As I was making my morning coffee, I was looking at the instant jars, and just thinking about the colours. Caf is usually red (or perhaps black), whereas decaf is usually green. Presumably this is a reflection on society’s attitude to caffeine – red for danger, green is safe! However if you think in terms of “stop” and “go”, it’s quite another story. Anyway, it’s goodbye to 2004, and as usual it only seems like yesterday i was having to remember not to write 2003 on cheques. What an extraordinary year it was; the death of my Dad, birth of […]

Incidently, the reason for the long gap between the last two entries is not laziness/busyness/apathy (for a change), but rather because we’re having our new kitchen fitted, which of course entails turning off the electrics, so I’ve been powering down my Linux server just in case the electrician chose that day to visit. ‘Course I needn’t have bothered, as workmen never worry too much about turning up when they claim they will, so in something like 2 weeks of keeping the server powered down, the sparky came once. Needless to say it’s an annoyance to have to power it down […]

Ben is crawling!!! 🙂 He’s been oh-so-close for a few weeks now, but he definitely managed several succesive leg and arm movements to get across the floor. I know that in real terms this is a pain the bottom, but it’s still exciting. So that’s the weekend fitting stairgates, fireguards, plug covers, …

What a great film this is! I’m a big Pixar film fan in any case, and once again I felt like this film just nailed it. As always the animation is superb, cartoony enough so you’re never distracted into wondering if it’s “real” (although I do have to add that the volcanic island is breath-taking, and at times I did a double-take as to if it was really computer generated..) The characters are also very good, although I didn’t end up caring for Mr. Incredible and co. in quite the same way as I did for, say Nemo or Woody. […]

Well, advent has begun! Advent is one of my favourite times of year, although technically carols are meant to sung between Christmas and Epiphany, I do enjoy singing them, and I love the heavy expectation in the run up to Christmas Day. Traditionally advent is a time of reflection – a bit like Lent – before the joy and celebration of Christmas, but that seems to have got a bit turned on it’s head; now we party until January 1st, and then reflect (from bed, with an alka-seltzer!) This idea of advent reflection makes sense – after all it was […]

Had my SonyEricsson K700i for a bit now, and what I great phone – does everything I want a phone to do, and seems to have been designed really nicely. The repeating alarm is great – you select what days you want it to go off (so I don’t need to remember to switch if off on Friday, and then on again on Sunday), and it will play an MP3 as the alarm signal, so I’m lulled gently awake by the Moonlight Sonata. There have been complaints about the battery life, and I don’t really see it. Ok, so it’s […]

It’s funny how the busyness of the trains’ vary. All this week I have arrived at my local station at about the same time, got the same train into work, amd arrived at Leeds statation at about the same time. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were fairly quiet – plenty of Metros left, platform not too crowded, one or two people standing by the time we got into Leeds. At Leeds, I sailed straight through the ticket barriers. Yesterday, platform was heaving, all the Metros gone (one of my pet peeves), people were being turned away at the penultimate stop because […]

Another film bites the dust – Hideous Kinky with Kate Winslet amoungst others. Not bothered to do a full review as there is nothing really to say; I guess I suffered for not having read the book first, but found the whole film pretty uninspiring. Beautiful photography and costume, but no real character development (or affinity), no great journey, plenty of stuff never explained properly – all art and no substance! On a happier note, I ordered my new camera last night (thank you again, Cici, for your generosity in death as you were in life). A’s going to wrap […]

Snow. SNOW! Only halfway through November and it’s snowing. Ok, so it’s not going to settle, but it was definitely snowing when I went outside just now. It has been blooming parky all week, and that just proves it! Actually, it has settled a little – the lawn had a light dusting of white when I glanced outside. Mind you, I’m not going to complain if we have a nice snowy winter – love it: curled up in front of the fire with a book and a hot chocolate looking out at the deep white snow outside.

Seem to be doing better at seeing films that are not on my to see list then films which are! Anyway, latest flick is Dogville (starring Nicole Kidman), which is a very curious but interesting film, quite apart from normal Hollywood fair. The entire play is shot in a single location – the titular town of Dogville, which is at the end of a mountain road in the Rockies. Grace (played by aforementioned star) arrives in the town, population 15 adults, claiming to be running away from Gangsters (who very shortly afterwards turn up, looking for her). The main player […]