Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Hiatus

I’ve been doing this blog thing for the past nine months or so with five posts a week pretty much consistently the entire time except when I have been on holiday or moved home.

Since I started it I have moved jobs, moved flats, changed a lot of other little things, made new friends and (nearly) learnt how to use public transport.

However I haven’t had a break from the blog in spite of all these other changes. So I am taking a break from doing it for a little while. I don’t know if this is the closing stages of the blog or just a brief break from it. I need to see how I feel about not doing it.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Boycott

Here are the things I want to know nothing about for the next month or so. I refuse to enter into any conversation about these things unless it is one that involves how mind numbingly dull and pointless they are:

Big Brother
The World Cup

Right I am off on holiday now so the next post will probably be the middle of next week.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Even more firefoxy

Look, portable firefox. You can install it on a USB flash drive and run it from any machine. Also you can install it on work computers where the .exe function has been disabled by the IT dictators (or at least I could).

I can now browse the web using firefox at work, following some tweaking of the proxy settings, which is way better than the clunky old version of IE I was forced to use up until I found this.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

10 reasons why its great to be Nick

He lives in a really great town in south east England
He works in London (which is way cool)
He has a great flat (notwithstanding a few little issues)
He can eat whatever he likes and stays stick thin regardless
He knows that he is a bit of nerd and is cool with that
He knows that a genuine smile can devastate anyone (and needs to learn to use this tool more often)
He earns way more money than he thinks he deserves
He knows that everyone else is the most important thing in the whole world (but sometimes forgets this)
He thinks he has terrible taste in music but doesn’t care
He has loads of really great friends who read his blog (if you are reading this you are one of them)

Monday, May 22, 2006

Phone dump III

Like phone dump and phone dump II, more photos captured on my cameraphone over the last few months or so with some commentary.

Ooo, look, a portable bus stop. That’s got to come in handy right?

Nice extension. This has an enforcement notice attached to it. I mean, seriously who thought this was a good idea?

Ealing Broadway station late at night. Quite arty I thought (probably wrongly).

This is my new yellow t-shirt. Girls stare at my chest when I wear this which is funny.

This is one of my shots of the fire on Ealing Broadway that I thought I deleted by accident. I might as well have deleted it as it has all the drama of an episode of As Time Goes By.

These are my new little JBL Creature speakers. This is the right one.

This is the left one.

And this is the big-ass daddy sub-woofer. These are very good little speakers if you want a recommendation. They do not go super loud (but when do you want your pc to go super loud?) but are really high quality.

This is the Southall Gurdwara, the largest Gurdwara outside of India.

It is very impressive and very smart (although a little chavy with the gold lettering and those railings).

It is the Seek place of worship. I think this place is great, not least for its provision of wholesome, free, hot food to anyone. Yes, anyone, you don’t have to be a Seek (not like some homeless soup kitchen, its a social focus). And they give this with the only proviso that you respect their customs within its walls.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Camping

So I am going camping in Newquay next weekend. I haven’t been camping since circa 1994 and am a little unsure how I have ended up going camping again now. I am hoping that it has improved since I last went and am approaching it with as open a mind as I can possibly muster. Here is a list of questions I have about camping in the 21st century:

Where do I plug in my mobile phone charger?
Where do I plug in my internet cable?
Or is it all wifi enabled?
Where is the fridge kept?
How does the shower function work?
Where do I hang up my clothes?
Can you plug the kettle in the same place you plug the phone charger?
Do I not need to worry about the kettle because they bring coffee to you like in London?

I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer to all these questions is ‘no.’

Thursday, May 18, 2006

New offices

In one months time I move offices. Up until now I have worked in a shabby 1960s relic which is wholly unfit for modern purposes. The building is ear marked for demolition at the end of this year so it (quite reasonably) has not been maintained recently. The result is a building with spalling concrete, failing lifts, boarded up broken windows, shabby carpets and a general demeanour of a building on its way out. The movers have been slowly emptying the place of furniture for the past month or so already.

