bignoseduglyguy

No smoke without fire in the hole

It seems that the conspiracy theorists out there are can see smoke coming from the fire in the hole I mentioned yesterday. Mancunian Mulders and Skullys seem intent on convincing themselves that the fire was in an old abandoned Cold War A-bomb proof telephone exchange. Quite how that has any great import on the story, I cannot say but it spices it up a little and did take me to a great site concerning Cold War history in Manchester and the very same Guardian Underground Telephone Exchange. The photos of the construction have an evocative austere post-war feel to them, hinting at the very real fear and concern some folks felt at the time.

Virtual friends 1 & 2

My fine Finnish friend, Urge The Scourge, rock chick extraordinaire and all-round good sport has risen to my virtual model challenge and submitted her virtual likeness. As a married man, I am unable to comment on the likeness but if you visit the Ilosaarirock rock festival near Joensuu this summer and the weather's hot, you might just see her thrashing around on the top of a speaker stack dressed like this!

2004-03-29 20:10:37

Ian has joined in the fun with his tonsorially challenged likeness - nice shirt and tie though.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Good
A crisp green salad with an olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing.

The Bad
Rare steak, topped with slices of strong blue cheese and finished to medium-rare in a very hot oven for 6 minutes.

The Ugly
My arteries, if I eat this delicious combination too often.

Fire in the hole

Today has been a busy day at work so I am actually taking a lunch break so I can take a breather. After an early morning call from an on-duty colleague, I and my colleagues have been working to minimise the impact of this tunnel fire which has affected 130,000 phone and data communications cables in the centre of Manchester.

Big Shop Of Horrors

I have just returned from a DVD rental foray at our local supermarket and I am now more convinced than ever that supermarket entrances are specifically designed to be the human equivalent of fish traps. I am sure these are designed by sadistic sociopathic architects who just scraped a 2nd at uni, shouldn't be allowed to do anything but window details for 'executive-style' Barratt Homes and yet still believe they will be the next Le Corbusier or Richard Rogers.

First of all, the trolley park is about 20 feet from the main doors, which means that folks returning trolleys collide with folks taking trolleys creating a tense, edgy Disney On Ice like vortex from which it is hard to break free. Once this has been negotiated, you head through the only working set of automated sliding doors. This is made a little more difficult by the fact that the second set of sliding doors on the inner side of the lobby are offset to the left, meaning that everyone heads for the left hand side outer door on the way in and the right hand side door on the way out. Breaching these outer defences means that the shopper is suddenly propelled into the no-man's land of the lobby.

The lobby is an area fraught with hazards for those intent on getting to the actual shop part of the building. The first obstacle will be olfactory assault of the urine and citrus fresh disinfectant emanating from the toilets, where the 'Last Cleaned By A Colleague' sheet on the back of the doors read '01/02/2002'. Reeling from this, you spin into the beige-coated gaggle of old people with their shallow 'no stoop' trolleys. These Saga louts receive secret increased winter fuel allowances in return for discussing banal and trivial matters just inside the front doors. Such conversations include Millie Ellington's colostomy bag (it sloshes audibly when half full), Eric Leadbetter's fling with the 57 year old divorcee (you know, the one with the sixth finger who works in the betting shop) and the latest on the new caller at the bingo hall ('Er at the launderette says she used to be a tax inspector called Andrew).

Lying just beyond these harridans and harpies will be the inevitable charity collectors, armed with collecting tins and crappy stickers. If you're lucky, you will be confronted by Elizabeth, a brusk grey-haired woman wearing a 'Forest Green' National Trust fleece, maroon M&S stretch cords and a pair of Clarks EzeFlex slip-ons. Proudly wearing her approved collector identity card like a badge of honour, she'll look you up and down, assessing your annual salary (not including overtime or bonus) and lining you up for the kill whilst rattling her tin. If you're having a bad day, your deft dummy move to outflank her will take you slap bang into the wheelchair of her obese, disabled and militant colleague called Simon. Simon will happily work the sympathy/guilt angles on shoppers all day long before making a last triumphant tour of the disabled parking bays where he'll plaster any car displaying the requisite Blue Badge but an incorrectly set cardboard clock with stickers declaring "You've got my space! Do you want my disability too?".

