Andrew JD Hudson's Blog

Passed my Civique Exam!

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What is it?

New this year the civique exam is an additional pre-requisit for getting a multi-year Titre de Sejour in France.

At the end of 2025 I had taken the compulsory four-day Civique Training which was really interesting especially the history of France that I did not already know, as well as some information that I didn't already know about the culture, geography and political landscape of France and Europe.

Revision

During the course I had made plenty of notes so I went through these again. I also found all the free online tests that I could do and did them over and over. I also read some of the online material on the official https://formation-civique.interieur.gouv.fr/. I even read a book on the French Revolution at Marion's parents house over Christmas.

The Day

Then the day arrived and with it snow on the ground which then turned to smush under the feet and deep puddles and slippery paths and I walked the paths to the exam center in the center of Grenoble. Slush slosh. A passing car sloshed cold water on me but I continued and arrived at the exam center early. I was able to wait and warm up and read through my notes while the time ticked down to the time of the exam.

The exam was fine and I thought I got more wrong that I did. In the end I only got one wrong. So 39/40. I forgot who Josephine Baker was, but got the rest of the questions correct. Whipeee!

Experimenting on the bleeding edge in Chrome Canary with command line Feature Flags

Tue, 13 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

I am following the work on a prototype of a new CSS feature that will enable the ability to know which direction the user is scrolling a scrollport aka Support scroll direction in @scroll-state
I quickly created a codepen demo and I repeatedly checked Chrome Canary but I could not make my code work.
I realised that to be able to use it the browser needed a special command line feature flag to enable it.
There are a number of levels of status that a feature can have when being prototyped: Test, Experimental, and Stable. Test is where the code is so new that to use it you need to use a command line flag. Experimental is also under a feature flag but this time a more general "Experimental Web Platform Features" which is available to the user in chrome://flags e.g. chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-web-platform-features. The final level is Stable where the feature does not need any flag and is ready to be shipped.
I looked in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chromium/chromium/refs/heads/main/third_party/blink/renderer/platform/runtime_enabled_features.json5 and did a search for direction.
The feature flag I wanted was CSSScrollDirectionContainerQueries and in my terminal on MacOS I typed:

/Applications/Google\ Chrome\ Canary.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome\ Canary --enable-features=CSSScrollDirectionContainerQueries

Writing a custom zsh function to open canary with specified command line feature flags

I am using ZSH and instead of remembering all of the above each time I want to open Canary I have created a function into which I can pass the flag name(s):

function openCanary() {
	/Applications/Google\ Chrome\ Canary.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome\ Canary --enable-features="$1";
}

and then use openCanary CSSScrollDirectionContainerQueries or even openCanary CSSScrollDirectionContainerQueries,CSSMixins if I wanted to use CSSMixins and CSSScrollDirectionContainerQueries flags.

Debugging

If it is not working you will want to check it is not conflicting with other flags. To do this you can go to chrome://version

Notes

https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/third_party/blink/renderer/platform/RuntimeEnabledFeatures.md

Displaying CSS variables in CSS Content

Tue, 06 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

import BlobsExample from "./BlobsExample.astro";

I often have the need to see the in-place value of the a CSS variable on the page to help me debug what I am working on. To be able to do this I need to use CSS counter-reset in combination with CSS counter() to display within CSS content on a before or after pseudo element.

This is for future me as I always need to look it up.

CSS

.blob {
    --hue: calc(10 * var(--index));

    background: hsl(calc(var(--hue) * 1deg) 100% 50%);

    /* the counter name must be of type <custom-ident>. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/counter-reset and https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/custom-ident
    The second value must be an integer (i.e. cannot have a unit so 30deg would not work here).
    */
    counter-reset: hue var(--hue);

    &::after {
        /* apply the counter value to the css content property */
        content: counter(hue) "deg";
    }
}

HTML

<div class="blob" style="--index: 1"></div>
<div class="blob" style="--index: 2"></div>
<div class="blob" style="--index: 3"></div>
<div class="blob" style="--index: 4"></div>
<div class="blob" style="--index: 5"></div>

Output:

Getting in the way of writing

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

import { Code } from 'astro:components'; import importedCode from '/script.mjs?raw';

Current Process when attempting to write a blog post

I have a need to write a blog so I need to jump through a number of hoops before I can do it.

Update Astro because that is always a thing that is nice and shiny and makes me feel good.
Start the local server, open up the url in Chrome
Find an old blog post that I can copy to get the new one started. This takes ages and takes mental energy.
Set the title and date of the post, as well as optional tags. This takes more energy.
Finally get round to starting to type the content of the blog post only to run out of mental energy and stop because the initial excitement about sharing something with the world has been reduced to a mear trickle and other things now seem more pressing.
Convert the blog post into draft mode
Commit the code to Git because why not
Never update the blog post again and leave it forever more in draft unfinished mode.

Other distractions

The design of my site
the world outside
the configuration of VS Code that I am using for this repository
life, the internet, everything outside

Is there a better way?

Of course the above is shit and this is why I have not written anything good on this site for a long time. The pressures from all sides are preventing me.

A better way:

Have a script that creates a new blog post from a template e.g. with todays date, an option to enter a title, then once that is done it takes me directly to the new file, with the terminal running the local server and the browser pointing to the newly created page.
This would prevent me from fiddling with anything that is not the content of the blog. And hopefully it would enable me to create better posts going forwards.

Final Solution

I have created a zx script and I start it with make create on the terminal. This then gives me the option of what I would like to call the blog post, then fires up the browser with the new url, fires up the local dev server, and also more importantly it focuses on the new markdown file in VS Code on the correct line to start typing straight away.

Good Friday not Celebrated in France

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

First year living in France and it is very strange because in Grenoble where we live the schools are still not on holiday and today is Good Friday.

France schools are split into three Zones and which zone you are in is the basis for when your holidays are taken. This is true for the Winter Holiday (February for two weeks) and also for Easter (April / May for two weeks).

Easter Holidays - aka Vacances de printemps

Zone A (which Grenoble is in): 19 April - 5 May
Zone B is: 5 April - 22 Avril
Zone C is: 12 April - 28 April

The idea behind it is so that everyone in the country is not on holiday at the same time and not block the resorts, beaches, ski resorts, etc at the same time.

To me as a expat here feels very strange.

See What is the calendar of school holidays 2024-2025, 2025-2026?

Big Two Cyclocross 2024-25

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Really looking forward to the showdown this Cyclo Cross winter season with Wout van Aert, ~Tom Pidcock~ and Mathieu van der Poel.

How to Group View Transitions

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I am currently learning about view-transitions with CSS in great detail.

I wanted to be able to select all the view transitions of a similar type e.g. in this case all of the headers.

The problem I had was that all of the headers need a unique view-transition-name so that the browser knows which header to animate to where. If all have the same name it cannot do this and the element transition won't work.

<header style="view-transition-name=header-1">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name=header-2">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name=header-3">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name=header-4">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name=header-5">...</header>

If you wanted to be able to select all of these 5 headers you would need to:

html::view-transtion-group(header-1),
html::view-transtion-group(header-2),
html::view-transtion-group(header-3),
html::view-transtion-group(header-4),
html::view-transtion-group(header-5) {
    animation-duration: 333ms;
}

One line per unique view-transition-name. Not possible for multiple view-transition-names, especially when they are generated based on the content.

For this site I am generating the view-transition-name based on the slug of the blog post. This means that by default all of the view-transition-names will be unique, and also that they cannot be placed into the CSS without an alternate build step. But it brings a problem when doing more complex work with the view transitions api. Targetting all of the headers to be able to control the way the headers animate between the new and the old views.

I needed to find another way!

view-transition-class to the rescue!

After watching this excellent video about View Transitions by Bramus on the Google Chrome team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY6C_-aDdTo my eyes noticed the view-transtion-class attribute;

Each header still needs a unique view-transition-name as above but with view-transition-class you can target all of the headers.

Still the same HTML:

<header style="view-transition-name="header-1">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name="header-2">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name="header-3">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name="header-4">...</header>
<header style="view-transition-name="header-5">...</header>

With view-transition-class you can group these with CSS:

header {
    view-transition-class: header-vt;
}

Then target with CSS:

html::view-transition-group(.header-vt) {
    animation-duration: 333ms;
}

This Week I learned

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Netlify Redirects with Astro

Yesterday I was attempting to do a redirect on my Astro site which is hosted on Netlify (for free, really excellent hosting!) to my newly created Sveltekit site on a different sub-domain. I followed the recommended method of using a _redirects file in the public folder - this is specific to Astro, normally on other Netlify sites it just needs to be in the root of the project.

Here was my initial code:

# /public/_redirects
/cv https://cv.andrewhudson.dev

but nothing was working.

I then did some further research and discovered I needed to do a forced redirect because the Astro site still has an existing /cv route and code which meant that the redirect wasn't working.

The solution was to use a 301 redirect with some extra force - the !. Here's the final code I used:

# /public/_redirects
/cv https://cv.andrewhudson.dev 301!

French

This week in my French classes at the Alliance Francaise we continued learning the pronouns COD / COI as <a href="https://learntofrench.com/master-cod-and-coi-in-french-explained/">explained here</a> and also continued to utilise the past tenses passé composé and the imparfait.

Development

I am continuing to learn about CSS anchor positioning with @starting-style and popover action. Further to this I have started a seperate CV site using sveltekit.

Cool demos I created in june 2024

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Following on from last year's cool demos june 2023 I want to showcase some of the cool demos I created in the month of June 2024. I really got in the groove and created a new demo every day for two weeks, each building on the previous.

Having attended CSS Day in Amsterdam I was hungry to apply some of the new skills that had been showcased during the excellent conference.

A word of warning: All of these demos work currently in Chromium-based browsers. I hope that Firefox and Safari will soon support anchor positioning so that these demos will work in all browsers.

<ul class="demos-list"> <li>Anchor Positioning to connect two blobs: <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="eYaGOXO" data-pen-title="Linking two points with a box. Using Kizu's code from https://kizu.dev/anchor-positioning-experiments/" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/eYaGOXO"> Linking two points with a box. Using Kizu's code from https://kizu.dev/anchor-positioning-experiments/</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span>

</p> </li> <li>Connecting two points with Mouse clicks. Click on the demo! <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="RwmLVJp" data-pen-title="Mouse clicks and anchor positioning" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/RwmLVJp"> Mouse clicks and anchor positioning</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Getting my head around CSS mod() <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="RwmLMGx" data-pen-title="Getting my head around mod()" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/RwmLMGx"> Getting my head around mod()</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>CSS mod() v2 - with controls! <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="OJYxeGq" data-pen-title="mod() v2 - with controls!" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/OJYxeGq"> mod() v2 - with controls!</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>CSS mod() v3 - advanced version with controls <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="KKLXOmg" data-pen-title="mod() v3" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/KKLXOmg"> mod() v3</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span></p>

</li> <li>sin() css wave <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="PovEyrW" data-pen-title="sin() css" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/PovEyrW"> sin() css</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>sin() combined with scroll-driven animations. Make sure you scroll! <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="VwOyqgG" data-pen-title="scroll-animation sin() (Chrome+)" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/VwOyqgG"> scroll-animation sin() (Chrome+)</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Two points linked by anchor-positioning with a diagonal line to connect the two dots - needed to work out how to switch the diagonal line based on the relative positions of the two boxes. <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="gOJvaZo" data-pen-title="diagonal lines css (Chrome+) with anchor-positioning " data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/gOJvaZo"> diagonal lines css (Chrome+) with anchor-positioning </a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Balloons on Strings powered by anchor-positioning <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="VwOQWXj" data-pen-title="Balloons in Strings (Chrome+)" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/VwOQWXj"> Balloons in Strings (Chrome+)</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Mouse cursor controlled owner of balloons. Move your mouse! <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="qBGxgLL" data-pen-title="Mouse + Balloons in Strings (Chrome+)" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/qBGxgLL"> Mouse + Balloons in Strings (Chrome+)</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Boxes around another box with CSS and maths. Hover the big square! <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="eYaMNdv" data-pen-title="Boxes around a box CSS animation" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/eYaMNdv"> Boxes around a box CSS animation</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> <script async src="https://cpwebassets.codepen.io/assets/embed/ei.js"></script> </li>

</li> </ul>

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Big Three Cyclocross 2023-24

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT

import { Picture } from "astro:assets"; import image from "./big-three-cyclocross.avif";

Really looking forward to the showdown this Cyclo Cross winter season with Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel.

Cool demos I created in june 2023

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT

<ul class="demos-list"> <li>Ferris Wheel with CSS Trig and sibling-count web-component. I wanted to try out CSS Trigonometric functions (cos() and sin()) and I wanted a better way of knowing how many siblings a parent had and what the index of each sibling was. So I created a web-component sibling-count to do the dark magic for me. <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="OJovxRW" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/OJovxRW"> Ferris wheel : Using sibling-count web component and CSS Trig</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li> <li>Subgrid with CSS Nesting collection of books. Turns out subgrid is coming to Chrome (currently in Chrome Canary), and I guess Edge; it already is in both Safari and Firefox. CSS Nesting is in Chrome/Safari/Edge and is coming to Firefox (currently in Nightly behind a flag). <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="rNQNJEZ" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/rNQNJEZ"> CSS Subgrid Book Cards</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p>

</li> <li> Relative Color Syntax. Supported in Safari but not currently in Firefox/Chrome/Edge. <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-default-tab="html,result" data-slug-hash="KKxYdRj" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/KKxYdRj"> relative color syntax + cos() - Works in Safari/Chrome/Edge</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </li>

<li> Scroll driven animations. Works currently in Chrome Canary. Scroll the page, see the circular text rotate. <p class="codepen" data-height="500" data-theme-id="dark" data-default-tab="result" data-slug-hash="xxapgva" data-user="bigandy" style="height: 500px; box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; border: 2px solid; margin: 1em 0; padding: 1em;"> <span>See the Pen <a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy/pen/xxapgva"> css scroll animation + css trig</a> by Andrew Hudson (<a href="https://codepen.io/bigandy">@bigandy</a>) on <a href="https://codepen.io">CodePen</a>.</span> </p> </ul>

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Raspberry Pi from MacOS via SD Card

Sat, 10 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT

get the image: https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/operating-systems/
install the image: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/mac.md
diskutil list to find out the rdisk that your SD is associated with
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN replacing the rdiskN with the number of the disk your SD card is associated with
sudo dd bs=1m if=path_of_your_image.img of=/dev/rdiskN; sync replacing the rdiskN with the number of the disk your SD card is associated with. In my case this is sudo dd bs=1m if=/Users/andrew/Downloads/2021-03-04-raspios-buster-armhf-lite.img of=/dev/rdisk3; sync (you can see the progress by pressing ctrl+t)
this will put the image on /Volumes/boot which will be accessible from the command line
sudo diskutil eject /dev/rdiskN to eject the SD card.

Set up Wifi on the card

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/headless.md
cd /Volumes/boot
vim wpa_suplicant.conf

enter wifi and country code in the file but that note that this will need to be the 2.4GHz network if you have a Raspberry Pi that does not support 5GHz.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
country=GB<Insert 2 letter ISO 3166-1 country code here>

network={
ssid="<Name of your wireless LAN>"
psk="<Password for your wireless LAN>"
}

enable ssh https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/ssh/README.md easiest is to place a ssh file in the sd card during setup
eject the SD card and put in the raspberry pi and turn it on

Format the SD Card

sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 RASPBIAN MBRFormat /dev/diskN replacing diskN with your disk number found by running diskutil list. Note that this gives the name RASBIAN to the SD Card so now you can cd into /Volumes/RASPBIAN. I followed this site: https://www.michaelcrump.net/the-magical-command-to-get-sdcard-formatted-for-fat32/

Install Nodejs on the raspberry pi

Need to SSH into the PI first then you can do the command line work.
Follow this as it worked for me: https://www.instructables.com/Install-Nodejs-and-Npm-on-Raspberry-Pi/
wget https://nodejs.org/dist/v14.16.1/node-v14.16.1-linux-armv7l.tar.gz
tar -xzf node-v14.16.1-linux-armv7l.tar.gz
cd node-v14.16.1-linux-armv7l/
sudo cp -R * /usr/local/
Check if node is installed node -v
Check if npm is installed npm -v

Install Apache

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/web-server/apache.md
Should be able to navigate to http://raspberrypi.lan/
Files should be kept in /var/www/html/ directory
Folder and file permissions for the var/www folder : https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=155067

Johnny Five Button on Pi

npm install johnny-five raspi-io
create index.js
=======

Install Dependencies

sudo apt install vim nginx git
install rustup: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
install openssl and direnv: sudo apt install openssl direnv
cargo build --release
install more deps sudo apt install libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler
try again cargo build --release

Install the 64 bit version of the Raspberry Pi OS

https://illegalexception.schlichtherle.de/raspbian/2019/09/21/how-to-upgrade-raspbian-to-a-64-bit-kernel/

Run Next with pm2

https://trinitytuts.com/tips/deploying-a-nextjs-app-in-production-with-pm2/
Create the build first npm run build
pm2 start npm --name "Next App" -- start
Save pm2 settings pm2 save
With nginx make sure the correct permissions: sudo chown -R pi:www-data /var/www

Code to run the button on raspberry pi with johnny-five

const five = require("johnny-five");
const Raspi = require("raspi-io").RaspiIO;
const board = new five.Board({
    io: new Raspi(),
});

board.on("ready", function () {
    const button1 = new five.Button("P1-7");

    button1.on("press", async () => {
        console.log("button1 pressed");
    });
});

Needs to be run with sudo privileges e.g. sudo node index.js

How I use get_iplayer to download the latest Gilles Peterson show!

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMT

How to use get_iplayer

get_iplayer is a tool for downloading TV and Radio shows from the BBC iPlayer. I want to use it to get the latest Gilles Peterson show, and download it onto a folder on my machine.

Run a search for Gilles Peterson's shows:

<pre><code>get_iplayer --type=radio "Gilles Peterson"</code></pre>
This returns a list of the 5 latest shows with their corresponding IDs e.g. <strong>Gilles Peterson - Words & Music From Pino Palladino, BBC Radio 6 Music, m000t5dn</strong> where <strong>m000t5dn</strong> is the ID.

How to download this show

<pre><code>get_iplayer --pid=m000t5dn</code></pre> record a radio programme using the PID (m000t5dn) from its Sounds URL in high quality (320k), with fallback to lower quality if not available (default setting):.
<pre><code>get_iplayer --pid=m000t5dn --radio-quality=med</code></pre> is a lower quality 96k - much more reasonable at 130.31MB

How to: Download the latest version of get_iplayer

Full instructions for Macos are here
Navigate to https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer_macos/releases and grab the latest MacOS version
Download and then ctrl+click the installer as the installer is not signed.
Update the cache by running <pre><code>get_iplayer --refresh --type=tv,radio</code></pre> or <pre><code>get_iplayer --refresh --type=radio</code></pre> if only want radio.

</div>

2020 in Review

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT

This Year

Obviously this year was dominated by Covid and its related carnage but overall the year was a good one as well as a tiring one.

Family

We were lucky so spend a month in France with Marion's parents in the summer and two weeks with my parents following this. Otherwise we didn't really see anyone and are really looking forward to the time in the future we can all get together.

Coffee

We used the inforced working from home as an extravagant excuse to get a posh espresso machine and make delicious coffee every day. Both Marion and I are keen drinkers of the dark stuff so we made a lot of coffee last year.

Job

My third year at Venture Harbour and learned a tonne this year. Design Systems, serverless functions, Nextjs, GraphQL, CSS Modules, Firebase, and Postgress. Outside of work I took this further with some cool personal projects with my Raspberry Pi and SQLite and Hasura databases. I think I am starting finally to move away from design and CSS as my favorite areas of interest and really enjoy working with the stack we have going at work. I love controlling things through tech in the real world so having the Pi projects going is a good way to take a step back and build something useful in the house for all my family.

Health and Fitness

I did a lot of running this year. Only during the first lockdown and during the post-holiday quarantine did things reduce. It was a year that I smashed my running goal of 1,000 km and in the end I did 826.4 miles which equals 1330km!. In 2021 I want to run further and achieve 1,000+ miles. There were no races due to Covid but if things change in 2021 I'd like to run my first marathon. I also did a lot of walking and cycling as a family, and did some e-biking when in France with Marion which was super fun.

2019 Review

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT

What a year 2019 has been!

What a year 2019 has been! I'm currently in France on holiday and looking back on what the year 2019 was for me. Work-wise I did loads of JavaScript including working on an Electron desktop application called Serene and its companion Chrome and Firefox extension. This uses loads of React, Node, and Firebase to handle all the data, as well as styled-jsx to handle the styling. Every day is a day for learning! I also worked on a big project using React on BrokerNotes. So all in all I grew a lot as a developer in 2019!

On the personal side we moved house to Wallingford, Arthur started primary school, and I re-focused on running again. Emma turned one, and Arthur four. There have been holidays and weekends away.

Highlights:

Moved house
- finally we're in our house in Wallingford after renting in Cholsey for 9 months.
Family
- Arthur started school in September which has made life more interesting with two different locations to drop/pick up kids in the morning and evenings. He is enjoying school a lot and learning a great amount too.
- We Travelled to Croatia for a holiday in June, then other holidays have been to France for a wedding, a family
- Emma turned one and continues to deprive us of sleep. She has a very strong character.
- Marion started a new job, and has also caught the running bug. It was amazing to run with her over the Christmas break so I'll be looking forward to run with her in 2020!
I Got Fit This year has been a year dominated with exercise and collecting Vitality Points. - Ran and exercised lots - Took a 6 week swimming course - Ran two trail half-marathons, a 10k and a Park Run
Work
- Worked on Serene all year learning lots of Electron; levelling up my React and Node and learning Firebase and CSS-in-JS with styled-jsx. On BrokerNotes I also used React with a big project being released in December that can be re-used in different projects next year.
- Conferences:
  - React Advanced
  - WP Engine Summit
  - JAMStack Conference London

Music I'm Currently Listening to

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Top three albums I am listening to at the moment:

"Love What Survives" by Mount Kimbie
"Lux Prima" by Karen O and Dangermouse
"Benji" by Sun Kil Moon

Exercise Notes #1

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

In the first of possibly more than one I review what I have been doing in terms of exercise in the last week. I will see how I feel about them. Could be changed to monthly.

This week I have been running three times, and the gym twice. I've decided to aim for some realistic but challenging running goals, they are sub-20min 5k, then sub-40min 10k. For the first one I want to this in the gym first then outdoors. Running on the treadmill at the gym is a more controlled environment because you can enter a pace and then you stick to it whereas outside you need to navigate a course and remember to keep running as fast as possible.

Running Goals for 2019.

Sun, 17 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

This year I really would like to achieve some cool things in running. Here are some of them:

sub 20 minute 5k (first on a treadmill, then in real-life e.g. park run)
sub 40 minute 10k (this will have to be done on strava)
Complete a trail half-marathon. I have signed up for two trail half-marathons:
- May 25th 2019 Maverick x TRIBE Run Free Half Marathon 2019
- October 12th 2019 The Maverick inov-8 Original Oxfordshire 2019
Run Further than I know how to: (See how far I can run):
- [x] 12 miles. (done! 12.11 miles - 11.03.2019 and Super Muddy and Wet Maverick Oxfordshire - trail half)
- [x] 13 miles. (done see 15 miles)
- [x] 14 miles (done see 15 miles)
- [x] 15 miles (done! Hot and mountainous Maverick Tribe 24k)
- [ ] 16 miles
- [ ] 17 miles
- [ ] 18 miles
- [ ] 19 miles
- [ ] 20 miles
- [ ] 21 miles
- [ ] 22 miles
- [ ] 23 miles
- [ ] 24 miles
- [ ] 25 miles
- [ ] 26 miles
- [ ] 26.2 miles+
- [ ] 50k!

Trialling Eleventy.

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I have been using WordPress to write for a long time but lately I have been wanting something different, seperating the place where you write from the internet and allowing one to focus on the writing not the process of putting the writing live in a web browser.

I have used Jeykll in the past but that process was much slower than I'd like. It felt like going into the stone age - Ruby, poor developer experience.

Requirements of a new blogging platform

Uses markdown
Uses JS
Browser sync and local server easy to setup and use
Easy to get started with a blog with archive, tagging and ability to schedule posts
Deploy easily and quickly with Netlify on push of code to Github.

What are the contenders?

I can see two main contenders: Eleventy and Gatsby. Out of the box Eleventy is simpler to set up and doesn't really require learning anything in terms of different tech stacks whereas Gatsby is React based and uses GraphQL as its API. I have made a simple Gatsby site in the past that pulls in data from WordPress, Strava and Contentful but for this case I want to be able to use markdown files to be able to write posts in the text editor (or IA Writer if I decide that place would be better in the future).

I have an Eleventy Site on andrewhudson.blog.

This site is built using the Eleventy Blog Starter and was incredibly easy to get going without having to learn much new other than being able to write a custom filter to not show future posts. It uses Nunjucks as the templating engine and is super quick, has Browser Sync for local development and blog post previewing.

