Ordinary fool

Keep up the good work Uncle John, but are you raising money for Chestcember too?

With an average of 7 minutes between contractions there's still time to knock up a chart in OpenOffice. I'll keep it updated as long as I can, but if it all goes quiet you'll know why.

On Friday I finished my final day contracting to Teachers' TV. I'd worked for three months on version 1.0 of the website back in 2004, but then I came back for more; this time as 'Technical Manager'. The result? Teachers' TV 2.0, this time in Drupal. Lots of highs, a few lows, and as always, plenty to learn from. My huge thanks go to the Teachers' TV team—who now inherit all my mistakes. Good luck! Thanks too, to the Drupal community for enabling a small and dedicated team to build a much larger website than could ever have been built by us alone.

We passed the second milestone only today. Nicola now has 'indefinite leave to remain' in the UK. I wouldn't recommend the Croydon Public Enquiry Office experience to anyone. Aptly named, Lunar House is an alien landscape a long way from home, complete with aliens. Anyhow, congratulations Nicola, you may now settle permanently. To celebrate we're off up to Edinburgh for a few nights.

Lunar House, Croydon

Nicola and I fled to the Christmas markets in Heidelberg. We found glühwein (mit Schuss: Rum, Amaretto, Cointreau...), würstchen with sauerkraut, and postcard views of the Neckar river overlooked by the shell of the Heidelberg Schloß.

Thirty five. 

Cracker and I go back to a summer in 1991. Warwick found him first. They worked together in a music store. Cracker wanted to play a Rickenbacker; he and Warwick started hacking out tunes in the back room. I joined in, making things worse and better in equal amounts. The three of us made a band. Fingerhands didn't last long but there are relics. Terrible relics.

Xardos was miserable today. He suffers from depression when his blood-sugar gets too low. I had promised to take him out for breakfast but I didn't stop working on the damned novel until about midday. Eventually he snapped. I quickly took him out for tea and mushrooms on toast but he didn't speak again until this evening. Finally he said, "I'm hungry". The only food in the house was a can of duck confit and haricot beans. When I tried to open the can, the can opener succumbed to metal fatigue. With Xardos prowling and scowling I took to the can with a hammer and screwdriver.

With the advent of Flickr (and video equivalents like YouTube), the online world is filled with visual information captured from the real world. Meta-information, such as date and time, shutter speed, exposure etc. is stored with each capture. In the future, this meta-information is likely to grow to include the photographer (verified via biometric information), the location (via GPS), the orientation (via gyroscopic devices). The Flickr of the future will be able to stitch together virtual representations of the real world. The most popular tourist attractions will be viewable from all angles, at all times of day or night, at all times of the year, over many years.

Many of us are willing contributors to Flickr's public record of the world, with little regard for privacy. For example, let's say I capture a street scene with my cameraphone. Later my photo is found to contain something of significance. People pay good money for that sort of thing. What would happen if governments started incentivising us to submit and collectively identify images and their contents (volksonomy!). A small tax break later and there you have it: the democratisation of surveillance!

Update: I suppose a scheme like this is a step in that direction (thanks for the link Stuart!).

On Saturday, after watching the All Blacks take out the Tri Nations tournament against Australia on a big screen at a pub in Islington, Nicola and I went down to Chelsea for a bit of a walk around King's Road. We did a bit of shopping, ate pizza al fresco, and lay under a tree in Hyde Park.

We also stopped by the Victoria and Albert museum where we came across a "design your own textile" PC kiosk. You could make choices of colour, pattern, flower type, flower colour etc. When you're done you are invited to email your creation to yourself. I did. So, here above is my first foray into textile design. Suddenly I'm lamenting. At five I loved my mother's homemade "Thunderbirds are Go!" and "Bionics forever" t-shirts (Thanks Mum!). Now, if it's not on the shelves of some King's Road retailer... On Sunday morning I got up early, cleared the weeds from in front of our house, and made a rock garden.

P.S. If you're wondering about the bracketed title, it's a reference to this Elvis (not that Elvis).