Stand on the right, walk on the left

The legend of the Haribo tree

2011-08-18T17:10:00.005+01:00

I recently celebrated my 32nd birthday, and I had to write a short post to preserve my finest gift for posterity. I had a number of lovely gifts, but for sheer ingenuity and creativity, this was the clear winner.

I arrived at Joe and Clare's last Sunday to find a large Amazon box stood up, with the flaps loosely sellotaped and a card hinting cryptically at "enjoying their creation". When I opened the box, I couldn't believe my eyes:

Mother-flippin' Haribo tree.

Yes, a Haribo tree. And a massive one at that. Only in my wildest dreams had I imagined that Haribo could in fact be grown and cultivated rather than purchased, but here in front of me was gelatinous proof.

Haribo tree in situ.

I'd never encountered anything like it, but there do seem to be some commercial offerings although they look pretty weedy in comparison with the craft foam ball, wood, No More Nails, cocktail sticks (x1000) and soil construction of my wondrous tree.

Once we started "pruning" the tree we discovered that the Haribo was so tightly packed onto the tree that some Haribo fossils had been formed. Generations of future confectionary archaeologists will surely marvel over Haribus Cola Bottlus:

Rare fossilised cola bottle.

I might go as far as suggesting it's one of the best gifts I've ever been given. Mostly because it's given me a new interest in gardening; unfortunately though, none of the "cuttings" I've planted at home are showing any signs of life.

iMovie 11 fails to export Quicktime with error ~2125 on Lion

2011-08-11T09:44:00.005+01:00

I recently tried exporting 2:49 hours of HDV footage to a 1080p Quicktime using iMovie 11 on my brand new Mac mini. The initial estimation of duration was 13 hours, which rose to 21 hours and then 24 hours.

This morning I discovered that the export had failed with a rather cryptic error code of ~2125. While I was on the phone to AppleCare (summary based on my first ever call: don't bother) I noticed that I only had 5gb of disk space free. Before I started exporting I had around 120gb free.

What I discovered is that iMovie uses a temporary file, and in the case of a ~2125 error this temporary file is not removed. After much searching, I tracked my file to the following location: ~/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/

Here's the culprit:

-rw-r--r-- 1 timdp staff 112589413689 11 Aug 01:33 ICMMultiPassStorage-526-bfffde94-1

Taking up 113gb (22.6% stats fans) of my drive. Not cool.

Here's my remedy:

Press CMD + Space

Type Terminal, press return

In Terminal, type cd ~/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/

Type ls -l, to see if you have a large file

Type rm , so in my case rm ICMMultiPassStorage-526-bfffde94-1

Close Terminal

Olympics update

2011-06-19T22:02:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post to provide an update on the results of my Olympic ballot entry. You probably sensed in my previous post that entering the Olympic ballot has been a rollercoaster of emotions, and that trend has continued. First, there was the delay to the start of taking payment, then the painful wait until payment was taken, and then further disappointment/elation depending on how much (if any) money disappeared from your account.

On the 31 of May, we were debited for £216 (£210 tickets, £6 postage). This equates to 7.63% of the possible total value that we applied for. In the face of lots of friends getting nothing, I should have been grateful, but initially I was pretty unimpressed as I'd psyched myself up for taking a two week holiday and going to loads of events.

May threatened for a little while to sit down and write a program to work out all possible combinations of tickets that could add up to £210, but in the end she settled down and quietly did it by hand. She sat quietly at the table processing and analysing, emitting the occasional "oooh" or "ahhh!" with each revelation. By the time she'd finished, she'd generated the 86 possible combinations and looked very pleased with herself.

Her findings have shown the following:

We have either three (67% likely) or four (33%) pairs of tickets.
We definitely don't have tickets to: opening ceremony, men's basketball final or men's synchronised 10m diving final.

Yesterday we took a look at the post-ballot availability list to see if any of the events we've applied for were under-subscribed (with the assumption being if they haven't sold out, we should definitely have a ticket). Unfortunately, all of the events we applied for are sold out, so no further narrowing is possible.

Below is a table showing the probability of each event based on the 86 combinations of possible tickets:

The most interesting part for me is the grouping of events all at 6.98%, as these include: men's 100m final, men's team pursuit final, men's 5000m final and the women's floor exercise final. When combined, there's a 34.9% chance that we have one event from that group, which means we might have something truly amazing. The Olympic emotions rollercoaster is atop a peak again, and will hopefully thunder euphorically to the end of the ride once our final confirmation email arrives.

Only 5 more days to wait until we know for sure.

How I got O2 The Works broadband free for a year

2011-05-16T21:43:00.000+01:00

Two things happened recently: fibre optic broadband (40mbps) became available in Winchester and we came to the end of our 12 month contract with BT for line rental. I looked into BT's Infinity fibre service, but at £18 a month + £10 BT line rental (and it has to be BT line rental) and combined with an 18 month contract, I've decided to wait.

Given that the European Commission has said that BT have to provide the same access for third-parties to their fibre network as they currently do for their copper network, I'm crossing my fingers that within 18 months providers other than BT will be offering fibre. Whether or not 18 months will be enough time for contract terms/prices to become more attractive? I'm not sure, particularly given that BT are being allowed to retain price control.

With that decision taken, I thought I'd have a go at lowering my monthly cost for line rental and broadband. MoneySavingExpert recommend Primus Telecom, but it I'm honest, their 90s website put me right off. Then I remembered that O2 do fixed line rental now, and my experience of their broadband has been positive enough for me to trust them with the line rental.

I phoned up and explained to the advisor that I'd like to add their basic home phone (line rental only) service for £7.50 a month and also asked if I could renew my broadband at the same time (we were 11 months in). I also told her that I had a loyalty discount on the broadband, and that my ideal case was to renew the broadband whilst retaining the discount and also add the line rental. At this point she popped me on hold as she needed to consult retentions to find out how to handle the loyalty discount.

When she came back, she said that if I was prepared to sign up for 12 months of line rental at £7.50 a month, she could give me 12 months of broadband free of charge. I really wasn't expecting this and after a a quick pinch make sure I wasn't dreaming, I agreed. The agent said she'd need to transfer me through to retentions to sort out the broadband first and then she would call be back to finalise the line rental. When I got through to retentions, they explained that I could indeed have 12 months of broadband for free, but that as they no longer offer the same terms as I was on, I'd have to change my package. She went on to tell me that she'd move me onto their highest package "The Works" (netting me a static IP), that my bill will say -£21 a month and that she'd post out a new wireless N router to me immediately.

With that call finished, I waited for the call back from the first agent, which duly arrived and I went through all the contractual terms and acceptance. Once that was completed and the verbal ink was dry, I mentioned to the agent how much better this call had gone than I was expecting. She told me that she didn't even know 12 months free broadband was possible and that I was now paying less than her staff rate for my service!

The switch-over of the line from BT to O2 happened today and I have to say it was seamless, I didn't even notice any downtime. We've had some intermittent issues when there has been heavy rain, but after a visit from the OpenReach engineer who discovered a fault and switched us onto the spare core between our house and the cabinet, it's been rock solid and in fact our speed has increased with a current sync or 9629kbps down and 1265kbps up. Not bad for a total cost of £7.50 a month.

The Olympic lottery

2011-05-05T22:50:00.008+01:00

The London Olympics 2012 ticket ballot closed last week and I wanted to write up my approach to and experience of the ballot so far.

When it was announced that the Olympics were coming to London, I was surprised by how excited I felt. After a little thought, I decided that my approach would be to treat the Olympics as my two week holiday for 2012, and that I would spend the same amount on tickets as I would on a holiday abroad. May didn't agree with my thinking to start with, but I gradually won her over and we came up with a mutually agreeable budget.

In our typical style, we massively over-planned and spent a good few hours going through the timetable and devising a spreadsheet. Given the baffling approach of having a single ballot for all tickets and the varied pricing structure, we ended up taking a long time to finalise our choices. By the time we were ready, it was about 10:30pm on the final day of ticket application, so we got caught up in TicketMaster's web site capacity FAIL. To be honest, if I'd known it was TicketMaster providing the infrastructure, I'd have been incented to get my application in early; for the last few big events I've booked, their web site has always run out of capacity.

I saw this screen a lot.

The website was broken for about an hour and a half, and at the depths of my despair I even consulted the website's help function:

My question was "Sorry we cannot process your request. WTF? Give me some tickets.

Eventually though, we were able to get our choices in before the deadline. Below you can find the full list of what we've applied for.

I'm secretly hoping we get most of it, as although it will be expensive I think it's going to be an excellent experience. Fingers crossed (and bank account loaded!).

Taipei diary

2011-04-03T09:48:00.007+01:00

We had an excellent week in Taipei so I wanted to write a little bit about our experience. Taipei is the furthest east I've traveled, beating my previous best of Sri Lanka by a good distance. It's also a really long way away; with our routing via Singapore meaning that we flew 8762 miles each way. We stayed in an apartment which was very centrally located and directly outside exit 1 of the Zhongxiao Dunhua Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) station. We arrived in the evening and arranged a transfer via the apartment rental company. This worked very well as we'd been travelling for 21 hours and I don't think I could have coped with sorting out either public transport or a taxi.

We were met at the apartment and shown around; it was small but well apointed with 2 beds, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a washing machine/tumble dryer, aircon and free wifi. Jack came to meet us at the apartment when he finished work and then took us out for a walk to get our bearings and for dinner at Kitchen Pucci, where Lisa came to join us. It had good dumplings, but terrifying tea bags:

Teabag terror.

The next morning I nipped out for an early run and we then walked to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall and then onto Taipei 101 via smith&hsu, an truly excellent tea house. Taipei 101 was the worlds tallest skyscraper until it was diminished by one in Dubai last year, although they still claim the fastest elevator in the world (Wikipedia suggests this may be a lie, but it's pretty freaking quick either way). It was pretty overcast on the day we ascended, so the 360 degree view wasn't quite as amazing as it could have been, but it was still excellent. My personal highlight was checking out the 660 tonne tuned mass damper (affectionately known as damper baby) that occupies the centre of the 88th-92nd floor and can move by 1.5 meters in the event of an earthquake or typhoon. We ate at Momoya in the Taipei 101 basement food court before catching the MRT over the Chiang Kia-shek Memorial Hall just in time to catch the 5pm flag ceremony. After a bit of a rest, we ate at Sweet Dynasty just over the road from the apartment.

On Saturday we took the train from Taipei main station to Ruifang, and then rode the Pingxi line up to Jingtong for a walk around and a browse of the market stalls. It was wet and grey so we skipped some of the stops and missed out the walk to the waterfall, but it was good fun none the less. In the evening we ate at Din Tai Fung and then had a few drinks at On Tap and played Jenga. By Sunday, the rain had intensified so we hid out in the Taipei Fine Art museum, taking in the Monet Garden exhibition and grabbing some lunch in the basement cafe. May and I went for a stroll around Ximending before we all met up at MOT Kitchen to celebrate Judith's birthday. I took a detour on the way back to the apartment and had an excellent if somewhat painful foot massage.

