Something to Go Here?
I'd like to explain why I've not been writing anything here on my blog, but sadly I don't think I can explain it in a clear enough way and I don't want to risk my words being miss-read again and causing damaging email to be sent or phone calls made.
[20-08-2011]

America
Not wanting to do some America bashing, but I watched Andrew Marr's Obama interview recently and was struck by his amazing ability to contradict himself. At the beginning he's saying how killing Osama was the right thing to do and he'd do it again without hesitation, then at the end of the interview he's expressing how proper the current crop of peaceful protests are and how wrong the authorities are in their use of violence. What? Why, may I ask, is killing one person write and another wrong?

In just the same way there is utter hatred for any religious extremism anywhere in the world. That is of course, excluding America, where religious fundamentalism (read extremism) gets to make you the president. A country that is strongly Christian (a faith of forgiveness and servitude) which keeps the death penalty. A country which supports the right to bare arms, yet recoils in horror when madmen go on a killing spree (and what sick irony when the IRA, oops I mean NRA, suggest that if everyone had a gun they could have defended themselves). And just last week on BBC Breakfast we were told about the auction of the gun used by Al Capone. A gun on sale in America which quite possibly killed people making the news here in the UK. Need I say more? ("YOU CAN GET MUCH FARTHER WITH A KIND WORD AND A GUN THAN YOU CAN WITH A KIND WORD ALONE" - AL CAPONE - gosh I really want to own his gun now)

That being said I get great pleasure out of getting a nice Head Shot on Operation Flashpoint, so perhaps we're all the same.

Except I don't tend to go round the world killing people for real in the name of democracy and freedom.

Damn it, I did get lured into America bashing. I do like the place, really, but mostly the bits round the edges.

And don't get me started on the Daily Mail/Mirror/Sun believing great British public who would sooner extradite all forigners and bring back capital punishment sooner than you can read the quote above. I hate them far more than anyone. I mean LOVE THEM, of course, I must love them (I've just no idea how to go about loving them yet).
[21-06-2011]

Synesthesic Confusion
I'm still not at a point where I can fully use my synesthesia (colour-word association) to remember words. However I am increasingly aware of a colour when trying to recall a word I can't think of and increasingly this is helping me jog my memory (or sometimes even jog others'). At the weekend I was trying to think of a word and could only suggest that it was the colour of the evening sky - a sort of light dusty dull blue - and eventually remembered. Though true to form I've now forgotten what that word was again.

But the confusion I just noticed is with letters of similar colours. I was just hunting through a list of artists looking for a Regina Spektor. The odd thing was that I got stuck searching for her amongst the M's. Now this might seem odd, but M is red (quite a vibrant scarlet) while R is a deep crimson (perhaps a hint of maroon). So when my scrolling reached M, my brain said "Right oh, that looks about the right colour, we must be there already", and as the spellings are a jumble of letters anyway, my brain was kind of hoping whatever red word it was would just jump out and become apparent. It didn't so then I took note of the letter and went hunting for R.
[23-05-2011]

Easter and the Royal Wedding
A spring of holidays and fantastic weather. I now can't remember how long it was since it last rained. I remember the same thing a couple of summers ago when I couldn't remember when the sun last shone. This is just crazy, pretty much the whole of April has been splendid - warm days most of the time. In fact thinking about it even March was damn hot and we started enjoying breakfast outside in the garden. March and breakfast in the garden. What is going on? You'd think with the gloriousness of it all that I'd be super chilled, soaking in the sun and not a care in the world. And this is mostly true, but then there is this very British niggling doubt at the back of my mind thinking "but what's the cost of this", surly it can't last, or if it does last then we'll have to pay for it with another rubbish summer. Su mentioned the very British obsession with weather, if it's bad weather we grumble, and if it's good weather we get suspicious. Strange but true I think.

Anyway back to the end of April and the holiday gods have smiled favourabliy on us Brits to give us four bank holidays in two weeks (again, I'm sure we'll have to pay for it later in some respect). For Easter we retured home to Cheltenham for Good Friday and Easter Saturday to help remove the now sadly deceased Sumac tree that was planted to celebrate my birth (kind of). It died last the year before last and has offered up it's wood to the great furnace in the sky (dining room).
[30-04-2011]

Spellings
Why is it that success has two c's where as process only has one? This really annoys me as I usually do the opposite. (While writing this I think I've worked it out: it's pronounced "suk-cess", and it's that K which is actually a C. Damned infernal English).
[04-04-2011]

More than One Photo Per iPhone Email
How to do this has evaded me until just now. In the camera or photo application it's possible to send any of your photos by email or MMS, there is a handy button to do just that. But try this with a second photo and your previous email draft is lost. It seemed impossible to attach more than one photo to an email. But here's how:

In your photo application (Photos or Camera for example) touch and hold an image. After a few seconds 'Copy' will appear. Click that then open Mail and compose an email. In the body click-hold and select 'Paste'. Your image is added to the email. Now just go back to your photos and repeat the process with another email - Copy, back to Mail, Paste. Voila! More than one image per email. Win.

The daffodils I rescued for my desk (all were broken)
[23-03-2011]

Dreams - Diagnose This
This was my last dream I enjoyed just before waking up this morning.

