Here’s a review of the past year : the good, the bad and a few of my favourite posts.

Happy New Year !

The Good

•Watching people grow up.

•The world of digital radio

•Using Open Source products to get people sharing information.

•Making not a bad attempt at HDR, cross processing and lomography

•Amsterdam

•A reunion, of sorts, with my family.

•Some great days out

•The Sultan’s Elephant

•Michael and Cassara

•Richard Hawley

•A new car

•Dave and Mouse

•Oysters

•Robbie Williams

•Returning to the Palladium

The Bad

•Loosing people at work : some who were just part of the landscape, some who were meant a lot more

•Wasting rather a lot of time on someone.

•Failing to do what I intended with this blog

•Continually saying I will travel and not going …

•Not fixing the camera …

•All the stress of work

•The dangers of blogging

•White goods stress

The Posts

•Sand
•Forgotten and discarded
•25 ASA
•A Good Decision
•Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Knight …
•Behind the Curtain …

Posted by Mark at 11:47 PM | Permalink

The plan had been to go to the sales but the rain put an abrupt stop to that.

After Harrods we headed for the National Portrait Gallery to see The Photographic Portrait Prize then over the road to Bertorelli in St. Martins Lane before we headed home to dry out….

Posted by Mark at 8:53 PM | Permalink

Posted by Mark at 11:34 AM | Permalink

“Yes, Amanda’s parties have definitely changed”, her Mum mused, “a lot less Vodka and a lot more babies”.

This was the first time I’d been to her new house and it seemed that crawling children were everywhere. Luckily the new house seems have a lot more floorspace than the old.

In fact the fun extends outside of the house with a three garages (one soon to be a gym), a heated hot tub, pool, office in the garden and a neat African summerhouse like Martin and I lusted over at one of the summer shows this year.

The point of all these people and presents was, of course, Ben’s first birthday. It’s been a while since I saw them last and he’s grown and now walks, albeit a little unsteadily, on his own. Not that it matters, there’s loads of people around him to support and care for him and I’m sure that will always be the case.

Posted by Mark at 10:03 PM | Permalink

Was that really twelve months ? What happened to the plans to travel more, to write more and to take more photographs ?

The most important resolution for next year has to be to just do it …

Posted by Mark at 10:59 AM | Permalink

After all that unwrapping and eating yesterday there’s not much energy left for anything today other than sitting down with the fire and lights on and some old black and white films on the TV.

Rest at last …

Posted by Mark at 7:38 PM | Permalink

With presents exchanged, glasses filled, emptied, and filled again and the trauma of cooking the sprouts negotiated all we have to do is sit down to enjoy a very leisurely meal and wonder if Gwen is asleep in her basket or chewing Cheryl’s shoes again.

Merry Christmas !

Posted by Mark at 10:26 PM | Permalink

For the last few years I have spent some of the build up to Christmas in an airport so this year to be home on Christmas Eve is quite novel and a real relief.

My last minute shopping is all done. I have bought out a whole day’s production of batteries and the Stollen is open and cut.

Whoever you are, where ever you are I hope you have a very Happy Christmas.

Posted by Mark at 5:09 PM | Permalink

Tonight, as Martin and I talked and listened to music, Richard and Fhai played chess and Joanne found her way around the CBBC site.

Port and Blue Vinney late at night. One day to go - I’m sure I heard sleigh bells …

Posted by Mark at 11:04 PM | Permalink

“I know where I can get a Christmas tree in two minutes”, said Jonny with a smile on his face.

Wrapped up against the fog he disappeared into the cold leaving us all sitting at the table wondering what he really meant. We were all at Fhai’s for a Thai banquet and the odd bottle of champagne to celebrate the Winter Solstice yesterday : “The days are getting longer now”, I said, hopefully, to Martin. It hasn’t seemed like that with the cold, dark foggy days of late.

True to his word two minutes later and Jonny returned with a new tree and that’s how Martin and Fhai ended up moving their Christmas tree …

Posted by Mark at 11:30 PM | Permalink

All of my memories of you are from those summers.

I can remember you as I stood by the new wall at my parents house. I was amazed at the bubble car you were in, a trade up from the scooter you had before. Maybe it was one of those Sundays when you used to come around to use my father’s Bridges Neonic drill to sand down the slice of tree trunk which you were turning into a table for your sister Linda.