The rain had cleared on Monday so we visited Longshan temple and the botanic gardens before catching the MRT up to Beitou to visit the public thermal baths (80p entry!). The baths were lo-fi, but delicious with temperatures ranging from 39 - 45° C. In the evening we visited Shilin night market with Jack and ate street food whilst browsing the stalls. Best discovery was a deep fried egg/pancake combination brushed with soy sauce and the best market items were the Engrish t-shirts.

Tuesday had the best predicted weather, so we seized our chance to go and do some hiking. We headed north to the Yangmingshan national park and hiked up Mount Qixing. It was a beautiful hike through forests and then as we climbed higher through arrow bamboo. At the peak we saw an old guy doing tai-chi and shouting at at the world from the four corners. We descended to Saioyoukeng and checked out the thermal area with it's fumaroles and boiling pools and after a bit of a "have we missed the shuttle bus? why is that stray dog following us?" panic, caught the (terrifyingly driven) shuttle bus back to the park entrance.

We checked out of the apartment on Wednesday and moved to the Taipei Park Hotel for one night. After checking in, we went for a run around Daan park before having a guilty western lunch from Starbucks/Subway. In the evening, we raced up Elephant Mountain with Jack to take in the view of Taipei 101. We made it just in time for sunset, but I learned that my carbon-fibre travel tripod isn't really sturdy enough to reliably hold my 450D + 24-105L for long exposures. Thank Jeebus for the Ixus. After dinner at NY Bagels, May and Jack went to meet Judith at her hotel and I headed out to do some night photography. When my camera battery died I went over to Judith's hotel too for a quick beer and a nose around her palatial room.

We flew out to Bangkok on Thursday 31st, but not before we'd taken Wenshu line to Taipei Zoo Station and ridden the Maokong Gondola cable car up to Maokong station for a walk around the hillside and lunch at a tea house.

It's a long way to Taipei

2011-03-27T14:55:00.005+01:00

We've made it to Taipei! We're here visiting May's brother Jack and his girlfriend Lisa who are here teaching English as a foreign language at the Hess schools.

We had planned to visit Taipei for 6 nights, then Japan for 10 before returning home via Singapore for 3 nights to visit May's friend Jenny, her husband Raj and their new baby in Singapore. Due to the recent earthquake, we've canceled the Japan leg of the trip entirely and spent a stressful two weeks replanning a way to fill our spare 10 days. We finally settled on Thailand and will be spending 3 nights at the Conrad in Bangkok before flying to Koh Samui to the Bo Phut Resort & Spa for 6 days of relaxation.

We flew Heathrow to Taipei via Singapore (5 hour layover) on Singapore Airlines. I've just started to find flying novel again since switching jobs and putting an end to my business travel, so a ride on an A380 was pretty cool. After some deft online checking in, we ended up in the economy section of the upper deck, with us in a pair of seats and May's mum Judith across the aisle.

The A380 was impressively massive and the Singapore Airlines fit out delivers a very impressive economy flight. The seat pitch is long, meaning plenty of legroom and the cabin feels spacious rather than packed. Whoever designed this plane actually thought through the details of passenger comfort, and as we all know it's the little things that make the biggest difference. Examples are a screen that pivots out enough that even a lanky body like me can see it when the person in front is fully reclined and extendible foot rests. In flight entertainment is also excellent with over 14o films on demand, plus TV shows (around 6 consecutive episodes of each) and lots of music. Further, there's a USB socket to you can connect up your own equipment to either charge or view media on screen. The service is also excellent, very attentive with plenty of snacks and drinks - you can even ask for a Singapore Sling and get free playing cards. You even get real cutlery. In short, flying economy with Singapore is like flying premium economy with everyone else; would use again with preference.

The only flies in our delicious Singapore Air ointment were called Bob and Vanessa. They were sat in the seats in front of us, and in meeting they each found a kindred spirit, much to their delight and our chagrin. At the first drinks service, Vanessa ordered a beer and Bob a red wine, and from here on in, things went downhill. As each drink was finished, the call light went on and another was ordered. Initially May and I chuckled at their poor quality flirting and chucklesome cheap chat ("can't wait to have a ciggie", "let's write a thank you note to the hostess" etc), but as all the lights were switched off for our simulated night and their volume continually increased the novelty quickly wore off.

It was all a bit too much for Judith, who had a quiet word with the staff who then spoke to the delightful pair. Much hilarity ensued along with a lengthy discussion led by Vanessa who wanted to "find our who grassed me up" she'd "rather have been told to my face, rather than snitched on". With the noise continuing, Judith sensibly asked to be moved downstairs.

After tolerating 8 hours of non-stop drinking and high volume, I felt I had to intervene when Vanessa had turned her headphones up to maximum volume and started singing along with D.I.S.C.O. by Ottowan and gyrating her rotund frame in her seat in what I assume was her approximation of dancing.

"Would you mind turning your headphones down and not singing please? I'd like to get some sleep" I said, adding "I heard you say earlier you'd rather be told to your face rather than complained about". The music was turned down, and the singing stopped (for a bit), but rather than peace and quiet, there was a continual discussion about keeping the noise down and a lot of sssshhhhing. The only time we had any respite was after breakfast when the pair fell asleep, including Bob doing bizarre musical snoring. I guess the limit when flying is nine and a half hours of solid drinking and then breakfast will definitely send you to sleep.

I think the situation was poorly handled by Singapore Air as despite the obvious intoxication of the pair, they kept on serving them drinks. We assumed that there would be a limit, but the staff were overly polite and failed to take appropriate action, resulting in a detrimental effect for the surrounding passengers. Although getting no sleep was a pain, I consoled myself with two facts: 1) I'm neither Bob or Vanessa. 2) I bet they had stinking hangovers that even their much awaited ciggie wouldn't abate.

Nike+ Coach Walk to Run training plan, my experience

2011-01-02T16:00:00.008Z

When I suffered some back pain last summer I was forced to take a break from running. Once the pain had subsided, I tried to resume running with two 20 minute sessions a week, but found that I just experienced further back stiffness and pain. This was a real knock to my confidence and I was wondering whether or not I'd ever be able to get back in to running.

When I described my frustrations to my masseuse (who is a triathlon and Ironman competitor), she suggested that I try a walk-to-run plan. These plans are designed for people who are new to running, but the gentle and gradual increase also makes them suitable for recovering from an injury. After trialling walk/run intervals on my own for a week or two and regaining some confidence, I decided to start following a formal training plan. After some searching, I settled on the Nike+ Coach walk to run training plan and equipped myself with the Nike+ GPS app for my iPhone.

Based on my successful trial runs, I decided to join the plan in week 4. It took me a little while to work out how to achieve this, but all you need to do is work backwards and then set a date in the past as your starting date. Unfortunately, Nike haven't integrated their Coach plans with the Nike+ GPS app so you have to check manually each day what you're supposed to be running. To help me keep track, I decided to print out the full schedule to use as a reference, but discovered some serious errors in it, which thankfully Nike quickly corrected.

As I started to track my progress, I soon noticed that I was running much further than Nike's recommended distances. I reported this to Nike and they recommended that I shouldn't worry too much about the distance I was covering, but just stick to the advised times. I'm a little disappointed that the Nike+ Coach plans aren't personalised at all; it wouldn't be hard to ask users to input their distance covered for walking/running for a set period. In fact, if Coach was integrated with Nike+ GPS, plans could adapt to their users automatically.

I found that the issue with the recommended distances was compounded by the lack of guidance Nike provide on how to run. At 6'4" and with my stride length, if I tried to stick to their distances I'd be moving so slowly that I'd be using unnatural biomechanics. Given that this is a beginners' plan, and that the most common beginner mistake is to run too fast, I'm quite surprised that Nike aren't sharing their expertise. An article introducing perceived effort or another strategy for controlling pace would not go amiss.

To demonstrate just how far off Nike's guidance I was, here are some graphs:

I ended up running 75% more miles than advised!

Although there's been some niggles along the way, I've really enjoyed the Nike+ Coach walk to run plan. It has built up both my confidence and fitness and I've always felt safe following the plan. It also helped me to achieve my goal of returning to parkrun (free, weekly timed 5k) which I did at Basingstoke on Christmas day:

I do have some gripes with the Nike+ GPS application however. For one, you can only track running with it, which seems a bit strange. I have also experienced my workouts being randomly paused, and given that the Coach plan requires you to do intervals regularly, the lack of an interval training feature is a real pain. The easiest way I found of easing this pain is to change the "Voice Feedback, At a Set Time) option in the Nike+ GPS settings to 1 min.

The voice announcements are irritatingly frequent when you're trying to do two sets of walk four minutes and then run six, but I found it preferable to the alternative of running while holding and looking at my iPhone. That said, part of the walk to run plan in week 9 is doing 20 sets of walk 30 seconds, run 1 minute 30 - for this I did have to run holding my phone and I felt my training for those sessions was cumbersome and less accurate.

I ran yesterday using RunKeeper Pro (free until the end of January 2011) and I must say that its ability to deal with different sports and intervals place it well ahead of Nike+ GPS. Also, the quality of data available on the web seems better with RunKeeper too, check out this comparison:

Nike+

RunKeeper Pro

Interestingly, before I took those screenshots I was going to write that RunKeeper has more data, but in actual fact they're closer than I thought. I think this speaks volumes about the presentation of the data, although Nike seem to be aiming for a simple/consumable interface, at this moment in time RunKeeper are delivering more successfully.

I particularly like the way RunKeeper records your splits and you can even edit the recorded GPS points manually if you're so inclined. That said, the interface in Nike+ GPS and the screen lock feature is really nice, plus although they're a little corny I like the encouragements you're given at the end of each run and the messages from Paula Radcliffe and Lance Armstrong when you set a new PB.

To summarise, the Nike+ Coach walk to run plan is a very good way to either start running or get back into shape following an injury. Thank you Nike for getting me back into running and helping me achieve my goals. You can improve though, given you are sports experts, some of what's you provide is a little perfunctory. Your forums are good and responsive, but under-staffed (hi Clover!) and the lack of "how to run"/"how to warm up/cool down"/"how to stretch" information as part of the plans is surprising.

The lack of an intervals feature in the Nike+ GPS app is a serious defecit and if you could deliver a tight integration between the Coach plans and the Nike+ GPS app so that you could simply start the app and it would tell you what to run (plus a button to skip a day!) and personalise the plan based on how fast each user walks/runs that would be truly amazing.

