Having just tried out the new Audioblog service it has left me wondering if it is really a development for the better. The one great thing about blogging is that it is a showcase for the written word. It is very hard to be spontaneously interesting when one is leaving a message down a phone and I take time over writing my blogs. I don't know about you but I am certainly of the opinion that my writing is a good deal better than my spontaneous speaking. Take a listen and see what you think.

audblog audio post

Aaaarghh! I don't believe it. After doing everything I could possibly think of to make my data safe, I started to perform a system restore on my PC at 8pm this evening. It has just finished at 0:55, and guess what? It has made absolutely NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER. As a result I am not sure a re-install of XP is going to solve the problem either.

What the heck to I do now? Anyone got any ideas?

The one thing I will do, although I have been putting it off, is a full Virus Scan. I had been avoiding this step - mainly because of the time it would take, but also because of what it might find. I have just set it running and now I am going to bed.

Well my big PC is still about as active as a 3 toed sloth on mogodon. Fixing it is proving a real chore but I am doing everything I can before I take the fairly radical step of a re-install. The way I have my network set up is that the big PCprovides my main (only) connection to the internet and the others devices I have channel through it over the wireless LAN. However, with the big PC out of commission, and my new laptop doesnt have ISDN capabilities, I am somewhat cut off. So I have had to do some thinking and in the last hour I have had to blow the dust of an ancient, steam powered lap-brick (Pentium 1 333mhz) which I had recommissioned to run my Wavefinder Digital Radio. Old though it may be (heck, I used to run a business on that!), it does still have and ISDN card and now this creaky old beast is acting as my wireless ISDN Intenet gateway to the world of Infospace. As for the sick beast. I am trying to do a System Restore but with and average of 30 seconds between mouse click or keyboard depression it is driving me to distraction.

I went out to get some petrol earlier and picked up a copy of the Evening Standard. In today's edtion (which I mainly buy for the excellent MetroLife magazine) they have a picture of London by Night taken by one of the astronauts on the International Space Station. But it isn't just London, it covers the home counties too - and yes! I can see my house from here.

My PC is sick! Very sick indeed. I switched it on at 7:30 this morning and the disc is making worrying noises - like it is looking for something it cant find. Strangely enough it still works, but very slowly, for example it took 45 minutes to boot and anything else I try to do takes forever as the processor only seems to work for 5 seconds in every 30. I am really hoping it doesn't mean I have to reinstall XP, again!

In case you are wondering this entry was done on the xda over the GPRS network. Mobile blogging at last!

Out here in the bucolic environs of the home counties the broadband revolution is passing us by. BT is continually running their “back in the pipe” ads on TV, and it seems never a week goes by without a shiny new item of junk mail, from the various internet service providers, lands on my doormat telling me all the great things I could have if I sign up today. I would love to sign up, it would be great, and telephone conversations I have with the sales teams of the various vendors go well until I give them my post code and then they suddenly lose interest.

Now you townies who have been enjoying cable for years, and for whom actual connection to Broadband Britain is a mere phone call and £50 away, may not know why it is your rural cousins are denied these facilities. Well, almost utilities, equal to electricity, water, and gas. I have spoken to BT (at length) and they tell me it is just not possible to enable our local exchange because, being rural, there are not enough potential subscribers in our area to make it economically viable for them to install and run the equipment. They also say that too many of the dwellings are too far (in actual distance) from the exchange to make the service work. It seems that if the the wires are over a certain length the service becomes poor and is unsaleable. Erm, so when did poor quality ever stop a cellular network from doing business?

Today, however, came encouraging news.

I read this morning that a longer-range broadband product is being developed by the boffins at BT which will be just as fast as the existing consumer ADSL service. Now, I am not getting too excited because at the moment this 'extended reach' ADSL is being trialled by just 10 people, but a larger trial is expected to begin in late March. By increasing the distance over which ADSL will work, BT hopes to “reduce the number of households that cannot get broadband - even though their local exchange has been upgraded - because they live too far away from the exchange.” According to BT, this 'extended reach' broadband will halve the number of households whose line quality is too poor for ADSL to work.

Oh but wait dear reader! Did you spot it too? It seems from this announcement that this improvement will only be useful for people whose “local exchange has been upgraded”, meaning ADSL enabled. It makes no mention of the fact that it will now be possible to make previously unviable exchanges viable because more of the dwellings can be connected.

