Thieves jamming car-locks?
Surrey police are exploring the theory that a gang of car thieves are jamming central locking systems to make it easier to steal goods from cars.
The theory arose after one a witness reported that a man used an electronic device to prevent doors from locking when he parked his Lexus at a local Sainsbury's.
That's a little worrying. I was in the Waitrose (how middle-aged am I?) car park on the way home from work a couple of weeks ago, and my car resolutely wouldn't open.
A couple drove up and told me that this was a common problem, and that I should go and see the manager about it. I said that it wasn't a problem, I could manually open the car, and they drove off. Just before I pulled off the manual open cover, I tried the fob lock once more, and it worked. Now I'm suspicious of that couple's motivations…
This Week in iPhone Pictures: 12th September 2010
Let's be honest. I rarely go anywhere without my iPhone. And, on occasion, I'm so taken by something that I grab a photo and upload it straight to Flickr. And for the last four days, I've done that consistently. Now, the challenge I'm setting myself is to try to do that every day from now on, aggregating them all here every Sunday. Here's the first four days' worth:
This is the pic that started it - it was such a lovely morning that I couldn't resist grabbing a pic as I got in my car.
Changing at London Bridge, on my way to a meeting on Friday, I loved this view of the under-construction Shard.
A dummy on a stall in St Nicholas' Market made for a striking shot on Saturday.
And a rose in my mother-in-law's garden caught my eye on a lazy Sunday.
Blog Unleashes Cliché in Headline
Katie Holmes unleashes her wild side in leopard print
Oh, dear God. Is there no end to the clichés? How long have print media journalists been using "wild side" for anything to do with leopard print? It's dull, it's predictable, there's precisely nothing wild about Katie Holmes in that photo and do blogs really need to use the same clichés?
grumblegrumblegrumble
On the death of Vox
Last Thursday, I opened Safari, and found a death notice. Vox, a blogging platform I've used for four years, was on death row. At the end of this month, it dies.
I used to love Vox. Up until mid-2008 I was an enthusiastic Voxer, posting there as least as much as I do here. But my activity had petered off in recent years, and I think there are some lessons worth learning in the demise of this once-promising platform.
For anyone who has followed me over from Vox, I've blogged my thoughts on its end over on my "work" blog.
Enjoying the Downbeat
When I was growing up, I remember vividly my Dad choosing to absent himself from the living room when a depressing, downbeat or tragic fils, show or documentary came on. "I know these things happen," he would say. "But I don't need it rubbed in my face."
Like the teenage tit that I was, I found this annoying. I was still stuck in the mindset that sad or bleak = "deep". My father was clearly not as deep as me.
Roll forwards a couple of decades, and I'm beginning to see his point. It's been a rough seven or eight years, with illness, mental health issues and death rocking the family. And now, in my precious leisure time, I've become somewhat adverse to stories tinged with bleakness and despair myself. Real life has plenty of that, thanyouverymuchindeed. Which is why I found myself a little thrown after we watched A Handful of Dust on the AppleTV last night.
I'm not sure where our copy came from - a free DVD with a newspaper possibly, or inherited from my mother. But a while ago, I ripped it, stuck it on the AppleTV and charity shopped the original, intending to watch and delete the digital copy. And last night, at a loose end after Science Online and a trip to B&Q, we finally got around to watching it.
I admit: it's been a while since I read any Waugh. And I do feel that this adaptation, as enjoyable as it was, lacked the satirical edge of Waugh's writing. But it was enjoyable, the characters believable and the acting uniformly great. But, my goodness, that ending was bleak. We spent the best part of two hours watching a decision, born of boredom, destroy a family completely. And what was the point in that?
Sleeping on it, I realise that I've slipped into too much of a goal-focused mindset in recent months. The point of the movie, as in so much of life, was the journey, far more than the destination. Did I enjoy the process of watching the film? Yes. Very much? Did I enjoy the ending? No - but that doesn't diminish the enjoyment of watching the film. And, in a sense, the ending wasn't final. It was an endpoint to a certain situation, a certain voyage in the characters' lives, but for most of them, there was life left to live. I'm a long way short of being a person who heads straight to the misery memoir section of the local bookshop, but perhaps I'm crawling my way back towards enjoying some of the more downbeat aspects of art.
Abandoned Guardian
While walking down Shoreham Beach yesterday afternoon, we came across a Guardian that appeared to have been abandoned on a bench, and so was blowing around the beach in pieces:
We reassembled it, and left it held down by stones, in case the owner came back. But we didn't take it.
There's probably an extended metaphor for the future of print newspapers here, but I really can't be bothered to find it. ;-)
Maggie Philbin is....
Somewhere, my inner seven year old, a Swap Shop fanatic, is squealing with delight.
(and yes, it's the same one)
Covent Garden Candids
I used to do a lot of wandering around, just snapping pictures of life. I'm trying to get back into the swing of it:
Study's End
The study I've used for the last 12 years or so is dismembered, ready to be turned into a bedroom when we put the flat on the market. An awful lot of words were written in here.
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Lucifer VI
Flash: Off
Film: Blanko
Foragers' Harvest
We've been foraging for fruit in the trees that grow adjacent to the flat in Lewisham:
Elderberries for jam…
Das Potato
An image shot for a student magazine project, back in the early 90s. That's me on the left, oppressing the heroic potato revolutionary, and against the bleak East European vistas of… Hyde Park.
Student journalism was a lot of fun.
Work from home? The office? The coffee shop?
Although working from home is convenient, sometimes it pays to go to the office.
That's what Sheryl Crow discovered when she jettisoned her Nashville home studio for a Los Angeles one to record her latest album, "100 Miles From Memphis." The L.A. location led a few famous friends to stop by, including Justin Timberlake.
"I dragged him into the studio and said, 'I want you to hear something,'" she recalled. She played him her cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Sign Your Name," redone with a Memphis sound.
"He looked at me and said, 'You know I'm from Memphis ... I've got the backgrounds on this.' And he came in and he sang on this," she said. "That sort of thing doesn't happen when you're working from home."
I'm a huge fan of working from home, but only as part of a mix of locations. And the quote above illustrates exactly why an "office" in the widest sense can be hugely useful. I work from two different offices, home and coffee shops. Each give me a different working experience, and each are suited to different tasks.
Reporting the Obvious: Women in Skimpy Summer Outfits Cause Male Drivers to Crash
According to a new survey from UK insurance company Sheilas' Wheels, male drivers are more likely to cause crashes than women in the summer because they are distracted by women in skimpy clothing, the Daily Express reports.
So what -- our bikinis and Daisy Dukes could be considered reckless endangerment?
The poll found that 29 percent of men admit to rubber-necking at scantily clad females while driving in the summer, according to the paper.
C'mon, guys. It's not even August yet. Do you have to start the silly season so early?
(Sheila's Wheels? Daily Express? I despair over the state of my profession...)
Update: And suddenly, I realise how damn offensive the original headline from the post I reblogged is. No, women's clothing doesn't make men crash - men staring at women like lecherous morons causes crashes. It's scary how easily blame slips the wrong direction in issues like this.
Caprica Season 1.5 Preview
via www.youtube.com
I'm really looking forward to this. Dr T and I really enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, but Caprica is more interesting. It's less showily interesting, but the ideas of identity, existence and technology being explored are riveting. Next year is just too long to wait...