I was outside on a horse in a big field. I was communicating rather effortlessly with the horse and soon I had it on two back feet doing the Moon Walk (a la Michael Jackson). Next to me in the field was Su on her horse, but that could only paw at the ground with its front feet, so I taught it how to stand up on its hind legs and walk back wards in that characteristic way. Soon we were both doing the Moon Walk on our horses.

That was it, simple but satisfying.
[23-03-2011]

Guilty Pleasures
I think I've worked out what my cinematic 'guilty pleasures' is. Film4 used to have a regular guilty pleasure film slot. Films that you're supposed to not like but secretly you do. I never really used to like the ones they showed so didn't relate to what they meant by guilty pleasures. This evening I found mine.

Ok, not just that film, but I think in that I've found my guilty pleasure genre - American family comedies. They make me laugh, make me cry. Are filled with good wholesome relationships which undergo occasioanl hardships but pull through and become stronger as a result. I love them. I loved them when I was young as I could identify with the children and they helped me understand what it meant to be a child. Now as an adult I seem them from the parents view and they help me now feel that having a family is hard at times but ultimately rewarding. Great stuff.
[20-03-2011]

Alpro Soya - Good and Bad
Dear Alpro Soya,
I've recently discovered your soya milk products. My wife and I decided to reduce our diary intake and were looking for an alternative to milk and decided to try your Unsweetened Soya Milk. And it is just excellent! We really like it. It really does taste great in coffee - it gives a richness like full milk, but not a bean-y-ness that I was expecting. It's also just fine in tea and I've recently started adding it to my muesli too. We usually get the refrigerated variety, but it seems that super markets (especially Waitrose) seem to run out of this quite often meaning we've turned to the LongLife variety - and even that is just fine, actually I can hardly taste the difference.

So thank you very much for making it, but please can you get super markets to stock more of it as the Unsweetened always seems to run out far before the others :(

What I don't understand is why you predominantly seem to make sweetened soya milk - only one product is marked 'unsweetened'. What is this about? I realise that people do often put sugar in their coffee, but this is an optional choice, and something they like to decide on at the time. Nobody - excluding the Americans of course (having watched Jamie's American Food Revolution which showed the sugar added to kids flavoured milk - ironically the very program where I first noticed your 'Two Cops' advert idents) - puts sugar in their milk. Cows don't produce sweet milk, and the milk men don't add sugar to their milk, so why oh why do you add sugar to your soya milk? I really don't get it.

There are a couple of reasons I find this annoying. Firstly as mentioned the Unsweetened Alpro sells out far before the others - clearly there is demand for Unsweetened, so please do take note. Secondly it makes no sense to have added sugar by default, we can add sugar if/when we need, it doesn't need to be ready mixed. Thirdly it really makes your products, which appear to be super healthy, really super not-so-healthy. Fourthly we're not Americans.

This weekend I went into my local Waitrose (Portswood, Southampton) and yet again the Unsweetened was all gone. So I saw the 'Light' variety and took that. I read the ingredients and saw a very low sugar content, excellent I though this must be what I'm looking for. But I've made two cups of coffee with it and both times I've tasted almost a 'mocha' flavour as if I've somehow added chocolate sweetening. I've read the packet over and over and can't see any mention of sugar nor of sweeteners, but I can only think that you must add sweeteners to this product - is this correct? So unfortunately I'm disappointed with the Light variety and will stick to the Unsweetened (if I can find it, and if not I'll have to stockpile the LongLife variety).

On a serious note I am quite frightened by the amount of sugar in some of your products - your chocolate flavour long life shake cartons for example have 24 grams of sugar in them. That is simply ludicrous. Actually I'd like to register a real complaint at this as I really feel this is pretty horrific and misleading. 24 grams of sugar is 21.6% of an adult gda - yet these seem to be aimed at kids, they are after all kid sized. I'm not a parent yet but would not like my child consuming 24 grams of sugar in just a small 30-second carton. Really, that is frightening. But what I think is misleading is your website and I would ask that you change this - you display the gda percentages based on a 200ml serving - the cartons are 250ml, no one is going to measure out 200ml and throw the rest away. I realise that for larger cartons it is sensible to give a measured value, but for a small carton which is clearly designed to be a single serving, this is really not acceptable as it's making 24 grams of sugar look like 19.2 - which is still a frightening amount if you've ever measured it out (which, by the way, I have!).
Alpro Soya Chocolate Shakes

Thank you for your time,
Yours Sincerely
Nick Bailey
[25-02-2011]

Winter
I love winter. I mean really love it, almost more than all the other seasons. It's a season of both rest and promise. I'm talking predominantly gardening here, but also I think it applies to life as a whole.

It shouldn't be the case, winter should be depressing, a time of cold, of darkness and decay. It certainly has a whole condition attributed with it - seasonal affective disorder - SAD - though I tend to get my SAD following the hour change in October. But despite the cold and rain there are so many glimpses of joy and excitement that make winter fully worth while in my opinion. The leaves have gone allowing full access to the sky, light infiltrates the ground and, when it's with us, clear winter skies have the most fabulous clean crispness that just doesn't come with summer. Get a sunny day in winter and it lifts the soul like nothing else.

But apart from the odd days when it is glorious, there is a wonderful sense of rest that comes with winter. Some days you can't get out into the garden - the rain is lashing at the house or there's snow covering the ground. I sometimes think that all is lost, but when I do venture out I see buds on the trees, I see shiny green bulbs pushing up through the cold ground and in the greenhouse there are the first signs of shoots appearing - even in January the garden is becoming alive for the summer.

