I just noticed that the aerial views on Bing Maps are still showing the plot on which our house stands, before it was developed …so I thought I’d record them here for posterity. The old house really looks quite a …
Continue readingYou rarely see serious forecasts of the European elections on a regional (constituency) basis, mainly because the proportional voting system makes it much harder than “first past the post” systems. But I thought I’d take a look, spurred on by …
Continue readingBack in 2012, my wife and I were walking down Hills Road, returning from having voted in a local election, when we ran into some neighbours, walking towards the Polling Station. “Off to vote then?”, I asked. They shook …
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We resurrected an old site this week at the instigation of one of my business clients: CAD-Reviews.com was originally set up to host an archive of CAD software reviews done by my old friend Colin Mathews, and the site has …
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So, if you’ve just arrived here from a web search, it’s probably because you’ve just come across the Google Docs/Google Drive error message “Sorry, cannot transfer ownership to xxxx. Ownership can only be transferred to another user in the same …
Continue readingA fantastic year for music for me, not necessarily because it was a fantastic year for music in general, but because I listened to about ten times as much new music as I’ve ever done in any one year in …
Continue readingChristmas approaches, and that means it’s time for my Films Of The Year. By the looks of my email ticket confirmations from the Arts Picturehouse and the rather splendid myCineWorld Booking History page, I would appear to have seen about …
Continue readingI caught a member of my family griping about Apple’s iOS7 operating system yesterday, saying the new font used system-wide was too light to read easily. “What about people with seriously impaired vision?”, she said. “Surely they make allowance for …
Continue readingI’m pleased this morning to be part of the launch of OnVid.co.uk, a new site which is setting out to highlight the best YouTube channels from the UK. Covering a whole range of subjects, the site will chronicle the …
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This just in from my mate Andy:
Nik and I went along to see the Moldova game last night and as we left, folks were crowing about us being top of the group. But this is a rather false position, …
Continue readingI’ve been making a Spotify playlist for the 2013 Cambridge Folk Festival over the past few months. Get in the mood (or if you’re reading this after the event, re-live the memories) with over 300 songs from artists on the …
Continue readingYou could argue that the best way to read James Joyce’s Ulysses is to just get stuck into it – but I do think this can be difficult. That’s why a reading guide is so helpful. Probably the best two …
Continue readingI’ve had this theory for some time now that the reason I never set the world alight as a child was the competition from the freakishly talented generation which I grew up in. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to …
Continue readingSo here they are: the eight managers who won the main trophies or league titles in English football in the 2011-12 season …and what happened to them twelve months down the line. I guess the table speaks for itself. Well …
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I bloody love the Eurovision Song Contest, me. Always have. I love the campness of the event, the absurdity of the voting and the way that any song which isn’t 100% Eurovision gets swept under the carpet. I love how …
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Well, it took a couple of hours to be sure I hadn’t forgotten everything (and I’m still not sure I haven’t), but here’s my 100 Favourite Songs of 2012 as a Spotify playlist. I tried to limit myself to three …
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In a few days’ time, most of the country is going to get to elect a well-paid public official called the Police & Crime Commissioner for their area. I cannot resist the temptation to put forward my own thoughts on …
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Disclosure: The nice people at Virgin Media sent me a working copy of what looks like the final version of their TV Anywhere iPad app at the end of October 2012, shortly before the public launch date. In return, I …
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I’ve just successfully (from what I can see) installed Windows 8 on my MacBook Pro, upgrading from the previous Windows XP installation. If you’ve found this page looking for troubleshooting tips, I’m sorry to disappoint you, because I had no …
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Butch Harmon on Sky TV described it as “the greatest golfing spectacle ever”. Mike Atherton in The Times went even further, saying it might rank as highly in all of sport. It’s now seven days since Team Europe came back …
Continue reading…and other debriefing notes.
