Watch all the fun on the beach here.

Posted by Mark at 11:17 PM | Permalink

Today started early with a drive out to the garage to drop Martin off to pick up his new car. A smart people mover with seats and bootspace for us all to travel in style.

On the way back I was catching up with the news about Katrina and the devastation that’s been inflicted on New Orleans. The more you read the more terrible it all seems.

Keep up to date with the story here.

Posted by Mark at 6:31 PM | Permalink

Today was Caribbean day with the Notting Hill Carnival. We opted to stay away from the crowds and go to Hyde Park to the Caribbean Showcase.

With music from Arrow, Omar, the London Community Gospel Choir and the BT Melodians Steel Orchestra and jerk chicken and curried goat to keep us all going we had a great time and managed to get a pint in on the way home as well.

Posted by Mark at 10:25 PM | Permalink

The last Thai festival of the year is always the one which supports a charity to keep kids away from prostitution and gives them an education and, hopefully, a better start in life.

This year they tried something new with a couple of fashion shows. One featured designs from a new young Thai designer and the other was a collection based around the traditional dress of the hill tribe people of Thailand.

I managed to take a load of pictures for one of the designers and some for the UK Thai community magazine and Fhai got the phone number of the designer in case she needs some work done.

The food was great, the weather was very warm and we all went happily home to the sound of Martin saying, “Tolasap, gling gling”….

Posted by Mark at 10:23 PM | Permalink

With things at work in what can only charitably called a state of flux (more like a flux up )I’m looking to upgrade a few things and try a few other things out.

• I’ve upgraded this weblog to the latest release of Moveable Type, version 3.2. It’s time for a facelift and once they have fixed all the bugs with templating we’ll get a new set of clothes for the winter

• I’m playing around with Limbo for a site on a webhost which doesn’t have SQL

• Both for work and for here I’m looking at using the MediaWiki engine to produce a Wiki. MediaWiki is used at the excellent Wikipedia and whilst I can’t promise the same standards it will be fun to see what it can do.

Posted by Mark at 5:55 PM | Permalink

With the kids at Anne's we all had a quiet night in.

We still managed to get through the same amount of beer but we planned the Bank Holiday weekend, looked at some pictures and watched the DVD of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the photographer who took the Earth from the Air pictures.

I'd bought his book last week in an attempt to discover what you "do" when you are a photographer. All I think I do is take very average snaps and I'd like to change gear and "be" more of a photographer.

I'm struggling to find direction to what I take and to make a move to something which isn't just the odd average snap.

Maybe I need to watch it again.

Posted by Mark at 11:04 PM | Permalink

It's been ages since I was in shorts. Well days. After being in a suit almost 24 hours a day this week walking down the road in a pair of shors in the sun was wonderful.

The days are drawing in and we are loosing the warmth in the sun so any day like today from now on needs to be treasured.

Posted by Mark at 10:59 PM | Permalink

If at first it doesn't work - re-install.

Still a long day, still a lot of politics. Still too many people selling this before it's ready.....

Posted by Mark at 11:43 PM | Permalink

It's like living in a cave - dark when you getup and dark when you get back.

All I can do is crawl into bed.

Posted by Mark at 11:59 PM | Permalink

Perhaps you remember the Piano Man that we spoke about in May

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Piano Man breaks his silence

The mystery of the “piano man” that baffled medical experts and prompted a worldwide appeal appears to have been solved.

A hospital source told the paper: “A nurse went into his room last Friday and said, ‘Are you going to speak to us today?’, to which he simply replied, ‘Yes, I think I will’.”

But he has now admitted that he does not play the piano very well and only drew one because it was the first object that came to mind.

The patient, who Kent and Medway NHS trust have not officially identified, said he had been working in Paris but lost his job. He then travelled to Britain on a Eurostar train.

Having worked with mentally ill patients in the past, he is believed to have adopted certain mannerisms in a seemingly successful bid to fool experts. The Mirror claims that the hospital is considering taking legal action against him.

