Category: Misc

I’ve spent the last few days in France going to a work thing before travelling on to watch the Tour De France with Saturday’s time trial in Rennes. I travelled via Paris, and got a TGV from Montparnasse station. Here’s something I didn’t know about TGVs. I thought that their layout was pretty much the…

I’m sure that no businesses in England at the moment would be concocting clever plans to make many out of England’s [relative] success in the World Cup at the moment. You know what I mean, selling Ikea chairs at 1p, offering 2-for-1 on pizzas on England match days at Pizza Hut or offering 10% off…

A nice profile of Arnuldur Indriðason in the Guardian Review yesterday. I’ve been catching up with the World Cup over the last couple of days – culminating in watching all three matches today. I did get out in the morning spending a pleasant time cycling around Hertfordshire. Here’s a nice pub I found:

If you’ve read any of Le Carré’s Karla novels then you’ll be familiar with the character of Connie – memorably portrayed by Beryl Reid in the TV versions. She was quite probably based on Milicent Bagot, a real-life spook who’s just died aged 90. Read The Times’ obit.

The other day, some mindless vandals smashed a window at my local station. But it did allow me to point my camera through what would normally be a relatively opaque window. A couple of long exposure’s followed which I rather like. Particularly the second one.

It seems that the Monday Lottery is struggling. I’m not surprised. A dreadful television advertising campaign lead to server meltdown on their first draw night, and then… nothing. The ad money had been spent and consumers quickly forgot about it.

…someone got off the train today carrying a copy of The Secret History by Donna Tartt and with a pre-recorded video in her bag. I thought that maybe I’d gone through some kind of time warp… …I got in and turned on the radio to hear the Hungarian national anthem being roundly booed by the…

How long has Doonesbury been in the Independent on Sunday? It always seemed a little weird that The Observer didn’t carry it – and now I know why. (Although I think it was probably more a case of nobody else taking it, and IoS deciding that they would).

Don’t you love it when the council relay a road, and it’s beautifully smooth… only for one of the utility companies to come along a day later and dig it up before the road markings have even been painted!

With a great fanfare (of sorts), the Monday Lottery launches today, proclaiming itself to be “the charities lottery.” And there was me, cynically thinking that it was just a commercial operation run by Chariot UK plc… But let’s have a look at that charities connection shall we? Well their website lists 70 charities who, I…

Into town to see The Sultan’s Elephant. Only the French could put something on like this. Over four days, a story based on something that Jules Verne wrote, was played out across London. Enacted by Royal de Luxe, the highlight was the aforementioned elephant that stands 40 feet high and is a wonder of mechanisation.…

As anyone who’s travelled by train knows, most platform announcements these days are automated. There’s nothing especially wrong with this, since the male and female voices are clear and concise. The system at the stations on my regular route are very listenable. However, we, the passengers, do realise that it’s a recorded voice. So when…

Well I spent at least half an hour on this after work yesterday, and didn’t get anywhere. Fortunately, someone else has. Here’s the solution.