Firetop

This evening I am at a lose end because last week saw the final session of the Alpha course I’ve been attending for ten weeks. Alpha is, in the words of the Alpha website, ‘an opportunity for anyone to explore the Christian faith in a relaxed setting over ten thought-provoking weekly sessions, with a day or weekend away’. Possibly the first thought to cross your mind about now is ‘Why did you do the Alpha course?’ and there a couple of answers to that. The first is that I wanted to make a qualified decision about whether of not to have my baby daughter Christened, and that in turn lead me to question the depth of my own basic Christian faith which has been waning over the past ten years. (more…)

Call me cynical but when Google releases a piece of software that only operates on a PC they don’t really have any serious expectations of large scale take-up - they hate to add value to Microsoft offerings. Google’s virtual world ‘Lively’ smacks of being one of those projects developed by their internal developers in their ‘own 20%’ part of the working day - put out to the public as more of a PR stunt than anything else. Being hailed in reviews as Google’s effort to enter the virtual territory of Linden Labs’ Second Life I thought it might impress me. But despite the fact that it is a lot easier to get started and customise your personal avatar, there’s really not much to do with it in a room the size of a virtual school hall. (more…)

Since my last trip to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in 2006 the old street queuing system has been replaced with a new staggered queuing system at Wimbledon Park Golf Club. This means that if you get the bus from Wimbledon station (£3.50 return) you’re in for quite a walk away from the ground again before you can even find the end of the queue. The reason behind this change, other than improved road safety, is that all the overnight tent dwellers seeking the limited court tickets have been moved to Wimbledon Park Golf Club. Clearly they need to be first in the queue, so everybody else has to go and queue up behind them before being led in waves down through the golf course, through security and over the road bridge to the kiosks. (more…)