It makes interesting viewing, but perhaps more of interest is the question of how it ended up in its present state!?

Clearly the person that was laying out the drinks must have been having a laugh when setting up this contradiction.

This simple request created a stream of requests all the way from Loose Tampax to Polish Dumplings! Of course the British sense of humor was not let down with one request for a “Loving Husband”!

In some ways I see this as the discursive nature of the internet spreading into the real world. Humans want to be heard, but we only bother when the barriers are low enough; this is of course a problematic paradox.

Normally this process is done at night and the newest advertisement bought for that location is then pasted on top so that travellers are none the wiser and always see the paid-for advertisment.

However recently in Notting Hill Gate CBS’s employees must have not had any of the newest posters, which meant that a relatively ancient poster was left exposed, that of Starlight Express, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

Passing it felt similar to an archaeologist being revealed something from the distant past, although the Victoria Palace production of the musical only started in 1985! Nevertheless, something interesting to brighten one’s journey.

I came across a fantastic example of this outside the EMI headquarters in London. Stuck on a telephone splitter box, the poster shows Maria from the Sound of Music in bliss singing her heart out, in that well-known first scene.

However the lush Austrian alpine field has been replaced by a landfill of unused goods, plastic bags and brands. This witty scene reminds us of how we are encouraged to be blissful and blind while those that profit from us plunder the world.

Although I do not agree entirely with the statement being made, the manner in which it has been crafted with a limited colour palate, so cleverly reworking such a famous scene from such a well-known movie is very powerful and most rewarding to view as a passerby.

The work itself gave no indication of the artist and unfortunately was covered over by a very ordinary advertisement a few weeks later, however I did snap a photo of it with my iPhone and although the quality and lighting do not do it justice at least you can get a feel for the work.

I found two good examples of this recently. The first was a fruit and nut cake where most of the fruit and nut had coagulated at the bottom of the packet:

By the fruit not being in its correct place, what was probably a perfectly good tasting cake looked undignified and unappealing. To me this says so much about how we consciously or subconsciously value presentation over reality.

Secondly I saw a dress that on first glance it looked like it was being presented perfectly properly, however on closer inspection the mannequins breasts were revealed:

Suddenly something respectable and feminine, a smart green dress had been subverted and had become something sleazy. The ideals that the shop was trying to promote, had been subtly yet effectively subverted.

That that exactly the case with the Open-X. It says stop struggling with stubborn plastic packages on the front yet the packaging itself is stubborn sealed plastic!

Despite this irony, once you get the product out of the packaging it works very well, exactly as promised, I would certainly recommend it.

Being a perennial traveler I would constantly carry a small battery charger wherever I went to be sure that the mouse and keyboard would never go hungry. However I became increasingly frustrated not only with its ugliness but also at its relatively large size. I was desperate for a better solution – a battery/charger combination that would be much easier to manage and easier to carry around with me.

Like a knight in shining armour (not really, but you get the gist) I found a product called the USB Cell. By a Far Eastern company called Moxia, what it essentially does is put the charger inside the battery which charges through any USB port. Personally, I tend to charge the batteries through the USB port of my Airport Express and Airport Extreme (that otherwise get no use).

In terms of performance they’re fine – one is never going to get the sort of battery life that one does out of a normal battery because the charging units takes up space, however my Apple wireless keyboard and mouse only require charging every few weeks. Like with some rechargeable batteries it can take up to five hours to charge them, this is probably the reason why I bought four instead of two for the wireless mouse so that I would have no ‘mouse downtime’.

The only issue with them is their price; at £5 a pair in the UK or slightly under $10 a pair in the US they are certainly not cheap. However to my mind the (relatively high) cost is worth it. I no longer need to carry an separate charger with me, which is one step closer to a truly simple life.

Interesting to see the news of Apple releasing an unlocked iPhone, but having spoken to T-Mobile it is clear that the court development hit them out of the blue. They were not expecting what happened to happen, so much so that it was not a major matter of discussion in their negotiations with Apple.

Of other interest, T-Mobile said that a €999 iPhone customer would be able to have EDGE usage as long as they knew the APN details; of course Visual Voicemail is a no as it is network specific. Also I was informed that customers who paid the premium would not be lock out from Apple upgrades to the firmware, they would work as normal.

All in all a very interesting development, it was clear that Apple had the no-lock firmware ready for France later in the year and simply applied it to Germany (albeit unwillingly).

Of course the real question is how long will it take the hackers out there to suck out and crack the firmware so that all iPhone buyers can feel the unlocked love.

And for those in Germany, T-Mobile were confident that they would win against Vodaphone in court and if they did, they would immediately remove the unlocked iPhones from sale, so if you want one, get shopping!