And I think it's that that I most love - the anticipation of the summer to come - far better than the summer might turn out to be. Anticipation is simply wonderful. I can sit in the lounge, with odd glimpses out to the winter garden and just know that spring is on it's way, the garden is alive and growing despite whatever the winter might throw at it. It is safe, and so am I. Love it.
[05-02-2011]

Life In Limbo
I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but here goes, life in limbo. That's how I feel at the moment, some strange half life between the past and the future, not quite like it was and not like it will be, but somewhere in-between - the Lib Dem of psychological states (reference to Spitting Image).

First of all hands up those of you who think that getting married solves all your problems. Right, secondly hands up if you think getting a PhD solves them, or any degree for that matter? What about those of you who think the older you get the easier it is. Anyone left? You at the back, you're wrong.

Don't panic, things are fine, and life is good - I seriously always love and enjoy life - but right at the moment we feel trapped, unable to stretch our wings and achieve our potential. The reason is we don't know where we're going to be in the future so we can't settle. We're still living in the same cramped student accommodation with little space, especially not our own space. While I appreciate shared accommodation and I like those I live with, we really long for our own place. It feels about time.

It's making planning a second wedding pretty shite frankly - take for example our wedding list. How are we supposed to know what we want or need when we have no idea what we have (half our stuff is boxed in the loft as we have no room for it) nor what we will need as we have no idea what our house might be like. We certainly have no room to store any presents we do receive except in my parents house (how can we then be grateful when we can't use it as it's still in a box somewhere? - naturally we are grateful of course). Then there's the inconvenience of organising a wedding in a town nearly two hours drive away without a car. Clearly we are deeply indebted to my mum for all her organising work, but then we just feel bad that we can't do more. Basically it's a loose loose situation. Yes I'm sure it will be fine, I'm even thinking it might be fun, but I'm mostly certain it will be over soon.

Why would anyone ever want to organise more than one wedding? I can really see why it puts people off getting married - what a sad state of affairs that we have to put so much pressure onto one single day, but forget that it's the rest of the life that this is about. And what a way to start married life - with a massive hernia of stress. I guess that's what the honeymoon is for - compensation for the hell of the wedding preparation. But how sad that we've got into this state where organising a wedding - "the happiest day of your lives" - is such a stress, second only to moving house. We really have our priorities mixed up.

I believe in marriage after weddings.
[08-02-2011]

Unemployment

Anyone who think it's easy to be unemployed is entirely disconnected with reality, or perhaps they've never been unemployed. I'm not talking about those folk who certainly do scam the system and live off benefits, they can go take a hike. I'm talking about everyone else, anyone who's had the unfortunate task of claiming benefit and not enjoyed the process.

It's not easy, in fact it's hard. It's not only absorbing of time looking and applying for jobs, but also living with the worry of not having a job - a feeling of not being wanted, not being valued. That is a horrible burden. Yes, people can say "oh you'll find work soon" or "it must be hard in this economic climate" but none of that really helps. And then there are those who simply can't get it past their thick skulls that being out of work is anything more than a holiday. A holiday is not a holiday unless it has an end, and until you find a job, there is no end.

In fact it's exactly that - what I love and hate most about holidays - that they end. I hate the last day or two of a holiday, that feeling that the time has ended and past and can no longer be lived again. I sense that loss and feel sad. But in fact that is an entirely positive reaction, it proves that I've enjoyed and made the most of the time I've had. The sadness at the end of a holiday is a hymn of praise to the love and joy of that that has gone before. Anyone who's been subject to my advice will see where this is going and the parallell I'm about to draw... It's like the pain of grief suffered when a loved pet dies! The pain is real and true, but is something to be celebrated as it proves tat you've loved it - if you hadn't loved then you would feel no pain, but then you wouldn't have loved, so what would be the point? Hell, I love grief! On a side point I also deeply reject to ANY Christian who ever claims that they are not sad when a family member dies - if that really is the case then they've either not loved that person, or are pretending to not have loved that person. It is no sign of 'strength' or 'faith' to feel no grief. (Naturally I agree that in cases you can feel 'relief' for death to finally come, as with my Grandfather who was slowly waiting to die, but still it HURT, really hurt to loose him because we loved him).

Sorry, distracted there, but that really pisses me off. Bloody 'perfect' Christians. Lets not get on to how they pretend to have perfect lives, and perfect engagements planning the perfect wedding so they can then live their perfect (sin free) lives together in a radient summers glow for the rest of their lives. They also REALLY piss me off. In fact they are the principle reason for my non-attendance of church at the moment. They're just everywhere in Churches, they've infiltrated with their perfection almost with the sole purpose of showing how far everyone else falls short. If you could trap them all together into some perpetual worship service like, say, I don't know, the Christian Union perhaps?, then life for the rest of us would be a whole lot better. But I realise that I MUST love them nonetheless. I am still called to love them as much as I love the non-churched, even if those outside the church are so far more easy to love. And I also realise that this has stepped over into a faith blog/rant, so I'll fight back to my point.

