Rise Festival

Yesterday, The Eyechild and I went to the Rise Festival in Finsbury Park.

Well, we got there eventually anyway. I set off from home much too late and jumped on a bus to EyechildVille. Then we waited a while for someone else who was supposed to be coming along but had gone to Ikea instead. And doesn't own a mobile phone.

So we gave up waiting and set off. Then it took a painful amount of time to get there on buses and indirect tubes because the Victoria Line was offline.

Anyway – yawn – I'm as bored of this post already as you undoubtedly are. Suffice to say it wasn't that good which is a shame because its anit-racism cause is, as ever, a worthy one. Maybe if I'd got there earlier and found a stage with some good music it would have been more enjoyable. As it was the best thing about the day was this large bottle of Beck’s.

7/7

The policeman standing outside my local tube station this morning marked the first anniversary of the London transport bombings. No doubt at some point he’ll have the unenviable task of having to stop and search some ‘suspicious looking’ individual who happens to be carrying a Fitness First bag or something.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t expect the police to do anything other than put out an increased presence one year on from the event. Just imagine the situation if something did happen again and they’d not put extra eyes on the transport system. Then there’d be one hell of an uproar.

But the primary effect of this climate of paranoia is of course the loss of our liberties. Not to mention the life of Charles de Menezes last year (and correct me if I’m wrong but we’ve still not got to the bottom of that one have we?)

The bottom line is that there’s a huge cultural difference between western cultures and the middle eastern cultures. We have different values. And a small (yes, emphasis on small) number of misguided individuals take it all much too far. They’re deluded by the idea that they’re doing what their god wants (an idea with which – incidentally – I cannot begin to empathise with because I’m an atheist). Clearly: god or no god, there’s no excuse for their actions.

But the governments of the USA and the UK in particular are the ones largely responsible for this political and social mess. Their policies with respect to the middle east are terrible. And the right wing Neo-Christian US government (hey guess what - also deluded by the idea that they’re doing what their god wants) commits as many war crimes as any ‘rogue’ (oil harbouring) nation they care to pick on. Guantanamo bay anyone? Christ...

Oh sorry, I blasphemed there.

It’s the ideal breeding ground for more AK47-clutching madmen. The extremists hardly need any more fuel for their fantasies. Yet we’re still giving them countless ‘excuses’ to do what they want to do.

If only those with the intelligence to get together and sort out our differences were the same people with the drive and inclination to become leaders. It’s a rare combination.


This is hardly a new or rare viewpoint here in the UK. And a thousand bloggers have probably written much the same thing this morning. But the copper outside the tube this morning got me thinking about it so there you go. Rant over.

Al Scott Live

Well you wait months for a video to come along (umm OK, maybe not) then two come along on the same day! This is a video of my brother Alastair - AKA Al Scott - and his band performing recently in a north London pub. He's the shadowy figure tinkling the ivories.

Check him out at www.alscott.co.uk or here on MySpace.

Rat Race

I realised the other day that my compact digital camera can shoot and store up to 30 minutes of low-res video. So I recorded my journey to work. And made it into a sort of 90s-style dance music video. Shaky camera warning!



Music: Underground Resistance – Jupiter Jazz

Digg this video

My world: update

I was chatting to Tom yesterday, whilst sitting outside BRB in Camberwell enjoying (as best possible, between sneezes) the afternoon sun. We got onto the subject of blogs and it occurred to me that my enthusiasm for writing posts seems to have waned somewhat recently. That's not to say (as you can clearly see) that I've not written any entries, but the content of these entries has been mostly me providing a tertiary source of geek-news. Flickr website changes and the like.

Checking back, I've not made a personal-diary-type-entry since 17th April, so I'm going to have a go right here. If you're looking for geek-news, stop reading now.

So what's new? Well currently my body seems to have taken up sneezing as its favourite pastime, (completely without my consent of course). Or, to be more precise, I'm feeling like I'm about to sneeze, 24/7. And this feeling is only interrupted by the relatively enjoyable act of sneezing itself, about once every minute on average. Pollen allergies, hayfever, whatever - I hate it. Various types of antihistamine tablets and nasal sprays seem to have had little effect.

So poor, poor me basically. I need to get myself a GP. Either that or wage war on all pollinating plants.


So what else is new (and more interesting) ?

Well I'm still taking lots of photos, and enjoying it more than ever. I'm getting better at it too. I recently bought a 50mm (prime) lens which is helping me to explore different types of photography.



I'm still listening to the same old music, though it's not looking any more likely that I'll be producing any more any time soon. My initial enthusiasm for Abelton Live proved temporary. I think there comes a time when you have to decide what things to stick at and which to allow to fall by the wayside. I have the ability to write tunes (and with a little practice I'm sure I could come up with some good stuff), but right now it's photography that's getting me excited. And I don't have time for both.

I need to make more time for my Flashteroids project too, and if there's one thing that stresses me out it's leaving a trail of unfinished work behind me.

I'd rather do fewer things, but do them properly than do lots of things, and do them badly.


Barcelona



This is hardly hot off the press (see this Eyechild Post) but Duncan, my brother, has left Camberwell and moved to Barcelona. He's doing one of those TEFL courses for one month and aims to start teaching in September.

I went out there with him when he left (along with our friend Vic) and stayed for six days. It's a lovely city. We mostly did tourist stuff – bus tours, sitting on the beach, eating out, exploring, et cetera – so there's not an awful lot to report. ‘The ideal summer city break’, to summarise. I highly recommend it if you've not been there before. My Barcelona photos are here.

Going home was quite strange because Vic and I left early for the airport and had to leave Dunc in the hotel room. He got out of bed for goodbye hugs. I hate goodbyes at the best of times but I'm really going to miss him living down the road so I sort of lost the ability to speak properly, and ended up feeling like I'd not said enough. I sat quietly in the back of the cab to the airport. Good luck to you Dunc, and take care!

I think it's a good move for him though. If you're not enjoying it somewhere, move. And I can think of many many worse places to go and live in summer than Barcelona. If the worst comes to the worst you can always move back anyway. I look forward to visiting him later in the year.


Tomorrow

Time to wrap up this rant anyway. Tomorrow at work I'm taking a photo for an advert we're running later in the week in a magazine. I'm getting to do more and more photography at work which is great because I'm learning loads and getting paid to do what I enjoy best (yes, it seems to have overtaken designing, in my ratings). I took some photos of our creative directors recently too, and the one they pick is destined to be a fairly large full colour print in a magazine. Who knows where it will lead. It's all good for the portfolio anyway.

Whilst writing this post my sneezing seems to have calmed down a little so as soon as I've published it I'm going to shut the laptop lid, turn over and go to sleep. Who knows, maybe I'll write another ‘human’ post soon...

Good night.

Images of the Sun taken by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer

From Digg.com. Impressive images. Looks toasty!

"""
As of May, 1999 TRACE has taken over 1.5 million images of various solar features in coordination with SOHO and other solar observatories around the world. Detector degradation has been unexpectedly light providing scientists with the hope of several more years of good seeing.
"""

read more | digg story

D&AD Nomination

Myself and a team I worked with at Wheel have been nominated for a D&AD Award this year. It's the Brahma music ads I worked on last year, and they're nominated in the Use of Music category.

It's nice to know that the morning I spent recording bottle tapping and bottle blowing noises in my kitchen has been recognised. Not to mention those stressful late nights hammering out Actionscript.

Flickr Beta goes Gamma

The mighty Flickr has changed! I've been so busy all day that I’ve just it noticed now. Immediately noticeable is the fact that there's a new nav structure, based heavily on dropdowns (including new dropdown menus off users’ icons). And The Flash Organizr has gone, replaced by an AJAX version. The new Organize application seems a bit buggy in Safari (pages sometimes not loading) but overall I like the changes a lot. The search box on every page is another obvious example of a welcome and overdue update.

