Monthly archive: July 2005

Daddy B. came to pick us up at the station. He looked cool and jovial but perhaps betrayed his slight uneasiness when he exited the station car park via the way in. And then later fell over at home – Dr. B's explanation being 'My dad's belly is so big he cannot see his feet'. Note to self: start secretly sweetening Dr B.'s tea with Splenda. Or cherish the tiny tuft of hair between his shoulder blades and develop a penchant for bears.

Mummy B. was waiting for us at home and soon mentioned sleeping arrangements: 'I have made beds in two rooms because I heard that somebody has got a bit of a snoring problem…'. We both seized the opportunity of three whole restful nights in a row each in his own bed (I am not sure which is worse: sleeping with a snorer, or being kicked in the shins every half hour because you snore).

We went to Alton Towers the following day. We arrived at nine, but I only about managed to dare opening my eyes on the scariest rides at around two. Everyone knows I do not do heights – which is exactly why Dr B. finds every opportunity to make me climb stuff and look down. I only do it to hear him say 'I'm proud of you' on the way down. After each ride, we went to look at the pictures of us on sale, and every single time there we were: arms in the air, spirited face, huge grin (him); clutching the harness for dear life, eyes shut and lips locked in a permanent 'no, no, nooo…' howl (me).

We did Rita (0 to 60mph in two and a half seconds), Nemesis (harnessed, legs dangling), Air (harnessed, legs dangling, seat turning so that you face the ground), Oblivion (dropped into a hole in the ground face first) and most of the other rollercoasters and rides too. We ate. I kept food down. Others obviously didn't, hence the faint whiff of sick that could be felt every now and then.

I took my revenge on the teacups, where at last all these months at the gym paid off: we were spinning so fast that we both noticed the teacup was lifting off on one side, and Dr B. had to beg me to slow down. You see, I enjoy my adrenalin rushes as the next man – as long as it all takes place at sea level.

[To be continued]

OK. It seems that we won't be going anywhere after all. There are reports of four more bombs on public transport in London. Three on the tube, one on a bus – again?

Whitehall is sealed off and therefore I cannot leave work early as planned to go home, pack and catch my train to go and meet Dr B.'s parents.

I do not care if I have to change my plans. I just hope that whatever casualties there might be, they are few and not serious.

This coming Saturday I shall not be going to Big Gay Out – the park bit of the festival formerly known as Gay Pride, now removed from it and running on a separate weekend.

Instead, I will be meeting Dr B.'s family for the first time. We are spending all day tomorrow on the scariest rides at Alton Towers (sans parents), and the rest of the weekend at the inlaws' house (cum eBay warehouse) in rural Staffordshire.

I am looking very much forward to consume vast quantities of junk food, to scream and curse with fright, and possibly end up throwing up in a bag.

(And Alton Towers shouldn't be too bad either).

Seriously, the inlaws sound like decent folks, I am sure everything is going to be alright.

One year ago Dr B. was not even out to his parents – today he is doing the Biggest, Gayest, most Out thing in his life so far.

However, should he suddenly change his mind half-way through, can anyone recommend a cheap and cheerful B&B between Derby and Birmingham?

• I, Roommate: The Robot Housekeeper Arrives – New York Times
  I should not have let the fact that the writer mentions his boyfriend surprise me. And yet it did, and I went back to the beginning to check that he was indeed a he. I fell right into the assumptions trap myself.
  (tags: technology robot housekeeper japan)
• Pulp Fiction in 30 seconds with bunnies.
  (tags: animation bunny film flash fun humour movie video)
• [daily dose of imagery]
  Stunning daily pictures.
  (tags: art blog camera image photo photography weblog)
• JK Rowling site goes accessible Flash route
  'A two-edged example of what can be done to make Flash accessible (if you've enough expensive experts and time to do the work) Harry Potter author JK Rowling's site relaunched yesterday in an accessible Flash version designed by Lightmaker with help from
  (tags: accessibility flash usability)
• MAKE: Blog: No Potter ebook version? Ebook fans made their own…
  'Thanks to Mrs Rowling's insistence not to release an electronic version of the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, underground e-book pirates have already began to do the work for themselves. There are now homema
  (tags: harrypotter jkrowling ebook audiobook books copyright pirate)
• Freebyte.com | Music | Free Music Notation Software
  Ten freeware music notation programs (for Linux, Mac and Windows)
  (tags: music software free notation)

Based on the same principle as Google Earth, a minisite to commemorate the anniversary of the first manned Moon landing: Google Moon

Make sure you zoom all the way in: amazing detail!

