Author: Jag

A quick posting to indicate that Route79 is still online. Apologies in advance to non-drinkers, vegetarians and people not aware of Delia Smith:

1. I’ve noticed that several brands of Spanish Rioja wine are top-sealed with a metal foil which has the word “Rioja” embossed on the top of the cork. The letter “o” in the word “Rioja” is an excellent targeting point for the corkscrew used to open the bottle – as it results in a dead-centre piercing for the cork – which subsequently comes out perfectly flush.

2. Chicken: I still haven’t figured out why “breast” chicken meat in the UK is the most expensive cut given it is the most blandest, tasteless and horribly-textured part of the chicken. Not complaining though.

3. Delia Smith was once a heroine of the people when it came to educating the masses in British cooking. I can see exactly why her demise in the last decade has led to her occupying obscure spots in the UK TV Food channel schedule: last night’s late-night showing had her cooking up some mushroom risotto – where the main ingredient was chanterelle mushrooms. Now where on earth in suburban London can you find chanterelle mushrooms? Neither Safeway/Morrisons, Tesco, Asda or Sainsbury’s carry this variety of mushrooms. And you’d be hard pushed to find them at your high street grocer too. I get the feeling that she is focussing on being seen to cook stuff rather than actually helping/inspiring people to do so. Even the Two Fat Ladies show is more practical – despite their upper-class stuffiness.

For my new laptop to arrive. My old one was blue-screening a few minutes after every power-cycle. Using a temporary one at the moment. It’s old, it’s slow and I am loathed to personalise it with all my creative and publishing tools – as I would only have to do it all over again when I get a new one. So these pages are taking a bit of a back seat as a consequence.

So I’ve been exploring a little:

In late 2005 it was “The Long Tail“. In early 2006 it’s “Web 2.0“. Yes Web 2.0 – which is the great new web rising out of the splatter of the dotcom bubble. Whereas before we had ad banners, web sites, portals, directories and “stickiness is good”, now we have Adsense, Flickr, blogs, wikis, tags and feeds. Yes folks, Web 1.0 was centred around taxonomy, but in Web 2.0 it’s about “folksonomy”. (Answers on a postcard please.)

Whatever. The other day I discovered a potentially useful web application called Netvibes. Not sure who to credit for getting me there – but it’s rather nifty. On one simple web page I can get all my most important news feeds and blog feeds, display my delicious links, photos from my contacts flickr streams and my latest Gmails. Netvibes gives you some control over the layout of the page – which in return for a sign-up can be preserved and viewed from any computer. Whilst this concept of a “personalised portal” is not new – Netvibes has got that “flickr” kindof appeal to it – it feels really nice and easy to use – and it’s not Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or AOL. (Yet.)

Also – I think this concept of “my desktop – anywhere” is becoming much more acheivable. Why should I be limited in what I can achieve if I’m using a temporary laptop – or my friend’s PC – or a computer in a cybercafe on the other side of the world – or better still: a small hendheld on the top deck of the 79 bus? As data and applications become more storable and consumable in the network – there’ll be little value in the terminal device in terms of function (simply input and output) but more in terms of fashion (it looks and feels good – more so for the mobile ones that will be seen in public) and more context-relevant (it’s appropriate for the setting – e.g. TV/media-centre in living room, desktop at work, screen and keypad on fridge door etc.)

I have a few niggles with NetVibes though – the search module only currently supports a few search engines – and predictably not the one that I use. I defected from Google to a9.com nearly a year ago – and I cannot go back. There are several reasons: it’s powered in part by Google anyway – but it’s also enhanced by Alexa site data. But I like it most of all because (unlike Google) it displays all your previous searches and has loads of additional panes for things like images, notes and a view-anywhere boomarks manager that you can drag and drop search results into. (Definitely Web 2.0 this one.) It’s also relatively free of corporate spin which is all the more remarkable given that it’s provided by Amazon.com.

