Fox's Liquorice & Aniseed

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Hmmm. Sounded a reasonable idea in principle. Take two flavours I quite like and then merge them into a single confection. And they were doing two for the price of one at Waitrose (we are not posh - we just went there to buy sweets).

Good thing I didn't actually get two packs. They taste horrible. And it is a sneaky kind of horrible too. The first couple of seconds in your mouth they don't taste too bad, it is as if your taste buds are trying to make sense of the mixed messages they are receiving. However, slightly later they decide that both tastes are horrible. And they are.

If there is anyone with no tastebuds, or who wants to build a little tiny sweetie wall for their Hansel and Gretal scale model, or who needs a torture method that won't leave marks (apart from a black tongue) then they are welcome to get in touch and take the bag off my hands.

Soon, before I get tempted to try another one to prove to myself that they aren't that bad....

The Awful Truth

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Last week at Collectormania I saw a poster for the new Star Wars film which scared me deeply. I'm putting this information out into the public domain because then "they" can't catch up with me and silence me for ever. Even so, read on only if you dare know the truth....

The poster was a picture of the people involved with the new film. I looked with mild interest at the assorted wookies and so on. Then my eyes alighted on the picture of director and it hit me like a large heavy thing designed for hitting hard.

George Lucus is Rolf Harris.

The resemblence is scary. And surely not coincidental. And I bet they've never been seen in the same room together. Only one thing puzzles me: If my theory is true, and I'm pretty sure it is, how come someone so gifted, so able to put together such moving pieces of art which have touched so many people around the world actually managed to produce something as poor as "The Phantom Menace"? Rolf, you should be ashamed of yourself....

Whistle and I'll come to ye....

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Sunday finds us in Covent Garden. Lovely place to spend a while. Good food at Pontis, lots of interesting things to look at and stuff going on. And they have a gadget shop or two. Bought some nice toys including a keyfinder thing. If you lose your keys you whistle and it chirps and flashes to let you know where they are. These have been around for a while but this one was quite cute, had a blue led, and only two quid.

When we got back after our six hour return coach trip and I'd had a cup of strong tea to get things going again I of course got out the keyfinder and tried to play with it. I seem to have forgotten how to whistle. Nothing worked. Fortunately, I have in my possession a swanee whistle. So if you see me wandering round the house sounding like a clanger, you'll know I have lost my keys....

Update: I have now located the particular note which makes keyfinder work every time. I'm now perfecting this particular pitch. Yes, I'm teaching myself to whistle in case I ever lose my keys.

Powered by Lemsip

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So, after a very early night and some extra strength LemSip (you know you are ill when LemSip tastes nice) it was up bright and early and off to the bus stop. Lucky old us live on the very tail end of the bus route, which means that the journey to London took around six hours. That includes a stop to take on water. And another to get rid of it.

London was busy, bustling and, just after we arrived, very wet. However it settled down to slightly better weather and I toddled off to the first of my two appointments, leaving number one wife in the restful surroundings of Oxford Street. First up was to get my Gizmondo upgraded at the Gizmondo shop. This is a very posh affair on Regent Street full of Good Looking People (tm) who stand around looking cool and sell hi-tech gadgets to nerdish types like me. We will never be as cool as them. But they'll never know how the gadgets really work. So I guess it levels out.

Anyhoo, the man upgraded my Gizmondo with a couple of muffled oaths and an SD card and I bought a couple of games. I would have bought a case too, but they had sold both of the ones they had in stock....

Then on the tube down to the Microsoft House. This is a house full of gadgets and therefore a magnet for people like me who try to achieve cool by buying them (see above). Actually, gadgets are becoming the in thing in a big way. We got on the coach this morning and the first thing I saw was the girl in front of me start replaying video calls from her 3G phone. Then the lady to my right pulled out her digital camera and had a long discussion with her friend about how she was going to transfer the pictures onto her PC. Next a bloke right at the front gets out his portable DVD player and fires up a film. I had to work very hard to resist the temptation to pull out the Gizmondo, my media centre and the SPV phone and shout "Look, I'm the gadget daddy on this bus!". But I didn't. And I bet some of them on the coach blog as well.

Anyhoo, the Microsoft House was very cool. All in the shops too. Just need the money now.....