But what was my point exactly? Oh yes, holidays ending, the grief felt at that end and the meaning that grief gives to the holiday. All that wonderful cycle of joy and sadness is totally lacking with unemployment. It's just a massive gaping chasm of nothingness - it has no visible end, and by having no end it means that in the mean time it is not really possible to enjoy it. Certainly it is NO holiday. Anyone who thinks that is wrong. No end = no holiday. At the point when a job is secured then the remaining time before the job starts is the 'holiday' and is the only 'holiday' that counts.

Think of it this way: why do you like Saturday so much? Exactly because it is NOT Sunday.
[09-02-2011]

Wedding List
To whom it may concern, or wedding list is now available on Amazon:
Nick and Su's Wedding List
[07-02-2011]

Announcing the adoption of hiybbprqag
nickbailey.co.uk would like to announce the adoption of the unloved new non-word hiybbprqag. After reading the BBC News article: Google accuses Bing of 'copying' its search results I would like to adopt the word hiybbprqag which the article mentioned had been cruelly removed from Google's search results. While I support Google over Bing anyday - even if they try to woe me with cute pictures of beavers (or are they marmots?) - I was sad to read the "Google has stressed that it has now removed the one-time code that it added to plant the fake pages."

I did a Google search for hiybbprqag and sure enough only the BBC news article showed up along with one from news.walletup.com (whoever they are) - three results in total. Bing on the other hand only managed one. I think Bing has binged it's last bong.

So while I might not know what to do with hiybbprqag yet, I'm sure I'll find a use for it someday. And until then I'll look after it safely in my hope chest, as Stephen Fry would call it.
[02-02-2011]

Sky Broadband Speeds
"Sky never slows you down at peak times no matter how much you use". That is the promise they make on their Frog Prince advert. This sounds to me as if they are saying 'your broadband speed will never drop at peak times'. This is really not the case at the graph below shows - last night it fell to 700 kb a second - that's barely broadband.

definitely slows in late evenings
broadband speed testing with the excellent mybroadbandspeed.co.uk site

Clearly they lie. Or perhaps the wording is such that they're saying that Sky won't limit you, but the internet as a whole might well slow down. Hmm... I'm not convinced and might just send this to Sky so they can see for themselves.

A couple of pints: firstly I am largely pleased with the broadband speeds we get at home, often 6 mbps which is great (even over 7 once). It allows us to share between 8-10 people with no problems. iPlayer is generally smooth, even streaming Iain Stewart's awesome geology series in HD, now that I have my shiny new D-Link DIR-825 router and DSL-320B modem. Sky TV, on the other hand is a complete waste of time - stick with Freeview, I do (seriously, I prefer my Topfield Freeview box to the painfully awkward Sky+ bolocks. Sorry, did I say bollocks? I mean to say 'box'.
[02-02-2011]

Dear iTunes:
Why can you not subscribe to a Podcast through the iTunes store app on an iPhone or iPod?? Crazy,

Alternatively, why can I not see which podcast episodes are already in my iPod when in the iTunes app? I can see the episodes just downloaded, but not which ones I had already. Why is there not an option to 'Get all missed episodes' like there is in the real iTunes?

Basically why is the iTunes app so totally useless? The app store app know what I've donwloaded and what needs updating, but the iTunes app is completely dumb.
[31-01-2011]

A Sunny Day Grabbed
January has been pretty miserable here in Southampton. There have been far too many days with dull grey skies and not a hint of sun. This has been a wee bit depressing but also meant that the days which have been sunny have been a joy to behold. Today was one of those days.

On Friday the BBC had predicted extra grey overcast conditions so when we woke up to bright sun streaming in through the windows it was a blessed relief and we decided to seise the day. After breakfast we got kitted up in our running gear (I went for shorts and a t-shirt - slight mistake) and set off to Riverside Park at a good pace. In fact for the first time we made it across the bridge in one go non-stop, which is a real improvement. And it was glorious, clear blue skies, crisp yes, but bright and full of joyful promise. There were loads of like minded people out making the most of the weather - children, parents, grandparents, folks on foot and bike and all sorts. It was uplifting and just lovely. We extended our route up to the Pitch and Putt to look for daffodils and crocuses, but non were even emerging yet. Then back home, chilly but much warmer inside.

One of the loveliest moments was when Su turned to me and mentioned that we were a family. I was quite moved, it had not occurred to me that we were a family - but that is exactly what we are. That made my day. I have a loving wife and family (panic not! We are not pregnant nor planning, but we are a family none-the-less) and I think that is pretty wonderful.
[30-01-2011]

I Eat, You Eat, She/He/It Eats, I Ate.
Damn damn damn damn damn. I've just remembered that the past tense of eat is not also eat, but ate. I've been suspecting something was wrong with this for a while, but my dyslexic brain couldn't come up with an alternative. I must have written quite a few emails and texts recently that have therefore read a bit strangely (perhaps no more than usual though). Just as I was texting my wife I though I'd just google "what's the past tense of eat" and of course up pops 'ate'.

Now I should point out that it's not that I didn't know the word ate - I do, meaning my brain and mouth both say 'ate', but on trying to spell it my brain just kept coming up with eat. Somewhere I did realise something was wrong as it tried to add an e on the end: 'eate' but that definitely looked wrong and kept being underlined in red so I knew something was amiss (definitely one e too many, but which one?)