Should you spot Simon and make a second swerve to outflank him, you'll undoubtedly give yourself a 'dead leg' mid thigh on the strategically placed table piled high with last month's copy of the in-store magazine. This organ, written and edited by journalists who couldn't get a job on a red top, will always contain the following items: an interview with Richard Briers, a recipe for salmon and creme fraiche linguine and a women's health article entitled '10 Ways To Combat Thrush With Yoghurt'. Deafened by the pensioners, gagging from the smell and financially bereft from donating, your gaze falls upon the basket stack just inside the inner doors and the calm, serene vegetable section beyond. As you push forward in a last desperate attempt to enter then store, your vision is blocked by something. You move left and it moves with you, you move right and it mirrors and so, out-manoeuvred, you raise your eyes to meet those of the retail sector's equivalent of an Butlins Redcoat - the store's Greeter.

Resplendent in a vibrantly coloured nylon blazer plastered with badly enamelled badges, the wearer has been chosen for this crucial role because of their 'customer focus' and as a reward for their 'valued years of service'. Unbearably chirpy and with the kind of wink that Neil Hannon sang about in 'National Express', they bombard the battle weary shopper with inane banter and double entendres, breaking off every now and then to utilise their staff of office, the radio microphone. They never seem happier than when they are empowered to extol the virtues of nearly-passed-their-sell-by-date hot cross buns or over-ordered-and-laughably-cheap garden furniture via a sound system that was clearly designed for platform announcements at King's Cross. Mumbling something to the effect of 'Yes, isn't it?' as the greeter says 'Nice weather' (why are you even telling me? I've just been outside but you've been inside for hours), you grab the last basket and stagger into the comparative calm of the store. It is at that exact moment, as you stand trying to catch your breath whilst watching something dripping through the mesh of the basket onto your suede boots, that you remember. You left the DVD on the passenger seat of the car.

Talking of DVDs, I returned Animal Factory and rented 25th Hour. Animal Factory wasn't quite what I thought it would be. Maybe I had greater expectations of Steve Buscemi as a director but I didn't feel that it quite worked, despite a fine cast and an interesting premise. I'll have to grab a copy of Trees Lounge because that seems to be held as a far better representation of his work as a director. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to watching '25th Hour' this afternoon whilst SWMBO takes the sprogs to watch Scooby Doo 2 with another family. Having never come across the film before, I was intrigued by the plotline on the case, namely a man ties up loose ends in the hours before beginning a 7 year prison sentence. Upon handing it over the counter, the rental assistant checked the case and nodded sagely - well, as sagely as one does if one is late teens/early twenties - and said 'Good film...slow but good'. I have enjoyed a number of Ed Norton's performance before so hopefully this one will not disappoint. I'll end with the not very interesting fact that Ed Norton was born in Columbia, Maryland, where an acquaintance of mine lives.

Bozidar Benc

Absent minded surfing has a downside as I have just discovered whilst wandering through MyPalmLife.com. Scrolling through the posts, I came to an abrupt and shocked halt upon reading of the untimely death of Bodizar Benc. I didn't know him but, like thousands of Palm users worldwide, I have long been a user of his software and am grateful for his dedication to the PalmOS and the skillful coding that make his applications a pleasure to use.

The comments on this PIC post say a great deal about the affection in which Bodizar was held.

f-stop and start again

I empathise with the dilemma that Squonk lays out in his Photo Finish? post. Bought a medium to high end Minolta and a few lenses, did all the usual stuff but then graudually drifted away from snapping. The interest was rekindled again when I bought a small Kodak digital camera three years back to record the first hours and days of sprog #3 but soon diminished to infrequent use to record birthday-cake-candle-blowings-out. More recently I have been enjoying the delights of using the still and video modes on my SPV E200 phone to capture bits and bobs and have got a few ideas for little projects that I can have a go at - including a multi-mini episode drama filmed entirely on a phone camera.

Virtual bignoseduglyguy

Having accidentally stumbled upon the link, I spent a little time this morning over at My Virtual Model rustling up a fairly decent facsimilie of myself. It was not quite as easy as it first appeared. Firstly, one has to work within the obvious limitations of the software and 'boilerplate' face/hair/body-type options available though there are enough of these to get quite close to a decent approximation. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, one then has to wrestle with the thorny question of the 'honesty' of the model. Do you trim a little here and touch up a little there or do you bare your soul with a 'warts and all' portrait? I have erred towards that latter, though if I am honest the model is probably a few pounds under my real weight (12½ stone).