I have a Gatsby Site on bigandy.netlify.com.

Addicted to Vitality Points.

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction

Many people get addicted to exercise but I am addicted to Vitality Points.

Vitality?

If you are not aware what Vitality is and what Vitality Points are here is a quick introduction. Vitality is a health insurance provider that I get with my current job. To incentivise people to become healthier and stay healthy, there is a system called Vitality Points where you earn points for doing exercise, eating healthily, and being healthy (e.g. visit the dentist, pass fitness test, pass health test, don't smoke, etc). The more points you get the better the partner benefits.

Benefits

The more point you the better your grading. You start on bronze and then there is Silver, Gold and the top rating is Platinum. Who wouldn't want to be rated platinum? The more luxurious your grading the better the partner benefits. For example with Evans Cycles on Bronze you get £250 off the price of a £500 bike, whereas on platinum you would get £500 off the price of a £1000 bike. There are many other deals like this with brands such as BA, Ocado, or Mr & Mrs Smith.

Amazon Prime

To further incentivise you to get points there are other schemes within Vitaliy Points such as their Amazon Prime deal. You need to get 160 points per month - which means you have to do the maximum of 40 points per week which means exercise on at least 5 days per week. But you do get Amazon Prime free for each of the months that you get the 160 points. And free is good!

Exercise

To get the 40 weekly points I regularly go to the gym 3x a week, plus go for an hour+ walk with the family on the weekend, plus a weekend run. In essence it forces me out of the house to do something almost every day which is good.

Other Points

You get points in other ways, such as using a guided meditation app (such as headspace), and buying healthy food from Ocado. There are other less frequent sources of points such as annual health, fitness, and dental checks.

My position

Since starting at the beginning of November 2018 I am currently on 1640 points (on 14.03.2019) which makes me a Gold rating, with 2400 being the next target to reach Platinum. I will continue to get points every week assuming that I am fit and healthy.

Looking back to 2018

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 GMT

Emma was born in May and for the rest of the year our lives were turned upside down. One is fun but you forget about the early months and the lack of sleep but finally she's getting into more of a routine. We moved house in September.

Fitness

Gym and running and walking have been my main forms of fitness after work paid both Gym membership and Vitality Health Insurance - the latter means that I need to get points to unlock other benefits - so it is for points that I go to the gym, for a run etc. I have already started to lose some weight and regain fitness and will look for some events to enter in 2019 to double down on the motivation for training.

House

Moved house in September, to a rental place while our new house is still being built. Already its in the countryside and bigger than the previous one so many benefits though being a rental place we can't do what we want to it and the insulation is poor so bills are high now that winter is here. Much closer to both nursery and work so commuting is dramatically reduced.

Job

The final two weeks of 2018 ended with me working on a super interesting project creating a Chrome Extension and companion MacOS app - just the ground work so far but really different from anything that I have done before and a break from working on websites.

I released two PWAs, did lots of performance work across multiple projects as well as the regular craft of creating new templates for sites.

Family

Arthur is almost 4 and continuously learning new skills and cracking us up. At the moment he's learning how to use a peddle bike having had a balance bike since his 3rd birthday. We've just chosen our preferred primary school and will find which one he will go to in April before starting in September. Marion is on mat leave with Emma until Spring.

We have been to France for our main holiday in July so that I could watch the first stage of the Tour de France as it was super close to Marion's parents house. We have visited family and friends in France as well, showing Emma to everyone.

How to trigger a webhook with WordPress

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:00:00 GMT

I have a Gatsby site andrewhudson.me which is a static Server Side Rendered (SSR) site built using React and hosted on Netlify. I wanted to trigger a build when I published a new post (or updated an existing one) in WordPress and here's how I did it.

Get webhook url from Netlify
In WordPress code:

    function ah_webhook_netlify_post() {
    	$url = 'https://api.netlify.com/build_hooks/XXXXXXXXXXX';

    	$args =	array(
    		'method' => 'POST',
    		'timeout' => 5,
    		'blocking' => false,
            );
    	wp_remote_post( $url, $args );
    }
    add_action( 'publish_post', 'ah_webhook_netlify_post' );

Automate Opening Zoom MacOS

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 00:00:00 GMT

At work we have daily standups using Zoom and my colleague Ryo asked if it was possible to automate the opening of the Zoom app in the correct meeting group at a specific time every day.

Steps:

open terminal
crontab -e
57 8 * * 1-5 ~/openZoom.sh
'esc' and ':wq' to exit crontab
create ~/openZoom.sh with the following :

#! /bin/bash -l

open https://zoom.us/j/<meeting-id>
chmod +x ~/openZoom.sh

Crontab syntax

I have used 57 8 * * 1-5 ~/openZoom.sh and I will break that down command by command:

57 - minutes past the hour
8 - hours
* - day (month i.e. it could be fourth day of the month)
* - month (i.e. it could be 2 and thus February)
1-5 - day (of the week, I have used 1-5 so Mon-Fri)
~/openZoom.sh - executes the ~/openZoom.sh file

New Arrival – Emma Hudson

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:00:00 GMT

We are proud and happy to announce the arrival of our Emma Hudson born on 29th May weighing 3.0kg. I’ve just returned back to work after 2 weeks paternity leave. Her big brother Arthur is super proud! Summer is here and we're applying for a passport so that we can visit the grandparents and extended family in France.

I am implementing web mentions on this website.

Sat, 28 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT

After attending View Source Conference in London Yesterday I am now in the process of adding web mentions to my website. Jeremy Keith's talk.

Running January

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Today is the final day of January and at lunch I will go for a run. I have run at least three times a week for four weeks now. From this week I aim to run at least four times a week as I increase my weekly mileage upwards to 20+ miles a week from 15+ miles a week.

Week 1

03/01/2017 Steventon Loop; 2.9 mi; 23:40; Cold and I forgot my long-sleeve top and thicker shorts; First run of 2017.
05/01/2017 Milton and Steventon Loop 4.8 mi; 39:26; Remembered my cold weather clothes. Cold but sunny, mud was iced up. Fatigued today.
07/01/2017 Chilton A34 Underpass via Harwell and back 8.0 mi; 1:10:20; Morning; Foggy until got above it then sun/blue skies; 8 degrees; Third of the week!

Week 2

09/01/2017 Muddy Muddy Reverse Steventon 4.0 mi; 34:31; muddy and slippery; a bit of rain; mild.
11/01/2017 Milton Loop; 3.2 mi; 25:18; Knackered today; sunny, mild; a bit of wind.
13/01/2017 Extended Milton and Steventon Loop 5.5mi; 45:40; Cold wind; muddy and waterlogged; wet feet squelch squerch; hill!
15/01/2017 Wet GWP circumnavigation 6.5mi; 52:40; Wet and then down Cow Lane very muddy; Need some off road shoes!

Week 3

17/01/2017 Slippery Steventon Loop 4.0mi; 35:54; Very slippery, esp. next to railway; not much energy today; 4C and a bit sunny.
19/01/2017 CW Milton Loop 3.2mi; 24:50; sunny but cold; faster than usual.
21/01/2017 Chilton Upton Coldie 10.5mi; 1:27:48; Brrrr was super cold. Sunny. Finally found way to link Chilton and Upton!

Week 4

24/01/2017 Extended Steventon Loop 5.0mi; 40:46; Sunny; less cold but enough for mud to be mostly frozen; saw a heron and two deer.
26/01/2017 Fast CW Milton Loop 3.2mi; 23:29; Cold; Decided to run some fast sections. Lots of people running opposite direction.
28/01/2017 Extended Pointe du plombe 8.5mi; 1:11:14; warm, sunny, windy towards Pointe du plombe, lunch run; fast in

Week 5

31/01/2017 CCW Milton Loop 3.2mi; 24:03; Humid, grey and horrible; lots of runners going other way.

Entered Reading Half

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT

It is the second week of January and I have signed up for Reading half-marathon on 19th of March. It's been a number of years since I last ran the Reading Half and I am looking forward to returning to where I used to live and run through the streets. My aim at the moment is to go out three times a week, gradually increasing the weekly mileage. Today I went out on a four mile off-road route, it was very muddy and slippery in places. Having this race, and others, as goals will hopefully keep my motivation up when things get difficult and not see me stopping running for so long (like I did at the end of last year after picking up an injury due to over training). I would like to run a marathon this year and have already started the search for an ideal candidate as well as looking at other shorter distances (like the half-marathon and 10k).

FF Conf 2016

Thu, 24 Nov 2016 00:00:00 GMT

FFConf is a front-end conference held in Brighton every year and here are my notes from the talks that stood out:

Future CSS - Rachel Andrew SLIDES

Rachel covered a number of different future / current in some browsers CSS such as flexbox, grid, @supports, shapes and path-clipping, initial letter, css variables and calc, position: sticky and scroll snapping.

flexbox: already good browser support
grid: coming to browsers in Spring 2017. Where flexbox is for one dimension, grid is for two dimensions. Can be used alongside flexbox not either or.
- Grid By Example - Examples/Tutorials/Videos
- How to enable in Canary/Firefox/Opera/Safari
@supports feature detection with CSS. e.g. Supports will Change your Life
Shapes + Path-clipping cool clip-path tool
position: sticky; Firefox, Safari, Canary. Overview on CSS-tricks
scroll snapping Supported by Firefox, Edge/IE11/Safari (partial).

Technologic (human after all): accessibility remix - Léonie Watson - SLIDES

Excellent accessibility talk with reference to screen readers, writing HTML with aria-roles.

Aria roles
Aria name e.g. aria-labelledby
Aria state e.g. aria-checked
Use inbuilt HTML semantics e.g. use button not div with aria-role="button"
Test without mouse, using screen reader

Optimise Your Web Development Workflow - Umaar Hansa

100+ slides with many cool features that are in Chrome Dev Tools. Tools including:

analyse unused css
box- and text-shadow in dev tools
workspaces v2
terminal in browser (Mac Only)
ctrl-shift-p: allows you to enter commands like you do with sublime text.
enable devtools experiments e.g. Allow Custom UI Themes
enable experimental web platform features e.g. grid

Open dev tools, press F1, Goto "experiments" tab, press shift 6 times. Check out his dev tool tips for more!

Other Write-ups

30 running days of September

Mon, 03 Oct 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Last month I decided to go running every day. That's 30 days of going outside into the fresh and cool/warm/hot air and going running. Day after day after day, running. To make things interesting I decided to do a range of different routes so that I was never running the same route from one day to the next: short distance, long distance, medium distance, tarmac, off-road, to the beach (on holiday) and so on. I did my first ever parkrun, ran a half-marathon distance, and joined the local running club. I ran 140 miles (225km) in 30 days making an average of 4.6 miles a day. The furthest I ran was 13.3 miles (last Friday) and the shortest was 2 miles (a few different occasions). How far will I run in October?

First ever parkrun

Mon, 19 Sep 2016 00:00:00 GMT

On Saturday morning I set off out of the door at 0830 to run to the start of Didcot Parkrun a weekly free timed 5k running route. After the recent hot weather it was much cooler (13°C) and I jogged there too quickly so I had at least 15 minutes trying to stay warm. I chatted with someone who'd already done the course before and then the volunteers also gave a description of the route. Three laps of a grass field then a mile along a paved footpath. I finished in 21:50 at a pace of 7:00 mins/mile, that final mile was tortuous just following someone trying to get closer to them but not managing, then sprinting the final 20 meters, knackered but relieved that the suffering had finished. [lazy] [/lazy]

Morning Runner

Fri, 08 Jul 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Some people might say that there is never enough time in the day to go running, especially with a toddler and a full-time job. But there is always time for something you want to make time for.

Excuses

The year and a half since Arthur was born there was never time for running. After commuting back from work, then playing with Arthur in the evening, giving him his bath and putting him to bed. After this dinner, relax, bed. Where is there time for running?

Solution

There is a solution! Go running before Arthur wakes up, before work when it is quiet and the grass smells of dew. I've been doing this for the last two weeks. It is incredible! Once I get back I've already completed something challenging so that day is always going to be a successful one.

Outcome

I set up my running kit the night before, everything is ready so that I just have a glass of water and put my kit on and go. Anything that prevents you from running is a mental barrier so having organised the kit the decision has been made. Go running!

The Economy of Keystrokes - Kyle Simpson

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier today I watched this is a excellent video about writing code that can be read, understood, documented and accessible to all that will use it in the future (be that you, your team or anyone else).

Happy 2016!!!

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 00:00:00 GMT

It's the 4th of January and my first day back in the UK after an fantastic holiday with family in France - the food, weather and company were excellent, and Arthur wants to walk everywhere and has learned how to stand up with help of furniture. It's that time of the year when resolutions are made, but this year I will continue with mine from last year, and add some more:

Continue Learning JavaScript and French
Increase exercise (running and cycling)
Reduce amount of stuff I have (by selling or recycling)

Realtime Communication with socket.io and WordPress

Sat, 14 Nov 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I watched this video about connecting socket.io and WordPress for realtime update of WordPress content. This is incredible! https://videopress.com/v/FzBGgDr9 Related to this I have been learning about programming IOT (Internet of Things; in my case it is Arduino and Raspberry Pi and electronic components) that I want to be able to control via a webpage and store the information in a Database. I have already followed a tutorial connecting a Angular page with my Arduino board.

Using forecast.io with WordPress

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT

For ages this sites has had the tagline "I'm a front-end and WordPress developer based in sunny Oxfordshire. hello!" and I wanted to be able to update the sunny with the days weather. How British I know! I am using wp_remote_get() to grab a JSON object from the forecast.io API, then selecting the part that I want - the current weather - and storing this in my database using WordPress Transients API to cache the result for 3 hours so that I don't make multiple API calls (and so I don't go over the 1000 API calls per day). I have wrapped the code in a shortcode so that I can call it wherever I like.

function ah_shortcode_weather( $atts, $content ) {
	$response_args = [
		'timeout' => 120,
	];

	$transient_name = 'weather'; // Name of value in database.
	$cache_time = 3; // Time in hours between updates.

	// If the transient is not set
	if ( false === ( $weather = get_transient( $transient_name ) ) ) {
	   // Get new $response from the weather api
	   $response = wp_remote_get( 'https://api.forecast.io/forecast/APIKEY/LATITUDE,LONGITUDE?units=uk', $response_args );
	   // Check if response is an array
	   if ( is_array( $response ) ) {
			// Get response body
			$response_body = json_decode( $response['body'] );
			// Get Current Weather Summary
			$weather = strtolower( $response_body->currently->summary );
			// Set the transient
			set_transient( $transient_name, $weather, 60 * 60 * $cache_time );
		}
	}

	$html = $weather;

	return esc_html( $html );
}

add_shortcode( 'weather', 'ah_shortcode_weather' );

To use this I call it with the shortcode "weather". EDIT: after a week of using this the weather is almost always "partly cloudy". Welcome to autumn/winter! **EDIT (19.08.2016) :**Having used this shortcode in the tagline of my site its not very positive displaying the horrible British weather so have removed it from the tagline. You can still find it here: The Weather is currently : [weather]

Codepen all the things

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Every time I have an issue with code I turn straight to codepen to make a small demo to concentrate on only the parts that will affect the problem. If it is JS then I add the minimum HTML and then work through the issue in the JS window, same if it is with CSS. I love it.

Angular with WP API

Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT

I wanted to be able to use the WP API to show my latest posts on an external site, and here's how I did it using Angular. You need:

A WordPress site with the latest version of the WP API Plugin (I am using 2.0 Beta 4.0) from Github (use develop branch)
A copy of Angular

html:

	Latest 10 Posts from big-andy.co.uk

js:

var app = angular.module('app', []);

// filter to convert html to trusted html.
app.filter('to_trusted', ['$sce', function($sce){
	return function(text) {
		return $sce.trustAsHtml(text);
	};
}]);

// Add a controller
app.controller( 'AppCtrl', ['$scope', '$http', function( $scope, $http ) {
	// Load posts from the WordPress API
	$http({
		cache: true,
		method: 'GET',
		url: 'https://big-andy.co.uk/wp-json/wp/v2/posts',
		params: {
			'filter[posts_per_page]' : 10
		},
	}).
	success( function( data, status, headers, config ) {
		$scope.posts = data;
	});
}]);

See Demo or See Codepen Demo [lazy]

See the Pen Angular WP API by Andrew Hudson (@bigandy) on CodePen.

[/lazy]

Arthur is 6 months Old

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 00:00:00 GMT

On Saturday it was 6 months since Arthur was born and he's doing really well. Attempting to crawl, he also talks and smiles a lot. Did I mention that he loves food?

UX of Offline

Thu, 21 May 2015 00:00:00 GMT

https://vimeo.com/125479288

Arthur is now 80 days old

Wed, 29 Apr 2015 00:00:00 GMT

Time flies. Arthur is now 11.5 weeks old and doing well. Each day he continues to change and life is a continual wonder, both for us to observe his new skills and abilities and for him. Here's a photo of him that I took last week.

New Arrival - Arthur Hudson

Mon, 16 Mar 2015 00:00:00 GMT

We are proud and happy to announce the arrival of our Arthur Hudson born on 8th February weighing 3.5kg. I've returned back to work after 2 weeks paternity leave and time has flown past since then. Now he's 5 weeks old and growing fast, starting to speak fluent gaggle gargble, sucking his thumb, and smiling at us. We've just started to read to him before he goes to bed. Last weekend we went to Suffolk with his Grandparents to meet the extended family (my Mum's side) including his great grandmother, various great aunties and uncles and so forth, and in May we will go to France to meet the extended family there. 0 days old: 10 days old:

Distracted? Let's make technology that helps us spend our time well

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

This is an excellent TEDx talk about distractions from technology, and value to be gained from spending our time well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4

This is Water

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI via/CSS Tricks

Name One & Maxxi Soundsystem 'One In Three'

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FurrtMv0kjU via Veerle's Music

Do One Thing Well

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Here's a list of things that show product design that focuses on doing one thing excellently well not trying to do everything at an average standard.

Thoughts on Inbox

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I've been a keen user of google inbox for over a month and here are my initial thoughts. I love it! Plus points:

ability to tick all of the emails and threads that you have read or actioned and not see them on the main page
set up to-dos.
the design is really something special, it focuses you on the task in hand and looks stunning too.
I love that you can pin emails,
delay reading emails until later (e.g. tomorrow, next week, or some specified time).
automatic categorisation of emails into groups such as "Social" or "Purchases" or "Travel",
delay reading these categories until a specified time each week or day.

Minus points:

Have to click on chat icon to then open new chats could this have been incorporated into the plus icon at the bottom right?
Difficult to see whether other chat people are online or not (unless they are using Inbox already)

I heart Podcasts

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 00:00:00 GMT

So I've finally started to listen to Serial, downloaded a Podcasting app, and fell in love with This American Life, restarting my affair with podcasts. I used to listed to a lot of tech podcasts about 4 years ago when Zeldman was at the start of his Big Web Show series, and before that with TWIT but somewhere in between I lost interest. Perhaps it was listening about the day job while relaxing after doing the day job had lost its appeal. The quality of the output of Serial, This American Life and others is outstanding, and listening to interesting stories is an excellent way of relaxing, there's even a way of listening through my Sonos to Serial (isn't it amazing, technology adapting to different trends of use!) It is so simple to listen to, any room in the house, or at work or on my phone. What are the great podcasts to listen to? Which ones should I check out next (once I have caught up with Serial)? This post was inspired by the video in this verge article

Hoorah for Science and Exploration

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

This is one of the first image provided from the mission to plant a probe on the comet 67P. I could look at it for hours and marvel at the wonders of humanity.

All the Stars - The Shifting Sands

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I heard this last Thursday on 6music while baking my wife's birthday cake, and put it here before I forget the band. An incredible sound. https://soundcloud.com/fishrider-records/all-the-stars-the-shifting

José Gonzalez - Every Age

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I've always loved the music of José Gonzalez after hearing “Heartbeats” in 2004. Now he's released a new track “Every Age” and here's the video of it.

Two to Become Three

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 00:00:00 GMT

This is where I announce that my wife is pregnant with our first child. Yesterday marked 27 weeks pregnancy and the baby is due in February 2015. We have already started to take in the advice of friends who have already had babies, and given clothes from ones whose baby is now a toddler. Mothercare is already our destination when we need to go shopping on the weekend. I have built a cot, chest of drawers and wardrobe that my parents kindly bought us, and this all resides in what used to be my office. Over the next weeks we need to find some decorations for the room and babify it (we’re thinking animals and owls at the moment), and buy clothes and a pushchair. At the end of the month we will start the NCT course with other expectant parents.

Why Work doesn't happen at work

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:00:00 GMT

http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work

Road to Page Speed Perfection

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

This morning Smashing Magazine tweeted about their latest Page Speed Score: https://twitter.com/smashingmag/status/502334585511084033 And I wanted to know if it was possible if I could achieve that or better (preferably better!). Someone replied to the initial tweet saying that there was already a tutorial by Dave Rupert in two parts, I read the articles and applied what Dave learnt to my site. I have achieved 100 in both Mobile and Desktop and here's my score.

Changes I made

As I am using nginx and spdy 3.1 my site was already fast. 91 on desktop and 75 on mobile. But this was far from perfect so I:

Deferred the loading of the web font. If you wait for the webfont to load before the html is loaded onto the page then that's a significant blocker. I used javascript that defers font loading.
Inlined the CSS using a WordPress include

Future improvements

While the numbers say that it's 100% I am still not fully happy with this solution. I need to do resolve two issues:

I want to automate the production of the critical css (at the moment all the CSS is inlined, rather than the critical css) but I had issues with Foundation's grid and Dave's method of creating the critical css.
find a better way of including the cloud.typography.com font

How I run my site

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Skills that I've learned in my day job have enabled working on the latest version of this site much more simple and pleasurable than previously. I use Gulp, Bower and Continuous deployment to streamline everything.

Gulp

I've been using Gulp for about 6 months (and Grunt for a similar time before that) and it is incredible in that I can automate most of the small tasks that make a site faster to develop and to load. For example, I've started to use uncss which removes extraneous CSS after comparing the html on a specified set of pages with the CSS file and removing any CSS that is not required. Awesome! I use autoprefixer to add in or remove vendor prefixes (depending on the latest specs). At the moment I can specify which browsers I want to support and I chose to have 'the latest 2 versions'. I use gulp-sass which combines and minifies the CSS from the .scss files. It is super-shit-hot fast compared to Grunt. Good use of livereload to monitor my code and refresh the browser when I've done something. No more cmd-r for me! I also remove console.log() and alert() from the JS, lint my WordPress php, and create SVG spritesheets.

Bower

One simple line of code fetches jquery and adds it to your project

bower install jquery

. Before you had to go to the jquery site, manually download, then create a new file in your project and save the new file. Such effort is now reduced to a single line of command line.

Continuous Deployment

I used to use Capistrano and that was incredible but required you to manually type a deployment instruction when you were ready to deploy, and a lot of setting up too. DeployHQ reduces all of that and it monitors Github (where I keep my code) for a signal to deploy the code. So if I push code to a specific branch it goes live straight away. Incredible!

Goodbye Facebook

Sat, 16 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I've deleted my facebook account. I feel amazing. Here's why. For many years I have had a Facebook account but have hardly ever used it. Sometimes I shared pictures, or messages, sometimes just to keep up with the news of people that I used to go to school and university, or out of touch friends. But what for? To look over the shoulder or through the window of those you used to know, of people from your past. What is the point of this? Recently we moved house and the estate has its own Facebook group, and I would often spend time reading the (mostly idiotic) messages left there; people complaining and getting wound up over the smallest things. What a waste of time it all is. Isn't time better spent learning and doing rather than comparing your life to that of others? So. Slowly the process began. Removing people from my Facebook (unfriending them), people that I went to school with, people that I never really cared about in the first place. Then the Facebook groups, then Facebook itself. Download all your history (and uploaded photos). Then press the blue button to delete Facebook (takes 14 days). I feel free, more free than I did last week. Update: (22.12.2014) I have just signed up to Facebook again, this time for reasons that I can keep in contact with Family with baby photos after Marion has given birth. I will block it at work so it won't be a distraction.

Mr Scruff IN Piccadilly Records

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

During my university days I lived in Manchester and frequently* went to Piccadilly records (and Vinyl Exchange) and Mr Scruff was one of the excellent artists that kept me sane. So when I saw that Mixmag had interviewed Mr Scruff IN Piccadilly Records I had to share it with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BStO2u4W0mo *thank god for the student loan, I bought an incredible amount of tuneage from those record shops along Oldham Street!

https

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

I read this morning that google ranks https:// sites higher than http:// sites, and I watched the video from this years I/O conference : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBhZ6S0PFCY and decided that I'd have a go at making this site https://big-andy.co.uk. Here's the proof that my site is https

New Server

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Logged into server last night. "The server operating system has reached the end of its life, please upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04". I'd wanted to try out the new London Digital Ocean droplet, update to 14.04, and install some extra such as Varnish*. This was a perfect oportunity! *although now that I've setup spdy and https varnish is no longer an option.

