was up to. You also begin to wonder how many other finds there are in that field in China as they keep finding more and more, the latest being some terracotta musicians and wild birds to keep him amused in the afterlife.

Sunday was spent finishing the gift list which threw up a new object of desire. It's far too expensive to put on a gift list but the sound is incredible and the styling is superb. If you want the ultimate sounds and style for your ipod in the house, this is it: Link Might be treating myself when we do eventually move house for that bad boy! The bass is awesome.

Interesting what you can find on Microsofts blog - this guy doesn't seem sold on the potential Yahoo! deal. (also, how annoying is it to have to0 include the "!" after Yahoo? - almost as bad as "Monday")

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2008/02/microsofts-yahoo-acquisition-is-bold.html

Aberdeen play Bayern Munich tomorrow in the UEFA Cup. It occured that they might, possibly, have a better team that us. Let's look at the evidence, based on International experience:

Bayern:
Kahn (86 caps Germany)
Sagnol (54 caps France)
Lucio (63 caps Brazil)
Demichelis (9 caps Argentina)
Lahm (37 caps Germany)

Altintop (25 caps Turkey)
van Bommel (40 caps Netherlands)
Ze Roberto (84 caps Brazil)
Schweinsteiger (48 caps Germany)

Klose (73 caps Germany)
Toni (32 caps Italy)

Aberdeen:
1 Langfield (Uncapped scotland squad member)
28 Maybury (10 irish caps)
4 McNamara (33 scottish caps)
5 Diamond (Former scotland under-21 captain)
23 Bus (Eh, nothing)
8 Nicholson (3 scottish caps)
19 Young (Former scottish under-21 player)
6 Severin (14 scottish caps)
27 Walker (Captain of england under-19's)
10 Mackie (1 scotland B cap)
16 Miller (1 scottish cap)
Subs
14 Foster (Former scottish under-21 player)
21 Considine (Current scottish under-21 squad member)
22 Maguire (Current scottish under-19 squad member)
20 Soutar (Eh, nothing)
9 Lovell (Eh, nothing)
11 Duff (10 scottish under-21 caps)
26 Aluko (Current england under-19 squad member)
Others
3 Byrne (1 ireland B cap)
7 Ja.Smith (2 scottish caps)
15 Touzani (Former dutch youth player)
17 D.Smith (Eh, nothing)
18 Mair (Former scottish youth player)
24 De Visscher (Eh, nothing)
25 Jo. Smith (Eh, nothing)
30 Kelly (Scotland under-19 squad member)

On second thoughts, let's not...Even their 3rd choice striker has something like 22 caps for Germany.

Well, at least it's on early, plenty of time for drowned sorrows afterwards. Thank goodness for BBCi on red button who are showing the game live.

Now, this is geeky...

This guys has developed software that uses the Wii controller in a variety of interesting ways. The Wiimote is an amazing and very accurate device, and these side projects give you an idea how the technology could be reused. I love the interactive whiteboard!

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/projects/wii/

Don't you hate it when people don't think about the implications their work? There is a prime example today of understanding the impact of things where people thought it would be a good idea to scan a document. The document is new, however the designer hadn't spoken to anyone about the scanning requirements as they had made some assumptions. Which were incorrect. The people designing the process for the scanning hadn't spoken to anyone about the technical requirements of the scan process. It then comes to the technical people to chase all the answers to get an answer within a day. As per normal.

And you wonder why us techies mock non-techies sometimes?

I try and avoid religion. It's not that I'm anti religious, it's just that it people can take their views very seriously and it can end up in violence - and that's just football crowds who get a bit a drunk, never mind the extremist views some people have.

I came across this video which I found interesting. A Dutch comedian was confronted about some of his satire on a Dutch TV show which was run by three Muslim girls. They took offense at what he said. He responds and expresses it is his right to free speech and they are taking offense when they should just get on with it and deal with it. "Everybody else does it, why can't you?" seems to be the message.

There is an interesting back story to this. Hans was friends with Theo Van Gogh, the director who was shot in Holland a few years ago having made a film about Islamic culture, and this seems to have fueled his ambition to ensure nothing is ever deemed "out of bounds" as to what can and cannot be said in free countries. It's a valid point and one that you can see every day in the UK, with concessions here and there in case it upsets someone, or their religion.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=knRLJp-nqSg

Anyway, I'm not going to preach and say he is right or wrong, but in a free world, people can say what they like regardless of the target. You may not agree with them or their views, but that is what makes life interesting. If we all liked the same thing, it would be a very dull place.

It's always nice to be at home, and this week I'm on a course in central London learning about the application we are building. It seems it will be a good week but the first day is scene setting and most was a recap or confirmation of approach. What was good today was it was my first "hands on" with the product. It has it's own little foibles and tricks, but once you start thinking about how it works it all makes sense and it should be a good week.

What was not so pleasant was the rush hour commute to the city - I've not done it in three years since I left work on a project on the Strand, and I forgot just how many people try and get onto the trains and tubes. It does make you think like the Egg Card advert - for every clever thing that happens in the world (me being at home) there is an opposite reaction somewhere else (the tube journey).

I also read an interesting article in GQ about blogging and that 50% of blogs created every day has the subject matter of the author and his or her life. I scoffed till I realised that's what this was. I might come back to the topic as you could get all deep about this subject and I don't think I can deal with it just now.

Tetris

This is one of the funniest things I've seen on you tube in ages - Human Tetris from Japan. What I find really funny is the panic in the faces as they try to work out how to get into the correct shapes to fit through the holes!

I see that you can now book (or very soon) Eurostar tickets online in conjunction with regional tickets. So if you want to go to Paris from York, you'll get it in one place.

Link

Now, there is a very good European site called Seat61, which has tons of information about European train travel. I used this extensively when booking my tickets to go to the World Cup in Germany in 2006 as there is loads of useful stuff on it. However, the ultimate European train site has to be the DeutscheBahn site (LINK)which lets you search every train in Europe (and I've just checked - it allows you to include York in it's search). So why have they bothered to do it? I guess it makes it easier for people, but I don't know many people who book train tickets online. As the online services are not great for train travel, in my experience. I don't trust the train company websites to give me the right price for love nor money - I'd rather buy the single fare to get to London and then do the rest on Eurostar's site.

As an aside, a total journey time of 10 hours and 21 minutes to go by train from York to Dortmund by train is impressive but I wonder how many people would consider it. Take into account the entire travel time to get from York to Dortmund by air (assuming you can fly from Leeds to Dortmund) would be:

• Drive from York to Leeds Bradford - 1 hour
• Park and get to terminal - 30 minutes
  
• Check in before flight - at least 2 hours
• Flight - 3 hours (I've not checked that btw)
• Get off plane and collect bags - 45 minutes
• Get into central Dortmund - 45 minutes
  

So, a total there for about 8 hours by air. None of which would be particularly stress free as airports these days are just a nightmare. Compare that to 10 hours on some of the most efficient, clean, well serviced and comfortable trains you can travel on these days. That's worth two hours of my time any day. But I'll bet the ticket to get from York to London costs more than the air fare alone.