Driving in your car, amazed at the sight of the 8 track cartridge unit as we listened to The Stylistics. The time we went fishing at the canal and I didn’t take any hooks. You set off down the bank to get some from those kids. I always thought you “bought” them off them with a cigarette or two. I had those hooks wrapped in the silver paper for ages. They smelt more of tobacco then they did of the canal water and maggots.

I knew that my parents looked after you and your twin when you were young but, until yesterday, I never knew that your middle name was the same as my father’s. I watched the old cine film of you with my father on the fields opposite the house. You were there with him years before the houses, and I, came along. A summer evening with golden light, you standing my father sitting, back straight and smiling into the camera, that model plane in your hands.

The last time I saw you was April. I recognised you immediately, your features a mix of my grandfather and fathers, your voice the same. Still thin, still as lively. I can’t blame you for not being interested in me. I was the outsider that day and you hadn’t seem me for over twenty five years. I listened at the edges of the conversations and pieced together some facts of your life. Married still to Linda, children, grandchildren.

As we stood in the sun outside the pub and said our goodbyes we spoke and shook hands. The smile was still there, the firm handshake. Just a few words, but we spoke.

Tonight I came home to the news that you died on the 5th, already cremated and, I’m sure still being mourned. Maybe that’s why that meeting was so important and why you arranged it. I wonder if you knew it wouldn’t be long.

Despite all that’s happened I’m glad that we spoke and that we met one last time in the sun.

Posted by Mark at 11:54 PM | Permalink

The last time I was here I was watching Alan Duddington tell a confused young barmaid that he’d like his drink in a proper glass.

She stood and looked, consternation written all over her face, at the perfect pint of bitter she had poured. “A proper glass”, he said again, smiling, his Lancashire accent ringing out clearly.

“A glass with a handle”, I said, putting her out of her trouble and misery. It was a preference I’d seen Alan exercise a few times before, always with the same confused result.

Known locally as The Hole in the Wall, and more formally as The George, it was an old coaching inn where the Exeter Post coach stopped every night at 11:00 pm before setting out on the return journey at 3:00am. Dating from the 15th Century it had extensive cellars and it’s own well.

Now it’s all disappeared. Absorbed into a brand new Zizzi’s. I sit here and, despite all the tables, candles and Christmas cheer it still seems to me I’m sitting in an alley with the door to the pub behind me and Alan’s voice asking for a proper glass.

Posted by Mark at 8:57 PM | Permalink

Being on holiday has meant I have left behind the world of Outlook.

Everyday I sign into Outlook at work to check on my mail and listen to the incessant chime of the to do bell. I decided to leave that all behind when I stopped work and considered for a while using Sunbird the cross platform, open calender and to-do application which fits on a USB key.

Sure it works well but it still means I need to be “at” a PC or laptop to use it and that’s exactly why I turned to a smart new Moleskin notebook and a pen.

It’s hardly in the same league as Mike Rohde’s customised planner but it’s serving me well so far and, like Quasimodo, it’s nice not to hear the bells every day ….

Posted by Mark at 10:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I sigh and walk down the aisle in Toys R Us. Before me stretches a sea of pink plastic.

Shopping for Richard was easy. Martin posed a challenge but one that was easily surmounted. Joanne has been my undoing.

Hardly “girly” she’s not a complete tomboy either. Whilst it seems easy to get something for the sensitive boy the boisterous girl seems to suffer for a lack of options.

I wander past a row of cellophane wrapped dolls gazing out at me blankly and turn into another aisle. A riot of bright colours and plastic kitchens greets me. Around another corner and it’s shelf-fulls Barbies staring at me fixedly.

I hurry down the aisle and into the safer harbours of Action Man land …

Posted by Mark at 10:11 PM | Permalink

“Streetes of Boothes were set upon the Thames… all sorts of Trades and shops furnished, & full of Commodities…”

John Evelyn

Not upon but besides these days as Bankside holds it’s annual Frost Fair.

The last Frost Fair on the Thames took place in 1814 and lasted just four days. With the embankment of the river, the demolition of the old London Bridge and milder climates the Thames no longer froze. I guess even if it still did health and safety and insurance costs would see the end of these unique markets.

Today, beside the Thames, the traders are mostly the same as they were all those years ago. Merchants, food, drink and music all seemed to do a good trade as people wandered along in the afternoon Winter sunlight.

After the most amazing pie, mash and gravy from the Pieminster stall I wandered into the Globe to watch The Lions Part perform a short play.