There are many more changes too. See the Flickr blog for more info. Also Thomas Hawk, photographer and Flickr full-timer, has this thorough rundown on the Flickr updates.

Happy St. George’s Day

The Mixing Bowl

Did you go to events such as Tribal Gathering or Fantazia in the 1990s? Ever wish you'd not thrown away or copied over those mixtapes?

themixingbowl.org is a website full of BitTorrent downloads of DJ mixes. There's some really good stuff on there. For example I just got a 1993 Essential Mix by FSOL. For me it’s an Alladin’s Cave!

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Well, I went back to Stockport and Manchester for a couple of days over Easter to see family and relatives. It was a short but enjoyable break. And it's always nice to get out of London from time to time.

Now, contrary to your assumption, the name of this post doesn't refer to the title recently bestowed on me in recognition of my taking the photograph of a pigeon shown above (though this is one of a number I predictably took in Stockport and Manchester this weekend - here and here respectively should you be interested).

However, I did go to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the National History Museum yesterday and it was excellent. As a keen but mediocre amateur photographer it was also an extremely humbling experience. There were three photos in the under ten year olds category all of which were very impressive. Under ten! And as for the rest, well... Very impressive stuff.

If you're at all interested in photography and / or wildlife and haven't been I seriously recommend you check it out. It's only on till this coming Sunday April 23rd though so you haven't got much time left.

photo blog

If you're tired of my rantings but like my photos you might be interested in my new photo blog. Starting with some shots from my archive and continuing with new photographs from day to day.

adesphotos.blogspot.com

Ade

p.s. photo blog: phlog?

Netvibes

A really handy customisable homepage. Great if you read news, blogs etc and use RSS feeds. Netvibes.com.

Drugged up on Beechams

I've been at home all weekend due to one of those generic sore throat, fuzzy brain, headache type illnesses. It's not that bad or anything, just bad enough for me to not feel up to doing very much. Like standing up, for example.

Anyway, good things often come out of being bedridden, such as having the time to enjoy a good book - which is a rare thing for me. This weekend I've made a lot of progress on the new version of my game Flashteroids. I've designed and tested four new levels and fixed a load of bugs / issues that have been outstanding since some time in 2002.

You can see all the level designs on the Flashteroids Blog, a blog I've created to catalogue the development process. The new version (1.5+) is now only a week or so away.

Dead Ringers

Getting a new mobile? Apparently there are seven billion mobile phones in the world and only 1.3 billion users (from this BBC Online article). That’s quite a lot.

Fortunately you can get your old one recycled.
(End of public service announcement)

slide

I just discovered this Flickr / Flash widget from slide.com. It only took 1 minute to configure and get the HTML code to copy and paste. A bit large for some purposes perhaps but quite a nice way to show your recent photos:

Overnight Success

One of the things I love about Flickr is the way that occasionally a photo will catch everyone’s eye and its popularity explodes like wildfire.

The photo above is one such example. I took this in Livigno, one morning on the day of a whiteout. Looking at the piste from the cafe at the bottom it reminded me of one of those L.S. Lowry matchstick men paintings, so I zoomed in and managed to isolate just the people on the slope.

I posted this (and a few other photos) to Flickr last night just before I went out. When I checked back this morning it had 27 comments, 450 viewings, 39 people had added it to their favourites and it was on the homepage of Flickr's Explore section!

Quite a pleasant surprise – and totally unexpected – though I suppose the photo did come out quite well now I think about it.

Gridrunner AKA Firstperson

Back in 2000, when I was at university in Leeds, I stopped writing tunes. Now I know that in my Ableton Live post I said I was starting again, but in reality I seem to get round to such things at a near-glacial rate. Yes, I’ve had a few attempts, but there are no anywhere-near-finished tunes yet.

But anyway, between 1995 to 2000 I put together a few tracks using my PC at home and various bits of kit at my 6th form college and university. Only about two or three of the tunes are actually any good but I like them all for their sentimental value and naivety.

I recently recovered a few of them off cassette and I’ve posted them up on Last FM under my old pseudonym Firstperson. There's one ‘EP’ (better) and an archive selection (older):

Firstperson – EP1
Firstperson – Archive

Make of it what you will. Console is the best tune IMO. They’re all a bit long though!

Back from Livigno

Well I’m back from my snowboarding holiday, which actually turned into a skiing holiday. I just couldn’t handle playing out the new media cliché. Well, that and the fact that I went straight to the top of a mountain, tried to snowboard down and spent over two hours falling on my arse. I got to the bottom of the run and decided to swap the board for skis. I just couldn’t be bothered spending the week learning when I knew I could already ski really well. I could do the same run in under 20 minutes on a set of skis.

All in all it was a great week. Lots of snow, lots of skiing very fast, a bit of getting stuck off-piste, and the predictable splashing of booze.

Here’s the photo set, which at time of writing only contains about half of my Ixus photos. I’ve not even looked at the one of the SLR yet. Check back in a week or so if pictures of snow and mountains are your thing.

So, back to normal now. Dunc’s back from his adventures in Honduras too, which sounds like it was pretty much amazing.

Going Snowboarding

I’m off to Livigno in Italy tomorrow morning for a week of snowboarding. I’ve been skiing before and was pretty good at that, though I realise that snowboading is completely different. I actually tried it for one day at the end of my skiing holiday and after a few hours I was doing OK. So hopefully I’ll be able to pick it up in a couple of days.

The only thing is that most if not all of the other guys going are quite experienced snowboarders so it’s probably just going to be me on my own on the baby slopes or doing lessons until I get the hang of it. The other beginner (my mate Robin) had to drop out due to a mix-up over dates and the subsequent clash with his trip to America.

Anyway, I’m very excited about it. I’ll be back in a week (hopefully in one piece) to bore everyone with lots of photos of white stuff.

Ciao,
Ade

dare’s new home

Dare, the digital marketing agency I work for, is bursting at the seams. We’ve outgrown our current premises and don’t have space to seat the people we want to hire. So we’ve recently signed on a new premises over the road.

Unfortunately a lot of work needs to be done on the interior so we’re not going to be able to move in for a few months. I went over there with a small group to take a look at the place in its current state. It’s HUGE compared to our current place: four floors each of which is double the size of our current three working floors.

And I believe we’re getting rid of those horrible carpet tiles!

Predictably, I took some photos:

...and made a set on Flickr.

Photo Catch-up

The one problem with taking loads of photographs is that you end up with a massive backlog. Because I mostly shoot in RAW format I need to do a lot of manual adjustment to get each final image as I want it. If shooting on a compact camera then taking the reulting JPEGs straight off it is the digital equivalent to taking a film to be processed at Boots, then what I do is essentially the digital equivalent of processing your own film in a darkroom. And it takes ages, an average of 20 minutes per image though sometimes as much as an hour.

Over half of that time is spent waiting for the computer to load the image, reduce noise, render adjustment layer settings and finally save it. So I could do with a faster computer. The problem is that resolution will probably keep going up so computers will always be slightly behind. Also, I said I wasn’t going to buy any more gadgets for a few months, so, hmmm. No I’m going to hold back for a while.

Anyway in this post a couple of weeks ago I said photos from my brother’s jam session performance were forthcoming. The shot above is taken from the set and the rest of the set is here.

Still being quite new to the whole photography thing I made a couple of glaring errors with the camera settings so there’s a fair bit of motion blurring and ghosting going on, but on the whole I’d say they’re not too bad.

Glow Party

I took this on the way home from Camberwell on Sunday. Glow Party, this Friday at The Swan in Stockwell.

Doesn’t it sound awesome? Not only are they giving out free glow sticks but there’s a Robbie Williams tribute act on too. I know which bus stop I’ll be alighting at on Friday. See you there*.

(*somewhere else)

I hate Arctic Monkeys

There you go, I’ve said it now.

Sick – to – death of that guy’s voice. Irritating prick.