Shame.

Now, I'm a well behaved driver but I take an interest in the speed camera debate as it affects me as a driver. Came across this site, some interesting and knowledgeable people on there, discussing scameras and parking tickets.

http://forums.pepipoo.com/

Back to work with a bump today. Quiet day catching up on admin and the activities that have been going on in the world of work. Quite nice to be able to do it all in peace!

Christmas passed with much fun and laughter, though with colds all round it wasn't quite as much fun as it could be. Wii caused much laughter all round - there is nothing like the sight of your 81 year old Gran playing Wii tennis... New Year was a complete washout, the other half managed to get this winter vomiting cold thingy, so we shut the door and packed her off to bed. Not exactly party time! Still, these things happen.

Many days have been spent looking at a new camera to supplement the Ixus we bought in late 2006. This one will be used for long distance and outdoor type shots, leaving the Ixus for indoor type shots in preparation of the honeymoon where we will be on safari in Botswana. Much research has gone into this, and an order placed, which should arrive tomorrow which is rather exciting. The rate of change is frightening - the new camera one of the new breed of bridge cameras with super zooms and has a 18x optical zoom on it. I've been very impressed with it when we tried it in the shop so cannot wait for it's first outing. Next on the hit list is a set of binoculars.

What else? Well, I spent a few days sorting out my photo library on the PC, having run out of disk space and with no upgrade option, having previously filled the spare drive slot with a DVD burner. So an external drive was bought, DVD burning for archiving taken place and a second copy placed on the drive. You can almost see the PC breath out as it gets disk space back!

Unbelievably, Aberdeen won last night! I'm stunned, but so happy! Beating the Danish champions, who beat Ajax and Manchester United last season is good, but beating them 4-0 is unreal!

So we go into the last 32 of the draw, to play a group winner and with no limitations on playing teams in the same country, we can play Everton, Athletico (again - who beat us in the groups), Villareal, Hamburg, Leverkusen, Getafe, Bordeaux and Bayern Munich. Of that lot, I want one of the big German teams, Leverkusen have a stadium which would have an incredible atmosphere, but Bayern would be the big one - seeing as we beat them in the last 16 in the European Cup in 83. Maybe we should just keep them for the next round :-) As an aside, the key players that night in Fergie's first big team where Gordon Strachan and Alex McLeish. Fergie's team from the 80s has produced a huge number of good managers so can you imagine how many there will be from his team of the 90's????

Wii

Last weekend I managed to finally get hold of a wii. It's brilliant, a workout and a games console. The interactivity is awesome, you really feel part of the game as you lunge across your lounge throwing a bowling ball in the same action you would in the bowling alley. If only I could get a second wii remote - they are rarer than a wii!!!

Also, this is interesting - the BBC moves to personalised portals on the beta site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/beta/

Well it seems there will be some kind of protest this week about the cost of fuel in the UK. The plans seem secretive, so I'd suggest filling up on Tuesday night if you need to like me, when the car is essential next weekend, when we visit a friend from Oz home with their kids for the first time and my cars range would get me there, but not back home again afterwards. Should probably have bought a diesel, but they don't sound anywhere near as nice :-)

Anyway, I suspect this has been coming for a while and I try and keep politics clear from here, but something needs to change with the way the motorist is treated.

Link if you want more info.

Do you ever have to work with someone who you just want to smash against a wall? Particularly when you just know they will try and claim your work as their own?

Time for a cunning plan to be actioned...

It's one of those times where life is just busy. Lot's on at work, as usual at this time of year which always seems to be admin crazy. As I'm meeting the leader of my part of the business today I might mention it. Then again, perhaps not.

Long day yesterday due to a couple of incidents on the M40 - it amazes me how long a queue can get in such a short time. Yesterday had two - one where a car was on it's roof in the outside lane (how? I mean you've got to be driving too fast and like an idiot to have to end up on your roof surely? the watchword on the motorways is anticipation and consideration people!) followed by a power cut which knocked out the traffic lights at the top of a slip road. 2 mile tailback...

The price of petrol has raised it's head again. I stopped last night on the way home and it was 104.9ppl!!! Madness. So the moral of that story is always use www.petrolprices.com before you travel to see the cheapest petrol near you.

Oh dear, that didn't go to plan did it?

Croatia played with passion, with pace and intelligence. They were worthy winners. England didn't play with any of those things and deservedly lost. I won't dwell on it, but Lampard was bloody awful - how he gets a game in an England shirt is beyond me. Club football he is good (ish - he still plays for Chelsea remember!), international level he has not played a good game in ages. Gerrard was ineffective, although I can't help but feel that's because he didn't get the ball enough going forward. I feel sorry for Carson - the pitch and conditions were awful to play in such a big game and I hope he doesn't let it get to him.

You could see the pressure the players were under on their players faces, particularly Gerrard and Lampard, and it showed with the performance on the pitch. The press has changed in recent years on how much influence they have over football, and wider public figures lives, and it's not for the good. It's to sell more papers, and as such McLaren will be sacked today. Who will replace him? Nobody with an ounce of sense, that's for sure. So expect to see Sam Allardyce in place soon.

The positives from an England view was the giraffes finish for the second goal. A perfect cross from brand beckham, and Crouchs first touch was superb, the finish even better. It reminded me of a debate my mates and I have every time we get together - what's the best touch/pass in this move? The long ball from De Boer was inch perfect, the first touch makes the chance, the second makes the space, and the finish is sublime.



Also, one more thing - Scotland finished on 24 points in a much harder group to Englands 23 ;-)

Wembley madness

Why spend £780M on a stadium designed to make sure the pitch is in good condition, and then build a retractable roof on it as well to keep it dry, and then not use it? Wembley is a technical masterpiece for it's design, and as a venue it's superb with little queuing for anything, easy to get in and out of, great view all around the stadium of the pitch. But was it really needed?

Would the Stade De France have done the job? It's certainly big enough, was a lot cheaper to build, and if they were to do it again I'm sure they would lose the running track to get a better atmosphere. Millenium Stadium - looks like a dog, but what an atmosphere. Shame the pitch suffers so badly. However, if you really want to see a brilliant covered stadium, there is only one - and it's German.

The Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen is the home ground of Shalke. It has a retractable pitch, so it can sun itself when not in use, retractable roof, a moveable video cube and one of the stands move. It seats 60,000+, but there would be no reason why you couldn't make it bigger. Why people start again with design when something as brilliant as this exists, I'll never know. And having been to both it and Wembley - I'd rather watch football in Gelsenkirchen. The atmosphere is just unbelievable, the view perfect and did I mention the atmosphere? Noise like you've never heard from a crowd (well, maybe Hampdem on Saturday, but as I wasn't there I can't really comment!)