And finally – not Web 2.0 – but more mobile phone. A service called SpinVox. Have been trying this as my voicemail replacement for a while now – and once again: I cannot go back to “normal” voicemail. You see, I get a LOT of calls on my mobile phone every day, and I’m not always able to take them all – meaning I get a lot of voicemails. Which can be a real pain to listen to when the only time during the day that you’ve got is going to the bathroom in between meetings on days when they’re back to back – or rushing for a bus or a train on the way into work or going back home. Voicemail, in my opinion, is so 1990s.

SpinVox, however, takes voicemails that are left for me and converts them into text messages. Again – not a new idea, but the thing that I really like about SpinVox is that the converted text messages are sent to my phone as if they were coming from the person who left me the voicemail – which means the text message appears to come from (say) my mate Aishwarya, if Aishwarya leaves a voicemail for me. Which is great because if I’m in a meeting when Aishwarya calls me – I simply “reply” to the converted text back – which will amaze Aishwarya because of the speed with which I get back to her by text message. And the other thing I like is that the conversion from speech to text seems to be performed by a real human being. And I am convinced that the call centre in which the real human beings behind SpinVox are located is in India. Why? Because everytime someone with a complicated Indian-sounding name leaves a message for me which goes something like “Hi Jag, this is Aishwarya Rai calling …” the name in the converted text message is always spelt perfectly – as opposed to numerous spelling mistakes made with very common European names.

London’s buses are often viewed as a inferior form of transport compared to the tube. Most of the time it’s due to a perception that it takes longer to get from A to B by bus than it does by tube. Which is true some of the time. Some of the time it’s a kind of “snobbish” derision about buses and the sorts of people who ride them. What these sorts of people are not aware of is that your regular London bus rider exercises far more brainpower and is engaged with, and much more aware of, the physical and emotional surroundings than a regular tube rider. Tube riders start with a plan, work out a route and execute it. Or else if they are a “regular” on a route then just proceed like zombies on a route they travel day-in day-out, stopping only to “wake up” if a change has to occur – and that’s pretty much it: zombie mode is exited upon arrival at the destination. Contrast this with bus riders, who not only start with a plan (a plan that tube riders find difficult to work out or understand due to higher degree of “meshing” complexity in the bus network) , but are constantly gauging feedback from environmental conditions and events, constantly adapting their plan, making sometimes split-second decisions in order to refine and hone the act of getting from A to B. The bus rider is much more alert and is processing intelligence gathered from the field throughout most of the journey. This requires bus riders to be much more intelligent.

For example, take this seemingly trivial event: There is a point along the southbound Routes 79 and 204 where the bus turns 90 degrees right at a traffic-light controlled junction where Park Lane meets Wembley High Road. If I am on a 79 then this turn has no real significance – as I always continue with the 79 down through Wembley High Road and Ealing Road until it gets to Alperton – which is where I change onto either a 297 or 83 – or else get a tube. But if I am on a 204 (which sometimes I am if I’ve just missed a 79 earlier and I am bus-hopping my way down through Wembley) then this turn represents the point at which I have to get up in order to get off at the next stop – because the 79 and the 204 diverge at this point.

If I am on a 204, then as I get up at this point I always look left just before the bus turns right. This helps me establish a clear view of what buses are approaching Wembley High Road at the same point, and therefore what buses will be behind my own after we’ve turned. This will help me decide what I do when I get off at the next stop.

If I can see an 83 (which goes to Ealing Broadway via Hanger Lane, North Circ and Ealing Common) then I know that I’m gonna have to get off the bus as fast as I can, and leg it the 20 metres or so to an adjacent stop, which is where the 83 stops. Although this sounds simple, it’s not always so straightforward. The reason is that the next stop is a very popular stop – and chances are that a lot of people are going to be doing the same as me. And because I like to think I’m a good citizen by sitting upstairs so that the more elderly and not-so-mobile fellow passengers can get much needed space to sit downstairs, there’s a good chance that it’s going to take some time getting off the bus. By which time a following 83 is going to have pulled up at its stop just ahead of mine and will be doing the same thing: unloading and loading passengers. The problem is that the 83 is a much more frequent bus than the 204, and as a result there are fewer people unloading and loading on 83 than on 204. And I have on many occasions missed an 83 at this point as a consequence – mostly because I’m stuck behind a few elderly passengers who are taking a long time to step off the bus.