The new building I am moving into is a very smart, high-tech, ultra-modern edifice replete with white stone internal corridors, brushed steel surrounds, dramatic expanses of glazing and cooling wall colours which change depending on whereabouts you are in the building. All of this is completely new, I slash we will be the first occupants of our area in this building. There are also a range of working arrangement options featuring quiet rooms, informal working spaces and lounge sitting areas complete with plasma screen TVs hung on the wall. And you don’t just go to the toilet here. You have a high-tech lavatorial experience.

So I am pretty excited about working somewhere which is really quite so blatantly cool.

However there is a drawback.

I don’t get my own desk. In fact nobody gets a desk. I get a wheelie cart and cupboard to keep my stuff in but my desk is whatever workstation I choose or can find in the morning. I am honestly not sure how this is going to work and am a little apprehensive about it. Time shall tell I guess.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Flow

Engaging little flash game. I keep burning my dinner because of this.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Urban village

So today I visited Grand Union Village. A sustainable urban village built at a high density along the waterfront to the canal. It features eco-homes, home-zone layouts, car sharing scheme, on site community facilities and all the other environmentally friendly inclusive buzz words you care to think of. I even got the reflective snappy arm bands to prove it (to promote safe walking and cycling).


It was pretty smart though, just a shame it's on the edge of Hayes, the most horrible place in the world.

Update:

So apparently the above photo is far too camp (thanks Mark). And given that I didn't exactly capture the fun snappyness of the arm bands and also caught some of my laundry in the photo here is a better one:

Monday, May 15, 2006

Induction

So today I was in day one of three of my corporate induction. Yes, that’s right, three days. Three days of ‘essential’ information three months into my commencement of employment.

Anyhow, it was more than a little dull so I kept myself entertained with a little bit of impromptu creativity. Here are some of my finer works.

Pie chart of Nick also featuring the time/dismay curve and the time/attention curve:


Introducing the Anthropomorphic-robo-enviro-crime-bot which features a rear mounted gatling gun, missle launcher and pooper scooper (inspired by one of the presentations on ‘enviro-crime’ whatever that may be):

Cyberman shopping list (will probably make more sense if you saw Dr Who this weekend):


Laxative
Self actualisation classes
Battlestar Galactica DVD box set
Slippers
Inflatable ‘water wings’ arm bands
Metal polisher and scouring pads
Moisturiser
Haribo Tang-tastics
Double glazing
Metropolis DVD
Leg warmers
Traditional hand crafted jewellery

Sunday, May 14, 2006

On location

So last week I finally got access to the pool cars at work so on Friday I took one out for a spin. Having now been signed up for the scheme I find out that there are actually a selection of electric and regular vehicles available, not just electric cars like I previously thought.

Of the vehicles available to me are a 2005 Renault Clio, a 2004 Renault Clio and a 2005 Toyota Yaris in addition to the electric cars. Rather than mess around in some glorified milk-float I booked myself in for a session on the 2004 Clio (because it was available) and headed out into the world, having some fun trying out a new car.

To tease you a bit here is a picture of its tyre. Not too sure how I managed to both take and store this picture on my cameraphone without realising:

And here is a picture of the car in full glory:

And here is a picture of me (looking a little sunburnt, its tough having a job where you get to go hang out in the sun in shorts and a t-shirt) with the car:

For information the last two pictures were taken here:

This is a small flat development on the edge of the Haymills Estate, a 1920s and 30s housing area of a mixture of Arts and Crafts and Art Deco housing and flats just off the North Circular. It’s a pretty cool place as opposed to much of the rest of the areas I work in which can be anything from a bit scruffy to steaming turd holes. It is the second nicest place I get to go whilst at work.

This is the nicest:


This is Haven Green, just off The Broadway (and the car was stopped at traffic lights when I took this, says he to the ever growing 'don't drive and take pictures' lobby).

It’s a large, beautifully maintained green with mature trees and attractive buildings surrounding it. I get to walk across it every morning and always think something along the lines of ditching work for half an hour and going and getting a coffee and reading my book on the green, but never do. Its great, there’s loads of stuff going on around it but the central sections are sufficiently secluded to be peaceful but also open enough to be able to keep an eye on what is going on with the rest of the world. I sometimes come here at lunch.