A compounding issue here is the pronunciation of the word eat and ate.
"I like to eat food" - fine, no problems here.
"Just what have you eaten" - past tense here is 'eat-', problem
"I ate some delicious food last night" - if pronounced as 'eight' then clearly a-t-e fits the bill, but when pronounced 'et' as is common these days then the spelling is more like 'eat' making me think that perhaps it's one of those words that's spelt the same but pronounced differently (homograph). Dyslexic fail.
[25-01-2011]

What's the Buzz?
Well not much. Su and I have been getting on with some actual wedding preparation at last! The previous two weekends were back up in Cheltenham visiting the venue and sorting out the service plan. Still lots to do there, but having been back to the Manor By The Lake to have a food tasting (which was excellent as we were able to have a good long chat with the chef - interesting and enlightening to me (as a wannabe chef)) I felt excited again that our wedding day is actually going to be good. It's a lot of effort beforehand, but should make the day enjoyable and a celebration. Still, long way to go still.

This weekend we've made the most of some time off here in Soton to rest. Well, I say rest, we ended up going for a cycle ride to Winchester principally for fun, but mostly because it was a dull grey day which needed to be got out into otherwise was in fear of becoming a depressing stay-at-home and waste away sort of affair. So we saddled up our metal horses and rode on out of this godforsaken town (Southampton) via the direct (perhaps Roman, certainly old) road through Eastleigh and Otterbourne to Winchester. The going was pretty tough with a light but demoralising northerly prevailing wind and some serious grinding hills to climb. But we made it in just over an hour including a stop for hot pasta and leftover lunch overlooking Shawford.

Google Punctuation Search
While checking through Su's report feedback I was unsure how to punctuate a particularly long sentence which contained the phrase '... it is in our opinion ...'. I went for "... it is, in our opinion, ..." to allow a breather. To check this was correct I googled the phrase with quotes without commas and most came up with the commas I'd included. Phew. So in future if you have a punctuation query, just Google the exact phrase and see what the majority of search results come up, as google doesn't include punctuation in it's search.
[13-01-2011]

Wagamama Saien Soba Recipe
I'm going to try and make this for Suyeon later, so here is the recipe I'm going to follow:

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp Pure Sesame Oil
• 1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
• 21 1/4 g Extra Firm Tofu
• 1 cup Onions
• 1 Leek
• 13 g Buckwheat Noodles
• 1/2 cup Sugar Snap Peas
• 2 cups 100% Vegetable Broth
• 1 cup Mushrooms
• 1 tsp Sugar, Granulated
• 1/4 cup Fresh Bean Sprouts
• 1 tbsp Soy Sauce

Of course when I say I'm going to follow this recipe I'm clearly lying as I'm practically incapable of actually following a recpie as many of you will know (recipe books are lost on me unless they contain pictures as that's what I'll follow). But I made some awesome noodle soup on the 2nd of Jan - augmented from a packet, so I'll try and re-create that without the packet to start with.
[13-01-2011]

Contacts
Sending out my wedding invites has allowed me to really sort out by address book in Gmail and get it all up-to-date and ship shape. In particular I've really appreciated being able to fill out all my missing postal address fields. This might enable me to actually write Christmas cards next year. I said might. The interesting thing is how similar my Gmail and Facebook lists have become:

181 friends on Facebook.
183 contact in Gmail

Q. What happens when I reach unity? Does my virtual and real world combine into some new super reality?

Sadly I'm still well above my Dunbar optimum of 150 so I'm afraid I've 30 folks more than I can cope with.
[13-01-2011]

Dear Apple
Please read the forums on your support website to find that there are many people like me who have just spent over a thousand pounds on a wireless ONLY macbook air only to find they are plagued with connection troubles.

Here are some problems experienced:

• Inability to connect to a public network (which is working perfectly for others)
• Connection made but 'No Internet Connection'
• Connection to the internet is made for an hour or two but then suddenly stops.
• Wireless networks still listed even when the router is completely powered off.
• Wireless networks detected on the walk home from work while the MBA is asleep in my bag with the 'wake from network' option deselected.

Seriously Apple, please can you investigate this as it is utterly ridiculous that a laptop designed solely for wifi use has such trouble connecting to wireless networks.

And please don't even think for a minute that you can shrug it off by blaming the network settings when our iphone, MBP's and every other computer connects to the networks.
[12-01-2011]

iPhone Annoyance Number 27: Long Track Names
It's not actually possible to see the full name of a track on your iPod if it's longer than about 5 words.
[10-01-2011]

Train Pricing
Off peak return from Southampton to Coventry - £122

One instant decaffeinated coffee - £2!

Speechless. Thankfully I was saved by the chap opposite who left (kindly or accidentally, I don't know) half his large coffee, so I drank that.

Then a win - hot water for free! I didn't know this was possible.
[10-01-2011]

LoveFilm.FAIL - Stupidity on the PS3
Anyone who's updated their PS3 recently will have noticed, perhaps with excitement, their film menu now has a 'Love Film' application. "Sweet!" you might exclaim, but that will be short lived as their application is utterly pathetic.

First fail: there is no option to have an account that only allows streaming through your PS3 so you have to pay for a DVD by post even though that is frankly pointless when you have a PS3 capable of streaming the very film you wait two days to receive and might be scratched when you get it. Sure you get the extras on a DVD, but really is that worth the hassle?

