November 2005 Entries

November 30, 2005

Cricket vs Work

If there ever was a God, he invented cricket before handing control of the world to the neo-cons. So while we are going to hell in a handbasket (and wtf does that mean?), we at least have something to take our minds off it.

The true majesty of cricket does cause some problems. The game lasts five days but can turn on each and every ball. England have lately developed the habit of allowing the balance of a game to shift several times a day, which makes for gripping spectating.

And traditionally the spectating is done with a radio tuned to long wave for the BBC's Test Match Special - a broadcast that is one of the last bastions of civility, decency, English wit and the joy that is an afternoon cake. Cricket, like baseball, involves a lot a nothing going on interspersed with a few seconds activity. TMS fills the nothing with talk of red buses (on the St Johns Wood Road), arcane statistics (the fastest 50 by a left-handed batsmen at number four on an English wicket) and the chances of an afternoon shower.

TMS is perfect for idling. An idyllic summer's afternoon involves tea, crossword and TMS while sat in the garden.

When working it does present problems. Although these days it is often streamed online, it is far too distracting unless you have managed to clear the decks for a few days of workplace idling.

Step forward Guardian OBO cricket commentary. TMS is ball-by-ball on radio, the Guardian has over-by-over on their website. This requires a few seconds of reading every few minutes, and thus allows more work to be done by the suffering wage-slave.

They have also managed to carve their own niche by telling it how it is and by engaging the readership in irreverent chit-chat. For example:

46th over: England 150-3 (Collingwood 19, Pietersen 15)
Up comes the 150, but at lunch England would have hoped to have reached it for the loss of one wicket at most, not three. Still, this is steady stuff from these two against Malik's off-spin: two off the over. "Not a snowball as such, but whilst staying on a farm in New Zealand, I was taken out on an early morning rabbit shoot by the farm hands," says Andrew Hallsworth. "When we spotted a bunny I was handed a rifle and took aim. It was the first time I'd held a gun, the target was 40m away in a stiff cross-wind and my hand is as steady as Michael J Fox's. So shaky was I that the rabbit only entered the sight every five seconds or so, so in the end i shut my eyes, used the force and pulled the trigger. Flopsy took it right between the eyes and I was left to insinuate to the impressed farm-boys that I had been an SAS sniper in my youth. Bunny's revenge was that I shortly discovered that I am highly allergic to NZ rabbit fur as my eyes closed up and sinuses opened."

65th over: WICKET! Flintoff c Shoaib Akhtar b Naved 12 (England 201-5)
Oh Freddie! The trap had been set, but Flintoff can't resist top-edging a pull to fine leg where Shoaib takes a simple catch. Perhaps Steven Harmison should write "Twat" on his forehead again?

39th over: Pakistan 147-3 (Mohammad Yousuf 70, Inzamam 34)
That's tea, and this game is very nicely poised. Another 50 runs for these two after the break and Pakistan will be thinking of a first-innings lead. But two quick wickets and the advantage will be England's. Join Sean Ingle at 10.30am GMT for live coverage. And thanks very much for all your emails. "I had an aunt Gert who was married to uncle Bert," says John Osborne. "I swear that's true. He was my gran's brother and she was my grandad's sister. Slightly weird, but then we are from Norfolk."

Lovely.

November 29, 2005

Winter fucking wonderland

The forecast said a clear evening with no frost, so it did come as a bit of a surprise that it started snowing. A colleague popped into the meeting room to say it was settling and that he was off, but I didn't take it very seriously.

When we finally finished with management matters at 7pm there was 3-4 inches of snow, and the road was treacherous, but navigable at slow speed.

What I didn't know was that while I was working, the drivers of Gloucestershire were merrily abandoning or crashing their vehicles, and the gritting trucks were either getting stuck at the bottom of steep hills or sitting on roads blocked by the abandoned cars.