Anyhow, the 2004 Clio performed pretty well. It was great catching the train to work, driving around using a new (to me) car I don’t have to pay for, then going down to the pub after work and having a few drinks before catching the train home. I think I will have to try out the other Clio and the Yaris at some point. I might even go so far as to have a go in one of those electric thingies.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Internet dependency

So are you addicted to the internet? (Via).

Q. How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the internet?

A. Erm, sorry? What?

Q. How often do you fear that life without the internet would be boring, empty, and joyless?

A. All the time! What would I do at work?

My score was 34 by the way.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Lightningfield

I stumbled across Lightningfield about a month ago and it almost instantly made it to the links section on the blog and my own RSS feed (and that does not happen very often at all). If you haven’t explored its basically a photo blog of varying images caught by the author. Not very interesting you may think.

However the quality and composition of the photos is absolutely staggering. Perhaps some or all of them are photoshopped but that doesn’t really matter. The shots capture the moment so well and are so well constructed it rarely fails to have an impact. The photos generally aren’t of anything in particular, just regular everyday stuff which is what makes it all the more engaging. Have a look, and I would say take some time to actually look, don’t just scroll through.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Flying for flyings sake

So Bng’s getting married soon. And of course there is the obligatory stag do, ‘the staggering’ as I have termed it, that happens a few weekends beforehand. The staggering is being held in somewhere called Blackpool. This apparently is a fair trek from my south eastern-centric domain along the London-Maidenhead parallax as it appears that this Blackpool is located on the north west coast above somewhere called Wales.

I am not relishing the idea of driving up to Blackpool especially seeing as I recon it will take about 4-5 hours I estimate given that I will be going up on a Friday and having to battle through the M42 round Birmingham and returning on Sunday, after invariable excesses, driving is probably going to be about the last thing I am going to want to do. So I thinks to myself, what are my alternatives.

Fly was my first thought. Blackpool apparently has an airport (not sure quite why mind). I am about a 30 minute train journey from Heathrow so if flights run from there to Blackpool that would be spot on. Sadly, Heathrow is far too important to fly to anywhere as yocal as Blackpool. Oh well, but I can fly from Stanstead. However despite being touted as ‘London’ Stanstead it is actually more like Chelmsford airport being stuck in the middle of Essex so thats hardly convinient. In any case it only has two flights a day, one way early in the morning (0700ish) and the other way late at night (2200ish) in both directions which doesn’t fit with my schedule.

So I thought about the train instead. As I have to go through London and invariably being there already (at work) can shave 30 minutes off my journey time. However querying the fares reveals its going to cost between £65 and £345 return (ok so that last one is a first class open return) which is totally beyond the pail given that its like £20 to fly from Stanstead.

So I started playing about with flights again. I could fly from London Gatwick to Dublin, connect at Dublin to a flight to Blackpool. Cost £33 there, £23 back (+taxes) for both flights. The connection times stack up too (just barely). This is ridiculous. I could fly to Blackpool, via Dublin for less than the cost of the train. It’s faster too, although this does not factor in check-in time and getting from Maidenhead to Gatwick. Even so this is somewhat crazy. I am almost tempted to do it just because the whole thing is so delightfully daft.

Can you imagine; ‘so Nick what did do you at the weekend?’ Well I flew out to Dublin and then got on another plane and flew back to the UK into Blackpool. It looks like I might also be able to do this via Amsterdam too.

Ok, so in fairness when you add airport taxes, travel costs to and from the airport and factor in check in time and actually getting to the airport it is more expensive and takes longer but even so I think this a somewhat damning expose on the state of the country’s rail network.

Or I could just charter a turbo-prop aircraft from Biggin Hill to Blackpool for the sum of circa two grand.

Back in the real world, it looks like I am driving then.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Erm, guys, erm...

Erm, does anyone else think that there is something a little bit wrong about this? (Via) (in case you were wondering). I would love to see the sales pitch for this one.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Chavshire

I have a theory. It’s a theory about chavs. I think they come from or are attracted to Heathrow Airport. Here, look at my technical diagram (click to enlarge):


See, draw a circle round Heathrow Airport and you hit almost all the chav hot spots in one go. There’s Slough, Windsor, Hanwell, Feltham, Isleworth, Hounslow, Hayes, West Drayton and of course, Staines. All meccas of chav with their large Council estates, second hand BMW garages, street traders selling knock-off rolexes and branches of JJB sports and Matalan aplenty. Chavshire.