If the following bus is a 297 (which goes to Ealing Broadway via the backstreets of Perivale, along Scotch Common and Castlebar Park in Ealing) then things aren’t so tense. And this is because the 297 stops at the same stop as the 204. Which means that if it is right behind then it will pull up close behind my 204 when it stops – meaning that it cannot pull off until the 204 pulls off. Which is fine – because I will be off the 204 long before the 204 pulls off, and only have to walk a few metres to get to a patiently-waiting 297 just behind.

If there is no visible bus in the distance at this Park Lane turning then I can just relax for now, get off at the next stop and just wait to see what surprise is in store for me when the next bus turns up. There are, however, occasions when I don’t prepare to get off at the next stop. And this could be because I have forgotten (perhaps I’m absorbed in reading something or I’m daydreaming), in which case I will continue on the 204 until it gets to Sudbury Town tube station (its final destination) at which I will get the Piccadilly Line to Ealing Common at which I will change to the District Line to get to Ealing Broadway or else I will get the Picc to North Ealing and walk to Ealing Broadway from there. Sometimes I do this deliberately (not get off the 204 at Wembley High Road). It depends upon my mood really. But mostly it depends on what time of the morning it is and what the weather is like. If it’s the rush hour and it’s a nice warm day with no rain, then I’ll carry on with the 204 and get the Picc to North Ealing and walk from there. Because if it’s the rush hour then there is a high likelihood that an 83 bus would get stuck in traffic on Hanger Lane approaching Ealing Common – which is all too common, and similarly a 297 in the rush hour would probably take ages to wend its way through Perivale and Castlebar Park due to the huge number of schools (and schoolkids) along the way. Also I do enjoy the 10 minute walk down Madeley Road from North Ealing station at Hanger Lane down to Ealing Broadway station if it’s a nice day. If it’s rush hour and it’s raining or cold then I’ll get the Picc down to Ealing Common and switch to District to get to Ealing Broadway. If it’s not the rush hour then I’ll get off the 204 at Wembley High Road and wait for whichever of the 83 or 297 turns up first. In this scenario, if both turn up at about the same time then I’ll prefer the 83 over the 297 because it should be quicker given that it doesn’t have to travel such a long and protracted route.

Now it can sometimes happen that when I have gotten off the 204 at Wembley High Road and am waiting for a 297 or 83 to turn up, that a 79 turns up! In which case I will jump on that. But not because it adds any further value to my journey to work at this point; you see I would have to get off it in a few stops in order to get a 297 or 83 further downstream anyway. So why do I do this?

Because it’s my bus!

Because of things like this example demonstrate, bus riders have to be more capable of abstract reasoning, risk assessment and information processing based upon sensory and emotional feedback.

It follows, therefore, that people who ride London’s buses are more intelligent than those who ride the tube. Quod Erat Demonstrandum (QED)

Reflecting on the bus journey home the other day, it occured to me that I’ve never been to any of the pubs in my neighbourhood. Why? I think it’s got something to do with the fact that when I first arrived here years ago, the area was a place with “great potential” but not quite there yet. The Woolworths on the High Street was kind of run-down, not many houses had double-glazing and you could park almost anywhere for free because the car per capita density was quite low. Thinking about it a bit more made me realise that there were hardly any restaurants in the area either. That was the mid 1990s. But the housing was “affordable”, which is why I moved here to buy my first home.

