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Thursday, June 14, 2007

Dental Hackery

So, finally I'm forced to go to the dentist again, by a complete disaster of one of my upper front teeth (Upper Right 2 for those dental obsessives) deciding to collapse.

Suffice to say I'm now in need of some restorative dental work, but shock-horror, I actually found a really good dentist, who doesn't scare the pants off me, doesn't complain and berate me about my teeth, and to cap it all, took me on as an NHS patient, but if I want any of the fancy or expensive stuff, of course I can go private... right now, I think I landed on my feet ;). [more...]

Posted by Mike @ 03:00 PM GMT [Link]

Monday, March 12, 2007

"Breakfast Meetings".. WTF?

This week, I've been invited to join two "Breakfast Meetings", ironically on the same day, as part of my role at work.

I'm there thinking "I'm invited to a Breakfast... WTF?"

Both invites came from Americans. This made me think "Here's an interesting cultural difference"... [more...]

Posted by Mike @ 10:39 AM GMT [Link]

Friday, February 23, 2007

Be careful what you wish for...

A week before the Avian flu outbreak at the Bernard Matthews' turkey farm in Norfolk, a leaving lunch was held to celebrate the retirement of the British Meat Producers Association director, Peter Scott.

During the lunch, a speech was given by the BMPA President, commending Scott for his tenacity, "steering the industry through BSE, Foot & Mouth Disease and classical swine fever", and quipped "the only thing missing is Asian flu, which starts to look like a weakness in your CV".

On the 2rd February, the day after the MMPA made the press release about Scott's retirement, the Matthews' outbreak was confirmed as H5N1.

I'll bet this BMPA person wants to eat his words... just remember to cook them properly, as recommended by the Food Standards Agency. [more...]

Posted by Mike @ 11:06 PM GMT [Link]

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The loss of the Great British Chippy

At one point, in a built up area, you were seldom far from a Fish and Chip shop. Now, they seem to be a dying breed. The Great British treat being marginalised and forced out by never ending streams of Klone Fried Chicken, McNastys, toxic doner kebab shops and other slightly dubious take-aways of various origins.

Some of these outlets purport to sell "fish and chips", but it's a poor imitation - often industrial pre-battered frozen fish pieces which are cut to that funny 4-sided polygon shape, and frozen chips from a box, rather than chips from a potato. All very Findus.

In London, there are handful of Greeks and other Mediterraneans now running the few remaining chippies, but even the best ones can't hold a candle to a real seaside chippy!

There are times when I could kill a decent plate of fish and chips, but there isn't anything nearby - just a stream of "copycat" chicken shops and kebabs.

Maybe, in the words of Basil Fawlty, I should just "move closer to the sea (or preferably in it)"?

How about New Zealand? They do fish and chips pretty well!

Posted by Mike @ 12:19 AM GMT [Link]

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Official - AirTunes Rocks.

I finally got around to hooking up an Airport Express to my lounge hi-fi. This rocks.

I am a happy camper, despite the fact that Apple appear to keep cow-towing to the media industries by repeatedly crippling the otherwise useful protocol that is DAAP. [more...]

Posted by Mike @ 02:30 PM GMT [Link]

Blah, blah, blah. Thought I'd re-appear.

Can't sleep too well. Only got home from Canada this week. 2nd day back, and despite taking a daylight flight, and trying to put my long-suffering body clock in order, I'm up at 3am. Made myself useful writing slideware for the LINX56 meeting... got tonnes of stuff to do. [more...]

Posted by Mike @ 03:21 AM GMT [Link]

Sunday, January 11, 2004

Bought an iPod...

...it rocks. No more lugging CDs and crap on long flights :-).

(Oh, and I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better. I feel happy...)

Posted by Mike @ 11:06 PM GMT [Link]

Sunday, July 6, 2003

Crap Beer Humour

So, I found this page by Googling for the words "Budweiser" and "Stag Brewery":

http://g-blog.net/entry/4129

Made me laugh.

The "Stag Brewery" is the plant in South West London used by AB to manufacture Bud for the UK market. Note well: I did not call it a brewery, because it doesn't deserve the title. I also didn't say they brewed Bud, they just make it.

Before it was used to make Bud, the Stag Brewery was owned by Watney's. The same people who produced the infamous Watney's Party Seven, an English beer, which also tasted crap.

Co-incidence or design? You decide...

Posted by Mike @ 10:47 PM GMT [Link]