Month: February 2003

Should we support Namibia for the rest of the cricket World Cup?

qB has asked in the comments if my pimping jacket was made from the hides of orangutans. I can report that it is made only from the finest fur of lesbian Japanese macaques.
That’ll stir up a few strange referrals. The link is work-safe, btw.

BBC News has a new look. I don’t think it is as good as the old version – I preferred being able to see story summaries on the front page, rather than having to click through to a new page to get an idea of the news content. Whilst the new version downloads more quickly and there is less scrolling, I think the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages.

You’re all itching to learn what I did on Sunday, aren’t you? I can tell these things – you’re so transparent.
Well, I hauled my arse out of bed far to early in the day for what should have been a leisurely Sunday, and took the train via Littlehampton, Clapham and Richmond to Kew Gardens, where I met up with long-time e-chum Rachel. After coffee and peoplewatching in the Kew Greenhouse cafe by the station, we ambled down to the gardens themselves. As you might expect, I’m a hardened Kew veteran, but it was Rachel’s first visit, so we started out by heading around the front of Museum Number 1 and the lake to the Princess of Wales House, where a fantastic display of orchids, both plants and cut flowers, were on display as part of the Ninth Annual Kew Orchid Festival. Even horticultural luddites should find something there of interest, and it’s on until 16 March, so try to get there if you have the opportunity.
The Princess of Wales House is an impressive structure with advanced climate control systems that result in each "room" mimicking different climatic conditions, allowing a massive variety of plants to be grown under one roof. But, for me, it doesn’t have the great romance that the other houses at Kew have. So, after walking through the Rock Garden (too early to see much here) and the Order Beds (the area for hortigeeks™) we ambled up to the Palm House. It’s an utterly fantastic building, full of lush sweaty greenness. We walked around the floor level, the marine display in the old boiler rooms in the basement and enjoyed the unique views that can be had on the upper walkway.
After a break for lunch, we took in the Temperate House. Again, a detailed exploration was called for, at both ground and upper levels. Rachel produced her camera and got this particularly gruesome picture of me with Rhododendron veitchianum.

I got some pics too, but they are on film, so will have to wait for processing and scanning.
The thing with Kew is that there is just soooo much. We headed on to the Evolution House (which I remember as the Australian House in my youth), the Holly Collection, the Japanese Garden, the Pagoda, Syon Vista, the Orangery, the Ice House and finally back to the bookshop (which was little disappointing). We rewarded our efforts as we left the gardens at sunset by heading to a nearby pub for refreshment, before saying goodbye and heading back home.
An excellent day – getting some good horticultural therapy in at a great gardening mecca, plus some good exercise walking all around the extensive gardens and arboretum – all in the company of a good friend. Can’t ask for more than that, I reckon.

Interesting. Type "grayblog" into this search engine, and this page doesn’t show up in the results at all. But radio grayblog does. How odd.

So far today, I’ve written about a sick cat, porn, blogging and fantasy football, and not a single comment is forthcoming from any of the usual suspects. Maybe I need to write about cheese instead?

OK. Everyone else is talking about it, so I shall too, but in the truly uninformed manner you have come to expect from grayblog.
Yes, I’m talking about the purchase of Pyra, the company behind Blogger, by none other than Google. Darren has put together a list of relevant links here and here and Giles Turnbill writes about it for the Beeb here. SiliconValley.com broke the story (among others) here.
My view on it? Well, Blogger isn’t the only weblog making tool around, and MT and GreyMatter, amongst others, have substantial numbers of users. So is Google going to get a total handle on weblogging du jour by tapping into that traffic? If they really wanted to do that, wouldn’t they buy into a blog aggregator or even set up their own? No, I think Google must have something else up their sleeve, but I’m at a loss to think what it is. Certainly there could be advantages in incorporating data skimmed from weblogs into the Google system, but I’m at a loss as to how this could be done effectively, or even if such data is desirable, when it is so very unfiltered.
Perhaps they see blogging as a money making opportunity, and buying the most established service provider (which neatly comes with blogspot.com included) is a fast track way to get into that market. Blogging continues to grow at an awesome rate, and contrary to doom-laden talk from certain quarters that crops up from time to time, shows no sign of being replaced by anything or running out of steam. Rather, it tends to gradually develop new forms (not mutate, as the old forms persist) that run along and become developed further.
It should be a help to Blogger users, at least it will be if Google invest in server capacity and free the Pyra team from keeping the system afloat to allow them to develop new, better and more robust systems and features. What impact it will have on the charging structure for BloggerPro is anyone’s guess. I’m not so sure that Blogger, in its current forms, is likely to be adopted as a mainstream product for professional and business content management. I think that will most likely be catered for by bespoke systems and the likes of Atomz Publish.
The last question must be – does it really matter? Probably not, is the honest answer. In a period of days which have seen some of the biggest anti-war rallies in history, the death of over 100 people on the Korean subway and Brighton and Hove Albion win away from home, it really isn’t likely to change much. But it does give bloggers something to talk about.

By some fluke, my team has wiped the floor in my group in the AFF Fantasy Football FA Cup, and is now 2/1 joint favourite to win the whole thing. How did that happen? Have a tough draw for the next round though, so will have to use all my "skill and judgement" to make a few judicious transfers.

Seamus is decidedly unwell today. But trying to persuade an ill cat to stay here in my warm office rather than go out and play in the sun is next to impossible. I think he just has a bit of a cold, as his eyes are a bit watery, he is definitely lacking energy and vim and he is decidedly grumpy.
UPDATE: I’ve put him in a sunny spot in the house, where he seems to have settled down. I’ll check on him later. If he doesn’t improve, I might take him to the vet.

It’s always "nice" when a porn site shows up in your referrer stats. Clearly, one of you dirty little reprobates has been jacking off over your keyboard whilst looking at pictures of laydeez. But why you visited here afterwards is anybody’s guess!
(link not safe for work)