Posted by Mark at 10:17 PM | Permalink

It started off with a day of chores around the house, new pots and plants for the back garden and some paint to make a start on the door, and ended up with a party for Daisy's birthday.

Way too much good food, red wine, sun and volleyball....

Posted by Mark at 10:10 PM | Permalink

Seems ages since I went to the theatre.

Today I went out to look for new furniture at the Conran shop in Chelsea and to see what was on the menu at Bibendum, an amazing building with old, brightly coloured tiles showing the history of motoring (Bidendum is the name of the Michelin man). After an afternoon windows shopping in the local Prada and Burberry stores it was time to head into town.

I'd left it too late for the Most Photographed exhibition whose timed tickets had sold out for the day. I had more luck with Death of Salesman, which was on at the Lyric Theatre. It had a good strong cast headed up by Brian Dennehy who stared as William Kirwill in Gorky Park. It's a challenging play centered around the idea of the American Dream, betryal and abandonment. That said, it does have a few laughs.....

Posted by Mark at 11:54 PM | Permalink

More and more I’m using RSS to catch up on all kinds of information from the web. The days of having the luxury of sitting and sufing seem long gone.

Now I use Firefox with the Sage plugin to keep in touch with my daily reads and Feeddemon to gather up all the sites I’d like to read store them and hope one day I can churn through the backlog.

It’s not just blogs that I use RSS to keep up to speed on. I have in my Sage daily reads weather feeds (both home and abroad), the local cinemas, news feeds and the odd online forum.

Here’s a few new sites that have made it onto my daily reads :

• Gridskipper the hip urban travel guide which covers everything from cheap to chic.

• Dexigner the world design portal with news from fashion, textile, art and digital mediums

• Londonist the little brother of Gothamist

Posted by Mark at 5:53 PM | Permalink

It's that annual August thing : the exam results.

Every year we debate and argue about the state of the A level exam. Is it still an exam or simply a leaving certificate from college ? Has it been devalued ? Are more students better educated or has the exam been dummed down ?

To me the focus of the argument is all wrong. We have a better educated population as wages, aspirations, availability of materials like the Internet have all risen.

What we need to concentrate on is the growing crisis of half of this country's children failing to get 5 A's at GCSE, many failing to get any GCSEs. We need to get them engaged and interested in school, we need to develop and coach them.

We don't need an elite, we need a balance across all of society.

Posted by Mark at 11:37 PM | Permalink

Back late again. We are making progress but it's slow. I guess today was a better day as I have some funding sorted which will help.

An interesting drive back with the M25 gridlocked as a camper van was on fire.

I promised myself I wasn't going to get drawn into another series on TV as I had a whole season and a half of 24 to catch up on but I peeked at Lost and now I'm lost. Was that a polar bear ?

Posted by Mark at 11:42 PM | Permalink

World Changing provides a blog where “Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future ” are discussed as well as a whole lot more.

So, if you’d like to :

• Know how urine can help make cheap batteries for medical sensors and testing kits or in an emergency battery

• Find out how architects are making more of roofs

• See how a Stirling [1] engine can help make power

Drop by them and read some more.

¹ Years ago my father bought a Stirling engine. I was so impressed by it’s simplicity I made one in what was them called in school “metalwork”. It’s basically a chamber which is heated, causes expansion and contraction and moves a piston. It’s a brilliant idea and, coupled with a “green” energy source would help everyone out and cause a lot less issues on the Earth.

Posted by Mark at 11:12 PM | Permalink

I got the call on Saturday : the Americans are coming, and today, they duely arrived.

Hopefully with them here we can settle this project down, get the upgrade sorted and move on. For me it meant a change to the day, an early start and more calls to settle people to the idea of the upgrade.

This evening sitting out with a glass of wine (in fact my glass returned from Don full with a decent red), Humph on the radio and a bunch of programmes from the local theatres I'm planning an autumn and winter of music, theatre and art house films.