See for yourself. The pitch is out the front in this one.




The video cube can be moved if needed, or left where it is even with the roof open.



http://www.arena-auf-schalke.de/portrait_arena_en.php

Part of my house has a flat roof on it. This was replaced last year as it was leaking. However, I'm now convinced it leaked less than the new one. Everytime we get prolonged rain, it comes in through the roof in the study. Now, this is where all the computer gear is, so it always makes me nervous!

Luckily, I was at home yesterday to catch the water, and so the roofer comes out today to fix it. Only good thing about it is that I get another night at home.

Just to compound my week, England will qualify by fluke of an Israel result against Russia. So a few thoughts on England if I may...

The campaign has been awful, though you could see it coming as England have underperformed with the best set of players they have had in years. The World Cup was poor, and as Sven has shown he's not a bad coach, where does the fault lie? Well, yes, the coaches need to take some blame, but not all of it and if there is a witch hunt for Mclaren then that's a huge shame. He was never the right man for the job (but with the Scolari situation in Portugal, he wasn't either!) but if England don't qualify for the championships don't sack the coach. It's a reaction to please the fans and the press. And just who would take over? You don't see world class managers running for the job so it'll be Sam Allardyce, who has no big European experience.

So the players - well Rooney hadn't scored for years, Owen was permanently injured, and David James and Paul Robinson are flying (not) but the spine of the team is one any manager would like. Rio, Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Hargreaves (well, most managers would like him!) plus one of the worlds best (as well as most hated) left backs in Cashley Cole. Huge experience in Gary N at right back, and then up front there are world class players in Rooney and Owen. It's the right players, but they just don't gel and play like a team. And that comes back to the coach.

The Premiership has to be part of this - the top players play two games every week, no wonder they are knackered as they run at least 10km in each game. So ease up the games and players can perform better for the national team.

I hope England qualify, if only to keep the press amused next summer. They don't particularly deserve it, but that's life. I also don't think they would have got out of our group if they had been in it, but at least the dark days of 4th level seeds are gone for us now we are ranked 13 in the world (oh yes, England are only 11th) so we'll be the second pot for World Cup qualifiers. Combined with a squad who are predominantly under 25, things are looking rosy for the Scotland squad. If I was an English fan, I don't think I'd be looking forward quite so much...

The tension builds....

Can Scotland qualify for the Euro's by beating the world champions? It's classic Scotland though. This could all have been sorted out in the last round of games when we failed to beat Georgia on their patch, leaving us the hard one.

Scotland believes though. And with good reason - we've beaten France twice, and the Ukraine, and were unlucky to lose 2-0 in Italy. It's a big difference to the World Cup qualifiers when you couldn't give tickets away. In fact, I went with my Dad and brother to watch a rubbish game in what was Berti's last game in charge. Now, they could have sold Hampdem out twice.

Do I believe we'll win? Well I want to, and I think we'll be well up for it - but isn't it classic Scotland to get this far and fail? For once though, I do believe...

Now, where did I put that Runrig CD?

Nightmare. First Aberdeen get beat by Lokomotiv, and then we get robbed by the Gorgie lot. Not a good week to be an Aberdeen supporter.

To cheer myself up, here's a list of names from the 5-a-side leagues in Glasgow. We used to play in Aberdeen while I was at Uni under the name "Big Aye", which then became the "Mighty Big Aye" on winning the league for the 3rd time ;-). I think I'll work through some of these on my fantasy football team (doing well, after an inspired move saw me transfer Arteta for Cahill, who then scored a great overhead kick against Chelsea!)

Steaua Needarest
Dyslexia Untied
Fatzio
Red Star Bellend
Sporting Lesbian
Grass Smokers Zurich
Hajduk Spliff
LSD Eindhoven
Albion Hungovers
Real Sosobad
Shackthar Senseless
Hardly Athletic
St. Mirnoff
Real Ale Madrid
Fred West Ham
Unreal Madrid
Rapid Viagra
Barearselona
Bayern Bru
Athletico Madras
Deportivo Lack a Talent
Bayer Neverlusen
Borussia Nosobad
Sparka Fag
Graham Rix U16's
Big Bertha Berlin
Inter Masister
Substandard Liege
Torpedo Belgrano
Bayer Leverarchfile
FC Copenbadly
Sporting Abeergut
Dinamo Mince
Red Stripe Belgrade
Fake Madrid
Unathletic Madrid
Outer Milan

Recently, squash has been put on the back burner while badminton comes to the fore. I used to play a lot when I was a kid, every week in fact, and loved it and I've found that years later I still really enjoy it. Last night was the first time I'd played doubles since I was about 12 and what a game it was! Fast, furious, light hearted - everything you want in the game. I suspect I shouldn't have stopped playing when I was young, although the session we went to clashed with hockey training so it fell by the wayside.

Big night tonight, Aberdeen play Lokomotive Moscow in the UEFA cup. Hopefully at least a draw, but we really need a win. Aberdeen's team are put together on a shoestring and Moscow have spent millions of pounds on their team - stranger things have happened...

One interesting thing about the game though - Aberdeen took over 1500 fans to Athens to play Panathinaikos. They took a similar number to the Ukraine when we played Dnipro, and it's looking like 3000 fans to Madrid when we play Athletico. Lokomotiv have asked for 6 tickets for the game in Aberdeen tonight. That means the Loko bench will have more support than fans in the stadium! And with a sell out on the cards, that's 20,000 Aberdeen fans supporting a team playing some of the best football they've played in years.

Come on you reds!!!!

Ah, what bliss the weekend was.

For the first time since September, I woke up in my own bed on Sunday morning. This has been the result of two weddings and a friends party, so it was a huge relief. To celebrate, breakfast was cooked while watching the excellent "Hot Fuzz". If you can imagine any police film from the 90's, this parodies the lot of them. Genius.

Saturday night was spent with friends in Weybridge to celebrate a friends birthday. So drinks were had on the house before reliving our youth by drinking bottles of beer in the street as walked to the curry house. As we walked along the street of very expensive houses (1M+), we pondered what we looked like - 12 of our number are well educated and with good jobs, one of whom is a solicitor, all in our late 20s, early 30s and all drinking in the street. Caused some amusement amongst our group :-)

An excellent curry was had, back to the house and a game of Articulate was played. I'm not very good at games like this, but got lucky with my first set of questions as they were all easy to describe :-) I could hardly pronounce any of the second lot!

So, long time in writing, but I thought I'd pop up a few funnies from the week.

Stadium announcement of the week?