This makes me wonder if any regular readers would care to reciprocate and add a link to their Virtual Model in a comment? It doesn't have to be like the near-nek-ed one above, which was gratuitously added to show lady readers what I look like in my 'George at ASDA' skivvies.

Coffee with conscience

In a laudable initiative reported in the latest edition of Triangle, the magazine for members of the YHA, many of the Association's hostels are introducing Traidcraft coffee and hot chocolate.

As a long time Traidcraft buyer, I can confirm that the quality (which, admittedly, was a tad iffy years back) is now second to none. A second opinion can be had from ALE-FAN
who also writes about Traidcraft in his March blogs.

Bush looks up own fundament - shock

In the picture that accompanies the BBC's piece on Bush's backfiring Iraq WMDs joke, it rather appropriately shows Bush looking up his own arse or so it would seem.

Fellow muppet Donald Rumsfeld was asked what he thought of this incident but he said that he couldn't comment as he hadn't been at the event concerned. Strange that, seeing as he had bloody shedloads to say about the war in Iraq but wasn't at that event either.

It *was* the UnReal Thing

Dasani is deceasedi.

Janet and John Redux

Are you of a certain age? Did you go to school in the '60s or '70s? Ever read a LadyBird Book? If you answered 'Yes' to all three or at least the last one, you'll love Posy Simmonds' latest 'Literary Life' strip in Guardian Unlimited Books entitled "Complete the following...".

Got an hour to kill? Check out the rest of her Guardian archive.

Brain (crouton) surgery*

There's much fun to be had from this story, which I first heard on London 94.9 this morning.

First, there's the BBC strapline, which reads:

Surgeon suspended over soup claim

which conjures up an image of a quack dangling over a large cauldron of streaming leek and potato soup. Then there's the fact that The Daily Mail can get so much mileage out of the fact that a neurosurgeon earning £80,000 might just have snaffled an extra helping of croutons for his lunch without paying for them. No Pulitzer Prize winner this, but it made me chuckle.

*With apologies to Emerson, Lake & Palmer

The things we say...

Sprog #3 (to me, whilst watching a vicar in a pub in My Family): You haven't got a religion...you go to pubs instead.

Sigh.

Peanuts

I am Franklin!

Apparently, I have the soul of a brother.
Neat.

Which Peanuts Character are You?

In reference to referrals

If, like me, you use Stephen Downes' immensely popular referral script, a post on his discussion page confirms that it is down at this time.

What price a good time?

JUDGEMENTAL RANT ON
I suspect that every parent occasionally and secretly wishes for the odd childless moment, when they can swap the weight of responsibility and constant vigilance for freedom and spontaneity. However, doing this is simply beyond belief. It seems strangely ironic that a club doorman (folk usually cast as thugs or pantomime villains) was the good citizen and voice of reason in this instance. I may work long hours away from my kids and shout at them occasionally but I hope I never sink so low. Yes, I know I don't know the full story blah blah blah but I have read enough.
JUDGEMENTAL RANT OFF

Don't drink and (hard)drive

Over lunch, I checked recent comments and came across one from ALEFAN, which brought his site to my attention. As I have been known to quaff the odd ale or three, it was no hardship to spend time looking at the festival reviews and tasting comments, savouring the descriptions and wishing I was down the pub.

One post in his blog then led me to this marriage of two of my favourite pastimes. All I need now is a combined workstation/bathroom/bed and I'll be sorted.

It's the UnReal Thing

The news-hungry amongst you will know all too well that the dust has only just settled after the 'revelations' that Coke's UK brand of bottled water, Disani, is in fact tap water from Kent. Coke defend their tapwater-into-wine tricks by asserting that their "reverse osmosis" technique,"perfected by Nasa", filters the (tap)water further before minerals are added to "enhance the pure taste" and, presumably, justify the 3000% markup. Today, Coke are recalling half a million bottles because that "pure taste" includes illegal levels of bromate, a salt which is a by-product of, yes you guessed it, certain water purification processes.