All of which is a bit of a preamble to the fact that it took me 2 hours to cover 10 miles last night. The last 30 minutes gained me 100 yards, so at that point I cut my losses and headed in the opposite direction and back to High Wycombe. Having two homes was a definite advanage last night. Apparently around 400 vehicles were stranded in total, with the drivers staying in hotels and pubs.

Memo for the weekend - put boots, extra clothing, waterproofs and chocolate in my car.

One of the places I passed on my journey was Northleach. In the winter of 1962 Northleach was completely cut-off for several weeks, which just goes to show - they don't make winters like they used to.

November 28, 2005

The Van by Roddy Doyle

Jimmy Rabbite Sr is unemployed and struggling with the responsibility of being the man of the house. He is a proud man, and his pride is wounded when his son lends him a fiver to go out drinking. But 'a few scoops' of an evening with his mates is emotional sustenance for an unemployed man, for the crack and the companionship.

So Jimmy can't hide his delight when his best friend Bimbo is laid off, and they kill time playing golf. Bimbo has ambition though, and decides to go into business with a chip van. Jimmy joins him as a partner, thinking it will be a good laugh if nothing else.

What follows is the rise and fall of Bimbo's Burgers, and also a lesson in why it is a bad idea to go into business with your best friend.

Throughout it is simply hilarious. From chuckles and laughs through to guffaws and snotting on yourself. Not a book to read on a train, but definitely one to revel in and then pass on to your friends.

While Jacobson's humour is in wry observation, the running gag and the wit of a cleverly crafted sentence, Doyle's is in conversation and farcical situations - very much in the Lesley Thomas vein. But Doyle writing is so distinctive you would recognise his work without seeing the cover, and it is so natural that it is only after a few pages that you realise you are reading in a broad irish accent.

Marvellous.

Five stars (out of five)

November 27, 2005

Odds n Sods

A few parish notices:

My first Postcrossing card arrived at its destination yesterday, and I received a very pleasant email from Rui in Portugal, my new best friend.

I have a further five in transit to Massachussetts, Portual (2), Finland and Sweden. Now that one of mine has arrived I will be assigned to someone else to send a card to me. Yay.

---

My Gathered Images postcards arrived, and I will be sending this one to a friend in the US.

But I have lost my nerve and decided to send it in an envelope to avoid being tagged as an enemy of the state and incarcerated in a non-jurisdictional prison, such as Guantanamo or Compton.

---

Two different people made an offer on my house last week. Both were derisory and they were unwilling to increase the offer to an acceptable level, but I guess insulting offers are better than no offers at all. Which pretty much sums up my sex life too.

November 26, 2005

Friday Photo: Something bovine this way comes

Gorillas in the Mist (Bovine ed.)
Originally uploaded by chancer.

November 25, 2005

Christmas Lights

This year High Wycombe was blessed with the attendance of Todd Carty and Basil Brush - a hackneyed soap actor and a glove puppet. Cheltenham scored big with G4, a group that didn't win a Pop Idol-style talent show.

Bourton is too refined for such nonsense. And way too small. I visited the Bourton post office this afternoon and had to park 50 yards away. As I was mincing towards the PO I witnessed some people erecting the Bourton Christmas tree in the middle of the river (try not to picture a magestic flowing river, this river is literally six inches deep and the water is slower than molasses. The many ducks that live on the river actually walk more than they paddle.) The tree was a good size and was being set up with the help of a cherry picker which was parked in the river, which underlines the depth somewhat.

In the post office I mailed 13 UK Recorded Delivery letters plus 4 International Recorded Delivery, which took about 20 minutes, and on my way back the tree was finished, the lights were on and the workers had buggered off. It is possible that there was a major turning on ceremony in the interim, but given that the average resident of Bourton needs a zimmer frame to walk, there would have been plenty of evidence by way of geriatrics fleeing the scene.

I vaguely recall that Times Square does something special, but does it also apply to towns large and small across the US?

