Month: March 2003

So it looks like I won’t be getting my cheap Ipaqs then. Shame!

Today I learned what a kotatsu is. Admit it, it sounds good, doesn’t it? I think it’s a word I didn’t recognize in a book called Asleep.

Part of the weekend was handed over to painting wood and messing with lighting in the house. There’s something quite special when you unscrew a ceiling lighting fixture expecting to find three wires only to discover ten. Mmm.. I just love our British wiring standards.

Anyway, today I was in our local shopping centre looking for a few bits a pieces and there was a lovely dog running around – friendly thing, dashing up to people and sniffing and being all curious the way dogs are. Then I found this sign: “POLICE – DRUG DOG TRAINING”. And I thought s/he was being friendly, not frisking me. Still, they’d probably make great pets when they retire.

For hisory’s sake I thought I’d mention some of the sites I’m reading at the moment.

• Kevin Sites – Kevin is a war correspondent for CNN currently in Iraq.
• Where is Raed? – updated from Baghdad
• Back to Iraq – an independent journalist who is trying to raise the money (through donations) to go back to Iraq
• BBC News – the BBC News conflict with Iraq section
• Guardian – the Guardian’s Special Report:Iraq section
• [New]BBC Correspondents Log – BBC News reporters tell of their experiences wherever they are.

So, it looks like war will have started before the end of the week. I remember the start of the Gulf war. I was at university, in my first year and one of the lads, Phil, ran along the corridor of our halls of residence knocking on our doors and telling us that we were at war. I remember turning on my tv and watching the news coverage.

This time, I think, I’m much more aware. I don’t remember the ramp up to war last time, but this seems to have been going on for months now. It’s also interesting to see the number of people (celebrities, politicans and everyday folks) who are taking what seems like 101 different stands on the subject. Some are pro-war, some are anti-war, some are anti-Saddam, some are anti-sanctions etc.

I was looking at some of the news coverage on BBC News yesterday, and I was shocked to see quite how much Tony Blair seems to have aged in the last 6 weeks or so. He looks very drawn now, and has started to resemble Richard E Grant! Compare that to how he looked when he first became Prime Minister.

Our friend Karl (guy in the middle of this photo) is going to run the London Marathon in April this year. He’s running in aid of the British Lung Foundation and is trying to raise £1,500, so if that’s a cause you want to support then sponsor him here.

We had a visit by the police at work yesterday in relation to an attack that happened on Friday night/Saturday morning just outside. It was routine questioning – “were you in the office between midnight on Friday and 5.30am on Saturday” – wonder if they’ll find anyone who was. The guy who was attacked sometimes works as the cook in the cafe in the office and so is someone that we all recognise.

Sounds like a good reason, if I needed one, to make sure that I’ve left the office before it gets dark.

The site has been slow lately, and now we know why…

I’m part of a web co-op: we all chip-in to pay for the up-keep of a couple of machines on the web. This site is running on one of the machines. Another of the many sites on the machine is audioscrobbler.com, which has been causing all sorts of problems. I didn’t know anything about it until I read a story in the Guardian today. Interesting stuff, and you’ll be happy to know it’s being re-worked to not kill our machines, and will probably be moved somewhere else soon.