Running Spotify on an O2 Joggler

2010-12-03T17:36:00.009Z

Back in April I picked up an O2 Joggler on the cheap and after quite a bit of mucking about I'm now running Ubuntu netbook edition on it and using it to feed Spotify into my main amp and speakers. I have tried a few different solutions along the way so I wanted to write this post to summarise what I've found to work best.

You will need:

an O2 Joggler
a Spotify Premium subscription
a USB key (min 4gb)

When considering which USB key to use, it's worth investing in one that has a high transfer rate. I started out with a freebie key and the performance wasn't great. After some reading around I settled on an 8Gb SanDisk Cruzer Extreme which was €18 from eBay. It's a bit of a beast and sticks out quite a bit, but it gives a reasonably zippy performance.

I've also tried a both Spotify under Wine and the Spotify for Linux preview and both Stephen Ford and Jools Willis' Ubuntu images for the Joggler. Spotify for Linux runs significantly better on the Joggler than when under Wine (hence the requirement for a Premium account) and Spotify for Linux behaves much better on Jools Willis' image which is Ubuntu 10.10 based, as opposed to the Stephen Ford 9.10 image which gave me issues with both installation and then playback. The 10.10 images also has a screen calibration utility built in and a much nicer on-screen keyboard.

First, download Jools Willis' Joggler Ubuntu image from exotica.org.uk (I have v1.3). Next unpack the image onto your USB key (Unix users will find instructions on the download page, Windows users should use Win32DiskImager).

Once the image is written, switch your Joggler off and insert the USB key. When you switch the Joggler on, it will automatically boot from the USB key. This process will not make any changes to your Joggler's firmware - if you want to return to the supplied operating system simply switch off, remove the USB key and switch back on.

Once the Joggler has booted up, you should be able to connect it to your network using the onscreen keyboard. Here are the two icons you need:

Once on the network, you should open a terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and use the on-screen keyboard to type sudo apt-get install openssh-server. When that has completed, you can find out what IP address your Joggler is using by typing ifconfig. Here's a screenshot of mine:

Once you know the IP address, you can connect remotely to the Joggler using SSH (Windows users, get Putty), this is really helpful as it means you can use a real keyboard rather than the on-screen one, which while very functional can be a little slow.

After you've connected using SSH (username & password: joggler) you can go ahead and install Spotify for Linux by typing the following (or cut & pasting, if you're using Putty you can right-click to paste):

sudo su

echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

apt-get update

apt-get install spotify-client-qt spotify-client-gnome-support

apt-get install vino

exit

As well as installing Spotify, the above will also install Vino which allows you to VNC to your Joggler so that you can control it with a keyboard and mouse. To enable VNC, click System -> Preferences -> Remote Desktop:

The most useful thing about being able to VNC to your Joggler is that the maximizing the Spotify for Linux window is really hard with the touch screen, so being able to use a mouse makes all the difference.

I was going to write and complain that the drawback of the Jools Willis image is that it uses btrfs and as such cannot be resized from it's 4gb size. However, I've just checked and version 1.3.1 is now available which comes in both a btrfs and ext4 flavour. I would recommend the ext4 version.

A note on complaining,

2010-07-27T23:15:00.012+01:00

I've recently resolved a little issue that I had with NatWest bank, so I thought I'd tell you about it. Before I get started, this is more a post about the art of complaining and how much I love to complain than about NatWest being terrible. Mistakes happen, so this is more about how to deal with them than anything else.

Back in February, May and I were in the final stages of purchasing our first house and I needed to withdraw money from my ISAs to pay the deposit and legal fees. After popping into branch, I learned that I could only make withdrawals from my online e-ISA free of charge into a NatWest branch-based account. As I don't bank with NatWest, the only other account I held was an online e-Savings account. Unfortunately this wasn't suitable to withdraw the money into.

Finding the situation incredulous, I had a good few phone calls, web chats and some more branch visits to try and get clued up. Alas, everyone I spoke to gave me a different story about what was and wasn't possible. I was left with the impression that branch and online at Natwest are totally separate entities and that neither understand the other.

I decided to go with the suggestion from in branch and pay £23 to make a CHAPs transfer from my e-ISA to an external account. Having to pay to get access to my own money was pretty annoying, but given the situation I signed the paperwork and went on my way. The next morning, I got a phone call to tell me that CHAPs from an e-ISA to an external account was totally impossible (contrary to the previous days solid assurances), but that if I gave my verbal approval, they would fast-track me a branch-based account into which they could withdraw the e-ISA and then perform the CHAPs to my external account. I agreed and first thing the next day I checked my online statement to check everything had gone correctly.

At first glance, everything looked fine, but when I looked closer I noticed that the newly created savings account had £X (where X is many thousands of pounds) in it, and that my e-ISA had been debited £2X. That's right, the did what they told me was impossible and did the CHAPs direct from my e-ISA and ALSO transferred the amount out of my e-ISA into the new (and totally unnecessary) branch-based First Reserve account.

Brilliant work NatWest, I've been sheltering that money from tax in an ISA for nine years and you just withdrew £X for no reason and essentially without my permission. Understandably, I was pretty annoyed to discover this and headed down to the branch to get things sorted, reclaim my CHAPs fee (CHAPs is guaranteed within 24 hours, they didn't deliver) and open a formal complaint.

Below is my correspondence with NatWest:

"Dear [redacted],

Thank you for you letter dated 1st March 2010, your reference 12687022. I am still dissatisfied with NatWest as you have merely repaired the damage you caused, rather than offering any form of compensation for my wasted time and anguish.

As I explained to your staff, the withdrawal from my ISA was to complete my first house purchase. As I'm sure you appreciate, buying your first property is a very significant and stressful time, and to be let down by NatWest at such a critical moment is simply unacceptable. You made getting at my money quickly impossible, and everyone I dealt with (branch staff, numerous phone agents, web chat) provided a different answer about what was/wasn't possible given my combination of accounts. You seemed unable to understand your own products and I was the one left inconvenienced and unnecessarily stressed by your internal deficiencies. I got the impression from this experience that there is a gulf between your on-line and branch operations and in comparison with other retail banks I've dealt with, NatWest feels about 10 years behind what's current in terms of both on-line presence and customer service.

Although you have made good the £X you transferred out of my ISA account without authorisation and refunded my CHAPs payment fee (you were unable to comply with your own contract of same day transfer), I regard this as the bare minimum of your duty to me. I suggest £200 as an adequate amount of compensation commensurate with my time and anguish associated with this regrettable event. If you are unable to offer suitable compensation I shall proceed as advised by your complaints process by first contacting the Customer Relations Manager and then the Financial Ombudsman. I look forward to your prompt response.

Kind Regards

Tim Poultney"

"To: Customer Relations

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to you in accordance with the Natwest customer complaints procedure. Enclosed you will find a copy of my letter to [redacted] at your White City branch and also her response. For completeness, I have included a prior letter from , which I received shortly after the incident I am complaining about.

Please can you read both my letter to and their response dated 19th May. In my letter, I summarise my complaint and then request financial compensation from you in respect of time wasted and anguish suffered as a result of your banks incompetence. I am sure you place a high value on your customers happiness and satisfaction with you, and also on your reputation, so I anticipate a positive response from you. I'm not sure how I can be any clearer about what I expect from you than I was in my letter to dated 10th May; the response asking me to provide "the copy of your bills" suggest to me that they either didn't read my letter, didn't comprehend it, or lack sufficient power to act upon it.

To that end, can you respond to me directly and resolve this issue. In addition, can you share with me what steps you will be taking to ensure this type of situation does not happen again. If I am not satisfied with your response, I shall continue to follow your complaints process and will contact the Financial Ombudsman. I anticipate your prompt response.

Kind Regards,

Tim Poultney"

So eventually they refunded the £23 and provided £200 for my inconvenience after three letters.

Summary: Complaining is good. Despite the eventual outcome, I won't be banking with NatWest again. All my accounts there are now closed.

The Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone

2010-05-26T22:30:00.002+01:00

tWe've just completed a 3 night stay at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. The inn was built in 1903 by the Northern Pacific Railroad company to the design of 29 year-old architect Robert Reamer. It's a beautiful building and is the first example of, and blueprint for the National Park Service Rustic architectural style, otherwise known as Parkitechture. Robert Reamers rather inspired vision was that the building should seem to have sprung up from the ground, as if it had grown rather than been built. You can see this below in the use of lodge pole pine for the entirety of the lobby.

(Thanks to Kev for the loan of his 10-20mm for the above shot)

We stayed in the "new" west wing, added by Reamer in 1927 in room 4058 and a definite highlight of our stay was taking the hotel tour. The tour runs daily at 09:30 and 11:00 and we were guided by the excellent Mary. Mary was filled with fascinating facts and anecdotes, but the one which struck me the most was hearing about the hotel in Winter.

The hotel opens in early May (weather permitting) and closes in mid-October. When the hotel closes, all the soft furnishing are placed into storage, all the doors are locked and the windows are boarded. The electricity is switched off and the entire hotel sits out the winter cold and empty.

Yellowstone is full of seasonal staff from all over the place (I wish I'd done a season somewhere 10 years ago, you can apply for Yellowstone here) and although the Old Faithful Inn is closed throughout winter, the adjacent (and recent, completed in 1999) Old Faithful Snow Lodge is open through the winter and staffed by a hardcore breed of seasonal worker. I say hardcore because the weather is freezing, there's no TV and limited internet and travel is by either skis, snowmobile or snowcoach.

As Mary tells it, this year the Snow Lodge staff were given a special treat; the front door to the frozen Old Faithful Inn was unlocked for one night, and just enough electricity was turned on to power a projector. No heating or lighting was turned on and staff were instructed to turn up just before midnight, wearing all their clothes and bedding. With all the furniture in storage they sat on the floor to watch their cinematic treat.

What did their employer choose to show them as they sat freezing, in a cold, dark and deserted remote hotel? Have you twigged it yet? Of course they got to watch The Shining. Amazing scenes.

American pay phones are rubbish

2010-05-22T10:37:00.000+01:00

America is awesome, right? If you want to keep believing that I suggest you never use a pay phone here, and particularly not one operated by Qwest. From my previous post, you'll know that I'm in Yellowstone National Park. There is no connectivity here – no mobile reception (well, there is if you're American, but O2 have no roaming), and no wi-fi. Whilst I highly approve of keeping things this way and leaving the parks as a retreat, I wasn't expecting quite such a kerfuffle from trying to phone home.