I keep planning every summer to come and watch theatre here and again, sitting in the cold under the stars, I promise to come back. There’s something very magical about this place. Perhaps it’s the mulled wine. The Lions Part, as ever, are excellent and their play has all you want at this time of year : bawdiness, a dragon and a hero.

Wandering back I came across Colin O’Brien’s exhibition at the Oxo Tower Gallery. O’Brien’s work reflects and records daily life in London in black and white. It’s the everyday, keenly observed that sets him apart from other photographers.

Luckily for me the man himself was in the Gallery and was kind enough to spend a little time talking to me as I tried to understand just what does make him point his camera at that particular view and take a picture. As understated as his photography he reminded me of the approach Cartier Bresson, wait until the decisive moment.

I tried on the walk back with no luck. I need to practice a little more. For some more pictures of the Frost Fair look here …

Posted by Mark at 11:47 PM | Permalink

I have been entrusted with sprouts for Christmas.

No, not some festive disease but a small portion of the meal shared out in a communal dining experience for Christmas day.

Tonight was the dress rehearsal which didn’t go badly and suited the new potatoes and duck with cranberry sauce.

I was certainly ready to eat as I’d been in early to Portobello Road to pickup a present for Amanda.

Sometimes I can wander for hours looking at things and discarding them at other times, like today, you turn a corner and it all falls into place.

Lets hope it works that way in a few days with the sprouts ….

Posted by Mark at 10:28 PM | Permalink

Christmas comes but once a year and this year it’s closer than ever before I start the shopping. Luckily it seems loads of other people have had the same idea and, at least early in the day, the shops and streets are quiet.

At Hamleys, however, they were noisier with a stand off between the TGWU outside, clowns inside (both shouting in a what do you want, when do we want it style) and a thin blue line attempting to stop any murder in toy land.

I walking in reading the pamphlet I had been handed outside and was pounced on by a corporate marketing executive anxious to set the record straight. I’d have been slightly more interested if she had offered to help with the shopping.

An hour later I staggered out with a large collection of bags and set off on the adult section of the outing. This proved a little more tricky as it was wandering from shop to shop. By lunch time I was beginning to realise just how much time I spend sitting down at a desk from week to week and how little time I was spending exercising.

After considering setting an early New Year’s resolution (and then remembering it was on this year’s list) I headed to the Tokyo Diner for lunch.

The afternoon was more shopping, more in hope than with any purpose, and admiring the Christmas decorations.

Perhaps a little late, but Christmas seems to be here ….

Posted by Mark at 11:33 PM | Permalink

At last I am off work.

After a hectic day of calls, meetings, project plans and goodbyes and Christmas wishes I turn off my laptop and pack it away.

For me it’s the end of working year and one that has been challenging, stressful and demanding.

Together we have :

• produced 1,260 lines of project plans
• written 19,600 words added to a smart new Wiki
• racked 26 servers, patched in 180 odd cables and laid 50 meters of cables
• and a whole lot of other things….

On the minus side between three people two fridge freezers, one cooker, one washing machine, one central heating system, one toilet, a water tank, a TV, one car and a mountain bike have been broken, fixed, replaced or repaired.

I turn the light out and head downstairs to the less challenging task of putting up some Christmas decorations ….

Posted by Mark at 10:37 PM | Permalink

You may remember I wrote yesterday about the sad death of Leslie Harpold.

Early in the morning, trying to make sense of all the posts listed over at Del.icio.us, I tried to put across my own feelings in my own words.

Later, I was ideally searching at Blogsearch when I came across a post with the same words, the same idiosyncratic phrasing.

Now, I suppose that Parnell over at Ireland’s Few could have decided, like me to use Myspace as an example rather than Blogger, and that those particular words described Leslie the best way he could. Perhaps I have found a like coul on the Net.

Then again perhaps not. You decide. There’s this post and then there’s this one …

Posted by Mark at 6:24 AM | Permalink

Her Advent Calender is stuck on the 7th. Leslie Harpold has died.

She was a blogger before the word was invented. A prodigious, inspiring and amazing writer her guiding hand rested gently on harpold.com, Smug, 43Folders, The Morning News and many others.

Open, unique, groundbreaking and challenging : anyone with a Myspace owes it to this woman.

Posted by Mark at 6:42 AM | Permalink

After a day on the phone I decided that it was probably time to make a start on Christmas.