This is sick.

Remember the advice to store a next of kin contact in your mobile phone under 'ICE' (=In Case of Emergency')?

It is a genuine initiative launched by the Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, and yet somebody has maliciously circulated the news that it would open the door to some sort of mobile phone virus which accesses your address book and drains pay-as-you-go phones of its credits (and how exactly would that work?)

ICE is not a hoax.

The only viral behaviour was the speed at which the sound piece of advice circulated (at least judging by my email inbox), possibly fuelled by the London bomb attacks on 7 July.

• BBC – collective – webslinky | making music
  Selection of entry-level software and resources to make music on your home computer
  (tags: music software computer)

I'm just back from my local 24-hour Tesco Express, where I popped in at midnight to grab a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I am not a mad fan, it was just one of those stupid ideas one gets when getting home from Friday night at the pub. Rather hammered, yes.

So apparently my local 24-hour Tesco now closes at midnight and nobody bothered to tell me.

I was the last person they let into the shop. Grabbed a copy of the book the minute it was released, and a pack of croissants for tomorrow morning.

For tomorrow morning? I do not know who I am kidding: tasty food has a tendency never to survive the night. See also 'the huge four-litre tub of vanilla ice-cream I bought last night thinking it'll last for weeks'. Well, it did not even fit in the freezer, what was I to do? Plus now I have a clean very handy large four-litre plastic box.

Anyway. Went to the till. Calculated that due to dining out I had £3.50 left in my current account. Realised that if I went out to withdraw cash from another account, I would not have been let back in the shop. Found out that I had left my credit card at home. Decided that it was not worth using my overdraft for a book that Amazon is delivering to Dr B. on Monday morning anyway. Put down book and croissants and left.

Ah well I thought, I have only just finished plowing through 800-plus pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (in Spanish, if you please – a language I taught myself and recently found out I could actually speak). It'll do me good to wait a bit for the next one. I wonder how you say 'sour grapes' in Spanish. Uvas verdes?

I already miss the croissants though.

And somebody will have to come and try and stop me from strangling Dr B. next week, when he will inevitably go all oohs and aahs and nooo and 'if only you knew what happens next', his smug face peeping out of the latest tome.

• Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Bus firm takes car sharers to court
  A coach company takes to court a group of French cleaning ladies accusing them of 'unfair and parasitical competition' because they organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work. What the…?
  (tags: news service sharing business)

• Planarity Flash Game
  Arrange the vertices such that no edges overlap. Online game, mildly addictive, as levels progress it becomes more complicated but not more difficult.
  (tags: flash game online)
• Processing a Digital Photo
  All very good if your camera has the option to save photos in RAW format. Which mine sadly doesn't, I found out after reading this.
  (tags: camera photography photoshop tutorial image photo)

Been invited to a jolly gathering of like-minded souls tonight after work:

Dear Sir or Madam:

(We value your custom so much that we would have bothered merging this word-processed letter with our address book – if only we knew how to do that)

You have been invited to join our Member's [sic] Party held at [...] on Thursday, 14th July from 18:00 onwards.

(We plan on trying to sell you courses of sunbeds and sessions with our personal trainers)

You have been recognised by the Fitness Team for achieving excellent results and sticking to a regular training regime.

(So, swiping your membership card through our gates several times a week finally pays off, eh?)

Well done!!! You've worked hard and the results are showing.

(However, if you bought our diet supplements you could work less hard with better results. Here, want to try? First one's free)

What does one drink at these gatherings? Because, you see, on Tuesday night I managed to managed to put down three whole jugs of Pimm's with three of my mates while staring rudely at Aiden Shaw two tables away from us.

Although that was in a gay bar and it must have been mixed with diet lemonade.

DTPM then.

It was meant to be a carefully orchestrated night out, with the added bonus of having taken Monday morning off. All the premises were there for a fantastic time. A treat fit for a queen, infused with the naughtiness of clubbing on a school night.