Armed with $6 of quarters, we approached the payphone and followed the printed advice: “For an international call, dial 0 for the operator”. Alas, there was no operator, just a machine requesting an area code and number. FAIL #1. Next I tried the standard international dialling pattern in the US of 011-, this took ages to connect and eventually just said “error 16”. FAIL#2. Next, I tried calling the Qwest number on the phone and got through to Danny who said he'd be happy to connect my call for me. I gave Danny my credit card details and everything was going well until he asked for my zip code. “Is this an international card?” asked Danny quizzically, “Oh, I'm sorry we only accept US cards sir”. Way to go Qwest, make it impossible to accept card payments for the calls which will make you the most money. FAIL #4.

I was reaching boiling point by now, so we went back to the hotel and sought some advice. “Get a calling card” was the tip, so we headed over to the store and exchanged our quarters for a said item, which was pleasingly Yellowstone branded. This went a little smoother, although on the first call I made, the recipient could hear me, but I couldn't hear a thing; and of course I got charged for it. FAIL #5. Finally I was able to successfully make the call, but man did it take a lot longer and involve way more complexity than I was expecting. Lesson learned, America is the land of the brave, and the home of the free, unless of course you want to dial internationally from a pay phone.

Yellowstone

2010-05-21T19:07:00.002+01:00

I'm in Yellowstone, the first National Park ever created in the United States. It's a big place, comprising 2.2 million acres and although it's highly accessible to visitors it's still a wilderness, with only 370 miles of road and less than 1% of the park developed for tourism. Further contributing to the wildness is the abundance of wildlife including: bears (black and 'griz'), bison, moose, elk, deer, mountain lions, wolves, bald eagles and more. As if that wasn't enough, Yellowstone is a geological marvel – it sits atop a huge volcano and contains over 50% of the world's geysers, plus hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles.

The main tourist experience consists of driving around a figure eight of roads established in 1905 by the US Army Engineers Corps. There's plenty of goodness to be had by planning out an itinerary of hikes and sights, but I've found that the most rewarding experiences so far are the unplanned, unexpected and impromptu. I'm still feeling humbled today from our stroke of luck whilst driving back to the hotel last night. As we drove back towards Mammoth from the Lamar Valley (a.k.a. the American Serengeti), we spotted a long line of tail lights and a large number of vehicles parked at the side of the road at the Blacktail Ponds turnout. As we approached the turnout, I could see flashes of movement from the field below and the tripods and cameras lined up on the road side. You quickly learn that in the park, collections of cars parked off road means animals and from the number parked here it was clear that something special was happening.

After parking safely (always pull completely off the road, y'all) and walking back we discovered that the focus of all the attention was a pair of grizzly bears protecting a bison carcass from a pack of wolves. Wolves are endangered in North America and were controversially reintroduced to Yellowstone back in 1995, so just seeing a wild wolf is rare enough, but to see the interaction between a pack and a pair of grizzlies I think we were incredibly lucky. Over the next hour as the sun set and the light faded we watched on entranced as the wolves circled the bears and then darted in, only to fall back as the bears charged and swiped at them. After a while, all but the alpha wolf retreated away up the hill and we assumed that the show was drawing to a close. However, the alpha wolf continued to stalk and harass the bears. Suddenly the wolves began to howl; a solitary voice was quickly joined by others as the hillside lit up with this eerie and haunting song.

Information was being passed from person to person, most of it originating from the park rangers so we came to learn that the bears were a mother and three-year-old cub, and that a total of nine wolves were out on the hillside. We also learned that until very recently the bison carcass had been frozen into the lake, but since being exposed by the thaw the bears had been dragging it out of the water and guarding it from all comers. The wolves must have been attracted by the carcass (May has been enjoying the way uncommon words have crept into conversation – I've never heard or uttered the word carcass as much as in this week) as the rangers didn't know of a local pack or den.

Just as we were preparing to leave, someone beside us proffered her binoculars and said “Have you seen the third grizzly coming down the hill?”. Sure enough, a larger and much darker bear was charging down the hillside, scattering the wolves as he made a beeline for the carcass. We learned from the ranger that this was a male bear, and when he approached the carcass the female bears backed right off. In the twilight we watched the male bear settle down on the carcass, as the females looked on and the alpha wolf continued to circle. The whole experience felt like watching a segment from Planet Earth unfold right in front of us and was totally captivating – I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of that wolf howl as it echoed up the hillside. People we've bumped into since have confirmed how lucky we were to see this as even regular visitors have rarely seen a wolf, let alone a whole pack harassing grizzly bears.

As if to reinforce my feeling that the park is best experienced serendipitously, my efforts to catch a repeat performance this morning by getting up before dawn drew a blank. I arrived by 05:45 and found both the turnout and the roadside full of cars. I joined the line-up of tripods and my only reward was a single coyote. I think I'll stop trying and trust the rest of the holiday to luck.

Devising a new household budget

2010-04-02T00:21:00.006+01:00

We've finally bought a house so the finances are under scrutiny. I've been analysing the joint account transactions from the last year with a view to generating a new budget plan for this year and have discovered the following:

~43% of our spending goes on food (food + eating out + veg box)
We spend more on TV licence than broadband (I know which I get better value from)
Our veg box costs more than our water rates

The categorisation was only done roughly so I'm sure the "Food" category contains plenty which isn't but it was easiest to just mark all Sainos and M&S spending as food.

We're also switching the joint account from Cahoot (who don't do faster payments, still!) to A&L so this data was all extracted from Cahoot. Alas they have no nice export tools, so this is all derived from a lot of cut & pasting and Google Spreadsheets.

(click for big)

Depressing realities of modern Britain

2010-01-08T23:06:00.003Z

You've seen it on the news I'm sure, a marginalised, extremist group is planning to march through a Wiltshire town in protest over innocent Afghans killed in the war. This has, as no doubt was intended, caused a public outcry and a good old media frenzy. I personally don't see what all the fuss is about, sure I find the group in question abhorrent, but we are lucky enough to live in a democracy where we have the right to freedom of speech. If any individual or group goes beyond the limitations on freedom of speech, that quite rightly becomes a legal matter.

As we saw with Nick Griffin on Question Time, providing freedom of speech allows individuals and groups to represent themselves and show their true colours; it also allows the public to draw their own conclusions. People, as they say, can be their own worst enemies. The best course of action would be to ignore the group in question, show the classic British stiff upper lip, strength of character and resolve. By reacting and providing media coverage, we make the group seem more influential and powerful than they really are; this is typically the goal of such an action.

I hadn't really given this much thought until I spotted a few of my connections on Facebook (I will not use the term friends in this instance, and may have to review the policy) had joined various Facebook groups organised to protest against the proposed march. I also got pinged a link by Morcs which started me reading the content of some of these groups. I can only say that what I found was deeply depressing and saddening; the majority of comments are racist and xenophobic. They also feature a startlingly poor standard of literacy and there is a worrying amount of claimed support for the BNP and EDL.

To save your eyes, I'll summarise the common themes. For your sanity I've corrected the spelling and grammar rather than quote verbatim:

"I'm not racist but "

"The BNP aren't racist, they just tell it like it is"

"If they want to march, they can go and march in

"If you don't like it, go back home" (What? To London/Bristol/Winchester/?)

"I'm pure white British and proud" (Umm... 18,000 years ago your genetics started out in Western Asia, or more recently you could be Roman, or Norse?)

"They should all be rounded up all be rounded up an "

"If they don't like our laws they can stop taking all our benefits and jobs and go back where they came from"

"I'm not racist, my friend is Muslim/Pakistani/etc, but "

I don't think I have the heart for further summary, if you can bear it you can read for yourself here, or specific examples here and here (don't say I didn't warn you).

The overriding message seems to be that the majority of responders on these groups (the largest has over 600k members) think that if you're not white, you're not British and that if you're not British you should be shipped out of the country. Is this really what the majority of modern Brits think? And people complain that we no longer have any national pride, I for one can't see much to be proud of right now.

Words as pictures: Snow

2010-01-07T17:56:00.001Z

(I can't claim the credit for this one, it's from NASA's MODIS system which delivers near real-time satellite imagery)

Digital Media Bill and writing to my MP

2009-11-26T13:43:00.004Z

There was a flurry of activity on the Interweb this week related to the proposed UK Digital Media Bill, with lots of people linking to this rather biased and inflammatory article. After tracking down and reading the proposed bill, the only area for concern that I can really agree with is the section that entitles the Secretary of State to modify the bill at will without consultation.

Rather than signing this petition, I used the excellent writetothem.com to contact my MP Mark Oaten. I did this on Tuesday 24th, sending the following:

"Dear Mark Oaten,

I write to you to express my concern over the proposed Digital Economy Bill, and in particular section 17, 302A (from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/10001.13-19.html)

"(1) The Secretary of State may by order amend Part 1 or this Part for the purpose of preventing or reducing the infringement of copyright by means of the internet, if it appears to the Secretary of State appropriate to do so having regard to technological developments that

have occurred or are likely to occur."

If I've understood correctly, this means that the current and any future Secretary of State can modify this bill at any time in line with the purpose WITHOUT a changes being publicised and voted in.

This seems quite worrying to me.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Poultney"

In the post today I have the following response from Mr Oaten:

Now that's good service. If you've never tried it before I can recommend writing to your MP.

Hilton Grand Vacations Club Vilamoura, or how I didn't buy a timeshare

2009-10-17T16:33:00.002+01:00

I've spent a lot of time in Hilton hotels with work this year and I seem to have attained enough status to be graced with a gamut of their targeted marketing offers. It could well be they just spammed all their loyalty club members but I've chosen to think I'm special. Either way, back in June I was invited to enjoy 3 nights/4 days at the 5* Hilton Vilamoura with breakfast, unlimited spa usage and a €50 dinner voucher as part of a special package for the bargaintacular price of €235. Given my Hilton status, a room upgrade was a cert and with a glut of cheap flights to the Algarve readily available, I booked up immediately.

To qualify for the special price, all I had to do was "meet certain age and financial qualifications and attend a two–hour vacation ownership presentation" (ts&cs). "Easy", thought I and started planning elaborate ways of getting through the presentation with either the minimum of fuss or the maximum of lols. As the departure date loomed and I talked to friends about the impending hard sell, I started to get a tiny bit anxious and the lack of available information about the process on the web didn't help to calm my nerves.

As it turned out, there wasn't really anything to worry about. We arrived at 10am as instructed and were met by "Hannah" (name changed) who was our host for the presentation. She made some slightly awkward small talk and then started asking us about our holiday habits. We answered honestly but threw in a few intentional spanners ("we like skiing, but cross country not downhill, so usually at specialised resorts", "on a long holiday we often like to stay in 4-5 different locations") to see how she'd spin the pitch for us.

After sussing us out, she moved us on to the informational wall of posters giving the headlines about Hilton Grand Vacations Club before sitting us back down to run through the detail of how the scheme works and then painting us a picture of how we could be members of HGVC. I should point out as well that she didn't use the word "timeshare" until about 25 minutes in, apparently "vacation ownership" is the new phrase.