Anyway, the pubs. There were quite a few. But in my mind they were pretty much “no go” pubs. You could tell by the look and demeanour of the clientele that would enter and exit those pubs as you walked by; these were the sorts of places that I probably wouldn’t enjoy being in very much. This was often confirmed by the regular articles and submissions to the letters columns of the free local papers that get shoved through the door every week. It seems that several of the pubs were trouble flashpoints, and often the focal point for much resident ire and Police attention.

A lot has changed in the last ten years though. Despite being a fairly average looking London suburb today, there are considerably more people (or else there are more people with more cars anyway) and it follows that there are more people with more money, and therefore more influence. The Woolworths is not as run-down as it used to be. Everybody has double-glazing and a few of the pound shops on the High Street are now small Asian fashion boutiques or vegetarian restaurants. You can’t park your car on the High Street for free any more. In fact you can’t even park your car any more because there’s never any space, it’s that crowded.

And the pubs: pretty much all the “no-go” ones have either closed awaiting redevelopment – or else are under new management and have been converted into family-friendly Indian restaurants instead. The Honeypot used to be one of those pubs. It is rumoured that it used to employ a permanent broken-glass collector. That was then. Now it’s a very popular restaurant called Spice Rack – and has an adjacent paan house and ice-cream parlour.

So – there really aren’t many proper pubs left in my part of my neighbourhood. I suppose I had better try out the two that are left before they disappear.

“Excuse me officer: do you think it’s OK for me to park my car just there?”

“I’m really not sure sir, I’m, not on Parking Control Duty today.”

I was parked at the top end of Piccadilly; the Hard Rock Cafe end (did you know that the London Hard Rock Cafe was the first?). Lucky to get a space so close to the route of London’s New Year’s Day Parade. Not quite sure whether the lucky space was vacant for some specific reason. Hence the reason why I asked a police officer standing nearby. What the heck – I left the car there anyway. The Parade was due to start in 15 minutes and we really wanted to get somewhere reasonable to stand.

The last time (and only other time) I attended the annual New Year’s Day Parade was in 2000. And it was nothing special then. It was just something to do on a cold, grey winter’s day when there’s practically nothing else to do really. This time around it was pretty much the same: too cold to stand around in one place for 3 hours, and slap bang in the middle of lunchtime. And given that you you really need to get there an hour or so before the start in order to get a good viewing position, it means that it helps to bring your packed lunch and thermos flask with hot tea in it with you.

Which we didn’t.

Which means that by 1.30pm we were hungry.

And cold.

And frankly it was quite boring. Colourfully dressed marching bands from America. A donkey preservation society. Some miniature steam engines. A giant plastic inflatable Garfield filled with helium. Clowns and kids with big hair and flares riding old Chopper bikes. More marching bands from America. And some really strange, hard-to-understand, exhibits from various London Borough Councils.

The car was still there and unclamped when we got back to it. It was nice when it warmed up inside. Drove home and made a stir-fry lunch using egg noodles, beansprouts, pak choi, mushrooms and oyster sauce. Rearranged some house furniture the next day. The net result is an extra bedroom and a bigger studying room – and loads of stuff to take down to the charity shop on the High Street.

Happy New Year!

Spent a day or so of the Christmas break with family up North.

In London – the term “up North” means anywhere north of a London town called Watford – although I have to say that this term is used as a deliberate form of ignorance designed to upset “Northerners” who go about life believing that Londoners are completely self-centred and think that the universe revolves around London.

The gateway to “the North” is a the M1 motorway if you’re going by road – or Kings Cross St.Pancras if you’re going by rail.

When we woke up the next morning we discovered that it had snowed overnight. You just won’t believe how excited grown-up adults get when it snows:

The car on the right (that you can see a bit of) is ours – the red Mini Cooper in front belongs to my sister.