1. Team (Great) Britain (and Northern Ireland) didn’t do as well as everyone thinks at the Olympic Games.
OK, controversial one to start with. We did good, no? Well, maybe. Certainly we smashed the pre-games medal …
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OK, I’ll stand up and admit it: I’m a podcast addict. Whether it’s highlights of radio programmes I’d never have been able to listen to when broadcast live, or shows made by people who would be too niche or too …
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I’ve always been interested in local democracy, but having been involved recently in objecting to an, er, objectionable building development, I decided it would be interesting to find out more about local decision making, and go to a public …
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I’ve made a couple of new websites recently, and I’m linking to them here to give them a small but worthwhile kick up the bum in their Google rankings. The first is a site to campaign against a local piece …
Continue readingHaving that vaguely-OCD thing which is common to most males, as soon as I read someone else’s “Best music of the first half of 2012” list, I just had to do my own. Cue another hour wasted. I’d thought that …
Continue readingThere’s nothing I can say here to do justice to how much of a loss we’ve just suffered with the passing of my Dad. He was a great man, and will always be my hero. Thanks and congratulations to Lorraine …
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WordPress has some incredible plugins. I will concede that this is really a list for my future reference, as I seem to set up a WordPress site for friends and colleagues (or me!) every few weeks, and I really need …
Continue readingFor nearly 20 years my wife and I lived in the south-eastern area of Cambridge, Cherry Hinton, which has been a fascinating place to be as a voter. In the local elections, Cherry Hinton has studiously returned Labour (and …
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It’s been available for a week or two here in the UK, long enough for any horrible problems to have surfaced (none did), and so it’s time to see what Apple’s iTunes Match is like. My feeling is that although …
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Just got back from a showing of “Sherlock Holmes” (which was rather good, by the way) at Cambridge Cineworld. …
Continue readingA fairly populist list as ever, but I’ve never been one for art house movies…
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So, there’s been much news coverage over the past few days concerning a survey which says 1 in 10 of us plans to leave online passwords in our will, although I’m not sure if that’s actually something which is …
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We’ve just moved house. It’s not something anyone with a life would want to do often, if only because of the sheer chore of letting dozens of different organisations know about the change of address, never mind the pain of …
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One of the tasks which the organisers of the 2012 Olympics will have looked forward to the least will have been the ticket distribution. With demand inevitably set to outstrip supply, and in an age where everybody believes they have …
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And so to the Corn Exchange for Cambridge’s almost annual dose of Pink Floyd tribute goodness. This year things have changed though; instead of the Australian Pink Floyd Show, tonight we see the second gig on the inaugural tour from …
Discussions of The Unthanks’ previous gig at the Shepherds Bush Empire loved the way the band made the large venue seem so intimate. At this one, they didn’t have to, because Cambridge’s Junction 2 isn’t that much bigger than some …
Continue readingI just came across all of these in my loft, and it just made me think: why isn’t there a market for this sort of spin-off any more? Or is there no comedy cult enough to support this sort of …
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Went to see Spamalot! in Cambridge last week. Very good for a touring production, if perhaps not quite up to the standards set by the considerably higher-budget performances I’d seen in the West End and, ahem, Las Vegas. Anyway, here’s …
Continue readingNice: Virgin Media cable internet just gave us considerably faster upload speeds as part of the deal. This is quite useful, as I’m finding myself using DropBox more and more to backup and transfer stuff, and I can see that …
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The Fake Album Art idea has been around in its current form for at least a couple of years now, but it never ceases to amuse, and it’s been enjoying a revival on Facebook recently, so the young people tell …
Continue readingHere’s a list I couldn’t have imagined doing two years ago. And to be honest, I’ve taken to “apps” so much more since getting an iPad, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about doing this list as recently as last …
Continue readingA list of favourite sporting moments of the year might be overwhelmed by football, so I thought I’d do a separate list of highlights from other sports. There were some spectacular ones, now I come to think of it!
Right, 24 days of Advent, 24 lists of things I liked this year. Today: the first of two lists of satisfying sporting moments, this one focusing exclusively on football.
The …
Continue readingFor each day of Advent, I’m doing a different list of favourite things from the year. Today we look at gadgetry and tech. I bought my most recent camera at the end of last year, my TV is four years …
Continue readingThere’s been enough great stuff on YouTube this year for it to merit a list of its own. So here, as part of my list-a-day series during Advent, are my favourite bits o’YouTubery of 2010. Except that more than any …
Continue readingIn this instalment of my “list a day” Advent Calendar, I thought I’d choose the websites and online services which have meant most to me this year, either for entertainment or for usefulness. Or perhaps they just merit a mention …
Continue reading24 lists of favourite things during Advent this year, and two of them are devoted to telly. The other list concentrates on comedy, but this one rounds up the rest.
You might notice …
Continue readingContinuing my one-per-day Advent list of favourite things this year, here’s the third list of blogs, this time ones which are vaguely to do with my current gainful employment, namely industrial marketing, web design and SEO.
Next up in my blog-based Advent Calendar is a list of the best live acts I saw this year. These are really in no particular order!
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