A message for the owner of car registration -----. Your windows are wide open in the car park. It's a Rover, so it won't get stolen, but you had better return to it.

heard at Plymouth Argyle v Coventry

This was heard on Irish TV just before the Rugby World Cup final. Never a truer word said :-)

And here we go, Jonny Wilkinson versus South Africa.

Finally, this really made me laugh. Hampshire police new bus advert. You'd think they would have checked where the exhaust was though...

It seems one MP is standing up against the governments strategy of using MS products

LINK

It has to be said that after a number of years in various projects I would agree that there can be a bias towards it, however it is not exclusive. Some areas are more prone towards it than others, as you would expect to find in any company.

The problem becomes a cost one - when the company (as this could be any company, not just government) signs up to get all MS licenses for free or vastly reduced cost, there is the desire to use it even if it's not the ideal fit. In some cases it will do the job, in others it won't, but will be made to do it and people left to make do. No wonder people dislike IT so much with that attitude about.

There is not one software vendor in the world who makes the best software in every area. So why sign up for an agreement with one where you are predisposed to use them?

Makes no sense to me...

What would the good people of Tewkesbury have done for this earlier this year?

Speed

So, my broadband has been playing up today. It's got slower all day and then my PC blue screened when I tried to reboot it. Nightmare.

So I call the wonders that is our helpdesk. They directed me a broadband speed test website. It crashed and wouldn't load the first time I tried it as the speed was so slow. I left it as I had to collect a package in town, and said I'll do it when I get back. As if by magic, I reload the site and it's back to normal speed. Although, turns out that speed it rubbish...

When we eventually move house, I'll be ditching the work broadband and getting something else in where I control the speed - this is useless.

Knackered

10 finished a few hours ago.

Bit sore now, but at the time I felt I could have gone round again. It's a very pleasant route, but very rough in places and also a bit narrow which means you end up slowing down as some daft woman who thinks she is a sub 45 runner is actually an unfit duffer who's walking it. This is annoying, but a fact of life with these charity runs. The fact that they've entered the run is to be congratulated though and nobody is really that bothered but when your in your stride it's a bit off putting. It's very sad going round reading the notes people have on their backs for the reason they are running. Uncles, Aunts, Mum's, Dad's, or just photos of loved ones. It's an emotional thing but makes you realise the importance of helping out with money to fund the research into cancer. At the end of the day, you don't know who it's going affect, although (in my view) it should be funded by the government but there you go. I lost a very dear friend last year to cancer and couldn't stop thinking of the big guy as I ran round. He found out he had it in December, and was gone by February. Makes you think doesn't it...

Keep on running...

10K starts in two hours. Not at all nervous.

Good win for Lewis this morning in awful weather conditions! I wouldn't fancy driving my road car in that, never mind a 700bhp F1 car - true skill and bravery.

Yesterday saw various tasks completed, none of which are particularly interesting but all necessary. Ended with the rugby, watching a Scotland team inch past Italy - they really are a dirty cheating side who deserve to get beaten every time they play. It's not in keeping with why I love watching rugby, but I guess typical of certain natures - if you can't out-skill the opposition, cheat. And cheats never prosper ;-)

Petrol prices

Vote with this lot to show your displeasure about a proposed £2.35 tax hike on petrol that is due to come in next week - whish would push unleaded up to over £1 a litre.

I did some sums a while ago and now fill up in London as the petrol is cheaper than in Worcester where I spend a lot of time. It's 3p cheaper a litre. I usually fill up with 55litres. So on one tank of fuel that's £1.65 more for the same product. Over the course of a year, that's over £85!!! So, on a similar basis, this would cost me an extra £122.2 a year. On fuel that already has 80p tax on 95p per litre. Stuff that...

http://www.petrolprices.com/blog/we-cant-take-another-p-now-82.html

A collegue highlighted to me the story the other day of Sisyphus. If your not aware of who or what he's done, he was the Greek hing who was punished for tricking and deceiving the gods (amongst others) and was made to push a large boulder up a hill for eternity. However, this was an interesting summary of the story:

It is the total lack of value of what Sisyphus has to work so hard to achieve that makes his punishment so horrific. It is not because his labor is merely arduous and eternal, but because it is arduous and eternally pointless, that he must suffer from doing it. One cannot imagine him happy unless one foolishly imagines him, or imagines him foolish. As a metaphor for part of the human condition and the plight of some people -- even those often considered most successful because we mistakenly think change is progress or that there are no hollow victories -- the myth of Sisyphus is a sad commentary. The work of far too many people has been, and continues to be, pushing a rock up a hill merely to change its location.

Sounds like everybody's job at some time or another doesn't it...

Ah the joys. The team I work with are a bit wiped out this morning. This may be something to do with the leaving do for one of our team last night. He was tipsy before even got to the restaurant, which is probably the fault of our Spur 0, meeting room 1 staff who supplied him with an Apple Schnapps on the house as he was leaving.

Needless to say, a good curry was had a big turn out (there were 1about 16 of us) before retreating to a local bar that is a specialist in whisky where we proceded to try and taste all 100 of them before closing (which was a challenge, as it gave us 15 minutes...)

Prior to this, I'd done a 7.2km run (according to the gmap-pedometer site) in 45 minutes, which included a 5 minute stretch, so the time aspect to this weekends run is looking good. I could have carried on and done a full 10 last night but was running a bit behind time as I was supposed to be in the bar! Such is life.

All in all, I can't wait to get home today and some kip!

Thought I'd share some interesting web sites with you.

This is a good one for walkers and runners - a Google map mashup that let's you click a route onto the map and it calculates how far the distance is. Very useful, especially with a 10K run on the horizon it let's you accurately chart your training miles.
Pedometer

The next one is a bit funny - it's built into Google Earth and is a flight sim.
Flight sim
I was useless and kept crashing...

I'm never having kids - one weekend with the future niece and nephew have told me that! OK, I know I will, but seriously they are hard work! Good fun though, and an excuse to go and see an exhibition on Wallace and Gromit. Well executed and interesting, with lots of models and background. The best bit about it all though is the background adverts and the like.

Rubbish rugby yesterday, to be expected though as we put out a B side, to give them a full week to prepare for Italy. It just shows how Italy have come on, they used to be the whipping boys in the 6 nations and now we take a week to make sure we win (and even then it's not assured!) Roll on Saturday night for the big game! I love these big tournaments, live sport on a Saturday night - you can't beat it.

Football wasn't so great over the weekend. A beating by Rangers was expected, if not one to be enjoyed, Liverpool need to get hold of Rafa and leave Torres on the field and not the bench. What's the point in spending all that money and not playing him? Arsenal - who'd have seen that one coming - they are awesome again! Granted, it was against Derby who are hardly great, but with some easier games in the next few weeks for them they will still be top of the table for a few weeks yet. My revamped fantasy team are coming good, with the highest points tally in our league this week (mainly thanks to Cesc) but with the midfield all contributing well it makes a big difference. Time to swap out Martins though - he's not getting near a game with Newcastle so might swap him out for Adebayor or Anelka, who are both starting and getting goals (you get points for time on the field).