Click on the green button below to load the music whilst you are reading:

Sometimes when I’m driving back home from work instead of taking the trains and buses I notice that fellow drivers on the road are singing to themselves in highly animated fashion. And I am not immune to such behaviour myself. The car I borrow belongs to Ms.79 – and recently she has been listening to an Elvis Presley CD in the car. I think she has some sort of secret admiration of Elvis. Secret because she doesn’t like to admit it. Personally I don’t think there’s anything to be embarrassed about.

Now I’m not really a fan of Elvis (a bit before my time really) but I have to admit that there are a few catchy tunes that evoke memories of a childhood watching Elvis movies on a black-and-white TV in the late seventies. A bit like watching “Bollywood” films on those days too – they were of a very similar genre I suppose; all very wholesome and family-friendly.

So – driving home tonight I could not help but to sing along to some of Elvis Presley‘s most famous tunes on the CD that I found in the car. I’m sure you have done this yourself – OK it might not be Elvis – but I’m sure you must have sung along to something in the car – with not a care in the world!

This is the sound of a British Indian guy living in London – singing along to the sound of a deep-South American dubbed as the King of Rock’n’Roll – in a Vauxhall Corsa on the A40 heading towards the Hanger Lane Gyratory in West London during the early evening of a deep and dark December .

Apologies in advance for my tone-deafness and inability to synchronise to “the King’s” words – but he sure does have an infuriating habit of stretching out the lyrics in a really unpredictable fashion – making it extremely hard to sing along with any degree of perfection – but I think I made a brave attempt anyhow.

(Click on the green button above if it’s finished downloading.)

Like practically everyone else in my neighbourhood at just after 6am – everyone in my house was woken up by a very loud bang. I was convinced that a car or truck had blown up outside the house or something. I jumped out of bed and went to look out of every window – but all I saw was just fog illuminated by the street-lamps in the darkness – and nothing out of the ordinary. So I then wandered around the house trying to account for anything inside the house that might have caused the noise – but nothing.

A couple of hours later I found out from someone elses blog that it was a massive explosion at a major fuel storage depot in Hemel Hempstead – which is 22 miles further North West from where I live in NW London. The BBC is reporting around 35 injured – mostly minor – with a few seriously. I know that place very well – as I used to work in Hemel Hempstead several years ago. There are reports of people panic-buying petrol for their cars. (Sigh)

One very curious thing is that this explosion was heard (and felt) over 100 miles away in several different parts of the UK. And some people from Netherlands and Northern France have also reported hearing the explosions too. “Experts” on the TV and radio are talking about unique atmospheric conditions that made it possible for the sound to travel such great distances. e.g. sound waves deflecting from a cloud layer at a certain height.

It’s my local London Underground line. It’s what I use to go downtown – and it’s what I use to get home when coming back from town. It’s coloured silver on the tube map – and was inaugurated as a new tube line in 1979 as a tribute to the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Last year was the Silver Jubilee (25th anniversary) of the Jubilee Line – and Diamond Geezer did a fantastic travelogue special on his blog covering every station on the line – and a photoset of that blog series is on his Flickr.

Not as extensive a tribute from me, and a only a year too late – here are two cameraphone objects of the Jubilee Line:

At first I thought the picture was rubbish. But after I got a message from Flickr that Gypsy Rose had made it a favourite I looked at it over and over again – and now I think it looks quite nice. There is something about the camerphone fuzziness that gives the picture a “painting”-like feel.

And next up is a video. Again: from a cameraphone. Only this time, it wasn’t intentional. I was holding my mobile phone in my hand getting ready to take a photo of the wonderful escalator “cavern” at Westminster tube station as I was headed down towards the Jubilee Line platforms. What I didn’t realise was that the video record mechanism had been triggered and was recording me walking down. Well – my feet anyway. When I played it back – I quite liked it – so didn’t just delete it. Here it is.