November 24, 2005

Snow Alert

Since America destroyed the planet's ecosystem in the 1980's November has been a time for bikinis and ice-cream, or at least it has been in the privacy of my own bedroom, so to have an old-fashioned November is fashionably retro. When I was young November meant having to suck Victory V's in order to get to school without the help of a St Bernard and setting fire to the school shed in order to keep warm at lunchtime. Ah, fond memories.

So while 5cm of snow isn't quite Narnia, and won't pose any trouble to walking boot or cloven hoof, it is exciting.

Country life is not ideal if you have car pride. Thankfully I have never suffered from that particular malaise, although I make up for it with other foibles and perversions. Still, she does look rather spiffy now she is clean.

November 23, 2005

Postcards are go

I have requested two more recipients, and they are both from Portugal - looking at the map of Postcrossing members it seems the Portugal has gone gangbusters for the whole posting cards to strangers idea.

After those two I can't send any more until the first ones arrive, but in the meantime I should start to receive some soon.

I have also ordered some non-geographic postcards from Gathered Images, including the one shown in this post.

November 22, 2005

The Tuesday Game: Monkey Lander

The old 'Monkey in a hovering lander' game.

What makes this game are the actions of the monkey as you control the lander. Okay, so little things please little minds, but it makes me happy and that's what the other 6 billion people are on the earth to do.

Monkey Lander

November 21, 2005

A Boss Tale

I was doing a butt-load of budgeting work with my boss last week, and at one point he was trying to put together a schedule, but the going was painfully slow. He isn't quite the 8th Dan Blackbelt at Excel that I am.

So I took control of the schedule and sent him off to make me a coffee - Santos and Java, milk, no sugar. He came back with a black coffee.

"The good news is I made you a coffee, the bad news is there is no milk"

"Paul just went to the convenience store for his lunch. Maybe he will get some milk"

"I'll call him"

He calls Paul's mobile, but no answer. In the darkest corners of Iraq there is a mobile signal at all times, in Gloucestershire the only way to get a signal is to wrap yourself in tin-foil. So, not much of a surprise.

"Wait, I have a plan"

He then calls directory inquiries and gets the number of the convenience store and calls the store.

"Er, hi. I just want to check one of your customers. Is there a guy in there, kinda middle aged, brown hair, a little grey maybe, tallish, glasses. Er, looks a bit geeky."

"Great. Can you see if he is buying milk"

"Fantastic, that's all I needed to know. Click"

November 20, 2005

43 Things

43things.com is a site where you can list your goals, make entries on them and buddy up with other people doing them. As the official blurb says:

It is surprisingly effective - the process of working out what you want to do, and what you have already done, is variously inspiring and depressing. And once you have set some goals, it becomes a lot easier to achieve them, since they are there nagging you in the public domain.

A lot of the early goals involved travel, so then they created 43places.com which is directly linked to 43things but has several features specific to travel goals. Next up was 43people.com which is kind of a social networking site, or at least is slightly more networky than the other two. There is also a site called All Consuming, but its lame. A rare failure.

43things and its siblings are the creation of the Robot Co-op, an Amazon.com company, but it is run on completely independent lines, and has a real start-up feel about it. I mailed them for help last weekend after I got spam-tagged (in the spirit of independence their email address is a gmail account) and I got a personal reply a few hours later from the legendary Daniel Spils saying they were on the case. Had it been Amazon it would have been a standard blurb from an anonymous email address.

So why would Amazon want to spend money on this? It certainly isn't to monetize the 43*.com sites. There are plenty of reasons though, which I will explain in another post sometime, but it is certainly nothing sinister.

There are now 136,000 people on 43 things, which is impressive - it was 5,000 when I joined in March. My 43things are here.

November 19, 2005

Shops vs Leisure

Shopping is apparently one of the UK's biggest leisure activities. It doesn't seem very leisurely to me, nor pleasurely.

I went to Oxford today to get a few bits and pieces. The place was rammed and no doubt will get even busier in the next few weeks. And it will be Christmas soon too. I think it's time the authorities looked into moving Christmas to a time of year when the shops aren't so busy.

