quaking

I somehow missed the earthquake which was supposed to have shaken the UK yesterday. I've been in proper earthquake zones before, including places like the San Andreas Fault where they give visitors briefings about what to do in the regularly occurring earthquakes.

One time I remember quite vividly was when I was with some friends in a shopping mall somewhere around Seattle. We'd all been er - drinking - and were tucked away at the back of a bar. At some point during the evening there was a series of events a little like a ship turning in a big swell of a sea, but at the time I thought it was more to do with a combination of jet-lag and alcohol. The gang I was with were similarly oblivious.

For whatever reason, we decided to leave the mall, in our own time and fairly undramatically. As we got to the outside, we could see fire engines, police cars and flashing lights. It unfolded that there had been an earthquake of moderate severity and the ship-like effects were the building's way of handling the waves as the earth literally moved.

We had some kind of bus to return us to our hotel and sure enough, the radio was filled with the story. If only we'd all paid more attention when it was happening.

more than twitter

Cutting back across Waterloo station forecourt at around 23:00 last night, where the busy people were transitioning from shopping in Marks and Spencers to the remaining few pie and sandwich bars that were still trading.

I'd been in the diverse mix of the London Bloggers, where I managed to spend a little more time than at the last event. Whereas the last time there were considerable blogging artifacts in evidence, this time most people seemed to be in the moment for a chat and whilst there will no doubt be photos, it didn't feel like one was being overly recorded.

Notable is the diversity amongst the attendees and the broad range of topics covered, including commerce, music, photography, parties, travel, advertising, protests in London, great alleyways of the City and all manner of other chatter.

Organiser Andy has managed to achieve a mix of 'regulars' and a good number of newbies at these events which can also help accelerate one's appreciation of the use of social networking.

where's the camel?

Another meeting of London bloggers tonight.

The regular attendees all seemed to have little MOO cards referencing their blogs last time and several attendees had cameras and even video recorders to capture aspects of the event.

I plan to drop by at some point during the evening.

not cold and windy, really

Who says its cold and windy around Canada Square at this time of year?

There's a contrast between the winter coats and the hardy souls out shopping in shirt sleeves or even standing in shirt for a chat. Of course, there's vastly more people moving about underground in the various tunnels and malls of this area of London's Canary Wharf.

I was 'in transit' but decided to sit outdoors for one of my conference calls, and this was the wintry view.

gap

A regular working day today, with me in a couple of different locations including Canary Wharf. For less experienced commuters, the Jubilee line has those special arrows painted onto the platforms indicating where to stand to (a) align with the doors (b) but stand out of the way whilst others get off the train. Remarkably, they are by the electrically operated glass doors along the platform. I suppose it is good for the avoidance of doubt.

The rather temporary looking markings are different at Canary Wharf and Waterloo, but I'm told its all part of a cunning experiment.

I somehow don't see it as iconic as 'Mind the Gap'.

carpet

After attending the BAFTAs a couple of weeks ago, its quite interesting to see the Oscars on television as a comparison. There's a few more of the central Hollywood gang already arrived, but also many of the nominees are the same folk that were at the British Awards.

I've been working with the television flickering in the background. Its quite interesting seeing quite well known Brit/Irish actors being generally as excited and 'normal' as anyone else would be to be on the red carpet.

Daniel Day Lewis seems to be wearing the same somewhat distinctive tux, whilst the ladies seem to have swapped their swish. I gather the coverage continues through to GMTV's morning television show here. I suspect some of the guests may be somewhat tired and emotional by that stage.

dolce

A pleasant surprise on my short trip to Tesco's today; The Observer newspaper had a DVD of 'la dolce vita' bundled with it.

I havn't seen the film for ages, but its one of those that warrants a proper movie evening. There's many famous scenes in it, shot artfully by Fellini in black and white.

Many people know the Trevi fountain scene also from the reference in 'Lost in Translation' but even the opening has been copied in other movies and the scenes in the car were referenced in Pulp Fiction. There's been a Woody Allen affectionate more or less re-make set in (where else?) Manhattan and the film gave the term to paparazzi, based on the name of one of the characters who shoots candid pictures of stars.

