Robin's news

Gareth Malone's Military Wives outsell Take That

2011-12-12T19:46:00.003Z

Gareth Malone's Military Wives outsell Take That in pre-orders

The Military Wives' single Wherever You Are has become the most pre-ordered music product of all time, according to online retailer Amazon. Will they manage to beat their rivals to the UK Christmas Number One? They're up against X Factor winners Little Mix who are releasing their version of Damien Rice's Cannonball, and a Facebook campaign to get Nivana's Smells Like Teen Spirit to the top of the Yuletide charts.

Things are looking good for the Military Wives - they've just basked in the limelight on Sunday's Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One and now they have reportedly outsold Susan Boyle, Coldplay and Take That almost three times over in pre-orders. So not bad so far considering they haven't even shipped a single CD.

Military Wives Choir

2011-12-07T21:01:00.001Z

The Military Wives Choir are pushing to get to Number 1 for Christmas thanks to the Chris Evans Breakfast Show

Buy the Military Wives CD or download it from iTunes and support their charities!

Personal training in Berkhamsted

2011-10-25T11:03:00.001Z

Find a personal trainer in Berkhamsted - Ben Stacey personal training can help you to achieve your goals

Choir in Berkhamsted

2011-10-25T11:02:00.002Z

Looking for a choir in Berkhamsted? The Choir of St Peter's, Great Berkhamsted sings regular choral services and a monthly choral evensong.

2011-04-19T16:09:00.001Z

The Parish Church of Saint Peter, Great Berkhamsted re-launches its website today. This 13th-Century Anglican church stands on the High Street of the charming market town of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. The website reflects the activities of a thriving Christian community at the heart of town life, including two Church of England Schools affiliated with the parish, Victoria First School & Nursery and the Thomas Coram Middle School.

St Peter's also has a reputation for choral music with an active choir of adults and children and an ongoing free music education programme for children, offering Royal School of Church Music Chorister Awards. The choir sings Sunday choral Eucharist and a monthly choral evensong service, and welcomes new singers of all ages.

The church offers a significant and beautiful space for weddings, and is close to many high-class, local reception venues, dressmakers and florists.

St Peter's is at the heart of the Berkhamsted cultural scene and offers an ongoing programme of classical music concerts.

2011-01-17T14:06:00.003Z

A major singing festival is coming to Camden this spring. Voices Now is a celebration of vocal music and is going to feature some big names in world of vocal music, as well as some golden opportunities for members of the public to take part.
Look out for The Magnets, a six-strong group of men who promise close harmony singing and vocal percussion, with songs from Joy Division to the Scissor Sisters, Bon Jovi to Lady Gaga. If they look familiar, that's probably because you've seen them in the brilliant TV advert for T-Mobile which featured a flashmob choir singing at Heathrow Airport. Not to be missed.

The Magnets are in good company - Voices Now is gearing up for a musical roll-call of iconic artists such as the BBC Singers, the London Symphony Chorus, Juice Vocal Ensemble, the Holst Singers and the Clerks. There'll be music from Africa, the Islamic world, Renaissance and 21st-Century hits.
Have you always wanted to try singing but thought you weren't good enough? Now's your chance to sing with TV's Gareth Malone, presenter of The Choir on BBC Two. Gareth is running an inspiring singing workshop which is perfect for beginners, so come along and try it out! There's also a beatboxing workshop with the Magnets and expereicned choirs are invited to come and sing on the Making Music Open Stage.
So if you're a first-timer or an old hand, or just want to enjoy amazing performances of choral music, there's something for you.
Voices Now festival, Roundhouse, Camden, London
24-27 March 2011
www.voicesnow.org.uk
Book tickets

2010-05-18T08:49:00.002Z

Floyd Woodrow was one of the UK’s youngest soldiers to be selected for the elite Special Air Service (SAS) at the age of 22. He has served in many different operational areas globally, and was awarded the UK’s second-highest gallantry award for bravery and an MBE for his services whilst in Afghanistan.

Towards the later part of his career, he completed a law degree and has developed unique insight into areas of psychology whilst engaged in elite training methodologies and Leadership in Crisis.

He has coached many blue chip companies and sports teams; enabling Olympic and world champion sports men and women to develop their ability to deliver under intense pressure.

Floyd is currently running his own company, Chrysalis Worldwide. He lives in Herefordshire, and his other interests include all sports and reading.

2010-05-14T22:26:00.007Z

UKPS, a fast-growing consultancy service to the public sector have just relaunched their website.

UKPS offer consultancy and support in procurement, project management, security and risk management, operational improvement and change management to clients in government, local authorities, governmental agencies, health and defence.

Building on a deep understanding of the complex challenges faced by public service leaders, UKPS offer the skills to come up with the right solutions. Their clients have included the Metropolitan Police, the Ministry of Defence, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Home Office, the London 2012 Olympics, the NHS and local councils around the United Kingdom.

2010-04-28T00:52:00.000Z

Chrysalis can help you to fulfil your goals through our programme of individual coaching, group workshops and seminars, from children to students to business people and sportsmen and women.

2010-04-25T21:20:00.002Z

UK Public Sector Consultin g (UKPS) are just about to launch their website in a few days, so keep your eye out for a whole new look. UKPS is a management consultancy practice based in central London who specialise in consulting for healthcare, defence, local government and national government. They advise on a wide range of service areas, including procurement, programme management, improvement and cost reduction, security, risk management and transformational change. Turn to UKPS if you want to:

Bring about organisational change
Achieve transformational change for your people
Reduce the risk of your complex programmes
Deliver effective procurement
Deliver value for money healthcare services
Deliver public services for less
Improve your security & risk management stragegy
Improve your business strategies

http://www.ukpublicsector.co.uk
Info@ukpublicsector.co.uk
Phone:
07506 672 603
01427 717739

2009-09-18T15:00:00.002Z

Looking for an executive coach in West Hampstead? Or training for personal transformation and effectiveness in London? Get in touch with Ana Karakusevic at Holistic Learning for more information.

2009-04-28T23:16:00.000Z

I see Gareth Malone has launched a new website....

2008-04-23T10:09:00.005Z

The Holst Singers have a specatcular concert programme coming up this spring. Two concerts, both entitled "Ikon", one in London's St Martin-in-the-Fields and a free concert at King's College, Cambridge, promise to be a vocal treat. The concert programmes will feature Russian Orthodox music and Estonian choral music by Rachmanninov, Arvo Pärt and others.
http://www.holstsingers.com/concerts

Judging by their CD release of the same name, these shows may count as unmissable. The Holst Singers' 1999 recording of Russian Orthodox music is replete with the exquisite, spine-tingling close harmony of Sviridov, Gretchaninov, Tchaikovsky, Pärt, Górecki and others. Check out the audio previews of this album - this is simply gorgeous music.

Ikon (Hyperion, CDA66928) is available to buy online from the Holst Singers' online shop.

Fans of English composer Sir John Tavener will also revel in the Holst Singers' recordings of The Veil of the Temple and The Tavener Collection. The Veil is a mammoth 26-hour piece written for a large choir, orchestra and a myriad of exotic eastern instruments, and was recorded in the 11th-Century Temple Church (a setting in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code). According to the composer in an interview on BBC Radio 4, the work takes in traditions of the Hindu, Christian and Muslim worlds, crossing religious boundaries and continents.

Memories of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales will come flooding back with the Holst Singers' The Tavener Collection (Decca 4750962), which includes the haunting Song for Athene, which rose to public prominence at Princess Diana's Funeral.