I wonder what it is about Heathrow Airport that draws the chavs to this region. Perhaps its so they can be in close proximity to the airport to be able to go away for weekends in Benidorm, or perhaps it’s the pretty colours of the aeroplanes that they can marvel at from their elevated flats in tower blocks, or maybe they like the aircraft noise to drown out the sound of their own children whinging about the playstation.

Now you will see that immediately around Chavshire are a selection of nice places without too many chavs infesting them. Places like Richmond, Kingston, Esher, Kensington, Chelsea, Ascot, Harrow and oh, look at that, Maidenhead. However there are a few holes around the edges, principally at Ruislip, Greenford and Bracknell which are all pretty chavy.

So I conclude they must be escaping to the rest of the country along these routes. Again I have drawn a diagram to illustrate my point:


So in order to keep them in Chavshire what we need to do is put in some anti-chav measures at these weak points. We need to open up some National Trust parks, build some libraries and education centres and install some branches of John Lewis and Waitrose around the perimeter. Chav-repellents.

Then we open up a few new branches of Chicagos (the chav church) around Heathrow Airport and they will all go there to flee from their fear of the chav-repellents around the borders and they will stay there and we will have them nicely parcelled away and contained in Chavshire. I think it sounds like an excellent plan, perhaps I will start a petition.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Casual Friday Thursday

For the past four years nearly I have gone to work wearing a suit, shirt, tie and smart shoes, without exception. My previous employer was fairly strict on looking smart and presenting a professional image to members of the public which I must say I do agree with.

However, my new employer has a different approach. Seemingly being that if you turn up to work that is a good thing. If you are reasonably competent and are smartly presented for members of the public they seem to be way happy. So last Friday, having no meetings or any chance of contact with members of the public (no meetings or site visits), I rolled into work wearing jeans, a T-shirt and my favourite new hoody. And nobody at work blinked an eye-lid.

I thought that I would feel odd and unprofessional in this attire but not actually seeing anyone I had to impress face-to-face totally discounted this and my initial weirdness of being at work in ‘comfy’ clothes rapidly dissolved in, well, a matter of seconds as I answered the phone and issued the same high quality planning advice that I always do (he says modestly).

I would like to say that my own personal attention to detail means that I won’t be turning up in casuals too often but I have to say being at work in comfortable clothes and being with people I don’t need to impress (aside from ‘the management’) makes me want to reconsider this.

As a result, today, with accurate forecasts of the hottest day of the year so far and knowing I had to do a number of (unaccompanied) site visits on foot I rolled into work wearing my skinny yellow T-shirt and blue shorts which caused a bit of a stir. So perhaps there are limits to what I can wear at work. Virtually nothing and in bright colours perhaps being one of those limits.

However, casual day does seem to offer a solution to the dry cleaning conundrum.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

This is not a good situation

I got home this evening to find a hand delivered letter pushed under my front door, not with regular mail, marked ‘Important Notice.’ It was direct from my landlord and to paraphrase stated the following:

‘… Long story short, the management company have gone bust. Your rent payments are not coming to me as they should and your deposit is at risk. Please do not pay this months rent to them. If you have set up a bank transfer or have written cheques I suggest you cancel them… We can work out further arrangements to protect you and myself from further losses at this time over the next week or so.’

Now I am not about to take some supposedly important letter at face value so checked my contract and the names on the contract and this letter tally. Additionally a visit to the management company’s offices on the High Street reveal that they are abandoned with only a few tables and chairs left and a pile of post in the doorway with a helpful sign from the folks next door posted on the door saying you can ask them about the company’s demise (although they were closed when I visited). The situation therefore appears to stack up as per the letter.

I have cancelled my rental payment and sent a brief and noncommittal email to my landlord to confirm receipt of his letter and that I have cancelled rental payments through the management company. However, what has happened to my deposit? I paid out in the excess of a grand on that and I am not about to let that just slide.

I got home at about six and have only just stopped shaking probably thanks in no small part to a very large glass of wine.