Happy Valentine's Day

And what a wondrous celebration of love it truly is. Even the tube was oozing with it this morning – a subtle difference in the way people shoved past each other, to cite just one example.

And don't forget ladies, there's still plenty time to get your cards in to me.

Actually, the one Valentine’s message I've received so far today came from the staff at Clapham Common tube station. They'd affixed a couple of heart shaped messages (addressed to all commuters) to small notice boards at the entrance. I was going to stop and take a photo of it for this blog post but I was running late.

I hope that's not the only message I get – there's something slightly bleak about getting a Valentine’s Day message from London Underground.

Lenses, Fish, Jazz

Those are three of the keywords that I would use if I had to tag my weekend.

I went to London Aquarium on Saturday with Andreas, with the intentions of: (a) seeing some aquatic life and (b) taking some photographs of it.

I was fairly successful, despite (with hindsight predictable) huge midday Saturday crowds obscuring the tanks.

Andreas brought his impressive assortment of lenses, most of which I tried on my camera. It made a huge difference. The main advantage being the availablility of f/2.8 aperture. My 17-85mm lens only goes to f/4 or f/5.6 at its full 85mm focal length.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with camera jargon, a smaller f ratio means that the hole that the light comes through is bigger relative to the length of the lens – i.e. more light gets in. This means you can use a faster shutter speed and/or a lower ISO (sensitivity) setting. All of which results in less blurry / less grainy images.

The image above is my best one of the day so far. There are more that still need processing (from RAW files). See my aquarium set on Flickr (unfinished at time of writing).

The rest of the weekend was cool. On Saturday night I went to my mate Sam’s night It’s Bigger Than. It was their (2nd?) birthday party and Tom Middleton did a guest DJ set. He did a good job – I’ve never seen such a DJ get so enthusiastic before! Erm, actually I once saw Mark E.G. dancing behind the decks clenching a 12” record in his mouth. But that was more insanity than enthusiasm. But anyway – Tom Middleton - he’s probably my favourite all-round DJ. I actually met him about five years when I did the DJ slot just before him in a bar in Leeds. Very nice chap, not to mention a musical hero of mine!

On Sunday, The Eyechild and I met up with the Camberwell Flickr Group, in a bar in Camberwell. They were a really nice bunch. We sat in a bar, supped Guiness and generally waxed Camberwell lyrical. As I’ve moved to Clapham, I felt a bit like a deserter though! My excuse was that I still go there all the time (which is true).

Sunday was also my brother’s birthday. After the Flickr meet-up Tom (Eyechild), Dunc and I went up to visit him in Wood Green where we grabbed some food then went to a pub in Southgate where there was a jazz jam on. He got up and played on a couple of tracks. Photos from that to follow...

‘Pro’ Slideshow

Being rather handy at the old Macromedia Flash, I was going to make myself a photography showcase website using the Flickr API. The Flickr API is basically a software interface that enables one to get photos and related information (titles, descriptions, tags, sets, groups etc) from Flickr.com and to display the content on a different website. For example the little Flash widget on my blog's homepage is pulling my latest photos off Flickr and showing them here.

But anyway, someone’s already made one that’s quite neat so maybe I won’t bother any more. At least not for a while. It’s called Pro and here it is showing a selection of my photographs.

Totally Fu**ing Dental

A word of advice: don’t go too long without a dental check-up. I went a few weeks ago for the first time in about eight years (my previous visit was basically the last time it was free – as a student). He shook his head and booked me in for three appointments. It’s going to cost me quite a lot of money.

The first appointment was with a dental hygienist last week. That was fine.

But today I was in at 8:15 and had to endure six anaesthetic injections followed by an hour and a half of god-knows-what going on in my mouth. The only thing worse than the implements sticking out of your gob (and all the drilling) is those white swab things they pack your mouth with. Gah…

Less than pleasant.

And I’ve got to go back on Friday to get the other side done. Take my advice, get ’em checked.

Stock Photography

This may look like one of those awfully bland corporate Getty Images photos but, I’m ashamed to say, it’s one of mine.

I take a lot of photos. All the ones I put on the net are technically decent but, to be honest, only one in 20 or so are particularly interesting content-wise. Still, they serve a purpose. And the purpose is teaching myself to take better photos.

Anyway, the girlfriend of one of my mates happens to select and buy images for TheGuardian (and yes that was my HTML attempt at replicating their recently retired classic masthead), and she had a snoop around my Flickr account and said I “...have a good eye”.

Now, coming from someone that does what she does for a living, that’s a great compliment. But anyway, she went on to say that I should try making some money out of my photography. And suggested I sign up to stock photography site Alamy.

Some of my photos are mine, for me, to share with my friends and that’s that. But others, such as the one shown here, I have absolutely no emotional attachement to whatsoever. So I don’t think it’s such a bad idea to put them up for sale. If someone wants to give me £40 to put that on their corporate site I’m well up for it. It’s bland, but it could serve a purpose.

So here goes. Considering the amount of time I spend selecting, editing and posting photographs, it might make sense to see a bit of extra cash for it each month!

There’s nothing on there yet because they have to QA my images for quality and resolution, but shortly my images will be available to buy here on Alamy.com.

Lensbaby

My mate Andreas has kindly given me a new lens for my camera. It’s called a Lensbaby and it basically achieves an effect like in this photo (actually the first photo I took with it). You focus by stretching or compressing the lens itself with your fingers, and you can move the point of focus around by bending it.

Photography fun to be had – thanks Andreas! His Flickr photos are here, incidentally.

We met up yesterday in Camden to take some photos. Unfortunately the weather was awful. The plan had been to go along the canal and up to Primrose Hill from where there’s usually a great view of London.

We climbed it anyway hoping that the rain would subside. It didn’t. The view was rubbish. So we trudged back down and went into London Zoo (the logic: it was nearby, it has indoor bits). I did manage to get a couple of OK-ish pictures of some fish in the aquarium, and we briefly visited the giraffes before I hurried home for a – most welcome – roast dinner provided by my housemate Liam for me and a few friends. Thanks Liam!

Anyway, the photos from the day are here. Giraffes look quite camp, don’t you reckon?

Ableton Live

I recently installed a demo of Ableton Live on my laptop. It’s a fantastic piece of audio production software. I’ve still only had a couple of sessions with it and, because it’s a demo, I can’t save, but so far I’m really into it.

I used to dabble with writing music back at college and university and have a small number of semi-respectable (though now dated) mp3s to show for it. I’m also pretty damn good at mixing on a set of Technics, but music seems to have fallen to the wayside for me. I can’t put my finger on exactly why this is but it’s partly because it lost that excitement factor that comes with a new discovery. I remember first realising that I could edit samples and load them into the memory on my PC’s soundcard. I sat up all night with headphones on painstakingly putting a track together with Cubase. It was really satisfying.

That was back in 1995. Since 2000 I’ve not done any new tunes. I’ve helped friends produce tracks and mixes and I still have the technical know-how but haven’t been able to motivate myself. The annoying thing is I have ideas for tracks all the time but don’t have the set-up to just sit down and make them happen. Hopefully Ableton will be the spark I’ve been waiting for. If all goes well with the demo over the next couple of weeks I’ll have to buy myself a copy.

Stockport Encounter

Nothing noteworthy has happened to me so far this year so I thought I’d share the last photo I took in Stockport before getting on the train home last week. I’m averagely proud of it, despite bits of it being too dark. There’s still lots to learn on the photography front but, hey, that’s half the fun.

Of course, Stockport being Stockport, seconds after I squatted slightly to take this photo, some prancing towny idiots leapt out of the shadows to the left and started coming towards me. One of them shouted: “Hey mate! What ya taking photos for?”

Then another one of them: “Go on mate, take one of me, will I be famous?” Followed by screaching laughter.

I ignored them, opting not to point out that his best chance of becoming famous would be to fall in front of the next train that came in.