These discs too are available to buy online.

Sissy Schuss

2008-03-28T14:22:00.001Z

Click to Play

Sissy Schuss, Mont Tremblant, Québec.

Last one down is a ....

2007-02-18T20:20:00.002Z

Looking for a harpsichord player, continuo player or clavicord player? Neil Coleman is based in London, UK, and performs regularly at venues around London.

www.neilcoleman.co.uk

Find out about his next recitals

Read about his favourite harpsichords

If you're interested in having keyboard lessons, piano lessons, harpsichord lessons, get in contact with Neil.

2007-02-18T20:20:00.001Z

2006-05-14T12:06:00.000Z

If you're still reading this blog, it's worth knowing that it's offically moved!

I've been using the Blogger system for a two or three years now and it's served its purpose well. However, I have now migrated the news over to my own home-made CMS on www.mcmorran.org/news . Why put up with all the irritating banner ads when I can just build my own system?

I'll leave this blog in cold storage for a while anyway - it's got an archive of past news if anyone is really interested.

2006-04-09T14:28:00.000Z

Well done Wendy, who's (finally) landed herself a job as an e-learning Producer for MassMedia Studios. She's staying true to her roots as a Manly girl, and flat-hunting in Manly. Then her morning commute is a catamaran ride to Circular Quay! Sure beats waiting for the 185 bus in the pissing rain.

Says Wendy: "The journey to work is more awesome than I remember, with the morning sun glistening on the water and warming my skin, the beautiful blue sky, you turn the corner and there is the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, I can't help but smile each time I experience it. "

Yeah, yeah, yeah, what-EVER!

MassMedia Studios: http://www.massmedia.com.au

2006-04-08T17:11:00.000Z

Think different. No, really.

In these glorious days of convergence, you get used to things not being what they used to. I can listen to the radio through my TV, play video and MP3 or surf the net on my phone, make phone calls through my computer, and so on.

But this convergence mullarkey seems to be taking some odd twists this week. First up was Apple Computer's announcement that you can now run Windows on a Mac.

Shock, horror.

In a kind of poetic, but perverse mimicry, all sorts of other odd things are happening. The far-right BNP has just put up its first "ethnic" parliamentary candidate.

Tune in soon folks, for the latest on the Pope's candidacy for leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party, Osama Bin Laden coming out as a Zionist, and the inaugural flight of Porcine Airlines, the world's first commercial air carrier to have a fleet entirely composed of pigs.

This sendup of Smirnoff advertising doesn't seem quite so funny now, does it?

2006-04-03T17:00:00.000Z

Saw an amazing exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank this weekend: Dan Flavin. This guy designed eerie art installations composed entirely of neon lights. It sounds wanky but the effects are amazing. It blew me away.

Take, for example, the work untitled (to Jan and Ron Greenberg), 1972-3. The visitor stands in a large white cube, at the end of which is a wall of orange neon tubes. It's very bright and very orange, like standing in some sort of Protestant tanning studio. You then leave and walk down a corridor lit entirely by white strip lights, turn the corner, and walk into a similar cube, this time lit at one end by a wall of green neon lights. Again, it's uncomfortably bright. Time to leave, so you head for the corridor, which has turned pink when your back was turned. Except that's the trick - the lights are exactly the same, but your perception of colour has been temporarily altered by the green saturation.

This guy is screwing with my head!!

Amazing exhib. Shame it's closed now, but if you ever spot Dan Flavin's works on show anywhere, go out of your way to see them, they're spectacular.

Dan Flavin microsite (Hayward Gallery): http://www.hayward.org.uk/flavin/

2006-04-01T16:54:00.000Z

As the countdown to the new series of Doctor Who begins, there's some nice viral marketing out on the web again this time. We all know that the Cybermen are due to make a comeback, but it looks like there's a storyline about cyber-corporate activity. Are the Cybermen taking over humanity through the mysterious Cybus Coroporation?

The site features some amazing photos of the new Cybermen, including a disturbingly medical shot of a person undergoing Cyberconversion - in a subtle nod to Darth Vader receiving his helmet at the end of Revenge of the Sith, we see mechanical arms placing a Cyberman face cover over a human head.

There's also a shot of Cybermen in front of St Paul's Cathedral - an reference to the 1968 story, the Invasion.

2006-04-01T16:52:00.000Z

Matt's been busy producing a podcast show on the Guardian website. The latest Media Guardian podcast has an interview with David Tennant & Billy Piper about the new series of Doctor Who:

Media Talk with Matt Wells

You also subscribe to this for free through iTunes - one for the iPod this week I think!

2006-03-29T23:22:00.000Z

I see St John the Divine Kennington has re-launched its website - rather a nice piece of work, I may say.

If you're interested in the history of Kennington, South London, or in Victorian church architecture, you might enjoy browsing these pages. Or if you just happen to be looking for an Anglo-Catholic Church in South London, this might be the place for you.

2006-03-25T18:33:00.001Z

Here's something i've never tried before: writing a blog entry from my mobile! At the time of writing i'm on a virgin train whizzing through the midlands on my way to manchester. I must confess a minor shiver of excitement at this accomplishment, publishing to the web from my phone. The way it works: my phone has a very basic web browser and internet access. Now technology gives me a new way to say "I'M ON A TRAIN!" the world will thank the inventor one day.

2006-03-19T17:34:00.000Z

I've been promoted at work too - now about to oversee the History 11-14 section for a year! Eek!

2006-03-19T17:14:00.000Z

If anyone's wondering why I look worn down and exhausted, it's because I've been having a slightly busy month.

I had a couple of fairly simple tasks to achieve, mainly car stuff and sorting my life out since the upheaval of moving house. When I say "simple" of course, that doesn't take into account the malevolent magic of the Fuck-up Fairy, who waves her magic wand over my every project:

2 attempts	at getting my car MOTed - first garage tried to rip me off, so had to drive all the way down to Camberwell with dodgy brakes to find a cheap place
2 attempts	at renewing my car tax - the DVLA wouldn't let me do it more than 2 weeks in advance, so I had to go away and come back
3 attempts	at signing up with a local doctor since moving house (again) -they only take new patients on Fridays before 9am, and then you have to queue up to make an appointment to see a nurse who will register you, and then make another appointment to actually see a doctor!
4 attempts	at selling Wendy's telly on eBay - buyer 1 flaked out, buyer 2 said "oops I clicked on it by mistake", buyer 3 crashed his car on the way to collect and ended up in hospital. Finally sold it privately.

2006-02-21T01:00:00.000Z

It's the only language they understand.

About time too - they cause nothing but trouble, those chickens.

2006-02-21T00:52:00.000Z

"T" is for....

At work there's this cupboard. On one door there's a sticker saying "Testosterone", on the other there's one saying "Tourettes". I am dying to know what's inside, but the door's locked.

There might be a prize for the best suggestion.

2006-02-11T17:46:00.000Z

Hmmm. Could we, by any chance, be related?

I think we should be told.

2006-01-23T16:39:00.000Z

I can't even snog a 6'3" blond-haired, blue-eyed nordic god without the papparazzi snapping me in action.

Honestly!

Thanks, Bello.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bello/85564192/

2006-01-07T16:41:00.000Z

My Celeb Big Brother connection
Oh well, I've got to drop this in - I have actually met two of this year's Celeb BB contestants:
Rula: bumped into her at Bora-Bora club on Ibiza and danced on the beach with her. Nice lady.
Barrymore: ran into him in Infernos, Brighton, just after all that business with the pool party.

