Since I don’t currently have the readies to be flying to Australia for conferences (or even cycling to Brighton for conferences), I’ve been doing the next best thing by listening to podcast recordings of some of the presentations from the Web Essentials ‘05 event which happened recently in Sydney.
The fact that I’m able to […]

When I was doing Computer Studies at school (remember the BBC Micro anyone?) one of my teacher’s pet concepts was the “paperless office”, that great day in the future when all information would be held on computers and people would no longer communicate by letter but by something called “electronic mail” (sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?), […]

Well, summer’s over, England have won the Ashes and I’m having to face up to a few hard realities; namely, I will never again hear the dulcet tones of Richie Benaud on these shores, furthermore, if I want to see any cricket on telly again I will finally be forced to get Sky (but […]

Yet another means of distraction has presented itself to me. It’s called Google Earth and will no doubt become the next big thing on the net, until the next big thing after that comes along.
If you haven’t discovered this yet, basically it’s like a virtual globe, which uses keyhole satellite pictures of varying magnification to […]

His Saxophone Is Silent, His Life Is in the Balance

Michael Brecker, one of jazz’s most influential tenor saxophonists over the last quarter-century, has been forced to stop performing by blood and bone marrow disease and is searching for a stranger to save his life.
Mr. Brecker, 56, was recently found to have myelodysplastic syndrome, a form […]

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it […]

It’s Sunday lunchtime and I’m collapsed in my living room, anticipating a day of sport on telly. A few highlights from the week:

I am no longer an employee of the Barbican Centre.
Philip Wilby remembers my mum very well, “I used to like her in physics”.
Passed driving test with 9 minor faults. Suggest you all avoid […]

Apologies to regular readers (do I have any of those yet?) for my lack of postings of late. Also for lack of Barcelona photos, which didn’t come out. (Note to self: mobile phone cameras are no good in sunny climes because you can’t read LCD screens in broad daylight.)
I thought I’d take a moment (at […]

I’m returning to London tomorrow, having not spotted the killer whales again.
Bizarrely, there’s still a 30 minute check-in at the airport (this is Kirkwall airport, where you only have to walk 30 yards from the check-in desk to the plane), so I’m going to be up early.
It’s been absolutely brilliant, if any of you have […]

This afternoon I saw a FAMILY of KILLER WHALES!(Or a POD of ORCA, to give them their botanically correct name).
No, I’m not joking. Nor did I end up in Orlando instead of Orkney. There they were, no more than 100 yards off the coast, surfacing every 30 seconds or so, and moving north at an […]