Pomp and circumstances

I was ambling along to my first meeting today near Parliament Square in London. When I got to the square it was blocked off to traffic and there were police everywhere and some soldiers. I asked a policeman what was going on, and it turned out to be the state opening of parliament, an odd piece of pomp where the Black Rod knocks on the door of the House of Commons while the Queen goes to the House of Lords and reads out drivel written for her by government spin doctors.

I was going to wander on to my first meeting but then I heard a band coming so I stayed to watch...

Strike two

Off to Paris today. The trains were on strike, as they generally are, so I had to wait ages to get a taxi from the airport. But I was already wanting to go home even before I got out of Charles de Gaulle because my BA flight from Heathrow was over an hour late, and when I got off I discovered that the French authorities had decided to have only one person on passport control: predictable result, long lines and angry passengers. Why do they do it?

A tale of two phones

So, I had to order couple of phones recently. Both on O2. One was a Blackberry, one was a K800i. I found the Blackberry (refurb) on e-mail for a pretty reasonable £40, won the auction, paid with Paypal and it arrived in a couple of days. I was ordering from a person, who's living depends on getting stars on eBay. I ordered the K800i from Carphone Warehouse six weeks ago and it still hasn't arrived. I was ordering from a computer that doesn't care whether I ever get a phone or not. I kept checking the web site, which kept saying that "Your order has been recieved" (they even sent me a confirmation e-mail) and it will be dispatched in 2-3 days. When I e-mailed to find out what was going on, I got an e-mail explaining that they "are currently experiencing high volumes of correspondence" blah blah blah. No wonder eBay is so successful, when the alternative is dealing with leading British retailers. P.S. The story has a happy ending though. When I rang up to complain earlier in the week, the phone was answered within a couple of minutes, the phone arrived two days later and they're sending me £45 compensation and upping my tariff by an extra 30 minutes per month for nothing.

Technorati Tags: mobile

Nice is nice this morning

Look at the colour of the sea. For some reason when you wake up in the morning and find yourself looking at sea that it this colour, it automatically makes your entire outlook on the world better. Even though there was an earthquake last night. Or at least that was what everyone was claiming this morning. I didn't notice it because I was (gasp!) at a party, but supposedly there was a small earthquake about around 8pm on Monday evening. I haven't been in an earthquake for years. I've only been in a couple of significant (ie, scary) earthquakes, once in Indonesia and once in California, so it would have been interesting to compare!

Goan, goan, gone

A very confusing Tuesday morning. My brain was expecting this... ...but it got this... ...because I'm in Goa. I am at some sort of backpackers hostel, but it's alright for a couple of days.

Technorati Tags: travel

Sunset at Silverstone

Lovely. And here's what it looked like when I was pottering around the pit lane and suddenly remembered that my mobile phone can take videos (it took me a while to figure out how, so I only got a short clip).

Wood Lane

Exciting scenes as I arrive at BBC Television Centre for an unspecified reason. I didn't see anyone famous in the canteen though, which was a bit upsetting as I was hoping to get something good to sell to the tabloids (someone using the wrong glass for the port, for example).