The Drinking Water Inspectorate's (UK's self-styled 'Guardians of Drinking Water Quality') terse response to the Dasani bottled water exploit seems to bear out what we all know - tap water is fine and bottled water is great when you can't get tap water, so I'll continue to fill my bottle with Thames Water water until I hear otherwise.

Manager bashing

Tom highlights The Manager FAQ in his blog. Tom, some of us managers are human - and that stuff can hurt our feelings, you know.

Today today

BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme provided a couple of nuggets this morning. The 'and, finally...' item in the top of the hour new bulletin was about Microsoft's decision to assist the champions of the Welsh language by releasing MS products in Welsh as well as other 'linguistically diverse' langauges such as Gujarati and Tamil in India, Catalan in Spain, and Bahasa in Malaysia - as flagged by The Register some time back. Scratch the surface of the story and you'll find that the software giant's altruism doesn't stretch that far, for the appearance of Welsh/Gujerati/Tamil/Catalan/Bahasan "Start" menu and other select commands in about six months is about all folks who speak these languages can expect.

The other nugget came during Jim Naughtie's post-budget interviewing of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Towards the end of the interview, after Naughtie had pressed Brown in his usual assertive manner on several issues, a mobile phone was heard to ring unanswered in a pocket somewhere in the studio. Shortly after, the chirrup of a pager could be heard. Was Gordon's best mate/worst enemy Tony calling to flag a concern? More likely is the scenario that the Whips or Chairman of the PLP were trying to prevent Brown from uttering any soundbites that could come back and haunt him during the run-up to the next election, or after even. If you have the time and the inclination, you could probably hear this for yourself with Radio 4's ListenAgain service

The things we say...

Me (to sprog): I love you dearly...and I love you moose-ly...and I love you elk-ly...and I love you bison-ly...and I love y...
Sprog (departing room and distancing self from me): You're mad.

Feed need deed

AmphetaDesk out. Bloglines in. Despite the fact that it will probably move to a fee-based service at some point, Bloglines allows me to read my feeds at any PC - which is a plus and I prefer the layout and presentation.

The things we say...

Management colleague (speaking to staff member who is requesting time off to take car with blown head gasket and water leak to the garage): Don't you ever check the water level in the engine?
Staff member: Only when the windscreen washers don't work.
Management colleague (as he signs off the leave request): whimper...

Take it as read

Bonnie Greer has written a a great piece in The Guardian Weekend concerning the role of television in boosting book sales and authors popularity. Whilst interactive literary television events such as the BBC's The Big Read undoubtedly raise the general level of consciousness of the written word/world amongst the watching millions, it would seem that vehicles focused on lower common denominators have a more far-reaching effect.

Both Oprah's Books, a web based spin-off 'book club' endorsed by the eponymous TV chat show host and Richard and Judy's UK equivalent have had a massive effect on the sales of the books chosen or shortlisted for review by the programme producers. 'Star of the Sea' By Joseph O’Connor shot from 350th to 1st in the UK book sales charts in just seven days after getting the Richard and Judy treament, showing a 350% increase in sales, sales that neither author nor publisher could have dared dream of beforehand. On-screen reviews by Greer and Bob Geldof had been largely responsible for this and the author had the good grace to accept this and thank them. Greer writes that a thumbs up from Oprah will easily increase sales eight-fold, such is the power of her endorsement. It is easy to be snobbish about 'literature' and forget that literacy is something that situation and circumstance deny many millions around the world. Like Greer before her involvement in The Big Read, many learned and well-educated folk sneer at television and cinema, looking down their noses at these inferior and base offspring. However, these audio-visual arrivistes are jointly responsible for much of the so-called literature revival, through the seeming endless Bronte bonk-buster adaptations and more original spin-doctoring of the classics, like the recent updated Chaucer offerings in the UK.