Anyone doing anything (or just looking) slightly out of the ordinary is immediately under suspicion up there. People can’t handle it. The complete lack of this sort of behvaiour is perhaps the thing I like most about London.

Here we go again then

Another one of those year thingies. Roughly the 2006th since some guy showed up, did a load of tricks and said "Hey, be nice to each other", in fact. Or at least that's how the story goes. I so don't believe that one about feeding the 5000 with two fish and a loaf of bread*. It would have been more helpful in the long term if he'd broken his Magic Circle vows and told the world how it was done. But then I guess the fishermen would have gone out of business pretty quickly.

But I digress before I've even begun… In fact I don't really have a point. I'm back at work, back at my desk, feeling slightly bewildered as if I've just appeared here Quantum Leap style. The fairly crappy photo above was my point-of-view for most of yesterday: bank holiday films on TV (shown here: The Maltese Falcon) and Flickr.com on my laptop (the guy across the room is my housemate and friend Liam, by the way).


New Year's eve was a good laugh. The party at my bro's place turned out to be a fairly low-key event but that was quite nice in a way. We basically played records, drank booze and watched the London fireworks on TV at midnight. Fortunately some girls turned up as well so it wasn't just a sausage party (and yes I'm talking about definition #1, if you follow that link).

The low turnout didn't stop a few of us from keeping going till the next morning. I trudged home after some broken sofa-sleep at about midday. Later that evening I met up with a number of people in a North London pub to say farewell to a friend who's leaving the country indefinitely. Bye Renée!

Should you have a particular interest in other people's crap photos of each other getting drunk there are some pictures NYE here.

Anyway, time to get on with having a productive and prosperous year. That probably should involve wasting less time writng this!

*Actually I don't believe any of it. I'll go along with the "Be nice to each other" bit though.

And so that was Christmas

Well it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m at home in my flat in Clapham. I’m making a playlist to go on a friend’s iPod (yeah ok, at least I was until I started writing this). She’s moving out of the country so a few of us have pooled together to buy her one and fill it with our playlists.

My housemate Liam is still back in Stockport where I also spent a few days over Christmas. It was really nice to get out of London, brief as the break was. I got the train up late in the morning of the 22nd, and watched the film Run Lola Run on my laptop during the journey. Call me sad but “Maaaaan, I love my gadgets”. Good film too.

I came back down south on the 27th, and in between I generally enjoyed the relative slow pace of life of the man on holiday. Here’s a summary: Shopping in Manchester, Christmas dinner, chats with my Nana about stuff, not trying to explain to her what I do for a living, seeing people in the pub that I’ve not seen since I saw them there last year, and of course The Queen’s speech.

A much needed break, anyway – especially as, in the preceeding week, I worked about 80 hours on a massive new business pitch (that, incidentally, we won – hurrah!)

I also took my other new gadget – my Canon DSLR camera – with me up to Stockport and took a few snaps around town. I’ve made a set here on Flickr.

So all that remains of the festive season (before we plunge headlong into the highlight-free gloom of January) is tonight. And the plan is to go round to Dunc’s place for a NYE party. Should be a larf. And, in case I don’t get back to you in the morning, Happy New Year!

Excercise

My bike has been sitting, unused, under a tarpaulin round at my friend's house since about March. So I'm lending it to my brother who'll make much better use of it at his university in Wood Green, north London.

I decided to cycle up there on Sunday to hand it over to him. Unfortunately I set off much too late in the afternoon. I also underestimated the distance quite significantly. In short it was a right mission – it soon went dark and I found myself cycling in heavy Sunday traffic, not being entirely sure of the way once I was past Camden.

Anyway in short I made it eventually, gave him the bike, and we went for some food and a couple of pints before I got the tube home.

I also managed to snap this rather nice photo of Battersea Power Station on the way there, just after sunset, as I crossed Vauxhall Bridge. There was a strang smog-like atmosphere that evening...


Oh yeah, excercise – I joined a gym the other day. I've not been to one for too many months and am 5 kg heavier than when I last weighed myself! Scary. They've put me on a harsh get fit regime. Let's hope my will power stays up to it...

H.T. Harris

Inspired by this post from The Eyechild I thought I'd “big-up” another great sandwich shop: H.T. Harris on Great Titchfield Street, off Oxford Street. Just up the road from my office, it's fast become my favourite lunch destination. Sandwiches and salads made from ultra-fresh ingredients with lots of olive oil are the name of the game. Always busy, which is a good sign.

But there are hundreds of places to eat around here. It makes a change from my old job in Kensington where the options were somewhat limited to either Tesco or eating out (rather expensively) at a pub or restaurant. Not ideal on a Monday.

Damn, with so many places to eat I'll probably get really fat now...

night bus

Don't you just love travelling on the night bus home? For me it's usually a case of getting to Trafalgar Square from wherever the hell I've been, then cramming on the 88 to Clapham (pictured).

Last night it was particularly packed with particulalry drunk people. Unfortunately I wasn't adequately pissed to join in with the deeply philosophical discussions that were taking place. One woman kept asking me drunken questions: "Are we going saaaf of the river? ... Are you sure pal? ... I really don't give a toss so long as I'm gaaan saaf. Where are we now then?"

From upstairs came the sound of vomiting...

Cassette Jam ’05

Someone's put together this page with LOTS of images of old cassettes on it. There was until recently a Russian site (possibly with the same images on it) called Project C-90, but all the images on there seem to have been removed and the text doesn't make much sense.

Anyway, this one is worth a check, especially if you're old enough to have used lots of these tapes in the past (and you're not too busy): Cassette Jam '05

we are holding customers...

'We are holding customers in the ticket hall area because the platforms are congested'.

It took 40 minutes from arriving at the tube station this morning until I actually got on a train. Rubbish. I'm seriously thinking about buying a scooter.

One week off

Stonehenge

I left my job on Friday last week and start a new one Tomorrow. Quite excited about it!

Anyway, having cunningly arranged for a week off in between jobs, I took a trip down to Cornwall for a few days. And naturally, I took a load of photos along the way. I've not finished sorting them out yet but I'm adding them to this set on Flickr.

travelling companions

travelling companions
Originally uploaded by aderowbotham.

And this was a couple of hours later on the way home. I love having a couple of beers on the train to/from Manchester. The travelling feels like a good excuse.

:P

Weekend in Manchester

oxford road
Originally uploaded by aderowbotham.

I just spent the weekend up in Manchester. I took this just before getting on the train back to London.

I broke off my relationship with my girlfriend on Saturday afternoon. I feel bad because she was upset, but relieved because it was something I had to do at the back of my mind.

Oh, I never blogged the fact that I met her. Oh well - it lasted about 2 months and was long distance. And... it didn't really work out.

Anyway, onward!

Bad weather at Stanstead

Bad weather at Stanstead
Originally uploaded by aderowbotham.

Just testing the Flickr post to blog feature.

I took this shortly before bording the plane, to go to Corfu. We didn't take off for a further hour due to that weather...

Well, I'm back, on the day that some people carried out a bomb attack on central London in the morning Rush hour. My message to them: "Please fuck off you fucking losers". I don't care who they are or what their cause. My only gripe is with the people who did it, not with any community or group. But there's just no excuse for that.

Anyway, all friends alive and accounted for. I'm not going to go on about it. I'm sure there are thousands of blogs with more on the matter.

Anyway, the main reason why I wrote this is because I've been tinkering with Flickr.com recently, adding photos and creating sets. And they've got a post to blog feature that I wanted to check out.

See my photos here

a.

Off work with some kind of fluey virus. It was one of those slight sore throats the other day which I knew would mutate into an all-body-onslaught. It did.

Of course the plus side is that I get to play lots of Half-Life 2, which I purchased and downloaded through Valve's Steam system last weekend.

Half-Life 2 is definitely the best computer game ever. By a long way. I'm sure there's plenty of other people ranting about this elsewhere so I'll leave it at that, except to say that getting yourself a copy is highly recommended.