Maximal Sentence Length

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier today I read why gov.uk use sentences less than 25 words long is an excellent idea and one that I have started out on this site. It focuses you the author on creating short concise sentences with no cruft, and does not alienate or confuse readers.

Re-install for better performance

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 00:00:00 GMT

The last few days at work I have been prevented from using Adobe products and with no solution I had to format and re-install. Re-installation gives you a chance to throw away everything and only install things that you really need. Sure the installation process took five hours but it gave me a chance to do some reading and freshen my computer up.

Picture Featured Image Post

Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT

The new <picture> element is incredible if you want to serve different images based on the width of the browser that the user is viewing your site on. The syntax is

<picture>
<source media="(min-width: 1400px)" srcset="largest-image.jpg" />
<source media="(min-width: 1000px)" srcset="large.jpg" />
<source media="(min-width: 750px)" srcset="medium.jpg" />
<source media="(min-width: 500px)" srcset="small.jpg" />
<img src="fallback-image.jpg" />
</picture>

The media attribute tells the browser at which width (or more specific which minimum width) the image should be shown. The srcset attribute gives the location of the file as src does in usual <img> element tags.

Running in Space

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Look at how astronauts on the ISS can run in space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ikouWcXhd0

USA Pro road race champion

Wed, 28 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT

This guy became the USA Pro road race champion. http://vimeo.com/81173752

Updating my Site

Thu, 15 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Currently I am in the process of updating this site. I have already switched to a new theme “v4” and I am using Bower, Gulp, Foundation 5, Sass, jshint, nodesass. I have switched the typography over to use Sentinel (via typography.com's new cloud typography service) and the body is (currently) Open Sans… soon to use something different, probably via typography.com as well. Instead of spending months not pushing what I have done, I'm doing changes and pushing changes. So things will break, and things will change.

Making of Road Bike Party 2

Mon, 12 May 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Wow, if you've ever seen the incredible Road Bike Party 2 then you'll love to see how they made it. http://youtu.be/xhI3CUDEWfU

Cool Surf Photography Video

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

CREATORS: Clark Little on Staring Down Shorebreak for The Perfect Shot http://vimeo.com/92529798

Croix de Fer

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 00:00:00 GMT

So I have a new bike. My new bike criteria was for a 4-season, commuter, explorer bike, I chose the Genesis Croix de Fer with Topeak rack, SKS mudguards and Ortlieb panniers. Last night I rode it back from the shop in the rain and with a rucsac on my back (the panniers have yet to arrive from Wiggle) and it was a good experience, my first with mudguards. Need to make some adjustments, and swap the SPD peddles from my MTN bike, but looking forward to taking it on trips soon.

An SVG

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Here's an inline SVG image.

WebP images

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

Here are a couple of webP images. I plucked them from this example webp gallery.

Goals for 2014

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT

My key goals for the current year are:

Improve my JavaScript,
Solve my Rubick's Cube,
Do more exercise

Improve my JavaScript

Here's why. I've been a web developer for 3.5 years and have over this time taught myself to do a range of different things with JavaScript: animation, canvas, ajax, json, and other functionality on a per project basis, but never have I felt that I fully understand everything that is going on and I want to change so that I have a better knowledge and build on that more advanced skills. To feel out of depth is a good thing and to have to learn is a good thing because you are out of your comfort zone and not bored with what your job so I think it's an excellent challenge to learn something so varied and in ways complex.

Solve my Rubick's Cube

Something I've always wanted to be able to do. Doing some every day and trying different tactics, I'm amazed that people are able to be able to solve this thing. Excellent for the brain and not in front of the screen!

More Exercise

Since moving house last August I have changed from my routine of regularly running and cycling to only commuting to work and back by bike. I'd like to change that this year (and further into the future!) and get out running at lunchtime (too dark in the evenings) and if possible get out on my bike on the weekend. Good for stress and physique.

Lessons Learnt from breaking Servers

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Last week I decided to upgrade the version of nginx that I'm using to run this site. Without taking any backups. On a Thursday evening when I was going to be busy for the entire weekend. What could possibly go wrong? Well, as it turns out, everything! All my sites also were offline, and it took me many hours to call decide that I wasn't going to be able to fix it and then to call it quits. I fired up a new instance on Digital Ocean with my files and databases backed up. Those hours were very frustrating and stressful. I think I learned a bit more about servers so that next time I will be able to do it properly. That next time is not going to be for a good few weeks! Now luckily I am now back online, on a new server (fortunately I back up everything on git, and could log in to grab the file uploads and take a Database dump).

Automation (my) Solution

Wed, 04 Dec 2013 00:00:00 GMT

#!/bin/bash


function newSite {
 local appdir="/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/$1"
 local sourcedir="/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/source"
 local author="Andrew JD Hudson"
 local themedir="/Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/$1/content/themes/$1"
 local starterTheme="es-theme"
 local httpd\_vhosts="/Applications/XAMPP/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf"
 local git="ssh://git@bitbucket.org/bigandy"

 if \[ ! -d $appdir \]
        then
          mkdir -p $appdir/wp
          mkdir -p $appdir/content/themes/$1

          # Copy Directories
          cp -rf $sourcedir/wp/ $appdir/wp
          cp -rf $sourcedir/$starterTheme/ $appdir/content/themes/$1

          # Copy files
          cp $sourcedir/{wp-config,index}.php $appdir
          cp $sourcedir/source.sublime-project $appdir/$1.sublime-project
          cp $sourcedir/source.sublime-workspace $appdir/$1.sublime-workspace

          # change folder url in sublime-project
          sed -i '' 's/source/'$1'/' $appdir/$1.sublime-project


          # Remove the git repos from the original source folders
          rm -rf $appdir/content/themes/$1/.git/
          rm -rf $appdir/wp/.git/

          # swap %%THEME\_NAME%% with $1 in sass file
          # $appdir/content/themes/$1/sass/style.sass
          sed -i '' 's/Starter Theme/'$1'/' $appdir/content/themes/$1/sass/style.sass

          sed -i '' 's/odo/'$1'/' $appdir/wp-config.php

          # Create the initial stylesheet
          cd $appdir/content/themes/$1 && grunt sass

          if \[ ! $2 \]
            then
              $2 = $1
          fi

          # Git init, add, commit, set origin, push to origin
          cd $appdir/content/themes/$1 && git init && git add -A && git commit -m "initial commit of theme files" && git remote add origin $git/$2.git && git push -u origin --all

          # Add folder and url to httpd-vhosts.conf
          echo '
 ServerName '$1'.local
DocumentRoot "'$appdir'" ' | sudo tee -a $httpd\_vhosts > /dev/null

         # /etc/hosts set up
         sudo sed -ie 's/^127.0.0.1 localhost.\*$/& '$1'.local/g' /etc/hosts

         # restart apache so the above changes to httpd-vhosts.conf will take effect
         sudo apachectl restart

         # Create DB
         # mysql -u root -e "CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS $1\_db;"; exit;
         #

         # subl $appdir/
         # Open Project in Sublime Text 3
         cd $appdir && subl --project ${1}.sublime-project
          # TODO
          # 1. Plugins - how to compile a list of plugins in a folder, or import from a list? see bulk plugin installer plugin (http://wordpress.org/plugins/bulk-plugin-installation/)
          # 2. Import test DB with all installs from test.sql


        else
          echo "Please choose a name that is not $1"
      fi
 }

 newSite $1 $2

Breaking Borders #3

Wed, 21 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Last night with the guys from work I went to the third edition of Breaking Borders (bi-monthly web meetup at Reading University). Speakers were Seb Lee-Delisle (lasers!) and Adam Onishi (Nurturing the Roots). To add even further excellence I won a limited edition Lunar Trails print (pictured above, credit: seb) from Seb Lee-Delisle which will look superb in my new office.

I've Entered Henley Half-Marathon

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I've done it, signed up for Henley half-marathon. It was a choice of two different half-marathons on the very same day: Oxford (£31) and Henley (£21) of which I really wanted to do Oxford and Henley but the extra cost swung it to Henley. Our friend Christelle is also doing Henley, and I've cycled up the steep (very steep!) hill and have walked around the area so know a little of what it'll be like. Much pain and sufferance will be endured no doubt! This gives me something to get my arse into gear about as I have not run since June 5th (ouch, that's a long time ago!). So. There's a local running club: Didcot Runners, I can commute to work (2.8 miles), and explore for new running routes from our new house. Countdown to Henley Half-Marathon

i Made that too!

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I've been at Electric Studio for 7 months and following on from my first site list I've a few more sites that I've developed:

National Personal Safety Day 2013 - Responsive site for event
London Marine Consultancy - Marine Consultancy - ships, etc
TCS Events 2013 - Events Micro-site
The Frog - Pub
Printrun - Promotional Gifts site
Qatar Whale Shark Research - conversion of theme to arabic (rtl)
Isobel Weddings - wedding planner based in Oxford
Optek Systems - provider of precision laser micromachining equipment

One Week to Go!

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 00:00:00 GMT

What a week this one has been, returning to work after two weeks ill (tonsillitis / Quinsy — not very nice). Last night we ordered a fridge and the night before a washing machine. Still need to order a matress otherwise we'll be sleeping on an airbed. Currently on the lookout for second hand sofabed and sofa. Time is moving very quickly. We've waited so long to move house and it's crazy that its almost here. Just one week away! The next days will be spent enjoying the sunshine, packing, and finding that mattress!

10 Years!

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Thinking about Rippin Kitten and this years Tour de France especially stages 17 and 18 brings back memories of the summer of 2003 when I was Kayaking in the French Alps, seeing my first Tour de France and missing my graduation ceremony. That summer I graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Manchester. Now 10 years have passed! I graduated with a degree in Chemistry, moved to Cambridge for 3 years and then travelled through Europe via InterRail, and walked the Coast-to-Coast path before moving back to Reading and meeting Marion. Two more years and we hiked the GR20 (Europe's toughest long distance walking path). I completed my Web Design qualification and changed career to become a web developer. We got married, had our honeymoon in Peru and got two cats. Now we're waiting to move into our first home and move to Didcot (hopefully early August).

Rippin Kitten — Miss Kitten

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTYJZtnUuF0 I've not heard this in a long time, way back at uni, but listening to the new LP by Jon Hopkins something clicked and I had to check this out.

New Pixies Song!

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Pixies — Bagboy found this via the Guardian Music Site

The Tallest Man on Earth — Walk the Line

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I've been listening to The Tallest Man on Earth all morning and I really like it. Shades of José Gonzalez, amazing voice and guitar singer songwriter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sndqSG-h_E

Reading to Par by bike

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Back on the Bike!

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday Marion and I cycled to Didcot to see the progress of our new house. We cycled there together and after seeing the house (the roof is now on!) and having lunch outside of Sainsburys I cycled solo home. Good day out! Very tired and achey now!

Space Oddity - Commander Chris Hadfield

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 GMT

This is what the internet was made for. Incredible! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

i Made That!

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I've been at Electric Studio for almost three months and in this time I've made a number of different sites, of which I am proud to share two (the ones that have gone live):

Reading Half-Marathon Failiure

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

This year I didn't run the Reading Half-Marathon. I'd signed up for it on the 30th of August last year and I totally was committed to doing it, right until the beginning of February when I changed jobs. While I was at HeathWallace there was an active running club that went out every Wednesday evening after work for 7+ miles and since being at Electric Studio there is none. But this is a big excuse which hides the fact that I have been lazy and not been running for 2 months. In the new job I have magnificent countryside to go running in, and even has shower so I can go running at lunchtime. Starting this lunchtime I will start running again. Just because running for me is a way of getting rid of the stresses of life (work, commuting, Winter) and good way of keeping fit.

Time flying by

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Flying past is the time, with no time to breathe or lookup and take in the scenery or contemplate what has happened or what is happening.

Responsive conference

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I'm in Brighton sipping coffee and eating a patisserie waiting for the start of #responsiveconf which is the first responsive web design conference that I've been to. Responsive is the future and I am keen to learn more skills pick up new ideas and listen to what is currently happening in the rwd field.

Between Jobs

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Last week I finished my first ever web job - creative developer at HeathWallace - and took the train north to New Adventures in Web Design in Nottingham. The conference was incredible, such a vast array of different talks ideas and information that I haven't even started to finish taking it all in. After returning South on Friday, a weekend in Winchester for a friend's birthday leads me to here, Tuesday, where I have the week off before I start my new job - front-end WordPress developer at Electric Studio. I have been learning how to use my brand new 15" MacBook Pro Retina - first time I have ever owned (or really used) a Mac and its taking a lot of adjusting to get used to things after spending my entire computer life on a PC. Everything is different and not necessarily in a good way. To write this post, and make a few updates to my site, I have gone back to the PC (with mini extremely low resolution 10 year old monitor). When I start my new job I will be forced to use the Mac every day so will soon get up to speed with everything that I have not learnt so far. Snow has now gone, rain in its place. I think I will now get my coat and shoes on and take a walk into town and get some fresh air.

Running 2013 – Week 2

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The second week of running for 2013 was not much better than the first week. Snow, travel and a WordPress meetup in London all were excuses. I did go out once with the work running club. 8.66 miles in ~ 1:15.

Running 2013 - Week 1

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

A summary of the first week of running this year goes like this. After the lack of miles over the Christmas period (I only ran once, on Christmas Day) it made starting running again more difficult. Only two times this week and I will try and increase my number to three the next couple of weeks.

Monday - 4.8miles in 0:38:20 - river route
Wednesday - 5.3miles in 0:41:42 - Whitley with HW

Total Mileage - 10.1 miles

Allo Darlin - Tallulah

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KtlzdrKd-8 Been listening to the excellent Imprint this on your Mind Podcast recently and this tune popped out amoung the best tunes of 2012 (podcast #44) sounding very summery and happy.

Joe Banfi - Guts and Bones

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year 2013!

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

I want to wish you a very happy new year. Twenty Twelve was an incredible year for me and I hope this continue into 2013. I'll outline my goals for Twenty Thirteen:

Goals for 2013

Improve typing : take online course + practice
Eat more fruit and veg
Write one blog post a week (minimum)
Learn more about JavaScript, jQuery and Backbone
Read more, especially on iPad
Listen more, especially podcasts and 6Music, KCRW
Go running 3 times a week

New Job

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT

At the end of December I accepted an offer to become a front-end WordPress developer with Electric Studio a WordPress studio in Abingdon, Oxfordshire and I am really looking forward to it. The new position will focus on building responsive, highly optimised and mobile-first sites powered by WordPress. It will be my chance to learn a great deal - JavaScript, PHP, mobile and RWD - and a chance to be a professional (rather than working for friends - for free) WordPress developer, something that I have been looking for for a very long time!

Summary of 2012

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Here are the highlights of 2012:

Married (two ceremonies, two parties, two countries)
Honeymoon in Peru
Two kittens - Inti and Punku
London Olympics - Kayak Slalom and Road Race
Getting New Job
New website
Lots of cycling and running

At the end of this year - twenty twelve - while listening to Joël's band and trying out iA Writer I look back on what has been a very busy year. Most of the first half of the year was taken up with preparation for our marriage in France (9th June). The latter half was no less busy - Olympics, Kittens, a new website, and a new job. Since being here in France for Christmas I have finally started using the iPad for more than just internet, TV, Twitter, and game playing. I am using it for reading the eBooks that have been waiting patiently in my Dropbox. I think that getting my new job has focused me. I have to learn, to get better. The new job will be a lot more mobile orientated and the first two books that I have read are “Mobile First” and “The Mobile Book” (only on Chapter Two of this interesting book, and it's excellent so far). I've also started reading “Designing for Emotion” and started using the Readability app to remove the excesses of design and allow me to focus on what is most important: reading!

Jessica Hische: Lettering for a Living

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

http://vimeo.com/47428975 This morning I had the pleasure of watching this excellent talk from Interlink Conference by Jessica Hische, who has been one of my heroes for a while. I never knew she was so funny and she gave such an excellent presentation about her career and the projects that she has been involved in. I'm really looking forward to seeing her talk at New Adventures in Web Design 2013 in Nottingham in January.

Sunday Morning Sweatshop Run

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This morning was the first of Sweatshop's training runs for the 2013 Reading Half-Marathon. For some unknown reason I decided to go fast from the start so for most of the first lap (of two) I was first. Then two people overtook me as my energy and speed waned. The sessions are held every 2 weeks* leading up to the Reading Half-Marathon and increase in mileage by one mile every time. Stats: 6miles in 45:31. *Here's the full list of runs leading up to the Half-Marathon: » 16 December - 5 miles » 30 December - 6 miles » 13 January - 7 miles » 27 January - 8 miles » 10 February - 9 miles » 24 February - 10 miles » 3 March - 11 miles » 17 March - RACE DAY - 13.1 miles

Yorkshire Tour de France 2014 Grand Depart

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This is incredible news: Yorkshire has been awarded the Grand Depart for the 2014 Tour de France. Two stages in Yorkshire and the third will potentially finish in London.

Post-illness Whitley HW Run

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I went for a run with the HW club the same route as last week. It was cold, much more so than last week, and icy in places. I was recovering from illness but still managed to go. Lungs bursting and heart pumping I ran with Jason (Marathon Man), cutting back every so often to catch back with the others. 6.3 miles in 54:09.

Friday River

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ran tonight with Marion along the river. 4.0 miles in 37:32. Took my weekly total to 20.3 miles which I think must be a lifetime record for me!

Turbo Thursday

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I did 31 minutes on the turbo trainer tonight, first time I've done any form of cycling as exercise since August. It took absolutely ages to start because all of the kit was scattered round the house, the tires needed pumping up and I needed to remember how to cycle again. Was good though!

Whitley with HW Group

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I went running with the work running group and we did Whitley. Was pretty cold but good to do a route that didn't involve Caversham, Prospect Park or the river. 5.9 miles in 55:56.

Monday Long Run

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I went for my longest run since Feb with 10.4 miles through Caversham, Emmer Green and along the flooded river.

Happy St.Andrew's Day!

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Today is St Andrew's Day and as my name is Andrew I'm wishing all other Andrews a happy St Andrews!

Two Girl Kittens

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

This afternoon Marion took the cats to the vet and what we thought once as two boy kittens are now "girls". So Inti and Punku are girls!

Running - Five weeks

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last five weeks have been really good as I have been running on average least twice a week every week since October 28th when I woke up early to go running along the river. I have been helped by going running with a friend and also the work running club. It helps with the motivation if you have other people to go running with - at least in the tricky first month.

What differences have I noticed? Well the first couple of weeks I had bad shin spint in my right shin and this slowed me down. I've not lost weight but I have lost a bit of fat on my tummy. I'm more confident to go longer distances than I ever was before, I used to cringe at the thought of running 5 miles but I have done that on five of the running sessions, the furthest was 7.6 miles with the work club.

I think I prefer running long distances and seeing how far I can run. Obviously re-starting running is initially to train for the Reading Half-Marathon next March (now 110 days away) but sometime I'd like to see if I could run further...possibly one day even a marathon.

Jason Santa Maria : Saying No

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

http://vimeo.com/53155584

HW Running Club

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night was my first time with the work running club and we did 7.6 miles around Caversham and West Reading in 1:10:41 with some hills and lots of pavements.

Cold Feet

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Winter seems to have arrived early bringing cold air inside and out. Currently I'm freezing my arse off at the office at work and after work I'm going to go running with my friend Ale.

Moving to AWS

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Following up from my decision to change web host I have decided to go with AWS. Now I've migrated this site to a Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 Micro instance (free for 1 year) and after getting used to the different way of doing things (control is all command line, no web interface at all) I'm extremely happy with the outcome.

The server is in the cloud (in Ireland - they have lots of clouds in Ireland as it rains a lot) and on a non-shared host it's much much faster (for me in England) and I am getting to learn more about Apache and MySQL and command line.

There are a few things that I need to figure out : setting permissions while doing a Capistrano deploy, setting up email (for the Contact Form).

I'm still migrating sites over from one host to the other so the Photos are currently not accessible.

Changing Web Hosts

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

For the last six years my sites have been hosted by Dreamhost and for the vast majority of that time I have been a happy customer. Unlimited email addresses, sites, sub-domains, and databases. Easy to use web interface, and excellent customer support. So why am I looking to move away?

Reliability and speed. Over the last number of months my sites have been un-available due to spikes in traffic to other users on the same shared box as me. Secondly, the fact that the servers are based on the west coast of the USA meaning users in UK get a slower site.

What are my options? I'm currently testing out the free tier of AWS, and also looking at other paid services including Rackspace and Media Temple which both will be at least double the cost that I am paying with Dreamhost.

My main criteria are speed and uptime. Will post more thoughts when I have made my decision.

Running with Ale

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I went running with my friend Alejandro - aka Ale - around Prospect Park. Not run with him before but was good to do, not fast but somehow I managed to injure my right shin. Second run of the week. Hopefully this'll be better before I next go running. 137 days until Reading Half-marathon. Must keep the training going. If I make three times this week I will be super-happy. Need to get some proper running shorts and gloves. Now that winter is here. Dark dark dark as we went across the park but nice to be running on grass better than pavement.

JavaScript : the Good Parts

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

It seems to me that the future of front-end development is with JavaScript and that now is a good time to become much better at writing and using it. So to aid my knowledge I've just started to read the book JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. I am also starting to learn about the Backbone.js library. I spoke to a colleague today in the JS team here at work and he said the best way to learn about it is to make something with it so hopefully soon I'll have something to show!

140 days - Reading Half Marathon

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Today marks the end of British Summer Time (BST) and start of Reading Half-marathon training. Today also marks 140 days until the race and its the first time I've run in over a month. Just a small run to get me back into it and I plan to go running on Tuesday to continue my training process. Start small aim big! Looking forward to Tuesday!

Music - a year in retrospective

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I've been a member of the Rough Trade Album Club for the last year and not really listened to all the CDs so this afternoon while trying out my new desk chair and tidying the office I'm listening to all of them!

Birthday #32

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Today is my 32nd birthday and I am at work bug fixing. Marion made me an excellent (chocolate!) birthday cake and tonight a surprise is planned.

The 2013 Tour de France

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Every year since the first time that I went to see the Tour de France go up Alpe d'Huez in 2003 - I've wanted to go back to France and see some more live action. I managed to see it when in 2007 it came to London but not been over to see it in France. Until now. My wife Marion, my bro Rob, and my cousins' boyfriends Rich and Nick are all planning to go and see some stages of next years - the 100th edition - race. For full stage details check this inrng post

Chris Coyier - Big Web Show

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Right now listening to the latest Big Web Show with Chris Coyier being interviewed by Jeffrey Zeldman

Beta Guardian Site

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I read that the Guardian website is currently being re-developed and is currently in Beta. The site is going to be responsive, mobile first, using SMACSS (a OOCSS methodology which I am currently reading up on) and requirejs. It is incredibly fast and from my point of view it looks beautiful.

Sass 3.2: Silent Classes

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I'm a huge fan of Sass and this slidedeck shows how to use the newly updated @extend functionality in Sass 3.2 to help write better CSS. https://speakerdeck.com/anotheruiguy/sass-32-silent-classes Speakerdeck : sass 3.2 silent classes

Gathering Festival this weekend

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Looking forward to going to Gathering festival this Saturday in Oxford. Features bands including George Ezra, Swiss Lips and Paws. Gathering Festival - October 20th - various venues in Oxford

Inti and Punku - first photos

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Inti is the one with white patch under its chin (first two photos). Punku is the one with fluffy hair (latter two photos). [gallery ids="1329,1327,1326,1328"] This week we finally collected our two kittens from Marion's colleague Simon. We'd looked after their elder brother Benny for a few days but now was the time it got real and we got our own kittens! We collected them on Weds evening and it took them a while to get used to their new house and us - Punku still needs some litter training (he doesn't like walking in the litter tray!) But they are getting crazier and crazier as each day passes. Fighting each other and playing with the home-made string toys and leaping all over the place and exploring everywhere. Taking photos of them is difficult because they move so fast and are so black. I'll continue to take lots of photos and put them up here.

XKCD

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT

George Ezra - It's Just My Skin

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

http://soundcloud.com/george-ezra/george-ezra-its-just-my-skin

Going on Holiday to France

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow morning we'll catch the train to Gatwick Airport then fly to Marseille for a week in Provence. Really can't wait!

Don't Hack the Core

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

As often as you are tempted it's a very bad idea to hack the WordPress core. Each time an update is made, your changes are over-written. A very bad practice!

James Burke - Admiral Shovel and the Toilet Roll

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Your Browser does not support the HTML5 Audio element.

Link from dConstruct 2012 archive Useful online mp3 -> ogg convertor

Kittens

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Kittens now are ~4 weeks old still being nursed by their mum.