Here in the boondocks we dream of the life enriching multimedia experiences we could enjoy if only the technology was up to snuff. With a broadband connections, our pastoral lives would be suddenly complete. Sadly, like Estragon and Vladimir, we are out in the countryside waiting for a something that never seems to come.

Hmm, we residents of the rustic areas will have to get an action group together and see what kind of always on, high speed data service we can string together for ourselves.

Now, I know I have some barbed wire and bailing twine in the garage somewhere......

I am delighted to announce the launch of my 1000 Words project page. It randomly displays images from my personal collection. Go play with it now. You know you want to. It is over there, in the column on the right hand side of the page. Just click the picture of the camera and beautiful images will mysteriously appear before your very eyes.

How much longer can this glorious spring weather last? Now I know that to ask such a thing is probably tempting fate, but walking through the streets of London today after my meeting was a real delight. Warming sun, and refreshing breezes. I also noticed that it being CC+7 (the seventh day after congestion charging was introduced) there was noticeably less traffic on the roads and what there was flowed much easier than I remember from my last visit to town in late January.

I had intended that this would be a mobile blog, using my O2 xda, however O2's p(r)oxy server yet again servers prevented me from accessing the Blogger site and so once more I am glad that my business does not have any kind of critical dependency on this network's GPRS service. I then tried a second approach - connecting with my Psion netBook through the Wireless LAN service at Starbucks in Baker Street, but for some reason when I attempted to log-on via my browser I was presented with a Surf'n'Sip logon screen and invited to buy a $10 (yes dollar) prepay card from the cashier - or, this being Starbucks, the Barista - who looked dumbfounded when I held up a $10 bill (still in my wallet from my recent trip) and asked him to sell me one. I have an account which works just fine when I am in the USA, and I know I have time left on it. Somehow I think all is not right in the Starbucks WLAN infrastructure. I mean how many obstacles is a customer expected to overcome to give them money?

I have recently finished reading White Oleander by Janet Fitch. A beautifully written novel about some fairly disturbing subjects, not least of which is a calculated murder. Upon the arrest and imprisonment of her murderous and egocentric mother, the main protagonist, Astrid, is placed into foster care with a number of families in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. During this time she is shot at, mauled by a dog, witness to a suicide, treated like an unpaid servant, and finally forced to sell all the meagre belongings she has managed to accrue. Remarkably she comes through all these trials a strong enough woman to finally break free of the influence of here her overbearing mother, and find a life for herself on her own terms. Whilst this may sound a fairly depressing read, I found it a compelling page turner which frequently offered up gems of prose so beautifully constructed that it quite took the sting from the tale.

I can thoroughly recommend this book, especially if you live in, or will be travelling to the Los Angeles area. It is of the city, but without being cliché and relying on landmarks or stereotypes. Janet Fitch's style is easy to read and the 446 pages just sped past. You will find yourself re-reading the odd phrase or paragraph, but that is only because they were so good the first time you will want to read them again.

I understand it has already been made into a Warner Brothers film and whilst it did not do well at the US box office I am really looking forward to seeing it. The book is written in the first person, from the view of Astrid, and I am curious to see how they will convey her internalised thoughts which counterpoint the things she actually says to the other characters. The novel also includes the text of letters which Astrid and her mother, Ingrid, exchange while the latter serves out her time. I shall report here once I have seen the movie.

Time to get down the gym again tonight. I am feeling distinctly flabby.

Do you listen to Digital Radio? With so many stations to choose from how do you know which is the right station for you? This handy little quiz will help you decide. According to the test I should be listening to and

Guess who will be one of the first to try Mobile Blogging when it becomes a reality?

I travel more than most, both for business and pleasure, and the majority of my trips involve flying. All my friends know this, and yes some of them, who will remain nameless, insist on sending me comforting things like this.



The aeroplane was an ANA flight from Japan to China. The event, captured in this amateur video, happened just after take off and the plane returned to the airport. There were no injuries. Lightening is a beautiful and powerful phenomenon, and the fork like branches in this example clearly show the bi-directional leader initiation. The upward positive leader to the thundercloud and downward negative leader to the ground from the aeroplane seem to be initiated simultaneously. I will now have to try NOT to think about this next time I am on a flight which departs in the middle of stormy weather.

Thought for the day: Whatever happened to Tony Slattery?