Second fail: the cheapest account (£5.99) gives you 2 hours of streaming time. At the 120th minute Love Film tell me your streaming JUST STOPS. Seeing as most films these days seem to be over 2 hours this must be as frustrating as hell. And considering how poorly the application seems to be put together I doubt you will be alerted beforehand that the film you've chosen will not be watchable. Why would they not make it so that you can get only one film streamed in it's entirety and no more - clearly this 2 hour is ment to represent this.

Third fail: the application itself advertises the £8.16 account as the cheapest account and makes no mention of the £5.99 option. It's only if you're willing to pay £9.99 can you get unlimited viewing.

Forth fail (and this is just not acceptable): you can't quit the application. Seriously, you can't. Pressing the PS3 button - the method used for quitting ALL playstation applications does nothing. Actually, no, it does something - it shows a red warning saying "that operation is not allowed"! WTF? I wrote straight to LoveFilm to ask what has gone wrong and they confirmed that you can't quit the application. The only way to quit is to hold down the PS3 button for five seconds which essentially brings up the PS3 equivalent to Ctrl-Alt-Delete to force quit the application. What utter stupidity, I just can't believe the shocking lack of any though put into this program.

Utter idiocracy.
[09-01-2011]

iPhone Annoyance Number 26: Photo Cropping
When taking a photo with the iPhone you get an instant view of the photo you're taking. And taking that photo is as simple as clicking a button. Simples. But take a look at the photo you've just taken and you'll notice that the edges are missing. Yep, it automatically crops the edges of your photo so you don't have to! Of course if the photo you'd just composed on screen didn't take this into account (and there is no feedback as to what gets cropped) you'll loose the edge of your nicely composed photo, and even half of peoples heads as frequently happens to me.
[08-01-2011]

iPhone Annoyance Number 25: Podcast Subscription
The is no native way to subscribe to a podcast with your iPhone!

WTF?

I know! What the hell are Apple thinking. There is a whole iTunes application that comes with the iPhone and can't be deleted. That app has a whole section devoted to all the amazing podcasts are available on iTunes. You can download hundreds of episodes from the many podcasts on offer. But you can't actually SUBSCRIBE to a podcast. Seriously WTF?

Dear Apple - just what goes on inside your magical brains?
[07-01-2011]

From Now On The UK Is To Be Referred To As UK
I've just heard on BBC Radio 4 news a report that the British embassador for the Ivory Cosat is facing ejection due to some political nuance that I didn't really understand. What distracted my attention was the presnester calling the Ivory Coast as Ivory Coast. In the same way that the Ukrane is now just Ukrane (I'm going to Ukane on holiday this year), the Ivory Coast is clearly now to be just Ivory Coast: "a political incidence had arisen in Ivory Coast this morning...".

Well if this is the stupid new way things are going then let's all just call the UK just UK from now on. I'm Nick Bailey and I'm from UK and I have a number of friends in USA. I;ve never visited Arctic nor have I ever travelled by boat down Amazon, but where I'd most like to visit is Democratic Republic of Congo.

It's just silly and doesn't sound right so can we all please stop it and get back to using the word the when referring to countries that sound correct if the word the is in the title.
[07-01-2011]

IKEA Website Feedback
Am I getting bitchy? Perhaps maybe, but this really annoyed me today - just a simple task of searching their website for a king size duvet cover. Damn near impossible.

I type "duvet" into the search bar - I get NOTHING - perhaps they don't understand what a 'quilt' is.

So I search "king quilt" - again NOTHING - too exact?

Finally I try just "quilt". Zero.

What?

I then browse by category and find there are plenty of quilt covers. 7 Pages of them in fact. But there is no way to limit the browsing. I can select by colour, but there is no way to select by size - I'm only looking for a king size cover. And the ordering of the products shown is completely random: sometimes the same style is shown in sigle, double then king but then other times three singles of different styles are shown grouped by size (three singles, then three doubles, then three king etc). Please sort your categorisation out, this is utterly impossible to navigate.

Though thinking about it, your physical stores are painfully difficult to browse for bed linen products given the way you name your products. It becomes infuriating to identify whether one's picked up a single or double, a fitted or plain sheet as the name is the same on so many of them.
[28-12-2010]

Dear Google
Please can you remove results from your search engine which are for other rubbish search engines. I'm fed up other search result pages appearing which initially look promising due to the key words highlighted, but turn out to be nothing but advertising junk and search results containing nothing but my original key words. Grumble.
[02-01-2011]

New Year's Day
What to do, what to do... Cycle to Portsmouth! Perfect.