Chelski - oh how I laugh. Avrum Grant will win you nothing. Marco Van Basten is not the man for you - he's his own man and would end up arguing with Roman. So until Roman does his UEFA pro badge, you'll get nobody managers or those with aspirations and no credentials.

Save the cheerleader, sav ethe world!

What can I say - I'm rubbish.

So what news you ask? Well, we might be selling our flat to a Belgium woman, who lives in Sweden, who's buying it for her son, who studies in London. Confused? I am...

Holiday was good, much needed week in the sun. I loved that area of Andalucia, such a nice pace of life. Coming back to London was depressing - too many people, going too fast through life, and with too little respect for each other. Oh, and here's something you may not have read - as of Monday if you get done for speeding and don't say who the driver was, the owner of the car will get double points. Just like that. That's the way to solve speeding people speeding. This country is run by bloody morons who think a yellow box will replace policemen.

This has all contributed to a post holiday "blue phase" - which I think is not helped by a build up of trying to do wedding stuff, move house, work and get organised for best man duties at weddings. Anyway, this in turn was not helped by my manager at work who I had a meeting with yesterday. Needless to say I was "pure raging" yesterday afterwards, so after a good meeting with a wedding florist at night (nothing like driving in London at night - much fewer cars!) I settled back to watch Heroes with a large Scapa. I'll need to write a whisky post sometime...And Heroes! Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!

Anyway, this weekend I'll be entertaining the future niece and nephew (although I've been Uncle all their lives, as the little one was only 4 months when I met her for the first time) at a Wallace and Gromit exhibition. This is either going to go well or badly :-)

Had to put the heating on last night for the first time this year - it's got so cold in London suddenly. So, I'm off to take the missus out for the night to cheer us up :-)

Fancy a new job?

With all the uncertainty over project roles, I'm always on the lookout for jobs. For those who work in IT and fancy a new job, this one seems a nice way to spend the time. Personally, for that rate I'd clean toilets....

Hmm, I seem to have lost a post somewhere along the line. I'll summarise it for you...

Saturday:
Drove to look at houses - two of interest - identical houses, one has been done up, the other is a mess. So we might buy the one that's a mess. Typical eh?

Sunday:
Went to the wedding venue to see it again with the missus folks and one of her bridesmaids. It looks great, everyone loved it, and we're looking forward to it!

This week has been a "ticking along" week. Lot's of bitty pieces at work, lot's of little tasks to do at home relating to weddings and stag do's.

However, some interesting things for you to note:
HP announced that they are now a $100bn company. It's mad, the company is now worth more than double from when they let the woman take charge. It's taken $100bn in revenue in the last 12 months, which is a first for an IT company - serious wedge.

A chat with a friendly AA roadside guy the other day revealed that he spends most time with Freelander and Land Rovers, along with X-Trails. Now, he didn't say why. I just wonder - how many of the owners couldn't find the spare tyre strapped to the boot??

Odd. Not sure why it's done it, but the last post was written on Sunday but it's listed as Friday. Bizarre. Needless to say, I did all that on Saturday!

It's interesting to see large companies shift focus. For years, Microsoft made their money by flogging Office and Windows to home consumers. But they couldn't expand that any more. After all, once a home user has paid £400 to MS for applications software, they tend to hold onto it longer than a corporate. And they had sold their software to all the corporates who, in the main, saw the software as a basic expense to get the basics (mail, internet, file and print). And it does this pretty well. But the shareholders demand growth along a similar vein to Google, so the business plan needed changing.

Now, they've bought Aquantive. This is a slight copycat purchase after Google had bought Double Click, but this deal dwarfs that one. This a $6billion purchase, compared to the $3.1billion Google paid. And for what? Well, they are buying on of the leading lights in online advertising, respected and with a large client base. Who in turn now have access to the in depth knowledge of the operating system the masses use.

What's the bets on the next MS service pack with a back door for their own advertising? Or firewall rules to block Google's ad's? It's the next big turf war as companies try to expand a portfolio to give them a new stream of revenue away from the core products.

An interesting side show to this story is that Google's purchase needs regulator approval - guess who was shouting "anti-trust!" the loudest???

Another interesting story was the broadband companies against the BBC over it's iPlayer service. The boradband companies (two in particular - Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse). Here's a quote:

"We don't see any reason why some of the cost of transmission over our network shouldn't be paid by the provider of the content. We don't believe that the potential for it to cause congestion is being properly recognised and acknowledged."

Now maybe I'm missing something here but surely the way it works is this - I pay for a broadband service (well, I would if I did, but fortunately my work pays), and there is nothing in the service definition that restricts what you can do with it. Now, some have tier limits and download limits etc - some don't and I'd suggest if your going to be an avid iPlayer viewer you'll need the latter.

It sounds like bleating from the broadband companies - they'll be hit by traffic they've not had before and will have to invest to support it, or people will leave. It's interesting that the two companies in question have questionable support and are aimed as low cost service providers - however it's likely they have a large number of subscribers who want to use this free service. There is a different argument which supports them of course, which says that to deliver the service the BBC need to have a mechanism to get it to people. I don't buy this - nobody even blinked when Channel 4 started a very similar service (although not free, more of their programmes are now free than when they started).

My advice to the providers? Stop your bleating, invest and just support your customers needs. Things will change over the next few years as people start moving towards content on demand, if you didn't see it coming then you need to look at why you didn't...

A decent enough drive up, but with horrible weather near to Worcester it was not the most relaxing drive. The spray was so bad that I came off the motorway early and came in through the back roads. This involves a lot of roundabouts, and experience has taught me that wet weather, roundabouts, rear wheel drive and a powerful engine usually means you'll end up sideways before you know it.

Much amusement.

Busy few days ahead, but with no squash and a 10K ahead I was hoping to get out and try the new trainers. I'm many things but running in the rain is plain daft. It's wet and miserable. Still, in my gym bag I've got my swimming goggles, maybe I'll try them...

Fantasy football team in tatters!

For the record, the team was:

Reina
Chimbonda Lescott Shorey
Ronaldo (C) Nani Arteta Pearson
Rooney Berbatov Zamora

Which didn't do that well at the weekend, thanks in no large part to the Spurs and United contingent. So some work has been done, Rooney and Zamoro out (Rooney is very expensive), replaced with Martins from Newcastle and Johnson from Everton. These will kick in just in time for Everton's game tomorrow, so hopefully Johnson will come good for me. Next up is to swap out Nani, he's looked woeful yesterday, but I've used up my free transfers (and paid for another with a point deduction).