He used to be everywhere. In the late 80’s and early 90’s it was almost impossible to escape the impish visage of Mr Slattery on the television. He dominated Whose Line is it Anyway, the comedy improvisation show, and was a regular panellist on other TV and Radio game shows. He also seemed to be the perfect chat show guest who always had something interesting and amusing to say. But what of him now? Where is this contemporary of Steven Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson spending his time these days? I did a quick Gooooooooooogle and found this little Slattery shrine.

It has been another beautiful spring day here, and after giving the Z3 a thorough wash, I decided to take it to Oxford. I drove all the way there, and back, with the roof down. Ahhhh the thrill of al fresco driving!

Currently listening to the new t.a.t.u CD. Brilliant! I have been waiting for someone to define the sound of 2002 and here it is. Strangely enough, since the Producer is Trevor Horn, 2002 sounds a lot like 1986, but with much better sound reproduction quality. The Russian popsies already have one hit on their hand and this CD contains some thumpingly good tracks so I don't doubt there will be another couple from this album later in the year. On the strength of two plays I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes their Pop to sound like Rock.

Today I also purchased Justin Timberlake's album, Justified. I have skipped through the tracks and will get back to you on that one.

Finally for tonight, I found another way we can all pull our weight to help avoid a terrible war. I think if you combine this one with the one I found yesterday we have the answer to a perfect, and yet personally draining, way of keeping peace on earth.

So what can I possibly say about Chicago (the movie)? If we assume for a moment that The Sound of Music set the standard for the Movie Musical of the 60s, Grease set the standard for the 70's, The Rocky Horror Show, the 80s and most recently Moulin Rouge redefined the on-screen musical for a new millennium, then Chicago is a fine example of all that was good about 80s musicals! On stage Chicago is a wonderful production - and fans of the original  live, auditorium based incarnation will feel completely at home watching this movie. Movie goers will find this a wasted opportunity on behalf of the director not to do something a little more - exciting.

It must be said that there are some fine performances. Queen Latifah for one commands the screen for each and every second she appears. Strangely too - Taye Diggs (remember him from Ally McBeal?), who has only a cameo part, manages to shine, and finally the fireworks of Richard Gere's song and dance act is reminiscent of the best that Robert Preston gave us in The Musicman.

Of course the lead is played by Renée Zellweger, whose cherubic face we grew to know and love as the well nourished Bridget Jones. She is still full of face and mouth but the rest of her body seems to have been on hunger strike. She does a fantastic job, but somehow while watching her I couldn't help thinking about Florence Dugger playing Blousey Brown in Bugsy Malone - voice and everything. As for Catherine Douglas (nee Zeta-Jones) - well, erm, yes, she was in the film too. 

So now I am left wondering - why on earth has this film earned itself so many Oscar™ nominations?

Fancy some gratuitous nudity in the name of world peace? Book your seats now!

I have never thought of myself as Mr. Popular, (well lets face it if I was I wouldn’t have time to keep a daily blog!) but suddenly this afternoon I have had four people contact me variously by email and phone to ask me what I am doing this weekend. Two invites for tonight! Sadly I have had to turn this evening’s invites down as I have already arranged to go and see the film Chicago in Oxford.

Looks like we are going to be in for yet another beautiful sunset this evening. I will take the camera with me and try and capture its splendour.

Spring has sprung in my garden. The sun is out, the air is warming up after a chilly week and the snowdrops are blooming. Everybody say "ahhhhhh".

Can horses sing? Of course they can! Go play with them.

Thanks to overyourhead for this one.

I was looking for a Cinema playing the film "Talk To Her" and couldn't find it using the normal What's On guides. Then I stumbled on this really cool reverse lookup site at Scoot UK - Cinema Finder. It works really well. You enter the film you want to see, and the location you are in and it gives you a choice of all the cinemas near you that are playing it and the times. Cool!

It has been a busy (and cold) few days. In keeping with my New Year’s resolution to attend at least one live music performance per month, I have just come in from a Jazz concert held at a local theatre. Called “The Giants of Jazz” it featured many of the famous names of British Jazz. The evening kicked off with the Humphrey Littleton Band whose performance can be summed up in three words – Past Their Best! Following them, and like a breath of fresh air by comparison, was Digby Fairweather and his half dozen, plus a real treat; George Melly.




During the interval I got to meet Mr Melly. He is a wonderful character, and after our conversation he wrote a curious inscription in the copy of his autobiography which I had purchased. Although I can read it plain enough the words don’t make much sense to me at the moment, I am hoping they will after I have read the book.

