I’ve been thinking about the associations I make between songs and people. Typically it goes from a song to a person – i.e. I hear a song and immediately a person comes to mind. I don’t mean the singer/band member (except for one or two cases), just ‘ordinary’ friends of mine. The reason it’s interesting is because I don’t know that I really make any other association with people so consistently (except for the obvious ones of name and where they live, or places I’ve been on holiday with people). I don’t associate different drinks or food or smells or […]

Came across this interesting experiment on the beeb website: BBC News embarks on a unique project telling the story of international trade by tracking a shipping container around the world for a year. The Box It caught my eye for all sorts of reasons: I was at college with Declan, who is fronting it (or at least, did the first bit – dunno if he’s doing all of the reports?) It’s a really nice use of current technology. Live tracking is “in” at the moment, and it’s nice to see it being given a showcase. The whole concept is just […]

My son and heir is often coming out with very funny things. The ones he doesn’t intend are generally more amusing: God knows everything.… Just like Funky Monkey (Funky Monkey is a glove puppet, by the way). On another occasion, the three of us are snuggling up in bed on a Saturday morning, in companionable silence. Then Mummy, I’ve got something to ask you Mummy turns over to look at Ben: Yes? Actually, I’ve got something to tell you, and then something to ask you. Ok Mummy, the thing I’ve got to tell you is that your nose is in […]

I went karting on Friday, for a colleague’s leaving do. I have been before – once – at a Butlin’s or something, but to be honest that was a bit noddy. The carts where single engined, and the track was indoor, but what fun! It was absolutely fantastic, and I loved it. I wasn’t particularly fast (over a second off the pace of the quickest in our group), and I was very aware of one corner in particular where I could have gone faster, but couldn’t work out how – and instead got it wrong almost every lap. It’s actually […]

In the tradition of the best viral/memes/whatever the latest buzzword is for things your friends post and you post it too: www.isthisyou.co.uk

Just got back from a lovely trip to the border county. Well, one of the border counties anyway. Of England. Turns out that a week is nowhere near long enough to even scratch the surface, especially as we could easily have spent 5 days building sandcastles in a Canutine attempt to withstand the tide. I won’t have time to write all about it now, but our itinerary was as follows, and I shall aim to expand over the next day or so: Angel of the North, arrive Holy Island Alnmouth beach Cragside Seahouses and Farne islands Barter Books, and Alnwick […]

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – trailer Promise it’s not Rick Astley! Least it wasn’t when I watched it.

When I was growing up, we had a bit of family joke. Us youngsters would ask “what’s for supper?”, and be told that it was “wait and see pie”. This happened so often, that “wait and see” pie actually became a specific meal – a steak and veg pie with a suet crust. It is one of my favourite dishes now, and while the exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, it is along these lines: Wait and See pie Serves approx 4-6 This is a two stage process – first you cook it on the hob, then transfer it […]

Was struck by two fairly random quotes in the media yesterday. Good advertising creates a problem and its solution. and Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Certainty is the opposite of faith.

I know it’s still in beta, but Firefox 3 is looking really really nice. Really fast, funky drop-down preview/autocomplete thingy in the location bar, nice styling and look and feel. Lovely. Give it a whirl from Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html PS It seems to co-exist fairly happily with FireFox 2 under Windows.