For one reason and another I didn’t get around to finding the Christmas decorations last year and it seems the year before that I must have used to ladder to put them away as they are just out of reach.

It’s too dark to go get it from the shed so tonight has to be Christmas card writing and on-line shopping.

Two days to go ….

Posted by Mark at 9:13 PM | Permalink

At last - the final week. Last set of calls, last week to book time….

Posted by Mark at 7:09 PM | Permalink

Putting the batteries in was the easy part. Working out how to bowl was a lot more tricky.

This afternoon was spent at Karen’s for Alex’s birthday. With the end of the cricket season outside he’d put TV cricket on his list. Plugged into the TV we stood and tried to get a decent ball bowled as the TV kept telling us “No Ball”.

Batting seemed easier. Well, as long as you were in clear sight of Alex. Behind him and you were likely to need a helmet or risk a trip to the hospital.

Lets hope at the next Test wickets are easier to get ….

Posted by Mark at 9:19 PM | Permalink

The last time I was here I was no older than seven.

In those days I thought the height of sophistication was eating breaded plaice, chips and peas. Everywhere we went I ate, and sometimes ordered, this.

So, over thirty years ago, I was sitting down after my favourite meal in the restaurant next to the Palladium when my parents announced that we were about to go next door to watch a show. That’s when my love of the theatre started and it’s a moment I’ve never forgotten.

Today the restaurant is still there. We didn’t have time to sit down to eat and, instead, grabbed a sandwich and coffee over the road in Carnaby Street before we waited to go into the theatre to watch The Sound of Music.

The Palladium is one of Frank Matcham’s remaining London theatres. Built during the golden age of theatre building it has his, self taught trade mark cantilevered balcony and richly decorated interior. The opera glasses are still there, just plastic now but the same excitement was there walking into the place.

It’s odd given the number of times I go to the theatre over the years that it’s taken this long to get back to the Palladium but the show was amazing. After all the build up from the BBC show Connie Fischer doesn’t disappoint.

Jeremy Sams’s production looses all the twee kitchiness that has surrounded the musical and the sing-a-long re-showings of the film of recent years and returns it to the operetta that it really is. Add into the mix Lesley Garrett as a Mother Superior with her amazing voice and the show is complete.

Tonight we were guests and I have to say the hospitality of the front of house staff easily matched the performances on stage. With a private bar and escorted to and from our seats it was a night to remember and a wonderful welcome back to this theatre.

After a stop off at Smollenskys in The Strand K and I headed up into Covent Garden for a meal, to sit out under the Christmas lights and enjoy a glass of mulled wine.

Just a few of my favourite things ….

Posted by Mark at 11:56 PM | Permalink

“We’ve got Chicken Run on”, said Joanne as I walked into Martin’s house.

Tonight Boys Night has moved down the road. Fhai is still ill and it’s better to be safe than sorry so we sit in the kitchen at their new table and talk.

We’re all tired but happy to catch up with each others news. The look on Fhai’s face is pure exhaustion both from being ill and the drugs. She rarely takes anything so something with a list of side effects and warnings that seems to take more space in the packet than the drugs has to be hitting her for six.

We all need a rest, we all need to recover ….

Posted by Mark at 10:05 PM | Permalink

I make another cup of coffee, sit down again and this time sort my email alphabetically.

It’s the same electronic pile of things needing consideration or reply or both but this time different things surface from the depths for attention.

I’m not doing too badly. The count on my inbox has gone down from 250 to 100 odd. I pick off a few of the newer mails that came in when I was making my drink before I set about one of the more dusty relics from my pile of things to sort.

At times it feels rather like Wimbledon. You fire off a reply only to see it arrive back, updated, a moment later. Where ever possible I pick up the phone and make a phone call but at the moment I’m on a conference call so all I can do is return it like a cross court lob from whence it came.

This time I’m determined to walk away having done all I can at work. This project seems to have drained us all and I think we all need time off to gather our strengths and finish this off in the New Year.

Somewhere at the back of the room in the gloom is Christmas calling …

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me!

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol

Posted by Mark at 11:32 PM | Permalink

Our highly trained team of webmonkeys are making a few changes to the bits and pieces which make this site run so hold tight and lets hope it all works at the end …

Posted by Mark at 10:05 PM | Permalink

I pull the curtains to one side and press my face to the cold glass.

Outside the streetlight burns in the dark, silent night. Behind me there’s the murmur of the television and the hiss of the fire. No one seems to be out tonight. The world seems still.

