We went to the football on Saturday afternoon at Boothferry Park, Hull to see the Hull City vs Halifax game. It’s about 8 months since we were last at Boothferry Park for a game and it was really good to see the place so full – approximately 9,500 people. It was a typical 3rd division game really, not much elegance but quite a good game none the less. Helped, no doubt, by the fact we won 3 – 0.
Here are a few photos I took of the game.
One of the girls in our office had a really bad attack of the hiccups this afternoon, so much so that all of the office resorted to trying to find a way to make her stop. The usual suggestions were made “Hold your breath”, “Drink water slowly” etc. but the one that worked was a new one on me. Julia walked up to her with a ten pound note in her hand and said “I’ll give you this if you hiccup again”. She didn’t. It was quite amazing really.
Yesterday morning at 11am, England (and most of Europe) stopped for a 3 minute silence. I was at work and we all gathered on the 3rd floor and stood, heads bowed and reflected on the events of Tuesday (although to be honest, we’ve talked or thought about little else since it happened). On Tuesday afternoon, we had the radio on, a tv on further down the office, and mostly spent the afternoon getting all the information we could, always hoping that it was a mistake, or an exageration, or something, anything but that. It’s something that I think will take everyone a long time to come to terms with.
Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, friends, colleagues and also those who have been working so hard to look for survivors.
I’ve just been out and bought a new gadget. I’m replacing my stolen Visor Deluxe with a Handera 330. The Handera has a lot of improvements over the Visor Deluxe, in the form of a higher resolution screen, a software grafitti area, a jog dial, a microphone which works (the Visor has one that does nothing). I’m sure to be spending the next couple of days playing with it, and adding lots of programs to it.
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There were some lovely sun-sets over the weekend in Brighton. This is a photo I took on Friday evening looking westwards to the West Pier and beyond.
I’m still reading Neil Gaiman’s blog every day and on Tuesday he talked about Fay Weldon and her new book “The Bulgari Connection” which is sponsored by Bulgari, and contains “product placements” (the first time this has been done in a novel apparently). Neil comments on it, giving a bit of a background on it before going on to say:
Personally, I think it’s a triffic idea, and would like to announce that any manufacturers of fine fountain pens who want to get plugged in the text of the next novel should just drop me a line. And a sample fountain pen or two. Also people selling small south sea islands — I will happily plug your south sea island sales company in my next novel in exchange for a small island of my own.
Well, it made me chuckle anyway.
It’s gone… the pelmet has gone. And it didn’t do too much damage to the walls or ceiling. So, we now have a 7 foot long pelmet in our loft. We’re thinking of putting it onto Ebay and seeing if anyone wants it.
A school friend of mine, Steve, sent me an email during the week about the British Freebies web site. It maintains a list of websites which give away free things – like cinema tickets, disposable cameras, mouse mats etc.
I had a quick look on Tuesday and sent off for my free “Window on the UK 2000” CD. It arrived today and it’s really interesting. It’s a collection of images taken from space, and aircrafts during 1999 and seems to have pictures covering most of the UK to some level or other. They have some very clear and high resolution pictures of London, and they were obviously taken whilst both the Dome and the London Eye were under construction. Interesting stuff!
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We’ve bought a new kite. It’s a 3.1 metre squared Advance Janus, and this evening we’ve attached the lines to the kite and the handles. So it’s all ready to go. Woohoo!
I’ve just ordered my first replacement gadget. I’m getting a Sony SRF M95 digital radio to replace the mp3 player. I’ve ordered it from Purley Radios Ltdand it should be with me in 5 to 7 working days.
One of the cheques that the insurance company sent was made out to one of the companies that some of the previous gadgets have been bought from. I called them to see if they could order this radio for me, but they said that they didn’t deal with anything other than computer equipment and so they weren’t prepared to order anything in for me. I’m going to call the Nationwide next week to see if they will re-adjust the cheques if I explain the circumstances.