In a move that can only be considered genius, shops add extra shelving and display stands at a time when there are more people. More people + less space = fucking annoying.

I was in Marks & Spencers today and entered a maze-like section looking for undershirts and actually got lost. I spent 10 minutes looking for a way out and eventually resorted to calling the shop on my mobile, "Help! I am trapped in socks."

The customers hardly help matters - this is a time of year when shoppers need to be efficient. Find something, buy it, get the fuck out. I witnessed two middle aged women looking at a nasty overpriced male gift set (they actually looked like mother and daughter, but this was because the 'elder' one's body had completed given up while the 'younger' one was just about holding it together and had judiciously applied a bit of slap.) Anyway, one said to the other 'I would never buy something like that', and the other replied 'no, me neither' and then they carried on looking at it.

And then there is the other type, who receive an email out of the blue from an old school friend. They agree to meet up for a good long chat, and decide that an aisle in Marks & Spencers in mid-November is simply the perfect place to spend two hours talking.

There should be on-the-spot fines for this sort of behaviour.

Apart from that, today was a good day.

November 18, 2005

Knackered

Man, what a week.

Busy busy busy ahead of the board meeting on Monday, so I never got to send off my first Postcrossing postcard and nor did I take a photo for my Friday Photo.

It's lame and I'm sorry.

Plan for the weekend: sleep

November 17, 2005

Emerald Zen

This week's moment of zen arrived courtesy of Google.

One of my website hits overnight was directed to me by Google after someone searched for "conway sisters and x factor and ira"

Fabulous. And I hope those fenian vixens get thrown off the show on Saturday for Harry, England and St. George!

November 16, 2005

Am I gay or what?

This post will only make sense to those who know, particularly those at Amazon.

Three weeks into my new job, I was in the kitchen area chatting to my boss while making the first hardcore coffee of the day.

I forget what we were discussing at the time, but I mentioned an ex-girlfriend and he said, "well, that answers that mystery"

November 15, 2005

My Life as a Penguin

The world is finally waking up to this fact and its penguins-a-go-go right now. Even the Guardian, the thinking man's doodle pad, is in on the act, where I found this entertaining missive...

---
They cannot come to you, so you must go to them, trekking ever southward. The cold is unrelenting. Most days the sun barely makes an appearance: at midday the contours of the coast are shrouded in a dismal, leaden twilight, while curtains of icy rain undulate across the bay. When I finally arrive, it feels like I've reached the edge of the world. This is Torquay, surely one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

Not if you're a penguin, though. For the black and white inhabitants of Living Coasts, Torquay's harbourside zoo, the term English riviera holds no bleak tinge of irony, even during the so-called "shoulder season", the brief interlude between peak and off season. As far as they're concerned, this is beach weather, and the penguins are out doing what they do best: standing around in a big huddle looking in the same direction, in this particular case at me. I am sitting awkwardly on the sand just downwind from them. Here's something they don't tell you about penguins: they smell. After a brief stand-off, the whole group takes a tentative step in my direction. I must be patient.

continued here, since the Guardian would probably be pissed if I ripped the entire article.

November 14, 2005

First Frost of Autumn

First frost
Originally uploaded by chancer.

Nymphomation by Jeff Noon

The Nymphomation plot is National Lottery meets fractal mathematics meets dystopian future, and the cast an irregular bunch of misfits. Everyone is a misfit in Noon's future, everyone scarred by birth or by life. Or death.

This book is clearly not for everyone, but if like your fiction on the corrupted side, if you have ever been jacked into the bass of the 3am eternal, and if the idea of tripping on garlic appeals, then you might well find much to enjoy here.

Four stars (out of five)

November 13, 2005

Postcrossing

It is a website that connects people through postcards. Once you have signed up you can both receive and send postcards to people all of the world.