Ooh, the glamour.
Name drop over. CLANG.

2005-12-22T14:25:00.000Z

My Big Fat Gay Wedding
At long last the UK has woken up to the reality of human need and legalised "Registered Partnerships" for same-gender couples.

The first"gay wedding" took place in Belfast City Hall yesterday. To celebrate this momentous occasion, Norn Iron's finest Presybterian right-wingers took to portest in the square. The even thas been captured in this heart-warming Xmas card:

But the prize goes to the Sun for this cracking headline announcing Elton John and David Furnish's star-studded celeb gay wedding:

2005-12-12T23:19:00.000Z

Leaving on a jet plane...

So farewell then Wendy.

My big sister is off back to Oz. We had a sad farewell at Kilburn tube. Wendy seemed to have a sudden attack of hay fever.

Don't know what I am gonna do without that girl.

2005-12-11T20:42:00.000Z

So the new flat is very nice indeed. My flatmates reckon it all looks a bit "decadent" so I thought everyone else might enjoy a quick photographic guided tour.

My room has a gorgeous Edwardian fireplace, which I have adorned with candles and gay fairy lights, and a lot of lush foliage. I've also got my huge glass desk (that was a bitch to move) and my fake fur bedspread so it's all a bit of a bachelor boudoir. Yum.

So, the master bedroom:

(Click for a closer look)

(Click for a nosey around)

...and the reception room (with Xmas tree):

Do drop in for a cup of tea and a gypsy cream!

2005-12-09T18:36:00.000Z

I've bought a car!

I've bought Wendy's old VW Polo. It's about 16 years old - a 1989 model, but it's still going strong. I doubt it will be any use for major trips, but it will function as a glorified shopping trolley. I've already been to Ikea in it!

2005-12-08T18:38:00.000Z

Videophone

Blimey, I rememebr when videophones were the stuff of science-fiction and those How and Why Wonder Books of the future. Now I've got one!

Ive upgraded to a Samsung Z500 which looks nothing like the device shown above, but is just like my old phone. But there's a catch of course- I can only make a video call to someone else with a video phone. considering most people in my address book can't even receive still photos on their phones, it's going to be a while before I actually make use of this.

Memo to self: don't answer the phone unless fully clothed from now on....

2005-12-07T18:37:00.000Z

Methinks the lady doth protest too much:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/
1/hi/entertainment/4502834.stm

Oh puh-leeze Robbie.

Puts me in mind of when Jason Donovan sued the Face for the same thing - for years after, Private Eye referred to him as "the notorious heterosexual Jason Donovan".

2005-12-04T15:58:00.000Z

I have finally moved and am in the throes of settling into my new pad in North London. What a kerfuffle - everything is in chaos, with boxes everywhere and tangled piles of cable moutning up. I'm still dealing with the ongoing low-level stress of not being able to find small things like a toothbrush or a nail clipper every 10 minutes or so. Thank goodness I took the week off work.

So that was my third house move in as many years. I am really getting way too old for this nomadic existence. Everyone else in my age group seems to be buying property and settling down with partners and kids, but for some reason I seem to be locked into this perpetual student existence from which there is no escape.

I worked out the other day that in 19 years of living in rented property, I have paid over £41000 in rent. Something has got to change soon.

Must go, have an Ikea chest of drawers to glue together.

2005-11-21T19:40:00.000Z

The "Underground Railway" - an artist's impression

I'm gearing up for my move to North London. Friends have been telling me strange tales about life up there, and I'm not sure if they're having me on.

It is said that in North London they have a system called an "Underground Railway" which propels people in metal tubes through tunnels under the earth at dizzying velocities, enabling them to cross the city in a matter of minutes.

They have to be making this up - I mean, stories like crop circles and Sasquatch are all very well, but some of these people have to get a grip.

It's a good thing that I've been living in South London long enough to have a firm grip on reality. Anyone knows that travelling across London at any more than 4mph will result in suffocation, so that proves such a fanciful conceit cannot have any grounding in reality.

2005-11-01T22:15:00.000Z

Ebony & Ivory

Had an absolutely fabulous time at Sanjay and Robert's "Ebony & Ivory"/Hallowe'en party on Saturday. Sanjay was resplendent as Koh-i-noor Diamond in his white sari (done by a christian Dior specialist, sweetie). Some outrageous costumes - men in dresses, men in saris, and the only place in town where you can catch a gay sikh dancing with a black & white minstrel. Of course, that's Papa Lazarou off the League of Gentlemen.
"You're my wife now, Dave!"

Beyond PC I can tell ya.

Special thanks to Jazz for letting me use some of his pics off Flickr. The rest are off my camera phone.

2005-11-01T20:58:00.000Z

I can safely say that I have seen it all now. Whilst visiting someone's house at the weekend, I spotted the ultimate must-have bathroom accessory: a Louis Vuitton bogroll holder.

Banish that unsightly loo paper with this stylish yet practical leather holder. Simply pop the roll inside the holder, zip up the top and nobody will suspect that you wipe your arse.

Just in time for Christmas too!

Having said all that, there's a branding revolution afoot in bogroll; apparently the next big thing in wiping your arse is luxury branded toilet tissue. This article in Radar online even boasts a roll of (you guessed it) LV bogroll. I like the adverts though:

(click for a closer perv)

Sure beats that bloody andrex puppy.

2005-10-23T19:56:00.000Z

Music News

London Choirs - the London Symphony Chorus

If you're looking for London Choirs and a choir to sing with, consider applying to join the London Symphony Chorus. You can fill in an online application form and an audition will be arranged for you.

Joining the London Symphony Chorus means joining one of London's foremost amateur choirs. The LSC usually performs in major concert halls in major locations, concerts attended by royalty, and sometimes broadcast on radio or television. The London Symphony Chorus often gets reviewed (usually very favourably!) in the national press.

Online music hire

If you want to hire sheet music - music scores for choirs - go to the London Symphony Chorus online music library

2005-10-23T17:56:00.000Z

We've had a bit of a mouse problem this summer. A mouse seems to have taken up residence in my bedroom and has been keeping me awake at night for several months now with its pesky scampering around and scratching at plastic bags by my bed. It laughs at mouse traps, dances on poison boxes and considers ultrasonic mouse scarers to be some sort of ongoing free trance festival.

Until last night. Lying awake at 5am, I watched the wretched rodent scurry around my room, under my bed, up on my desk. It tried to slide down the domed top of my laundry bin, but its little claws lost their grip and he slid down and crash-landed on the floor. Undeterred, he attempted the feat again like a small furry Johnny Knoxville in some vermin edition of Jackass, this time sliding down and into the laundry basket. In my sleepy stupor, I suddenly realised that the mouse was in fact trapped and this was a golden opportunity to get rid of the wee fucker.

Springing into action, I started gingerly removing items of laundry from the bin until the mouse was visible, cowering under a sock. I'm sure even the mouse knew it was a feeble disguise but it had no choice but to sit there quivering, as if to say "I'm a sock, you can't see me!".

When a mouse is trapped in your laundry you discover some interesting things about the species:

A cornered mouse will emit a foul smell like a skunk, presumably to render itself unpallatable to larger predators. This meant it basically weeed all over my laundry.
A mouse trapped in a tall cylindrical enclosure can leap about 40-50cm into the air. It nearly got away you know.

So with the mouse trapped in the laundry bin, I worked out that I could lower my waste paper bin (a smaller long cylinder) over the mouse, trap it inside, slip a record album (hurrah for vinyl) underneath, turn the bin back up again and carry the mouse away. It took a couple of attempts with the mouse dodging the bin and trying to leap up my arm, but in the end I did it.

