What would happen if a certain Dark Lord of the Sith were to visit a flagging construction project…
And here’s the real story
Archive for February, 2006
Darth Vader as Project Manager…
Published February 21, 2006 funny , London , news , star wars 1 CommentTo mark the occasion I’ve done 21 (count ‘em) individual picture promos starting with Angie and Dirty Den from ’86 and featuring some of the best characters from the show right up to Pauline and Joe’s wedding, which is apparently the big story-line at the moment. You can all 21 as the appear hourly here.
However in the course of all the research for this, I turned up this recent classic.. so without further ado, I present the Totally Unofficial EastEnders Caption Competition. Any suggestions in the comments section below. Winner might get a prize….
Want to know the first sentence uttered in Enders? See it here
BBC Climate Change experiement… Phew what a scorcher
Published February 17, 2006 BBC , media , news , Science , Television , Web/Tech Leave a CommentIf you didn’t know, the BBC is running a climate change experiment as part of a wider series of programmes addressing the issue. The experiment involves downloading a screen saver (PC only -pah!) that crunches your assigned bit of data while you’re off making a cuppa in a similar way to the SETI one a few years back. There’s more on what the experiment is trying to do here.
Anyway, we promo’d it on the homepage, and the next day we got some positive feed back from our colleagues in /science
Only two days in and we’re on 45,000 PCs, which is already 8 times the power of the supercomputer that the Met Office has! It’s certainly the biggest ever now – and people are getting very excited – and there’s months to go!!!
That’s great news. And as of now it’s up to 51,485 hosts in 137 Countries. You can see the geographical spread of those taking part on Climateprediction.net. It’s a really wide mix too. I think this is going to be a fantastic project, us Brits are obsessed with all things meteorological as this image shows…
It would appear my mad cow of an MP voted against the ban on smoking in public places, yet she’s the minister for amongst other things, sport. Doesn’t say much about the fitness of the nation does it? Unless she’s got a secret plan to have respiratory diseases entered into the Olympics… Mind you we’d still probably loose out to Eastern Europeans. Anyway the vote was passed
In and oddly connected way I plucked a used A4 cardboard folder out of the stationary cupboard the other day and it had written on it ‘Govenor’s [sic] response to Graf’.. See, that £60 million overspend’s sure not gone on new stationary. 
One Wet Suffragette – From the Lambeth Archive
Published February 14, 2006 history , London , news , Photography Leave a CommentLink: Lambeth Landmark.
Article covering an incident that took place in the grounds of Bessemer House, Denmark Hill, at the Chancellor, Mr Lloyd George’s meeting. Supporters of Sylvia Pankhurst’s suffragette movement, a young man and woman and later the Rev.C.A.Wills, interrupted the meeting and were assaulted and thrown into a pond in the grounds.Published in the Daily Express, 22 June 1914Article published in the Daily Express, 22nd June 1914
Ahhh those were the days.. A Rev Willis who ‘interrupted’ a speech by Lloyd George is carried outside and thrown in a pond! Then a steward wades in and tries to duck (dunk?) him, that bloke from the Labour conference who shouted out ‘liar’ at Jack Straw got off lightly!
So The Apprentice is back… Well if you missed out on the opportunity of selling those funny emailer phones much beloved by grannies, or can’t be bothered with twelve weeks of gruely back stabing/team building exercises and role play, then just mail Amstrad your CV here.
Link: BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Trainers bonanza from cargo wreck. Heh heh heh
Getty Images buy iStockphoto…
Published February 10, 2006 Design , media , Photography , Web/Tech Leave a CommentLike Google buying Blogger and Yahoo buying Flickr, Getty Images have just bought iStockphoto for $50 million, that’s a lot of money…
I like iStockphoto, I’ve used it on a couple of freelance jobs. At a dollar a pic, it’s very cheap, but does that make it the Aldi of images? Well, sort of… Some of the images lack uniqueness or sophistication, but that can be said about most royalty free stuff. They pick out the really good exclusive stuff for the homepage, but search for something like food and you get some pretty standard results… But hey, it’s costing 70p a go right? Who cares, it’s cheaper than clip art.
So, wonder what they’ll do with it? Keep it as a sideline, or try and integrate it into the rest of the business? I would have thought it would knacker their current RF set up though. Who’s going to pay $50 an image when you can get one for $1?
The press release says The acquisition demonstrates that Getty Images recognizes, supports and embraces the power of the culture of participation that is sweeping the Web and is continuing to implement its stated strategy of serving image buyers at all price points on all platforms and in all markets.
Like Bix Snyder said in Robocop… “I’d buy that for a dollar!”.