Benny

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

[gallery]

Putting Photos online with WordPress

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Take photos off of camera
Choose which ones you want to put online
Optimise with program such as XnConvert
- I personally like to change the size to a max width of 1000px,
- reduce the jpg quality to 70%,
- and have them load progressively.
Upload
Attach to Post
Link with [gallery link="file"] shortcode

Big CSS

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Presentation by Harry Roberts (@csswizardry) at canvas conf

Cats

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Post London 2012 Blues

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

17 days of excellent sport and fantastic atmosphere have rocked this country following the London 2012 Olympic Games. Now, sadly, they have finished and life is somewhat flat as a result of this. No ferocious patriotism, no fantastic atmosphere and more importantly no sport to follow. How will summer ever be the same after this?

Honey Moon

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Last night we booked our flights to Peru where Marion and I are going on Honeymoon! I am really excited and looking forward to going to the Andes and seeing Machu Picchu. We fly out 2 days after getting married.

1Q84

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Haruki Murakami is my favorite author and I am on the final chapter of the first book of his triple-book epic "1Q84" that I received for my birthday from Marion's parents. I will say its really good but definitely not as weird as the other books; and no cats.

Web Dev Conf

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I'm really looking forward to tonight because tonight I am going to Bristol for my first ever “Web Developers Conference”.

Radiohead Remixes Stream

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Tropical Music

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Turbo Training

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Darkness arrives way to early at this time of the year, too early for cycling after work and departs too late to go in the morning before work. Thus I had the choice of hanging up my road bike and doing no exercise during the week or to continue the good work that I had done on the bike since starting road cycling in July. Of course I could have switched to running after work â€” and indeed I might do that as well â€” but I am obsessed about cycling and wanted to see what the Turbo Trainer had to offer! I have so far done four different sessions since starting last Tuesday, going every other day for 30mins+. The first session was the hardest because I didn't know what I was letting myself in for, and I was training in front of one of The Sufferfest videos - supposed to be the hardest cycling workout videos on the market. Each week I will increase the duration by five minutes and see where that gets me, and each week I will train once to a sufferfest video to keep me extra motivated. Having no access to training books I am experimenting with what works best but always include a good warmup, and alternations between hard and medium with some recovery in between. I use my Garmin 405 to track my heartrate and plan to get a cadence attachment so I can measure how fast I am peddling (I've read that a cadence of 90-110 rpm is optimum). Hopefully there will be some weekends where I can go out riding where I will see how much effect this training is having, plus it will be great to taste the fresh country air again.

Fourtet Remix of Radiohead

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Separator - Four Tet RMX by Radiohead via Fourtet.net

Sixty miles!

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT

It's been a bloody long time since I rode that far on a bike and the final 10 miles were those of a suffering knackered empty excuse for a cyclist who is paying for his lack of fitness and over eager speed-demon start. On Sunday one week after buying my Bianchi road bike I did the medium Evans sportive ride. I started five minutes after Marion (she did the short route) from Whitchurch Hill and the pace was very fast with lots of people racing from the off, spurring me to go fast and overtake them. Lots of people were in groups but I was solo. I stopped at ~40 miles for a snack bar and again at 45 but this was not enough and I really struggled in the final 5-10 miles. Yes I completed the route in 3h35m with average speed of 16.5mph and max of 38mph. Looking forward to doing more rides, joining a cycling club and getting faster!

Olympics a Year away

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Today marks start ofÂ one-year count-down to the 2012 London Olympics. Already there is much in the press and warm-up events that are here to help prepare for next summer. One event that I am really interested in is the Olympic Cycling Road Race warm-up to be held on the 14th of August. The event includes many riders from this years Tour de France, including sprinters Mark Cavendish and Tom Boonen.

Bad Mood Monday

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This incredibly accurate image shows what I am feeling like this Monday morning. Tired achy, grumpy. (cheers to my Bro for the link) In other news I bought a new road bike, a Bianchi Via Nirone 7 Sora, 2011, and went cycling with Marion in the countryside to the North of Reading. Now I ache a lot due to my lack of fitness and the uncomfortableness of a road bike compared to the mountain bike I usually ride. I spent the rest of the weekend watching the final two stages of this years Tour de France.

The Rules

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The Rules of Road Cycling (again cheers bro for the link!)

Back from Italy

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Back from a week in Tuscany. A wedding, the furnace of mid-summer Florence and mosquitos. All this mixed with plenty of deliciously sun-soaked (often red-flagged) beaches, plenty of bottles of Chianti and oodles of pizza. A great holiday!

Blogging via iPad2

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Ever since buying my iPad2 in March I have always wanted to write a blog post and send it live from the magical device, I even bought a wireless keyboard to make the process easier. I believe that there is something quite fantastical about being able to write in the peace and quiet of wherever you want (in my case the lounge with the calming clock tick-tock and the blue sky and sunshine out of the window) having no constraint to be in front of the computer screen. With the WordPress app I am able to do all this and send it "live" where it goes straight to this site, or "pending review" where I can edit it on the Wordpress admin area, or if I want to add further links and photos to the post, before publishing to live at a later date.

Blogging via Google Docs

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Earlier this week I stumbled upon a video explaining how to run a news site and newspaper using Wordpress and Google Docs and I thought that I would take their advice and try it out. So this post is written in Google Docs and will be transferred, once I have finished writing it, using a plugin called Docs to WordPress and the WordPress xml-rpc. In google docs set up two unique folders (or collections) called, for example, â€œTo Publishâ€ and â€œPublishedâ€. Grab the unique the last characters from each of the folderâ€™s URL, along with your username and password as outlined in this article and put them into the wp-config.php file in the root of your site. I think that this is great when you want to have time to compose a post without the distraction of the rest of your blog, or the internet, with the ability to work collaboratively with others working on the same document as you. For example the writer and the editor can work together on the document and when finished tag the document â€œto publishâ€ and then it gets sent to wordpress to be published. You cannot publish directly because you need to go into the wordpress build and click publish which I think is good because it stops you if you Â send something accidentally.

Mid-summer

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Reading writing and listening. Today is mid-summer and fete de la musique, a time of music and celebration. I am reading listening to Nada Surf, reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and writing this short aside.

Speed!!!

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Lately I seem to be totally obsessed with speed and tonight I have made two fantastic advances in my quest for online speed:

I installed a wireless N network card on my computer which finally grants me access to super-fast speeds of 30 meg broadband. The old wireless usb stick could only handle wireless g and maxed out at 5-10 meg. I disabled the option on the router to broadcast in wireless n and wireless g/b because I was only getting the same as if I had wireless g i.e. slow slow slow.
I have finished optimising my blog (hopefully soon I will turn my whole website into a wordpress driven website) using the W3 Total Cache plugin, and some excellent online tutorials because it's not very easy to get the plugin working properly. I had big problems with the minification of css and javascript files and this fantastic tutorial. I am now getting scores (with the Firefox addon PageSpeed) 97-99% ratings.

Future

Now I have achieved success in the optimisation of my blog, what is next on the list of things that I want to do? First of all I have started to learn how to use Git. If you don't know what it is then here's a quick explanation. For a group of developers to work on the same code at the same time, to track what they have done, we need a version control system and git is one of the excellent alternatives out there, as well as Mercurial and SVN (both of which I use at work). I had a basic introduction earlier this month when I was doing the Chiron Transformation Website but beyond that I knew very little how to do more than the most basic of functions, so I want to learn more! Otherwise I want to turn my website big-andy.co.uk fully into a wordpress website, improve this blog and add some more features (e.g. HTML5 to the form), and write more often on this blog about what I am doing. I also want to add a portfolio section where I document which websites I have made and how I did them.

Weekend

This weekend I am going to Buxton in Derbyshire walking with the entire Pidgeon (my mum's side of the family) clan. I really can't wait!

Website Optimisation

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I love speed, everything to do to get something done faster is must for me. This week I finally have fiber-optic internet and now I am looking to extend my passion for speed through in relation to THIS website. Why am I going to do this? I hate waiting for a website to load, you hate it too, right? There's far too much you'd prefer to be doing than waiting for a download to happen or a web page to open. How am I going to do this?

Compression of files (CSS and javascript),
use of heavy browser caching (via the .htaccess file),
use of database caching (this is done by a wordpress plugin called W3 Total Cache)
use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

1. Compression

The larger the file the longer it takes to download resulting in a much slower page load time compared to when the files are compressed. Personally I use the WP CSS plugin although now I have installed the W3 Total Cache (W3TC) plugin I might remove it and trust W3TC to do it all. When developing a site normally one might split the styles into a number of different style sheets (e.g. content.css, layout.css, reset.css, fonts.css) but this is a bad move. Each file requires request puts more strain on the internet connection and thus has a big impact on page speed. I combine all my css into one stylesheet (including the print css too) as recommended in the HTML5 Boilerplate .

2. Caching

Browser caching is the process that web browsers use to keep the files associated with a web page (css, javascript, images, and so on) on file so that they don't need to be downloaded again if the user visits another page in the site, or even comes back after visiting another site. As a website administrator you can change the amount of time that the browser will keep the files, so that the browser keeps files for a long time and don't need to continually download them. On Apache servers this can be controlled using by changing settings in the .htaccess file in the root folder of your site. There is excellent documentation on best practice on the HTML5 boilerplate website.

3. Database Caching

Using a database driven website is great if you are writing a blog or another data-heavy website, but when a lot of users start to visit your site the amount of work that the server has to do each time a user visits adds up and will become a bottleneck on high-traffic sites. If, however, you cache the pages using a plugin and store the pages as static files then the server doesn't need to do anything once a user visits, just display the content (like any non database driven site). I am using w3TC to do this.

4. Content Delivery Network

The world is a big place and even with today's fast internet connections the users - if for example your web server is situated in London - from USA are going to have a different page load time compared to those in London. If, however, you have access to a CDN your images, css, javascript (and so on) are hosted on a number of different servers all around the world, so your user in USA will have a much faster page load speed. I am trying out Max CDN (after hearing of them and doing an offer through AppSumo). I'll let you know how it goes... I have just setup my package so will see how it goes over the next week or so!

Wedding and Website

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Yeah it's been really hectic lately, life that is! I've been working on a wordpress website for a designer called Kat, Marion and I have found a venue for our wedding and a date.

Wedding

Over Easter we visited Marion's parents in La Rochelle and went to see six different wedding reception venues to the south of La Rochelle and after much decision making chose Domaine du Seudre - between La Rochelle and Bordeaux - and picked a date too. It feels great to have these two key things sorted out and now we really can set about planning the wedding in earnest!

Website

This is what I have been upto for the last 3 weeks solidly every evening and weekend day. I am really pleased with the outcome, chirontransformation.com, which went live earlier this week. I found out today that the customer has started putting content in the site and it's interesting to see what's happening! I learnt a hell of a lot about how to make a website in wordpress - utilising wordpress' new content-management abilities, custom-fields, custom loops, cross-browser testing. I built it using HTML5 and CSS3 with fallbacks for less capable browsers using the excellent Modernizr Javascript library.

Back to Running!

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

A gorgeous evening to go running it's the first time since winter that I've been out and the sun was shining and it was hot. It really feels fantastic to go our running and at the moment I am glowing on the inside. I ran my the river route in 21m08s.

Plugin Error Fixed!!!

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I have found out what I was doing wrong to cause my wordpress plugin to throw up an error and it was this: On activation you put a piece of code that says

register_activation_hook(__FILE__,'install_function');

which basically means when the plugin is activated run the install_function. Problem turned out that I the function but hadn't named it correctly so the register_activation_hook wasn't looking for the right thing. I love it when I can work out how to solve things, and in the process learn a bit more about how to write a good plugin. Happy Days!

Coffee and Photos

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Marion (my fianceÃ©) has posted a couple of new posts with photos from our skiing holiday in Courchevel and walking in the Peak District in January.

Plugin Error

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Trying to work on my plugin this evening has been frustrating because I keep on getting an error that says :

The plugin generated 303 characters of unexpected output during activation. If you notice â€œheaders already sentâ€ messages, problems with syndication feeds or other issues, try deactivating or removing this plugin.

And I have been banging my head against a wall trying to fix this issue. Not really a big problem in that the plugin works as intended but if a wordpress user sees this error more than likely they will panic, deactivate and delete the plugin and run for the hills. How to solve it?

Plugin Development (part one) [wordpress]

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This is the first time that I have started to make a plugin and here I shall write about the process of making it. To begin with I will explain why you might want to make a plugin, then I will go into the process behind creating one.

Why plugin?

A plugin is a way to extend the powers of wordpress in a particular direction without having the hastle of going into the back-end and getting your hands dirty.

The process

To start with you have to have an idea of what you want to do. In my case I have an external application that requires a key that is specific to the owner of the blog. They enter the code in the admin area of the plugin, it stores the code in the site's database and calls this code when required.

Puzzle pieces

For the plugin to be able to work you need a few different components (pieces):

Admin areaâ€”place to enter the "key" (code);
Way to store write code to database;
Way to access code from DB;
Way to write code to required place in wordpress (e.g. in the footer.php or loop.php);

In the next post I will outline how I have done this.

Southampton Summer Time

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This morning marked the beginning of Summer (time) and signalled a spring forward in time and renewal in the air. Yesterday Marion and I went to Southampton primarily to go to the Apple Store and buy an iPad2, go to Ikea, and enjoy the sunshine. I was utterly destroyed to find out that all the iPad2s had already sold out so I would be returning empty handed and after having a trial of the tablet in the shop it really feels amazing but I'll have to wait a few weeks before I can get my own. To lift myself out of the gadgetless depression we got some coffee and cake from a cafÃ© and sat in the grass in the park and chilled. We then went to Ikea and bought a few things for the house and dreamed of the time in the future where we will have a home for ourselves (rather than rent a furnished house with someone else's fashion and decoration). The weather was really hot when we finally stepped outside so we bought lunch from M&S and took it to the park and soaked up the sun. In the afternoon once the sun had disappeared behind clouds and a cold wind had started we went to a pub and watched 5 minutes of England vs. Wales in 3D with no 3D glasses (a recipe for a big headache) and then returned to Reading.

Ipad2 Prices

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Looks like the iPad2 is cheaper than the original iPad. 16GB wifi is Â£399 whereas original was Â£429 (source: Guardian).

Spring in Madrid

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

As mentioned earlier last week we travelled to Madrid on Friday to see our friends Cesar and Inma. We were collected by Cesar at the airport and drove to their home where we had delicious home-made tapas and caught up with their news. Saturday morning arrived quickly and after we pulled the blinds up (we in the UK definitely should all get blinds!) we were blinded by the blue sky and strong sunshine that poured into their apartment. After a quick shower we jumped out into the street and headed for a local purras (Madrid's giant version of churros) and chocolate. Mmm delicious! A power slap in the face getting the blood super-saturated with sugar and fat, and also laying the foundation for the weekend to come we then explored much of Madrid's center including a futuristic house where everything was controlled by mobile phone or computer. For lunch we had the famous Cocido MadrileÃ±o which consists of a starter of soup, followed by chickpeas and vegetables, then the most enormous pile of meat (chicken, beef, ham, chorizo, blood sausage) which we were only able to eat 50% of. In the afternoon we went walking once more and found the Parque del Retiro and joined the ten thousand MadrileÃ±os celebrating the first decent weather of the year and saw mime artists, graffiti artists and punch and Judy shows centralised round the lake and chilled out on the grass for a while relaxing. In the evening we went to see a Jazz Quartet at Clamores Jazz and then hit a few clubs (first Tupaware -ok, too many English- then Penta Bar where they played everything from Spanish to worldwide 80s 90s music - really excellent place!). Sunday we started early again having coffee at Cesar and Inma's place before heading into town. We saw the Plaza de Toros Las Ventas Museo Taurino (Bull Ring) and markets in town before going to have Tapas. Tapas is what they do in Madrid on Sunday. All afternoon long. We were met by Cesar's sister and her boyfriend and had lots and lots of tapas. We had to walk this off and again set out into the city and found a delightful park below the cathedral and watched people and took in the last of the weekends sun rays before taking the tube back to Cesar and Inma's and onto the Airport. A fantastic weekend!

ManU Chelsea Quarters

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The draw for the quarter-finals of the Champions League was made earlier this morning and ManU were drawn against Chelsea. Here's the full draw :

Real Madrid v TOTTENHAM
CHELSEA v MAN UTD
Barcelona v Shakhtar Donetsk
Inter Milan v Schalke 04

(courtesy of the BBC sport website )

Going to Madrid

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be taking the airplane to Madrid to see our good friends Cesar and Inma in their new home for the first time since they moved there last year. I can't wait to go back to Madrid after briefly stopping there in 2005 on my epic round Europe train trip. I slept in Madrid station on the street because I arrived at midnight and there was no accomodation in the city or any way of getting there. After my night on the tarmac I found that I'd been bitten 30 times on my back, tummy and legs by insects and spent the next week itching and in agony, but that's another story. So you can imagine that I am looking forward to a return trip to see what actually Madrid has to offer!

IE9 is here

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The latest version of Internet Explorer IE9 is here and now is the time to work out if Microsoft has finally found the answer to Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera? Probably not but it'll be good to see in what ways they have caught up.

Pancake Time!

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Another Shrove Tuesday arrives and now we're going to head out to Pancakes at Dave's.

iPad2?

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMT

After the introduction last night of the latest apple iPad I'm deciding whether Apple is still the best or have the other manufacturers (Motorola, HP, Samsung) produced something better?

TED - Work/Life Balance

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

This is an excellent TED talk about the work-life balance.

River and Back - 21m19s [Running]

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Second run of the week after doing the same route in much colder conditions after work on Monday (22m14s though I had to wait to cross traffic for at least 30s). Listened to Mew and Air and Foals. I went swimming on Tuesday when I did 20 lengths. This is the start of the beginning of my return to fitness.

Last weekend was "Creating Custom Posts"

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Last weekend I realised how little I actually knew about Wordpress (the CMS/blog system that powers my blog). My intention was to learn how to create custom posts and have a different page of the blog where these posts would appear. For example, I would create a running log and every entry would go to the "Running" page. After a weekend of pulling my hair out I managed to create these custom posts, with taxonomies. But the other more interesting part of my goal was not successful. I have a book called "Wordpress Bible" and this is helpful but it feels as if everything in the back end is gobbly goop. Perhaps I need to take it one-step at a time and break down into components and understand each one before going right into the deep end. Anyway that is for sometime in the future, not now, as I am going to the New Adventures in Web Design conference on the 20th in Nottingham, and this Friday Marion will join me so we can go for a weekend camping in the Peak District.

Onwards into the future!

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Now that my first post of 2011 is under my belt I can feel confident to write some more. You see for me the more I write the easier writing becomes. Yes yes yes onwards with the post! In the previous post I wrote down the key highlights of what I did in 2010 and now in this post I will write what I hope to do this year.

Improve Fitness

I have not done much exercise since I changed careers back in August and I'd like to change this by doing more in the coming year. I've been playing badminton with my friend Rob but this is only every other week, I'd like to play more. Otherwise I want to re-start my running, go once or twice a week, and go swimming at the local pool once a week.

Learn French

Having proposed to Marion and having completed my Web-Design qualification I now have more time to do more studying and I want to re-start learning French. I plan to start a French qualification in February at the local university.

Learn more Web Languages

Already it's the second week of January and I have been busy beginning my quest to learn Javascript so I can apply this knowledge at work and in my own projects. It's something that I've long wanted to do and just before Christmas I began Sitepoint's Javascript Live course. At work have also been learning some jQuery too. Secondly I want to learn more PHP so I can improve my skills within Wordpress (see next point) and have some experience with back-end web development.

Wordpress Theming

Currently 20% of the world's websites are run using Wordpress which is the opensource blog/CMS platform which is also the platform that I use to run this blog. I have begun learning how to make my own themes and about how Wordpress works in greater detail. I want to become a Wordpress Themer (someone who makes themes, possibly to sell them or use them on other peoples websites).

Write and Read

I have already started to keep a log of all the books (currently it's in a notebook but hopefully sometime I will add a page to this blog where I will detail them) that I have read which should motivate me to read more books. Second to this I want to write more too, both in the form of blog posts here and also to keep in better contact with friends. I know that this is a big list but hopefully I will be able to succeed with the majority of them. Until next time, adios amigos!

The Year 2010

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

To start again you have to let go of the past and move forward to free yourself of the baggage that weighed you down. This is what I want to do with this post, to finalise the year 2010 and get ready to embrace 2011. For me the year that was 2010 was an incredible year full of life changing activities and one where a number of big goals were completed. I'll list them here:

Proposed to my now fianceÃ© Marion on the top of Glastonbury Tor - June.
Completed my "Masters CIW Designer" course thus ending a long 2.5 year journey - December.
I Became a front-end Web Developer for Heath Wallace and beginning my career in web- August.
Quit Thames Water and thus ending my careerÂ in Chemistry - July.
Completing the toughest long-distance walking route - Corisca's GR20 - with Marion - September.
I passed my course in Digital Photography - January.

My next post will contain what I want to do in 2011 so keep your eyes out for that! Until then, adios amigos!

2010 review

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

The year that was 2010 was for me a very good one and I completed a number of goals and I will summarise them here. I completed my Masters CIW Designer course. I proposed to my now fiancee Marion. I did the toughest long-distance walking paths, Corsica's GR20. I passed my photography course. I changed career to become a front-end web developer for HeathWallace. I quit my job at Thames Water. I embraced Technology and bought an iPhone. I look forward to this year 2011 to see what it will bring to me.

I passed!!!

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This is the end of a long journey which I started a long time ago. In April 2008 I persuaded myself and my girlfriend (now fiancee) Marion that I wanted to change career and it would be great if I would do some training in web designâ€”something that I had been dreaming of ever since teaching myself to code after graduating from universityâ€”and she pointed out an advert to Advent Training who had been doing lots of adverts on the TV and internet at the time. The first two modules of the "Masters CIW Designer" course were CompTIA A+ and A+ Technician exam. Basically to get me to be able to install, fix, troubleshoot any hardware or software in Windows. I really enjoyed being able to learn more about what goes on inside the computers and was able to learn a lot of useful stuff. The next moduleâ€”the first of the CIW modulesâ€”was called CIW Foundations. It taught a little about coding, but was mostly about networking, business and very basic web stuff. The penultimate module, CIW Site Designer, was my favorite and was mostly about coding websites in different languages (although mainly HTML). I read a lot of other books at the time, books about Web Standards, Usability, and went to several UX meetups in London, I revamped my own website using all that I'd learnt and started applying for jobs in web design/development. I got the job that I was dreaming of and thus made my own progression from Chemist to Web Developer. It was after passing this exam that I found out that the company that I was doing the course throughâ€”Advent Trainingâ€”had gone bust and I was thus left in a haitus not knowing whether I could finish my course. Luckily a new company came along and I could continue my course. The final exam was CIW E-commerce and it really sucked. I hate most (though not all) of the topics and studying was a nightmare because of my new job and not having the energy or motivation to sit down and study after a long day on the computer at work. So this month I have taken a number of days off as holiday from work and stuck to it, learning and revising the subjects in the book. Today I took the exam in Wokingham and passed with 84% (the pass mark was 68%). I am very happy now as you can imagine! You can call me a "CIW Web Design Professional" if you'd like to. Otherwise Andy is good for me;) Now I can focus on enjoying life a little and absorbing the festive Christmas atmosphere. After Christmas I will start to learn French.

Still Studying

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

It's really cold in this office where I am studying. So cold that I cannot really feel my feet. I do have some really good music - the Tron soundtrack by Daft Punk - to keep my ears warm, however, and eleven jumpers and three pairs of jeans to keep my body and legs warm. So you can rest easily in your warm offices and homes. That is all.

Studying

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Work, study. Work, study. That's all I am doing at the moment. The exam is next Thursday and I am doing lots of revision for it. Nothing else.

Sunday Morning

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Good morning to all out there on this beautiful brilliantly cold ice-blue Sunday morning! On the stereo is Mercury Rev's "All is But a Dream" and I've just finished a glass of delicious orange juice. Recently I have been quite busy learning more about wordpress and how to customise it further. How to add custom javascript libraries, custom CSS. All that's happening can be seen over at my test blog. I am using the starkers HTML5 theme as a starting point and also using the HTML5 boilerplate CSS reset so that I am working from a base-line so that any changes I make make it mine even more. Experimenting with CSS3 and also learning more about PHP and how PHP is implemented in wordpress. Yes I am having a great time! Outside the air is cold and frost lies on the ground and inside I wonder if it's now time to have some breakfast, time to get moving onwards with the day and then do some studying (I am revising for the final module of my Masters CIW course).

update

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:00:00 GMT

current

I've been learning a lot about CSS3 lately. Having bought a copy of Andy Clarke's Hardboiled Web Design I have also started to do some 2d and 3d transitions. While I cannot use these in my working life it's great to be able to experiment and learn by experiment on my own test sites.

future

Soon in the future I hope to make a start on re-designing my own website and blog, using HTML5 and CSS3 techniques to enhance it all with a template for the whole non-blog site, and a different one for the blog.

shake shake shake

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Weekends always come so quickly but never last for long. It's been another busy couple of months: my new job, completing the GR20, and returning to running. Stay tuned for catch-up.