It was recorded on my cameraphone as an MP4 file – which is a container format for MPEG4 compliant multimedia components – in which most 3G mobile devices will deposit video and audio in H.264 and AMR formats respectively. Most up-to-date media players (Real, Quicktime, Windows Media etc) will play such files – but not all “consumer” edit-suite apps (like Windows Movie Maker) or video sharing services (like YouTube) will support the format. Which is really annoying. And most of the software tools out there for doing coversions you have to pay for. Luckily though – there is an open source initiative at Sourceforge called MP4cam2AVI where you can download a very handy utility for converting MP4 files to AVI – which you can subsequently use in most edit-suite tools and video sharing websites. The only problem is that the tool will not be able to convert the audio part – so your video will come out silent. Which is OK if you are dubbing something else onto the video – e.g. music. No problem for me.

Just some random stuff. Been spending too much time in traffic jams between Slough and North West London. It’s always a bit of a disappointing anti-climax to find out after an hour of slow crawl down the A40 going home in the evening outside of the rush hour that the thing that caused the massive jam is just a broken down van on the first lane of a three-lane stretch of the highway near Greenford flyover.

I don’t like driving – but when I have to there are a few things that keep me sane. Club Asia on the radio is one. Which you can also listen to on the Internet now. London’s fastest growing radio station. And for some reason – I am finding that when I am in the car – I prefer the sound quality on AM better than the sound quality on FM . I can’t explain why – but AM radio just sounds better suited to driving than FM.

Whilst sitting in a traffic jam the other day I had a flashback to some time when I was living in the US a few years ago when I first observed a road-sign at an intersection which had the words “Peds Xing”. I was completely flummoxed as to what the sign was about – and of course I was reading it literally – pronouncing it “Peds Zing“. Later I figured it was American road-sign code for “Pedestrians Crossing”. But every time I think of my times driving in the USA I think of Peds Zing.

Here in London we have BUS LANEs. In Manhattan I remember there being LANE FIREs. NYC drivers obviously always read the words painted on their roads backwards.

Some bus drivers on Route 79 can’t be bothered to turn on the heating in the bus. That really annoys me. Especially as it’s been really cold lately – like sub-zero on some days. But I don’t feel too inclined to ask the bus driver to turn the heat on – just in case other people on the bus think I’m a bit of wimp.

I’ve noticed that more and more kids/youth on buses are playing their favourite music out loud on their mobile phones these days. Using the loudspeaker capability so that everyone on the bus can hear. I think this is annoying to fellow passengers – but I don’t really mind. Although the music is often quite tinny sounding – I think it livens up the atmosphere a little. Especially if the music is good enough to get you tapping your foot. But most of the time it’s incomprehendible rap or really embarassing Indian “filmi” tunes.

I decided to try out YouTube – which some people have said is the upcoming “Flickr for videos” site on the Internet. I’ve uploaded all the Route79 amateur music video productions to YouTube. There are about 25 in total – filling up three pages on the YouTube user interface.

The interesting thing about YouTube is that it makes a very brave attempt (and actually does it quite well) at exploiting the ubiquity of Macromedia Flash to share you videos with the world. So – basically, you upload your video in whatever format you like – mine were a mixture of MPEG2, DIVX and Windows Media – at whatever encoding rate you like – and YouTube will resample your video and make it available for streaming to it’s Flash player – at a video and audio rate (and therefore quality) that is just about passable in playback.

I think it works quite well – but only if you have a fast Internet connection. If your connection speed is too low (or something between your browser and YouTube is congested) – then the video playback will stall and stutter along – in which case you will have to wait until it’s all streamed and then play it again from the player’s cache. The user interface is not too bad – the whole site could be a little more finessed (like Flickr) but I think that’s just a matter of time. Best of all though – the videos you upload (or indeed the videos you discover) can be linked to from blogs – just like this:

Or they can be embedded in your blog – right in your own page – just like this: (This is the 30 second dash from the tube to my office – recorded in 2001 when my office was in Hammersmith in West London):