Posted by Mark at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, it rained on and off today, in fact to be exact it was a torrential downpour, but it was in keeping with the London Mela.

Mela is the Sanskrit word meaning "to meet" and it was certainly a meeting of hearts and minds. Despite the rain there was enough going on to keep everyone in one place, happy, dancing and very well fed.

The best stage seemed to be the London Flavas one, hosted by Nihal from Radio One. They had a wide range of contemporary Indian music including Taala, a band lead by the Grandfather of Bangra music, a very youthful Kuljit Bhamra. The band feature percussionists from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical Bombay Dreams.

On the classical stage all the Ragas seemed to come from the rainy season, when I'm sure something from Summer might have pushed the clouds away a little faster.

I ate well, in fact perhaps far too well. Sikh, Halal and traditional homecooked Indian food was all on offer along with different drinks and kulfi.

Wandering the mela was a troop of Indian musicians with a dancer and a conjuror in tow. The last time I'd seen this site was at Sam's Shack on the beach in Goa. The conjuror was amazing. As the music played he took a stone and a marble from a pocket. Showing them to the crowd he struck the two together in his hand, making a loud crack. Placing the stone on his chin he threw the marble into the air moving under it so it hit the stone and bounced into his hand. Most impressive was the fact he could do this every time.

All in all a good day out and a nice time for all of London to unite laugh and eat and in these troubled times we need all of these times we can get.

See more of the Mela here.

Posted by Mark at 8:02 PM | Permalink

Today has been a complete washout. Rain, rain and more rain. And cold.

That grumpy tetchyness I had a few days back returns...

Posted by Mark at 8:01 PM | Permalink

Posted by Mark at 11:36 PM | Permalink

I got back tonight tired and tetchy.

My shoulder and neck ache and I'm not in the best of moods. Partly work, partly seeing two a couple of accidents on the road.

Back late and with no desire to sit out the rain made the decison for me and I mooched around watching TV and getting annoyed as I couldn't log back into work to pickup my mail.

Time to try to sleep it off.

Posted by Mark at 9:04 PM | Permalink

Sounds opulent doesn't it : Conservation Area. It isn't.

Whilst it ensures that to a degree we preserve the character of the Edwardian area in which I live, built between 1898-1912 in a layout which remains untouched to this day but without it's corner shops, two builders yards and Mission Hall, it also enforces a set of rules about what can and cannot be done.

I'd like to change my front door. It was an early modification to the house once I moved in, replacing a three panelled clear glass door with one of more solid wood with a mock Art Deco glass panel.

For years it's been brown, stained wood but I'd like a colour. In fact the sage green which was inside the pub I went to with Amanda recently. To do that takes all sorts of calls and checks with the local council.

I think we're sorted now. I also checked up what I'd need to do once I found The Door of My Dreams (which is actually installed in a near by road: black, part glazed and with a large Art Deco pane of glass).

So now I know. When I go hunting in reclaim yards I need to take with me a tape measure, a digital camera and the email address of the Planning Offcer to check I can buy it before I apply for Planning Permission and wait for 6 weeks....

Posted by Mark at 9:23 PM | Permalink

Like many other people I sat here transfixed today and hoping all went well, and luckily it did.

I may have said before that space travel was part of my upbringing. Sitting on the sidelines of it, watching it on black and white TV or the standard 8 cine films my Father purchased from the newspapers for us both watch time and time again.

STS-114 Return to Flight was an important hurdle for NASA to leap. Both to prove the technology as well as prove to themselves it could be done. Faced with a few more trials than they hoped (including running repairs in space) the crew did well and all came home safely.

Welcome home...

Posted by Mark at 8:00 PM | Permalink

Well at the moment I can just about see and luckily I have an offline blogger program as the power has just gone off.

Sitting out we're all mucking into the Dunkirk spirit here and sharing candles and red wine.

No idea how long the power is out for but it's OK over the road.