Friday the Thirteenth

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A quick post at the end of a very busy week of work. I am getting my head around SVN and the workings of life as a developer. I'm looking forward to learning more and increasing my skillset. I am reading a book about Accessability "Building Accessible Websites" in the evenings and beginning to pick up some jQuery too. The more you know the better a developer you are. So I've been told!

Thursday Training

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This morning before work I went for my first run in 6 weeks. And I feel really great for having done it. Twenty minutes and the route was my normal "River Loop".

Writing from w.bloggar

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

While I listen to the latest podcast from The Big Web Show (a weekly show about different topics related to the web, hosted by Zeldman and Dan Benjamin) I try out a new tool for blogging.

w.bloggar I used to use w.bloggar a very long time ago when I was first getting into the blogging game. That was a long time before Wordpress' in-browser compose post function was usable. Now going back I can see that w.bloggar is still a great way of composing posts, there is no distraction and you actually feel that you are sitting at the type-writer and composing "serious content".

Wednesday Stress

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

What began as a simple entry to life as a developer has quickly descended into a life with ten thousand different strands each taking up all of my time resources and abilities. I'm a beginner and have not done the vast number of things that they're asking me to do before. Yes I'll get quicker when I have mastered how to do it all, but for now I am very stressed.

Tuesday Fuckup

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I thought that I would be playing badminton right now. Instead I am at home typing into my computer. That's a bad swap and it happened because of a mix-up with my friend Rob (my fault). Anyway now I am at home and doing some typing. Typing is good for the soul I think, and the more you type the easier it becomes. In my last job I was continually brain deprived (i.e. by monotonous boring brain numbing work) so my ability to type sentences withered and almost died away. That's why I am trying to write in this blog more. To bring back my brain from the abyss.

Monday and Knackered

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Every time I open up the "New Post" section of my blog admin and wait for the words to come to my fingers. The space to write is so large (I have a 23" monitor and it spans the entire width of the page) that I am always put off. So I now will try other methods to put down my words.

Method 1 is QuickPress the in-built window on the main page of wordpress' admin section. Room for 4 lines of text at a time, no more, and breadth and space for lines of words and sentences to form quickly without the distractions of an empty page of whiteness.

Final Day Chemist

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Today marks the end of my career as a chemist, something that I have been working and studying for 13 years (since the start of my A-levels in 1997). Its been a long windy road with lots of fantastic moments meeting loads of great wonderful people, I think that now is the time for different more exciting and interesting challenges. Now I must cycle to the lab and one last time I will put on my white lab coat safety specs and mad scientist voice... and then on Monday I will be free to follow my heart and take my first step as a Front-End Web Developer.

Coffee break

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This morning not feeling very well I had to skip brekki so that I arrived at 10 o'clock absolutely starving and in need of energy and some coffee. Also as I feel that this blog is in great need of artwork and photography I took a photo of the new book "It's only a Movie" by Mark Kermode I started last night.

Big News #2 {new job}

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Just under two weeks separate the end of my Chemistry career and the beginning of my new career in web development. I have a job as Front End Web Developer for Heath Wallace starting on August 2nd based here in Reading, UK. I am hugely excited about the change, something that I have been working hard to achieve over the last two years with my web design course, reading books, writing code, learning and continuously studying hard.

Big News #1 {marriage}

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I have some really fantastic news to share with you. Marion and I are going to get married. I proposed at the top of Glastonbury Tor on our 3-year anniversary which was one month ago. We're both really happy and are starting to think of places in France where we can get married. It'll be somewhere next to the sea, either the Med (where Marion grew up) or the Atlantic (where her parents live now).

First Training Runs with Forerunner 405

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

For our 3-year anniversary Marion gave me a Garmin Forerunner 405 which is a running/cycling watch with GPS and heart rate. While out running it gives you pace information, you can train against a virtual partner, and see which Heart Rate Zone you are in. So far I have used it twice as you can see below. We are going to do Corsica's GR20 this August/September. Rumoured to be the hardest toughest long-distance path in the world, this is something that we've been dreaming of since we started going out 3 years ago. We've booked the flights to Corsica and now the training begins! First Training Run - running at lunchtime is great in that you can go while you are full of energy but our shower at work is in a small room with no air extraction and on a hot day like this I was hotter and wetter after the shower than before. This route was one that I have done plenty of times before and is one of the shortest. The day was hot and sunny and as this was my first run since May 10th I wanted a short route. Second Training Run - aiming to stay under 70% of max-HR (Heart Rate) I'm still really unfit so I couldn't keep my HR below 90% for any time - without resorting to walking - so I ran slow enough and stayed at approx 90% for the entire run. The day was hot and sunny but compared to the run on Monday I was able to enjoy running and the fantastic day, look at the scenery along the canal. I am amazed at all the stats that the watch/computer gives me and you can upload the routes to the Garmin Connect website where you can see your route on google maps, see all the heart rate/pace/time information as well as calories burnt, elevation climbed/descended, and more. I will keep on training with the watch and post the results here.

A new Dawn - A new Speedo!

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

New Speedo for my bike! This morning I fitted it to the bike and rode to work. Normally I am happy to race cars and then take a breather, but with a device that tells you exactly how fast you are going the competitive side comes out and you have to go faster, even if you knacker yourself out in the process. The device is a Cateye Strada Wireless 8 Function Computer.

Monday Morning!

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The weekend flew past and it's Monday morning. Before I go to work I will tell you what's been going on since last I wrote. I passed my penultimate CIW exam - CIW Site Designer - with 91%, went to London Web Standards (about accessibility), had my first ever IT job interview, to the (6th) annual Pidgeon Walking Weekend in (Herefordshire), and to my brother's birthday drinks in London. Otherwise I have been learning about the Typographic Grid (with help from Mark Boulton's site, and Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop" book) and learning some PHP. This week I am going away somewhere (either Bath or Brighton) to celebrate the three years that Marion and I have been going out together. Tonight I am going to London Web Standards which tonight is about HTML5 and Flash.

Weekend and Studying

Sun, 16 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Sunday afternoon and the birds are cheeping, otherwise it's quiet and I am taking a break from studying. This week has been a busy one with my first ever Reading Geek Night with Mike Robinson talking about "HTML5 Today", Mark Adams "Geeks are Gods", Chris Alexander on "Darks arts of SEO" and Workhouse Coffee's "Coffee Geeks". Wednesday we went to see Foals play at the Academy in Oxford, preceded by an excellent meal in Coco on Cowley Road. Thursday night. Otherwise this week I have been studying and coding.

Coding

Currently on the coding side of things I am working on putting the top 3 (or 5) blog.big-andy.co.uk headlines, with a small summary, on the main page of my site big-andy.co.uk. So far I have succeeded in getting information e.g. headline, summary on a page on my test site but that still needs some more work before it will go on my main site. Also I have been working on some JS and PHP.

Studying

This week has been intense. I have been doing lots of online mock exams as well as practising areas that I need to improve on. This morning and last night I took 3 online "Full Exam" exams and scored 93% then 96% respectively. I think I am ready for the proper exam and to move onwards.

Foals and Coco

Thu, 13 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Last night we went to see Foals at the Oxford Academy and was thoroughly impressed by the band. Very tight musically and some really good songs. I was however dissapointed that a lot of their songs sound very similar with the same beat/rhythm and this band are an excellent party band, if you want class then listen to another band. Stand out song was the superb Spanish Sahara. Before the gig looking for urgent nourishment walking along Cowley Road we discovered Coco.

Running Again!

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tonight after work I went running for the first time since the 24th of February. Not very far and not a very long run (15m07s) to go around the streets but great to be running!

Weekend and PHP time

Sat, 08 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Good Evening Folks! I have been working on some PHP recently. I have decided to change from .html to .php on big-andy.co.uk so that I could use a consistant navigation bar and any changes that I made would be only to one (navigation.php) file rather than 10+ files (with .html). I did have some difficulty, however, with my current testing situation. I am using XAMPP on my PC to test what I make before I publish it online. The root of my XAMPP site is http://localhost/ and the root of my website is http://big-andy.co.uk so I wanted to do some PHP to show the root and based on this to serve a different navigation (xampp-navigation.php or navigation.php) depending whether the page was on the XAMPP server or on the web-server. I did it like this:

<?php if ($_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"] == "localhost"){ include'../php/xampp-navigation.php';} else {include'../php/navigation.php';} ?>

Thus the problem is now overcome and I can go back to my real life as a normal person. In other news the conservative scum have gained more seats than any other party in the UK General Election much to my distaste. They didn't gain enough seats to have a majority and we are now in a hung-parliament (no one party has a majority) for the first time since 1974. Will they do a deal with the lib-dems, or will the lib-dems do a deal with Labour scum? It's my Mum's Birthday today so "Happy Birthday Mum!" we're going over to Sandhurst tomorrow to have dinner at a restaurant with my brother, my girlfriend (both of whom need urgently to update their websites by the way) my Dad and Mum.

Dorset Wind Blast

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Thank god for short weeks in May (there are 2) which allow for escape into the countryside. We went to Dorset via the New Forest, camping on the coast near Lyme Regis. After an exceptionally warm April the temperature turned down and we were buffeted by heavy showers and cold wind. Walking along the coast, searching for fossils on the beach, and getting fresh country air. Finally we finished by visiting Lulworth Cove, a beautiful coastal village, for sunshine icecream and more walking. At the end of May we're off to the Brecon Beacons for the 6th Pidgeon Walking Weekend with 20+ family. Cannot wait!

Grid Layout

Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The last couple of nights I have been working on implementing some grid techniques (horizontal and vertical alignment of content) and have uploaded my first template. Now I realise its just a start and there's much more to learn but Im enjoying the process!

Ideas

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

what this blog is missing in my opinion is something creative that's not text-related. In other words it needs photos, graphics, design... and doodles!

CIW Site-Designer

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Web-design has always been a passion of mine and two years ago I started a course called Masters CIW Designer through a company called Advent Training. While progress has been at times fast I still have not finished the course and now that Advent Training have gone bust my training is being provided by Computeach and I have a deadline of July 17th 2010 to finish the course. There's nothing like a deadline to focus one's attention and I am cracking on with the course material!

you should really download the new blur song!

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

sunny outside and this is a quick short post! You can download for free the new blur song which they recorded for yesterday's independent record shop day as a limited edition 1000-copy single sided 7" vinyl. At midnight they released it for free via their website as mp3 (5Mb) and un-compressed wav (34 Mb but much better quality!). Yesterday went to Oxford and apparently it was also Oxford Folk Festival and there were hundreds of morris dancers on the streets. Otherwise we went to the covered market for a Ben's Cookie and then to the grass to sit down and enjoy the cloudless skies and blue hot sunshine.

Looking Forward - [Post from iPhone]

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This is an interesting experience: I am now writing this post from my iPhone. Not the easiest of experiences but allows one to post on the go, or at least compose draft posts on the go. Tonight I am going to go to my first ever twestival (charity fundraising event for the Twitter community, held globally today) in Reading. Excited and expectant but entering an unknown world: the world of people that uses twitter. Yes I have met people through Twitter and met and know a few people that use Twitter to communicate. But a whole room of them specifically there because of Twitter? Looking forward to going on holiday with my girlfriend Marion. Where are we going? That's a surprise that I will find out the answer to on Saturday morning when we arrive at the airport for our flight. Which airport and what destination? Both of which I am dying to find out!

Not Running [from iPhone]

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This year I had to pull out of attempting the Reading Half-Marathon because of injury to my left knee I sustained from crashing my bike. Now that spring is here - you can tell by the relentless rain and grey skies - I want to start going running again. Seeing the many thousand runners participate in this years race (we were spectating from the bottom of Russell Street at mile 7 of the course) just makes me want to go out and run. My knee still hurts. The road back will be long and bumpy. But I am ready for the journey back to fitness.

sunshine walk along the river

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This morning we went for a walk along the river to get some fresh air and were blasted away by strong in the face winds and bright blue sunshine. Keeping to my promise I did take a couple of photos but the hands were too cold to take more than that and I am only now (5pm) starting to warm up again. After a sausage and fried egg sandwich lunch (ingredients bought at the farmers market yesterday morning) we watched the FA Cup quarter-final between Reading and Aston Villa. Reading easily outclassed their Premier League opponents in the first-half and went into the break 2-0 up. Unfortunately the away team scorred three goals and Reading were left optimistically prodding and firing balls towards the Aston Villa net but could not succeed. The game finished 4-2 to Aston Villa. This afternoon I am listening to Foals and Polar Bear and just about to start studing the final two chapters of the first book of my CIW Foundations Course. They both are on Microsoft Expression Web. Later I hope to study a bit of PHP.

Running to Work #2 [20m58s]

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

man that one was a tough one, the legs restricted by my running tights, the lungs by flegm, and the head by a desire to be back in bed due to illness. I ran to work, and coughed lots. That's all folks...!

Running Home #4 [19m40s]

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Coughing hard from tonight's run, the first of the week, but glad I did go running as I took the weekend off and didn't have the energy or motivation to run yesterday. I have been suffering since Friday with a cold which is probably from the forced training effort. Less than 4 weeks to go until the Reading Half-Marathon now.

Friday Summary

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Writing this is in itself quite knackering because I have tired and drawn myself out with all the running (and running about) that I have done this week. When I realised last Sunday that the Reading Half-Marathon was just 5 weeks away I figured that I had to start my training right away or forgo the attempt this year. So I have run every working day this week, five days in a row, and I have to say that it has been a real awakener. The first three days went well, I ran either to or from work and it felt good to be running again (I'd not run since the middle of December), but the run on Thursday was tough and I imagine that the run this afternoon will be something of an out of body experience;) I have the start of a cold and I am feeling knackered and empty which are both symptoms of over-doing it. I am going to take a break from running tomorrow and I think that I will go for a run along the river on Sunday, a longer run than I have done so far. Possibly I will run all the way to Pangbourne and get the train back. I'll let you know when I have done it!

Running Home #3 [20m40s]

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I ran home from work on Friday and took my time, and was slowed more by having to wait at traffic lights to cross the road. Was cold and didn't have long-sleeved top as had forgotten at home to bring it. The sun was out and sky was blue!

Along Canal Bridge [30min - 3.91miles]

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Not having time to run to or from work I needed to go out running at lunchtime. It was raining and muddy too as I ran along the canal listening to Laura Marling and Mariachi El Bronx on the mp3 player. Tough at the end but nice to do a different route. The route was 3.91 miles which equates to a 7min40s /mile pace.

Running Home #2 [19m11s]

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Despite my legs being heavy and my stomach full of chocolate birthday cake (thanks Aklile, happy birthday again!) I ran home tonight. Warmer and lighter than the run on Monday. Now my legs are really heavy and walking up and down stairs is not easy. Roll on tomorrow!

Running to Work [20m07s - 2.69miles]

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I made the bold decision to carry on my running to/from work regime and skipped breakfast and jumped into my running kit with just a cup of coffee to wake me up. Cold, a bit wet and slighly more up-hill than the other way round. A great start to the day!

Running Home [19m14s - 2.69miles]

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tonight I ran home from work - 2.69 miles in 19mins14s which equates to a 7.08min/mile pace . Not momentous in distance but definitely the start of the training for the Reading Half-Marathon (which will take place in less than 5 weeks time) and something to do every day or every other day for the time between now and 21st March.

Happy New Year!

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Well it's been a couple of weeks into 2010 and lots of snow has fallen and almost melted again. Christmas and New Year were great and lots of great food and superb company! I've not been running because of the snow on the ground and because of different illnesses. But soon all the snow will be gone and I will be better! On Wednesday I took my CIW Foundations exam and passed with 91%! So that means that I am a "CIW Associate" and can move onto the 4th exam: CIW Site Designer. Now I have a bit of spare time before the books for this course arrive I will have time to sleep and then some time to work on my website so that I can say yes that's me!

Tonight it snew

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

2 o'clock sharp: snow started falling from the dark grey clouds. 3-45 gets heavier and heavier. By the time its time to leave (1630) there's a carpet of cars along the road and ten cm snow on the pavements. Times like this I feel lucky to have a bike. Not that cycling home was easy. Weaving in and out of stationary cars my eyes crammed shut to keep the snow from hitting my eyeballs and keeping the bike vertical to avoid sliding on the hidden black ice it was a beautiful and fantastic experience.We were going to do some christmas shopping but the shops closed early so their staff could get home safely. Still there are 2 more shopping days before Christmas. I cannot wait! Not been running for a week because of illness and the snow-ice-rain. I did buy a new pair of Nike Air Pegassus on Saturday and I am thinking of going soon. When the snow has melted or departed. We'll see!

Running - Prospect Park with Cesar

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The head was hungover but the feet needed to move, plus I'd made a promise to Cesar that we'd be going running in the morning. Seemed like a good idea last night. Yes, and it was. The sun was shining and the air was cool and for the first time I could wear my shades. I ran to Cesar's place and then we jogged to and around Prospect Park. Windy in parts but fantastic way to blast away the hangover! 4.69miles in 37m06s. Prospect Park with Cesar [4.69miles]

Wiggo into the Sky

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Brad Wiggins, British cycling god, has today signed to join the British pro-team "Team Sky". This is awesome news for British cycling and I hope that this can bring more cyclists onto the roads and into jerseys to battle it out for medals and glory for Britain. Today sucked. Really tired from the running and studying that I've been doing and a crappy day at work. It's the Christmas party tomorrow so there's that to look forward to! Hopefully I can go running before work tomorrow, either then or on Saturday.

Running - Short River

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Second run of the week and it was damp foggy and dark. I've run this route in the daytime but in the dark it was much better. Sections of unlit running along and before the river. Legs hurt but this is expected after 2 runs in week after not running for so long. 19'13" for 2.68 miles. short river.

Let the Training Begin! [Running!]

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

My first run of the season (not including running in NYC) was tonight and it was good to be outside and running! Only 2.17 miles in 15'28" (7.07min/mile pace) I was a small step on the long journey that is ahead of me until next March when I will be doing my third Reading Half-Marathon on the 21th March 2010. It'll be my fifth half-marathon. Here's the Gmaps-pedometer Route

juxtaposition of time

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

listening to Gilles Peterson using the cans that Marion bought me for my birthday is one of life's greatest pleasures. That and sorting things out. I took Marion to New York City at the end of Oct for her birthday and it's been a harsh week recovering from the tiredness and jetlag that hit us as we came back to this side of the Ocean. I took hundreds of photos on my newly bought super-wide angle zoom lens (Nikon AF-S Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED DX to give it its fullest of full titles!) and now am in the process of sifting through them.

Sunday #1

you can see the weather was superb. this was taken while we were watching my cousin Ethan's soccer game. my cousin ethan (yellow, number 14) on his 9th birthday tearing it up. and there were still some leaves on the trees. We went walking with Sean to cure our jetlag. break at the top to catch our breaths. with the trees around us it was difficult to see the sky. big breath for birthday boy! 9 big ones.

Photography at TVU

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have started a photography evening course - specifically titled "ABC Level 3 Award in Digital Photo-Imaging" - at the Thames Valley University every week starting last week. After the first week introductions to the course, the facilities and our opportunity to ask questions and answer the teacher's (Mike's) questions we didn't take any photos. After ordering my DSLR (I eventually decided to get a Nikon d80 after countless times failing to "win" my eBay bids for the Nikon d40) and some faffing around with the seller (and paypal) it eventually arrived on Monday. Not just a camera but also a camera rucsac, filters, 50mm Nikkor f1.8 lens, a huge reflector, and spare battery, and battery grip. The weather this week since the camera arrived has been dodgy. Raining 60% of the time and dark the other 40%. I took the camera out on Tue night to try it outside, as well as testing out on Marion at every opportunity too! Last night (Thu) was the second lesson. We learnt about ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed. And this time we were put into pairs and told to go into the canteen and take photos of each other. My partner Gareth had an enormously heavy D300 and 18-200mm combination. It was difficult for me with my 50mm lens not being able to zoom in/out, it's going to take a long time to get used to that! But but but I do have the lens of my film camera (Nikon f80) which is a sigma 28-80mm f3.5 zoom. The quality of lenses are not the same (the Nikkor lens being better) but until I get more lens(es) this is all I have to shoot with. My homework:

3 shots of the same scene using different white balance (WB) settings (including which one is using the "correct" WB);
3 shots under Aperture Priority (f11)
1. 1 shot @ 1/30;
2. 1Â shot @ 1/125;
3. 1 shot @ 1/500.
3 shots under Shutter Priority (1/60):
1. 1 shot @ Large D.o.F (depth of Field);
2. 1 shot @ Medium DoF;
3. 1 shot @ Small DoF

I must include how I made these shots. As well as writing up the notes from the lesson last night. Sounds intreaguing.

roll of film and the white cup of tea

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Good evening everyone. Back online blogging again after what seems like forever. Today I had my eyes tested and I didn't recieve my digital SLR (Nikon d80) in the post (hopefully it will arrive in time for my first photography lesson - which happens to be tomorrow night). Not wanting to splash out and pay big money on my first ever DSLR I had a good look around the internet and in photography magazines and decided that I wanted to get the Nikon d40, but after countless failed bids on eBay and not being able to find a decently priced model elsewhere I decided to go for the more expensive and higher-spec d80. Last week was really hectic. I finally decided that I needed less distraction and had to tell my brother that I couldn't work on his project which was tough for both of us: I wanted to do it and learn on the job, and he wanted to help me and get on of his projects moving faster. Anyway. More study time for me! Since deciding to take a photography evening course at the local university I have discovered many many excellent websites, photographers and ideas. Two of my favorite websites are Chase Jarvis and Strobist. The course starts tomorrow evening and if my camera arrives I will start putting photos on this blog. Watch out!

champions league draw

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Champions League group stage draw (thanks bbc sport): Group A Bayern Munich Juventus Bordeaux Maccabi Haifa Group B MANCHESTER UNITED CSKA Moscow Besiktas Wolfsburg Group C AC Milan Real Madrid Marseille FC Zurich Group D CHELSEA Porto Atletico Madrid APOEL Nicosia Group E LIVERPOOL Lyon Fiorentina Debrecen Group F Barcelona Inter Milan Dinamo Kiev Rubin Kazan Group G Sevilla RANGERS Stuttgart Unirea Urziceni Group H ARSENAL AZ Alkmaar Olympiakos Standard Liege Fixture dates: 15/16 September 29/30 September 20/21 October 3/4 November 24/25 November 8/9 December

this is the week

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

this is where it happens? Ok then you've got me as I sit here in my office listening to Noah and the Whale's new album (the beautiful sad the first days of spring). This week has gone, shuffled quickly and noisily past, like the wind buffeting the trees in the garden. It's been emotional, and sad, and happy, and mad. But soon it is over.

Blue Sky Fly

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Outta the window, out there, it's just wonderful. Blue sky. Wonderful blue sky. I love it! => Link 60 Unusual Business Cards

start of the championship, stay safe in taiwan

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

saturday afternoon. week went fast past the eyes and now again its the weekend. last week: rained a lot but manged to get outside a lot too. I played badminton on Thurs with Rob (I played better than last week), went to see "The Taking of Pelham 123" (poor poor film) at the cinema. We had a picnic by the river last night; and walked along the river on Weds eve... it was great to be in the outside and not stuck inside at home. Tonight we're having a bbq and I have made caramel shortbread squares. Now I am going to the shops and get things for later. Have a good weekend!

Weekend!

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This is Friday afternoon and I am about to leave for home. The week has been long and tiring but I played badminton with my school friend Rob! Last weekend I went to London with Marion. To a music festival with my brother and his friends Summer Sundae in Clapham Common with bands I am Kloot, King Creosote and some others... the festival was sponsored by the ice-cream manufacturer Ben & Jerrys and all around the festival site there were tents dishing out the many B&J ice-cream flavours! The sun was out and we chilled, had ice-cream, and listened to the music. It was great! Fun follows fun and on Sunday Marion and I went to the Saatchi Gallery (recommended to me by someone I met at a party - very colourful!) and then to Brick Lane. I love music and one of my favorite shops is Rough Trade off Brick Lane. After having some delicious food from a market we went to RT and M bought me the latest White Jeans [is that what they're called?] album and had a good look around. Another passion of mine is Graffiti and we found a road called Bacon Street where all the walls are fantastically painted (graffiti'd). Many cool and different paints there! I have put the photos we took on my flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/andysan) if you want to check it out. This week has been a matter of survival. It's been tough at work and after work I've been studying or reading a lot. So it was great last night to play Rob at badminton and throw away some of the stress. Today I am aching all over but it was great fun! Thanks Rob for chasing me so we could organise this game! This weekend we're going to Winchester and then on Sunday to my parents (to see a whole flock of relatives). Tonight we're going to the cinema.