I have read voraciuously all my life and need little encouragement to pick up a book or read a short story[1] and it is much the same with SWMBO. The sprogs will devour the latest by Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt (though not J.K. Rowling thankfully) like piranha stripping flesh from a corpse - they are the only kids who get frequent flyer miles from the local library. As far as I am concerned, anything that helps bring books alive and into people's lives should be a good thing. Having said that, I am not entirely convinced that Oprah and Richard & Judy's book clubs are much more than lifestyle statements, with the latest 'recommended' book becoming as essential an accessory as a mobile phone, iPod or PDA. Talking of which, I have used Palm PDAs for years and yet still can't get as enthused about ebooks as I do about the paper variety. I bought FASTER: the acceleration of just about everything as an ebook and have yet to complete the first chapter, Pacemaker. Maybe I don't spend enought time in queues, on trains or in other situations that provide ideal reading opportunities. By preference, I like to read in bed, in the quiet of the night with a book propped up on my knees, knocking off at least one or two chapters a night unless I'm absolutely dog tired or a little 'over-refreshed'. Mind you, at 1300 pages, my current read, Robert Littel's The Company: A Novel of the CIA, is a bastard to hold comfortably in any position, especially when my RSI is acting up at the end of a long day (I have even considered taking a sharp knife to it to halve the bulk - was it the dissidents and refusniks in Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich that shared books like this or was it Allied POWs in World War Two?). Such trifles don't stop me reading until the early hours though, with half of me loving yet cursing the magnetic draw of the page-turning plot and the other (sensible) half knowing I'll pay the price for the lack of sleep later the next day. Now if I could read whilst I was asleep, that'd be a thing...

[1] As a lido lifeguard during teenage summer holidays, I thought I had seen and heard it all when it came to how unhygienic swimming pools are but it would seem I only scratched the surface. If you fancy testing your resolve, your gag reflex and love of the short story format, you might like to spend ten open-mouthed minutes reading Chuck Palahniuk's GUTS, the only piece of fiction I have seen carrying a 'Not for the squeamish or for children' warning.

Searching questions

Andy, an fellow Brit Blogger abroad, has had one or two hits on his web site as a result of potentially sinister search strings, especially in light of the atrocities in Madrid earlier in the week. As he points out, it is hard to know what to do when faced with search strings that seem to hint at criminal intent - is the searcher a homicidal nutter or a journo looking for background?

A quick scan through search strings that brought people to this site reveal that most folks get here whilst looking for information about Willliams Syndrome, PDAs and ultralight hiking. However, a few of those that are less mainstream include the culinary "curried goat recipe", the spooky "evil hand" and the far-from-specific "england". However, two hits were as a direct result of someone typing "child+cost+uk". Would that be a soon-to-be parent trying to work out whether they need to swap the two-seater for an MPV or a sex tourist paedophile on the prowl? Though it is tempting to believe it is almost certainly the former, who would really bet against the latter scenario being all too possible these days?

Madrid - 11/03/04

I thought I was having a tough week. Work was challenging and I had no time to blog, play with my geek toys or read my personal emails. Despite best intentions to get away from the office on time, long hours left very little time for immediate family, my Dad and my sister, who have come to town for a four day get-together. Since 0600hrs CET on Thursday, my week doesn't seem so bad after all.

Tales from the front line

To say that FOXPOP is one of my favourite sites would be an overstatement - because I don't really have favourite sites. However, the consistent high standard of the writing there and the issues covered by the contributors there and on their own sites ensure that I return periodically for my fill of thought provoking articles and opinion.

For instance, as a manager in a technical call centre of a large multinational, I was interested to read Frank Maddlone's piece Easy as Hell! concerning the prevailing attitudes in the call centre/technical support fields. Frank raises and tries to answer more than a few questions about the direction in which customer service centres/contact centres/knowledge centres are heading. Furthermore, he touches on a sea change in the morals and ethics of customer service - is it right that those more able to pay are better supported than those who are not? Is that still OK if the those supporting you are doing so from a developing nation where labour is cheaper than it is at home?

I could also very easily despise FOXPOP for, wandering around their pages I have just encountered (not for the first time) Mike Liddell's review of the AirTimer Day Planner and am now having trouble resisting the urge to PayPal my hard earned cash to them in return for one of their extremely practical and well-thought out cases.

Normal service is now resumed

I usually write my blog entries in EditPad Lite as I prefer to hard code my posts in a larger window than my MT bloglet offers. In the last few hours, I have discovered that it doesn't have an auto save/recover feature. How? We had a power cut. Not just our place but everywhere around the Isle Of Dogs as far as I can tell.