The idea of the club is that you buy a certain number of vacation points a year for a fixed price and also pay a maintenance/membership charge every year. Memberships are available in either 15 or 28 year durations (gulp) and rather than buying a particular week which is fixed for the duration of your contract like people did in the 80s, you buy a number of points related to a number of weeks, in a particular season and type of accommodation. Each Hilton Grand Vacation Club uses the same points structure, so you can (in theory) enjoy the same standard of holiday around the world. Hannah's suggestion for us was to buy 3400 points, which is the equivalent of a 1 bedroom apartment (sleeps 4) in Gold season (aka mid-season).

You can either deposit points or borrow points one year either side of your current year, meaning you can have 3 years of points to use in a single year and spend them on a whole bunch of holidays in a variety of locations. Additionally, if you travel in different seasons then the same type of accommodation costs fewer/more points. Continuing our 1 bed example a Platinum week costs 4800, Gold 3400, Silver 2400 and Bronze 1700. Furthermore you can spend your Hilton Vacation Club points on stays at RCI timeshare properties and even swap them for Hilton HHonors points at a rate of 1 HGVC to 25 HHonors.

Hannah used her language carefully throughout the presentation, with a great deal of allusion to exclusivity and grandeur and when she finally got around to the price it really did feel like a big reveal. The price we were offered was for 3400 points a year for 15 years and had 2 components: an upfront price of €7800 and yearly maintenance subscription of €500 + $130 (annoying currency mix!). So, at today's exchange rate that's ~£1050 a year for one week in a one bedroom apartment. Also, while talking about the pricing, the focus was placed on the upfront price, which almost made you forget about the maintenance charge which is pretty clever because the maintenance charge actually doubles the price. When talking about the prices Hannah carefully used phrases like "could you afford.." for quite some time until I pointed out that there's a big difference between "could" and "would".

The sales pitch was delivered very well, and I can see that it might work out for a certain type of person, but it certainly wasn't for us. That said, the pitch was delivered so well that May got a little bit hypnotised and I had to remind her that we'd come for a cheap holiday, not to buy vacation ownership. We probably had to say "no" firmly 4 or 5 times and withstand some dubious reasoning (favourite line: "but you'd spend £1000 on a camping holiday!") before we escaped, but actually when it came down to it the sell wasn't hard at all and none of it was uncomfortable.

While writing this up and reflecting on it, I've had a good chance to think about it and I think for us there were 3 flaws in the sale.

1) Although the scheme claims flexibility, the fact that ultimately someone has to be offering a week in the place that you want to go to for you to be able to book it makes it ultimately inflexible.
2) It's expensive. A quick Google for 1 bed apartments in Vilamoura suggests that the market rate is £250-600. Although the property is lovely, I'm not sure it's an extra £500 of lovely.
3) During the presentation, Hannah said that one of the classic problems with timeshare is that people buy the wrong week. On investigation, I think she was trying to sell us the wrong week. Our points allocation would have enabled us to visit the Vilamoura resort in weeks 1-13, 16-19 and 44-45 (for 2010, that's 1st Jan-4th Apr, 16th Apr-16th May and 29th Oct-14th Nov). If you're considering Vilamoura, I think you need to buy Platinum as 33 weeks of the year are classed as Platinum.

If you want to read more, the Timeshare Users Group is pretty useful and the Hilton Grand Vacations Club Members Guide containing all the small print is publically available here: http://www.hiltongrandvacations.com/mg/

Banksy v Museum

2009-08-20T22:58:00.003+01:00

Before going away to India I organised a little surprise for May that we could both enjoy on my return. When we saw the fuss about Banksy secretly taking over Bristol museum for the summer we said "we must go to that", so I booked train tickets and a one night stay in the Hotel du Vin Bristol via an Asperity "Great Mates" offer of £69 B&B. I told May to pack an overnight bag and be home from work by 5pm on the Friday and then bundled her onto the bus down to the station. At the station she was certain we were headed for London and she remained pleasingly puzzled for the rest of the journey. Only when we disembarked in Bristol did she put it all together and realise that we'd come for Banksy.

The Hotel du Vin Bristol was excellent, we checked in and were personally guided up to our lovely room. The bedroom was large and well appointed and the bathroom had a freestanding bath and huge wet room style shower. As I'd landed from India that morning, I was flagging by this point and rather than going out to eat we ordered some delicious room service (mussels for May, pork Milanese for me) and retired. In the morning I felt rather smug as for the first time in my life I was the first person into the breakfast room. As we ate we eyeballed the rival couples as they came in and started playing "guess who's going to Banksy". As we checked out, it transpired that seemingly everyone from the HdV was headed for Banksy which gave me a nice sense of belonging to a slightly smug, luxury hotel and culture loving set of people.

We were out of the hotel a little later than we'd planned, so we got to the museum at 09:45 which turned out to be a little late. The doors open at 10am, but by the time we arrived the queue was already ballistic. I think we'd overestimated the exhibition waning in popularity and underestimated the effect of being there on a Saturday. As we looked for the back of the queue, we got our first taste of the takeover on spotting a disheveled Ronald McDonald perched on a ledge way up high above the door forlornly clutching a half-empty bottle of spirits.

We ended up queueing for 2 hours 20 minutes, but it wasn't too arduous as the queue was incredibly well managed and everyone was very friendly. When we arrived the queue was split into 3 sections, a short section along the pavement, a long section of wiggling barriers down a closed road and then the queue into the museum. To prevent the queue from blocking the frontage of shops and restaurants, there's a gap between the first and second queues and you need a stamp on your hand to from the second queue to get into the first. Helpfully there's an ice cream van integrated into the queue and also lot of helpful signs giving you an indication of how much time you have left to wait.

On entry you're given a Banksyfied museum guide to help you find the "boring old plates" and "dead things in boxes". In the exhibition there are 3 large rooms given over totally to Banksy works and then other pieces interspersed with the museum's normal exhibits. This works really well as you end up experiencing the museums impressive collection almost by stealth as you play hunt the Banksy. Banksy's work is subversive, relevant, witty, laugh-out-loud funny and often very close to the bone. His art is deliciously immediate, but sometimes forgettable - there were some very memorable pieces but I'm not sure how many of the 111 on display I could tell you about in detail. My personal highlight was the insightful room of Banksy's stuff containing sketches, plans, cut-outs, photos and spray cans; the picture below was inspired by a newspaper clipping which had a photo of a group of riot police looking stern in a field, the telling scribble on the clipping read "make them skip".

Picture used under creative commons, taken by jo92

We spent about 2 and a half hours in the exhibition and I was struck by just what a clever exhibition it is. It's turned Bristol into a must-visit destination this summer and also highlighted how good Bristol museum is even without any Banksy work in it. The real genious is the way the way in which the Banksy pieces are interwoven with the permanent collection, inviting you to learn about dinosaurs, geology, chinese history and more as you search out the Banksy touches.

The exhibition runs until August 31st, so stop reading this now, grab your best queueing boots and go.

Status: July

2009-08-01T19:11:00.001+01:00

July 1

08:58 Tim is headed for Prague. Woo!

12:55 Tim is on the 13.10 easyJet Stansted to Prague. See you in a bit.

15:31 Tim has landed in Prague, going to try and find somewhere to watch the Murray match.

July 2

00:17 Tim has a sweepstake on what time Jezworld will get to bed.

00:25 Tim is suffering unnecessary hicoughs. Boo.

11:06 Tim is pretty glad he's a very deep sleeper.

July 3

02:30 Tim has had a long day in Prague. In bed now with tip top room mate Jezworld within touching distance.

13:51 Tim just had some amazing games of table football. I'd forgotten how much fun it is,.

14:30 Tim is drinking Schofferhofer, raffing free wifi from the Haagendaz shop and watching the Prague bin men collect dvds and cds out of the bins they're emptying.

19:37 Tim is a good mixer.

22:26 Tim has pretty much had enough beer.

23:48 Tim had his buttons pushed, and crossed the line.

July 4

02:24 Tim is up late with Jez and Paul.

14:02 Tim is photographing the lightning behind Prague Castle while waiting for the airport transfer.

20:48 Tim is back in the UK, done Stansted Express and traversed London, now on the train to Winch from Waterloo. Beautiful evening.

July 6

08:34 Tim is not happy to be back on the commuter train, the only thing keeping me going is the 'nodding dog' sleeping woman opposite. Head slumps down, head goes up, down, up, down, up...

15:38 Tim is really going to Delhi. Passport sent of to the Visa office and vaccinations tomorrow.

21:49 Tim is trying to think about his 30th birthday celebrations. Suggestions? Who wants to come?

July 7

11:20 Tim has got tickets for Orbital at the Brixton Academy on September 25th, woop woop! Thanks Jaye. :).

16:40 Tim is headed home early to pick up an A3 demonstrator (yay) and get vaccinations for India (boo).

20:41 Tim is arms full of various diseases following vaccinations for Delhi. Only had a minor freak out. It's tricky, do you assume you'll be fine and apply pressure to yourself OR assume you'll freak and become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

22:43 Tim 's right arm hurts real bad. Bet you a fiver that one was diphtheria, tetanus and polio.

July 8

14:49 Tim can confirm he is still alive and not in a vaccination induced coma. I just had a very long sleep.

July 9

18:34 Tim is going to meet Paul's baby!

23:12 Tim is on the most packed, pissed head filled, South West trains disaster yet.

July 10

20:33 Tim had a sweet bit of tapas with Da Heath and his amazing hair. Good to catch up.

July 11

16:19 Tim is a bit concerned he might be turning into a tooth gnasher.

22:48 Tim failed to retain his title as Tesco Basingstoke charity quiz champion by 1/2 a point.

July 13

16:36 Tim is listening to Backdoor Boogie on his shiny new iPod Nano. BB makes up about 25% of the tunes on there right now.

July 14

08:30 Tim is getting to know some commuting faces. Today I have spotted grumpy laptop wielding middle aged woman who I saw yesterday. She's doing spreadsheets again, like she always is. I wonder what she's calculating?

15:28 Tim would like to be a Goldman Sachs employee right now please. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/07/goldman_recession_what_recessi.html.

20:20 Tim is arrrrghhhhshutupshutupshutupyouheavybreathingtrainfreakazoidarrrrrrggggghhhhhshutup.

23:31 Tim is the motherflippin'. Who's the motherflippin'? Rhymenocerous and Hiphopopotamus ftw.

July 15

11:37 Tim suffered a total power failure this morning. Netbook, phone and iPod all ran out of juice on the commute to work.

18:38 Tim got pwned by the London Bridge escalator failure and missed his train. Diversion cost me vital minutes in my finely tuned commute plan.