Went to watch the second half of the United game in the pub yesterday. One at the bottom of our road used to be pretty sketchy but it's all been done up so we went down. They have more Samsung LCD TV's than Dixons in there - from our seats we could have watched 4 of them. The pub also had the game in HD. This is the first time I've watched a game in HD and all I can say is "wow". It was stunning. The level of detail is unreal, although I don't think it's really necessary to see every bead of sweat. While very good, is it worth the fee Sky charges? I don't think it is at the moment, you pay a lot of money for not a lot of coverage (and they've just put the price up).

Went over to a BBQ last night with some friends from work. She has a mad dog, a staffordshire bull terrier, who always livens up a night :-)

Discovered my cardio workout yesterday too. How's this sound?

• 20 minutes on the cross trainer (this I enjoy, it's not too hard but burns a load of calories!)
• rowing machine (I'm going to hate this thing) - 500m flat out, rest for 30 seconds. Do this 10 times (500m takes between 2m 12 seconds and never more than 2 mins 20)
• Back to the cross trainer for another 20 minutes
• The plank

The plank is a killer. It's actually a yoga position where you basically support your entire body weight on your stomach muscles. It absolutely kills and 60 seconds at a time is more than enough!

Good start to the football season, although my fantasy football team needs Rooney and Ronaldo to do some good for me today to bump my points up! Whole team needs tweaking, as you can never tell on day one who's going to be on form or not - Man City look ripe for plundering players from though!

I'd rather be with Hazel...

As some of you know, I'm trying to get into shape at the moment (although I'm in not bad shape, there is some work to be done :-) ) However, the gym bunny who was so nice last week now seems to have become a member of General Woundwort's evil army. Her programme of punishment she has made seems to be designed to kill me. Let me give you an example.

This is workout one - the weight orientated one of the two she has made. The other focuses on cardio work and no weights.

• Warm up on the bike. 5 minutes on level 9 at 90+ rpm. Followed by 10 minutes on level 15 (I've never been higher than 12!) at 110+ (for the record, I tried this yesterday. There is as much chance of me doing that as finding WMD in Iraq). I settled at 100+, and was sweating buckets by the end. This is the warm up and I've already done more on the bike than I would in a usual session.
  
• Squats. With weights. Heavy ones.
  
• 2000m row on highest setting, flat out. (this takes under 9 minutes. Albeit 8.59, although that's still under 9!)
• weights - 3 different types, doing what is called "drop sets" where you start with a low(ish, we're still talking 20kg+) weight and do 12, then do another set of 10, then a set of 8, each time increasing the weight).
  
• 1500m row on highest setting, flat out
• weights, as before, different ones. Including the seated row. Which I found incredibly hard after just rowing 3500m.
• 1000m row. you get the picture...
• sit ups. Lying on a 45% incline. Upside down. Until you can do no more. In front of a mirror. All you can see is your face turning ever more incredible colours every time you come up.
  
• Crunches. While supporting your entire body weight with your arms. Until you can do no more.
  
• floor crunches. 3 sets of 10
• floor side crunches. 3 sets of 10
• stretch, curl up, collapse.
  

Now, for the observant amongst you, that's a good 30 minutes of cardio. Which is what i normally do in my "cardio sessions". Today is my cardio workout. I'm dreading it.

The only plus to this was that my missus has her plan tomorrow with the gym bunny. Except the gym bunny is doing it as a personal trainer session. Which means she controls the rest periods etc - I at least could collapse in a heap every now and again ;-)

Low emission, high power, good MPG?

Now here's a story to get car drivers happier - we all want (really, we do!) a big petrol engine. We can't afford said engine in terms of outright purchase and the fuel costs to run them are scary. How about, then, an engine that offers you 3.5 V6 petrol performance, but the running costs of a small diesel?

Sounds too good to be true? Well, Mercedes are keeping slightly quiet on this but have developed just that engine. It's called a "DiesOtto" (don't you love it??) and currently, is a 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with twin sequential turbochargers and direct injection (the "otto" bit). But the clever bit is that Merc engineers have incorporated both the conventional Otto cycle and a sparkless, diesel-style combustion (the "diesel" bit). The breakthrough is that it basically runs at two compression ratios, which is very clever.

The techy bit I'll let Top Gear cover...

On start-up, the engine runs in standard petrol mode, with spark plugs igniting petrol injected directly into the cylinder. But once the engine is warm and cruising, it switches to a more efficient 'diesel mode', raising the compression ratio and deactivating the spark plugs. And because it runs on petrol, the DiesOtto boasts lower emissions than an equivalent diesel engine.

Now, the figures - the 1.8-litre engine has 238bhp and 295bhp of torque, with 40mpg in a car the size of an Merc S-Class. Which weighs the same as Norway. Put it in a C-class and you've got a potent little beast. It'll be production ready sometime near 2012, so maybe not the next car, but the one after that.

Just so long as they have learnt how to build them properly by then again...

Battle at Kruger

This is an amazing video!!! Look out for the reason they drag it out of the water...

Run, Forest, Run!!!

A really pleasant evening last night as I'm resting the dodgy elbow I seem to have developed from squash, a run was in order. So I ran down to the race course and did a circuit of it (not on the actual course, as someone suggested last night, although there would be nothing to stop you as it's not sealed off). In all, it was probably about 5k and took a good 30 minutes. The downside is that I now know I do need to get trainers for running in as I have blisters. This is down to the design of the shoe - I've discovered a lot about different brands styles of fitting - Adidas (current shoe) are narrower fitting (which is fine) but also have a higher instep, which is where I have the problem. The current ones are fine for the gym but with an impending 10K I think some dedicated running shoes are called for.

There are a number of places where they do gait analysis in London, so I'll head to one of those over the weekend and get fitted out. Nothing like new sports equipment to get you excited again!

The whole word is conspiring...

The missus has signed us both up for a 10K run in September. I've done this particular event before, a run around the lovely surroundings of Hampton Court Palace grounds. It's a nice run, fairly flat but on pretty rubbish running ground as it's all a bit uneven and covered in deer/rabbit crap. Last time it nearly killed me as I'd done little training and it was really hot. So hopefully the weather this time will be nice but not hot, and I'll have done some road running before then.

Still at least I'll be fit, which is the whole point. Though trying to train for this, plan a wedding, move house, and work is all going to be an interesting challenge!

Good to see Alonso get his punishment. Shame it hit Mclaren as well, but there you go. Bet Big Ron isn't happy.

Glorious weather the last two days. Yesterday was spent doing some house type things, with some friends over for a bbq a night. Was a very nice way to spend the day!

Today we got up and went to the gym. I'd not been in a while as we've been so hectic, so I decided to get my body mass tests done so I knew where I was starting from again. It's all good (I won't bore you with the figures) but I've gained muscle mass and dropped fat mass - which basically means I'm the same weight. The girl doing the tests then seemed to take me as a project, and was very enthusiastic. As a result, next week I embark on a few weeks of intensive gym work to trim up even more in time for my brothers wedding. This girl is a bit mad - one thing she has suggested is cutting out all alcohol for 6 weeks.