We're all off to press our noses like Victorian urchins to other people window's to watch the TV

Posted by Mark at 9:03 PM | Permalink

One of the things I have always wanted to do was add something to the back of my house. Either a conservatory or a porch, somewhere to sit out on a wet day and read.

I'll never get to the elegance of Skywood (featured in the Va Va Voom car ads)but maybe with the help of Apropos something could be done here...

Posted by Mark at 5:50 PM | Permalink

Today was too nice a day to stay home so I headed for the beach with the Sunday papers, the radio for the cricket and a picnic.

It seems ages since I did this and the beach was empty when I got there and hardly filled up all day.

Most of the time I read and slept, waking only to listen to the cricket and to watch the Fastnet race drift by.

With the clouds building I headed back for more ballons and a wander around the fair.

Posted by Mark at 11:42 PM | Permalink

With Fhai enjoying a trip to a health farm (part of her birthday present) we all went for a wander along the South Bank to see the Earth from the Air exhibition. There's some stunning pictures, almost all taken from a helicopter, and some amazing facts like over 90% of the world's population has never made a phone call.....

Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM | Permalink

The usual Friday ritual of beer and music moved to the local park for the balloon festival and the night glow. We saw the balloons, went for rides at the fair and ate loads of ice cream.

Posted by Mark at 9:23 AM | Permalink

Socialight is an interesting attempt to allow :

“people to connect with others in their social network by using mobile telephone handsets in novel ways. Using location-based messages known as Sticky Shadows™, the Socialight platform enables new kinds of communication, taking into account the current and past locations of friends. Location is especially important in Socialight since the oldest (and, we think, most natural) time to really connect is when we ‘re out and about, and moving from place to place.”

“Sticky Shadows are virtual multimedia sticky notes that you “leave” for your friends in specific places using your mobile phone. Your Sticky Shadows can include various media types such as text, audio, photos, video or any combination thereof.”

It looks like an interesting cross between warchalking and blogging.

Posted by Mark at 3:37 PM | Permalink

Years ago I can remember standing not far from the school waiting for Mr Trivedi to pick me up in his car and take me for Indian music lessons.

We had a secret club him and me which used to meet in his shop and swap Ravi Shankar tapes. He was one of the founders of the local Indian Society and took under his wing this odd child who had an interest in Indian food and culture as well as music.

I can still remember that summer and his car with Steve Wonder's He's Mistra Know-It-All playing loudly. The teachers coped well with a white boy with none of the language and very soft fingers playing the sitar and being as amazed at the speed of the teachers playing as the young Indian girls sitting around me.

I still have some of the records and some of them have been upgraded to CDs and get played but tonight he's in town and playing at the Royal Albert Hall in one of the Proms.

So, if you have a moment and want to listen to Sandhya (evening) ragas listen here.

Posted by Mark at 8:32 PM | Permalink

BBC NEWS | Technology | One blog created ‘every second’

“The blogosphere is continuing to grow, with a weblog created every second, according to blog trackers Technorati.”

“Thirteen percent of all blogs that Technorati tracks are updated weekly or more, said the report, and 55% of all new bloggers are still posting three months after they started.”

“The voices in the blogosphere are also sounding less US-centric, with blog growth spotted in Japan, Korea, China, UK, France, and Brazil.”

Ladies and gentleman tonight I can report that the state of our Blognation is confident and strong.

Posted by Mark at 8:50 PM | Permalink

At long last my tape has run out. Well in cassette form at least.

The tape deck in kitchen packed up, which means the tape deck in the car's more or less redundant once I'm bored with what I have on cassettes now.

More and more I'm listening to digital media, either radio from the Internet, MP3s or podcasts so moving to CD and CD-RW would be a good move for me. The BBC are helping to move us all to a digital nation with podcasts of some of there shows. There's a full list here.

My ideal setup would be digital radio (or one of these), CD-RW player and Internet radio in one set for the kitchen and a CD-RW player in the car.

For now I think I'm just looking to replace the car radio and see how we go.

Posted by Mark at 5:53 PM | Permalink