For my birthday the other week, my mate got me a Growing Sealife squid. Pretty weird. You put them in water and they grow. Apparently the size of the container affects how big they get.

I only had a small jug. The thing started out at about 8cm long and grew to this size (iPod there for scale).

Pretty weird huh? I've got rid of it now, in case it has a massive growth spurt over night and smothers me.

It's my birthday. I'm 27. This scares me...

I'm back in Manchester 'til Wednesday and not back at work in London until the following Monday. I'm going to spend that time relaxing and probably watching my new Star Wars trilogy DVDs. Nice...

I saw the 'diabetic' woman I gave money to about a year ago again. She used the same line.

I wouldn't mind giving the odd bit of money to beggars if it weren't for the fact that most of them seem to be blagging it.

51% of Americans voted for whom?

This is a sad day for humankind.

**Geek Statement Alert**

I've switched to using Mozilla Firefox as my default web browser. It's actually rather bloody good. Much better than MS Internet Explorer. For years I saw all Netscape / Mozilla derivatives as strict standards-compliant browsers used for testing, but which weren't worth using as the default because nothing looked right on them. Firefox seems to manage to be both standards-compliant (a GOOD thing for us HTML programmers) and make nearly everything I've looked at display properly.

*My making this statement is justified by the fact that I make websites for a living, OK?

After about ten days of working thirteen-hour days, including weekends, I've finally finished the new Starbucks Summer website. I did most of the Flash (not the e-cards), though the concepts and designs were the result of a few people's work.

Today I'm enjoying doing absolutely nothing. I'm looking forward to my holiday in Kos in at the end of July, then a festival in Spain a not long after, at the start of August.

Well, that was the most stressful and upsetting football match I've ever watched. England beat Portugal 2-1 but for some bizarrre and unknown reason our second goal was disallowed. Therefore it went to extra time and it ended up 2-2. They won on Penalties 6-5. We were clearly the better side. I just can't believe it. The referee must have been Potugese. Agggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Here are my photos from the London to Brighton bike ride.

Yesterday I rode from Clapham Common to Brighton with a group of people from work (as well as a further 30,000 cyclists). We met at 06:00, set off at about 07:00 and got to Brighton at about 15:00. It was a really pleasant day's ride, apart from the final two hours when bad weather hit big time on the hills outside Brighton. Near-horizontal hail stones followed by torrential rain left everyone completely soaked and shivering.

I managed to meet up with a couple of people from our group near the finish, and we located a dodgy cheap clothes store where we purchased some emergency dry clothes. We then found a bar in which to recover, dressed in our new, near-matching, tracksuit trousers and fleece tops.

The company paid for a coach back to London and I got home at about 21:00 where I promptly fell immediately to sleep.

I have some photos in my camera, I'll post a link tomorrow.

I love this sort of headline:
"Teleportation breakthrough made"

Just completed my first legal purchased music download through iTunes. I feel somehow cleansed, from all the illegal downloads I've made in the past.

I bought an album, and at £7.99 (and it's qutie a long album) it's a fair price, unlike the high street stores.

Hurrah!

OK, so since last time I've taken part in a 10km run round Hyde park. Here's some photos of me from the day. I look like I'm about to die in the third one. That's because I did feel like I was about to die. Since the race I've done a pitiful one run, and that was this morning.

What else?

Oh yeah, I dated another girl for a short while, but decided, yet again, that she wasn't what I was looking for, so that was that.

Going for a bike ride with some tomorrow morning, so having a night in tonight. The bike ride is practice for the London to Brighton bike ride I'm taking part in on the June 20th.

DJing at a wedding reception / after party this evening. Should be fun. They're providing the records, I just have to turn up and spin them.

You know, anyone who's about to commit a crime, or hurt someone, or just say a harsh word against somebody, should stop and listen to Belfast by Orbital. It's an oldie but what a fu^&ing great tune...

We split up.

The end.

Dinner went well on Thursday. I seem to have myself a new lady.

Well! Boozy weekend... 'Going to watch the football' in the pub on Saturday turned into an all day session. I received a text message from a lovely young lady whom I have been in contact with through a dating website, and I called her back. We ended up having lunch and a few drinks on Sunday and, basically, it went quite well. We're having dinner on Thursday. Nice.

Well, it's just gone one year since i started at my company, and i'm back working on BT web banners - the lowest of the low for a designer. That's career advancement for you...

This company really is stupid. They have a freelancer in (at great expense) working on some interesting Flash project, all well within my abilities (in fact I'd be much better suited to the work), and here I am doing the über-dull stuff. So long as they continue to see their design staff as simply 'a resource' and not as people with career aspirations, they're going to continue to lose their best people.

The sort of place I want to work should not need to be given this hint.

</moan>

Apple have got me hooked in. It's iTunes.

I'm addicted. I've almost completely turned my back on CDs. The first thing I do when I get a CD is skip through the tracks. If I like it I copy it all into my iTunes. I love it - it's a joy to use. You see the thing is - I can't keep my CDs in order, I can never find the one I want and when I think I have, it's not in the right box.

Not any more - I just pick the artist or genre and it's right there. The thing is. The THING is - now I want an iPod. Funny that isn't it? I want to take my music with me. Sucked in... They are SO cunning. First they write the nicest bit of software EVER. Then they release it for Windows, then they sit back while everyone, in their own time, goes out and buys their iPod. Genius. I'm saving up...

I'm currently reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It's the one you see everyone reading on the tube. Really enjoying it though, it's a nice human break from all the cold science fiction I've been reading recently.

I love walking through the city in fine drizzle at night. As the tiny droplets hit the eye, all the lights appear to momentarily flare.

Seeing Kraftwerk live was possibly the coolest thing ever.

I've just finished reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds - a highly recommended read. It's the best sci-fi I've read since Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey and Rama series. It's not the best written book ever, but the ideas are simply vast, and the science (like with Clarke) is fairly solid and convincing.

Tonight, I'm going to see Kraftwerk at Brixton Academy. I can't wait.

I finally made it down to Tate Modern after work tonight to see Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project". It finishes this weekend. Here's my version of the same pics you've probably already seen:



GR.

So, Amsterdam was fun. Not really much to tell really - suffice to say we sat in some coffee shops, drank lots and ate well. Nice break from work though. I got back late Monday night (plane to Heathrow).

I've just been to my weekly Athletic Training class. It consists of an hour of various intensive excerciese such as burpees, running, press-ups, lunges, and the use of weights. The thing is, you don't get a break during the whole hour - not even to catch your breath.

It felt especially hard after a weekend in Amsterdam...

GR.

I ended up travelling home one the same tube as two people from work, one of whom I know fairly well and the other, a girl, whom I know less well. Sometimes I should just shut T.F. up - I managed to dig myself into some kind of whole whereby it sounded like I was insulting her, yet I was unable to explain what I really meant.

Sometimes I don't think even I know what I'm talking about. I wish some level of editing was available during real-time speech.
<sigh>

Maybe it's just today's lack of sleep disabling my basic communication functions...

GR.

P.S. Going to Amsterdam on Friday - hurrah. I'm going with some friends, for the weekend.

Sorry it's been so long - the novelty of keeping the blog wore off so I just stopped making entries.

What have I been doing since Christmas then? I'll be brief:

• I haven't seen the girl again since our one night thing; the mystery has gone out of it so I've lost interest


• I've been going to the gym at least three times a week, and have been going running on Saturday / Sunday mornings


• I've cut down on the pizzas and pasta in the evenings and have swapped them for salads and proteinous stuff like Mackrel


• As a result of the above two, I've lost almost a stone in weight and have also started to put on some muscle


• I've been getting on really well with my brother (the one I had the weird falling out with before Christmas) and we've joined the local snooker club. I'm starting to become quite good at it.

Other than that, doing OK. I'm now in the main design team at work and that's going kinda OK. Being paid more money helps, but unfortunately I now have to start paying back my student loan :(. Ah well.