To be safe, I replaced the record with a tight-fitting plate, used some clingfilm to hold it in place, and took the mouse down the road about half a mile to Sydenham Woods where I released it. The little bastard didn't even say goodbye.

Went home, went back to bed and slept soundly for the first time in months.

Does anyone know if mice have homing instincts?

Fantastic fact #94: House mice are second only to humans as the mammal with the most global distribution.

2005-10-13T14:31:00.000Z

Wendy's got her redunancy and is moving back to Australia!

The flat is going to a property management company, and being the difficult bastards that estate agents are, they won't take it with any sitting tenants. Of course, I could move out, then pay the agents £90 for the pleasure of moving back into my own flat and have the rent put up, but rather than subject myself to this kind of nonsense, I'm trying to find a new pad.
Hmm, this moving thing is now an annual occurrence. Shame most flat prices are just beyond my grasp. I'll have to start looking around for a boxroom in Peckham next year.

2005-09-19T16:43:00.000Z

The Glorious 12th may have past, but it's cartoons like these that keep us all sane.
Not sure my grandpa would have approved though.

2005-09-16T22:42:00.000Z

Ich bin ein Berliner

Well, the new-look Grauniad is kind of nice. The "Berliner"paper size is a nice look, very European; the layout is distinctive and the bold blue masthead carries well and stands out on the news stand.

But oh, that Egyptian typeface. I really don't like it. It's trying to be a blocky serif font that subliminally alludes to sixties graphic art - the sort you might get in a Hitchcock film title sequence or on the sleeve of a Blue Note record album. And yet somehow it just comes across to me like a local freebie rag. I just don't feel the urge to take the Tadcaster Herald (incorporating the Chipping Sodbury Bugle). It just isn't right.

Maybe it's the font- from a distance, the beloved old Grauniad looks striking and enticing on the shelf, but I'm afraid, like a drunken Friday night pickup, it's a DOA (Deteriorates On Approach). I suspect they should have plumped for a nice chunky serif typeface like Clarendon. But Garinuda Egyptian? Not my type.

But like other things I pick up, I guess I'll get used to it.

By the way, can someone tell them that ein Berliner is a jam doughnut?

2005-09-02T17:21:00.000Z

Flying Spaghetti Monster
Here's the latest wacky web craze....

In America, some schools insist on teaching Creationism (God creating the World in 6 days) in preference to the Big Bang and Darwinism. A Physics graduate, Bobby Henderson, got a bit hacked off with this and wrote an open letter of protest to the Kansas School Board, claiming to be a member of a religion which believes that all matter was brought into being by an entity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He claims that Kansas schools should teach the FSM doctrine alongside Evolution and Darwinism, and that his religion is being unfairly discriminated aginast by being left off the state curriculum.

In the rambling, satirical letter, Henderson goes on to "prove" the case for Flying-Spaghetti-Monsterism (FSM). Take, for example, the age of the Earth:

He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years.

But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

He goes on to demand that this doctrine be only taught by persons dressed in appropriate costume, i.e. full pirate regalia. There is, he claims, a direct link between dwindling numbers of pirates and global warming, and goes on to prove this too.

Well, I'm a convert.

May you also come to know the Flying Spaghetti Monster in your heart.

Dolmio® vobiscum.
(et conciglie tuo)

http://www.venganza.org/

Have you been touched by the Monster's noodly appendage yet?
the Times Educational Supplement

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism
-Wikipedia

2005-08-24T17:25:00.000Z

The trek to work
I started working in White City (W12) about the same time I moved out to East Dulwich (SE22) - basically I moved in diametrically opposed directions, since then, getting to work has been a complex, exhausting and expensive 90-minute trek across London.

There is, however, a train route around the edge of town. It's poorly served by two trains an hour, and involves several changes. If everything connects up, I can actually shave 30 mins off my morning journey. What's more, the route doesn't pass through Zone 1, so my monthly travelcard cost has gone down from £96 to a mere £50.

It's amazing I can travel to the same place in less time and save £46 a month. The journey involves:

bus from my flat to Forest Hill train station
Train to West Norwood
Change for train to Clapham Junction
change by sprinting across 15 platforms to catch the train to Kensington (Olympia)
BBC bus from Olympia

Paradoxically, on the way home I only have one change -there is a direct train all the way from Clapham, and yet it seems to take 90 mins or more. Bloody transport system.

As Captain Scott famously said: "I may be some time..."

2005-08-24T17:20:00.000Z

I've migrated all my political rantings onto a separate blog so I can keep this one for shallow, fluffy shit. The ranting seemd to be taking over this column - but then it's no wonder, the way the world is going these days. Innocent people getting killed and maimed, phoney wars being waged across the world, crazed terrorists letting bombs off.... it really is apalling.
Oops, there I go again. I'll try to confine it all to www.mcmorran.org/rant from now on.

2005-08-16T20:58:00.000Z

click to zoom

Universally challenged

Of course the real reason for visiting Camberwell last night was for a viewing at Swann Towers of Swanny in University Challenge. Matthew did a splendiferous job answering correctly on (I think) five questions, and his team, the Barbican, won. They're not going through to the next round, but won Paxo's approval.

2005-08-16T20:54:00.000Z

First visit back to Camberwell last night - nice to see the old place hasn't changed: two drunken tramps leering over my shoulder at the cash machine, and Butterfly Walk shopping arcade closed off behind a police cordon as a mad axeman had thrown a machete at a passing cyclist for no apparent reason.

This is what estate agents call "a vibrant area". Lovely,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4157628.stm

2005-08-10T19:31:00.000Z

Nice to hear from Ewan - he's in Iceland at the minute, and reportedly has been tucking into puffin tapas.

Yes, you first heard of puffin tapas here.

2005-07-22T21:46:00.000Z

Since 7/7 and 21/7 half of London Underground has been knocked out. I've been avoiding the centre of town and trundling around the outskirts of town on various train services which don't quite interconnect, and today it took me two hours to get to work and another two bloody hurs to get home.

Anyway, to cheer us all up, some wag has redesigned the tube map to reflect the service changes brought about by international terrorism.

The new tube map

2005-07-22T13:21:00.000Z

On a happier note, one to watch: Peter Niven is in the BBC Proms this month with the London Symphony Chorus:

Prom 23
Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette
18.30 - 20.15 (no interval) at the Royal Albert Hall.
Broadcast on BBC FOUR at 7.30pm

Peter is one of the 25-strong semi-chorus at the start, so set that video!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/
proms/whatson/3107.shtml#prom23

2005-07-21T13:50:00.000Z

I'm sitting here in my office in White City. Five minutes down the road, Shepherd's Bush tube station has been evacuated in a big city-wide bomb alert. TV news tells us that odd small explosions have detonated in tube stations and a bus across London. There are even blokes in biochemical suits running around at Oval.

Scary stuff.

Well, I'm OK so far. My office window looks out onto Wood Lane, which is shut in one direction - only traffic coming out of Shepherd's Bush. There are people walking across the A40 Westway flyover. Have they abandoned their cars? They could have been evacuated from Ladbroke Grove tube station.

Watch this space.

2005-07-13T23:04:00.000Z

Nice magazine cover. It's in all the station newsagents, just to reassure London commuters every morning.

2005-07-12T22:40:00.000Z

Mykonos
Returned from a wonderful week in Mykonos, one of the islands of the Cyclades. One whole week of blazing sunshine, lazing on beaches and lying in the sea.

