Blindfold

The air was tense and mounting fears charged... they should have gone to Specsavers

Brown rubbed his hands with Glee as he plugged Milliband in...

Dubbya

George's headphones slip as he shows off his large medallion.

Experts find proof of Limbo dancing originating in Ancient Greece.

Great Costumes..

Two eager participants; Kevin & Roy were at the front of the queue for this year's Dungeons & Dragons Expo.

Colin from Sydney

Colin, one of my Aussie listeners sent me this cracking pic from Sydney. Cheers Col, there's a podcast in the mix shortly old mate.

I must get me one of these!

brilliant!

A day in London's financial sector

Just a couple of pictures from my Camera Phone. I was in the heart of the financial sector today.

Lloyds is such a monstrosity it's beautiful.

The Gherkin is just beautiful, an incredible piece of architecture (isn't it Jason?). I had a fabulous lunch at it's base today.

A day at the ludlow food festival in pictures.

I loved watching the traditionally made cider in the castle grounds.

In the background you can see the generator feeding the apple mulcher. The mulch is then placed on cheesecloth and drained. The juice is collected and left to ferment.


The mulch is put into cheese cloth bags and pressed by the hand wound press


The whole process is shown here, the loading, mulching and pressing.


Inside the castle grounds.


The entrance to Ludlow Castle for the food festival. The castle was built in the 11th century - amazing how it's still functional a thousand years later.

BBC following the contents of a cargo box

It sounds terribly dull doesn't it? I find it fascinating.

The BBC have bolted a GPS transmitter to a cargo box that they're tracking. You can see it at this link here

The container will be tracked and filmed over the course of the next year to look at globalization and international trade. I find it strangely compelling to look every day at what the container is holding and where it is.

At the time of this post I can see that the container is in Abbotsinch Retail Park off Renfrew Rd in Paisley, Scotland with a consignment of whisky, having started the journey from Southampton, Southern England a few days ago.

I've bookmarked the page and will be interested to see events unfold over the next year.

Paul.


update: this link here

Legends in their own lunchtimes.

I must be really odd. I think I can see through things and call out the Emperor wearing no clothes to the masses. Either that, or I'm just odd.

I like the internet, though the technology of it bores me. I cannot think of anything more boring than learning machine code, HTML, CSS or whatever it's called. I'm happy to drag and drop. It took me ages to work out how to do this, and even then I'm not that great at it.

So, operating systems - they operate, to me they're just functional. I don't think they're sexy and I don't really care how they work. I'm not interested in Leopard, Cheetah, Vista or whatever, I just want it to work sleekly.

I like the gadgets, not the guts. I can appreciate a very pretty girl, but I'm not terribly interested in looking at her kidneys, or wondering how good her spleen is. Get my drift?

Then there's the "I'm a geek" label. I'm not, and I don't get it. Why do you want to be the school swot in a pair of national health glasses?

I just like using the internet and the gadgets. I'm not bothered about the size, shape or workings of the processor. Quite honestly I couldn't give a monkey's.

But the thing that I really don't understand? Apart from the worship of Steve Jobs and everything Apple, which I liken to cultish, weird behaviour, I don't understand why there are 'names' on the internet and why people go gaga over them. The slavish following of people that occupy a miniscule sliver of interest on the net seem to have gained something of a pop status. Eh? Why?

I've never listened to 'TWIT', Leo Laporte, followed Richard or Robert Scoble or whatever his name is, I'm not interested in Dave Winer, 'The Gilmore Gang', John Dvorak or anyone who has fame attached to their name, in fact, I generally go out of my way not to listen to or indeed to read them. The stuff I have listened to or have read has been tripe mostly. I was quite interested in Adam Curry because of podcasting ..... but the fame thing irritates and befuddles me. I find that sycophantic following just makes my bum go funny and annoys me.

Legends in their own lunchtimes... just remember that a lunchtime is an hour long, if you're lucky. That should be the life span of the odd druid worship to them if you really must, and no more.

call for help please

Just a couple of quick calls for help please:

1. Could folks please send a quick mp3 - " hi this is ...... and you're listening to podcastpaul dot com"

2. Do people want me to turn off the auto playing mp3 player when they land on the site?

Ta!

Portly Princess of Pop Postulates - plonker.