At the time, I was several thousand words into a heartfelt and incisive post about stress, working out the frustrations of a crappy day in which all manner of not-so-good stuff happened. That post has disappeared into the ether and I haven't the energy or the impetus to rewrite it. However, the power cut gifted me a great time spent in the company of my eldest two sprogs, who were still awake when the darkness descended.[1] After regaling them with stories of the long power cuts during the dark days of industrial strife in the '70s [2], we spent a happy time poring over old photographs and telling each other awful jokes - such as 'A man goes to see a psychiatrist wearing nothing but clingfilm shorts. The doctor says 'I can clearly see your/you're nuts!"'. By the the time the lights came back on, we'd run out of jokes but had had the best hour or so together for a long while - enough to make me ponder the wisdom of being so attached to all my gadgetry. If I led a simpler life (organic farmer, say), I'm positive I wouldn't miss half this stuff at all. However, for now, I'm happy to have it all to hand.

Lastly, and for anyone else who is likely to be caught in a power cut, I have a cautionary observation to pass on. I was amazed to find that the lack of light somehow managed to reduce the amount of Merlot in my bottle, with more disappearing the longer we were without power. The less enlightened might cynically put this down to being unable to see how much I was pouring by candlelight but those who have seen the light know better. Ahem. I'll stop now.

[1] I'm obviously referring to the lack of illumination rather than the the glam rock band from Norfolk of the same name.
[2] My Dad, who was a consulting engineer in the oil and gas industry back then, had the foresight to install gas lights in the main rooms of our 1930s semi. This meant that such evenings were spent bathed in the amazing yellowy-green misty light that was given off by the old ceramic mantles in the gas lights. I was going to write that I doubted if one can still buy mantles for gas lights, though I even recall the brand name to this day - Veritas. However, Google advises otherwise and threw up this link that show the company alive and well and manufacturing mantles in a town I know and have visited in Malta. What a small and beautifully lit world we live in.

The things we say...

Eldest sprog (seeking writing implements for exams tomorrow): "Where did you put them?"
Me: "On the shelf in the spare room, next to the toy train and my head."*

* It is perhaps pertinent, if less whacky, to know that I meant a clay bust I made 28 years ago.

Family frolics & fab food

It has been an intersting weekend around here. The first significant event occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning when Jessie, one of the three cats in our resident menagerie of eight animals, gave birth to three kittens - for a picture hastily snapped on the new SPV smartphone, click here. She chose to do this in our bedroom cupboard so, whilst we now have the soothing sound of maternal purring and tiny little mewls from the kits as we slumber, during the day we have to literally pussy-foot around so as not to disturb mother and offspring too much. This proved to be a pain when I had to search for my day sac in the very same cupboard earlier today. SWMBO woke me this morning with the pronouncement that she and the kids would not be praising the Lord today and that, instead, we were to spend 'quality time' together geocaching, hence the need to find the day sac with the GPS and cache goodies in. As we haven't been out caching for ages, it took a while for the kids to get fired up but the addition of a sleepover friend (theirs, not mine) who'd never been geocaching before soon had them fighting over the GPS and arguing about which way to go. As it has been cold and rainy, we decided to stay in town and look for urban caches rather than drive out to the sticks and get covered in mud.

The first cache we aimed for turned out to be near the old Royal Mint buildings in the City of London ,where coins of the realm were struck for many years. This proved to be spookily providential for, as we circled the area looking for a way to get closer to the location, I found a soggy but pukka £20 note lying in the gutter. The second cache we sought out was very different in that it took us to an unusual memorial in one of the busiest stations in London. A variety of pictures, letters and toys in display case in the form of a giant glass suitcase, with a bronze statue of a small child next to it, illustrates the story of the Children of the Kindertransport who, as mainly Jewish refugee children, had arrived in London’s Liverpool Street Station in 1938 and 1939. By this time, we were all a little cold and hungry, so we scooted of to the nearby Kingsland Road. Here there are a fair smattering of Vietnamese cafes and restaurants which are always a safe bet, as the sprogs and attendant sleepover friend are all rice and noodle fanatics. Having previously eaten at the excellent Hanoi Cafe, this time we decided to cross the road and try the Tay Do Cafe instead. We were the only non-Vietnamese diners amongst the 5 or 6 parties eating late Sunday lunch so we were confident that we would eat well if other Vietnamese were eating there. The seven of us ate a hearty meal that was mostly based around kid-friendly dishes washed down with fruit juices and the 'home-made' lemonade (which was great). The special and chicken fried rices had lots of meat and the prawn and chicken crispy noodle dishes were packed with green veggies and lovely oyster mushrooms. The service was swift if a little remote. I attribute this to the mess resulting from our less-than-perfect chopstick technique - as evidenced in my first faltering video capture with my smartphone - a 1.4Mb .avi file here. The only downside for me was that the chilli sauce wasn't very hot! After icecreams elsewhere, we dropped sleepover friend back at her home and heading slowly back to ours, bellies bulging. Ninety minutes later, three out of four sprogs were baying for pasta with tomato sauce and grated cheese...bless 'em.