GR.

Here's a top tip I heard on the radio the other day (one which I employed, to great self satisfaction, last night):

If you receive any junk mail that contains a reply envelope, tear up all the contents and stuff them into the reply envelope then send it back to them. If enough people do this, then in time they'll hopefully get the message. They should be obliged to recycle it too!

Give it a go.

It's my last day at work until 5th Jan. I'm back at 'corp HQ' today though. Just waiting to see if I can get out early because I'm going back home with a friend tonight. Unfortunately, Christmas is going to be tainted by the fact that I have to write up three assignments as part of my 'goals' at work. These count towards my performance - related bonus, so could be worth up to £1000.

Anyway, must get back to reading the news.

GR.

Sorry for the lack of updates, it's a combination of me being really busy and me managing my time badly. However, I've now finished the HUGE website job I've been working on so I'm massively relieved.

There's only one more working week until the Christmas holiday (woo hoo!) but I've still failed to get any Chrismas presents for my family. I'm going back up north next Tuesday night so I'll probably end up shopping in my home town centre, yeah like i do every year...

I went back to see the homeopath the other day (when was it now?... ah yes, Outlook tells me it was last Tuesday). I've just received and taken my remedy. Tiny, like the last one, but different. This was a very crumbly chalky thing. The instructions said to let it dissolve on my tongue. It seemed to dissolve instantly. Let's see if this one has more of an effect.

I think I might be a difficult patient as I don't have any real physical symptoms. I justy want to sleep better, relax a bit more and improve my memory. We shall see...

Anyway, off to get an early night.

Goodnight, whoever you are...
x
GR.

I finally gave in and bought a new Playstation 2. The previous one (my housemate's) decided to stop reading discs a few weeks ago. I'm not a massive games fan, but I was rather into SSX Tricky. I've had sequel, SSX3, on hire the last couple of days and it's blaahdy good fun.

Oh yeah, some bloke came round and 'fixed the roof', the day after the last entry. Not sure exactly what he did, but there's an even bigger hole in my ceiling now. The main thing is that there's no water pouring through it...

GR.

Have they fixed the roof then? Have they heck... I got a call this afternoon: "...the thing is he did say he was going to be in the area but now he's not going to be available 'til thursday."

I had rehearsed for this. I wasn't going to stand for it, but on the spot there and then, I did my "Mr. Nice Guy" trick and gave it all that "OK, well that's fine I suppose as long as it does get done as soon as possible..." Weak. If I were my dad, I'd have it fixed by now and I'd have a letter of apology from the landlord... Gah.

The same thing happened last year. Then I waited for about a week then someone went on the roof and shuffled a couple of tiles around. It's not really rained heavily much since.

It has stopped leaking now but I don't trust it enough to move back into my room in case it starts dripping again in the night.

Oh the joys....

GR.

So bored! I'm working onsite at our major retail client's HQ again today... It's still very dull and corporate. I think this computer was constructed in the stone age. I actually have nothing to do at the minute, so I think writing this is a completely legitimate use of my time.

I got a good night's sleep last night - despite having to sleep on my sofa due to the roof leak. It's actually a sofa bed, and I think it might be more comfortable than my own bed. Maybe I'll move permanently to the living room. I had a strange dream about going with my brother to an amateur dramatics society meeting, housed in a small room, under some rubble... The ceiling was very low and it was lit by a couple of old gas lamps. I introduced myself to everyone but didn't get as far as doing any acting before waking up. I also had a dream about crash landing a huge passenger jet in the middle of a city.

GR.

Apologies if some of this seems a bit needless, but I'm keeping a record of how I'm feeling over the next few days to enable a clearer analysis of any effects at my next homeopathy meeting.

Right now I'm feeling kind of stressed and I seem to have a high heart rate. I've just gone and blitzed the flat because I just can't stand the mess any more. I think the fact that 90% of the mess is the result of my housemate's absolute inability to tidy up after himself, coupled with the fact that he spent the time sitting in his room listening to music instead of helping, has added to my annoyance (though I don't think the dripping sound behind me right now, at an increasing frequency, is helping). I feel I may need to broach the subject with him AGAIN fairly soon.

I may feel stressed but I also feel quite energetic and like I want to get things done. I'm looking forward to going out for Sunday lunch with some friends later; hopefully then I'll feel more relaxed.

GR.

I didn't get to sleep until 05:30 this morning because of that darn dripping. It's falling right next to my bed by my head. I would have gone and slept on the sofa but my mate T was staying over so that was taken. I tried several techniques to dampen (no pun intended) the dripping sound, such as tying a piece of string to the source hole so the water poured down the string. The pin kept falling out under the weight. I eventually managed to break the fall with a pan lid propped up inside the bucket. That dulled the sound enough for me to sleep.

I feel much better today. I did eventually get to sleep and I seem to have now emerged from my bad mood. It's STILL raining though. I don't normally mind the rain but when it's dripping into your bedroom that's a different matter.

GR.

Drip...


Drip...


Drip...


Drip... God that's driving me mad already!

So where are we up to? OK so I was chatting to her again on Wednesday, on MSN Messenger and it was driving me nuts so I just dropped the question, "Do you want to meet up tonight?" She said yes. We met up. She was cute and we got on as well as we had been over the net, but there wasn't really any spark there. We got some food and drank in a few bars in Covent Garden. We ended up doing shots in an Aussie bar. We got very drunk. It suddenly started to get a bit awkward and I was aware that I kept glancing over her shoulder, to where these guys were doing crazy motorbike stunts on a widescreen TV, just to avoid her gaze.

She asked me what I was thinking and I thought, "What the hell", so came out with, "I was thinking, 'do you want me to kiss you?' ". She said yes. So, to cut a long story short, I kissed her and we got a cab back to hers and, well, I didn't get ANY sleep. It felt good.

I was worried that she'd think I'd sort of used her, but she said she was worried about the same thing. I think the feeling was mutual - it had been a while for both of us, and we just wanted a bit of fun. We're still in touch on the texts and stuff so that's all cool. She is cute but I don't think it's relationship material. Still, it's a good experience for me; I've never been on a date with a stranger before.

So, yeah, I had to go straight to work from her house on Friday morning. My clothes stank from sitting in bars the previous night, but I felt good. To be frank, I don't mind getting no sleep when it's because I've been having sex all night...

- - - - - -

I got home, very tired, on Thursday to find that my homeopathy remedy had arrived. I had some food, got changed, relaxed for a while then took remedy number 1. I had been sent three of them - tiny clear tablets like plastic granules. The instructions said to take one today, one the next day and to keep the third as a spare, for possible future use after my next appointment with the homeopath.

I took the tablet, watched some telly, hung out some washing to dry and went to bed. I had a difficult night's sleep; I was quite excited about what effects the remedy would have. Despite having had no sleep the previous night I think I was awake till about 2am.

I awoke just before my alarm told me to, at 7.30am. I felt very alert and sprung out of bed (no usual three uses of the snooze button). I even had time for breakfast, and so went to work feeling very chirpy. I was looking forward to what further effect the second remedy might have. I told the homeopath, by email, about how I was feeling and was told that I should now hold back on taking the second remedy, as it usually either works or not - i.e. it's not incremental. This, I guess, makes sense because the idea is that the remedy contains a tiny amount of an active ingredient and it's the smallness of the dose that's important.

I spent the rest of the day actually getting gradually pissed off (I think due to the fact that I had shed-loads of work to do). I got out at about 19.30 (on a Friday, yeah - thanks) and went to meet up with a couple of friends in Clapham, one of whom had come to visit from my home town for the weekend. We had a few pints then went back to my mate's house for a few reefers.

I woke up this morning feeling uncomfortable (and sleep-wise unsatisfied) on his living room floor. I caught the end of the Rugby World Cup final (we won, yay!) and we all grabbed an unhealthy café breakfast. I made my way home and spent the day working on my new website, and trawling a couple of dating websites for potential matches (after the sucess the other night, I think this could be the future for me).