Photos

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sorting out photos on the computer. Have not put any photos online in a long time but looking into sorting that out. Also looking into batch processing, web optimising and such like.

using xnview to batch process (image optimise for faster download speeds, all in one go);
organising photos on computer into logical folders

Now I have done that I will move onto my studying. I am on the final chapter of book1 of my CIW Foundations Course:Â Site Development Foundations. Off I go! See you later:)

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The weekend. Friday evening I met up with Cesar (he's just back from his honeymoon in Thailand) at the Nag's Head and joined by Marion in the back garden for a few beers in the sunshine. Nice! Saturday we bought beer food and supplies from the super-market and crawled back under huge backpacks (both of our rucsacs weighed at least 20kg) back home to cook for my parents. Marion made a delicious Tagine and some tasty gazpacho, while I made black olive bread and lemon sherbert (from Jamie Oliver's "Jamie's Italy" cookbook. We also did some chores and I juggled in the garden â€” something that I've not done since moving to this house. It was great to be out in the fantastic weather juggling in the garden; so relaxing and good fun too! The meal went well and it was super to see my parents who were both in top form. Today, Sunday, and the weather again was hot but mixed with some clouds. We had breakfast in the garden and read on the grass in the garden. I juggled some more and Marion finished her book. I've just finished "Kings of the Mountains" by Matt Rendell and now I am going back to "The Golden Notebook" by Dorris Lessing.Â I've just made some cumin bread (adaption of the black olive bread with a tablespoon of cumin seeds instead of the black olives) and I need to put it in the oven now. This week ahead: study, run, juggle.

Gah. Just get the words down then!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Been back from Spain since Weds and been doing a lot of tidying and sorting out in the house this weekend, as well as watching sport (tennis and formula one) and the new google wave demonstration (wave.google.com). Spain was amazing. The idea that we could so much different stuff in the 18 days that we were there is mind-blowing when I think about it now. We did mountains, we did cities and we went to a wedding of our friends Cesar and Inma. and we did the beach too. Now with our sun-tans fading and our white skin re-appearing it's time that we took stock of what we want to get done in life and stop compaining about what we are not doing. Like writing a blog. Easy to say you want to do it but when you open up the page to write a post, the words fall flat and bounce off the screen. How to get round this problem? Type faster! Last Friday was my brother's 25+1 birthday and we want into London to "The Living Room W1" to celebrate it with him and his crazy friends and our crazy family. It was a super evening and made better by the availability of Sailor Jerry (my favorite rum!) and some delicious music.

5ifth day of being ill

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Greets folks, sitting here in the lounge at home waiting for the pizzas to arrive it's been a hell of an ill week for me. Sunday morning I woke early and watched some of the Chinese GP before going back to bed then re-awoke feeling really really cold and chilly despite the fact that it was a gorgeous day with lots of sun hotness and blue skies. The next days until now I have been struck with this fever (one moment hot, the next cold) which meant that sleep hasn't been easy - for Marion either - and the last couple I thought I'd gotten rid of the fever only for a stomach bug to hit me. So, fingers crossed, here's looking forward to my first pizza in ages.!. In this time since being ill I have watched the majority of the first season of "The Wire" (BBC 2 are showing all 5 series back-to-back!) reading up on web-design techniques:

Reading Half-Marathon

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

That finishing line brings only pain and aching limbs but getting there was first fun then tiring then enduring then exhausting. Still I managed to reach the finish line and before the race, after doing less training than I have ever done before a half-marathon (by a huge margin), I would be happy to reach the finish line. The weather was fantastic. Blue skies, a slight breeze and warm temperature (not too hot). The first 4 miles were good fun, I was enjoying the event and enjoying the music that I was listening to. Not rushing, just keeping myself moving at a standard pace. At 4 miles I needed the loo but there was no toilet until the 10k mark. I kept going as I knew I had to. The atmosphere was amazing, even though I had music in my ears and sunglasses over my eyes I was smiling knowing that there were many many thousands supporting the 16,000+ participants, some making music or holding signs supporting friends family and lovers, others just enjoying the multi-coloured parade of people whooshing past their feet. Anyway, after 10k there was a toilet and afterwards I was much better for a couple of miles before having to stop again at the next stop. After this I knew that I could get to the finish line and collect my medal. I passed close to my house, going past the Nag's Head where they had a table with beer and pork scratchings (a huge cheer went up when someone grabbed a beer, or pork scratchings!). The most difficult part was the long long straight road A33 towards the Stadium (where we were to finish) because you could see the stadium but it took a very long time to appear. Anyway, eventually, it did appear and I made it to the finish line. One Hour fifty-One. The slowest ever that I have run 13.1 miles but not the worst. Considering my poor preparation, and lack of fitness going into the race that's all that I could have possibly hoped for! It was Marion's first ever half-marathon and she completed it and looked rather sexy doing so. Congratulations Marion!

Spring Un-Sprung

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Good Evening Folks, Sitting here in two jumpers a pair of gloves, scarf, hat and cup of hot tea it's not that spring-like anymore. Anyway I've been ill for the last few days and it's great to be able to get out of the house, go to work, that kind of thing. Even if it is dull repetitive boring pay-the-bills work. Anyway, I am listening to Gilles Peterson's Guide to Istanbul on my laptop waiting for the food shopping to be delivered. I'd like to recommend a website, if you like global music, called Fly Global Music. It's less than one week until the Reading Half-Marathon and my legs are exceptionally painful when I walk. I went to Lyon on the weekend and a day spent running round the city and then running up the massive hill that overlooks the city all have stretched my legs and caused me much pain for the last couple of days when I manage to walk around. Hopefully they're better for the race this weekend.

Running Along the River

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Good Evening, just back from the second run of the week. This evening I ran along the River Thames to the boat house and back in 33mins. Monday I ran along the river and then through town in 26mins. Today I'm feeling more alive than after Monday's run. Last night I went to the Berkshire BCS CV Clinic at Reading Town Hall. It was quite useful to speak to the chaps there, and I have taken many points from the evening.

Lent Begins!

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Now something totally different: Lent. Not a believer in any god or religion but full of belief that too much of one thing doesn't do you any good, I am giving up chocolate and crisps for lent. For the last I don't know how long Marion and I have been eating too much sweet food. We watch a film and have some chocolate, we feel like baking and make some chocolate chip chocolate muffins or brownies or something sweet, we go to visit a town and what's the number one priority: find some cafe with a good selection of cakes hot chocolate and sweets. Not good if you do it all the time! So we're giving up chocolate from today until Easter Sunday (40 days away). Marion is giving up chocolate, having alcohol except on special occasions. I am giving up chocolate and crisps, and having sweet deserts except on special occasions. Check back for more updates! Kidderminster. Tonight I take the train to Kidderminster for the next part of my Masters CIW training course. I am now on CIW Foundations (part 3 out of 5) which deals with the basics of web-design, re-covers networking, and introduces project management. Hopefully I will arrive in time to see some football in a pub. A couple of days away from work, it seems as though all my holiday has been taken away by going on these IT courses in Kidderminster, will be good and nice to relax on the train and get some reading done. Football. It's Champions League week this week (quarter finals first leg) and last night ManU drew with Inter in Milan. It was a great game but ManU should have taken a few goals back to Manchester for the return leg in two weeks. The first half was a lot better in terms of possession and chances for ManU (how did they not score?) but then in the second-half Inter got back into the game and had a few chances themselves. ManU, however, should have scorred with the final kick of the game from a free-kick from Ronaldo which (luckily for the keeper who hadn't seen the flight of the ball) was at the keeper. I watched it round my friend Cesar's house, cheers Cesar for the beer and pizza! Tonight it's: Chelsea v Juventus Villarreal v Panathinaikos Sporting Lisbon v Bayern Munich Real Madrid v Liverpool Running. I've not been running in a couple of weeks. Lazy me. But I will go running soon I promise. It's a viscious cycle when you stop running. You want to go and you feel that you need to go but you feel that the days since you went running last are counting against you in some mad crazy way. Plus it's sometimes easier just to stay inside and not go running. Now it's getting lighter and lighter in the evenings the excuse or reason that I was too tired at work to go running is becoming non-valid so I can go running along the river in my evenings after work. I much prefer going running in clean air along a river, than along a canal and along roads (as I do at work). We'll see how I get on in the next few weeks!

almost the weekend

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Sitting here reminiscing on the week gone past it's safe to say that I'm knackered. Marion's parents came to visit us (their first time to the new house) Friday to Tuesday. We visited London and Windsor and Reading. My Parents got to meet Marion's parents, they got to meet my brother. Full action packed weekend! Sat: Wow what a hang-over. Last night spent wishing Keryn a farewell, we went to Oakford Social Club then Purple Turtle. Too much drink in too short a time, Sat morning was difficult! Trains to Oxford replaced by bus so had to re-think and decided on Windsor instead. Brilliant bright blue sunny day, bloody cold though. Took the train and arrived at lunchtime and walked around, then out into Windsor Great Park along the Great Walk. Back towards town and a late lunch in any pub we could find. More shops to see and then back to see my Parents in Sandhurst. This the first time all 4 of them were together (last summer Marion's Mum met my parents) and it was a delicious evening, with lots of food and great company. To finish off we played Arsehole (or trou-du-cul), then skated on ice home. Sun: We walked around the sights of Reading (along the river and through town, stopping off at the excellent Picnic for some warm soup (it was bloody raining and freezing outside). My brotheralso came to have a cuppa and meet the parents on Sunday too. In the eve we had take-away curry and watched "Breakfast at Tiffanys". Mon: A day to see London. A very wet day not to venture out of the house unless totally necessary. No choice but to brave the conditions and go into London. First stop was the Tate Modern although I'd seen the normal exhibitions before it was good to go again, to see the strange weird and demenous paintings. I love the Tate Modern! Lunch in a pub by the river then walked towards Covent Garden along Fleet Street and into the Twinnings shop. We also took in Ben's Cookies, China Town, Leicester Square and then finally, made it back to the train towards home. Knackered and cold. More curry and "A Life of Brian" for more britanica for our foreign guests. What a fantastic weekend!

Running

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday [04.02.09] Second bridge along the canal. Some snow (in the shade) and some slush, but was great to get out there running. Seriously need some new headphones as the left headphone is just distortion whenever there's any bass. Fortunately I have ordered a pair of Grado iGrado phones which should arrive this week!

snowing melting

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

wow, another white morning. Marion gets the day off of work because people cannot get to work but I have to now go outside in the wet slushy snow and cycle to work. I cannot wait!

Sunday Night Live

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Jazzanova. Gilles Peterson. Snow. Cool. Yeh it's Sunday night and the weekend is over. So what. Spent most of the weekend studying. Almost finished the second book of the CIW Foundations course, final chapter on e-commerce to read then it's on to the Networking book. Friday night Marion and I went to Hobgobblin for a pint then to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire which we both really enjoyed. Managed to stay inside all Saturday but did the cleaning and re-arranged the lounge so DVD now on hifi (so good for playing films through speakers, and also for playing CDs on hifi. We don't have a CD player you see, just internet radio, and an MD player, so playing the many CDs that I have lying round the place was impossible (unless burned onto computer and streamed through the internet radio). It's much nicer to play and hear CDs from the CD-player rather than the computer. Don't you think? Listening now to Gilles Peterson's show (from last Thurs). Yes. Now. This evening, I am making chocolate chocolate chip nut muffins. They're out of the oven and cooling down. I smell their smell on my fingers. Ate too much of the dough so not really hungry at the moment to be honest. That's the cooks' right, to eat the cooking before it's made. Which is why I love making deserts because one can eat the food before it's made. It snowed. For a few minutes. Now going to eat some noodles then to try the muffins. Adios!

Clouds and Aeroplanes

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

for my bro and all those interested in streaming radio over the internet, this is an article about cloud music (e.g. live.fm, pandora, deezer). i.e. music which is streamed from the internet. Is this the solution to online music piracy?

Obama the 44th President

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Out goes Bush the second, in comes Obama. Here's the inauguration speech.

Sackboy

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

is what everyone really needs on a cold Tuesday morning. thanks idodds. ggggGoing to work now.

from scribefire with love

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

hands even colder than earlier. now trying out scribefire utlity for blogging to my wordpress blog from firefox (rather than logging in everytime onto my blog). Other ways of posting include using a 3rd party tool such as w.bloggar (for windows) or drivel (for linux), and also posting by email. I will try all of these options and get back to you. have you heard of TSF Jazz? Bloody awesome!

Sunday morning Winds

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Good afternoon. Cold air returns to Reading. Just back from Sainsburys to stock up on milk and something for dinner tonight, and this week's Observer. This morning, as well as finishing the first book of CIW Foundations, I cleaned downstairs and talked to my bro, who's now at work. Going to have lunch now.

kid cudi

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

kid cudi Essie Jain

ManU Top!

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Last week has been non-stop and knackering. I went running twice and recieved a Squeezebox Duet (for internet radio - it's fantastic!) and my pc died. Otherwise life is good! Good news: ManU are top of the Premiership for the first time this season having just beaten Bolton 1-0 in the final minute of the game. Liverpool play Everton on Mon and can go back top if they win. Tis an easy Saturday. Marion is in Macclesfield with her friends from France. I am home studying. Catching up with my course after the holidays. Almost finished the first book now. Just topics on Project Management and Security to go. Hopefully the second and third books will be more interesting. Last night I finished a book which is about the river Yangtze in China "The River at the Center of the World" by Simon Winchester. In my opinion was great at the end and slow plodding at the beginning. Like the river perhaps! Well worth a read if you are either interested in China or Rivers, or both! Tonight I will carry on with my studies.

password protection, testing #1

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

grrrrreat... a way to stop your boss and prospective other nosy-dozy folks from reading your intimate secrets (if you ever post them on the internet). Password protection.

having a great and relaxing weekend!

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

sitting here with Marion and setting up her first wordpress blog.

Drowned in Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2008

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

happy new year to you all!

DiS' Top 50 of 2008 in full:

M83 Saturdays=Youth (Review / Interview)
Frightened Rabbit The Midnight Organ Fight (Review / Interview)
Cut Copy In Ghost Colours (Review)
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!! (Review / Interview)
Deerhunter Microcastle (Review / Interview)
Portishead Third (Review / Interview 1 | 2)
Why? Alopecia (Review / Interview)
Friendly Fires Friendly Fires (Review / Track-by-Track / Interview)
The Kills Midnight Boom (Review / Interview)
Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago (Review / Interview)
Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing (Review / Interview / Tour Diary)
Foals Antidotes (Review / Interview)
Gang Gang Dance Saint Dymphna (Review / Interview)
Elbow The Seldom Seen Kid (Review / Interview)
Crystal Castles Crystal Castles (Review)
Shearwater Rook (Review/ Track-by-Track)
Sigur RÃ³s MeÃ° suÃ° Ã eyrum viÃ° spilum endalaust (Review)
Of Montreal Skeletal Lamping (Review)
Los Campesinos! Hold On Now, Youngster (Review) / We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (Review)
These New Puritans Beat Pyramid (Review / Interview)
No Age Nouns (Review / Track-by-Track)
Santogold Santogold (Review / Interview)
Nine Inch Nails The Slip (Review)
Okkervil River The Stand Ins (Review / Interview 1 / 2)
Late Of The Pier Fantasy Black Channel (Review / Track-by-Track)
Hauschka Ferndorf (Review)
TV On The Radio Dear Science (Review)
MGMT Oracular Spectacular (Review / Interview)
Wild Beasts Limbo, Panto (Review / Interview 1 / 2)
Atlas Sound Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Review / Interview)
White Williams Smoke (Review)
The Stills Oceans Will Rise (Review)
Mogwai The Hawk Is Howling (Review / Interview)
Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend (Review)
The Futureheads This Is Not The World ( Review / Track-by-Track)
Bloc Party Intimacy (Review)
The Raveonettes Lust, Lust, Lust (Review)
Johnny Foreigner Waited Up 'Til It Was Light (Review / Track-by-Track)
El Guincho Alegranza (Review)
Metronomy Nights Out (Review)
Lykke Li Youth Novels (Review / Interview)
Islands Arms Way (Review)
British Sea Power Do You Like Rock Music? (Review/ Interview)
Fucked Up The Chemistry of Common Life (Review)
Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes (Review / Interview)
Blood Red Shoes Box Of Secrets (Review / Track-by-Track)
Rolo Tomassi Hysterics (Review/ Interview)
Times New Viking Rip It Off (Review / Interview)
Diamanda Galas Guilty Guilty Guilty (Review)
I Was A Cub Scout I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope (Review / Interview)

back from Frankfurt!

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Hello. been to Frankfurt for 3 days to visit my friend Christine and her fiancee Marcus. Had a great time there. Will write more soon!

an IT tech!

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Good morning. the wind is blowing across this friday blue-sky morning. re-partitioning old crappy computer with gparted live. Passed my CompTIA A+ IT Technician Exam with 93%!!! Now can move on to do CIW Foundations section of my course. It's Friday and I am knackered as it's been a very long month, a very long week too, with moving house revising and studying for the last exam, French homework and both Marion and I had birthdays too. After the new year life will slow down a bit. Grooving to School of seven bells. Almost time to goto Work. See you later.

passed exam!!!

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

hi, took CompTIA A+ IT Technician Exam and got 93%!!! So now qualified and can progress onto CIW Associate Training. Glad that it's out of the way and that I can say Im a tech. Looking forward to the CIW part of the course.

K2

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Sitting here in the break room for the second of my IT courses. This is CompTIA A+ IT Technician. The B&B I stayed at is cheap and basic, the owners watched TV at high volume till 1130 last night so I am still really tired. Otherwise there are 3 others on my course and it's quite interesting so far. Wish I were on real holiday as I am pretty knackered recently. Need to go running, and evacuate the stress. Have started doing pressups. Need a haircut. Know of anywhere in Kidderminster?

friday morning

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Holy shit I forgot to blog about it: I passed my A+ Essentials with 84%!!! Yes I am now learning the A+ IT Technician course work and have my next classroom session (and hopefully exam at the same time) in the middle of November! Working on many computers at the same time at the moment. I have been given another computer from a work colleague, so far it's fast but keeps on crashing. Will persevere a few more times then re-build with Ubuntu or something like that. Currently it has XP. Will be useful for me having a couple of computers so I can practice my networking skills when I get to that part of my course. I am also learning about drupal to make my brother's website. So far I've installed it and have been watching a few video tutorials on youtube about various modules. This week has been busy. Last night we went to see "The Edge of Love" at the cinema. Monday night we found a new place to live (the landlord wants his house back at this place), I've been learning my new course, about Drupal and also about PHP when I have the time. Had my French lesson on Wednesday which went well. And and and yes we're going to move in/out in 2 weeks!

huzzah c'est presque le weekend

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

good morning folks, it's almost the weekend almost the end of september and the sun's a shining and the blue skies are a blazing. Have started my first ever French course after leaving school, 10 years since dossing through GCSE French (now wished I'd paid more attention to Monsieur Leam and Madame Emmery back in those dark distant school days). So far two lessons done and learning regular and now irregular verbs. It's coming back and although I know quite a lot of words there's huge vast space in my vocabulary that remains vacant. So here's to all those learning French! Come on Bro, you know you want to keep up with me, come on everyone else. Only been running once in September. Studying at lunchtime (french) and studying when I get home (IT) which leaves a small amount of time to talk to Marion, relax and have something to eat. What about at the weekends? We'll see. I am really missing running. Been listening to a lot of new music lately. Currently "Underground Railroad". But "Mercury Rev", "Kings of Leon", "Metallica" "Gaslight Experience", some french music: "Tyro", "les cowboys fringantes", and recently "doba caracol" which are very good imho.

o' course

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

sitting here in kidderminster on CompTIA A+ Essentials workshop just had first mock exam waiting for the others to finish so can have results. think I need a lot of revision and further work before can take the exam but will see. looking forward to drive home... looking forward to getting home. Update: I passed the mock with 77/100 (needed 70% to pass, will need 75% in real exam) and journey back went well.

Re-Turn-Running

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Back to running for 3 weeks now after a prolonged and intermittant winter and spring while I was commuting to and from Walton-on-Thames every working day. Now I cycle to work and can run in the lunchtime because there is a shower and some decent running routes. I have managed 2/3-times a week and every time so far I have tried a different route (6 different routes). I try to alternate between running along the canal (flat, less pollution) and road (more hilly, more cars). The longest route I did was 7.3 miles in 61mins along the canal. Life at work is ok, a bit repetitive for my liking but things can change. Also, people are a bit quiet but again this can change as we are a new team (3 new members in the last 3 weeks!). What we need is some socialising to break down the barriers! Have been watching Olympics and we (UK) are doing really well in the cycling! More potential golds today are in the Men's Madison (Wiggins and Cavendish) and Men's (Hoy and Kenny) and Woman's (Pendleton) Sprint. Have also watched a number of great films: The Bank Job, Hancock and Wanted, Roman Holiday, and The Dark Knight.

back

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

back from the first day at the new job. took 20 mins cycle there in the morning and 'bout 25 back. The job: well too early to say as only first week but there's lots of new people, the work is different. No cranky car either! It's gonna thunder-storm tonight, so very humid

100 - one hundred

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

yes so another beautiful day in paradise. this day spent reading in the garden, finishing "Shalimar the Clown" by Salmand Rushdie, last Sunday's newspaper about films music and books. Yes just did 100 situps as my posture has got to a stage where I need to make it better. Been juggling in the garden, left shoulder really hurts still. Yesterday: cycled on hottest day of year to my parents, 11 miles in 45mins. Along roads and quite often subject to side and face-on winds. Great. Have now found my cycling shorts so ready for next week's twice daily commute to-from work:) Hot hot hot. Yes so the reason for yesterday's visit was to see my grandma, and my parents too. M met me there and we helped cook dindins: lasagne and then rhubarb crumble (i made the crumble: 9oz (1/4 white flour, 1/4 wholemeal flour, 1/2 oats), 4.5oz butter, 4.5oz sugar) for topping). Makes huge difference not taking the car every/anywhere and I am liking it very much.

TFFT

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

welcome back to this blog after a day off-line. Tried to upgrade Wordpress (the strings that hold this blog together) from version 2.5.1 to 2.6 but must have got something wrong. So still with 2.5.1 for now.<update> now have upgraded to 2.6 not that difficult really.</update> Back home after a week in Paris for friends wedding. We took Eurostar last Weds then met up with Didier and Lucie at their home in the suburbs. Thu M and I went into Paris and did some touristy leg-walking, mission number one the Eiffel Tower then mission number 2: find some churros. Both accomplished but the second only just as we almost ran out of energy after walking at least 10km in our search. Fri spent preparing for the marriage and then Sat morning too, before the wedding and eating drinking and partying into early hours. Sun cleaning up then on Monday went to Paris again to walk to Monmartre and then to Line, Jabert and Lisa's to collect our bags before catching the Eurostar back to UK.

Good Morning World

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I am now on two week holiday after 8 gruelling months of getting up at 6am, leaving at 6.30 for 1 hour commute, working till 16.30 and then second 1 hour commute before getting home at 17.30. Knackered, Stressed, Violated, Poluted, Hungry. I now have a new job (just three miles each way) in Reading, starting on the 28th of July, and will get there by bike or by running. Yesterday I read a lot, used linux (after installing Ubuntu on the computer my brother's old computer - cheers bro), got infuriated with the noise coming from the knackered fan in said computer (and with Drupal) and set off on my bike to ride to Maplin in search for a replacement fan. The route is the same as I will use for getting to my new job and was really hilly and v.hard work. After finding no suitable fans in the shop I tried a different route home but took a wrong turning and instead of getting the map out I did a bit of high speed exploring, then when knackered got the map out and rode home. In the evening after M had arrived home and we had eaten dinner we watched "Priceless (hors de prix)". Really funny film, Audrey Tautou sexy pouting seductive actress in same vain that Audrey Hepburn was in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"... which reminds me that I have a whole box-set of Audrey Hepburn films to watch.

Cavendish Wins ... rain-rain-rain-rain-rain

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

when is the summer gonna start? today rained from 6am till now (9pm) non-stop. Managed to get out at lunch for a walk with enormous umbrella. Had to re-attach wiper blade on motorway in rain as almost fell off. Cavendish won stage 5 of the Tour de France!!! Awesome dude! He has already won 2 stages in the Giro d'Italia earlier this year. Come on GB!!!

Killer Run

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Just back from my first run in 2.5 weeks and was great fantastic awesome to kill myself for the name of getting fit, losing weight and generally feeling much bloody better than those sedentary folks. Was just going to do the regular 2 laps of Palmer Park, which to be honest is really dull and boring, but instead I felt like going further and doing something a bit more challanging. So I did "[Tesco Route - 4.32miles]" in 32mins with some traffic lights and a stop to do up my laces. Weather was good although quite windy, lots of sun. Shoulders really painful for some reason. Miles Remaining: 540.

le week-end

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Friday lunchtime and the weekend beccons, the sunshine dazzles and the blue sky dotted with white fluffy clouds. Been a long week but a short week and another week less before I start my new job, one week less at my current place and only 22 journeys (that's approx 750 miles) before I can rest the car and get out my bike. Have not run all week although went walking a lot last weekend, several times this week and also to-from town on bike twice too. Went to see Indy 4.0 last night although entertaining it played too much and tried to be humerous. Watch out for the ants. Semi-finals and finals of men and woman's tennis this weekend. Serena and Roger all the way. Have a good one!

music - second try

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

PM[Pharoahe Monche - Desire : 3m32] flobots[flobots - handlebars]

chili

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

How to grow chili from seed. Yes we've got a small chili plant bought from a garden centre and it's growing quite slowly so this article could provide the solutions.