It was a grey start to the new year down in Southampton as we spent a quiet morning clearing up from the party and chatting with Christian who'd stayed the night. We had though of getting on a train and watching the sunrise on a beach somewhere, but the lack of any trains before 9 am limited the options while the lack of any sun full stop made it largely pointless. Su had woken at sunrise but found it overcast. Getting out was definitely the thing to do and was a choice between the cinema in Eastleigh, a cycle to Winchester or a longer cycle to Portsmouth. After some deliberation we decided that the more adventurous aim of cycling to Portsmouth was a winner so we saddled up our trusty steeds, packed out panniers with a packed lunch (including warm rice in my new food thermos) we set off thinking ourselves ever so slightly mad.

on our bikes

The going was good, though the A27 out of Southampton isn't terribly flat warming us on the ups and speeding us on the downs. We made excellent progress and stopped for lunch in the park near Sarisbury. The road got a fair bit flatter after then but the clouds were gathering and it began a very light drizzle, but we pressed onwards through Fareham and eventually arrived into Gosport at the ferry port.

hot picnic lunch

The whole journey had only taken an hour and eighteen minutes cycling, which we were very pleased with averaging 13.4 miles per hour - I had my iPhone in its new bike mount my brother got me for my birthday. It worked really well, but having the screen at full brightness the whole way while GPSing our route did take about 70% of the battery so a dynamo charger might be necessary for longer adventures in the summer.

at the ferry to Portsmouth

We then caught the Gosport ferry across to Portsmouth - sweet but extortionately expensive at £3.20 one way for person with bike! - and headed round the Gunwharf Quays shopping center, popping into a Le Cruset shop before watching Little Fockers in the Vue cinema (I did have a little sleep during the film, like usual). We were quite excited to find that they have a Wagamama there so that's where we headed for dinner. In fact the whole experience of Portsmouth, the harbour, the waterfront, the lights, the general atmosphere made us just a little bit jealous as Southampton mostly doesn't. But that where we were now headed, though due to engineering works there were no trains so instead we were told we had to cycle to Cosham to catch a train! Thankfully a kind but slow bus driver took us on his bus so we made it to the train and back home to Soton.

It was most excellent to get out of Southampton (as always) and a very lovely way to start the year - with a good solid adventure. It also links our cycle route from Bournemouth to Rouen. How wonderful to have a wife. Happy New Year
[01-01-2011]

New Year's Eve
Gosh, the end of two thousand and ten. The end of a decade, or was it the beginning of a new decade - I'm sure that's not completely sorted out yet. To celebrate this Su and I were back home in Southampton after a really really lovely time spent over Christmas in Cheltenham. In the day we pottered out on our bikes to town to pick up some films to watch, cash a cheque (thank you Brian!), have a chai in Pret, and do something else I can't remember. On the way home we stopped by the China Town supermarket to pick up ingredients for tonight and 10 kg of rice. With panniers now fully loaded we tottered home to prepare.

Jeesoo was already on the case preparing an array of vegetarian delicacies, I then contributed a wok of egg fried rice, while Su made a lovely sweet mange tout dish and her signature chilli bean paste tofu with pack choi. I also started a fire in the garden with all the holly I'd pruned as well as Angela's pruning from the front garden. The stage was set for a brilliant night.

And it was a brilliant night in fact, although we never got round to watching a film, it didn't really matter. Our old housemate Christian stopped by on his route back to work, as well as Luke and Christelle who gave up other more exciting offers in the City for a quiet night in Kitchener. We eat and chatted and then played a DVD pub quidz (sic) which was pretty tricky, so we formed one team of 7 rather than splitting up. To see in the new year we all stuck little Post-it triangles onto our forehead with various famous characters and tried to guess who we were. (I was king kong, but only got as far as an animal in literature and film who died quite famously, possibly African but not from the Serengeti).

We popped on the TV to see Big Ben and the fireworks and celebrated with a glass of green tea wine and a dual language rendition of Auld Lang Syne (well I never new it was spelt like that). Afterwards we went outside to enjoy the bonfire and then an episode of Peep Show before bed.
[31-12-2010]

Soybean Safely Home
Though she is a little jet lagged.

sleepy bean

BBC Weather Feedback
I just wanted to encourage you (BBC Weather) to not present the county forecast map as default on the BBC Weather page.

My location is Southampton so I always see the Hampshire map. But honestly this map is pretty much useless - it gives so little information because the area it covers is so small. As you know, weather depends on what is coming on the wind, so not being able to see where the wind is coming from, or what is heading my way makes it futile.

I see that showing the local map by default is trying to be helpful, but it's really just another case of dumbing down by making people only interested in the exact weather that only their home is going to experience. But as we all know weather is not a small scale phenomenon, and showing the weather map for a tiny area is like predicting the lottery - it's silly to even try (no one is actually Derran Brown)

May users like (actually need) to be able to see weather on the large scale to be able to predict for our selves what the weather is going to be like. In order to see this we have to specifically zoom out to the the British Isles map - a map that is actually useful.

So may I encourage you to view your users as a little more intelligent and interested in the wider world (or at least the wider country) and allow us to set the default map as the British Iles, or wider and not just be stuck with a silly and futile county map.
[22-12-2010]

Here She Comes!
Yesssss. My dearly beloved is inbound to Heathrow. Her flight is even expected to land about twenty minutes early. I'm going to have my wife back! Woohoo! Thank you Lord.

wife inbound :)
Map courtesy of FlightStats

Grand Des-reams
I'd love to build my own house one day. H`ow fantastic would that be - I can't think of anything more rewarding than living in your own hand built shelter. Maybe one day I'll start planning it out with Su and see what we come up with. Google's SketchUp is surely up for the job. One thing that struck me today reading about Ireland's Newgrange ancient burial tomb is to add a feature that responds to the solstice. So Nick, when you read this in the future remember to include some sort of tiny window through the hay-bale walls that lets light directly through on the winter solstice - and perhaps one for the summer one two (but that's less important I think, as the winter solstice signifies the end of darkness and the coming light.

