I commute for 180 minutes a day at the moment, and one thing that makes that journey bearable is podcasts of the Adam and Joe show on BBC 6 Music. If you’ve never listened, you’re too late, they’re taking a break for a few months. But here’s a snippet of what you’ve missed… (you can still catch some of their podcasts in iTunes if you’re an iPod person). You can also catch Adam at the regular BUG nights at the National Film Theatre.
One of the many applications on my iPhone is MotionX-GPS with gives you a lot of information from the GPS receiver built into the phone. It gives you proper long/lat coordinates for your position, calculates speed, direction and altitude and most interestingly can track your route over time and email you a Google Maps link and Google Earth file.
As I’m commuting further than I used to and am above ground for some of it I tested out the tracking on the train from London Victoria to East Croydon. It lost the signal a few times along the route (bridges and steep embankments didn’t help) but over all did a good job, you can view the route here: maps.google.co.uk.
I’m not a fan of political blogs – people ranting opinions and comment about their way the world should change, I prefer to leave that talk to the pub. But the stories recently of MEP Daniel Hannan’s attack on the NHS have lead to some unbelievable fibs being told about the NHS by lunatic campaigners across the pond.
This article in The New York Times (“British Leaders Defend Their Health Service”) sums it up pretty well and includes some crazy quotes, this one’s the best:
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
(from an editorial in Investors Business Daily which has now been corrected)
Today I found a new way to challenge my London knowledge, which was a map of Zone One of the London Underground without any of the station names. You have 10 minutes to type as many of the station names as you can remember and watch as your answers get added to the map. I managed 52 out of the 63 stations which I was fairly happy with, but still had to kick myself when I saw the ones I’d missed. It instantly highlights the parts of London you never visit, for me there was a huge empty space in south West London which I had no idea about. Have a go yourself at www.sporcle.com/games/londontubecentral.php and see if you do better than 52…
It reminded me of a simliar game, with the same concept but on a much larger scale. At travelpod they have a flash game where you must place a flag on the map of the world to mark the location of cities and famous places with points are awarded for speed and accuracy. There are 12 levels of difficulty with cities becoming more and more obscure as you progress. Give it your best flag at www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq. Unfortunately I didn’t make the 30,000 threshold to get past level 6, I’m sure you can do better!
Name the film which the title of this post is from and I’ll owe you a beer. But more important than that is new that I have recently proposed to my girlfriend and we are to get married. This is the very best of news (to quote a sketch I once saw). I have drunk more champagne in the last 5 days than I have in a year, and in more locations than I normally visit in a month.
It started in London last wednesday and reached it’s peak in Brussels at the weekend. I’m enjoying being engaged a lot.
Now there’s the little matter of planning a wedding.
I shouldn’t really hate Ikea, and I’m a hypocrite for doing so, but I can’t help it.
I live near a store and over the last 12 months it has been invaluable for buying cheap functional attractive furniture for my new flat. Especially when it came to a new sofa, as we couldn’t get anything of decent size through the door and round the hallway. A build your self (and later dismantle yourself) sofa was the ideal solution.
But every trip destroys my will to live, and a visit yesterday was no different. As the minutes roll buy and I walked my way around the store the need for home furnishings dwindled, my energy was drained and the craving to escape rose to unbearable levels.
When we got back at home all was well again, We surveyed the nice new things we’d brought and began putting them together.
This post by swissmiss from blank is like blank sums it up perfectly for me.
I know one day I’ll have to go again.
