Monday 29 October 2007

The Right Angle

Rather lovely interface for perusing random Flickr pictures. Click to zoom, flip and refresh:What do you mean, "Why?". Just because you can. Tsk.

From .ad To .za

Another gem via strange maps; the world 'sliced and diced' by ccTLDs.


Geeky? Yep. But cool? Hell yeah, I want the poster :)

Thursday 25 October 2007

Seven Up

It wouldn't be right to let the week pass without comment on Arsenal's 7-0 demolition of Slavia Prague in the Champions League on Tuesday. Free-flowing attacking football of the highest order at its absolute finest. The Czech champions didn't know what had hit them; they even went and apologised to their army of travelling fans at the end of the game. Two for Fabregas, two for Walcott and my man-of-the-match Hleb involved in absolutely everything.

I think my favourite was the 6th goal; from a Slavia corner at one end to a bulging net at the other in just over fourteen seconds, involving six different players and ending with an assured finish from Cesc who had run the length of the pitch to get on the end of it. Awesome.

Yes, I know style <> trophies and we haven't won anything yet. But let's enjoy the journey and keep the faith. Remember, "Arsene knows".

All The Fun Of The Fairtilizer

Strange name, but excellent site for new original music, remixes and covers:


Stumbled across it via a Klaxons version of No Diggity by BLACKstreet(!) which is in this playlist of interesting covers which also includes two versions of Gin And Juice (one lounge and one country), an electro Song 2 and Robyn's gentle pizzicato take on Since U Been Gone:


Cool embedded (yes, Flash) player too :)

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Makes You Wand-er

We all suspected it, didn't we? Anyway, I'm going to get one of these for Rowan (the biggest Potter fan I know) for Christmas:

Wednesday 17 October 2007

CLOG clog

These are awfully sweet:


Although obviously it negates the effect of dancing around really fast and them falling off howling with laughter and wanting to go again. Perhaps they frown on that kind of thing in Finland :)


However, they also have these and these. Heh!

Dali-ston Junction

Nicely observed.


"On other trips, I've seen a woman waft a man with handfuls of cash, a giant offer a businessman a plateful of jelly and a mischievous squirrel attempt to leave a box on a man's shoulder. I've sat in a train and been eyed up by gawping giants. Watched a pair of eyes roll by the carriage windows, sneaking a peak at a commuter's paper in the time-honoured tradition. Before I can point this out to anyone, as if by magic, I'm suddenly back again. Like Mr Benn, with a token souvenir of his dressing room travels, all I have left are these pictures."

[via Going Underground]

Monday 15 October 2007

W3 Compliant


Today is Blog Action Day. Regrettably, I mis-read this online call-to-arms and so prepared the below.
Acton is now a suburb of West London about 5 miles from the centre, and well within the built-up area, but for the greater part of its history, consisted of only a small cluster of houses around the medieval Church of St. Mary's, providing refreshment for travellers on the road from London to Oxford.

A settlement at Acton is mentioned in the Doomsday book of 1086, and the church of St. Mary's is first recorded in the early 13th Century. The original medieval chapel was enlarged by the building of a nave, and much later a tower.

Acton is now changing, with media and lighter industry taking over from the heavy industry. With easy access to Central London, Acton remains a popular place to live, with new housing being built at many sites.
Sorry.

Costume Drama

I received a lovely phishing email this morning, claiming to be from the Costumer Service Department of The NationWide UK Bank plc (sic).

Loving the idea that my bank might have an entire department dedicated to fitting staff for their lovely mauve polyester uniforms :)

Thursday 11 October 2007

Makin' Woopie*

Coo, it must be Antonia week:

Woopie* Infant Cushion Costume

Those merkins do go a bit bonkers at Hallowe'en, don't they...hang on, that lobster looks rather familiar!

* (sic) - obviously the delicious irony of that spelling error is not lost on me.

P.S. Solveig - can we get this for Freyja....nana....nana....nana....nana....

Overheard #26

Pseuds corner:
So yes, I recognised the bells in that track, rather than any implied contrapuntality.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Soliloquy To An Anonymous Audience

You know how I feel about it, but Alice Mathias puts it thus:


"We might feel invulnerable in the spotlight, but we don’t want to be caught sitting in someone else’s audience."