Tonight we went out to a local cheesy 80's night. Throughout the afternoon I seemed to fall into an incredibly bad mood. I thought at first that it was because I was hungry, but I couldn't shake it. I'm starting to feel a bit let down because the initial apparent effect from the homeopathy has gone and I'm starting to wonder whether it's worked at all. Maybe I'm expecting too much...?

Anyway I just left the club early because, frankly, it was doing my head in. I left my mates there. I couldn't be arsed waiting around on the off-chance that they would play something god like an old Michael Jackson record or some other 80's gem like Ride On Time by Black Box. 90% of it was just pissing me off.

So here I am... And water is dripping from a crack in my ceiling into a bucket. Drip... Drip... Drip.... Aghhh! It leaked last winter and the landlord claimed to have fixed it. Yeah, right. It bet it just seemed fixed because the rain stopped.

<sigh>

OK, well that's enough from me. Sorry if I sound a bit negative but I've just had a few beers and I'm quite tired. I'll probably log on and take it all back in the morning ;) Now I just need to try to ignore this DRIPPING SOUND and get to sleep. Goodnight.

GR.

Not written much recently as have been busy chatting on messenger to a girl who randomly contacted me. She seems really nice. I've not got much work done though.

OK then, so it was my birthday on Saturday (I'm now 26). I had Friday and Monday and Tuesday (today) off work. Thursday night was a company meeting followed by free bar. People discovered that it was my birthday on Sat, and also that I had Friday off, so made me drink lots of tequila. Lets just say: I woke up somewhere in Upminster. That's the END of the District line. Arse. Got in at 4am. That's the second time I've done that. Arse Arse.

AAAnyway, had a great weekend. Both my brothers were round and we had a party. About 30-40 people came along. We had the decks set up and several people DJ'd. It was great. It went on till about 7am when I finally removed the last of the revellers and crashed out.

I've spent the last two days getting my brother's website up and running. That's all done. Looks good. Apart from that I've been chatting to this girl A LOT, and texting. Looking forward to hopefully meeting up with her soon.

Back to work tomorrow so now sleep...

Night night,
GR.

I went to see the homeopath last night. It was just round at her house. I spent about three hours telling her, with some prompting, everything about myself and my upbringing. She asked me what things I didn't like about myself - things I'd like to improve. These are exactly the sort of questions that I'm not very good at dealing with, so I think it did me a lot of good just to talk about it with someone impartial.

I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders when I got home afterwards... and I've not even had my treatment yet! The possibilities are quite exciting - the chance to exorcise all my skeletons - I just hope what she comes up with works!

GR.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention; I've got a homeopathy appointment tomorrow after work. It's with a friend of a friend who has been studying it for a few years and needs a case to work on as part of her course. I get a cheap session (only £25) in return. Hopefully it will help me sort my life out. All that stuff I was ranting on about (slightly over-dramatically) a few weeks ago needs to be ironed out. Besides all this though I'm really quite interested in the idea, and whether it does me any good or not I think it's worth a go.

GR.

I've stayed in most of this weekend and made a lot of progress with my brother's website. I just need to code it all up now... Went round to my mate's house last night. We had a few beers and watched Nuts In May. You MUST see this film before you die - it's absolute comedy genius. My favourite bit was the "I want to see the zoo" song. I nearly died with laughter.

GR.

You've heard of Blogger.com, well now there's Blagger.com. It's my mate's new site. The idea is that you can check out who's good and who's not in each industry sector before hiring a company. You can submit a new company or add comments and ratings to exisitng companies.

GR.

I'm absolutely knackered; had to work late AGAIN. I suspect it may be my own fault though for not working too hard throughout the day recently. The website I'm working on was supposed to have been finished by tomorrow but that just ain't going to happen. Then again we're still waiting the client to send us some assets so it's not entirely my fault. I'm off to bed. Lots to get through tomorrow...

GR.

My parents came to visit on Saturday. We went on the London Eye with my brother. It was surprisingly enjoyable; the view from the top was amazing. My dad bought me a new monopod for my camera (it's my birthday on the 15th) so I got some really good photos. We all spent the rest of the afternoon in a pub near Dulwich in South London, engrossed in some unusually jolly family banter.

An old mate of mine and my housemate's came down to visit that evening and we went out to Fabric. I was having a really good night up until my day's drinking caught up with me and I ended up falling asleep, slumped in a corner of the dancefloor. I don't remember much from then on (owing to being asleep), but apparently I didn't want to be moved. Gah. I must try harder to stop doing this.

Sunday involved a delicious roast chicken lunch, courtesy of my female friend Q. This was washed down with a generous helping of red wine then - am I an alcoholic ? - we all ended up in a pub in Stockwell.

So, I think I ought to get down to the gym this week - it's been too long!

GR.

I can hear Big Ben from my bedroom. I kind of like that. I discovered it last night when I heard it strike midnight. It's the timeless regularity and reliability of that bell and clock amongst the chaos of London that appeals. And, to me, it's such an icon of Britishness. I particularly like way that the pause between the melody and the first strike is slightly too long, almost as if it's saying, "Pause for a moment, wait for it..."

GR.

Check out this website: http://grouphug.us. It's a genius idea. I wish I could come up with ideas like that.

GR.

I gave a woman on the street £2 earlier. I can't work out whether that makes me a helpful compassionate human being, or just a fool. She was quite old, appeared to be crying and said she was diabetic and urgently needed something to eat. However she insisted that she wanted a sandwich and that she would need about £2.

I half felt like going and getting her the sandwich just to be sure that that was was really what the money was for, but it was a bit of a walk back to the shop, and she was quite convincing (with an original plea) so I just gave her the money.

I really hope I wasn't conned. There's too many people who blag money under false pretences, so it's a bit of a boy who cried wolf scenario for those few who aren't going to spend it on booze. If I was religious I'd probably say that 'I'll be rewarded in Heaven', but I'm not. Maybe I'll get some good Karma credits instead.

GR.

So, (I keep starting with 'So...' don't I?) no more Concorde eh? I'm a bit gutted that I never got the chance to Fly on it. Today was the last flight for the British Airways Concordes. They landed three of them in quick succession within five minutes at Heathrow this morning. Maybe it's a bit geeky but I get into that sort of thing. And it was a pretty awesome plane, especially considering how long ago it was designed and built. Almost brought a tear to my eye today....

The spending plan's going well. Not sure if I'm saving anything but at least I'm more aware of where it's all going. I've spent £80.14 since Monday and that's being careful! I wish numbers wouldn't add up so readily! Tomorrow could cost a lot, and it will mostly go on beer, though that's fine as I've not done much boozing this week. I've stayed in tonight too, which will help. Right now, I'm off to bed anyway. Goodnight!

GR.

Money - Gah! My account is down to approximately zero pounds and zero pence already, and it's still more than a week until I get paid. I do have an overdraught facility but I've been dipping deeper and deeper into it over the past three months. I suspect that buying random crap may have something to do with it. That and beer, anyway.

So... I've resorted to keeping a spending record:
- Small, Indiana Jones-esque, notebook with me at all times.
- Pen
- Spreadsheet

So far it's kind of worked. I only spent £7.50 yesterday, and £5 of that was travel costs. In a kind of my dad way, it's quite satisfying. Hopefully this way I'll be able to sort out my rather large credit card bill...

GR.

Sorry it's been so long but, to be honest, I've not done anything noteworthy all week. I discovered a local Jazz night on Friday. I went down with my bro. It was pretty cool apart from the fact that lots of people were talking over the music so the musicians started to look a little pissed off. My housemate's brother and some of his friends, AKA "The Dogs", turned up later that night along with the usual excessive amount of 'stuff to smoke'. Yesterday was pretty much written off for me beacause I had a few tokes on a phat one first thing in the morning. We then went to a cafe to the pub to watch the rugby (England beat South Africa 25-6). After that we met some other friends had several more beers and some food. I was home in bed by 21:00 (such a wuss).

