This morning something strange happened.

On a crowded Northern Line train a seat was left empty. the three men standing over it were all too polite to even acknowledge the seat which was left vacant at Angel and it was still empty when I left at Old Street.

How peculiar.

Oxfam have expanded their store even further by linking into their highstreet stores and posting second hand items on their site. Instead of browsing through rack of cloths and shelves of book you can now search online for unwanted gems. It’s good to see charities join in the full service experience blending their offline and online services together. Considering the complications of running second hand shops where you never know what might be on the shelves one day from the next I think this is an especially impressive move forward from Oxfam.

And I notice Oxfam use twitter in their media centre. Good to see these services getting picked up more and more.

In the previous design of the blog I had used a feed syndication pluggin called Feed Wordpress which let you import content from RSS feeds and show them as posts in the blog. There were a few problems with this, I wanted to show information on my blog from other sites which I’d found online (particularly posts from other blogs I’d found on google reader) but also wanted to make sure that posts which were imported could not be mistaken as my own work and had to be credited to the original author. This was partially achieved used a magazine style theme called Victoria which let me categorise posts to show in different areas. My own writing could appear completely seperate to posts which were imported.

This didn’t work out exactly as planned as various problems with importing feeds from google reader, flickr, youtube etc meant that feeds were rarely displayed in a consistent design.

This new theme lets me focus more on my own writing and content and has a distinct section for a lifestream of information from other sites. I am also in the process of redevopling my main site www.tomsteel.co.uk and I will feature more detailed lifestream content there. In the meantime I use friendfeed.com to bring together my ‘online activity’.

But my writing hasn’t just faded for no worthwhile reason, I have just been working on a new site which launched this week: the RNID Impact Report - www.rnidimpact.org.uk. I’m very pleased with the site, it gives RNID a good voice to show the work it does with real people telling their own stories. Take a few minutes to look around the site and watch some of the videos.

A friend of mine who also works in web has launched a similarly themed site for The British Heart Foundation - www.bhf.org.uk/annualreview2008/. It’s a very different site but I like the way the content flows from one area to another, whilst showing clearly what you’ve already seen and what you can look at next. Very nice.

My writing should pick up speed again soon, there’s a great story about a Bulk Film Loader which I want to share as well as a great new do-it-yourself B&B site which I hope will catch on. Check back here soon…

This time I have actually come across a really great site. I have been a big fan of Last.FM, I’ve had an account for a while now and use it at work often when I’ve got some code I need sort out and can plug myself into my headphones, shut out the world and get on with it.

But now there’s Grooveshark lite (though I can’t admit to knowing there was a grooveshark heavy). Grooveshark is great. Although the interface is all flash based, it adds something that always bothered me with Last.FM. In grooveshark you aren’t limited to tags and ‘artists like’ - you can search for specific tracks, albums and other peoples playlists. This means why my mate tells me how great the acoustic album “Skin and Bones is, I can search for it, pull up the full track listing and listen to the whole album one song after the other. And if I like it, I can save that as playlist for later so I don’t have to run a search again.

Where this has really come into it’s own is searching for song for the wedding next year. Me and the soon to be Mrs can search for those songs we haven’t heard for years, the dance floor classics and cheesy pop, and build the perfect wedding party playlist. Great
Thanks to the Mashable blog for bringing this one to my attention!

In summary he explains why there are cattle grids on sections of the North Circular, something which confuses friends of mine who visit from greener areas as the last thing they’d expect to find on Londons original orbital road. As I grew up in the area I thought that all major roads had cattle grids on and they had something to do with their importance. It’s funny the assumptions you make as a child.

There’s been quite a few sites and features which have caught my eye over the last few days, so here’s a little summary of what’s stood out for me:

Shiny Shiny’s website of the week combines two of my geeky interests - maps and photography. They’ve uncovered the Map of Strange which collates the unusual findings people make while browsing the aerial photos of Google Earth or Google Maps (or you online satellite imagery site of choice). Anything from a hotel shaped like a crocodile to a boat graveyard to dozens of crop circles.

Swissmiss, another blog which is worth reading bring together some other interests - social web and food. She’s found Open Source Food which is a free collection of recipies with photos. Reminds me of a pitch on Dragons Den a few weeks ago from the creators of iFoods.tv - a youtube of recipies, nice idea.

Finally something I do like and something I put up with. Going Underground caught site of this emergency notice by Stuart Clary on my very own Victoria Line. I like a good Margarita, I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

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.

So here’s my Ten places to wonder about, taking photos. I couldn’t put them in an order.

- The City - It may be my favourite but I don’t go there often enough. I love the mix of old and new.

- Borough Market/London Bridge - The market is great for photos of people and the stalls. So much is on sale here by such a mix of people you can wonder around for hours.

- Southbank/Bankside - The Thames is one of the thing I love most about London, and apart from the parks one of the few places where there’s open space. There’s a great mix of architecture along bankside and it offers some great views of the city, St Pau’ls Cathedral and other landmarks.

- Embankment - Opposite Southbank, again there’s some great views east towards the City and west to Parliament, as well as the Millennium Wheel.

- Shoreditch - A great place for graffiti and posters, run down buildings and trendy bars. You can walk around the streets many times but something different will always catch your eye.

- Farringdon/Clerkenwell - Along with Shoreditch this is creative central with media and design firms around every corner. Some great architecture too such as Farringdon Viaduct and Smithfields Market.

- Covent Garden - Great for people watching. The performers and entertainers as well as the crowds of tourists watching them. You need to keep an eye on your gear though, pickpockets are everywhere in the west end.

- Trafalgar Square - Another great place for people watching. The buildings on the boundaries are all superb and with the mix of statues and the tourists there’s always a good shot to be had.

- Southwark - Particularly around the railway arches running into London Bridge. Some great little lanes, archways and old buildings with faded signs

- Waltham Forest - My part of London. So much going on - Walthamstow Market, Walthamstow Village, Leytonstone’s Hollow Ponds and the edge of Epping Forest - Something for everyone.

It’s such a big city though this is just areas I know, feel free to add your in the comments. Where should I go next time I fancy somewhere new?