We’ll see.
AWT Death Cake, originally uploaded by eyedropper.co.uk.
This is all that remains of a slice Anthony Worrall Thompson’s Snickers Pie, a.k.a The Cake of Death. The recipe was taken down by the food team for ‘recipe checking’… The homepage team answered the call for volunteers to try the cake out, it was very rich and tasted of… Well, Snickers. Turns out that all the fuss was about portion control. Yes it has 1,250, but that’s only because the recipe mistakenly said serves 4. In the same a large chicken would have a load of calories if you put serves 1 at the top of the recipe. So they’ve changed to to say serves 12.. Ta dar! Anyway, the Recipe is here. ‘Sides, Wozza’s name is mud in our house for ousting Greg on Saturday Kitchen. He now bickers with every guest he has on, especially if it’s James Martin whom he once employed…Here’s a better Woz, but can he cook?
The search for the elusive Sunday roast..
Published February 6, 2006 comedy , Food , London , me Leave a CommentToday was probably the worst Sunday I think I’ve had for a long time… It started out simply enough with a plan to drive to the countryside with some friends and have a roast dinner followed by a walk. And although we sort of achieved these things, it came with a great sacrifice.First up, having left the house after a row we approach the car to find a parking ticket issued for having two wheels on the curb. £50 that’s going to cost me. What’s annoying is that it wasn’t even like I’d mounted the curb, in this case the curb was as flat as the road. So all we’re really talking about here is gradations of stone.. I was simple on the wrong strata by two inches. The ticket was issued at 08:52 this morning. What kind of crazy jobsworth traffic warden is out and about at that time?! Furthermore the only reason I parked in this spot and not my usual high curbed road was that a funeral was taking place at the church next door and loads of weeping relatives had clogged the street with their cars. I’ve a good mind to go to the reading of the will and demand £50 – pah!So… not the best start. We then drive to Streatham and pick up some other friends and head off. Two hours later we’re lost somewhere near Sevenoaks. There then follows frantic texting and phone calls to determine where we’re susposed to be. At one point I stopped and asked a man who it turned out was an architect, so his directions were peppered with things like “turn left at the new school I designed”. Anyway, he drew me a lovely map, however I did glean some satisfaction from pointing out his school boy error it drawing the symbol for a church with a tower when in actual fact it had a round spire.You’d think we were in the back of beyond for all the mobile reception you could get… each dip in the road would loose the call. We then found the pub, only it was the wrong Fox and Hounds, they had no reservation under our name and said they were full. Look how many Foxes and Hounds there are near Sevenoaks.By this time I was facing a mutiny from the back seat, things had turned rather feral and there was a fight over the last Polo and who should have the chonch. We headed back towards Sevenoaks to a pub we’d past 45 mins ago called The Woodman, oh dear.Look at this menu. Far too much, over forty dishes (fresh from the microwave). I hate the way these sort of pub menus are written almost as much as what’s on them. Gammon Steak served with your choice of pineapple or fried egg…but not both! Thai Red Chicken Curry served with white and wild rice & naan bread. Naan? With Thai curry? Pork Saltimbocca fillets of pork with sage and prosciutta. Served with a red wine jus. Saltimbocca is supposed to be made with veal isn’t it, and oooh we all luv a jus…. And finally lines like this “In the unlikely event that our chalkboards can’t tempt you, perhaps we might suggest something from our snack menu below.”Okay, so the menu is standard English pub, far to ambitious and you know that a pub like this isn’t exactly going to be getting deliveries fresh everyday. But hey, maybe they’ve got a Octopus God at the range who can pull it all off… alas no.“Are you doing food?” “Yis”, “all day?” “yis, bat there’s a 45 minute wit”. Now the pub wasn’t that busy, but three roast dinners and a fish pie took an hour. All served by confused chalkboard parading white South Africans. When the food did arrive it was dull, insipid and bland.Still at least they were attempting food all day, most places we rang up were ‘only from 12 till 2’ Two hours! Eat in these 120 minutes or it’s another seven days till we can roast some meat again. Shuttle Launch windows are wider than that.So, in short fuck the countryside, fuck crappy English country pubs, fuck the fuckwit teenage chefs who can only microwave things one at a time, fuck chalkboards, fuck bits of agricultural hardware screwed to the walls, fuck old photos, and fuck the other dull diners who didn’t even complain, fuck it all. Next time I want a roast dinner I’m staying in London. I think we’ll be well into spring by the time I’m up to attempting a day trip to the countryside and it’ll be warm enough then to pack a picnic.On the way home we swerved to try and hit a pheasant but he got out of the way…