Like that's going to happen - my missus is starting on the project - I'll need beer more than ever!

So, two points to make, albeit briefly (I've a BBQ to man!)

• FMD strikes again and the whole world is going to melt. Actually, it won't, but some of the dubious sources and information being sent around the news would have you believe it was. Yes, a lot of cattle died last time. Yes, it cost a lot of money. Yes, it could happen again. Let's see what happens before panic sets in. The TV news coverage loves this stuff - it gives them a sense of purpose. Even that idiot they had on BBC this morning.
• Fernando Alonso - hang your head in shame. For those not up with the story, Alonso was 2nd in the final qualifying with a few minutes to go for the Hungarian Grand Prix. His team mate, who was much quicker all session, is behind him on the track and so when Alonso pits for his final set of tyres, he sits there. This means, Hamilton cannot get new tyres and get back onto the circuit in time to start a final quick lap. Alonso get's pole position, demoting Hamilton to 2nd. Your a cheat, Fernando - beat him on the track if your man enough, but don't resort to Schumacher moves or you'll soon be very unpopular.
  

The Ghost Speaks

What a mad weekend.

Friday was spent with the old man and wee bro in stunning Perthshire. We'd got my Dad a 4x4 thing at Land Rover Experience - it was brilliant. Wee bro and I sat in the back and were amazed that we missed trees (although apparently stumps are a bit more optional...) rocks, deer, rabbits and lots of water. Brilliant, and Dad loved it. The afternoon was spent at Dunkeld & Birnham golf club. Tough little course, wild wind and very hilly but we had a great belated Fathers Day for Dad. That's the downside top living so far away but taking the time to do these things is what family is all about.

As for my mates, well what can I say. Friday was games night, and late, drunken, brilliant - any could describe it. All I'll say to Mr Brown is this - I can beat you at Pro Ev with 8 players :-)

Saturday was karting and after a slightly shaky start by some of the number ("can we stop for a minute? I don't feel well") we embarked on a kart marathon. Sweaty work, but at least it got rid of the booze. I don't wish to dwell on this for fear of embarrassing the others, so all I'll say is I have a large trophy at home now which the missus doesn't approve of.

The evening involved cowboy hats, sand, pint glasses, and lots of bad luck on the stag. That's all I can say :-)

Hateful drive back to London after what was a brilliant weekend, which took the edge of it a bit but got to see the missus when I got home before she was up and out the door by 6 to get a flight to Glasgow. In the past two weeks I've seen her 11 hours. Not really great that, but a new project role will help (perhaps to far the other way, as she'll be working on the same one as me!).

I think I've found my sport - finally managing to win a game in the evening! My nemesis has beaten me ever week on the squash court for weeks, so we had a badminton game last night which appears to have changed my luck. To be fair, the games were pretty close (but then so are our squash matched - Tuesdays game twice went to 12 points) so I'll not gloat yet. Well maybe just a little...

I'm expecting a quiet weekend on here this weekend - Holiday tomorrow involving 4x4 and golf and a retro games night with the boys - 3 Nintendo 64's have been resurrected along with a selection of the finest games of their time - Mario Kart 64, Perfect Dark and Goldeneye. The latter two are simply the best 1st person shooters ever made. Even today they are awesome - the graphics are a bit iffy but then the console is over 10 years old. However the gameplay is superb. Saturday is go-karting day, so I've packed my "I am the Stig" t-shirt in an attempt to scare the opposition in submission. To be honest, I don't think I'll need it ;-)

Sometimes you just want to let out a yell. I've been using a tool for the first time in ages and you forget how painful it is. Particularly as the tool is a nightmare to work with at times.

Pressing delete on a diagram really means delete when all I want it to do is remove the box from the diagram...And this "feature" has put me back on quite a few occasions.

It reminds me of the editor we used to use called VI which I used on Sun Solaris. It was a nightmare to learn it's features, however once mastered it was a joy to use.

An interesting evening last night as we bid farewell to another project member. I bailed out after dinner and headed back to the hotel on a rescue mission - the smell coming from the boot of my car. I'd played golf after work on Monday and got soaked - I need my clubs this weekend and the bag was stinking. So I've left it to dry in the hotel, it should be fine.

Interesting move by Oracle I read about this morning. The have included an API in their E-Business Suite (which is a chargeable product) for support of Google Maps (which is free). It was bound to happen that someone would do it, it just surprises me that it's Oracle. Actually, it doesn't surprise me that much - Oracle have very little else to shout about and it's a straightforward thing to do, so why not make a song and dance - it'll get the share price up a bit anyway.

There are times in life when you wonder how much C02 is produced to get an end product. Cow's for example, are well known to be one of the highest polluters of C02 of any animals. Completely hypothetically and coincidentally, the mind wanders to the work place - and it's possible to see lot's of hot air and no end product.

At least with a cow you get milk and a decent steak out of it...

Got up yesterday and went for a pre-lunch wander round Richmond Park. It looks amazing at the moment, no doubt helped by the vast amount of rain we've had. It's very green and lush. Saw some of the resident deers as well including one who was enormous!

Back to the flat for some lunch and to watch the Grand Prix. We missed the start as we were in the car, but that meant we could listen to it on the radio - Murray Walker was commentating and was just brilliant. The race itself had everything you could want and it's incredible how much chaos a bit of water makes to an F1 car.

After an afternoon in the shops (bit of a smash and grab run to Kingston to look in John Lewis, buy a shirt, get dinner and look for inspiration for wedding stationary - all of which were successful!) legged it back to watch the end of the golf. Brilliant final day. I went to hot some golf balls at the range and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of Asians at that range - I've never seen any of them on the course, but the range is FULL. Both sexes too, there was one couple were the woman was a much better player than her husband, who I don't think liked that very much!

We're trying to sell our flat at the moment, and that has prompted me to consider the TV input in the new place. We used to have Telewest for a long time, but have lived with Freeview for the last two years and managed just fine, although I miss the football. I would also like to get a digital recorder. So the options are

1. Sky+
2. BT Vision
3. Telewest
4. Freeview PVR

So Sky would be ideal, but it's expensive and we wouldn't need all the channels. I'd also have a hard time convincing the missus to get a dish on the house. Telewest is an option, some good deals on the packages, so that's a contender. A Freeview PVR might work, especially as you can get Setanta on it next season with Premiership and SPL on it (SPL coverage will include probably 3 Aberdeen games, and even then it'll be against the forces of darkness and just luck that it was us they were playing). BT Vision is an interesting one as they have bought the rights for time delayed coverage of the live Saturday games. Might be the one to go for, as you can get that and Setanta for 12 quid - bargain. I'd still miss out on some of the Champions League matches as the only way to get them is Sky Sports, but I've not missed a game I've wanted to see for two seasons as I've been working away and just gone to the pub.