It’s almost Christmas. Preparations will soon start. Whilst shopping perhaps a trip to the old County Stores to buy a bag of pfeffernusse whose taste always reminds me more of Christmas than mince pies do.

I feel like I am trapped between two worlds here. The curtain with it’s lining is like a cloak around my shoulders. Floor length it hides me completely from view if you walked into the room. From outside I’m invisible . A few people walk by after a while but no one glances in to see me. It’s too cold to linger and too early for Christmas decorations. In a few weeks people will take the time to look in the windows and rate the trees and lights.

Most people’s minds are focused on a few weeks time, on Christmas day. To me today is always special. Saint Nicholas’ eve means cleaning your best shoes and putting them on the windowsill in the hope that he will leave a few small presents and not a piece of coal, the sign that you have been bad.

I watch my breath on the glass for a while as it makes halos around the lamp’s light then turn around. I leave that strange, silent place and walk back into the room, much older and with my shoe in my hand as the curtain falls behind me.

Posted by Mark at 11:08 PM | Permalink

I could write something about the calls I’ve been on today, or the nonsense I met at work or how tired I am of all of it.

Before I stepped away from my laptop I scanned some weblogs I read and came across this post by Tom Reynolds and thought my day wasn’t that bad at all.

How you face this, day in and day out, I will never be able to understand. All I can say is thank you to the people who do face it.

Posted by Mark at 7:02 PM | Permalink

“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lighting they
Do not go gently into that good night”

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

After watching the Da Vinci Code the other day I wasn’t surprised to receive a letter today from a Knight of St. John. Well, it was more a flyer trying to whip up support for something called the Christian Unity Party.

I don’t know what’s upset me more, the fact that this was spread around in a fairly liberal area with people from Thailand, India, Poland and more living happily side by side or the atrocious mis-use of the English language and fallibility in the statements and arguments put forward.

Harry Veevers de Sandilands writes that the Christian Unity Party are, “Chrisitians whose families have worked, fought and died for British Christians and Christian believes [sic].” Perhaps this is a simple typo.

He goes on to say, “We are not multi-racial, multi-religious or multi-cultural”. I find it strange for any organisation to use the idea that Britain isn’t multi-cultural. Isn’t this the country born of English people, invaded by the Romans, Norse, French to name but a few ? A country who has proudly opened it’s arms to people from our Commonwealth, from persecution in wars abroad, who gladly offers shelter to those who need it ?

“Politicians who are neither British descendants”, well Harry in an ethnological context the term British refers to a person of British nationality and/or descent whether resident in the United Kingdom or abroad. That’s most of us.

“God gave us all our promise land”, by which I presume you mean promised land. An interesting term to use as it relates to the Hebrew phrase, “a-Aretz ha-Muvtahat”. Christian but not very British. We seem to want to dip into whatever culture fits the bill then claim to be, “not multi-racial, multi-religious or multi-cultural”.

“they want to take our country, homes, jobs, education, healthcare”. Well, as Polly Toynbee wrote in The Guardian,

“The Institute for Public Policy Studies says migrants are profitable: for every £100 in taxes paid by the average British-born person, the average new immigrant pays £112. Migrants make up only 8.7% of the UK’s population but pay 10.2% of its income tax. Since many are the enterprising young and fit who anyway can’t claim housing or benefits here, that’s not surprising. They have few costs and many are willing to sleep on floors to save money.”

Immigration is now making the rich richer and the poor poorer | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited

“All British Christians will receive by right, free at their request, Housing, Healthcare, Education [sic]”, I have news for you, we are doing better than this. We offer this to anyone, regardless of religion or race. Not only that but our education system is making great inroads into teaching people about proper nouns, those special words which need A Capital Letter.

“One Million Polish workers have come to say in Britain last year”. Again, Harry, you are a little faulted here.

“In 2005, IPS estimates showed that more Polish citizens migrated into the UK for at least a year than citizens of any other foreign country. An estimated 49,000 Polish citizens migrated into the UK in 2005, almost three times the 2004 IPS estimate of 17,000.”

National Statistics Online

I’d also point out that the cross you ask people to display is in fact the Cross of Lorraine, the heraldic arms of Lorraine in eastern France. It was originally the symbol of Joan of Arc, renowned for her perseverance against foreign invaders of France (in her case the English or what you might describe as British Christians perhaps). It was later adopted as the badge of the Free French in World War Two. The flag of Slovakia and the Slovak coat of arms both include the Cross of Lorraine. It also features on the Hungarian coat of arms and it’s one of the national symbols of Belarus. An interesting choice for an organisation which stated so early on that it wasn’t multi-cultural.

