Category: Misc

Random conversations heard on trains recently: #1 A family are travelling into London. The mother’s French, the father English, and the kids seem bilingual. However, the family seems to live in France, and hence they’re doing the touristy thing with some English relatives, and are taking the kids to the British Museum. The mother is…

UGC Cinemas (is that tautology?) have recently changed their telephone system so that instead of tediously pressing “#” and various numbers, you now tediously say things to their voice recognition system, which them proceeds to missunderstand you and prompt you to repeat what you just said. In their infinite wisdom, the system is now set…

I have a habit that’s uncontrollable. I can’t walk past a bookshop without going in. My local town centre has an Ottakers, a WH Smith and a British Bookshops and Sussex Stationers (great name). But there have been some quite noticeable changes in the retailing landscape of bookshops of late. First of all, they all…

I’m torn. As a rule, I quite like Tesco. Yet mum is in vanguard of a campaign to keep Tesco out of Sheringham. The locals want them kept out as Sheringham is one of those few surviving towns without a major supermarket. Therefore, the town centre is thriving with traditional butchers, bakers, and candelstick makers.…

I love the ridiculous copyright notice we get at the front of films these days from FACT. That should put a stop to it. I suppose I really take exception to the fact that they can’t print their own phone number properly – it’s not 0208-xxx-xxxx, it’s 020-8xxx-xxxx. And yes it does make a difference…

Most fun this weekend was attempting to teach dad how to use a DVD player. I bought a 29.99 special from

To be honest, lumping together these two people doesn’t do much service to either of them, but this weblog isn’t an obituary column. I just mention the deaths of people I respected for one reason or another. Alistair Cooke, who’s death was announced this morning, always struck me of something of a curmudgeon. But he…

So Coke have announced that Dasani’s not coming back anytime soon. They’re going to tend their wounds and rethink the brand. I suggest that they re-evaluate European water drinking tastes. Supposedly France is/was next on the list. They’ve been drinking bottled water longer than most of us, and I just don’t see a not Natural…

Much interest this evening in some filming taking place in Piccadilly Circus. As a public place, it’s very hard to close off (that’s certainly the case elsewhere according to Film London). Anyway, precisely nothing was happening, and I was hurrying on to actually see a film (see next entry).

I’m disappointed to read that Alex Cox is stopping his diary again. He wrote it for the Beeb’s film website for a while, but you get the feeling that it got a little too political for them. It’s a shame, because he’s an interesting guy who isn’t in the film industry for quite the same…

So what’s the story with YHA Adventure Shops? Their main London branch used to be in Southampton Row in Covent Garden, but they moved out some time ago (and I think Ellis Brigham moved in from across the road). Instead, they took a three floor shop on Wardour Street which is pretty odd. For those…

It goes from bad to worse for Dasani – the newly launched Coca Cola water, which was quickly “revealed” to be purified tap water. It seems that bromate levels are too high, and as a result 500,000 bottles are being recalled. You can see the UK launch of Dasani going down in the marketing text…

This is an odd one. I don’t really like musicals that much. Indeed, I usually go out of my way to avoid them. Real theatre is drama to me. But when I was offered tickets to this show tonight, I immediatly accepted. Why? Well it’s not because I’m an particular fan of the star, Amanda…