English newspapers have always intrigued and really rather disappointed me. I can read a headline in the tabloids, shake my head and wonder if those reading it really are taken in by the print. The spreadsheets don't get off lightly either. Do people think that the people writing the columns are wise sagely beings who speak for the nation? Wake up and smell the tea bags people.

Today I took Harry to the cinema and stopped off at McDonalds for a quick breakfast. The Daily mail was around and a piece of 'commentary' caught my eye. The story was about Lily Allen, she had been co presenting an award with the loathsome Elton John. I felt bile rise in my stomach as I read on.

Allen had bitten back at the princess when he made a quip about her drinking. Allen angrily replied that she still had her life to live and had 40 years ahead of her. Good comment I thought.

The hissy fitting wig wearing knob end, real name Reginald Dwight then made a retort that was so very clever: " I could still snort you under the table"

Oh how I laughed, how I held my sides at the thought of fat Reg using cocaine. What a great advert for all and sundry. Never mind the massively spiralling drug driven crime on our streets, or the kids driven to the street by the vile grip of class A drugs - everyone stand up and salute the near pensionable age balding bloater - because he can snort Lily Allen under the table. Stop the press, ignore the plight of those in Haiti, because piggy Reg does drugs - hilarious. Or not. The man is a class A turd.

I find Reg Dwight's (I'm not using his silly stage name) attitude and lifestyle sickening to the pit of my stomach.

Sir Reginald Dwight - anagram 'danger whilst rigid' - is no doubt a musical genius, but he's also a detestable moron who is idiotic enough to make such a stupid quip. This from the 'man' who spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on flowers each year - the very thought of that waste of money sickens me. Don't misquote me or think I'm alluding to his homosexual lifestyle - I'm not, it's him, just him. I cannot abide him.

...and the commentary from the paper? They were having a go at Lily Allen for saying she felt depressed. Not a word about fat Reg. Incredible.

Whenever I heard Fat Reg's music before, I cringed. Now I'm going to make an effort to run and switch it off if I can.

I'd love to see Reg stripped of his knighthood. I'd like him to be Jade Goodied. Make him lose his money and while his life away in Tower Hamlets.

Candle in the wind? More like a fat princess covered in charlie... I cannot bear the man. I hope the nation follows suit.

Language plus two

I'm doing everything I can not to think about enrolling at Uni for yet another course.

I want to do a couple of things though; I want to play lead guitar and I want to speak Spanish. Ok, I want to do three things - I have a mad desire to sit the Radio Amateurs course and buy an HF radio so I can use morse and SSB to speak around the world.

I'm odd. I must be. I made a transmitter in a bean tin at the age of ten, and had a bedroom that resembled a mad professor's lab at the age of 12. I had a 60 lb, thirteen valve lancaster bomber WWII transceiver that didn't work. I took the thing apart, cleaned it up and made it work. I sat and worked out the theory of long wire radio antennas and mad the thing explode into life. I learnt morse at the age of 12 and can still belt the alphabet out in less than two minutes. Mental.

Guitar is something I muck around with. I envy lead guitarists who are good and I'd love to play, but I really do envy those with a second language.

I've no desire at all to learn French. I was taught by a bloke that smelt like the back of Victoria Wine (the shop, not a person) and constantly hung over. Apparently the teacher had learnt French while digging holes as a labourer there. I'm surprised I don't know how to ask for a shovel or to apologise for inadvertently showing my bum crack.

The only phrase that I learnt at school - and I'm not kidding here, is to ask for a large mint ice cream. Don't ask me to spell it, but I can, I'm sure, speak like a native Parisian if ever a grande glace a la menthe took your fancy. I studied the language for two years at school, and that's the only phrase I know. Pitiful.

I do think that we Brits are desperately lazy when coming to languages. My friend Juan, a Chilean, came over here fleeing from Pinochet in the 70's. Juan has four young kids 3- 9 and speaks to them only in Spanish. His wife; Simone is so Brummy, she makes me sound like Prince Charles.

The kids all speak Spanish, and Isabella is, I'm sure, fluent in Spanish. That's incredible to me. I need to learn. I would love to be able to converse in a different language. How incredible would that be?

So, maybe I should play Spanish guitar over the radio waves and kill three birds with one stone eh?