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Fish bowl of stupidity

So I see that that chuffing idiot David Blane is doing something pointless again. Namely sitting in a fish bowl for a week, or something like that. I am sure in the USA this entirely redundant exercise will be met with awe and wonder. Personally I felt the situation when he was in London in 2003 in that glass box thingy was much better. Especially when people starting throwing hamburgers and bacon sandwiches at him. That little spectacle also contributed to him being voted as 2003s biggest looser.

Anyhow, I digress, so what is the point of this fish bowl he’s sitting in? He gets air (unfortunately) and food through a tube and the water is kept at a nice warm temperature so what is the challenge or spectacle of this? He’s basically just sitting in a bath for a week. As far as I can see the biggest challenge is going to be where to take a crap.

So here is a list of things that I think would make this a more interesting challenge:

Add some of that chemical to the water that turns purple when you pee
Put a jellyfish in the tank
Add a giant tea bag and some milk
Empty the tank of water, put it in the middle of the pacific ocean, leave
Get everyone in the whole world to just totally ignore him

Monday, May 01, 2006

The London effect

Working in London I come across a lot of people trying to get money out of me. This ranges from beggars sitting outside shop windows with cardboard box cut out signs displaying ‘homeless, hungry, please help,’ people asking for a quid to get the bus home (you should have thought about the return fare when you went out) to people from a variety of charities asking for a donation to people invasively trying to sell mobile phones, sandwiches, the big issue, stolen season tickets and tattoos (yeah, because I am likely to want to stop and get an impromptu tattoo from some guy on the street).

I have to put up with this crap on a daily basis and have found the best way to deal with this is to totally ignore all these people. No eye contact. No conversation. No acknowledgement that they even exist. Walk straight past. This may sound a little harsh but bear in mind that multiple combinations of these can try to get me from around two to twelve times a day and they rarely take no for an answer and follow you down the street which is pretty rude and so I have managed to justify being rude back. Pre-emptive rudeness if you like.

However, I need to remember that I am not always in London.

This weekend I went shopping at the Oracle Centre in Reading (which for those of you that aren’t up on southern England geography isn’t in London). It was very busy, the ring road was jammed with queuing cars trying to get into car parks. The car parks had queues to find spaces and queues to just get out. I managed to sneak into a less busy car park that my brother showed me a while ago without encountering too much traffic but even so it was a fair hassle.

I found one of the few remaining parking spaces on the top floor of the multi-storey and having parked the car proceeded to get my ‘display in window’ ticket.

At the ticket meter was a young girl. As I went for the ticket machine she asked me ‘please can you spare some change I have come out without any?’ I was in London mode with all the traffic and people and hassle so I totally ignored her. I don’t just mean I looked at her and didn’t respond or said sorry I haven’t got any change (although this would have been a little weak seeing as I had a hand full of change for feeding into the meter). The request for money triggered an instinct reaction to disregard that person entirely. I looked through her and carried on as if she wasn’t even there. Literally, it was as if that what she said failed to register as any kind of input or stimulus. I stuck my change in the meter (although now feeling her eyes on my back) got my ticket and started to walk away.

I walked past the girl. She was standing in exactly the same position she was in when I had walked ‘through’ her. Two other people had started to queue at the ticket machine whilst I was getting mine but she wasn’t accosting them for change. She was stony quiet and rigid in the same position I had more than ignored her in, staring at me and looking more than a little jilted.

Of course it took my brain a few more steps to put all this together and by then I had walked past the girl. She was genuinely short of change, she had, like me, fought past the ring road, found a parking space, gone to the meter to pay for her ticket and realised she had no change. Rather than go through the busy ring road and parking ticket hassle she had tried to fall upon a stranger for some gentle assistance…. me. And I acted like she didn’t exist. It wasn’t so much as I was just rude, that would imply that I acknowledged she was there at all. I disregarded her entirely. And from the expression on her face as I left the ticket machine I think really messed with her day.

I know I can be abrupt at many times but having to battle past people trying to force money out of me on a near daily basis has clearly added an extra layer of generic cynicism. Three months ago I may well have said no to this girl’s request for money but I probably would have tempered that with a bit of sympathy and common courtesy.

So, sorry to girl at ticket machine near the Oracle Centre, Reading at circa 2pm on Saturday, I thought I was in London and I do feel pretty awful about it.