So, Harry, what of the Knights of St John ? Perhaps they are better known as Knights Hospitaller, a Catholic military order charged with the care and defence of the Holy Land before it moved to Malta where it administered a vassal state under the Spanish viceroy of Sicily. Again, multi-cultural and hardly Christian.

The Treaty of Amiens which established the Knights of St John is an interesting document to read in relation to this notion of the doctrine of the Christian Unity Party. Here’s some of the stipulations in the Treaty :

1. The knights of the order whose language shall continue to subsist, after the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty, are invited to return to Malta as soon as the exchange shall take place.

So in fact rather than supporting a land for British people in Britain the Knights were happy to move abroad and setup home in Malta.

5. One half of the garrison, at least, shall be composed of native Maltese; for the remainder, the order may levy recruits in those countries only which continue to posses the languages (posséder les langues). The Maltese troops shall have Maltese officers. The command in chief of the garrison, as well as the nomination of officers, shall pertain to the grand-master; and this right he cannot resign, even temporarily, except in favour of a knight, and in concurrence with the advice of the council of the order.

Sounds rather multi cultural to me …

6. The independence of the isles of Malta, Gozo and Comino, as well as the present arrangement, shall be placed under the protection and guarantee of France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia.

Sounds rather multi-racial.

8. The ports of Malta shall be opened to the commerce and navigation of all nations, who shall there pay equal and moderate duties.

Doesn’t equate to the idea that, “Politicians who are neither British descendants or Christians politicians who take from our country everyday Oil, Gas, Electricity, Water and sell our resources via the Channel Tunnel”, are bad. In fact it seems the Knights were all for a free economy.

So Harry you want to “remove the Fog of Shame”. I think that’s probably the state in which you are operating. Your words have forked no lightening. They are rather dull and very worthless. A very weak and ineffectual attempt to use history for your own ends.

Posted by Mark at 9:37 PM | Permalink

I knew it was cold as soon as I got out of the car but looking at the red faces of the people walking up the slope from the sea told me just how cold it was going to be.

It was almost two years ago that I was last here. Then, despite it being January, it was bright and sunny and we stood and watched amazed as a young girl went swimming in the sea. Today the last rays of the sun were golden on the boiling waves and the wind was pushing people and dogs along the cliff top path.

I’d planned this year to spend more time at the sea but that was when it was warm and sunny. I managed a few miles down the beach and back before I faced the slope again walking up to the Beachcomber cafe, still open and tempting people into it’s warmth with the promise of Dorset smoked kippers or apple cake …

Posted by Mark at 8:36 PM | Permalink

It seems ages since I had a camera in my hands. Of course it’s not but with long days and fast weekends time is behaving a little strangely at the moment for me.

For most of today I was shopping. Firstly food (traumatic even thought I went early in the day; just why do they try to cram so much into the shops in the weeks up to Christmas ?) then for presents for Alex.

The plan had been to get everything locally but Argos wasn’t taking the same approach to stock control that Sainsbury’s had been that morning and my local store didn’t have what I wanted.

So, that’s how I found myself in a different city standing in the cathedral close with a glass of mulled cider watching the ice skating.

With the sun setting behind the 13th Century Deanery it seemed we had slipped back into some medieval tableaux with merchant’s selling in the shadow of the cathedral and this normally quiet area now the centre of the city once again.

Tonight with An Audience with Take That AND the boys in concert on TV there was no contest for what we would be watching. ….

Posted by Mark at 11:03 PM | Permalink

“I can put passwords in and everything now ….”, said Richard, sitting at the laptop in the kitchen as Martin pours some beer.

Watching him reminded me why I’d started all those years ago to work (or as some people say, play) with computers. Simply for the fun of it. The idea of getting one lump of electronic bits to talk to another, getting a noise out of it or something stored on it that could be shown back later.

Somewhere along the line that idea became days of meetings, projects which run for months and more reasons not to do something than to say, “Hey that looks really neat, let’s try it out ..”

Martin passes me a beer, Richard settles down to Hot Wheels and I turn up the music and forget about the week..

Posted by Mark at 11:34 PM | Permalink