Here are the stats as of this morning:
5822 registered users in 104 different countries.
1479 males, 3374 females; 946 prefer not to say.
23268 postcards have been received because of this project.
10323 postcards are travelling at this exact moment.
The slowest postcard so far took 99 days to arrive while the average postcard trip time is 13 days.

You can only have five active postcards in transit at a time - once the recipient registers receipt of a card, one of your slots is freed up. If a card never gets recorded as received they will time out after 60 days, and the slot will be freed up again.

I have requested my first recipient - Sara in Massachussets and she will be receiving a quaint Cotswold postcard. So far I don't have any cards on the way to me, but one will be assigned soon. On the site you can track who you have sent cards to and received them from, and there is a personal world map showing the locations of all your postcrossers.

The only potential issue with Postcrossing is that you need to publish your address. It only gets seen by people who are given you as a card recipient, so people can't simply sign up for Postcrossing and get hold of everyone's address. If it is still a concern, you can always use a work address.

A simple idea well executed. Hooray for Postcrossing.

November 12, 2005

Simon Frost

I am not sure what reminded me of Simon Frost last week, but there was something that triggered a memory, and that memory triggered another, and then a whole flood.

Simon worked at Insignia Solutions when I was a humble bean-counter there. He was a software development manager, or something like that.

As techies go, and I am a closet techie so I am not being (intentionally) insulting here, Simon was very outgoing and articulate. Affable even. While the standard techie uniform was black tshirt and jeans, Simon managed to dress with, if not quite elegance, at least a semblance of smartness.

He also spent a lot of time in the accounting office because he had the horn for one of my team, Penny. So did I. So did everyone. Legs to die for, slim and a pretty face. What's not to like? Anyway, Penny was married, so it was a non-runner for all of us, although it all turned out differently, which is another story.

My two memories of Simon:
1. Simon crashed his company car due to driving too fast. But rather than fess up to toolish behaviour on the insurance claim form, he wrote: "I was driving around a roundabout when I sneezed and lost control of the vehicle." Genius!

2. For a while the accounts team were in a vaguely open plan area. Each night, over a period of several weeks, Simon would move the desks by a few millimetres. We only noticed when Penny could barely squeeze into her seat, by which time we had been moved a couple of feet. Genius again!

Simon is now at Citrix where I trust he is still causing trouble.

November 11, 2005

Friday photo: Me and a dollybird

Shocking - and I thought he was an FD!
Originally uploaded by stealy.

November 10, 2005

Beekeeping

I was reading the Stow Times yesterday, a monthly independent publication which concerns itself mainly with council, parish and schools news and the ongoing battle against gypsies.

A lot of spleens are being vented over the bi-annual horse fairs, but not having witnessed the pikey scourge personally, I will reserve judgement. It is hard to imagine though that they are any worse than the kagouled bobble-hatted ramblers that daily taunt the parish with their map reading skills.

But what did catch my eye was an article on beekeeping.

Jagger in a beesuit? What? A yellow and black striped furry suit, with fairy wings on his back and deeley-boppers on his head? Hard to believe.

I like the sound of cakes, but I am not yet sufficiently enticed to join. Perhaps if they had added '80% of our members are female and under 40.'

November 9, 2005

Norfolk

Every country has a place like Norfolk, and wherever your Norfolk is, the directions to get there are the same:

• Start somewhere. It doesn't matter where you start as long as it is somewhere.
• Drive away from somewhere, aiming generally for nowhere
• Drive through nowhere and out the other side
• Stop after another hour of driving

Welcome to Norfolk.

The name derives from the Norse words Nar Fokk, meaning 'you have now entered a coma'.

What makes Norfork the nothing that it is, is the absense of landscape. As you head north from London the land levels out, until it reaches a point of perfect flatness - a point at which you enter Norfolk. It is as if a mighty God swept his hand across the land and pushed everything into the sea.

It takes hours to get to Norfolk, and when you get there you discover nothing. Their tourism slogan is 'Come to Norfolk. It's flat here.'