Hotel
I'd recommend our accommodation - Giannoulaki (pronounced "Yannoulaki") village is a lovely set of apartments outside Mykonos town, complete with pool (check out the website - this place is gorgeous). It's about 2km out of Mykonos town, which can be a problem late at night - be warned, the island only has 35 taxis and late at night this can be a problem! However, it's worth avoiding the old town which is sadly awash with noisy all-night clubs and bars. Don't book via the website though - it goes through an agency who cocked up our booking. Just phone them - Giannoulis speaks perfect English and is really helpful.

The town
Mykonos town is very picturesque- lose yourself in the narrow, whitewashed lanes, dine out by the water's edge in Little Venice. We made a temporary home in Montparnasse Piano Bar, where the nightly lounge lizard tinkles out show tunes. It was there we made friends with a drag artiste called Sabrina.
Piero's bar is also worth a visit - go upstairs for pricey drinks but a hip set of beautiful men and pumping hard house into the wee small hours. Or you may choose to remain downstairs for cheap booze, mingers and Kylie. It's fun to mingle with the crowds in the square too.

Beaches
Beaches like Platys Gialos ("Yialos") can be crowded, but it's worth the €6 return fare to take a boat around the island to the other beaches. Paradise and Super Paradise are more for the party set, but we avoided the loud music and went right on to Platys Elia. You get a nice boat trip, with the Agean spray in your face, and end up on a quiet sandy beach with sun lounger hire, waiter service, and the fabulous Elia Beach restaurant (great menu, terrible website!). We dined on chargrilled squid and watched the sun set, with a new moon and Jupiter and Venus blazing in the dusk sky.

Kulcher
Take a guided tour to the neighbouring island of Delos to see the 2nd Century BC ruins of this once famous port, shrine and birthplace of Apollo. If you want to hear the naughty details of the Ancient Greek Symposium , try to avoid tour groups including families - the guides skirt around the rude bits for them. (Apparently Greek men used to get pissed, talk philosophy and then shagged each other. Lots.)

Lingo
The Mykonians are a lovely lot and many speak great English. It's always polite to learn a few phrases, so I'd recommend the BBC Talk Greek site. Try to suss out the Greek alphabet too - handy for road signs.

My photos aren't ready yet, but have a look at this nice Mykonos gallery.

2005-06-22T22:34:00.000Z

Back to Ibiza
Went back to Ibiza for a fun-filled 5 days in the sun, including the fabulous Bora-Bora beach club and Space. No time to post photos right now!

2005-05-22T17:45:00.000Z

Overdose

I don't know - it's like buses. You wait around for years with no good sci-fi in your life, and then two come at once.

As Wendy & I rushed excitedly off to the cinema to see Star Wars, we totally forgot to set the VHS recorder for Doctor Who! Doh!!

2005-05-22T11:34:00.000Z

A long time ago in a cinema far, far away...

... well, the Odeon on Oxford Road, Manchester, sometime in 1977, I sat mesmerised by a movie that, frankly, changed my life. No film, no story has quite captured my imagination like Star Wars. It was the first in a set of six films, starting at chapter 4 of a story that was to unfold over the rest of my childhood and early adult life.

28 years later, I find myself in the Odeon in Leicester Square, London, watching the final chapter (or more accurately, the third chapter in the six-part story), and it blew me away.

I remember back in the 70s reading about how Darth Vader fought a lightsabre duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi, and how the dark lord was defeated and cast into a volcanic pit. How strange to finally see it on the big screen - pretty much as I imagined it. It was a tearful moment as Obi-Wan watched his one-time Padawan consumed by flames, and cried "I loved you - you were my brother!"

It really is quite a tear-jerker - John Williams's rousing incidental music emphasising the heart-wrenching tragedy as the Jedi are massacred by the stormtroopers following the history-changing "Order 66" issued by the wicked, cackling Emperor Palpatine.

I noticed how George Lucas lays on the Biblical references thickly. As the defeated Obi-Wan goes into hiding on Tatooine, he delivers the infant son of Skywalker riding on a camel-like beast to a humble hovel in the desert - a scene with faintly laboured Christmas resonances.

The only major flaw I felt about this film was the narrative pacing; Lucas was under enormous pressure to tie two trilogies together. While the production design morphed gradually and appropriately (the evolution of military hardware, trooper armour designs etc), the transition of Anakin from lovesick teen to intergalactic war criminal was clumsy and rushed. It was as if someone in the Lucasfilm production office suddenly said, "Oh shit, we haven't explained ______ and _____ and we have to squeeze in how ______ happens. How long have we got?" And so there's a mad scramble to show "authentic" continuity ties - cut to Alderaan, cut to Tatooine. Oh, and we have to have the Death Star construction site too!

Well, I guess the Death Star would have taken 20 years to complete, but I can't help feeling that some of these segues were rather forced - couldn't we have had some mysterious loose ends?

Hell, let's not look a gift-Bantha in the mouth. Revenge of the Sith was awesome. I'm seeing it again on Monday.

2005-05-21T12:17:00.000Z

Hooded teenager banned from shopping centre
Bluewater shopping centre has banned a teenager from its property because he was wearing a hooded top and menacing shoppers with "Force strangulation" and "finger lightning".

"These chavs are taking over the mall - it's time to clamp down on this yob behaviour, " claimed a Mr Windu, who was shopping in BHS. The teenager, who can be named only as "Anakin", skulked moodily outside the shopping centre doors. "It's so unfair," he whined, "The Jedi council won't let me into Burger King. One day they will all pay."

The Galactic Emperor has pledged a crackdown on "yob behaviour".

2005-04-28T16:30:00.000Z

click to zoom

Universally challenged
And your starter for ten is... What well-known vocally transgendered Yorkshire rugby player is being grilled by Jeremy Paxman on TV this summer? No conferring!

The answer is -- Swanny!

Set your video for Monday 15 August - Matthew is on the Barbican team playing in the special professionals edition of University Challenge. I won't give away the result, but good luck anyway, Schwannmeister!

Reminds me of another dodgy UC team who did particularly well a few years ago...

2005-04-24T17:58:00.000Z

Iraq: aliens did it!
Blimey - last night's Doctor Who was a bit close to the knuckle for the Blair government. Aliens of London concerns a bunch of bug-eyed aliens infiltrating Number 10 Downing Street and trying to start a nuclear war. The script was peppered with snide references to Blair's phoney war in Iraq:

the launch codes to the UK's nuclear arsenal are held in trust by the UN as Britain cannot be trusted - "they couldn't be trusted last time!" (Rose)
the Slitheen aliens terrorise the world with a threat of "massive weapons of destruction" that can be "deployed in 45 seconds". As the Doctor points out, "rubbish - they're making it up!"

The aliens infiltrate No. 10 by disguising themselves as humans (they wear human skin and unzip it when they want to change back). A real-life alien bodysnatcher-style invasion might explain the insanity that has seized our government - humans couldn't be as mad as new Labour, could they?

Nice one, Russel T Davies!

Doctor Who: World War Three

2005-04-20T19:48:00.000Z

Emperor Palpatine

Pope Benedict XVI

Has anyone noticed the uncanny similarity between the new pontiff and the Galactic Emperor Palapatine? I wonder if, in time, we shall find that Rome is under the influcence of the Dark Side.... stranger things have happened.

He's not a Sith Lord - he's just cute & cuddly!
Read about the Pope's dislike of women, gays and rock.