18:53 Tim wouldn't have made the train even if the London Bridge escalator had been working - all the escalators up from the Jubilee line were out of action too. 3/4 broken and 1 coming down. Knob jockeys.

July 18

16:04 Tim short 2.5k run today http://is.gd/1DkhY - followed by retail therapy in town. I'm propping up the economy with home wares.

20:55 Tim is off to Dean's for cocktails. In your faces!

July 16

08:35 Tim is making a start on season 1 of 24 on his new iPod.

14:43 Tim 's sore teeth are being caused by an inflamed gum. Hard brushing and Corsodyl is the prescription.

July 17

08:07 Tim has done his morning Corsodyl mouthwash , it is horrible. I suspect it's going to make my breakfast on the train taste rank. Damn you inflamed gums!

12:54 Tim has an unreasonable Borough Market rage. So much bimbling.

18:44 Tim is on the train trying out his new tablet laptop. The handwriting recognition is pretty impressive.

July 19

19:16 Tim is packing for Delhi. Passport, check. Immodium, check. Deet, check.

July 20

08:58 Tim is hanging about in the BA lounge at T5. Already had a robot chair massage and now having breakfast. It's nice, but it's no Virgin.

19:21 Tim has landed in Delhi and eventually found his driver in the sea of faces. It's very hot and the traffic is pretty manic. Lots of horn honking.

July 21

20:26 Tim has had a good first day in India. I survived the commute, got treated unsettlingly like royalty at work, had a swim, had my first genuine Indian curry (chana masala) and had a nice chat with May.

July 22

06:46 Tim is cooler today, but the traffic was more mental. There was a total solar eclipse this morning between 06:20 and 06:25 and the newspaper has a story on how expecting mothers don't want to give birth today as it's bad luck.

15:11 Tim can't believe he missed this centuries longest total eclipse. I could have seen that if I'd known. Gutted.

20:18 Tim has had a good 2nd day. Work was good and I caused some office hilarity with my Hindi phrases. Ran some 12 minutes of intervals on the running machine and then went back to Bikanervala (Indian Burger King) for thali which cost me £1.50. I've also ponied up for the internet at the hotel - £65 for 7 days!

July 23

13:53 Tim just got taken outside to see the rain that arrived in Delhi. It was spectacular, torrential rain with huge raindrops.

14:57 Tim is going to Barbecue Nation in Gurgaon with Mr Guarav: http://www.barbeque-nation.com/.

July 24

07:42 Tim remembered to turn the aggressive hotel aircon back on before going to sleep last night (unlike Weds), but still had bad dreams. Maybe it's the curry?

08:21 Tim just went through the fire drill in the office. Down 7 flights of stairs, stand in the blazing sun for 10 mins and then back up 7 flights. Sweating profusely.

19:04 Tim has finished his first working week in Delhi. Bed now as I'm going to the Taj Mahal tomorrow and the tour sets off at 06:30 (that's 2am British time difference fans).

July 25

07:19 Tim is totally at the Taj Mahal.

11:49 Tim is on the way back from Agra. The repetitious tour guide has lodged facts in my head. Taj Mahal means crown palace, completed in 22 years, built by 6th king in memory of late wife...

14:56 Tim is nearly back from Agra (I think), I feel like I've been in this car forever.

July 26

07:55 Tim just had an Avurvedic massage and steam bath, very nice it was too. Now off into Delhi for some shopping and tourism.

11:05 Tim is queueing to get into Akshardam in Delhi.

15:14 Tim just set a new distance record on the treadmill, 4km in 21mins. Got some badass assisted stretches from the nice Crowne Plaza gym guy afterwards too. Knackered now.

July 27

16:48 Tim is lolling at the discovery that his hotel classes Fosters as "Indian Beer".

21:50 Tim is awake with mild Delhi Belhi. I guess it had to happen.

July 28

17:08 Tim is in need of some nail scissors. Rampant big toe nail alert. Perhaps I'll see if I can find that roadside camel again for a trim.

July 29

15:31 Tim only one more day in the office in India, then home tomorrow night. My Indian colleagues threw a rather sweet "farewell tea party" for me today.

16:35 Tim was going to got out for dinner, but just looked at the time an realised that I have to pack for coming home. Room service to the rescue, although I am unnecessarily covered in insect repellent.

July 30

07:46 Tim had homemade aloo parantha and pickle made by Geeta's Mum for breakfast. It was delish.21:27 Tim now onboard BA142 from Delhi to Heathrow. Club World seat 12K in the sharp end of the plane.

12:19 Tim is hitting a n00b tolerance wall in the office. I'm ready to come home now.

15:34 Tim has finished work and said goodbyes. I have a lovely card and an 'interesting' gift. Now I just have to kill time until take off at 02:45 . 6 hours 45 to go.

17:53 Tim killed a good amount of time with a synchronised massage at the hotel. I can confirm that double the therapists equals more the twice the enjoyment.

19:06 Tim has said a sad farewell to Mr Satpal and is checked in at Delhi airport. I am gonna miss having a driver.

July 31

06:49 Tim is back back back back yay woo yay! Landed early so trapped on the plane waiting for the buses to get to T5.

09:11 Tim had a shower, a shave, breakfast and a massage in the T5 arrivals lounge. Now in the car home, 10 mins till May! Woo!

17:09 Tim has engaged operation Surprise May Treat!

19:41 Tim is pretty pleased that May still has no idea where she's going.

21:41 Tim will put you all out of your misery. I've brought May to Bristol. Staying in the Hotel du Vin and then going o the Banksy exhibition today.

Delhi bound

2009-07-20T19:46:00.003+01:00

NOTE: I've edited this post to move the beligerant travel rant to the end of the post, so to find out how I got to Delhi, you'll have to wait.

I land at around 23:15 and on entering Delhi airport I first pass the health check desk where white coated, mask wearing staff take my swine flu questionnaire (it pretty much boiled down to "do you have swine flu? - y / n") before I can clear immigration. At baggage reclaim there are about 5 guys per active conveyor who lift the bags down to the ground. Past customs, the exit channel brings a sea of bobbing name plaques and I walk slowly down struggling to find my name. By the end, I still haven't spotted it, so I walk up the sides and finally spot my name and thus my driver. As we exit the airport and just at the moment that the heat hits me, I see four guys all mopping the same bit of floor. No one stops or walks around where they've cleaned, everyone just goes straight over the top; I wonder if the clean/walk cycle goes on forever?

Did I mention it's hot? I think the pilot said 32 degrees, but it feels hotter and it's now past midnight. A short walk to the car park reveals my transport for the next 2 weeks, it's some kind of 4x4. There's a newspaper for me on the back seat. On the way out of the car park, one guy is writing down the number plates as the cars leave, while another takes payment. There are a lot of people doing a lot of jobs. Getting out of the airport is interesting, there are about 5 lanes of traffic crammed into 3 lanes of road, with the situation worsened by checkpoints where blockades introduce a chicance and take it down to 2 lanes. The cars seem to drive inches apart from one another, both front and back and at the sides. There's a sharp contrast between cars with a single passenger (like me) and those that are overflowing with Indians and luggage. Auto-rickshaws (tuk tuks), mopeds and motorbikes weave through the traffic, beeping their horns and flashing their lights. In fact, everyone is beeping their horns and flashing their lights. A pretty girl wearing a headscarf and riding side saddle on the back of a motorbike pulls level with my taxi, I smile at her and she smiles back.

At the final blockade there are 3 armed guards from the Delhi police. They aren't stopping anyone and one of them yawns lazily as we drive past. Between the airport and the expressway I see people with no shoes lying on top of burnt out cars, I see small, simple brick buildings with open fronts and bright lights, I see a herd of cows and calves mingling with the traffic and causing more beeping horns. By this time, the traffic has thinned out. On the expressway there is no lane discipline, save that of being half in 2 lanes most of the time. More beeping and flashing as we weave through the traffic, over and undertaking. Thankfully the inches between vehicles have increased to feet. In the back of a lorry with its rear gate half open, two pairs of eyes flash back at me from amongst the boxes and crates. We overtake the pretty girl in the headscarf, she has no helmet and her head is pressed into her driver's back; she is still riding side saddle.

The hotel offers up more security. This time 2 guys with metal detectors and 1 with a shotgun. The driver pops the bonnet and opens the boot so that the metal detectors can do their dectecting. I enquire if this is normal, it is; it happens every day. I'm momentarily blinded as my glasses steam up as I step out of the car. My luggage magically vanishes while I tip the driver. I'm greeted with a smile and a bow by a man in traditional dress and I have to walk through an airport style metal detector to get into the lobby. My bag is inspected by another man with a metal detector. Once I've checked in, the guy tells me he'll take me to the room and arrange for my luggage to be brought up. He picks up the phone and dials, I hear the phone ring on the desk opposite, about 20 feet away. In the lift there's another smiling, bowing staff member. After guiding me to the room, the check-in guy insist that I sit down and "make myself comfortable after a long flight" while he takes me through the paperwork.

The room is impressive and well equipped - perhaps the best hotel room I've ever stayed in. The pillow menu tantalisingly offers "The Wheat Pillow - Our grandmother's pillow, filled with 100% grains of wheat." AND "The 'Anti-Stress Millet Pillow - Allows you to evacuate stress and muscular tensions filled with 100% gains of millet.". Along with the pillow menu and all the standard hotel items there is a BOSE SoundWave, 3 500ml bottles of complimentary TATA water and a huge, glass walled, wetroom style bathroom with both a monsoon shower and freestanding bath. Speaking of the bathroom, it's getting late so I'm going to go and brush my teeth with bottled water and then get to bed. More later in the week.

I awoke at 05:45 this morning and got picked up from the house at 06:15. I got to Heathrow for 07:40 and checked in at the T5 business class desks (section G fyi). Next I t ook the "Fast Track" through security which turned out to be the slow track. In the BA Lounge, I hit the Elemis Travel Spa and had a 15 minute acupressure massage from an "intelligent chair". The back and legs bits worked well, but the combination of squeezing foam pads and rotating rollers on the feet was a little bit unpleasant and claustrophobic. I grabbed a thorough breakfast consisting of: a bacon roll, mushroom roll, fruit, pastries, bran flakes with dried apricots, sparkling water and green tea.

On boarding I proceed to my "cocoon" at 14E, I wish I'd spoken to Adam before I chose my seat as in retrospect I think a backward facing window seat is actually the best option. The Club World seat is spacious, comfotable and highly adjustable, and travelling backwards is certainly a novelty even for a jaded flyer like me, but it felt like there was less privacy than in Virgin Upper Class. The service was pretty hit and miss, with long delays waiting for tray clearance and the need to remind the crew for your sparkling water a few times before it actually arrived. The inflight entertainment selection was also lacklustre and had nothing I really wanted to watch. I settled for "In The Loop" to check out the gratuitous swearing as penned by Simpso's Uncle and then Trans Siberian which was a mediocre thriller featuring Woody Harelson as a meek Christian.