It's playtime

My new 'Dark Side' Windows Mobile Powered cellphone arrived yesterday, a little later than anticipated in this post last month. After a day of hectic meetings, rehiring a friend and colleague from a few years back and a million other things, I walked back into my office to find a matt black box sitting on my desk. As I was heading back across town to meet up with some old work chums, I resisted doing anything more than turning it on and having a quick 5 minute play. As this phone requires an upgraded mobile messaging-enabled SIM card, this morning I placed a call to migrate my service from my trusty but knackered 6310i to the SPV E200. This will happen sometime within the next two hours so I thought I'd post a picture of the contents of the box along with a few brief first impressions.

Left to right - back row: The aforementioned matt black box; the SPV E200 sitting in it's glossy black (USB connector) cradle; the power cable with UK three pin and US/Euro two pin adapter plates - this can plug into the cradle or, using the small converter/connector shown, straight into the phone.
Left to right - middle row: SD add-on card with additional software and games; SIM card package; licenced companion CD with MS ActivSync 3.7 and MS Outlook2002; a "How can I do that?" Orange 'How' guide; the comprehensive guide.
Front row: Stereo headphone and microphone set.

If nothing else, my five minute play around proved to me that this phone might present a steep learning curve as things seem far from intuitive, at least at first glance. The phone is a tri band unit and has the usual features one would expect on a phone these days such as wap, email, voice memo, calculator, vibrating alert, text Messaging and infrared & GPRS data service. Added to this are some higher end toys including a built-in modem, Bluetooth, colour screen, photo and instant messaging, polyphonic ring tones, a built-in video capable camera and MP3 player. All this comes in a unit weighing 130g, running the Windows Mobile operating system which hums along on the 132MHz processor that was first used the precursor E100 phone. Battery life is reported to offer talk times of up to 3 hours and standby of up to three days. A quick rummage round the net confirms that battery life is on the distinctly short side when compared to the 6310i for example. However, a few posts on forii and lists seem to indicate that, over and above the power demands of the colour screen and wide range of applications, the SD card or the blank that is installed by default would seem to be the culprit. Removing them means the phone doesn't use power to poll/read them and this reduces the rate at which the battery drains - for more discussion on this, search Google with 'SPV E200 battery SD card' or see posts and comments here and here. Even more interesting is this post which suggests that the Caller ID Photo application is also a resource hog, as explained in detail in the 'Battery' section of rawfish's review. Well, the two hours is almost up so I'm off to play with my new toy. What's the betting that I break it by teatime?

UPDATE: I suppose that hoping the SPV E200 would play nice with my T3 was just too much to hope for. Whilst basic file transfers over Bluetooth are fine, I am unable to use my T3's communication apps like Dialler and the SMS Message app as their is currently no Palm driver to support the E200. Searching the usual forii has drawn a blank so I'd be glad to hear from anyone who knows different. For now, it's back to IR...

batter blog

funkypancake is a fun place. Nice off-kilter photos taken by Dave, who has a keen eye for a shot and a cool way to work out how old he is.

Not making waves...

...just Ripples, that's the aim of new blogger and fellow GTD & Palm enthusiast, Squonk, a 'music lover working in IT development'.

In the space of a few weeks, Squonk has blogged on subjects as diverse as death, laundry, snow, two-way radio communication and the Zen-like meditative effects of ballroom dancing. Don't take my word for it, pop over, see for yourself and give a fellow blogger a few more 'hits' of encouragement.