Monday 8 October 2007

The Link's Affect*

For my fellow Obergrammarführer, Antonia:

* oh come on, I thought that was quite good...

Sunday 7 October 2007

Guess The Weight #2

So, talking of offspring, in case anyone was not yet aware, Solveig is pregnant again! And what do we do to celebrate this wonderful news?

We gamble.

Last time, I ran a small sweepstake for people to guess the date, weight and sex of the bump that was Freyja (22 Dec 2005 / 6 lb 10 oz / girl) and this time will be no different.

Apart from the technology.

I've set up an online form for people to submit their guesses (powered by DabbleDB in case you were interested) with automagically updating list and calendar views (there may even be a fancy chart soon).

Good luck! There's a bottle of champagne for the winner...

Saturday 6 October 2007

Check One-Two

As you may have noticed, I generally leave any documentation of the progress of our offspring to Solveig; she is much better at it, being a) female and b) not addicted to puns. However, I thought I might drop into the mix here that Freyja is a mathematical genius!

OK, to clarify that slightly, she says "One....Two...." if you ask her to count for you*. But clearly, as an ex-sound engineer, this new-found skill makes me incredibly proud. I'm sure it won't be long before she is suggesting we "knock a couple of dB out at 800Hz", "pop a spoffle** on the overheads" and "make the vocals less brown".

It also reminds me of one of my favourite jokes:
Why do sound engineers only say "one, two; one, two"?
Because on 'three' they might have to lift something.
Yeah, you had to be there...

* she also says "One....Two...." if you ask her what colour a dog is but I shall gloss over that for now.

** a word allegedly invented by Hugh Laurie whilst doing an interview for BBC Radio with Stephen Fry and which has passed into common usage in the audio industry; brilliant.

Swing Low

I am not the world's biggest rugby fan.

This possibly may have something to do with having sustained two broken ribs playing in my first ever game. Aged 13 and new to the school, I was placed at hooker by the games master who suggested that my 'excellent football skills' meant I would be 'useful with my feet' in the scrum. Well he was not wrong. At one of the early scrums, I adeptly hooked the ball back to our Number 8 against the head*. In the ensuing melée, I suddenly received a sharp blow to the chest area from the boot and/or fist and/or elbow of a rather annoyed (and much larger than me) member of the opposition front row. Unable to breathe, I collapsed in a heap and was carted off to the Sanitorium (yes, it was quite a posh school...) where I was tended to by the matronly, er, Matron and subsequently packed off to York General Hospital for X-rays.

Broken ribs are horrible. You can't laugh, cough or breathe properly**. They just 'need time to heal'. So that got me off games for about 6 weeks, during which time I started to learn the saxophone and decided to form a band.

But that's another story. The main reason for this post is the scoreline England 12-10 Australia in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup this afternoon; a bit of an upset, if truth be told, given that the Wallabies were clear favourites for the tournament. So jolly well done, chaps. Splendid result. No reason why you can't go on and repeat the heroics of 2003...

...just don't, in your desperation for non-injured, even half-fit, partly-English players, ask me to come in at hooker :)

* winning the ball on the opposition put-in at a scrum, in case you were wondering.

** oh, I forgot sneezing; that's the worst. 'Atchooooooooooooooofuckthathurts'.

Monday 1 October 2007

Take The Last Graph Home

Another nice little last.fm widget - this one charts the evolution of your last.fm listening profile over time (output as SVG or PDF). Admittedly you have to wait for it to process (current queue length = 136) and mine was a 3Mb PDF!


Interesting to see at a glance how your tastes have changed (or not...ahem)

Lego Of That Tray

Thanks to Duck_Bitz (long story) for alerting me to the Lego versions of Eddie Izzard routines:


Loads more here including old favourites 'Cake or Death' and 'James Bond'.

*applause*

Sweet As Suga

I have to admit to the reading public (yes, all four of you) that I have a soft spot for the Sugababes and in particular their new track (as of yesterday, Britain's Number #1 single), "About You Now":


And it comes as no surprise to anyone with their finger vaguely on the pulse of finely crafted pop to discover that it was written by Cathy Dennis.

Rubbish video, mind :) I mean, yellow?