Always The Last To Know

Now we all know that the London Underground network is mostly held together with sticky tape and bits of string, and it’s frankly surprising that the thing keeps running at all, but sometimes you do have to wonder. This morning it seemed like nobody had the slightest clue what was going on–getting a Northern Line train from Camden is always a bit of a gamble at the best of times, given that the train you…

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A Solution Looking for a Problem…

So it looks like the old ID card chestnut is back in the fire again. This time the big justification is “identity theft”, but, as with terrorism, immigration, and organised crime before, the home office fail to explain how the new card will actually solve the problem. In fact, won’t ID cards actually make it easier for someone to perpetuate identity theft? Once the system is introduced, instead of having to go to the trouble…

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London Fun

To the UCL Bloomsbury theatre, on Friday night, for some rather entertaining comedy, compered by the unexpectedly funny Simon Amstell (he off of Popworld), and featuring various funny people (including the excellent Rob Rouse, and the actor Kevin Eldon). To the UCL Bloomsbury theatre, on Saturday night, to retrieve Sal’s purse, which she appears to have left on the bar the previous night. Unfortunately, she didn’t realise she’d even lost it until we reached Vauxhall…

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On The Subject of Gig Tickets…

…for events taking place at the end of next month, I expect the Glastonbury tickets will be on their way out soon. Frankly, I’m not at all surprised about this. When I got my glasto ticket, I immediately applied for one of these pointless pieces of plastic, and said card arrived some weeks ago. As far as my experience goes, I can’t see any possible way that anyone could get around the system–can you? –…

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Bad Joke

“No Cameras or Recorders”, it says in large black print on the tickets for next month’s U2 gig that I collected from the post depot this morning.* Well that scuppers my plans to join in with my own wind instrument-based solo to “With Or Without You”. I’m not sure I want to go anymore, frankly. * Oh, so our friendly neighbourhood postman can manage to attempt to deliver items requiring a signature at 7:30 am…

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At Least It Isn’t Heart FM

Well, I suppose this had to happen eventually, and you can’t really blame him for wanting to further his career (and presumably taking the big cheque he was offered), but it does present something of a quandary for my morning listening: the XFM breakfast show is always terrible whenever they have someone else in the chair, but do I follow O’Connell to Virgin, where he’ll no doubt have to play lots of terrible chart music,…

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“My Friend, I Give You Very Good Price”

Ok, so it seems there is a minor flaw in my theory that if I don’t pay attention to Everton they do better, as our late return from Turkey prevented me from finding out about the shambles taking place over at Highbury until I arrived back at work. Still, surely the exception that proves the rule: they did manage to complete their unlikely qualification for the Champions League while I was away, after all. Turkey,…

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Site Stuff

I’ve just spent a couple of hours of my bank holiday Monday sorting out a few of the things on the site that I’ve been meaning to do for ages. You probably won’t notice most of the changes (mostly it was backend/RSS stuff), but should notice that the archive is, finally, a proper one with dates and everything (scroll down, on the right). I have, undoubtedly, broken something. Please let me know if you find…

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Look Away Now, If You Don’t Want To Know The Score

I really should take my own advice: when I don’t pay attention to Everton, they win. When I watch/care, they lose. Before this Saturday I’d seen them play twice in London (losing 3-0 to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and losing 2-0 to Fulham at Loftus Road), so the omens for Fulham vs Everton at Craven Cottage on Saturday afternoon weren’t good. Still, given that we’re currently sitting happily in fourth place, and Fulham weren’t even…

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