Seven nights and seven dawns.

Sweet?

snaporama

Not exactly a postcard view of Gloucester, because a postcard view would have edited away the dual carriageway from this picture taken a few hours ago. I guess that's one of the things with taking photographs, what to include and what to exclude. I could have moved the camera a little further to the left, which would have removed the bypass, but then I think I'd have somehow included the big tin sheds in the foreground.

If that didn't work, then maybe I could have made a feature of the A417 roadway although then I might have lost the view of the Mendip Hills in the background, although perhaps that way I could hint at the country, town, industrial convergence.

Or another way to look at it would be to put the road off to one side (sort of rive-gauche) and try to capture more of the wintry colours in the few minutes of sun on a rather sold and blustery day.

Or, I suppose I could try cropping the picture to give a different viewpoint. Maybe if I crop the last picture to make it more wide-screen panoramic, still including the road and some hint of the way to the hills?

torchwood babiez

In case the television series is not enough. Click the pic to enjoy.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, torchwood, babiez, captain+jack, gwen, cardiff

Cheltenham sin

Cheltenham from Friday evening, and it didn't take too long to find the Sinners' Enclosure, which rather conveniently was in our very hotel.

There seemed to be a strong emphasis on horsing around in that particular area and actually in the hotel in general, with some fun touches like the extra bathtub in the bedroom of the imposing Georgian building.

We later found the informal and very enjoyable restaurant underneath a chandelier of wine glasses.

They know a thing or two about red nectar at the hotel and we drank a special Gevrey Chambertin with our supper. Of course, by Saturday evening, we'd also explored the town, but that is a whole further story.

year of the rat

Bob-kat just commented to me with that alleged Chinese curse about interesting times. A lot of people believe it is level one of a three level curse originating in China.

Most Chinese folk seem to refute it though, saying that it was made up by a westerner in the 20th Century a bit like the various 'Confucius, he say' type of statements.

I'm taking no chances here though. I've decided to hang lots of bright red lanterns from a couple of weeks ago celebrating the year of the rat onto the top of rashbre central for the day, to ward off any evil spirits that might be passing.

"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom", as Confucius might have said.

fiddle de dee

Sometimes when I'm travelling (like this week) the act of keeping a blog sort of conspires against me. I don't usually spend more than about 10 minutes on a post, but sometimes even for that I'm caught short if the electronics don't work.

I prefer to add a picture if I can, but as my PC flickr loader has crashed I can't add anything from my camera today. And yesterday the network links were rather intermittent in my previous hotel. Its quite embarrassing when the line crashes in the middle of adding comments to someone else's blog, when its not quite what I wanted to say.

I'm guessing this hotel will have better food, though I need to work this evening on a presentation for tomorrow, so It'll be room service again. I did venture out for a few minutes to a nearby coffee shop though in order to have some sense of the people and the place instead of just the white box view of hotels and meeting rooms.

Some of my friends say this is a little like being a spy, travelling around, random hotels and so forth, but I don't think I'll be applying for a job with SIS, even if it could improve the news.

And there certainly seems to be a fair amount around today, Castro resigns, the Bridgend tragedies, Gordon's latest positive thought and even 'our Tone' getting back onto front pages with more talk of the European Union presidency. Now he's being supported by Sarkozy the whole thing may turn out to be a bad idea. According to my friends in France, Nikky is well past the honeymoon stage with the electorate, even if not so with Carla. Allegedly Germany's Angela Merkel is also not so keen along with those that have started a 'Stop Blair' website.

Then there's Vince who cabled his ideas about the rocky northern bank long before the teams of highly paid consultants concluded with the same idea. As its anathema to new Labour to nationalise things again, it will be interesting to see how long dithering Darling survives, or indeed whether Gordon makes a sacrifice of him.

And now that the '125% of property value' mortgages are surfacing and the separate Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called 'Granite' has been used to hold all of the 'good' money from Northern Rock, it gets kind of interesting to see what is left in the nationalised shell - presumably a much smaller than anticipated number of less than 'rock solid' securities.

Perhaps Westminster, too, has also been caught short in the current situation.