The top 10 industries are farming, the main language is yokel, the currency is pigs. Schoolchildren want to grow up to be farm labourers. The intelligent ones want to be vets.

As the landscape loses its features, so life loses its pace. No-one is in a hurry to get anywhere. Admittedly there is nowhere to go, but even the birds can't be bothered. There is no dawn chorus here. The birds wake up, and if they can't see a worm within a beak's reach they go back to sleep again.

There are many thousands of birds in Norfolk, and every single one of them is a crow. Humans all look the same too - average age, average height, a ruddy complexion and a slight stoop. The standard clothing of choice is a boiler suit and a pair of sturdy boots. And that's just the women.

All of which means that Norfolk is a truly wonderful place to be. Our very own Tranquility Base.

What Norfolk lacks are all the things that make London a suppurating boil on the face of England - traffic, greed, noise, selfishness, johnny-foreigner, dinner parties, pollution, balsamic vinegar and the permanent smell of piss.

In Norfolk's case, to have nothing is to have everything.

An E-mail to my MP

Dear Paul,

I will keep this brief as we are both busy people.

I am wholly opposed to the detention of terrorist suspects for 90 days. The 14 day limit is perfectly adequate and has never been fully used.

Please do not allow Parliament to be bullied into accepting a bad law
because 'the police have requested it'

Thank you

Gerald

---

Dear Gerald,

Thank you for this e-mail about the 90 day proposal. I will vote
against it again during the consideration of the Government's
anti-terrorism bill tomorrow.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Goodman

--

His reply was with me in less than three hours, which is pretty slick. Although I don't think much of his party, I do quite like my MP. I voted for him last time around, although it was purely tactical.

More guff on him and his record here, which is also the place you can find, research and contact your own MP.

As for the 90 detention clause - if in the fight to defend our freedoms we give away our freedoms, then why bother fighting?

November 8, 2005

The Tuesday Game: High Wheels

Original and tricky. Or a least, I make it look tricky.

It also seems to be a metaphor for life.

High Wheels

November 7, 2005

Amazon Prize Increase Shocker

At around the same time that Amazon.co.uk lowered its free shipping threshold last month from £19 to £15, the price of back-catalogue books was increased by 25%.

The Guardian was certainly suckered, running the headline "Amazon cuts costs for UK shoppers as growth slows"

As someone that only buys paperbacks, and generally buys from the back-catalogue, the change in the pricing policy has hit me squarely in the knackers.

For example, Kate Atkinson's Not the End of the World was £6.39, being 20% off list, and is now at the full list price of £7.99.

Likewise Howard Jacobson's Who's Sorry Now, up from £5.59 to £6.99 and Iain Banks' Complicity, up from £6.39 to £7.99

As part of a cost-cutting drive I have already been buying some of my books from charity shops, and this looks set to expand. I give away my books after reading them, so I don't mind thumbing a second-hand copy.

Thankfully Play.com have been deeping their catalogue recently and offer all of the books mentioned above at tasty prices (respectively £5.99, £5.49 and £5.99, all with free delivery on a single item), so hopefully competitive pressure will help Amazon to see the folly of their price increase.

In the meantime, to paraphrase an old maxim, there is no such thing as a free free-shipping offer.

P.S. If any of my UK readers want some free books, just peruse my 'available' books here, and send me a mail letting me know what you would like. The only condition is that you pass them on in a similar fashion.

November 6, 2005

X-factor

Over the last couple of years my television viewing has collapsed. This was mostly deliberate - TV sucks the brain out of your head and replaces it with 'targeted consumer messages.' I think I'll pass, but thanks for the offer anyway.

It is also because I lack the discipline to watch a weekly show. There was no point in me watching the first two episodes of Lost when I knew there was no chance of me watching the entire series.

I have reached the point where I now watch one single TV programme each week - the X-factor. Which is trashy, manufactured, money-grubbing... and fantastic drama.