When we returned to the auditorium we were entertained by Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. Polished performances all round from this last band, including some stunning guitar playing. Kenny has in the past year had major surgery and it was good to see him back on form.

My impression of the whole evening is sadly that it was a veritable Curates Egg. For the most part it was people who had once been at the top of their profession trying to hold on to that position despite the fact that time and the natural aging process was gradually robbing them of their ability to perform at the level they once had – and in some cases at a level below which most people would be prepared to pay money to see and hear.

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UK
Home from all my travelling at last. The final days of the trip were good but totally bereft of a decent internet connection, hence no blogs since Phoenix. Even though I went to Phoenix with the hope of getting some sun, we had only brief sunshine on Sunday afternoon so no time to get a tan. The air was quite cool too and so light clothing was not really an option either.

V S Naipaul’s book “Half a Life”. An interesting tale which seemed to be focussed on human relationships outside of, or across, normally established barriers of class and race. However the narrative seemed to be so obsessed with the concept of miscegenation that none of the relationships described in the book were anything else, leading the reader to naturally conclude that to be with someone not of one’s own origin is the norm and not the exception. I doubt this is the effect that Naipaul was striving to achieve but that is how it appeared to me. 

I didn’t enjoy San Francisco so much this time. I am not really sure why, but I had the distinct feeling that I had been there and done that. Of course there are sights and friends there of whom I shall never tire and the feeling of being in Silicon Valley will always provide a special frisson for a technophile like me, but I doubt if I will arrange to spend much more time there in future unless I am invited to stay with someone, or to attend a specific event. To see my most recent pictures of San Francisco - click here.

I did pick up a few bits and pieces for my summer wardrobe from Old Navy on Market Street. I just have to wait now for the weather to be warm enough to wear them. I also took the opportunity to buy a couple of bits of software, one of which is not available outside the USA! Microsoft’s Picture It Digital Image Pro. I also got the update to Adobe Acrobat 5.0.5 so now I wont keep getting those annoying error messages every time I use an Office XP application.

Phoenix, and particularly Scottsdale, is an area that many people have told me is a “must visit” place. I had visions of it being this incredibly beautiful oasis in the desert, surrounded by palm trees and beautiful mountains. The truth is it is a pleasant but unremarkable desert city with all the usual trappings of a large western US town (strip malls, gated subdivisions and roadside etc.) and the mountains are just small hills; lumps of rock which rise out of the valley floor and are anything but beautiful. To my mind it in no way compares to the splendours of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos or Palm Springs.

Even my visit to Frank Lloyd-Wright’s house Taliesin West was something of a disappointment. Of course it was wonderful to visit the location and see the architecture, but the people who run it, and the college it houses, seem to be possessed as if in some personality cult. Instead of moving on and making the place and the college develop, everyone seems to consider “what would Mr Wright have done?” prior to making any decision. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that much of the guided tour seemed filled with anecdotes which illustrated the fact that Mr Wright was most often Mr Wrong, and it was frequently others who improved and made practical the master’s original design concepts. So, I wonder, why are these people concerned with trying to double guess the actions of a dead experimentalist? I am sure this is not what he would have wanted at all!

Sarah and I had a great time together. We laughed a lot and had lots of gossip on which to catch up. She spent ages telling me about her trip and we also discussed how she would find her return home after 12 months away. She has certainly become more independent and assertive since I last saw her. Not always a good thing. For example she was assertively loud in Scottsdale Public Library (much to the annoyance of several people around her) and continued to speak loudly to the librarian, totally insouciant of the effect she was having. I smiled and moved gently away from her, not wishing to be either associated with this loud Brit, or to be the one who told her to Shhhh!

My journey home was blissfully uneventful, although security at both ends was significantly up owing to some early warnings about possible activities by terrorists, and a couple of hand grenades being discovered in the luggage of a passenger arriving at Gatwick!

I have been sleeping a good deal since my return. On Friday night I went to bed at 9pm and woke up again at 2pm on Saturday (yesterday) afternoon. Seventeen hours of sleep! I never realised I was so tired. Anyway, it certainly killed any jetlag I might have had.

One other thing I have noticed while being away. I have put back on a lot of the fat I had worked so hard to lose. Time now for a strict adherence to my regime. As a result I have been cycling every morning since my return, and I have been watching my diet very carefully again. I probably need to nip into GNC and pick up a pack of Lean System Seven and try and shed this fat before my trip to NYC just a month from now.

It is now Sunday night and the second series of 24 is just about to start of BBC2, with episode 2 airing immediately afterwards on BBC3. Now I have my Freeview box I can watch that!

