Picture Daily

On the pier

Picture Daily

Remarkable tomatoes

Picture Daily

Down on the underground

Picture Daily

Third Man

Bread and circuses

So there I am with my full and plenty Republican views making the most of the Queen's Jubilee.  It was a time to keep my views to myself.  But really and equally it was a time to recognise that the whole thing showed Britain at its best...and will leave everyone feeling more upbeat and positive than before the weekend.  A weekend of spectacle, pomp and ceremony, that truth be told can only be done if you have a monarch.  It would be nice to think that our politicians would rise and respond to the great spirit which the country has shown and provide the positive leadership they should...but somehow that feels unlikely.

Of course it wasn't all good.  I have to ask myself whether the timing of the rescue of hostages in Afghanistan was done for the right reasons...or was it because success would be a good start for the Jubilee?  Sadly a second rescue attempt (of an Afghan policeman) resulted in the death of a British soldier....I wonder how his parents will remember the Jubilee weekend.

On a more frivolous level, it was probably a good job we only had the BBC coverage of the Jubilee boating pageant on in the background.  The commentators seemed to be no more than over-excited teenagers with nothing to add to the event.  Disappointingly given that there were a thousand boast in the line up, there didn't seem to be a single boat expert nor anyone to talking about our river or seafaring heritage...and a positive tragedy that no one was able to interpret the semaphore message from the National Theatre.  According to the Beeb, it was because they wanted to capture the full sense of the jubilee...but that sounds like PR bull to me.  And I should know.  Anyway, it was very beautiful to look at and we absolutely loved the LPO singing their way down the river.



On the downside transport was a disater...train companies, bus companies and tube companies made a right Royal balls up.  Transport for London said they hadn't expected so many people.  Wonder if they've clocked that the Olympics are coming...judging by the appalling service to Dagenham at the weekend where thousands are rehearsing, no they haven't.

Much praise should be given to whoever was responsible for the lighting and projections during the jubilee concert...truly phenomenal...unlike the linking comedians who struggled to know how to play it.  We came in half way through it so missed the wonder that is Grace Jones, but couldn't help but laugh at Will.I.AM and Stevie Wonder wishing the Queen a happy birthday...Americans. Bless.

We'd been to see Prometheus...the new Ridley film....which has arrived to mixed reviews which was inevitable really.  All I will say is we enjoyed it, the plot was riddled with holes and some of the scripting was a bit naff, but it's kept us talking for a couple of days.

And finally much excitement...we have just discovered that the Olympic Torch will be coming right past our front door on July 16th...and by right past our front door I mean within a couple of feet.  We're planning a trip to Brighton just to be there to see it...desperately excited ...although we won't be going on eBay afterwards....

Picture Daily

Map drawers from Transport For London

Picture Daily

Beach huts...always a colourful addition to the British seaside

A frozen chicken in the spin drier

I worry that any transgression against modern society's rules demands a fine...we're all used to picking up a parking fine, we get fined for not filling our bins properly, we can get fined for being drunk and disorderly.  Do it wrong and you'll be hit in the wallet.  In many cases this seems appropriate...or perhaps the least inappropriate punishment that can be given.  But I was concerned to read that Brighton Hospital Trust is being fined for data rules breaches.  You can read the full story here.  What worries me most is that, the NHS is permanently short of cash, and all this fine does is make an under-budgeted hospital that little bit poorer.  The only people who will suffer will be patients and staff.  That's not to say it wasn't a breach of the law and a punishment should be meted out, but it feels entirely wrong that a fine is imposed.  Hanging, flogging, quartering may not be the way to go...but perhaps suspending the Chief Executive would send out the right message...I'm open to suggestions.

On Friday we went out with my two friends. They're not my only friends, but they're amongst my longest standing.  By comparison The Cat's Mother has met them only a handful of times.  And it dawned on me that usually it's the other way round...we're often out with her friends, people I've met only a few times.  What it made me realise is how different the dynamic is...when you have known people for ever and a day, you have shared memories and emotions that the 'newbie' cannot be aware of.  So it was good for us to be finding out things new things that evening.

It turns out that when he was a wee lad of 13, young CD had a part in Raul Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected...a Saturday night favourite.  Not only that it was an episode featuring the gorgeous Joan Collins and the god that was John Gielgud.  Not bad for your debut.

