Category: life

The Oxford St christmas lights this year look like klieg lights. It makes me think that we’re expecting an air raid. And air raids are obviously a central part of the traditional British christmas. All it needs is a Zeppelin or a V2 flying overhead to complete the illusion. Oh, and the gantries that the… Continue reading Merry Air Raid

To the moron who sat beside me on the Northern Line between Waterloo and Clapham at about 6pm yesterday, Yes, the tube in the rush hour is overcrowded. Most of us just accept that and make the best of it. The fact that you wear a nice pinstripe suit does not make you more important… Continue reading Morons on the Underground

I’m currently reading How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World. It’s a very interesting book and I’ll be writing about it in more detail when I’ve finished it. But last week I read a section which talked about the “Monkey Trial” that took place in Tennessee in 1925. For those who don’t know the story, a… Continue reading Monkey Trial

It used to be simple to put the clocks back at the end of October. I’d just go round the house putting everything back by an hour. Now it’s more confusing. We have a number of clocks that deal with the time change themselves. So I have to work out which ones need changing. It’s… Continue reading GMT and NaNoWriMo

No, of course he wasn’t. But the cover of the new National Geographic cruelly gives a second or two of hope to the religious fundamentalists. Actually it seems to be an article about how most people don’t understand the concept of a scientific theory. Nice piece about it here (which I was directed to by… Continue reading Was Darwin Wrong?

It seems that Pret have stopped selling the stilton and walnut sandwich that I’d been enjoying so much for the last few weeks. Perhaps I’ve eaten them all. But in better news, they’ve reintroduced their Thai Chicken sandwich.

Got back from the “speaking tour” late last night. I’ll backfill some details over the next few days (and, hopefully, fill in some more about the Egypt trip). In the meantime you can look at my photos from the trip.

Today we travelled to Venice to pick up the boat for the Geek Cruise. I keep calling it a boat, but it’s probably a ship. All of the Perl speakers from the Italian Code Jam were also going on the cruise so Randal Schwartz and Allison Randal travelled on the same train as Dan and… Continue reading To Venice

So today I spoke at the Italian Code Jam in Ferrara. My colleague Dan and I flew into Bologna yesterday where one of the conference organisers met us and drove us to our hotel in Ferrara. Then in the evening all of the organisers and speakers went off to a local restaurant for dinner. There… Continue reading Italian Code Jam

Well, I might be overstating the case a bit, but for the first time I’ll be speaking at two completely separate events as part of the same trip. And as a bonus I’ll be visiting four countries that I’ve never been to before. Here’s the itinerary. Tomorrow I fly to to Bologna in Italy and… Continue reading Speaking Tour