Decisions....

Oh, and this is genius - Remember - "It's not an iphone, it's a big ass table"

Glorious morning leading to a rainy looking afternoon.

What weather yesterday. We seemed to get off lightly, surrounding areas seem badly affected. We tried to get over to west London to visit the other halfs Mum who isn't so well at the moment, and abandoned after 20 minutes as we hadn't even got to the end of the road. Nothing was going anywhere fast.

So try again this afternoon, hopefully all will be well.

Compromised

I was reading last night about this in Evo, and it made me think of a few comparisons.

A journalist was testing the new Audi A5, and commented that it was too nose heavy to be a proper competitor to the BMW 3 series couple as it is not dynamic enough to drive (the BMW is awesome nice to drive - and not just because I own one, but that's one of the reasons I did, not for the badge - if you know my car history it's full of good handling cars. Apart from my first car, a MK3 Ford Escort - awful).

Anyway, here is a picture of the A5:


Now, it looks great, aggressive and purposeful, and moving the wheels forward helps weight distribution. However the end result is that the layout needs to change under the covers, so the diff is between the engine and clutch, which allows the wheels to move forward. The steering rack is then connected to the front wheels by shorter, less flexible steering arms, also helping weight loss and a lower centre of gravity.

Want to know the real reason the wheels are there? Here's a quote:

Dr Horst Glaser, Audi’s dynamics chief, is clearly annoyed. ‘I agree with you,’(in reference to the nose heavy feel) he says, ‘but the marketing people insisted it was this way so the A5 would feel familiar to Audi buyers.’ What about those buyers Audi seeks to steal from BMW, then? ‘I hope we can change it gradually,’ Dr Glaser replies, ruefully.

My first reaction was one of why the marketing people were involved in the design?. But then my second reaction was that it's much like project managers removing key components of an architecture without understanding the implications of the actions. So a simple statement of "move the front wheels" actually means the whole design is compromised, and the Audi designers and engineers are left with a car that does the job, but fails to live up to expectations.

Which leads to my final thought - if you knew you were driving a car that the supplier knowingly made a botch of to make the car (let's say either for financial or ascetic reasons) would you buy another from them???

Driving hell

An uneventful drive yesterday, although it never ceases to amaze me that no matter what time you think you'll miss the traffic on the M25, you never do. It also never ceases to amaze me that one cause of the delays is the M3 junction. Last year (may even have been the year before - my life is a blur ;-) ) they widened the roads to be 4 lanes. At the M3 turn has 5 lanes, with two dedicated to the M3 (one into London, one southbound). It used to see terrible queues in the evening which caused delays to the M25 traffic, so you can understand why they would make it 2 lanes. However, now traffic flows so well down the slip, that people use it to undertake the queues on the M25 and cut back onto the M25 at the front of the two mile queue. The effect is that the people change lanes at the front, allowing people in (though most just pull in without indicating) and this in turn slows the traffic down. Cause and effect. Who'd have thought you can learn physics on the motorways....It's madness!

Slightly more seriously, I read that the driving age might be increased to 18. It can only be a good thing - the amount of young people who have no idea what the result of the actions they take behind the wheel is astonishing. They also suggested that if your 18 you would not be allowed to carry passengers at night. The quote I heard was from one teenager was "what's the point in driving then?" to which I found myself shouting at the radio - that's EXACTLY why the suggestion has been made you idiot.

Sharks

There are challenges on the project at the moment, some of which is aimed at us techys. Over dinner last night I discovered the meaning of the phrase "brave or stupid". One of the usual people we eat out with is part of management team and he joined us and was discussing some of the challenges and one of them was that a view was there were too many architects on the project. The rest of the diners on the table? 5 architects and the architects PM.

You can always tell someone thinking on their feet when the voice goes ;-)

Another weekday in Worcester, another game of squash. Decent game, we both played well but alas I lost. Not entirely sure how I managed to lose though as I was 2-1 games up.

Decent curry last night in my favourite local curry house. The food is always good, although the beer was a bit off last night. The staff recognise us now as well (or at least, pretend to - there are some of our number who are more memorable than others!)

Challenging days on the project, I seem to be jinxed when it comes to my projects here! Still, it was fun while it lasted! Looks as though I'm going to be working on supporting documentation which, while necessary and interesting in it's own right, is never as fun as solution design as it offers a different challenge. Not one to complain though - I continue to get to work with a great bunch of people on a really interesting project and continue to learn new skills - that is what it's all about for me.

Will it blend?

Ah, the joys of doing something stupid to sell a product. "Will it blend?" has to be a marketing genius idea. It works like this - company has a blender to sell. You Tube is full of people blending/chopping/generally doing things your not supposed to. Get a good presenter with a slight air of the scientific and off you go! Next, what to blend? Well, veg etc is all well and good, but why not up the ante with an iPhone?

Genius

It's right up there with the mentos domino rally for stupid things.

Actually, the stupisest thing on the net is the person counting to a million. What's worse is that he works in IT. It's people like him who give the rest of us a bad name! (he says, writing on a blog, on a mobile phone, via wifi...)

Madness

The world has gone PC mad.

A few years ago the DVLA changed the car registration plate format. The idea was that the first two letters would signify the location the car was bought, the next two the year.

The DVLA in Edinburgh have recently changed it so that instead of SN the Edinburgh office issues TN prefix. The reason? Some people may be offended at having SN07 in the car, which could be seen as "snot". Really? Who cares! I mean, it's a registration plate. It doesn't matter.

Link to the article

I say this in a slightly contratdictory manner as my car (finally) got it's personalised registraion plate fitted this morning :-) However, if I had bought a car and it had SN07, I wouldn't have cared a bit.

Apologies for lack of activity, work and social life is mad just now!

It strikes me that there is a lot of money in certain football clubs. Some are buying well, some less so. United have bought an incredible display of talent, and if they get Tevez then up front they'll have the incredible hulk and shrek - quite a combination! Arsenal are doing the usual of buying young players nobody has heard of, but I feel the top 4 finish they enjoy is under threat - it's not enough. Chelsea are fattening the squad (and I'm not just talking about Lampard) so they will be there or thereabouts. Liverpool are dark horses - Torres will make a huge difference to them, and they have a good squad with depth in positions. Still missing a 2nd keeper though. Spurs are an option for the 4th champions league spot though.

The drop - West Ham have a load of cash and an odd chairman, but they are not buying players that I think will help them stay up. Sunderland have bought few players but need to spend a load more or they will be going down again. I also fear for Derby.

So there we go, a mid-close season shopping list viewpoint. Roll on the new season, but if you want to see some class, check out this gem from Messi in the Copa America. Just wish he played in the Premiership...
Messi Goal!