CSS3 and other new stuff

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

New css3 selectors in Fx 3.1 Acid Test New Look BBC Radio Online

To Do List

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Rob's Birthday Present + Card - yes I know bro that you've still not received it but at least I am thinking of it! Open DNS - see what websites are being accessed from your network. French - learn new words, verbs, basic sentences, practice with M; Running - One foot in front of the other, run! Website - Update and add new content;

update

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Monday afternoon and the sun is shining. Weekend just gone was spent with M's Mum M (also) who visited us from France. We picked up M at Stansted Airport Friday evening through 2 hours of M4 and M25 motorway traffic then easily found M at airport collected car and drove 1.5hours back to home where we got changed then headed out into air and found delicious curry for dinner. Saturday got up sleepy eyed at 10 with fresh brioche smells had brekki in garden then drove beyond Marlow to a place called COokham and a walk along the Thames and round loop in hills above river. Had picnic atop hill views of Red Kites and rabbits and over Thames, v nice! Yes then walk back to car and drove to Henley and walk along and back on river past lock and weir. Ice-cream next to the river in the sun and drive via Tesco to home for BBQ in garden. Extremely tired all go to bed. Sunday again cannot get up at 10.30 but forced as have guest so we have brekki in sunshine in garden! Pack smart clothes, for later, into car and then drive to Virginia Water and walk around the lake admiring the scenes and plants trees and ducks. Almost die of starvation but finally find place on grass in Sun then after play frisbee with M and M before driving to Bishop's Gate and walking to the Copper Horse in Windsor Great Park with fantastic views of Windsor Castle and deer and planes taking off from Heathrow Airport. In Eve drive to my rents place, after changing in car, and first time M's mum meets my M&D. Delicious food, good evening! Spain beat Germany in the Euro 2008 final although we don't see any of it as eating and socialising. Great weeekend! Yes I have just updated wordpress to 2.5.1 which took a while as up-load speed was v. slow. Alas, it;'s done now! Adios for now.

Re-track

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Good afternoon! A week off in sunny Turkey with M and a week back in UK now almost settling back into life again. Great holiday in Marmaris: week of sitting on the beach soaking up the sun just what I needed, still have some of the suntan left as well! Went swimming and walking every day, though the copious amounts of ice-cream and tasty turkish sweets and patisseries balanced that out! Yes went running on Monday evening with M after 2 weeks of non-running. Feels good though looking forward to going at my speed! Have been cycling to and from town regularly in evening, to Persepolis last night and to-from town plenty of times on the weekend. FreeMind is the perfect (free) software for organising your to-do list, Thanks to my brother Rob (see photo) for showing me wonderful tool!!! M and I, with help from my bro (thanks bro!), are organising the next Pidgeon Walking Weekend and this is the perfect tool for visualising what needs to be done and what to think about. Here are our Turkey Photos and hoping to put some more online soon of life and chocolate and sunshine.

VVC

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In this insipid war-ravaged world writing has become something of a relic of the past when we have excellent music and, with the excellent viral video chart, excellent viral videos, huzzah! Yes so what am I getting at? To be honest I've no idea. Have you? Viral Video Chart currently has pork and beans at #1. and this one too Yikes have you seen it? Walking with one humpy mud-yellow sock hanging out of his jeans rear pocket and the other smouldering in the sweat of his right wellington boot (itself caked in last years horrific glastonbury festival boogie mud), stepping one foot before the other and working through the stages to getting up. Up up UP he gets and grabs reluctantly unsuccessfully at the biscuit jar crammed with rockie bars, he wants them so much to dunk into the grisly scank-tea discovered earlier in the microwave (it must have been left over from last night's poker smoking session he recalls).

Soon!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yes new camera at last arrived at work in time for the blue skies and sunshine! It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500. 10Mpix; 5x optical zoom; touch-screen control. Looking and feeling very tasty! Yes it's almost the weeeeekend and next week we are off to Turkey!!! Have you heard the new song by Weezer "Pork and Beans"? Doing the serious viral rounds, great music nice vid too.

Rock en Seine

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Rock en Seine 2008 August 28/29; Paris, France. Having been previously to Rock en Seine 2006 I can say it's an amazing festival to goto! Wow yes and what a line-up! Amy Winehouse, Tricky, Racounteurs, Serj (from SOAD), The Roots, JSBE... yes seriously considering this one! Get your tickets from FNAC.com.

Running in the Turkey Rain

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It's Tue afternoon and the rain continues to fall from the blackish grey sky falling for a few more hours on what should be a sunny and warm June day. This week I am going with M on holiday to Turkey: for 1 week in the sun on the sand in the sea on the beach, soaking up rays of suntan inducing sun enjoying being a tourist in a foreign land! I cannot wait, the last 6 months since Christmas/NY have been long and tiring and I need a proper break. Shocked by the price of diesel last Thu when I filled my car up: Â£73.59 for a tank of 125.9/litre of diesel, up 20p/litre since when I bought the car back in November last year. Shocked. Where is the alternative to using my car? I use my car to get to and from work every day 65 miles a day, 325 miles a week, plus some weekend trips. That's a lot of money to pay. Option 1. travel to work by train. Yes more cheap (i think it costs Â£60 a week) but takes 3 hours there and back rather than 1.5 when driving and large number of connections mean that if any train is delayed I am very late home or at work. Option 2. Move closer to work. Not realistic at the moment. Option 3. Move job closer to home. Not realistic at the moment. Running: Last night I went out with M after work. Felt initially very low energy from day at work but glad went out. We did the same course apart from the final section. A new [Uni PP - 3.9miles] route. M did 3.1 miles and I did 3.9 in 25 and 30mins, respectively. Last week went out with M once (Woodley) and myself (2laps of PP). Have stopped taking the vitamin tablets since beginning (7th) of May and seeing what this makes to us. So far have less energy and more tired, but this could be to do with the amount of things that we are doing. So. Will give it another month or so and see how feeling then!

Wednesday or Monday?

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Back from 6 days of rest. Been for 6days in Lyon and Nuits St Georges in France for wedding of M's friends Armelle and Guillaume, to see M's uni town and meet friends new and old. Had great time, lots of sunshine and good food and wine, now recovering at work breaktime almost hometime and wishing I were back in France. Not going running tonight as it's my Mum's b'day and we're going round for a cuppa tea.

Bracknell Half-Marathon

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Yah, wow, mesmerising, aching, happy. On Sunday I raced in the Bracknell Half-Marathon and beat my personal best by 7:08 in a fantastic time of 1:34:54. The first 10miles I took at a steady pace monitoring my time every 3 miles using my bike computer's clock(note to self :buy decent running watch!). Marion was supporting me on her bike so it was a great surprise everytime I saw her beautiful face, and more motivation for me to get to the finish asap! The course was through the pavements and tracks of bracknell and had a few hills, the course was well marshalled and very well supported throughout. After starting out in murky humid sunshine the run was pleasant and warm until the rain began falling at mile 11 and t-storm and heavy rain accompanied me through miles 12 to the finish... Huzzah! Now I feel great.

10k in the Sunshine

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Last night: Having skipped the exercise Tue I had to get out, and the sun was shining and the blue skies were beating down on my lab all afternoon so I knew it was going to be an evening of running. 10k. I'd measured a route on Monday online using Gmap Pedometer along the road to Sonning and back along the River Thames, via Palmer Park and to home. This Sonning River route mixes road running for the first half of the route then running along the river, through grassy meadows for 2.5k then through paths and around Palmer Park up the hill to home. It took 47mins and I stopped 4 times: twice to do shoe-laces up, one to cross traffic lights, one to go for a slash (you get it all here!) on top of a long day at work this is not that bad a time. After having dinner with marion I cycled to Cesar's to watch the Barca vs. ManU footie game. 0-0 result really exciting and tense Barca dominated the possession but barring ManU's missed Pen and the odd Barca chance there was little on-goal shooting. ManU's defense was impecable, and Barca couldn't penetrate.

Back-Front

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Monday: went running with Marion: two laps of Palmer Park. Pushed her perhaps more than she wanted to be pushed but that's what running's all about;) Got this Half-Marathon on Sunday so I want to do more running this week. Last night: felt like sleeping not doing much so didn't go swimming. Did however goto the pub by bike in evening; really fantastic day so was still warm in evening! Life is expensive at the moment. Going to Twickenham to see the Guinness Premiership Final on 31st May! Tonight ManU play Barca in the semis of the Champions League. Now now now I am at work, and break is over and I gotta go back to work.

TFFiF

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Friday! thank fuck for that, Friday has finally arrived. I woke up this morning slightly hungover from last night, bah.Â Yesterday I went running after work, a new route through Woodley inclusive of a nice hill to start with! Sunshine blazing and wind ripping into me I did the Woodley 2.8miles route in ~20mins (much quicker than I imagined) and then jumped into the shower and started cooking for the party. I made banana and apple crumble, then chocolate cookies, and M made quiche and dips and aperatifs. People arrived and we ate talked listened to music and catched up, ate some more and drunk more, then played Jungle Speed (crazy French game). Lots of newbies so not as fast but really funny. Going home now it's Friday!!!

Paint Headache

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Last night I had zero energy thus no running. Bah what a poor excuse, eh, I will try to go out tonight. Have party round our house tonight, and I am cooking cookies and crumble. Yesterday the lab was full of fumes from the painting that was being done to the chemical stores next door to the lab, thus the headache the lack of energy. I enrolled onto the Masters CIW course, had dinner and then watched the first half of "Before the Devil Knows you're Dead" before catching the zzz's. Wow yes it's wonderful sunny outside, just been outside to walk to the newsagents. Had to get out into the fresh air after being trapped in here all day. Party at our house tonight, cooking cookies and crumble will try go running and get legs moving towards the 1/2-marathon on the 27th. Adios Amigos.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Following a nasty afternoon at work I jumped into the car and drove home. Into the rain I went and out the other side just before getting back home in the middle of the exit to the roundabout was a police car blocking all onward traffic. This was a place where there were few (if any) routes around so I went back, cut across country and then got stuck in more rush-hour traffic going back into Reading. Arrived home after 90 mins in the car I needed to go out running. After yesterday's 10k race my legs were a bit stiff so I blasted around PP on the first lap and then coasted for the second. Time: approx 20mins. Distance: 2.6miles.Â After having a shower I now am feeling much better!

Spring!

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Spring Is Here! April Showers, Sun, Snow, Furballs, EVERYTHING!!! Yes it's Monday and I finally get round to up-dating the blog! So what have I been upto since I last wrote? Yesterday I ran a 10k race (Marion ran a 5k race at the same venue). Last weekI signed up to do a Masters CIW course (which begins later this month). I did a First-Aid Course. Been to France for a long-weekend to visit Marion's brother and parents. Seen lots of films and DVDs (Grindhouse and Son of Rambow last week; 27 Dresses and 13 Going on 30 the week before) and listened to lots of good music (including Radiohead, Adele, Sebastian Tellier; online including Indy103.1 and radioactive.co.nz).

Wales Biking

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Friday::: Yes, end of another fast-paced week shortened by Easter and ended by rain and wind. On Monday I went biking with Alejandro and his friend Ramiro to the Look Out. Weather was cool-cold and intermittant snow showers with sunshine bursts what a crazy day! Marion was in Macclesfield at her friend's Hen Weekend. With A and R we rode for 2 hours on single-track and off-track I getting used to my new Specialized RockHopper and Alejandro still recovering from breaking his arm last year. Ramiro ex-trials was on top form although many of his front spokes came loose. Muuuuuuddddd!!! So much mud! Wheels clogged brakes jammed rims rubbing on the brake blocks. So much water mud splattered everywhere in eyes foot mouth!!! Wow great fun! Will buy proper pedals and shoes for biking as only have flat pedals and old trainers atm. Last night I practiced balancing without moving and wheelies yes. Need lots of practice though could see improvement already! Need to work on this! Is not really nice weather out there now have an hour till I leave for home then either I go running or biking or to sleep. Am really knackered not really getting enough sleep last weekend didn;t help. Right. Rain rain rain falls from the skies. What a crappy day to be a bumble bee. This week: went to cinema tuesday saw The Counterfeiters, last night knackered but I went riding.

Exploding Dried Tulips

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Hi Hello Good Afternoon! It's Friday sunshine dazzles the outerworld while in the innerworld I get ready to go running for the first time along the Thames from Walton Bridge (near work). Since March began I have run Reading Half-Marathon, been to Nottingham and the Peak District, went running with Marion, been to see "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" at cinema, "Shoot 'Em Up" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" on DVD. Huzzah just now they have announced the draw for the 1/4 finals of the Champions League: Arsenal/Liverpool; Roma/ManU; Schalke/Barcelona; Fenerbahce/Chelsea. Wow I cannot wait to see it! Have entered a 10k race in April and going to enter a half-marathon in April. Going to get changed now. See you. [... at home. 1500] Heavy legs, didn't find the route that I wanted to do... But I feel Great! Great that I went running, that I went running before driving home to a hot shower, great that I tried a new route. I have just entered the Bracknell Half-Marathon on 27th of April to add to the 10k race I am doing on the 13th. Now It's really the weekend and Marion and I are going to a party tonght then tomorrow into London to have a test of some new bikes, watch the rugger and get some art for the housewalls. Ment to piss down all weekend so w/e will prob involve cinema or DVD too. Yessah! in the morning there were twelve spotted doves walking in a long evenly spaced line down the middle of the street, if one of these white purity peace-keepers were to fall all the morning would be less and I'd have had to go back to bed.

Last Week:::

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Running:: Running with Marion we did "Tesco River" 4.68miles in 50mins. Today I ran from Walton Bridge near work really heavy legs did 33mins. What route? Hahaha, haven't a clue:) Have entered for 2 races next month: 10k round Dorney Lake on 13th, and Bracknell Half-Marathon on 27th.

Running in the Wind

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Running:: Just back from the first run of the week. Monday I was ill and Tue Marion and I went to see "4Months, 3Weeks and 2Days" in Oxford. Wednesday I had zero energy or motivation and Thursday Marion and I played 1.5 hours of badminton! With still aching legs courtesy of the badminton last night I ran through Palmer Park to London Road then Kings Road past the Prison and right at The Rising Sun roundabout under the railway; over the next roundabout and before crossing the bridge turn right along the River Thames until it meets the Canal when go over bridge follow canal and then turn left up Cholmeley Road before taking Liverpool Road back to Palmer Park and home. I'll Call this "River Cholmeley" and it took 36 minutes. I have lost my running watch so I have to use the clock on my mobile for timekeeping. I check it before and when I get back. Not the best accuracy in the world. Was very windy out there. The Thames is very high although there was no water on the footpath this week.

Oscars

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The nominations for the 80th edition of the Oscars have been announced

Running Again!

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Yes so I am back running, three times this week so far and it feels great! With my new Polar Heart Rate Monitor watch I can see how much I am killing myself and exactly how long my runs are (rather than using the clock in the kitchen when I get back through the door as I have been using). Sunday in bloody freezing weather I did WC in 24m20s (Max HR: 200; Av HR: 183). Tuesday I made up a new route comprising lots of hills: Mickle Hill, the road route to Crowthorne and back, through Sandhurst to Rackstraws XR and then double back to home via Wellington Road. I call this "Sandhurst Night Hills" and it took 32m26s (Max HR:203; Av HR:184). Tonight in the horrible drizzle and rain I did another new night run comprising of my running clubs' Handicap route and the to and from home. This I name "Crowthorne Handicap Night" and it took 44m18s (Max HR:185; Av HR:171).

A Break

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Marion (coucou mon amour) is in France, I am doing a clinical trial, I have started a new job, Marion and I have found a new place to live, I am looking to buy a car. Life is extremely hectic at the moment. The travelling is killing me. I travel in the morning to the clinical trial lab to deposit blood and urine, get weighed; then I travel to work via train (35mins) and walking (8 minutes) then I work a full day until 5.30 and walk to the station and catch a couple of trains finally arriving at home at 7pm. Have dinner according to the food diet that I have to follow and then speak to Marion on the fone. Knackered knackered knackered. I need a break. I need to go running. I did go running on Tuesday, 1hr at 11.7kmph on the treadmill for the study. Not proper running outside but hard work running on the treadmill. Never done that before, preferring more to go running in the outside world and feeling the freshness of life on my skin (rain, wind, snow, sunshine, etc!). I have to follow this controlled diet so I am not allowed certain foods, and NO ALCOHOL, I cannot wait until Saturday when I can drink and eat as much of whatever I want to, and go running too!!! Yes!!! Tomorrow night I will go to Reading and meet up with the boys to watch the England footie game vs Austria. No booze for me but it will be good to get out on the town and see friends. Marion and I went to Paris at the start of the month, taking the Eurostar on a Thu evening and arriving at her friends' house via another set of friends. We had a great time, I met with lots of her friends and saw much of the sights of Paris by foot. Here are the fotographs::: . Great food too, I love French food!!! Especially love patisseries, chocolateries, supermarches, creperies (crepes and nutella are simply devine!!!), and so on :) We stayed at Helene's place first (she was on holiday) and then were shown the sights of Paris by Line, Jalabert and their 9mth-old baby Lisa. The Eiffel Tower by night is simply stunning (see the fotos!) and lisa is soo entertaining! Marion and I went to a restaurant and had simple delicious food. Next day Marion and I went to Monmartre and had crepes for brunch, found Line, Jalabert and Lisa and did more touring. In the evening Marion and I took the sardine train to see another set of her friends Didier and Lucie and we had the most amazing chocolate fondue ever, preceeded by salad and duck. It was great, with fresh fruit just dipping the stuff into the molten chocolate and eating it.!. Choco-holics heaven :) Following morning Marion and I stocked up on French goodies, then to Paris central again via a chinese supermarket for essential foods! We did a walk along the Seine and then had chocolate crepes for lunch. Marion and I then went to see Line Jalabert and Lisa one more time and taste their amazing food. Jalabert owns and runs his restaurant and the food was as you'd expect, sumptious!!! Lisa was very entertaining too!!! Had to get up really early on Mon am to catch the Eurostar back to UK, with just made croissants and pain au chocolat for our brekkies. The best I've ever tasted :) Im knackered and will continue the tale next time! Best Wishes, Andrew.

To Paris

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Marion and I are going tonight to Paris for a long weekend staying at her friends house looking to see what one of the world's most amazing cities has to offer and to consume delicious food and drink and soak up the Parisian atmosphere. Wow we need a break from the UK it's been such a long time since the summer and since we went to France. Times are a changing as I have a new job starting after we get back next week, we are looking for a place together and I am also looking for a car. Wow at the moment I am pretty stressed out but I am sure things will settle down once I have the car sorted. What have we been upto, what have I been upto since the last post? I have had a number of job interviews, I have had a birthday (Happy Birthday Me!!!) and have accepted one of the job offers. I have been running, indeed Marion is also a runner now and goes running 2 times a week lunchtimes at work (just like I did) and we both go swimming together once a week too. Running: yesterday: "Ambarrow Muddy Lane" in 32mins, Tuesday: WC in 24mins. 23-Oct: CBH in 40mins; 25-Oct: Rev-WC in 24mins; 26-Oct: CDN: 43mins.

Red Junky Crackhead from Venus

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

"Kings of Leon - The Runner" on current listen, torrential rain on the glisten outside wow what a nice sound they make! Had a couple of job interviews today, now really tired, have another tomorrow. Started doing situps and pressups but skin a little sore on back as have been doing a lot of them and skin not used to it, hah! Situps good for posture, core stability and also for running form, while pressups are good for the musle, yes! I went running with the running club last night, was slower than last week but we did manage a few fast reps and up some hills too, reason why other people were not up for fast running was that they were racing over the weekend and were tired. Have been invited to the Weds sessions so may check them out in the future! The Weds sessions are longer, 8-10 miles and a continueous pace rather than the looping that happens on the Monday nights. Am very tempted, although will have to do more running and get even faster first! Something to aim for!!! Last week I did the VO2max test (as part of this running trial I am doing) and got a figure of 63.75. Bloody hard work. Went walking with Marion on Sunday, looking for a long route that's exactly what we did. From here to beyond the Look Out in the woods, then back again, we did 25km (saying the distance in km is much better cos the figure is larger!) and Marion almost killed me when we worked this out! "Were you trying to kill me" she said,,, it's excellent preparation for the GR20 I think! England are through to the Rugby World Cup Final after narrowly beating France on Saturday. Wow, amazed to think that this is the same squad of players that we watched just last month playing so poorly. Come on England!!!

Seeing You

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Thurs: "Lakes Dell Lane" in 53mins. Damn nice weather out: blue skies and sunshine, not too hot bit of wind perfect. Legs felt heavy from 2 previous days of running but kept going pace slowing a little (IMHO) in the final quarter. Weds: "Devil's Highway Nature" (Crowthorne end first) in 43mins. Steady pace, with Underworld on mp3. Fantastic sunset, blue skies, quite cool [departure time:1644]. Tue: "WC" in 24mins. Steady pace, damp and cool. [1200] Overall I am feeling in better shape than last week. Tomorrow (Fri) I will take a medical for a clinical study for which I will write about more in the next weeks. But it does mean that there'll be No brekki for me :(

Ripe Red Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Cafe

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Yeas so I have been running again this afternoon. I died plenty of times, where has the energy the motivation to go running gone? Or am I going at it in the wrong way? Without a clear objective I go out running for the sake of running, say three or four times a week. And solo too. In the summer it was easy, relatively speaking, because the blood was flowing quickly and it was great to go outside for a deathly run through the sunshine. Now winter is on its way and the temperature is a mere 10 degrees, the sunshine ain't there and there is rain hard blissful plentiful rain to put the lazy section of the brain off. Yet I am still going out running, and this is the positive that I must take from this change of seaesons, change of spirit, because summer is not coming any quicker if I stew and think up excuses for not going out in the cold glorious rainy grey gloom of September in Sandhurst. Running: Tuesday: "Hills + WC" in 29mins. Rained and was cold. Wednesday (Today): "Nature + Crowthorne" in 32mins (half of Broadmoor Nature, half dying on way back to home). Windy, cold and wet. Solutions: (1) Running Club; (2) Enter some races; (3) New Routes; (4) Evaluate Training Plan;

Brrrrrr Winter's on It's Way

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Monday: "Ambarrow Ridges" in 33mins. Was really cold out there, fingers frozen pain in arse getting key into door to let myself in. Tuesday: "WC" in 23mins. Felt much better afterwards. Swimming: 40 lengths of which 35 Breast-stroke and 5 Front Crawl.

It's Cold in the Eve Run

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Tonight: "Devil's Highway Nature" in 42mins (crowthorne end first). Began running at 1850 so was quite cold in places in the woods, and quite dark too. Bumped into the beginners group of Sandhurst Joggers, recognised the girl who was leading the run. My run however was a slow one intentionally so as not to knacker myself too much. Bit stressed lately because of the job search, so was nice to get fresh air and blast away the cobwebs in the autumnal air.

Monday Quickie

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Yesterday: after an interview and before meeting Marion I had a small window to go running so I grabbed it; I went for a usual Monday run: "reverse WC" in 23mins. Still have lung butter but at last no cough! Nice conditions for running, although a tad windy.

Down Up

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: yesterday: "Broadmoor Devil's Highway" in 44mins. Really struggling with breathing because of lung butter, and coughing too. Great afternoon run nontheless in fantastic weather. I would like to enter some races in the next month(s) to test myself.

Ridges Ambarrow

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Today: "Reverse Ridges Ambarrow" in 33mins. Really hot, quite knackered in second half of run. It's the weekend its the weekend! Yah yay sweeeeeet. Have a great weekend!!!

Klaxons Scoop The Mercury Prize

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hi news just in Klaxons Scoop 2007 Mercury Music Prize and wow what a great band they are not. Sure I like their music, went to see them live in Reading. But surely they are not the best band on the list. Running: Today: Dell Lane Lakes in 53mins; Yesterday: WC+ (in the dark so had to walk sometime) in 25mins. Running session today: I took my Learn French mp3 and listened to the first lesson. Great stuff, learnt some new words and phrases, great! But not the best accompanyment to go running with, not fast enough. Nose full of lung butter, top of chest hurt a little. Have had a nasty cold the last week and now getting almost over it.

