To the island

Julie had planned for us to visit the Isle of Wight, starting on Friday evening. We hurridly pushed clothes into bags and headed through the New Forest to Lymington.

Here we caught a ferry at around sunset across tranquil and blue seas to Yarmouth.

Chaos is a friend of mine

With Bob Dylan's documentary in vogue and me learning guitar, I thought I'd post one Dylan lyric; and preferably something playable and recognisable to most people. And I really like this early album from the early 1960s.

I know Dylan said,"People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas." but he also said, "The times they are a changin".

G Em
Come gather 'round people
C G
Wherever you roam
G Em
And admit that the waters
C D
Around you have grown
G Em
And accept it that soon
C G
You'll be drenched to the bone.
G Am D
If your time to you Is worth savin'
D D2/c
Then you better start swimmin'
G/b D/a
Or you'll sink like a stone
G C D G . .
For the times they are a-changin'.

G . . | Em . . | C . . | G . . | . . . | . . . | . . .

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
'Cause the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin


Guitar tabs to Dylan are here

'orchidding!

We sent this orchid to Elizabeth eighteen months ago. This is the second time it has flowered!

M25 lorry explosion

I received an email first about a lorry containing hydrogen peroxide which had accidentally exploded on the M25, right by the junction I would use later in the day. Luckily the lorry driver only had minor injuries and no-one else has been hurt. Both directions of the motorway were closed around the area of the explosion.

The lorry exploded around mid day and as I drove along the route tonight at around seven pm, the remains of the lorry (no tyres, no top) was just being lifted on to the back of a flatbed trailer. There were a lot of oil drums around the road, so maybe the contents was in individual containers before the explosion.

Carpe Vaxium

There was an uncertain amount of grime to remove from the carpets in Bulk Road. Enter the Vax and an immense amount of cleaning fluid. It took two complete sweeps to tame the lounge carpet!

Miyabi Lancaster

The teppenyaki cooking in Miyabi is excellent. We had chef specials for six of us comprising Miso Soup, salad, Sushi and then some impressive fried rice laced with garlic and sesame oil and a combination of king prawns, chicken and steak. All of this was rounded out with a rather interesting Chinese Tsing Tao Chardonney!

We watched in delight as the chef showed us flamboyant Japanese ways to cook mixed with the humour of egg catching and some dangerous knife based stunts.

Of course, like John, we all had to try to flip the eggs, whilst wearing a chef's hat, of course

An entertaining and memorable evening!
Tag: Lancaster, Food and Drink, Japan, restaurant

Warrington IKEA

When I was with Magnus on Monday evening, he was tellling me all sorts of facts about IKEA. In Sweden, everyone shops there and the company has a very strong reputation. The founder Ingvar Kamrad started as a boy living on a farm in Smaland, Sweden, buying matches in large quantities in Stockholm and selling them to his neighbours afterwards. This evolved towards the firm we know as IKEA: I and K as the initials of his name, E stood for his parental home Elmtaryd and finally the A for Agunnaryd, the village where he grew up. Originally, back in the late 1940s, Kamprad sold pens, jewellery and nylon stockings. Then, using a simple catalogue he started a mail order system with deliveries via the county milk van.

By 1951 the Ikea founder published his first furniture catalogue as the forerunner of the 110 million copies now published in 34 different language versions.

And the origins of the flat pack? More or less by accident. To transport a table more easily in a car an employee just took off the legs. A simple idea which has become the basis of the company philosophy.

Well - the morning shopping was an immense collection of items including a bed, two wardrobes, a sofa, a sideboard, a table and four chairs, plus other items which will be delivered on Tuesday.

And then a lunchtime pause for Swedish meatballs!

And then more shopping for incidentals, which we carried in the cars.

Thank you, Julie, for bringing structure to this shopping frenzy.

Bulk Challenge

None of us baulked at the sheer bulk of items to transfer to Lancaster. The bulkiest items were put into the cars with the most room and then we shipped everything in bulk to the new residence. I arrived part way through this and the bulk of the load had already been moved indoors.

Bulk On!

barcamp

Barcamp was organised in San Francisco to provide a forum for a self organised group to talk about latest internetty and tekky things. This is part of the social phenomenon of a global community which likes to network person to person as well as via electrons.

Now Chocolate and Vodka's Suw Charman is starting to organise a UK equivalent known as BarcampUK. At the moment it needs a venue and a date. There is already a wiki to catalyse the event.

Tag: barcamp, barcampuk

Blogday approaches - 3108

Blogday is coming up on August 31 - 3108 almost spells "blog"!. Created by Nir Ofir, it's a day when we should all recommend 5 blogs (maybe not just from the top 100) and to bridge outside of our sometimes closed networks.

The premise is that we all have blogs we enjoy reading that perhaps others don't know about - this is simply a way to expand that network.

Reading a well-written blog which today has just a few subscribers can be immensely interesting. There is always the challenge to remember to update sidebars to add the link. Try blogroll for this. Have fun on the 31st. Participate.

Tag: blogday, blog, BlogDay2005

As you like it

We met outside the Wyndham on the way to see Shakespear's comedy, "As you like it". In fear of their lives, Rosalind and Celia flee to a forest. Escaping what they most fear, they both discover what they both love. Sparkling with wit, this joyous tale of a girl disguised as a boy - who tempts the man she loves to fall for the boy she isn't.

The cast includes multi-award winning Helen McCrory as Rosalind and Sienna Miller as Celia. Sean Hughes from TV's Buzzcocks plays the comic. Great how the plot diverges and then neatly ties all of the ends. All the world's a stage.

Tenth floor talks

A whole day in a glass box on the roof.

And then a delightful evening overlooking the sea, from Per Ander's wooden deck.