PHOENIX, ARIZONA, USA
Flew into Phoenix last night and met up with Sarah. We got to the hotel and I was starving so we went out to a bar/restaurant for a long gossip and to get a bite to eat. Ended up eating a Mexican Shrimp meal at 11pm!! Fell into bed late and slept solidly until 8:45am.

This morning has been overcast but we ate brunch outside at a diner. Huevos Rancheros and coffee! Just blogging at the Scottsdale Public Library right now. This is clearly a rich place as I have seen lots of people driving the new Hummer H2. Must try and see one at a car dealership before I leave here.

We are going to visit the Frank Lloyd-Wright center at Taliesin West this afternoon. Should have some good photos to share this evening.

For pictures of Phoenix and Scottsdale - click here

SAN FRANCISCO, USA
It has been a really busy and successful week. The work has been hard but rewarding. Wednesday night we were taken out to a crab dinner at McCormick and Kuletos at Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco’s least flattering area.

Since then it has been solid work, so no time for blogging. The weather has been fantastic all week and I have just come back from a quick run in the car. Blue sky, warm sun and fresh breezes. I took a stoll along the board walk which runs along the bay - beautiful.

I am off down to Phoenix this evening to meet up with Sarah. Haven’t seen her in 11 months because she has been travelling round the world. I chatted to her online this morning and she said she was nervous about meeting up with me. I wonder why. It is curious indeed. I am looking forward to Phoenix. Lots of interesting things to see and hopefully a couple of days of hot sun.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA
The Internet is a wonderful invention. Here I am, 5300 miles from home and I have just been listening the Archers and The Afternoon Play live on BBC Radio 4. All brought to my hotel room thanks to a combination of WLAN and streaming media technologies.

I am still in the jetlag zone. I went to bed at about 11pm last night and still I was awake, and unable to get back to sleep, by 5:15am. Whilst this does mean I am bright and chirpy in the mornings, my only worry is these repeated short nights and gradual erosion of my sleep will effect my ability to concentrate and be generally productive. Not good when the week’s work will get more demanding up to Thursday. The first warning sign of fatigue for me is when I struggle to remember people’s names. I am not there yet, but I must keep a look out for the symptoms.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA
23:13 local time and I am pretty drunk. Still sober enough to be upright but not really in touch with reality. I have, however, been able to work out, and resolve a technical problem with this Blog which escaped me earlier in the day. Perhaps this is the real answer to problem solving. Get relaxed as a newt and then turn your mind to otherwise unfathomable problems. I think it must be the Cuervo Gold that did it. Too many blended marguarittas, or just the right number - I can't decide.

Meanwhile, this is an absolutely delightful way to while away a few minutes while you are waiting for something else to download.

I will probably fare better at it when I am less inebriated!

Anyhow, a good evening and more work tomorrow.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA
Arrived here in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon after the usual 11 hour flight - extended by a 1 hour delay leaving Heathrow. I flew BA, instead of my normal carrier Virgin, and I would say that the service was comparable. After picking up the car, and dropping bags at the hotel we headed into San Francisco city centre and ate a meal at my favourite Chinese Restaurant in the whole world – House of Nanking.

For an independent review look here. It is the only restaurant I know where I will happily sit down and let the owner order for me and bring me whatever is good today, and whatever he brings is always excellent and reasonably priced. As a result, even though the restaurant is right in the middle of Chinatown and is surrounded by other, and seemingly more refined, eating houses with similar menu offerings, there is alway a line of people queueing up outside. On Saturday we queued for 25 minutes. As we were standing there a tall bearded fellow, wearing a long leather coat and a trophy girlfriend, walked by and in a strident voice obviously intended to impress his arm candy said to the general masses "Is it that good?" Answer came there none, but frankly "Yes!" it is that good, but he will probably never know, or appreciate why.

Sunday dawned sunny and cool – with the jetlag I was awake by 4:30am and so decided to do some work until everyone else was about at 9am and ready to go to breakfast. Needing to escape from the hotel in which we will be trapped for the whole week we headed into town and had brunch of Granola and Steak and Eggs at Roses.


A saunter round the shops and then a chance to sit in the sun for a while in Union Square. The work began at 5pm back at the hotel.

Been sitting in a conference room all day today. I haven’t even had a chance to step outside the door and get a breath of fresh air. This evening we have a reception and I am hoping to get a reasonably early meal.