OOH, here's an idea - have one tiny window in the outside wall, but then have a little window in an inner wall, specially aligned so that only on that day does the sun propagate right through the house. That would be sweet.

Gosh, anyone want to draw parallels with the tearing of the temple curtain when jesus died - that did exactly the same - it let light right in to the inner holies of holies, as there was direct line of sight through all the courts of the temple. But actually, rather than letting people see right inside, it enabled God's light right outside.

Happy winter solstice everybody!
[21-12-2010]

Home Made River Cottage Ginger Beer
You will need:

1. a bottle with a screw top (glass is best, Shloer size)
2. some root ginger & grater
3. yeast (a sachet of bread stuff is fine)
4. sugar
5. tap water

First: sterilise your vessels.

Second: add half a cup of sugar and a good heap of grated ginger to the bottle. Add some warm water to dissolve the sugar and some cool water to cool. Then the yeast to activate and then finally fill up the bottle with water.

Then: shake it a few times over an hour or so to get it all mixed and grooving.

Finally: leave for two days to ferment.

IMPORTANT - slightly unscrew the cap to prevent explosion!
[19-12-2010]

Some good watching for the weekend.
Here's a good TED talk for you to watch. It's only fifteen minutes and is well worth the time to give you an insight into the way the world is going - in a good way. If you're ever fed up with just owning too much stuff, then this might be the answer.

And if you want something a little more light hearted, then here is something to put a smile on your face. I watched it with my parents last night just before bed. Oh to be involved in something like that here. It's Improv Everywhere

And finally something a little uplifting. If you happened to be in a food court and this happened I don't think you could help but be swept away by the awesomeness. Love it.

29 Today
Here it is then, the start of my 29th year, or is that my thirtieth year? I never can work out simple addition - do you count the fences, or just the posts? Anyway, whichever it is, I'm now 29. Yay. Still not thirty, but getting there.

For my birthday I was back home in Cheltenham. I've not been here for my birthday for many years and it has been nice, comfortable to be celebrating here. It was especially nice because Mum always likes to get the Christmas tree up in time for my birthday, so it did make it feel 'right'. Mum gave me a lovely silk dressing gown from Beijing and in the evening we all went out to dinner after a good day's productive Wattboxing.

But my day was made by a simply gorgeous card that my darling wife had sent me super special delivery from Korea. It arrive just before I left Soton on Thursday and so I was able to open it this morning and read the special message inside. Included with the card was a laminated ginkgo leaf which is really precious. She is a real treasure, and thankfully I caught her online so we were able to have a chat through Google. I can't wait for her return on Tuesday.

cute card and christmas tree

[17-12-2010]

iPhone Annoyance Number 18:
It is not possible to search your iPhone for either an email address, or - and this is much more idiotic - a phone number. Type, as a test, your phone number into the iPhone search bar and it will revel ZERO results?! Madness.
[16-12-2010]

iPhone Annoyance Number 21:
Has anyone worked out why Apple decided not to think it important for their iPhones to automatically re-send text messages when they fail. It really is stupendously idiotic that when a message fails to send it will just sit there for ever and not bother to try again. This is especially pronounced on a train when reception frequently drops out. Click 'send' but at that moment the signal disappears, so rather than resuming the send when reception is next restored it does NOTHING.
[15-12-2010]

Ill
Had a horrible flu-type thing today. Last night we celebrated with a Christmas meal here in the Kitchener Community with members old and new. But just before we began I noticed my throat was getting a little sore. Just before going to bed it was definitely worse so I took a Lemsip and lots of fluids but had a very restless night. Hot sweats followed by frightfully cold spells; by the morning I was in a pretty poor state. So I've spent all day in bed recovering, slipping between sleep and wake, hot and cold. It's the first time in ages that I've had a proper illness which is not a migrane, so quite unusual for me (I guess most would have called this man-flu). Thankfully in these days of the iPlayer I was able to rest in bed while being soothed by the scottish tones of Iain Stewart and his new series The Making Of Scotland in HD, awesome.
[13-12-2010]

Tuition Fees
Damn this makes me angry. Today the coalition government voted to raise tuition fees to £9,000 a year. That equals £27,000 for a three year corse. But then degrees have been so de-valued by the idots who though to push 50% of students to university that only 4 year Masters courses will count, so make that £36,000. That is one shit load of debt to start your working life with, and that's not counting inflation, it could be perhaps up to twice this in 20 years time. This will affect my future children. How dare they?

Ask yourselves this: how many of the MP's voting today started out their career with this level of debt? None. Most will of course have passed throguh and been given money by the then government (like my Brother did four years before me). Two faced lying sly ... .

So my children are going to have to spend £36,000 to get a worthwhile degree, or else come out with 30 years worth of debt. And that 36k doesn't the include living expenses on top of that = £6k per anum if living exceedingly frugally. So that's another 24k making the grand total £60,000. SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS! And that's just one child, what if Su and I have more than one????? Fuck me.

I voted lib dem at the general election. When they joined the conservatives I though 'well at least they get to have some influence'. Now I just feel disgusted. Not only have the ruling generation stolen all the houses and made it damn near impossible to get on the property ladder, then they cause this horrendous global recession, now they destroy my future childrens prospect of living life debt-free. At least they've done a lot of work cleaning all the industrial revolution soot from all the buildings in England. Thanks.
[09-12-2010]