This is car-wreck TV and I love it!

And wtf happened last night? Nicholas in the bottom two? He sang a great song perfectly. Easily one of the top three performances of the night. Meanwhile the simpering sappy Conway Sisters go straight through to next week. Surely some mistake your honour.

The final four should be Andy, Maria, Nicholas and Journey South.

And my prediction for the winner: Journey South. They are something different and they play from the heart, and in previous shows of this nature, talent has (eventually) triumphed over style.

The bookies currently have Shayne as clear favourite, but I think Journey South are going to keep picking up fans and Shayne can't survive on his good looks forever.

Of course, for pure entertainment there is no-one to beat Chico. He can't sing and can't dance, but he is 100% entertainment. He probably won't survive the next two weeks, but he has been fantastic value along the way.

It's Chico Time!

November 5, 2005

Guy Fawkes' Night

Tonight is Guy Fawkes' night in England. That's England not Britain, since it dates back to 1605, well before the Act of Union of 1707.

Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament, making him a very early role-model for Osama Bin Laden. It was all a Catholic plot, so once again religion got in the way of people being nice to each other. England did treat the Catholics rather shabbily at the time, so Guy Fawkes had a reasonable cause, even if his murderous tactics lacked panache.

Fawkes got as far as loading the basement of parliament with barrels of gunpowder before being caught, and he was burned alive on a bonfire for his efforts.

Since then the country celebrates this close escape every November 5th, attending civic bonfires and burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes and/or the Pope.

More recently fireworks have become the entertainment of choice and it is now traditional for teenagers to goof around with these lethal weapons and occasionally set themselves on fire. When I was of that age I spent many a pleasant evening in the local graveyard with my friends aiming rockets at each other. All great fun until someone loses a face.

As I type it sounds like revolution with the crackle of small arms fire and occasional large explosions. Guy Fawkes' Night would be the ideal time to start a real revolution - most people would assume it was nothing other than the usual festivities.

Site color scheme - you choose!

After a lot of research and even more trial and error, I have managed to create user-selectable styles.

Over in the right sidebar is a 'style selecta', currently with two styles, Temple and Sedna. Simply select from the drop-down menu and the site will be reskinned.

It is also cookie-based, so you will keep the selected style for your next visit.

The biggest problem was styling the Amazon and Google ads so that they blend in with each style, but thankfully there are people out there who are way smarter than me, and are happy to share their knowledge.

Please test it and post a comment if it doesn't work properly. I will try to get a couple more styles created over the coming weeks.

November 4, 2005

Site traffic: October 2005

Flânerie.org had 1,787 unique visitors in October, up from 1,383 in September. There were 4,287 total visits and 10,037 page views. Which must mean that people are coming back. Possibly even voluntarily.

The search engines are getting used to having me around, and they delivered 112 page views, more than double last month. Google leads the way of course with 58, but MSN is still batting above its market share with 39.

If you search on msn.com for 'ipod dying' I am listed 3rd. 'happy birthday thatcher' has me 10th, and most bizarre of all, 'birdland bourton' has me 2nd, one place above the official site of Birdland in Bourton. MSN must love me, or something. Definitely something.

Yahoo is still lame, but six other search engines joined the scrum this month - Dogpile, AllTheWeb, A9.com, AOL, Excite and Ask Jeeves.

My tracking software also tells me what people were searching for when the engines steered them to my site. Top of the list is flanerie, natch. Guardian Crossword is 2nd, then a whole load of search terms that relate to my posts, plus a couple which don't - 'blg' and 'woman survives 30 000ft fall'. Quite wtf those are about I don't know, but hey, I'm grateful for the traffic.

The other vaguely interesting thing my tracking software claims is that 107 of my unique visitors have bookmarked me. Which seems like a lot.

Of the 10,037 page views, a little over half were viewed from the USA and a little under a quarter from the UK. The remaining quarter were viewed in 50 different countries. Strewth. Fifty! It is probably safe to assume that most regret the visit, but I am tempted to try to make the site more welcoming to Brunei, Denmark, India and Argentina.