And then I go and spoil it by going out on Friday night (Royal Vauxhall Tavern), and on Saturday all day (Pride march/rally and full-on street drinking in Old Comptons Street) and night (Action) and Sunday afternoon (Royal Vauxhall Tavern).

By the time I was meant to shower and change into club-friendly clothes on Sunday night, I was sticking out my lower lip and moaning 'I don't want to go'. Next to me, a too smug for words Dr B. was theatrically stretching and yawning on top of freshly laundered sheets on a very inviting double bed.

Moreover, I had had both dinner* and tea**, thereby breaking the golden rule: never eat before clubbing, or you'll have more repeats than Friends on E4.

But off I went, proudly brandishing a free entry invitation (how could I stay in?) and my scribbled directions on how to go from the club to the Night Bus stop that would take me home.

Now, I had gone to DTPM many times before and yet, that did not stop me from taking the wrong way out the tube station. I knew I should have followed the Diet Red Bull-sipping crowd that went past me at the gates in a cloud of Gucci Rush and confidently turned left – but no, I told myself that they were off to Trade, and went the opposite way. The fact that Trade is no more obviously did not make the penny drop. Nor the fact the Trade was something like 6am—noon and this was 11pm instead. Hell, for all I know, that might not have been the way to Trade at all.

One quick phone call home later ('Uhm, hi. Question: is DTPM left or, erm, right from Farringdon tube?' – 'Left, you muppet!), there I was, too early in a near-empty club. On a full stomach. I slowly sipped a beer (which was to provide the only intoxication for the whole evening) waiting for 'the Italian who lives in Paris', 'the German who lives in London', and 'the Briton who lives in Thailand' to join me.

Heartburn must have made me look sultry, for I was treated to the chat-up gems below:

• I'd f**k you any day – ah, a true old-fashioned gentleman. Dying breed, that one.
• Where's your boyfriend? – to which I replied 'At home sleeping. He was… hang on, you don't know me from Adam, do you?' – 'No, but I thought such a gorgeous guy… [you can guess the rest]
• You're very sexy – Times three (in variations thereof). Come on lads, a little more imagination!
• [...] – Grabbing me arse and pulling me towards some scarily gyrating hips. Now, we might have enjoyed some dirty moves on some dancefloor in the past, but that's where it stops. Ever heard of foreplay?

I made my excuses around two, and as I was entering the loos for a final slash I bumped into God — who on this earth happens to take on Jeremy Sheffield body. Yep, that one. I looked at him as I walked past, he looked right back. I turned. He did not.

I quickly debated what to do, but as his IMDB entry stated that he was based in Miami, I had sadly deleted him from my laminated 'Five Celebrities I am Allowed To Shag' list. After all, what chances were there of bumping into him again?

(Note to self: must inform Dr B. about the 'Five Celebrities I Hope I Get Permission To Shag' laminated list.)

* Dinner = 'midday meal'. Or 'evening meal', if that's the main meal of the day. You not always get it from the context.

** Tea = 'evening meal', in the UK. As well as 'cup of'. You get it from the context.

Sky News homepage on 7 July 2005

Originally uploaded by bitful.

While news of the four bombs on public transport in central London was rolling in, I noticed that Sky News was consistently faster (and probably less cautious) than BBC News to provide updates.

So I kept going back to it, only to be greeted by the annoyingly smiling weather lady in the box on the right, grinning her way through the sunshine and maintaining that 'Much of Britain will turn out fine'.

It will turn out fine indeed.

• Stuff On My Cat
  The URL says it all: pictures of cats with stuff put on them while they snooze. Very patient cats. Or pictures taken seconds before a proper scratchfest. Slightly wrong…
  (tags: cats humour photo blog)

• jumpingpictures: Jumping CATS
  (tags: jump cats photo picture)

The biggest bed I've ever slept in

Originally uploaded by bitful.

The tiny bloke in the picture is Dr B. He is 5 feet 11 and 1/2 inches tall — 182 cm.

We stayed at the Hilton Metropole, Brighton, United Kingdom during Brighton & Hove Pride last year, and we will this year too, as a last-minute surprise from Dr B.

It is not sure we will get the same room. Last year we were awarded this huge bedroom as an upgrade after complaining about the original room — it had a crummy view of the back air-con units, and breadcrumbs in the bathroom.