It will be interesting to track the development of YouTube – they appear to be backed by a venture-cap outfit with a good rep for spotting the next big thing. But, I think there are some interesting challenges – not least the ones in the area of copyright. You see, unlike flickr – where copyright was one-dimensional if you like – i.e. concerning only still pictures – with YouTube there are two new media formats thrown in – video and audio (and also a specific combination of video and audio) that might have copyright associated with it. Much that I hate the whole subject of copyright – if you look around some of the (admittedly banal) stuff that people upload to YouTube – there’s a fair bit that seems to be straight video-footage of TV screens – or music videos (like my own) that contain some other right-holders content – e.g. the audio dub to the home-made video – or in the case of the Two Chinese Boys video – which is the most “favourited” video on YouTube – it’s two guys miming along to a popular song called “My Way” (By the way – there is a kid in the background who seems to be totally oblivious to the two wacky guys behind him). Has copyright been infringed in any of these cases? Or can it all simply be classed as derived “art”?

Still – YouTube is worth tracking to see how it develops and adapts over time.

If you are into cooking North Indian (especially Punjabi) food regularly then you will almost always have the two most basic of essential of fresh (or decaying as the case may be) ingredients in your cupboard – and that is potatoes and onions. So – if your cupboards and fridge has run bare of anything else, it is these things that you will resort to in order to cook up a dinner of sorts.

And if you have some green chillie peppers (bell peppers will do also – but the longer, thinner chillie-peppers are better) – then why not make stuffed chillies?

Click here to learn how to make this really tasty thing – which can either be an accompaniment to a main meal – or a snack on it’s own.

Inspired by a pizza at a dinner party, and originally designed to appeal to girls, it’s been played over 10 billion times and generated over $100m in revenues, and been voted the greatest game of all time in the UK.

Based on such a simple concept but with profoundly complex gameplay – so simple that its code footprint is small enough to render the game perfectly in Shockwave Fash and Java applets for mobile phones. This very simplicity makes this game (like so many retro favourites) so playable on mobile: perfect for those intermittent bits of dead-time when travelling the tubes, trains and buses. Made even more playable given the fact that this game only requires you to use the directional keypad.

Celebrating it’s 25th birthday this year, and destined to be around for another 25 I’m sure – this game is, of course, Pac Man.

Since I am a die-hard fan of Pac Man, and not least because I am currently holding the number 2 spot in the UK high-score leaderboard for the official mobile phone version of the game (I bet you never thought I was that way inclined did you?) , I was invited along by Namco to the finals of the European Pac Man tournament held at Namco Station in Central London yesterday.

It was an extremely interesting spectacle of an event – and attracted a lot of attention from the media who were present in some force – including the BBC who covered the event here (video). The UK champion took second place to the champ from Netherlands, who (lucky bloke) took away an original version of the arcade machine.

I got to play on this machine too – and you just can’t even begin to appreciate how much of adrenaline rush you get when immersed in the game. And the sounds; the sounds, what can I say – there’s nothing else that can evoke such memories of a misspent youth playing this game in city centre arcades and students union bars.

Interesting snippet: the game was originally called “Puck Man” by its Japanese inventor – but the name was changed by an American distribution-company executive who figured that that original name could be very straightforwardly “vandalised” by players in games rooms to say something a little, erm – uncouth.

A bright glow of upward-shining light has been visible in the night-time view of the Western horizon from my bedroom window. It only appeared in the last few days – the difference is quite noticable. I am completely puzzled as to what’s causing it – but by my reckoning – it’s probably situated in the Harrow town centre area – which is about 5 kilometres away. There’s no major football stadium around there – and it can’t be the shopping mall as that is a few clicks to the right and doesn’t light up anything like that.

If my imagination were to get carried away with itself I would say that aliens have landed in North West London:

Not protesting or anything, but I do feel that it’s a real shame that this has ocurred, as it just adds even more light to the overly-light-polluted skies of London. No wonder only the brightest handful of stars are visible in the night sky around here.