2005-04-20T17:19:00.000Z

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith spoilers!
The web is utterly crawling with Sith spoilers at the moment - I've been drip-feeding myself for some months now. If you really can't resist and want a sneak peek, here are two of the top sites:

aptirrelevance.com - huge range of Sith movie stills

millenniumfalcon.com
- Episode III forum with image postings

Give in to your curiosity.....

2005-04-20T17:04:00.000Z

Election test
I'm a bit of a sucker for online tests. Try this test to see who your should vote for:
http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com
Simply answer questions anonymously about a range of policies, submit the form, and it calculates who you should most likely vote for. Here are my results:

Labour -42

Conservative -31

Lib Dem 62

UK Independence -1

Green 44

I'm not surprised my erstwhile enthusiasm for Labour has waned since they started dropping bombs on almost defenceless countries, but I'm rather distrubed to discover I'm more likely to vote Tory than Tony. Eeeeww!

2005-04-18T21:27:00.000Z

Back from the Big Apple
I know you all missed me. In fact , I nearly got lost permanently on the MTA subway system. If I had a dollar for every time I got on the yellow N/R/Q/W line instead of the slightly darker yellow V line....

Highlights:

MoMA - now back in its old address on West 53rd Street, has been redesigned and rebuilt. Turning every corner is just a jaw-dropping moment of recognition as you find yourself staring at a super-iconic Dali, Mattisse or Pollock.
http://www.moma.org/
The New Museum of Contemporary Art - which has moved in a fit of élitist pique from tourist-ravaged Soho to funky Chelsea. It's hard to find, but worth the hike for some off-the-wall installations. My fave: Airborne, an exhibition of NY on the theme of the wireless spectrum, including Prayer Antenna by Paul Davies, a helmet festooned with lots of radio aerials so it looks like a porcupine.
http://www.newmuseum.org/
Soho shopping - after the wilderness of über-pricey Madison Avenue, a trip to Broadway between Houston and Canal Street brought me bargains galore. Now there's even a downtown Bloomingdale's - woo-hoo! Look out for the bargains in Yellow Rat Bastard.

But it's good to be back in a town where the subway map makes sense.

2005-04-05T18:53:00.000Z

Blimey, what a week this has been!
Dr Who returns, the Doctor then resigns; the Pope carks it; the Royal wedding's postponed, and the election is called. Is April Fools' Day running into extra time?

Christopher Eccleston for Pope I say!

I've been very amused by all the Royal Wedding gift trash industry being decimated overnight by the date change. Millions of Charles 'n' Camilla tea towels, Aynsley China mugs and commemorative bogroll holders have been rendered worthless because they all bear the date 8th April.

Or have they?
Apparently, this now-even-more-worthless crap has actually become collectible - a bit like the commemorative mugs for Edward VIII's coronation. Hang onto those tea towels - you could earn a fortune on eBay!

This cartoon in today's Grauniad hit my funny bone...

2005-04-02T21:19:00.000Z

No sooner has he started than Christopher Eccleston is chucking in the towel! Front runners for the role include David "Casanova" Tennant, Richard E. Grant and that Jonathan Creek bloke.

So the question on everyone's lips is: Who will be the next Pope?
(shurely "the next Doctor Who?" -Ed.)

2005-04-02T17:50:00.000Z

Old boys' reunion
Had an email out of the blue from Ewan - his brother Graeme has just returned from India (where he has been doing some very worthy work building a school out of wood and cow shit) and would we all like to come out and meet him in Soho?

It all turned into an impromptu Edinburgh reunion as Fergus and Cris Peploe, myself and Peter Niven all met up in the Yard in Soho (we had all at some time or another all sung in the choir of Old St. Paul's church in Edinburgh).

Imagine our surprise when Tommy Lang-Reilly (ex-OSP organist) appeared out of the blue! Talk about coincidence!!

Photo to prove it:

2005-03-27T15:46:00.000Z

About time!
The long-hyped new series of Doctor Who finally came on BBC1 last night, starring Christopher Eccleston as the new Doc. Not a set wobbled, no tinfoil monsters; in fact it had all the gloss of a 21st-Century TV sci-fi series, complete with the glitzy CGI special effects that we've come to expect form the likes of Star Trek Next Generation and its imitators.

But was it any good?
The trap of so many sci-fi productions these days is for the director to give in to his kid-in-a-sweetshop production values and gorge himself on over-spectacular effects, at the cost of storyline, screenplay and acting. Look at what happened to Lucas's Star Wars saga - a great mythology smothered in SFX like some over-sweetened pudding. Know that feeling when you've just eaten just too much chocolate sauce?

Well, we didn't get Jar-Jar Binks popping out of the Tardis, but the use of CGI is evident, but it succeeded in that it wasn't gratuitous. A slightly flimsy storyline about the Nestene consciousness (a big blob of anamorphic CGI hiding under the London Eye) was strengthened by the chilling sight of plastic shop dummies coming to life and killing people in London's West end. Yes, just actors dressed up in plastic costumes, lumbering menacingly about. Great, traditional Doctor Who, and I loved it.

There are little tributes to the movies - there's Terminator 2-style morphing (the replicated Mickey getting the champagne cork between the eyes), in episode 2 there are robot spiders à la Minority Report... but the beauty of this is that it's all in a true Who context. There are genuinely funny lines which seem to almost take the piss out of the logic of the whole thing. Cocky cockney companion Rose challenges the Doctor: "If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?". The Doctor replies, "Lots of planets have a North!".

There's lots I would have done differently, but all in all a good piece of work. Roll on next Saturday!

Episode 1: Rose

Media Guardian: Timelord triumphs in our age of irony

2005-03-21T23:32:00.000Z

Reproduction news
Blimey, these sprogs are popping out all over the place!
The Swanns have had a cygnet - baby Evie popped out this afternoon. Mother and baby are well, father sounded confused and disorientated on the phone today.

Congratulations to the Swanns!

2005-03-20T17:24:00.000Z

I've got a VIIIRUS!
Actually this is no joke - my computer caught a nasty virus last night - a trojan spyware thing which kept taking over my internet explorer and changing the homepage to the URL 69.31.80.128 or to the URL letgohome.com. These sites seemed to be trying to hack into my machine through Java virtual machine. What's more, a piece of imitation software called Security iGuard also appeared in my Program files which masqueraded as an anti-viral utility, but was in reality trying to hack into my PC and presumably steal stuff like passwords. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck!
All very scary stuff.

I was up til 3am sorting it and have spent most of today exorcising the evil spirits. If you have had this problems and don't have access to a priest, I've found the following software very useful in eliminating the viri. I recommend using them all, one after another, and getting the latest updates after you install.

Grisoft's AVG AntiVirus program:
http://www.grisoft.com/

Emsisoft's a2 AntiTrojan program:
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

Microsoft's Anti-spyware beta version:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/
security/spyware/software/default.mspx

I think it's time to upgrade to XP service pack 2, as XP1 is notoriously leaky. I wish I could download holy water just to be sure.....

2005-03-10T22:51:00.000Z

If you can't bear the wait until the Episode III trailer release, why not try this instead....

Did you know that when the evil Emperor Palpatine was planning the Death Star, he used "Sphere of Fear" as a working title? Shortly before switching to "Death Moon".

Well, he that's according to A Lost Hope, an inspired pastiche of the new Star Wars movie, which presents Anakin Skywalker as a whingeing teenage twat who's just got his trailer trash girlfriend up the duff.