On the left is CD, then the great JG, and poor JC with her head stuck in the sculpture



And how did they meet?  At a party he chatted her up with the line "Do you know what happens when you put a frozen chicken in a spin drier." Evidently he and his flatmates had tried it the previous week.  As a chat up line it apparently worked very well.

Picture daily

Cranes reflected in the evening water in The Docklands

Picture daily

An old door in the passageway of a falling down house in Norfolk...such a shame; the place was beautiful

First Friday Photos

I think it's time for a change...the blog has had the same look for ever so long, and as they say a change is as good as a rest.  Some might suggest that a rest would be a good idea, but it's not going to happen....so over the next few days, I'm going to have a play around and see what happens...the main thing I worry about is whether I'll lose all the comments on past blog posts.  That happened when I moved from to 'Disqus' so I'd be disappointed if it happened again...any hints before I make the leap would be much appreciated and welcomed.

I've finally got the hang of what I want to do with the daily photo post - I prepare it at the weekend and then schedule them to go up each weekday at the same time.  I don't tweet those, but will continue to tweet the 'main' posts.  It works for me...

May has been a busy month so a fair number of pictures taken...none too artistic but all happy memory joggers

 A new piece of street art...I think the artist is Toofy...and am sure Duncan who has a brain the size of a planet will correct me if I'm wrong

 The Queen's Diamond Jubilee window, languishing in The Houses of Parliament...hope they find a home for it

 If you know Old Street in London, you'll know that beautiful is not a word associated with it, but at night it looks great

 This is where we were rehearsing

 A windswept tree on the coast

 Quack

 In the heart of Brighton, these ancient buildings have avoided the developer's eye

 Did Mondrian paint these I wonder?

 The pretty harbour in Cyprus

 The reflections really appealed to me

 Night time at our hotel

Happy birthday Mum.  Happy Anniversary to you both

Picture daily

The very atmospheric tunnels under Waterloo Station...set up for a Secret cinema showing

I've lost a pair of shoes

Once upon a time I was told by a university lecturer that by the year 2000 we would all be consultants.  I think he wasn't wrong.  But increasingly there seams less time to be a consultant as we all become social media addicts.  That's you and me and everyone else doing that.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Instagram, Blogging (even) and any number of  digital means for us to interact.  I could spend the whole day and night just social media-ing.  Truth be told, I think we all prefer the real human touch...speaking to, hearing, touching, feeling and smelling a human.  I was going to add tasting...but there's been one too many cannibal stories in the press this week...I know because of my Twitter feed.  The trouble is life has got busier and busier and time is against us.  The upside of our digital lives is that it opens us up to people and places we wouldn't otherwise know about.  And I'm not complaining as that's really been a wonderful experience, but I do wonder whether the whole soshul medja thing isn't a little out of hand....

In the meantime, I've lost a pair of shoes.  I keep a pair in the office for emergencies...and so I don't have to wear motorcycle boots or cycling shoes on all day long.  They were there at the start of the week.  The I spilt a whole mug of tea on my desk.  It made a mess, and there was quite a cleaning operation to sort it out.  And then they were gone.  I don't know what was in the tea. But if it does that to the shoes, what's it doing to my stomach?

I've given up being polite to my personal bank - LloydsTSB.  They ring me regularly now wanting to give me a loan.  It's the usual umbrella when the sun shies policy which banks have always done well.  Their offer of helping me manage my finances always makes me respond with the comment that accepting advice from a bank that's broke doesn't sound like a clever thing to do.  This week I spent nearly two hours on the phone to them as an electronic payment I made last week had evidently not gone through due to a server problem.  They blamed my server, I blame their IT.  In the course of the two hours I had to go through security eight times.  Eight times, even when they were transferring me on an internal line.  Of course, I want my money to be protected, but really eight times?  It wouldn't be so bad if the basic security for internet banking there was good - when I log on I have to enter a password.  Most companies turn the letters or numbers into * when you enter them - not Lloyds whose website proudly displays your password for everyone to see and copy.  For my two hours, I've been rewarded with £40, which is double the minimum wage, so I may take this up as a full time occupation.