How to cook a perfect poached egg (the easy way)

2009-07-12T23:01:00.005+01:00

Eggs are amazing, and undeniably poached eggs are the finest of all the eggs. However, they're fiddly to do well and getting the cooking time right can be tricky. Most of the recommended cooking methods involve making a vortex in the boiling water and adding some vinegar, but having used this method for a number of years, I found it produced unpredictable results and made for a washing up is a nightmare.

It sounds pretty weird, but I suggest you try poaching your eggs using cling film. This is a cooking tip that I picked up from b3ta a couple of years ago, and have spent a while perfecting.

You will need:

A fresh egg
A mug, or glass
A square piece of cling film
A little oil

Start by tearing off a square of cling film and laying it over your mug/glass to create a shallow plastic well. Ensure that the centre of the cling film is in the middle of your receptacle. Grease the inside of the well by adding a drop of oil and running it around the with your finger (this makes for easier egg removal).

Next, crack your egg into the ready-greased well, then carefully gather the corners of the cling film together - I usually pick a starting corner, grab the opposite corner and move around until I have all the corners neatly together. Next, seal the egg in by twisting the cling film round. Make sure you remove all the air from the cling film pouch when you do this as air bubbles prevent perfect cooking.

Finally, loosely tie the top of the cling film and your egg is ready to cook. If you're doing a batch, you can pop it on the side now while you wrap your other eggs.

To cook, bring a saucepan containing enough water to cover the eggs to a fast bubbling boil, and then drop your eggs into the pan. Set a timer for 4 minutes and then use the cooking time to get on with making your toast/beans/tea/coffee etc.

Once 4 minutes is up, fish the eggs out of the water and pop them on the side.

To serve, cut the knot off the top of the parcel and gently pull the cling film apart to release the egg. I usually go straight from the cling film to the top of the toast.

Voila! A lovely poached egg, cooked on the outside and runny in the middle with no messy washing up. Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Please note that the example is quite a long way from my normal standard. I was so caught up in taking the photos that I ignored the timer for a bit too long and also burnt the bacon. May was not impressed.

Spotify. The next big thing?

2009-07-08T22:09:00.003+01:00

Spotify is somewhat old news. It launched silently launched in the UK back in October last year and received a small amount of press coverage at the beginning of this year. Spotify provides a free streaming music service over the internet, it's like iTunes but you can only listen when you're online. The other key difference from iTunes is that you can listen to full tracks and albums free of charge.

At launch, Spotify was invite only so that they could control their growth rate. I recieved an invite from Morcs back in January and after signing up I quickly dismissed the concept when I discovered hat I'd have to install some client software on my PC to use it. "You're going to stream me music, and you want me to install something? Haven't you heard of software as a service?" I cried in an indignant technological rage. A few months later, when there was a lot of noise amongst my friends and colleagues about Spotify I bit the bullet and installed the client. I've been using it for about 6 weeks now, and I'm so impressed with it that I've become something of a Spotify bore/zealot.

Here's the key reasons that I'm so impressed:

It's a free, legal internet music service which has the support of the record industry - The record industry have been absolute dullards when it comes to harnessing the internet as a platform for retail and distribution (a topic worth a whole post in the future I think). Despite the idiocy of the music industry and their currently small user base, Spotify already have buy in from Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner and have commited to provide their entire catalogues for your listening pleasure. They've also recently signed Record Union, who are a distributer for independent artists, so hopefully this will bring even more interest to the music available. Currently, they're adding around 150k tracks a week - I've seen the fruits of this as searches for artists which I like initially returned zero hits and are now returning entire discographies (6.9 hours of Hybrid anyone?).

Excellent audio quality and user experience - Spotify uses the Ogg q5 codec which is roughly 160kbps and sounds great. Search results are returned lightning fast and even though they're streamed to you, tracks start playing almost instantly (it turns out that you need to install a client because P2P techniques are used, which I'm sure helps with the instant play feature). Spotify even works reliably over a 3G connection.

Playlists, sharing and collaboration - You can create your own playlists quickly by dragging and dropping albums and tracks. Brilliantly, playlists are tied to your login not your computer so they are accesible wherever you login from. Tracks, albums and playlists can be shared with friends via simple HTTP links, and playlists can be made public so others can add to your existing song selections.

Spotify radio - Only want to listen to 80s disco? No problem, With buttons to select time periods and music types, you can let Spotify play you tracks randomly based on your choices.

So what's the catch then? Well, crucially you can currently only use Spotify when you're both at your computer and online. In addition, the free service is paid for by adverts, so every 20 minutes or so, a 30 seconds audio advert get played inbetween tracks. At the moment these are invariably hilariously lo-fi and I haven't found them irritating, although with a limited selection of ads at the moment they can get pretty repetitive. I'm finding the adverts are a small sacrifice in exchange for unlimited, high quality, legal music online. Further, this catch actually leads onto another great Spotify strength:

Smart premium options - currently there are 2 premium options available in the UK, a monthly subscriptions (£9.99) or a day pass (£0.99). Both bring the benefit of no advertising, and the monthly premium option also brings a higher quality stream (Ogg q9 which is roughly 320kbps), unlimited use of Spotify while abroad and additional invites so you can share Spotify with your friends. The day pass is particularly clever as it enables you to put together a party playlist which you can then stream advert-free all day for less than the price of a loaf of bread. For more nerdy types, the premium subscription also enables you to use the open source DeSpotify client if you wish (The free service blocks DeSpotify, and rightly so).

Looking forwards, Spotify are certainly one to watch. I firmly believe they have the potential to revolutionise how we buy, store and listen to music. So what can we expect from them in the future? Well, given that they've just added their first audiobook, perhaps they will branch out into delivering other types of media such as TV shows or movies. Mobile clients have already been confirmed with iPhone and Android apps in development, and their jobs section suggests they're also working on a client for Nokia's S60 handsets. In the video below, you'll see that they're demoing a syncronisation feature to enable you to play tracks on your mobile even when you're offline - you can bet that this will only be available to paying subscribers, but the prospect of unlimited music both at home and on the move for just a little more than a single album from iTunes is highly compelling.

When the mobile clients launch, I can forsee Spotify partnering with the handset manufacturers or mobile networks to bundle the client onto new phones, or include a premium subscription within the price of a data bundle.

I also think there's an opportunity for an additional charge on top of the premium subscription which could be used to give you access to pre-release music. The idea would be that as soon as you heard the new Dizzee Rascal song on the radio, the label would have made it available to Spotify and you could go and listen to it online before it's release. This would hopefully cut down on the piracy of pre-release music by enabling people to get their fill of brand new tunes legally, but without diminishing their appetite to buy them on release.

Finally, my pipe dream is to see them enable the synchronisation feature for the desktop client and then intergrate the client directly with the iPod. Of course desktop synchronisation is fraught with pitfalls because of the record labels hang ups about digital ownership. Individual files for synchronisation would need to be DRMed and achieve this with the iPod, Spotify would probably need to licence Apple's FairPlay DRM technology. I actually doubt Apple would ever allow this to happen, but it seems to me to be the best way to make Spotify mass-market - there are a lot of people who'd need some serious convincing that they should use their mobile handset instead of their iPod to listen to music on the move.

It's going to be very interesting to see if Spotify can overcome the hurdles in front of them and emerge as the success that I think they deserve to be. Can they scale their service? Can they make the model profitable and attract the elusive 50 quid man? Can they win users from iTunes and Amazon? Time will tell, and I for one will be watching closely.

Status: June

2009-07-01T10:07:00.001+01:00

June 1

07:05 Tim has had a really long day. In Monterey, CA now. Dad still suffering waves of intense pain every few hours, I can't remember having seen him like this ever. Called the Doc and he arranged a prescription of maximum strength vicodin for us to pick up on arrival in Monterey.

June 2

00:16 Tim is at the dentist in Carmel with his Dad.

01:55 Tim is pretty overwhelmed by the kindness of Californians. The camp dentist looked at Dad, did an x-ray and referred him to a specialist free of charge. Apparently he has the 'best infection of 2009' in his jaw. Off to see surgeon tomorrow.

06:06 Tim has had another long day. After dentist, drove Dad round 17 Mile Drive on the Monterey peninsula and visited Pebble Beach golf course. Fingers crossed that his swollen face and infection are much improved by tomorrow and that dental surgery is not required.

21:02 Tim is back in the dentist's waiting room, Dad getting sedated for absess draining and a tooth extraction.

June 3

01:11 Tim is out whale watching on the Pacific Ocean.

07:04 Tim has had quite a day. Dad's tooth extraction and then seeing humpback whales, pacific dolphins and seals in Monterey bay.

18:14 Tim is having a better day. Dad is up and out, and has taken his camera, so he must be feeling a lot better. Long drive ahead today though, south on 1 to McWay waterfall, then loop back north before heading to Yosemite.

June 6

22:59 Tim is in Yosemite National Park. Beautiful things are all around. Only May is missing.

June 9

06:27 Tim is in the Ahwanee Hotel, Yosemite National Park, CA on the free wifi. Back to the UK on Thursday.

18:49 Tim is going rafting on the river Merced.

June 10

18:29 Tim is headed for home. Drive from Yosemite to San Francisco and then Virgin Premium Economy to Heathrow. A lot of sitting to be done today.

June 11

00:41 Tim now boarding VS20 from SFO to LHR.

11:44 Tim is back in the UK. Mum is a bit planed out and near sprinted off the plane and headed for the nearest loo looking sick.

19:46 Tim is back at home and very grateful to May for the airport pick-up.

June 13

13:19 Tim is http://www.facebook.com/timpoultney - god damn Tim De Pauw in Belgium for bagging timdp.

16:02 Tim is going camping on Purbeck. Yeah!

June 14

19:46 Tim is rocking out the red neck look. A shit load of factor 20 doesn't cut it for my pasty ghost skin it seems. Time to stop pissing about and get a load of factor 50.

June 15

08:36 Tim is back from holiday with a bump, back on the commuter train to LDN. Backdoor Boogie in my ears making it bearable.

18:35 Tim is not in California anymore. I'd forgotten the barely concealed looks of hatred you get from fellow commuters just for sitting down.

June 16

08:45 Tim is working on the train and listening to Backdoor Boogie again. Hayfever quotient is high today.

16:12 Tim is amazed by Audi UK. They have no A3 2.0 Tdi SE Sportsbacks available in the whole of the UK for demonstration. I'd better get the Beemer then.

