I am not dead.

I should point out to everyone that I am not dead. OK, so some parts of me don’t function as quickly as they did when I was younger, but all my bits are still in place and in working order (See Note 1).


However, I do realise that I haven’t posted much for a while. Poor Inspector Jones is still being perplexed by the odd and Archie McRamie is still missing. In fact, there has been very little movement or signs of activity anywhere on these pages.

The reason is that I have a new job in London. For you Merkins, London is the big city where the Queen lives. However, nobody there speaks like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins – unless they are an American who is trying to blend in with the crowd. (See Note 2).

So while, I’m at this, I should cover off a few other bases for our Merkin cousins. In my time in London, I haven’t seen a pearly king or pearly queen. There are not handcarts selling roasted chestnuts on every corner. Even though I work in the very heart of the city, I am not required by statute to wear a bowler hat (See Note 3). Chimney sweeps are noticeable by their absence and there hasn’t been a foggy day in old London town that I have noticed.

It is all a bit like believing what you see on Fox News or read in one of Murdoch’s Evil Empire newspapers. Part of you really wants to believe the myth you are presented with, but the reality is far more mundane, ordinary and less likely to put money in News International’s back pocket.

Anyway, I am continuing along my own sweet way. I will be posting the next part of “A Couple of Tenors Short” when I have finished doing some major edit work on the manuscript.

So until then, have fun everyone and.....




Note 1: All that is except for my appendix which is long gone. According to Wikipedia, this isn’t a great loss. Never being a member of the eats, shoots and leaves brigade, I have never really missed the thing.


Note 2: Speaking like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins while in London doesn’t help you blend in. In fact, if you dress up in a lime green, spandex body suit, wear fairy lights and talk to fellow passengers on the tube you will blend in better.

Note 3: I would caution anybody visiting London to avoid people wearing bowler hats. The only people I have seen wearing the things are invariably trying to part tourists from their Sterling.

I've Got the Electrical Rodent Blues

For those of you who don't know and have the slightest interest, I work with computers. This means that I come into contact with lots of other people who work with computers. I eat lunch with lots of people who work in computers.

If you ever wonder what people who work in computers talk about when we are eating lunch, I can let you into the secret. We tend to talk about computers.

There you go then my puissant yeomen, part of the stereotype has been confirmed for you. I can also confirm that I work with men who have pony tails, wear sandals with socks and believe their knees should be displayed at all times. Don't take this to confirm the stereotype 100%. It might come as a shock, but they are also married and have made a contribution to the gene pool.

One topic of conversation of which we never tire is that of how we will interact with the computers of the future. These range from 2 minute chats at the coffee machine (another stereotype confirmed) to full five day conferences in exotic locations (see Note 1).

I'm old enough to have worked on computers where the only way you interacted with them was to feed in reels of paper tape, stacks of cards or hammer away with two fingers at a teletype. I can remember the first screen and keyboard arriving, shaking my head and tutting that it will never catch on and yes, I did the same when the PC and the computer mouse was wheeled through the door.

Now computers are everywhere (see Note 2). What is more we can use them anywhere and stay in touch with the interweb and our favourite applications almost everywhere we go.

Us computer people marvel at the technology that comes with our iPhones and our Wii's, talk about them a lot, then go and sit in front of our PC, fondle our mouse and then start hammering away at our keyboards as if they are teletypes.

Now that's the thing. What will replace the keyboard and the mouse? Touch screens? Brain implants? Armies of giant ants? We really don't know, but that doesn't stop us talking about it.

Then today, one of my colleagues sent my this link to a short film by Bruce Branit. I know nothing about Bruce and cannot provide any other information except the link to the film.

You really must find ten minutes of your life to watch this.

And, to confirm another stereotype, us computer bods spent our time discussing the holographic alarm clock.

Note 1 : Where another stereotype is sadly confirmed. When faced with the lure of talking about computers in a stuffy conference hall or sampling the temptations of an exotic location, the computer guys go for the stuffy conference hall every time.

Note 2 : My mobile phone has more processing power, memory and storage than the first computer I worked on and that computer filled a whole room while the air conditioning for it filled another. My mobile phone doesn't.