I laughed like a wookie. I'm sure George did too.

www.sequentialpictures.com

2005-03-10T17:46:00.001Z

Sci-Fi fest
This month is proving to be an absolute feat of my sci-fi favourites. My childhood obsessions, Doctor Who, Star Wars and Hitch-Hiker, are all gearing up for spectacular 2005 re-releases. I am quite giddy with anticpation.

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Release date: May 19 2005

The official trailer is due to go live on the web this evening. Excitement is so high, that when a workmate sent around a link to this trailer, we all thought it was the real thing. In fact, it's a convincing and stylish fake.There's a dodgy one shot in a private cinema screening by some bloke with a DV cam, but the quality is so shite you might want to wait for the actual release. The trailer, however looks amazing.

The fake trailer
The dodgy but real trailer

Doctor Who
Broadcast date: Sat 26 March, 7pm, BBC1

After 15 years off the screen, the BBC has finally decided to relaunch this time-honoured time-travel classic. Producer Russel T. Davies looks like he's treating the programme with appropriate reverence - plenty of British eccentricity and humour - but giving it the gravitas and budget to make it credible. Gone are the wobbly sets and crap tin-foil monsters, but the Doctor is still the bonkers mystic lost in the space-time continuum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Release date: 29 April 2005

A tantalising remake starring that geezer off the Office as Dentarthurdent and Stephen fry as the Book. Better special FX too - but I'm really not keen on the redesign of Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Hitch-Hiker official site
Special bonus trailer

2005-02-27T19:10:00.000Z

Pheromonal phun
Speaking of people with incriminating photos on clubbing websites, Ana's done us proud on a recent trip to the appropriately-named club night Toxic presents The Embrace.

The ladies all smeared themselves with pheromone wipes before hitting the dance floor, and the effect was pheromonally phenomenal - as this eye-popping photo clearly demontrates.

Pheromone spray is available from all good stockists... hurry, hurry, hurry while stocks (and men) last!!

2005-02-22T23:21:00.000Z

Reproduction news
Congratulations to Nath & Fab Ignaccolo who have had another sprog: welcome to the world Matti Ignaccolo!

Fab reports: "La Maman va bien et est heureuse, entourée de ses fils.Sasha se retrouve grand frère, il semble bien aimer son nouveau rôle.Le Papa est en pleine béatitude, aussi!"

2005-02-20T10:33:00.000Z

Work of Fiction
At Juman's house party last night, Patrick informed me that there was an embarrassing photo of me & Juman cuddling on the sofa looking wasted, which is odd because I haven't been to Fiction for about a year.

Sure enough, there we are in the photo gallery from Easter 2004!

Go to www.club-fiction.net , open the main Flash site, select Galleries => Fiction and then click on the top one, Good Friday 09/04/04. We're on the second line from the bottom.

Or just click here to see the awful truth.

Footnote: interesting how over-designed sites prevent you from giving out a simple URL

2005-02-10T14:06:00.000Z

Guernikea
Last night a new Ikea store opened in Edmonton, North London. Thirty minutes later, it closed. Why? Because it was overwhelmed with a stampede of customers who started fighting over bargains, breaking down doors, and one man was stabbed. "They were like animals. I saw women punching women and men threatening children."

If Picasso had been there, what would he have painted?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4252421.stm

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005062468,00.html

2005-02-05T15:35:00.000Z

Football news
Can I just point out that I don't take the Daily Mail and never would, and that this was sent to me by a friend at the Grauniad: Chelsea's hairless wonders

The Chelsea football team, celebrating their 1-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers, all took their shirts off to reveal freshly waxed torsos. Yes, the boys in blue have been down the beauty salon for a back, crack and sack. "Judging by the scornful expressions of the Blackburn Rovers fans, such effete metropolitan behaviour is unlikely to catch on Up North, " sneers the Mail.

Well, long live effete metropolitan behaviour! See the results.

2005-02-05T15:27:00.000Z

Be my anti-Valentine
I just found this brilliant range of bitter & twisted anti-Valentines Day e-cards. Send to someone you love messages like "Destined to Die alone in a room heavy with cat wee", or "You're chucked!". Inspired.

http://www.meish.org/vd/sendcard.php

2005-02-04T18:17:00.000Z

Hilarious follow-up story to yesterday's drugs story, in G2 (the Grauniad's section 2) depicts middle-class people at dinner parties enjoying free-range organic polenta surprise and organic wine, and then the after-dinner course: charlie.

The passing round of the silver tray to appreciative noises - "It's Peruvian flake. I bought it in an alleyway behind Borough Market!"

They must have had a right laugh writing that one!

2005-02-03T01:02:00.000Z

Have just booked a holiday in April to New York - hurrah! I fancied another trip the Grande Pomme, but the prices of flights seem to go up after Easter to well over £300, which was a bit distressing. Still, after much online research I landed a cheapo deal and saved about £100.

There's a catch.

It's with Kuwait Airways, which I have now discovered, is a dry airline.

D'oh!!

2005-02-02T23:56:00.000Z

Cover story on the Grauniad today:
Crackdown on dinner party drugs
The new head of Scotland Yard took a swipe at London's white collar and celebrity drug culture yesterday by threatening to arrest weekend consumers of cocaine at dinner parties and in clubs and bars.

Well what a worthy use of police resources. Shame there was no "crackdown" on, say, muggers when I got mugged a couple of years back, and a pity that none of these super-sleuth coppers were around to stop my bike getting nicked last summer. Now it seems they'll be busy pouncing on anyone with a runny nose.

I can think of a few people who'll be timorously reverting to the box of After Eights for their next dinner party. Yum.

2004-12-31T16:37:00.000Z

Feliz año nuevo!
(better be careful how I say that - apparently, while año means "year", ano means "anus"!!)

I´m in Seville for hogmanay, with the Swanns, the Nivens and Matilda. Photos to come soon.

Back in 2005.

2004-12-12T14:22:00.000Z

Spam, spam, spam
I've had it with all the Viagra and Rolex watches spam I've been getting. I must get about 40 messgae a day - mortgage application, weight loss, penis enlargement... It's not exactly precision-targetted marketing, considering I rent my property, am under 11 stone, and the rest I'll leave to your no doubt fertile imagination.

K9 is a great little bit of freeware that has been recommended to me - you run it in the background along with Outlook Express. Basically it intercepts emails coming in and marks suspect messages as "Spam".

At first it's a bit hit and miss, and you have to tell it what's good and bad, but it soon learns what you like, which senders are OK, and what is unwanted. Spam mails get marked with "[SPAM]" in the subject field, and you just set up an inbox rule to delete messages with this tag.

Highly recommended!

http://keir.net/k9.html

2004-12-06T01:08:00.000Z

Aftermath
A swell housewarming party on Friday night went on until 6am. Highlights included:

Juman sitting on a glass coffee table and falling through it (no Noddy Holder references please - that means you, Colin)
Janine staggering out of Wendy's room into the garden in her knickers to chunder in the bushes
tacky housewarming pressies including a disco lights ball and a fabulous retro 70s ash tray stand
assorted other naughtiness not suitable for a family website

If you missed it - tough!

2004-12-05T18:45:00.000Z

In case you've not been round to my new pad, I've done a bit of decorating. The new room is looking pretty nice - a matt chocolate-brown wall behind my bed, matching brown Ted Baker bed linen, and an exquisite fake fur throw from Mrs Robinson's interior design shop in East Dulwich.

I may only have a rented room the size of a postage stamp, but I was determined to make it into as enticing a boudoir as I could. Finishing touches: rope fairy lights under the bed and a modernist mobile from MOMA hanging from the ceiling.