On the business bank front, today I need to pay the VAT.  So I went to log on, entering all the necessary details.  It rejected me as inputting the wrong details.  As these are written out on a sheet of paper which I copy, this seems unlikely. It then made me answer some security questions.  The second one was 'What was your first car?'  Not tricky...a Ford Cortina.  Evidently the bank thinks this is wrong.  The question I have asked myself is would I have ever put down something else? It seems unlikely.  In the meantime, the VAT needs to be paid electronically...it's the only way the jack-booted Inland Revenue will accept it.  And I have no way of doing that.  What's the betting the bank will deny any responsibility?

Over at the Leveson enquiry, the politicians are coming increasingly unstuck.  Clearly they've had their noses, tongues, and anything they could muster up Murdoch's well-formed bottom.  Not really very comforting is it?  Tony Blair, swanned, reeled off the usual rubbish, before escaping with just a rotten egg thrown on his car for his troubles.

I read yesterday that Cameron is a great admirer of Tony Blair.  No wonder I despise the toffy-nosed idiot so much.


Well it seems we're done for.  All of us doomed.

In Spain, although it's not being reported, people are apparently queueing outside their banks to retrieve their cash.  When it rains in Spain you can bet we get a good soaking over here too.  Evidently, it would be sensible for the Greeks to be doing the same, but they're all too busy lying on the beach.  I suspect when history is written, the phrase 'fiddling whilst Rome burns' will be writ large.  The politicians have done it again...or rather not.  Not forgetting that the banks and the whole financial sector who played a major part in getting us all into this state are continuing to party hard.

Justin Time

My cycling this year has been intermittent at best.  'Things' just seem to keep cropping up to stop me putting bum to saddle and foot to pedal...so I was glad to jump on the bike this morning.  I turned out of our house, down the hill to the T-junction where there was a long queue.  Without thinking I cycled to the front, whereupon the nice young man in his black soft-top Porsche Carrera4 started edging forwards and pushing me out the way.  I turned round and asked him "Why?" (That may not have been the exact word).  His reply "I was here first".  I nearly fell off at that point.  A grown man saying "I was here first".  There are various reasons that cyclists go to the front of a queue.  If we discount the 'Because we can', we can still hold our heads high with the 'It's for safety - not getting caught up in slow moving traffic which is dangerous' argument is a good one.  Anyway, he roared off...only to be caught in the traffic jam in the High street, which enabled me to catch him up and bellow at him "I'm here first now".  It may not have been grown up, but it did make me smile...and him snarl.

Having sold my soul to Rib Tours for the sake of a an hour being thrown around on the Thames, I might just mention that I've also sold my soul to Warner Brothers.  I'm not quite sure where or how Beelzebub might get a look in....and I know he's been rubbing his hands in anticipation for a good few years now.  When I first started I always said NO to any form of commerciality, but frankly and bluntly if I fancy something I'm going to go for it.  As it happens, I walked away with a whole load of goodies which have gone in the re-gifting cupboard....

A few weeks ago I went to a Bloggers morning to see some of  WB's new films and the associated technology.  Since then they've promised me a review copy of a couple of films which I expect will pop up soon.  But the little gem that will be winging its way to me soon will be Lego Batman2...its a computer game.  Now as Steve is a Lego addict, I hope this will make him green with envy...although I suspect he doesn't give two hoots for X-Box games, preferring the pleasures of dodgy French police dramas.  The Boy is much excited...as no doubt will be The Muffins when I tell them about it.

But the most important thing I learnt was that if you buy a Blu-Ray marked 'triple play', you can transfer it to your phone.  And that works well for me.

We recently watched a film on Blu-Ray that we'd managed to miss in the cinema - In Time with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.  I don't know how we missed it, because I loved the premise - ageing has been conquered.  Everyone ages until they're 25, and then stops getting older. The only thing is you only have a year more to live.  Time has become currency, so working buys you more time, and spending uses up that time.  In a more talented directors hands this would have been brilliant...actually Andrew Niccol directed Gattaca which was brilliant...so no excuses really.  Instead it was just good...quite clunky in places, not great acting, and the script needed some work.  And whilst Amanda Syfried looks great everyone wanted to know whey when she's running for her life, she's always doing it in six-inch stilettoes.  But we all really enjoyed it...and it provoked plenty of debate for a good while afterwards.  It certainly makes for a scathing reflection on today's society.  And it was good enough that it became the first film I transferred from the disc to my phone, so I can watch it anywhere. Do grab a copy (it's a Twentieth Century one, so no Warner Brothers bias).