Then on to Harrods to meet up with number one wife and eat some scones. Splendid. On the way back we found that they had closed a tube line in our honour and so we arrived late for tea. But the nice people at the hotel put a special meal and, with half a bottle of wine in me to keep out the cold, all should be well for the night.

Cold War

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Arrgh. I hate having a cold. Head full of snot and no brain. Try to string two thoughts together and end up with one and a half wrong ones. Never try to mark anything when you can't remember the start of the sentance as you are reading the end. Or you can't stop things pouring out of your nose and heading for the report pages....

And the funny thing? The really funny thing?

Tomorrow morning I must rise at 6:15 am to get on a bus and go to London for a weekend away.

Well, at least nobody threw darts at it...

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Poster was quite well received. Even got some questions about the content. The presentations themselves were also interesting. About the best one was from a guy who had actually bested Steve McConnell in an argument. I was a bit surprised to find that not everyone in the audience about a conference concerning teaching programming had read the seminal work "Code Complete". In my opinion this would be a bit like your driving instructor getting in the car and going "Really must read that Highway Code thing some time".

But at least the lecturers at Hull have read and applaud this great manuscript. (I was recently talking to a chap who runs a software development company. His first question to potential hires is "Have you read 'Code Complete'?". If the answer is no he finds a polite way to bring the interview to a close as soon as possible.) Actually I'm being very unfair here (but it is my blog). I taught programming for years before I happened accross a copy of this book in Borders one fine day. The good news is that everyone wrote the name down and seemed keen to take a look.

Of course if you have not read this book then you should find it, buy it, and then read it asap. And then have a policy of getting it down once every few weeks and re-reading one of the chapters.

Anyhoo, back to the plot and my little poster (which I have put here by the way). Everything went well and I got back into the hire car to drive home. Nice car the Mondeo. A little too easy to find reverse in my opinion (apologies to the scary way my reversing lights came on at that busy junction Mr. Bus Driver) but fun to drive - once you figure out that the thing on the steering wheel is not the on switch for the radio, but cruise control (that was kind of scary too). Things got even better when I found the switch to lower the seat to a "head not stuck in the roof" kind of position.

And then home. Still got a horrid cold though.

"Look at the size of that thing...."

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Got my poster printed today. Just as well, since tomorrow I'm presenting it at a conference. Hats off (if I was wearning more than one hat) to James for doing such a sterling job of printing out 1 x 1.5 metres worth of poster magic. I daren't look at the thing (of course) because as soon as I do I'll see the massive spelling error in letters two inches high.

Then it was into the hired car and away down the motorway to Oxford, my precious cargo in a cardboard tube specially stolen from Rich..

Thumbs Up for Hitchhiker

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I vividly remember the evening, around 28 years ago, when I tuned in one evening to a little radio show on the BBC. Within 30 seconds of hearing it I know I wanted to get a copy of this, so I recorded them all. Then I bought the album. Then I bought the book. Then I bought the other album. Then I watched the TV show. And so on. You could say I liked it.

It was very sad when I heard that Douglas Adams had passed away. A genius of high order.

So I was somewhat nervous about going to see the film. But I needn't have worried. It is super terrific. Not just a good realisation of the Hitch Hikers but a good film in its own right. People have complained that it is not like the book. As if the book was the thing anyway. I remember people moaning that the book was not like the radio show. It was ever thus. There is no thing to be like anything else. There is just a great radio show, a thought provoking read, a nice little TV show and now a thumping good film.

They are all different things. But all the essentials were there, and given the constraints of a big budget, high risk, Hollywood funded venture I reckon they did Douglas proud.

Just go and see it.

Ho for Milton Keynes

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So it was up with the lark (I'd hate to be a lark, all that getting up early) and off down to MK for another Collectormania thing. They have stalls and stars and stuff. And I like going. They had all kinds of things there, it is amazing what people collect, from trading cards to great big axes which they have signed by the actors who swung them.

Made a few investments (OK, I bought some bits and bobs) and met up with the stars (no chitchat and just one photograph please).

