Scrabble

I've been playing Scrabble with my brother via Facebook (application is called Scrabulous). Great fun, especially when the little git posts "Quilt" on a triple word. Recommended.

Black Sheep

Browsing our local cinema's website, I stumbled across a link to a forthcoming attraction, a film called Black Sheep. Set in New Zealand, it tells the of a genetically modified sheep that goes on the rampage, turning people and other sheep into killers!

Sounds great, can't wait to see it.

Quote of the Day

I'm quite a fan of Terry Pratchett - his books are uniformly entertaining, particularly if you have a diseased sense of humour. Good Omens, written with Neil Gaiman, is rather darker than his Discworld books.

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

Quote of the Day

I just stumbled across this quote, having never read any of Russell's work. Maybe I should.

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.

Bertrand Russell

Wong Kei

Dinner this evening at Wong Kei restaurant in Soho. Food and service were as expected but the company (Lucien and Ko) was excellent. We've saved enough money on this evening's meal that we can eat properly next month; Chez Gerard's?

Seats

There is a skill, or rather, a knack, to finding a seat on a busy train. There are the easy, obvious tricks like early arrival at the station or catching a very early service but these are for amateurs; seasoned travelers know that to guarantee a seat you need to stand on the platform where a train door will stop that leads directly to an underused part of the carriage.

This is easier said than done, and it can take some time to fathom the train's modes of operation. The reward is a reliable seat on an otherwise packed service and a comfortable ride to Waterloo. The professional traveler is identified by his rested composure when he reaches his destination.

Quote of the day

Vigorous let us be in attaining our ends, and mild in our method of attainment.

Lord Newborough

Quote of the day

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Charles Darwin

Holiday Blog

Saturday it was a boat trip to see the seals near Padstow, yesterday body-boarding from the beach at Polzeath. On Saturday, of course, the sun was out and the weather was hot – ideal for a trip to the beach. Yesterday, the clouds came in, the sun hid and it was a long chilly walk from the car park to the water (well, about 300 yards, I guess). Body boarding isn’t something we’ve done before, so we were fully prepared to make ourselves look stupid; I hadn’t expected to look quite as daft as I did, however, when I struggled into my hired wetsuit only to be told by a passing lifeguard that the zip goes at the back. Obvious, I suppose, but there you go.

When we eventually made it to the water (and, incidentally, what is one supposed to do with car keys?) we experienced an initial “that’s bloody cold” moment but, once our feet had numbed and the waves were breaking around our chests, the cold was forgotten and we concentrated on floating.

Body-boarding turns out to be relatively easy, although it probably helps if you know what you’re doing when you enter the water. Surreptitious glances at our fellow be-suited swimmers suggested that we weren’t really getting onto the board properly; mastering that allowed us to shoot inland at a decent speed- great fun.

Today we hired bikes and cycled from Padstow to Bodmin for lunch. Not a bad ride, about 11 miles each way, but we haven’t done a lot of cycling recently and it puts a strain on the muscles.

Tomorrow we’re off to the Eden project; we haven’t seen it since 2001, so it will be interesting to see what has changed.

Something Daft

A colleague at work sent me this link (link). I have the tools - I should have it up and running by the end of the weekend.

Quote of the day

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Sir Winston Churchill

Quote of the day

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams, "Last Chance to See"

Trains

The schools reopened last week and, for the first time since the start of the summer break, the trains are overcrowded. Summer is definitely the best time to travel by rail; the difference in the atmosphere of a half full carriage and an over-full carriage is quite dramatic, with the latter being considerably more tense than the former. Everybody is used to it, of course, so they just get on with it, but having to stand for the hour it takes to reach Waterloo is not a lot of fun.

Quote of the day

This is the second witch in Macbeth.

By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.