Which is just a weak excuse for more flânerie.org bollocks.

November 3, 2005

Riding the storm

I haven't actually sailed in the southern oceans, but I have been on a car ferry and, more usefully, I have seen several films involving pirates and when the need arises I can talk like a salty seadog with a wooden leg and rusty sabre.

So I put all my knowledge into practice, donning oilskins and lashing myself to the steering wheel with my shoe laces.

The heavy rain on its own would have made for tricky conditions, but the wind added to it, gusting and buffeting and making aqua-planing more entertaining than usual.

I am at altitude here. Its not quite Mexico City, but in Slough I was at a paltry 20 metres, while now I am at 230m. Cheltenham is at 70m, so my daily commute involves climbing over 500 feet and then back down again in the evening.

As the road crossed the exposed ridge the wind hit and it was like buckets of water being thrown at the side window. Not that I took the time was enjoy the sight - I was busy trying to avoid the ditch to the other side of the road.

It was one of those storms where the swirling rain forms patterns, giving halucinatory encouragement to the white knuckled helmsman. I swear I saw a huge elephant charging towards the side of my car and a ghandi-like figure sat in the middle of the road. I looked out for a treadmarked loincloth this morning, but I guess I missed him.

It might be time to give up drugs for good. And next time I change my car I am paying extra for sonar and a periscope.

November 2, 2005

Into Africa

Two weeks before I left Amazon in September, one of my close colleagues also left. We had both, for our own reasons, got sick of what we were doing and wanted a change.

I moved to the Cotswolds to become a Finance Director, Elly went to Africa to work (non-concurrently) with horses, monkeys and AIDS orphans. Which does make me wonder if I should be doing something equally worthwhile instead of cooking the books.

After this job I will. Although I might not bother with horses.

Meanwhile Elly has set-up a blog to report on her travels, and it can be found here, and is also linked in the left-hand sidebar.

November 1, 2005

Fitba and the Jambos

The Jambos.... well, Heart of Midlothian is a football team from Edinburgh, aka Hearts, aka the Jam Tarts (an Alice in Wonderland reference), aka the Jambos, a name also applied to their fans.

And I can only pity the (broken) Hearts of Midlothian right now. Or maybe I can envy them. Either way, it is impossible to ignore them despite my very English blood.

Hearts haven't won the Scottish Premier League for 45 years and have had to settle for an annual dogfight with Edinburgh rivals Hibernian while Celtic and Rangers hog the title for what seems like forever.

But suddenly something to inspire hope - Hearts find themselves with a big money backer, a highly professional chief executive and a top notch manager. They win the first nine games of the season, and then draw the tenth against Celtic to hold a 3 point lead. Hibernian are third and Rangers an embarassing fourth.

But still no-one actually believes that Hearts can win the title. They have been here before, albeit not quite so emphatically, and if you ever meet a Jambo, you will see a distant look in their eye - the gaze of someone that lives on hope, never on fulfilment.

Football is a very cruel mistress, and a lot can go wrong in a season. A lot can go wrong in a week.

The last week at Hearts have seen them lose their manager, chief executive and chairman. That leaves the big money backer, a certain Vladimir Romanov, who has appointed his son, Roman Romanov, to run the club and find a new manager. Clear Vladimir lacks imagination when naming children, but I guess that isn't a required skill in owning a football club.

What is next for Hearts is anyone's guess, but the one thing keeping the Jambos hopes alive is another Roman - Roman Abramovich at Chelsea. He took a team that hadn't won the league in 50 years and made them champions. As one Hearts fan said last week. "if you have a rich owner and a great manager, its better to lose the manager than the owner. With money you can find another great manager anytime."

Two of the front runners for the Hearts job are Bobby Robson and Nevio Scala, and kudos to the Guardian for pointing out that their combined age, at 130, is only one year less than the club itself.