Today I'm going to meet an old mate from uni. Not called him yet but I'd quite like to go and see Finding Nemo or Kill Bill. Failing that, I would imagine beer and food will be involved at some point. God, gotta start going to the gym again...

GR.

I'm at it again: time wasting. Just spent half an hour brightening up this blog's colour scheme, instead of working on my brother's website. Anyway, it was all shades of grey, but I thought that might give the wrong impression of my personality, so I've gone for this kind of orangey-yellow.

It's a closely guarded secret, but as this is semi-anonymous, I'll let you know: I'm actually red-green colourblind. I hate the name 'colourblind' because everyone's first reaction is, "Ok, what colour is this ?" (pointing at some grass, for example). I've had tests and I'm about 30% deficient in GREEN sensitivity. This does actually impact quite a lot as most colours contain a mixture of red green and blue light, so the balance of all colours is offset. Dark blues are the worst - I can't tell if they're pure blue or whether they're tending towards purple or turquoise (i.e. whether it's mixed with red or green). The reason why it's a closely guarded secret is because I'm a designer. I get round the problem by sticking to colours I'm confident with, and by checking the numerical RGB values on the computer. I don't think some of my big name clients would be best pleased if they new that a visually disabled person had designed their website.

GR.

Football today - England v Turkey. I've never been a massive footy fan, but it's been growing on me over the last few years. Apparently they've never scored a goal against us, but then again we've not played each other for years and Turkey are pretty good right now. Anyway, that's about the extent of my football knowledge.

Watching the match in the Pub at 6pm then going out to a couple of clubs with friends. Hopefully it'll be a bit more sensible than two weeks ago...

GR64.

Well, Mr Richard D James turned up allright (that's Aphex Twin, for those who don't know). He was appearing under the name Bradley Strider, one of his early pseudonyms, and as a result it wasn't too rammed. I think half the people in there were just randoms who had wandered in off the street.

It was quite weird seeing him behind the decks in a small bar at a fairly low key night. He did his set off a laptop computer, I assume mixing mp3s or something similar. I didn't recognise any of the tunes - it was 80s tinged electro-ey kind of stuff. I couldn't work out whether it was his own music or not; perhaps it was some of each.

Unfortunately I drank too much Red Stripe and felt obliged to go and congratulate Richard for generally being very talented and for having written the tune Come on you Slags. He said thanks. I've never grown out the habit of slightly embarrasing myself at clubs by drunkenly insisting on shaking hands with DJs I admire. Never mind eh? I'm sure they're used to it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I got back here with my housemate, scoffed pizza and then we got into one of those weird 'open' drunken conversations, not dissimilar to the one I had with my brother a few weeks ago. This time I was on about myself and self confidence. I can't remember how I got onto the subject. I'm not sure what came over me; maybe there was something in the beer.

Seriously though, I seem to have some surfacing issues. I think it could be the fact that I'm writing about myself fairly openly in this log that's making me more self aware. I suppose the fact that this is now all coming out is probably a good thing, as I've always been one for keeping things to myself.

I'd say one of the pressing issues (or symptoms?) is the fact that I've been single now for 14 months (since August 2003) and I've not really had any successes with women since then, except for getting off with a girl on New Year's Eve. It just doesn't really happen for me, and to be honest it never really has. I've only ever had one serious girlfriend (we lived together for thirteen months), and second to that my next best innings was two months.

Something must be missing in my approach but I'm not really sure what that is. It illudes me. I'm quite good looking; I'm not overweight; I have fashion sense; I'm intelligent; I'm funny and I'm still young (25). It just doesn't happen. I think it's first impressions. I don't think I make a good one. People often don't remember meeting me at all, which is really annoying. It's something I need to work on. My housemate reckons I should try homeopathy. He's tried it and claims that it's turned his life around for the better. He says he feels much better about pretty much everything since going for a few sessions, and taking one herbal tablet. It sounds crazy, but I think I might give it a shot. After all, it's only cost him about £100 and that's a small price to pay if it really works.

Anyway, I was back to my jolly old self today. I got quite a lot of work done for a couple of clients, and they were both really pleased. Unfortunately I've failed to make any progress on my brother's website this week. Maybe I'll do some tomorrow. I stayed in tonight and watched Dragnet on video. It's a cheesy 80's cop movie with Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks, and thus was quite entertaining. I wish the PS2 was working again though, missing the DVDs and SSX Tricky.

GR64.

Tonight I'm going out to see Aphex Twin playing at The Social. Apparently it's a semi-secret event as he's playing under a different name. I suspect, however, that it will still be packed and / or he'll not turn up, as it's something that I've heard about through the grapevine. Still - fingers crossed - I'm really looking forward to it because I've only seen him before in a large festival arena, and The Social is really small.

GR64.

I didn't start work until 3pm yesterday afternoon and as a result finished at about 12.30. I have to do something about my habit of putting things off... So - just a short entry today.

I just washed my stricken foot for the first time since 'The Incident'. My God, it felt good! For nearly two weeks I've been showering with my bandaged foot held out of the way, tied up in a plastic bag. It's a bit of a balancing act and I've nearly lost that balance a coupld of times.

Popping out to get some supplies (reaping the benefits of not being at work) then it's straight to work on my bro's website. Honest.

GR64.

I'm back at my parents' house, relaxing. They're actually out at the moment, walking across the low-tide sands at Morcambe. I'd be doing it too if it wasn't for the foot (it's an 8 mile walk and, as you might expect, very wet). I've just removed my bandage for the first time since it was put on last Wednesday. It's not hurting as much as it did, but it sure don't look too great. It's still kind of skinless and the flesh underneath now has imprinted on it a criss-cross pattern from the dressing. I'm hoping that an hour or so with it in the air will do it some good. Unfotunately they neglected to supply me with a replacement for the innermost part of the dressing so I'm going to have to put that bit back on (erk).

It's nice to be out of the big city for a few days. My flu-like illness seems to be abating as a result. I saw me old mate 'T' last night and am seeing some more friends later today. It's a bonus not to have to worry about work in the morning tomorrow.

It's also been nice (note to self: must use better adjectives) seeing my family. I've been taking photos of my bro playing his keyboard, with my new digital camera. They've come out really well. I'm going to make him a website when I get back down to London next week.

Bye for now!
GR64.

Yes, I'm still alive!

My lack of updates this week has been due to feeling really rough all week. After writing Sunday's entry, I started to feel really ropy (Friday night catching up with me) and my foot really started to hurt. I hardly slept that night and awoke early in agony. My foot appeared to have further blistered and looked, well, pretty grim. Not having a GP, I decided to go down to the hospital. I waited the customary few hours and finally got it seen to. It's a 2nd - to - 3rd degree burn.

I went back on Wednesday to have a re-dressing. The blisters had gone to reveal a largely red and outer-skinless foot. Ouch. Therefore I've been hobbling around and STILL have a huge bandage on my foot. This, combined with apparently having some kind of weird virus, has made for a pretty bleak week so far.

On Tuesday I went to a bar to discuss doing them a website, also an old friend came over from his city of residence to see a few of us. A friend of his (who I had met a few times) died a few days ago, and he had been to the funeral with some other people who lived in London. It was good to see him and catch up. He said the whole thing had made him realise how long it had been since he had seen us (i.e. me and everyone else from back home), and how it had reminded him not to take old friends for granted.

Anyway, I'm knackered so need to go to bed. I'm off back to my hometown (I'll let slip where it is one day) tomorrow night and I need to get my stuff together before I go to bed tonight. Sorry there's not been much in this week's blog, but basically I've spent the whole week feeling shit at work with a burnt foot - which would hardly have made great reading anyway.

Goodnight,
GR64.