Must remember to pack breadcrumbs.

Just in case anyone hasn't already seen this:

Simply use your mobile's phone book to store the name and number of someone who should be contacted if you have an emergency – but add the letters ICE in front of their name.

ICE stands for 'In Case of Emergency': it's what the emergency services will look for if you're involved in an accident and have your mobile phone with you.

• More information on ICE

Just in case anyone hasn't already seen this:

Simply use your mobile's phone book to store the name and number of someone who should be contacted if you have an emergency – but add the letters ICE in front of their name.

ICE stands for 'In Case of Emergency': it's what the emergency services will look for if you're involved in an accident and have your mobile phone with you.

• More information on ICE

London tube bombing

Originally uploaded by qwghlm.

This is not me, nor taken by me – this picture was taken by Keith Tagg/Adam Stacey and was originally uploaded here, with a CC licence.

[Via the Guardian Newsblog]

London is currently being hit by a series of explosions. At work we have been instructed not to leave the building until further notice.

Yeah, and to go where? 100 yards left to the Houses of Parliament or 10 yards right to Trafalgar Square? Not even our blast-proof windows can stop me feeling like a target. This is very serious.

Just as well, today I came into work with my shopping for a week's worth of lunches:

• 15 tins of tuna in spring water;
• 1 big tub of cottage cheese (light)
• 12 fruit fromage frais (light)
• 1 bag of pecan nuts
• 1 bag of apples
• 1 bag of satsumas
• 5 diet Pepsi
• 5 Pepsi Max
• 5 Pepsi Max Twist

My colleagues are looking at me with greed.

• BBC NEWS | In pictures: Battersea Power Station
  A unique glimpse inside one of my favourite London landmarks. Hoping very much it will find a new vocation in the future and breathe new life.
  (tags: london battersea decay architecture)

London 2012 – Service Unavailable

Originally uploaded by bitful.

Oh dear. That's not a good start is it?

Only one hour after the announcement of London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and the official website is down.<

Somewhere across the channel a French hacker is laughing.

Olympic confetti

Originally uploaded by bitful.

I do feel proud to take part daily in London's slutty grandeur and perform its rituals and ceremonies as religiously as if my genes had been sown here many generations ago.

And I am proud indeed that the city I have elected that three years ago as my permanent home for the years to come, indefinitely and without reservations, has just won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics. (Well, ask me again in a few years time when my Council Tax will have gone through the roof, and I might have a different opinion).

I popped out of the office at 12:45 today just in time for the announcement, but did not want to push through the crowd and therefore I did not get a view of the big screen.

Suddenly someone near me shouted 'We got it!' — people cheered, the cheer spread throughout Trafalgar Square but I was unsure whether the result was genuine.

A few million Olympic rings-coloured bits of paper later, I happily skipped to the gym, where I played 'Proud' on repeat and had the best lunchtime workout ever.

See? Hosting the Olympics is making us fitter already.

Feeling surprisingly excited about the Olympic bid result that is being broadcast on the big screen in Trafalgar Square, round the corner from work and probably partially viewable from one of our meeting rooms' window.

Told one of my (straight) colleagues that Rachel Stevens is going to sing after the results, thinking he'd bolt out to catch a glimpse. Was met by his grimace and a reply 'What – she's singing if London loses?'. Not a fan then.

To be precise, the act on stage right after the result is going to be Heather Small. No points for guessing which song from her solo repertoire (also heavily featured durinig last Saturday's Pride march/rally) she is going to perform.

From DTPM to the Night Bus stop

Originally uploaded by bitful.

Green arrow: directions from DTPM to the Night Bus.

Red arrow: the way I got to the bus stop by following the directions I had written on a Post-It before leaving home.

The problem: I had placed the club on the wrong side of the street in my map.

All I had was one beer. And a non-existent sense of directions.

• MAKE: Blog: HOW TO GPS Tag Photos: Flickr, Mappr, Google Earth….
  (tags: flickr google map photo photography tag)

• Introduction to Icelandic Cooking and Recipes
  My favourites: rauðkál (pickled red cabbage) and harðfiskur (dried fish). Also, vanillurjómaí­s (the staple of so many of my past Christmases) and how to prepare rotten (fermented) shark – a bit of an aquired taste.
  (tags: iceland cooking recipe food)