Firetop

As bizarre as it may seem, Sony Bravia’s wonderful advert with exploding multi-coloured paint effects on a housing estate could be subject to an Advertising Standards Authority investigation. This is not because the Rossini theme reminds viewers of Malcolm McDowell in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ beating people up… According to Marketing Week magazine, two people out there think the advert is reminiscent of the September 11th attack in New York and is upsetting. I’ve never heard such a load of old nonsense, surely it’s far more upsetting to watch Friends on C4 and keep seeing the Twin Towers in the background. I would imagine it’s more like the Canary Wharf bomb than the Twin Towers if people want to draw terrorism comparisons, but such a thing would seem ridiculous. (more…)

Last night I finished watching the first two complete series of HBO’s Deadwood and found it addictive viewing, if a little slow to begin with. Deadwood is a lawless US gold mining town established in ‘Red Indian territory’ beyond the reach of the government in Washington. Established by Al Swearengen (Ian McShane AKA ‘Lovejoy’ – no he doesn’t talk to the camera anymore…) the town is unofficially ruled by him from his whorehouse ‘The Gem’ - with the aid of his henchmen and whores. (more…)

I’ve inexplicably had no telephone connection since Wednesday morning, which also means my office has no broadband connection (since they’re linked). I called TalkTalk Business Customer Service yesterday but got held in a queue for ten minutes and eventually got asked to leave a message or send an email to custserv@talktalkbusiness.co.uk. I sent an email and have heard nothing in 24 hours. I phoned again this morning and left a voice message, still heard nothing. I suspect this means I will be without a telephone or Internet throughout the whole weekend. How TalkTalk can have a business service with such a poor level of customer support is a complete mystery to me. It’s all since Carphone Warehouse bought Onetel earlier in 2006… well done on ruining a perfectly good service. TalkTalk even doubled the price on taking over. (more…)

I read on the Google blog this week that they plan to begin installation of 1.6 megawatts of solar photovoltaic panels (PV panels) at their Head Office in Mountain View, California. They reckon it will be ‘the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the U.S., and we think it’s one of the largest on any corporate site in the world’. But something puzzled me – do they have enough room for all those panels? (more…)

For the first time in a few months, Suzie_Q and I took a trip to Crawley’s Cineworld on Friday night to see ‘The Children of Men’. Set in the year 2027, humans have lost the ability to reproduce despite the best efforts of leading scientists, and the world’s youngest person (aged 18 and a celebrity) has just been stabbed to death. Britain is run by a government making best use of ‘big brother’ Internet technology to control the population, and illegal immigrants are being deported by the coach load in scenes reminiscent of the Jewish gettos in WWII. Clive Owen (think ‘Closer’ with Julia Roberts) plays Theo - a man caught up in an effort to get the world’s only pregant woman to the safety of a fabled ‘human project’ ship (called ‘Tomorrow’ - yes a bit cheesy). (more…)

Thursday evening saw an office outing to ’Funland’ at the Trocadero in Piccadilly - eight lanes hired for a multiple team and individual play-off. We were due to start bowling at about 8pm, but the lanes weren’t actually available until 8:45pm, so the management placated us with some free tokens for the dodgems in the basement. Didn’t engage in that activity myself so watched instead, used to love the dodgems when I was a kid but like so many similar theme-park style rides, being 6ft 5″ usually leads to whip-lash or bruised legs. Somebody needs to build comfortable rides for tall people. (more…)

It’s a shame that SurveyMonkey doesn’t have an affiliate program because over the years I’ve set up so many accounts for customers, and recommended it to so many people that I’d have earned a bundle out of it. I’ve been at the top of the testimonials page for about six years now, my only annoyance that the job title matches the one I had years ago and I’ve moved on a long way since then. I’ve asked them to change it three times since but they haven’t… hey ho. I still stand by what I said - I found the tool to be better than Zoomerang not only because it contains the word ‘monkey’. (more…)

Further adding to the delights and personalisation of this blog… I thought I’d set up a live webcam - showing a day-time view of my street. The view covers the end of my garden, the local car park and the homes of one or two neighbours. Each time a moving object is picked up by the lense, a photograph is taken and automatically loaded to this new webcam page. Take a look at the webcam and see what delights you can spot in glorious Surrey. (more…)

I found a handy image serving PHP script tonight to replace the JavaScript I’ve been using for the past six years. Essentially it’s a PHP file which can be dropped into a folder full of jpeg or gif files and called by defining the script as the source of the image. I’ve implemented it here on the blog home page so that you don’t have to see the same photograph of me each time you log in. The PHP script can be downloaded from Daniel Benjamin’s ‘A List Apart‘ website. In addition he has a newer script which can be used to serve random banners - complete with URL and ALT tag handling - something I’m often asked about so this is a good solution for those without ad servers.

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On Saturday morning Suzie_Q and I were up early for the Biennial African Child Trust supporters’ meeting, this year taking place at Croydon’s Whitgift School. It’s not often you find pink flamingos on school grounds, but rather apt for a meeting to discuss child poverty and education in Africa. Held in one of the school’s many fine meeting rooms (kindly paid for by Christian Aid) there were perhaps some seventy five ACT supporters in attendance; an array of cultural backgrounds on show - from me in my shirt and trousers to those in traditional African dress - including one aid worker ’Constantin Ouedraogo’ flown in all the way from Burkina Faso. (more…)