The small padded envelope arrived just as I was about to head out for a meeting. I assumed it was a CD or DVD or similar and din't have time to open it.
When I returned much later, it turned out to be the first printed copy of The Triangle. I fear the English language is in for another shock.
I've been around the back streets of Euston and St Pancras today, in an area once referred to as Somers Town. I arrived for my evening liaison rather early because I had conference calls to make and needed to be somewhere static before I headed for the appointed wine bar.
The instructions to navigate to the bar involved alleyways and a pole dancing club as a landmark. I sipped my coffee whilst on my phone calls and was seated outdoors across the way from the roped entrance to a massage parlour, complete with blackened windows and flashing lights.
When I finally met my accomplice for the evening, she commented that there had perhaps been people in the flashing light place wondering if I was planning to go in.
I'm bemused that Gordon Brown stayed quiet about the Libyan bomber release as long as he did and created several situations where the UK Press wondered at Brown's lack of voice. Then a topic he chose to use to make an apology and use the "S" word was the treatment of master cryptographer Alan Turing, who famously cracked the codes being used in World War II but suffered harsh treatment in post War Britain.
Turing is well known for the Turing test, which postulates that a computer can be considered to think if sufficient people are unable to ask it questions and deduce it as a machine, rather than a human. The CAPTCHA test used on some blogs (where you have to recognise some letters in order to make a comment) is a Turing derivative standing for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.
I'm wondering if the Labour Party have done something odd with Gordon now, and that there's a separate box somewhere with some special springs and cogs in it, attempting to run the UK?
But, at last, the problem has been fixed, along with a Service B, some new brake bits and a walk with an umbrella.
They say nature abhors a vacuum so within minutes the usual random collection of stuff re-submerged into the recesses of the newly pingy boot as if some giant electro magnet had been switched on.
Tomorrow there will be a further test, when the little Ka returns and no doubt huge further amounts of luggage will be temporarily moved into the boot for onward transportation.
Reboot universe, as they say on some traffic lights.
The large Termite Mound which has sprung up along the South Bank is part of the Pestival celebration of insects which runs through this weekend.
I happened to be passing it whilst it was being created and thought the combination of bars, construction workers and little crowds of onlookers was itself quite a spectacle. Now, of course, it is suited to far more artistic views.
And the related exhibits include all manner of bug and particularly the dwindling bee.
Some of the creatures get to that uncomfortably large size that turns them from cute into eversoslightlyscary. I haven't quite worked out the turning point, but maybe its whether or not all the legs could be contained within an upturned coffee mug?
I always think of September as spider month, because it seems to be the time when they decide they've had enough outdoors and start to patrol the carpets again.
I was listening today to someone on the radio talking about how to watch nature by sitting still on a rock and waiting. The generally wary wildlife stops computing one's presence after a while and returns to the area.
I guess that works better in country areas than in the city. Like the difference between country hedgehogs and townie ones. The country ones try to stare down the car headlights. The city ones run.
Like crossing Traf Square to wave to the plinther. As usual, the pigeons don't care. They fly so close I can feel the wind rush from their wings.
In amongst the West End bustle today. It is still school summer holidays for a few days, but there's a change as we hit September and the leaves are already showing signs of the turning season.
I walked past Downing Street and was slightly bemused by the abnormal quantity of brown leaves strewn across the entrance. So many that men with brooms were clearing them away.
Then flitting between my meetings in different parts of town in one of those logistically challenged days where there would be an inevitable schedule mishap. It happened when I was stuck in a deluge of rain by a noisy train station, trying to find the right code number to access a conference call, where two of the digits had been transposed.
"its easily done", commented a friendly voice from Houston, when I finally joined, but in my head I was thinking about those leaves. Not exactly under the carpet, but close.
A readjustment of the handlebars on my road bike and I found a spot wide enough to attach the little camera thingy that I'd made a few days ago. A case of real estate conflict on the handlebars. Yes, there's also a light, bell and reflector, so space was at a premium.
Then out for a spin, again around a few lanes.
This time a different challenge. I'd picked a slightly larger camera for today's attempt but only when I was en route did I notice that the camera battery was almost run down. Today's problems: lack of battery, wobble from weight of the larger camera, slow focusing on the slightly zoomed Panasonic. Trial and error, but I am circling towards a formula that will work.
Still...
The main point was to enjoy some cycling around the sunny lanes, which seemed to be a plan for a few other friendly folk too - quite conversational in fact.
I've simply uploaded part of the footage to where the battery died with a bit of music mixed onto it. Feel free to snigger as the camera spins sideways part way through this two minute epic.
A bank holiday weekend and the time that I finally fill in the tax return. Means clearing up messy paperwork and generally filing a few things.
Time to also swap a few car CDs, having been listening to saint etienne's old foxbase alpha for quite a while.
Instead in goes The xx. A debut album that sounds surprisingly well formed. One I can already sense will be on the playlist for a while.
Sounds which would go well in a David Lynch movie soundtrack. Laura Palmer returns to Mulholland Drive. It turns out The xx are from South London and were born in the 1990s. They have kind of landed rather than been promoted.
There's a clever edginess, with stripped back sound stage, and old 80's MPC for drumming, some strangely blues tradition guitar, a bass that sometimes drifts on like a background explosion and self-aware lyrics that flame with burning houses, uncrossable bridges, lovelorn outsiders, stars, infinity and (of course) boiling wax.
Always good, they sound like themselves, rather than a copy of someone else.
A test of a few new components today. The updated Mac, with Snow Leopard, Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro, for video and music editing, plus the zero cost camera mounting for my bike.
A couple of drawbacks with the bike mounting though...It works fine mechanically, but the plastic clip I used was for a rear reflector and is too small for the handlebars on my road bike, so I've had to clip it to my boingy mountain bike.
Not a problem for the route I've taken except the front fork suspension coupled with a small HD camera and no image stabilisation makes even a fairly flat road run look bouncy. I also set a wide angle for testing, which doesn't give quite the sensation of speed of a more telephoto view.
Still, its given me a chance to try the components and discover that I need to try a different camera for the handlebars and ideally to fix it to a bike without 30 cm of front fork suspension.
I'll try my little Lumix with the image stabilisation next. I think that should work better.
I'm also aware that the camera just points where the handlebars are aimed, so when I turned around at the edge of a field, it just gave me 30 degree angled pan. I can see why people spend money on steady-cams and similar.
But for now, in the true spirit of pioneering low cost bicycle attachments, you can watch me judder around a few little lanes at the edge of town under various video editing treatments and to a stuttery Beatles remix.
I'm bemused that Gordon Brown stayed quiet about the Libyan bomber release as long as he did and created several situations where the UK Press wondered at Brown's lack of voice. Then a topic he chose to use to make an apology and use the "S" word was the treatment of master cryptographer Alan Turing, who famously cracked the codes being used in World War II but suffered harsh treatment in post War Britain.
A test of a few new components today. The updated Mac, with Snow Leopard, Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro, for video and music editing, plus the zero cost camera mounting for my bike. 