2004-12-04T16:09:00.000Z

Meeja News
Congratulations to Matt Wells who has been promoted to editor of the Media Guardian - the supplement of all things meeja-tastic in Monday's Grauniad. Available from all reputable newsagents on Mondays, priced 50 of your Earthling pennies. Well done Matt and good luck!

http://media.guardian.co.uk/

2004-11-27T22:10:00.000Z

Wedding news
Congratrulations to Fiona & Justin who got hitched on Saturday in a star-studded ceremony at Camden Town hall. The bride was a vision in deep pink with a red-hot chilli pepper bouquet. She also giggled ALL through the ceremony!

Fi & Justin have now gone swanning off around South America for a 6-month honeymoon. This also presented the logistical problem of wedding presents - since a deep-fat fryer and bed linen would prove useless on a trek up to Macchu Picchu, we just stuffed wads of cash down the bride's cleavage.

We wish them a brill holiday and every happiness in the future. I forgot my camera but photos will appear soon....

2004-11-26T17:30:00.000Z

Scab news
Blimey, I never thought I'd see the day - Swanny's got a gig singing at the Tory party carol concert! All together now: "Tory scum, Tory scum, Tory scum..."

(He has promised to sing rude words in the carols, but really...!!)

2004-11-24T18:28:00.000Z

The world, as I have remarked many times in recent months, has gone mad. I mean, seriously, dangerously bonkers.

In Britain, the government are considering laws to prevent people from smacking children. While our esteemed leaders exercise their minds on such weighty matters, the coalition forces are busying themselves in Iraq, bombing the shit out of Falluja.

No wonder, then, that medical journal the Lancet has published a report stating that the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion.
report on the Lancet article (BBC News)

Blair and his government are naturally reluctant to accept this claim - their war has improved life for ordinary Iraqis, surely?

Last week, I watched a TV news report from a hospital in Falluja. Babies and young children lay on beds, many with limbs blown off by falling bombs, many with horrific burns. A mother was interviewed on camera - "God will punish Bush" she said. How will a mother's rage be channeled? I cannot shut out the dreadful feeling that civilians who go through agonies such as this will only end up becoming tomorrow's terrorists.

And so I sit back and reflect that in this mad, mad world, we have a government who tell us that it's wrong to smack children, but dropping bombs on them is all right.

In pictures: Falluja under siege (BBC News):

2004-11-10T18:36:00.000Z

The tube in 2016
Transport for London has published a speculative tube map showing the plans for London tube/rail/tram in the next 12 years.

This is how London transport could look in 2016 (PDF file).

My main interest is the new East London line (orange). I need to get from Dulwich to Shepherd's Bush in the mornings, and at the moment it takes me an hour and a half. Ironically, there is a railway line which runs directly from near my house and goes right past my office window... but there are no direct services and the trains don't stop anyway.

So I'm pestering the various transport companies to get this service up and running. The thought of being able to do something as sensible as going from Denmark Hill to Clapham Junction and Shepherd's Bush makes my head spin with excitement! I wish they'd hurry up and build the bloody new stations.

Bizarrely, Loughborough Junction and Brixton are left off the east London line extenstion, and trains would just zoom over these already deprived areas. What a missed opportunity to have useful interchange stations - or would that be too convenient and sensible?

Read the full press release:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-releases/2004/july/press-gla242.shtml

You can send your comments to TFL at:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/contact_form.shtml

2004-11-03T11:25:00.000Z

Welcome to Dulwich

Click to enlarge
I have actually moved into Wendy's flat now, in leafy East Dulwich. I'm living at the far end of Lordship Lane, just beyond the Dulwich Plough pub, in those odd concrete flats on top of the hill, Dawson Heights.

Click to enlarge
We have a lovely view of Sydenham Hill, Dulwich Forest, and a clear view of the Crystal Palace transmitter. Odd, then, how we have such a crap telly signal.

If you ever plan to visit, here's a map.
...and here's the bus services map.
Take the 176 or the 185 to Overhill Road, or the 40 to Dulwich library and walk the rest.

Our flat is also a stone's throw to the improbably named Horniman Museum, South London's museum of ethnography, music and natural history. Look out for the Alaskan totem pole on the front lawn. I really must pay a visit.

2004-11-03T01:58:00.000Z

Site update: photo galleries
I've rearranged a section of my site that's been bugging me for a while. Since I add photos fairly frequently, it makes sense to have a central Photos page and Photos URL. Any photos should come under www.mcmorran.org/photos/whatever . So, for example, my New York photos are now under www.mcmorran.org/photos/newyork .

The main photo page is www.mcmorran.org/photos .

I hope this makes sense.

2004-11-02T01:29:00.000Z

I've been off work for the past week with flu, so if you're waiting for me to reply to an email, that's why.

What, you never noticed I was away?

2004-10-12T23:28:00.000Z

News in brief

Property and baby news
You might have heard that I'm moving! Nina is about to drop one, so in anticipation of the arrival of the sprog, I'm shacking up with Wendy in her pad in East Dulwich.
Congratulations to Matthew and Nina on the imminent (ETA March) addition to the Swann clan. Congratulations to Wendy on acquiring a lovely new flatmate! I'm moving end of Oct. Matthew and Nina have bought Sansom Street.

Travel News
Since returning from Canada & the US, I've not been able to post my photos online. I've got some brilliant shots but my computer packed in when I got back and I'm spending every waking hour trying to get the wretched thing running again, in between moving house and doing the day job.

Gadget news
I've bought an iPod. Way cool.

Work
Going well - busy but seems worthwhile. Back in my old department, the spectre of redundancies returns, but thankfully I am far from that quagmire of despair.

Over and out.

2004-10-12T23:14:00.000Z

Ooh look! Straw withdraws 45 minutes claim (BBC News)

"Jack Straw has told MPs the claim Saddam Hussein could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes has been officially withdrawn. "

Just fancy that!
Does my old boss get his job back now?

If you are as pissed off as I am at being led into a phoney war by the Blair government, sign up for the Just Say Sorry, Tony campaign.

2004-10-06T23:58:00.000Z

Come fly with me... again!
Just had another wicked flying day - my friends clubbed together to buy me a Red Letter Day flying experience.

Tim had a similar present from Virgin Experiences (inappropriately enough) which we all bought him for his birthday, so we went off for a spot of flying together today at Stapleford Airfield in Essex.

Today I got to fly a two-seater, and did the take-off. Weatherwise it was such a lovely day, though the wind was a bit unpredictable, so we only went up to 2000 feet and buzzed about over Dartford for half an hour. Buzz was the operative word - I've really got the flying bug and hope to do some more next year... maybe even go for a proper pilot's licence, if I ever get a well-paid job.

Didn't take any photos this time, but it was pretty much like last year's excursion in the 4-seater Piper Warrior from Wellesbourne Mountford Airfield, Warwickshire.

2004-10-06T23:42:00.000Z

In case you're wondering, I am back from my travels. I got back on Sunday and have been plagued with sodding jetlag ever since.

I had an absolutely brilliant trip, and managed to get to:

Vancouver (to see family)
Victoria, Vancouver Island
Whistler (up on the way to the Rockies)
Minneapolis (visited Andy, Emma & Toby Mogendorff)
New York (joined for a weekend by Graham Burnside)

Most of the trip seemed to be taken up with driving an enormous SUV Ford Explorer around British Columbia, coping with blocked toilets, $hopping like mad (Mall of America and on 5th Avenue), and getting to know the boys & bars of Chelsea, NY. Mmmm....

Photos will be up online as soon as I get time to sort it out.