19:29 Tim rocked out a short LDN run, 2.05k in 9.42. Now on the train to Basingstoke for hot tub and bbq. Girl sat next to me's pink see through thong is massively on display.

June 17

23:39 Tim is at Finchley Road by mistake. Whoops, not paying enough attention to tube route.

June 18

09:01 Tim had his worst nights sleep at the Metropole this year. West Wing rooms overlooking the flyover FTL.

18:03 Tim is running late for massage in Pimlico. Boo.

22:21 Tim is catching up with the Malmaison crew's music recommendations from last night. Now playing: The Presets.

June 19

07:58 Tim is listening to some idiots talking crap on the train.

19:14 Tim has finished work and is off out round London Bridge for Gaurav's leaving do.

June 20

13:24 Tim is at the Audi garage waiting on a test drive of an A3 SE.

16:10 Tim is off to London to meet Tom. After spotting Da Screen in the same carriage as me I've been studiously avoiding his gaze. Thank jeebus for the A3 brochure.

21:08 Tim is full of Persian food and headed for Amazingstoke for hot tub before May's 5k tomorrow.

June 21

10:58 Tim is at the Basingstoke Race for Life. Go May and Clare!

11:47 Tim is really proud of May, 27.16 in the Basingstoke Race for Life 5k.

June 22

19:08 Tim 's mental sprint through Waterloo, running up the escalators 2 steps at a time, has got him onto the 1905. Woo!

June 23

07:52 Tim 's word for the day is 'earlier'. Another sprint, another train caught by seconds. Thanks to the kind guard who let me on.

18:57 Tim is NOT at a TweetUp. In your face Tweetees!

23:37 Tim has fixed the unfixable wifi on May's laptop. In your face DSIS. If I got LEAP working too, I am god.

June 24

08:08 Tim is inspecting the lousy change he's picked up in London so far this week. One '10p' (quarter dollar), a Gibralta pound coin and an Isle of Man 20p. Check your change.

11:38 Tim just had a massive mouse related LOL. Brave 3rd floor office mouse caused a full on scream by mooching around on the floor.

17:58 Tim is going to Boxwood Cafe for dinner tonight. In your face Gordon Ramsay.

22:51 Tim thought the Boxwood Cafe was ok, food on a par with Malmaison, slightly nicer ambience and service. Malmaison on the 2009 voucher wins hands down on price and cool factor though.

June 25

12:12 Tim is meeting May for lunch at Leon behind the Tate Modern, what a nice treat!

19:06 Tim is really pleased that the combination of physio and massage has stopped his arms hurting, woo!

June 26

09:06 Tim is travelling light today so he can run after work. As such, no netbook today so making do with Radio 1 through my E71.

12:57 Tim is using his work issue anti-swine flu hard surface wipes to remove Borough market lunch stains from his raincoat.

17:56 Tim gave a new meaning to running for the train with a run from work to Waterloo: http://is.gd/1eyt1.

23:46 Tim is answering the age old question of whether or not you can tell the difference between coke from a bottle (glass vs plastic) or a can using statistics.

June 27

15:49 Tim is on a narrow boat on the Stratford canal. I understand the naming now.

June 28

10:42 Tim is lying atop a narrow boat on the Stratford canal, covered in factor 50. It's a beautiful day today.

14:55 Tim is operating canal locks. Who knew lock doors weighed 2500kg?

June 29

18:42 Tim is all boated out. Looking forward to getting home and relaxing. Need to pack for Prague though.

June 30

18:39 Tim is filling out his visa for India.

Status: May

2009-06-15T22:10:00.002+01:00

May 1

08:58 Tim wishes May a happy official birthday.

May 2

16:34 Tim is en route to Cambridge to see his bro and watch May run the GEAR 10k.

May 3

09:13 Tim is waiting for the train to Kings Lynn with the running crew.

11:58 Tim is proud of May and Chris, 10k in just over an hour.

16:47 May & Chris in the Gear 10k (plus Dan, James & Steve)

19:08 Tim is moving hands so Comfortable hot air is sent out automatically.

May 4

17:34 Tim is back from Cambridge via Hatfield Galleria, Hatefield Galleria more like. Bit spooked by May's ability to make cars pull in one lane by pointing at them.

May 5

22:25 Tim is a bit confused as to why his status didn't update with the link to his new breaks mix: http://is.gd/wHXL.

May 6

22:45 Tim is a bit freaked out by the face transplant woman.

May 7

08:51 Tim is trying to develop an advanced internal radar for swine flu on the tub. All you sneezeers and snorters watch out.

May 8

00:03 Tim had a very nice dinner at Roast with May, teh Marsh, a surprise Dean and Em and a last minute Simpso.

13:41 Tim is being the design AUTHORITY. And picking up bits of Hindi.

18:07 Tim has learnt a valuable lesson. Never ever ever turn up at Waterloo at this time without a ticket. Ever. Never ever.

May 9

15:02 Tim dun did another run. Short and fast baby: http://is.gd/y2Vc.

18:00 Tim is heading for Basement's.

May 10

00:41 Tim is a bit concerned that 54% of the UK swine flu cases are in London, and at the moment I spend ~64% of my time there.

17:11 Tim has been playing Lit on WiiWare and is now making rhubarb crumble.

May 11

09:37 Tim has had the bit of tooth enamel that fell off on Marek's stag do replaced. Mouth feels weird.

21:05 Tim has made it to Brindisa with Vince. Bring on the acorn fed charcuterie.

May 12

14:32 Tim just had a really posh palma violet. Surprisingly it didn't taste of soap.

May 13

08:01 Tim is on the train to LDN from BSK (Amazingstoke). Yawn.

16:22 Tim has successfully used his work issued anti-swine flu surface disinfectant wipes to remove a pasta sauce stain from his raincoat.

May 14

09:11 Tim thinks anyone who can not notice they've paid of a mortgage for 18 months and 'accidentally' claim £16k expenses AND who has the facility to immediately pay that sum back needs sacking.

19:59 Tim is feeling the pressure at work. Relaxing tonight with massage and now dinner at Jenny Lo's tea house. Phew.

May 15

09:27 Tim is listening to Bloc Party remixed on Spotify.

18:13 Tim is on the train after a tough week at work. Using the time to review someone else's work and it's making me want to cry.

20:23 Tim is back home, out of work mode and getting looked after by May. Have also attempted to run my stress off: http://is.gd/Adyf.

May 16

11:43 Tim is on his way to Stratford-upon-Avon for a wedding.

May 17

17:50 Tim enjoyed the wedding and avoided the nerds. Fixed parents PC woes and saw Alex, Max and Cass this afternoon.

May 18

08:35 Tim feels like he's running late, but yet it's still early. Weird.

14:58 Tim maintains there are few things worse than a bad mouth ulcer.

19:48 Tim has been listening to remix albums on Spotify all day, 480mb over O2 3G, think I might find the upper limit this week.

May 19

12:13 Tim just squeezed one big spot.

19:45 Tim is meeting his bro in London for dinner.

23:00 Tim holed up in the Metropole, sigh.

May 20

11:25 Tim is close to having cashless catering induced groin strain. Put £20 onto card to buy breakfast, then refunded it. Have 16 pound coins and shrapnel in my pocket.

22:54 Tim has cheered up after some bad ass Turkish food and a good old rant with Simpso.

May 21

22:18 Tim left work a 10pm tonight, pwned. Did go out for a trendy LDN run along the Southbank before going back to finish up though: http://is.gd/C8Po - In Wagamama now for duck gyoza, ginger chicken udon, ginger beer and sparkling water.

May 22

08:12 Tim had a little lie in this morning and is now having a crack at getting into the M&S penny bazaar.

18:48 Tim has finished another week in London, thank f.ck. This time next week I'll be flying to San Francisco, woo!

May 23

00:50 Tim 's mix website has not translated well to the new server. Botched solution in place at http://www.timdp2.com.

12:42 Tim is getting a hair cut then heading to Windsor for a night in a spa hotel.

May 24

09:40 Tim is in the Stables Spa, Windsor. Next stop, the castle.

12:54 Tim is sat outside at Ha ha in Windsor. It's an amazing spot for watching loads of people take the same bad photo of a fake steam train with the SLRs. All with pop-up flash enabled.

14:39 Tim is hanging out at the Queen's house. Glorious weather in Windsor, sat at the bandstand listening to the regiment play.

22:28 Tim is feeling pretty pleased with his new profile picture.

May 26

14:59 Tim wishes Vik get well soon. Any LDN people fancy a gig with me tonight at 333 Old Street?

20:22 Tim only has 2 working days till holiday. Quick dinner at Wagamama then off to Old Street to see http://www.iremembertapes.co.uk.

22:14 Tim just remembered tapes. They were pretty awesome. Hanging out to hear the headliners for comparison.

May 27

12:01 Tim is anxious now that his parents are on the plane to San Francisco.

19:31 Tim just discovered he can track his parents flying location in real time, amaze: http://is.gd/HeOZ.

22:34 Tim is attempting a high risk item transfer with Munns at Basingstoke station, the idea is he gets a platform ticket and then I hop off and back on the train for the pick up.

May 28

08:20 Tim is adopting an "if I don't have it, I don't need it" approach to rapid packing.

09:56 Tim is watching the guy on the opposite table on the train getting drunk. He's on his 3rd can in 40 minutes and has his 2 young teenage daughters with him. He's making me real mad.

19:38 Tim is officially on holiday having just had a massage. Shame I haven't quite finished work and need to pop back in for an hour.

21:55 Tim is now officially officially on holiday. Work delivered, now tube to Heathrow to meet ny brother,.

May 29

10:27 Tim is checked in for SFO with Chris, bagel breakfast complete now onto shopping.

11:12 Tim is onboard VS019 'Mustang Sally' 1130 from LHR to SFO. See you in 10h2min.

May 30

00:11 Tim has landed in San Francisco, bit late so nap time squeezed out of schedule and failed to sleep on the plane. Alcatraz night tour and Mr Scruff looming.

03:14 Tim is totally on Alcatraz.

18:47 Tim is a cool San Francisco runner: http://is.gd/K0PS. 2km before breakfast. Off to shop and satisfy May's American Eagle needs now. Baseball tonight.

May 31

02:57 Tim is totally at the baseball. It's pretty wicked. Great seats.

08:22 Tim saw the baseball, the home team got thrashed, then met up with some noisy drunken rednecks and got bought a beer by them. Also left an impromptu voicemail cuss on one of their friends answerphones.

16:24 Tim is trying to find an emergency doctor/dentist for his Dad. Here comes my first experience of US health care. Wallet at the ready.

19:10 Tim has sorted out his Dad's medical crisis for now. $320 has resulted in an array of pills including Vicodin. Now to sort the defective hire car.