They were plugging the new War of the Worlds movie. I seem to remember one of these some time back, nothing like the book and therefore rubbish. At the end they found that seawater dissolved the martians and that was that. I think this reflects a rather poor standard of forward planning on the part of the invaders:

Martian Leader: "Summon forth the Chief Scientist"
Chief Scientist: "Here, your excellency"
Martian Leader: "So, what of this planet earth?"
Chief Scientist: "Seems safe enough to me"
Martian Leader: "What of these 'oceans' that cover most of the surface"
Chief Scientist: "I dunno really, but I don't suppose they could be much of a problem"
Martian Leader:"Good enough for me. Ready the battlefleet for launching....."

..but the Jeff Wayne musical version is superb.

The Force is Strong in these Bricks

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Bought another video game today (am I sad or what? - don't answer). I'd heard good things about "Lego Star Wars" and so when I saw a copy cheap I thought I might as well invest.

It is very good. Star Wars, in Lego, in real time. Nobody dies as such, they just fall to pieces. And you can use your forceful powers to rerrange bricks to make them into bridges and stuff. I know full well it is a kids game but I like this because it makes it less likely I'll get stuck or killed. The game is full of nice touches which seem to have been put there for the fun of it (how else do you explain the dancing chairs?). Not played it for long (I have mucho work to do) but I've enjoyed it so far.

Poster Power

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I'm presenting a poster at a programming conference next week. I've been told that just taking the Thurderbirds movie one down from my office and toddling off to Oxford is not how it is done. So I'm grappling with graphics programs and words in equal measure. How about:

"The teaching process at Hull is best described as: 'A Metadata Driven, Test Oriented, Algorithms First Approach'"

Kind of rolls off the tongue doesn't it? True too. But what shade of orange to print it in?

Blow Your Mind

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So I'm sitting upstairs playing with some code. I'm doing a conversion of a little tank battle game from Pocket PC to Smartphone. It will hopefully be the basis of an MSDN article. Anyway, I'm playing the game to see what it does. My little tank manages to hit the computer's little tank.....

Well, I didn't know I'd got the speakers turned right up loud. It's not my fault that my media centre output is a bit low. The good news is that my Logitech speakers delivered the resulting explosion very efficiently. The bad news is that the sound nearly blew me off my seat. Downstairs number one daughter was left thinking that I had spontaneously combusted.

I think I'll start using that sample as a ring tone on the phone.....

The Seven Signs of Aging

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There's a really irritating advert for face cream on the telly which goes on about the "Seven Signs of Aging". I've been wondering for ages what the signs might be, and speculating that there might be a sign of age for each deadly sin (would make job interviews and the like much easier if there were).

Interviewer: "Mr Jones, I see your skin is all blotchy. According to my notes that means you are a liar"
Mr. Jones: "No I'm not!"
Interviewer: "Aha!!"

Anyhoo, on one of the more recent adverts they actually gave the seven signs. They shot past in an instant, but thanks to the miracle that is Sky+ I managed to get them. They are:

  1. Pores
  2. Blotches
  3. Tone
  4. Texture
  5. Radiance
  6. Dryness
  7. Lines and Wrinkles

So there you have it people. I'm sure that these "signs" were derived by white coated professors with qualifications in "Wrinkleology" and "Toneness", and not by some empty headed marketing types. Oh yes.

But what on earth is radiance? The way I see it having too much radiance may be regarded as a bad thing, glowing in the dark not usually being associated with healthy living.....

Would You Want a Car that can Drive Itself?

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With all the driving I've been doing recently I've been wondering when we get cars that can drive themselves. Now that the Global Positioning System can pinpoint your location to within a couple of feet and computers can read car number plates and road markings and stuff it can't be long before we get self driving cars.

Or will it?

It occurs to me that we may never get them. The car makers may never let them be built. How can they go on about the "smooth accelleration", "great driving experience", "fantastic roadholding" that their car gives if the human on board is not driving. When a car becomes just a tin box that automatically takes you where you want to go in the fastest and safest possible way, what will the difference be between the brands?

What Do They Have In Their Vans?

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We drove up to Durham today to deposit number one son back amongst his studies. On the way we drove past loads of RAC vans. In the old days (I can talk about the old days now because I am officially old) an RAC van was a little affair. Nowadays the vans are enormous.

I wonder why they are so big. It is not as if new cars can be repaired. All the old cars needed was a pair ofold tights and a wad of chewing gum to get them working again when something broke. New cars might as well not have bonnets for all the good you can do mending them if they go wrong. Perhaps the vans hold complete new cars which they can assemble at the kerbside if yours fails.