Welcome back WC

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Monday 27.08: "Wellington College+" 23 mins. Had to alter route cause the gates at the far end of the kilometer driver in WC were closed (as it was a bank holiday). Set off on a flier and would have knocked off more time from record if had been the usual route. Suffering from a sore throat I didn't go running today, opting instead to sleep sleep and read Harry Potter.

hey ho lets go

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Now I am hungover, and punishing myself by being awake. Last night I met with Martin my best friend at school from age 5 till uni. Lots of drinking, catching up had a great time played darts somehow drunk lots did I say that? Now now NOW I still am punished for it, uck. I have been a good soldier lately however, going running and swimming a lot, walking everywhere and eating good food. Running: 7.08 "Hilly Route" (time taken: unknown); 11.08 "Reverse Wellington College" 26mins; 14.08 "Wellington College" 24mins; 15.08 "Muddy Lane Lakes" 55mins (7.23miles); 17.08 "Broadmoor Devil's Highway" 42mins (5.83 miles); 20.08 "Reverse Wellington College" 23mins; 21.08 "Ridges+Ambarrow" 41mins; 23.08 "Reverse Muddy Lane Lakes" 51mins. Swimming: have started swimming every week with Marion. Main stroke is breaststroke at the moment although I want to improve front-crawl, back-crawl so I don't die if I do more than 5 lengths at once with these strokes.

Gin and Juice

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Gin and Juice (mp3)

Update Update Update

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Yeas so it's been another month of hectic activity. I have great news: I have a girlfriend she's called Marion (hi Marion mon amour!) she's funny sexy clever crazy intelligent excellent cook delightful taste in music always on the move doing something allthetime and she's French...! We went to France on holiday stayed at her parent's place and had an amazing time! Went to the beach almost every day she's from the Med coast so the weather was absolutely mesmeric everyday blue sky sunshine and hot hot temps, met her Bro Aurele who's currently on hols from his uni, met her parents, met Marion's friends went to a wedding and buffet, a party in a huge mansion with family friends, fireworks on the beach, the Tall Ships Race (from the sea no less!!!) and feasted on amazing French cuisine, fresh fruit every day so got a bit of a paunch. Went running twice along a cycle path that runs for 40+km from her city, in the evenings around 8 when it was cool enough with shade and some wind. First day ran with Marion on in-line skates for 30 mins: 15 there and 15 back. The second time I went solo and slower and further, for 40 mins with music (Pheroahe Monche) on the mp3. Went to Castallet, drove up Mount Feron spectacular sunset views of Toulon. Many many fotographs to follow!!! After getting back from France finding England under ten thousand meters of water, finding that my bro spent 28 hours stranded by the water on the way from his home to London (he didn't make it) in a pub, after the shocks of the drug use in this year's Tour de France (Vino used to be my hero, what a fucking idiot he is) I went to my auntie's wedding in Norfolk. I'd agreed to take some fotographs at the wedding so was a bit strange not being able to get totally drunk straight off;) But there was plenty of free champagne floating around so we got there in the end! The event was relatively lo-key with all the family (ten thousand of us) and some of their friends. The location was great, in an old stately home that is currently being renovated into a hotel, after the dancing (my auntie K and her husband K met at dancing classes!) my cousins, uncle and I found that there was a tango evening on still (this being really late in the night) and my two cousins Roberta and Fiona were asked to join in. Neither had done any tango before but they were really good, especially Fi who'd done dance before. The next day was horrific, hungover and feeling dead i had to get out in the air kick a footie around for a while before getting in the car with my uncle Alastair for the longest drive in the world all the way back home, through vicous rain and eventually to sunshine. Running: Mon 16.07 30 mins *route unknown*. 2 times in France. Since being back in England: Tue 31.07 I did a hilly 27 minute run around the local streets of Sandhurst and Crowthorne. Wed 01.08 I did the Broadmoor and Devil's highway route in 43 mins in hot hot 11am heat.

June to July

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: (a brief resume):: 30.May:ELT (extended Long Toll); 1st.June:??; 4.June:Â WW (Walter's Wood); 6th.June:River; 8.June:PO(Post Office - new route); 11.June:Stables; 13.June:River (36mins); 15 June:WW;Â Short Stables; 20.June: Extended River; 25th.June:Stables; 27.June:WW; 2nd.July:ELT (38 mins); 4.July:River (35 mins). Played badminton for the first time in 7 months last night. I Fucking sucked. Personally I blameÂ my new shoes, the new scorring system, that we were playing with feather shuttles rather than plastic ones... oh yeah and my knackered body after playing football at lunchtime. But all are excuses. Will see what happens next week.

I'm Back

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I have not written on this blog for the whole month of June so far so now's the time for some catch-up. Life is great. Still running a lot, playing footie, going to gigs, and so on. I will write more later but first I will tell you about today. Running: absolutely throwing it down, as had done for the last 3-4 days, so ground was supersaturated and rivers of water were along the roads, paths and elsewhere. Steve, Paul and I did "Stables", I left Steve on the decent, and Paul at base camp (the start) so had to keep going going going or Steve would (might) catch me up. Got supersoaked, only had shorts and a couple of t-shirts (red England shirt over HH base top) and sunglasses, latter really useful keeping water from eyes until woods where too dark. Final running through field soaked to bone and weighed my frame with soo much water it was challanging to run;)

Black Swan

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: after a wet sodden weekend of walking in the Cotswolds with the family today was the first day back at work, first day back running since last Weds as I had to go out today. None of this football malarkey today for me. "Reverse River" in 37 minutes. Nirvana helped lower the time especially in the final run into work. Got a nasty sore throat but am drinking lots of fluid so hopefully will kick it's arse and be fine soon. What the fuck is happening with cycling recently? First the 1996 Tour de France winner Riis says he won the tour on EPO then multiple Green Jersey winner Eric Zabel admitted that he tried EPO in the 1996 Tour. On the +ve side of cycling: Mark Cavendish won his second stage at the Volta a Catalunya (a pro tour race) in another sprint gallop finish.

Sleepy Sunshine

Fri, 25 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

up at 7 on my day off. what the fuck? sunshine sprinkles through the open window to my left, and cat snoozes on the bed to my right, me: my eyes are just about unsprinkled of sleepy dust (after a toasty bath!) as I get prepped for a day in London. Yesterday after work went back to Marion's where she cooked something French (mouyonne quiche!), plus M&S cheescakes mmm, then we met Rebecca and went to see "Science of Sleep" at the uni cinema. Great film, saw it in London in Feb after missing out on it when it was at the Cambridge Film Festival (do I need to tell you all these minor details?), and haven't laughed soo much for ages. gosh, well not during a film, so. Intermixed with seriously fucked up french mind-thoughts there's a love story going on. Between Gael and Charlotte. Caught final train back after a jar and some cheesecake (chocolate!) with Rebecca at the pub. [update: caught train to London, went to Covent Garden found Aussie Shop and bought stuff, found a couple of Tea shops including the Tea Place in Neale Street, and bought lotsa tea, to Stanfords to buy the GR20 guidebook. Met with cousin Fiona for lunch off Carnabie Street (fantastic Thai meal!), then walked to Marble Arch and slept on grass knackered. Caught train to Cheltenham to stay night with bro. Watched Sympathy for Mr Vengeance in evo altho I slept through most of it... hahaha!]

Shit am Knackered

Thu, 24 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: after playing football after work on Tuesday I went running on Wednesday: "Stables" in 32 minutes, solo, weather really good, bit too hot and sweaty, fast plodding really;) After having a pint with Marion (we sat next to the canal in the gorgeous sunshine!) I cycled Marion's bike (much too small for me - good speed however!)Â Â to Tom's house last night after work to watch champions league final. Tom cooked a fantastic dinner (sausage/pasta from Jamie Oliver - tres delicious!) with Cesar, Tom's buddy (what is his name?) and Liverpool were not lucky this time around. Really shattered right now, almost slept through my stop on the last train last night, ugh. Holiday for 4 days from tomorrow!!! Going to the Big Smoke tomorrow, then Cotswolds for weekend.

Happy B'day Christine!!!

Tue, 22 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

First of all: Happy Birthday to my friend Christine! have a great day! Running:Â Played footie for 2 hrs hungover yesterday so not in the mood for much today so I did "Walter's Wood" fairly slowly today. Friday I did "Stables" again on a post-football downer. What is up with running lately? Not enough sleep, bad diet, lack of variety, bad weather, lack of goals, too much football? Could be any of these excuses. There has not been anyone of my pace out running recently so it's down to me to pace myself and choose how fast I want to go so; if I feel lazy I go easy or less fast than I could so I need buddies to go fast, or a new regime, to reinvigorate the running life. Will let you know how things change in the next weeks. The weekend.Â Juggling Thursday evening (for my cousin Tom) in the garden realise that I can just about juggle 5 still (managed about 30 catches max) then had curry with Chantal, Derek, M&D.Â Went to see "Zodiac" at the cinema on Friday with Cesar. Saturday had haircut (at last!), bought shoes and clothes, then went to Cesar's house to watch the FA Cup final. ManU lost to Chelsea in the worst fucking game of football ever, then the evening arrived. In the evening went to pub with Tom (Cesar's housemate), Cesar, Rebecca (going to miss you not being at work brightening up the day), Bibi, and Tom's friends Sam and Si, and girlfriend (Kelly). Long Island Iced Tea party so had to drink this. Yum yum nice drink! Had grreat evening got drunk went to Club, yeas. Sunday played 4-a-side footie with lads and almost died. Thought I was fit cos all the running I do but this was something different. High volume Repetitive sprinting, added to hungover dehydrated body and 1 banana brekki... scorred hat-trick enjoyed game yes!!! In afternoon chilled watching tv and so on. Footie kickups in garden in evo then bed.

With Cesar

Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

First of all I'd like to make an announcement: I'VE FINISHED WAR AND PEACE!!! In under 2 yrs I have battled through the many hundreds of thousands of pages, through France's unsuccessful battle with Russia. Fave character: Rostov. Really great book! Now have moved on to another Russian author:Â "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky (he's just killed the old hag!) Running: "Walter's River" with Cesar. took us 45 mins, at his pace, was pleasant enough. Â Â

while it rains I run

Mon, 14 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Last week. After work on Thursday went back to Marion's house and we cooked something fantastic with veg, prawns and Quinoa before going to see "Letters from Iwo Jima" at the cinema. Wow i really liked this film, much better from the Japanese perspective and really fealt empathy for the characters. They knew they were going to die, but how they dealt with this knowledge was quite heroic. Very moving, especially the radio message from Nagasaki, and full of wonderful moments. Marion's housemates are great fun, little wacky and love to have fun. Watched some music videos including... Gym Class Heroes "Cupid's Chokehold" which for 5 days has been bloody amazing... I've always got it on, making my ears bleed now but.!. Friday: went running at lunchtime. "River" in 30-35 mins. Shite hot. Thought this route is 6 miles. Should we always believe the factss we are told? If so, bloody shit hot!!! Went out in Reading in the evening: Alejandro, Cesar, Marielle, Joanne, Dominika, Laura, and I. Started in Rising Sun, moved to other pub and got very merry, before going to Iguana Bar and rocking the dance floor! Shiet. Hungover bad on Sat am. Had agreed to goto Unk Stu's for lunch with Mum. So had to gouge my brain into shape and go out then. Nice lunch. Took it easy on Sat eve: watched "Russian Dolls" which is the sequal to "Pot Luck" and although great second half no way near the original. Sun: horrible weather so had long lie-in. Went to cinema to see "The Lives of Others", then went running in the evening: "Muddy Lane Lakes" 7.23 miles in 52 mins and got thoroughly soaked to the skin. After dinner I watched half of "Casino Royale" the 2006 James Bond film, then retired knackered to bed. Running: Monday (today): another rain-fest, I did "Walters Wood" solo, there was only Paul and I out running today, everyone else too skimpy to go running in the rain. Paul did another route.

New Camera Boz

Wed, 09 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Tuesday: "Stables" solo in the hard blast wind. Wednesday: "Extended Long Toll" effectively solo (only 3 of us: B + E took it slower than me), in the rain (drizzle). Legs felt heavy, especially thighs. Went to cinema with Marion and Marielle last night, we watched "Flags of our Fathers". Quite liked, the second of the diptych "Letters from Iwo Jima" is on Thurs so will be good to compare the representations of the US and Japanese armies, the way their homelands viewed the battle. After dunking my old digital camera in a pint of cider at The Maccabees gig in Feb I finally got my arse into gear and ordered a replacement. Today it arrived at work and I very am happy! It's a Canon Ixus 70 (replacement of the Ixus 55 which I drowned, but 7 mp instead of 5). Can use the old batteries, charger, memory cards and so on... It's great. Now I need subjects to point my foto skills at. Roll up, roll up!!!

Bank Monday Robbery

Mon, 07 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Busy Busy Week just gone. Starting last Monday I went running at lunch, just 4 miles stretching my left hamstring before, during and after the run cos it was really quite stiff and achey. In the evo after going for a few drinks with Cesar and Marion I went to see Reading vs Newcastle at the Majeski with Cesar. Reading won 1-0. Exciting game but Newcastle shudda equalised. Tuesday: Running: 5 miles solo "Walters Wood". Watched Champions League round Tom's house with other blokes from work. Dire game but happy that Chelski lost on pens and Liverpool went through to the final on 23-May. Weds: Running: 6 miles solo "Reverse River" pain in the arse to get up the flint path but felt better in general than on Mon/Tue. Watched second Champions League semi-final round Cesar's house. Bad bad awful game. ManU piss-poor and AC Milan go through to meet Liverpool in the final. Thursday: Football. Played lots of loose passes but did some attacking. So-so game. Went to beer festival in evening! Friday. Hungover and knackered went to pub at lunchtime, then after work for 1. Watched rest of Old Boy. Went early to bed. Saturday. I drove to Cheltenham to visit my brother. Watched Manchester derby. ManU beat City in abrasive non-exciting game. Go 8pts ahead of Chelski. Go to see Cinematic Orchestra w/The Nextmen at the Jazz festival. Incredible time, only wished that I had drank more so that I could dance to The Nextmen because they were awesome!!! Sunday. Saw Spiderman 3. Really enjoyed it. Lots of choices for the young 4-legged octoped, tale of revenge and recrimination and darkness, of forgiveness and betrayal. Watched Chelski lose title by drawing with Arsenal 1-1 (both sides could have won it in the final 5 minutes) then drove back home. Read some of War and Peace then went to bed early-ish. Today: was going to go cycling with some friends but weather = shite and we agreed to do it another day. Cooked chocco cake from Mum (her birthday today: Happy Birthday Mum!) did food shopping and now trying to finish off War and Peace.

Tweaky Ham Cycling

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Not today :( Got up at 7am but still felt twinge in left hamstring so didn't want to risk agrivating it. Is this okay? Cycling: after running to the train station (if you can call it running, and it bloody hurt) I find out the train (to Brighton) is late. Wait on the platform reading my book - "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac - and keep on waiting. Realise it ain't gonna come so I walk back up the hill to home. Find out that Ellie is home and go cycling with her, Alex, Henry and M&D. Great to see her, and was good to go out cycling too. Did a few sprints and fast sections but I'm really too fast to be doing that with this company;) Good to talk, gorgeous day out.

The Other Side

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: tried another new route today:"The Other Side". Never run on the South side of the river so this is what I did: down the hill, along the river bank until Mapledurham lock, turn right and keep going until hit A329, turn right and follow A329 on pavement until Pangbourne, turn right and continue over bridge, then up up up the hill. I managed to keep going until I got back to Pangbourne (about 5 miles in) then had to stop running because I had bad stomach cramps and I would have exploded unless I stopped running. Walked the remaining distance arriving back at work just in time for a meeting.!. Distance: 7.25 miles. Time: 1hr 10mins. After work I walked along the river with Alejandro to Tilehurst and then went drinking with him and his flatmate Jo and got slaughtered. Yipeeee!!!

Not eht best

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: "Reverse River" solo. Went out too fast, suffered on the uphill flint-path and managed to get back okay but not speedy after this. Time?? Dehydrated since drinking last night with chums from work while watching the ManU vs. AC Milan Champions league semi-final 3-2!!! And not drunk much this am. Need to eat more fruit/veg in am, drink the water before going running next time:)

not slow and EZ

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Long Toll (btw: what is the difference between this and "extended long toll"?) faster than I'd planned. Steve's fault. He was doing a fartlek session which I didn't know at the time so I dug really deep and caught him up. Shudda gone slower but a challenge is a challenge right;) 5 (?) miles in 37 mins.

While everyone was doing the Marathon...

Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

... I too got up bloody early and went running! This morning I drove to the Look Out where usually my running club (sandhurst joggers) do their Sunday morning long run. Ahah. I knew it was the marathon this morning so I wasn't sure that anyone else would be there from the club - NO - but I had a plan of a route that I could do myself. Until I met another runner by the name of Paul. He usually runs here on a Sunday (either with SJ or Bracknell Forest Runners) and I joined him for 7 miles of single track. I will never know the route but I did occasionally recognise places that I have been through before. Got back after about 50 mins, where BFR were warming up for their run (they meet at 10, SJ at 9am). After driving home and getting showered I turned on the TV coverage of the London Marathon to see Zhou win the women's race, and a little later Lel win the men's race. It's still going on, the fun runners (haha!) are still struggling through the record heat (max of ~25C) as I write this. Will find out tomorrow how well Paul and Liz from work did. 7 miles of off-road singletrack running in ~50 mins.

Longer Maple

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running : "Mapledurham" is a new route that Mike and I ran this lunchtime for the first time. The Route is 6.71 miles and it took us 51 mins. The temperature was hot and it was a good even pace (although if I were doing it solo I think I would have gone faster.) Average Pace = 7.36 min/mile.

Mid-Week Kaner

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: "Reverse Stables" quite quickly! Cooler than on Monday, with a bit of biting wind. I hate oilseed rape but there are many many fields around here where I have to run though/past. Sure it looks great: all bright yellow and energising. But the pollen/smell gets into my sinuses and gives me a fucking headache. Ran down the hill and along the road - realised was going really quick and had dropped Mike and others long ago. Took it easy on the hill and stepped it up a little on the route back to base. 5 miles in 30-35 mins.

Look out 10

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Sunday is (now) the day when I do my "long run". I ran the route that I used to cycle back in the days when I cycled with my parents and family friends every Sunday. A lot of running along along pavements before hitting the woods where there is a mixture of trail and dirt-path. Route: "Lookout 10". This is the furthest I've run since the 1/2 marathon last summer (Norwich 1/2 marathon) and the second furthest I've run EVER. Woot!!! Distance: 10.03 miles in 78 mins. Pace:7m48s / mile. I ran this as an easy/moderate pace where I went quicker on the hills, especially the final climb back to my house:> This evening I am quite knackered. The weather the last couple of weeks has been exceptionally warm/sunny and today was no different. I thus left home at 1845. Cool/cold and a fantastic sunset.

Massachre of the Smiling Toadstalls

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: easy recovery after yesterday's long run, 5 miles in ~40 mins. Actual distance and time may vary! "Walters Wood" was the route and i felt good this afternoon having done the run in comparison to the morning when I was sloggy. Film: I went to see "The Blades of Glory" after work this evo. Wanting a no-brainer entertaining comedy that's what I got. Averagely funny, quite entertaining. Okay film.

Four times off

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: Hard, fast, scorching. Decided to this week's Hard Run today, when I did the "River Route". Same principle as the EZ run but if I have to ask "am I going fast enough?" then I probably am not and force myself to go faster. Hahaha! Great fun. There is a good side to this torture, however, and that is I have to look at the same things for a shorter period of time. That long dragging stretch of road-running now whizzes past, and so on! Since getting back: the thighs hurt, and walking down hill from work I noticed that my ankle/shins were hurtin. Like shin spints but just when I was going down hill.

stinging eyes, banshee feet

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: second day in a row, today's run was a medium paced new route which is a mish-mash of two other routes so I'll callÂ "Banshee wind". Has it all: roads, tracks, woods, fields, views of river and hills both up and down (of course!), I reckon we covered at least 6 miles in ~50 mins. For the first hour after getting back I was not feeling good, the stomach ached and the mind throbbed. Now, a couple of hours later, I still am a bit warped but I gradually am getting to feel better. Rahaha. There is a rest from running tomorrow. I will play footie instead :) A different type of exercise. More sprinting and sudden changes of direction needed. The other two quarter-finals of the champions League are tonight butÂ I won't be watching... unless I am stranded in Reading and the only option is to go to the pub and watch footie, haha! In a few I will walk down the massive hill and catch the train to town and watch "Sunshine" at the pictures. Adios Amigos!

Ment to be takin it EZ

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running: One thing that I have noticed after looking back at my running journey (i started running Aug 05) is the lack of variety, if I go out running then I go as fast as I can. Today I tried something different. I purposely tried to run slowly, taking it easy, if I had to ask myself "am i going too quickly?" then I was indeed and I slowed down a bit. What is the purpose of this you may ask. I have been reading "The Competetive Runner's Handbook" by B. Glover and S-L. F. Glover and even though I admit at this stage I am far from the fastest runner in the town it does have excellent advice to all runners, including me. I've read a few chapters so far and I get the message that if you mix your training up, thus keeping it interesting, then your running benefits, as do your race times. It also recommends more days per week, and an increased per-week mileage. So this is what I will be doing. From 3 times a week to 4, then see how I feel before increasing further. Obviously now that I have done an "easy" run I will have to do a "hard" run. Whoa hahahaha! What fun this will be!!! ManU thrashed, demolished, annihilated, took apart, erased... Roma 7-1 tonight in the quarter-final of the champions league.! What an exquisite game, one of the best I've ever seen. Goals from attack, defence, mid-field, all-over. And such class too, not just "goals" (as scorred by mere mortals) but divine wonder goals (the kind gods dream about scoring). Chelski also manage to sneek through. Two out of 4 Semi-Final berths are taken by English teams, can Liverpool fill a third tomorrow when they play the home-leg versus PSV (having won the first leg 3-0 in Holland)? I am going to Sziget Music festival in August.!. 8 days of mutherfucking excellent music, great beer and cheep sunshine, did I say 8 days? In Budapest Hungary in the sun, with 100s of bands, woot I cannot wait! Sziget 15

Quit yo jibba-jabba it's april you fool

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Monday: running; first half of "Walters Wood" really good, then I couldn't be arsed and so let Steeve catch up overtake and put 10m into me. Caught him and won token sprint at end. He's not a sprinter, he did well to catch me, but today my bones were slower than the silver wind. At work a new person started in our lab, a girl no less, so mebe life will be a little more interesting in the 9-5. TBH it's been a long slog since Jan: too much work, too much stress, not enough fun. Have you heard of "The Knife"? Electronic awsomness. they're here: the knife

Newness

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

have new strides! I finally succumbed to the fact that the first ever pair of running strides were worn, wonked and bruised and needed to be replaced. It was a sad day. Boo hoo. Haha. Right, on Tuesday after work I went to the local running shop and bought a new pair of running shoes and some new socks, and Wednesday was my first ever run with them in the big bad smelly world. Weds: for the first time in 18 months I stode out in a new pair of running shoes, there was a huge difference between these Nike Air Pegassus and the ones that have travelled through Europe (i took them on holiday with me last summer!) and run many hundreds if not thousand+ miles. There was more cushioning, more bounce and I felt higher above the earth that I strode on. For the first 3/4 of "River" route I kept pace with Luc but then I slowed slowed and crawled along, energy and capacity for further fastness had evaporated, replaced with chaffing and slowness. Bright day, quite warm, breezy. Good run all in all. Have spent the last 2 days installing and streamlining M$ Vista (the latest version of Windows). I love it so far. It looks a hell of a lot better, it feels cool. There have been teething problems, for sure, but these have been surpassed and now I am very happy. Huzzah!!!

Spring Back, Forward?

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Monday: Shoes are really dying, causing feet to hurt. Time for a replacement. We did "Stables" and it was a bloody nice day, nice change from the wintry return of last week. Shame it was this route but good to be outside running :>

cold running

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Friday: legs like lead weights all morning before the run, like heavy weights during the run and in the afternoon after work I could hardly walk up the hill to home. I ran "Stables" on my own (the others are running in tomorrow's (Sunday) Reading half-marathon so had the day off) but I did see Roger who ran the same route but in the other direction. I felt that I had more energy for the final hill compared with recent efforts and felt good when I got back. It was quite cold in the wind and overcast and cool throughout.

football running

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

cycled up the hill on Monday and I could not fit the running kit into my bag so I didn't go out in the freezing cold bitter wintry lunchtime. Tuesday I walked up (and down the hill) and yesterday (Weds) I went running! We did "Extended Long Toll" and I did an extended version of this ;) as I got ahead of myself and took a different (longer) route! In the wind it was bloody chilly but in the shelter the air was warm. Today (Thurs) I played footie with the blokes at work. We lost, damn!

Snow, its a coming

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Looking out of the window (I am doing a lot of this recently!) all I can see is good weather (sunshine, blue skies, green grass, chirping birds and so on!) but I hear that there is going to be some snow. Looking at the five-day forecast Mon and Tue promise snow and cold temperatures. We have been living in a heatwave since last Friday. Not running today, too painful after playing football (for the first time in >2 years) with the blokes from work at lunchtime yesterday. I will try to go out on Sunday. Weds: new route:: half "River Route" and half "Walters Wood" (i think I added the Walters wood extra bit myself - I was running solo and there was no one to tell me where to go!) I cycled up the hill from Pangbourne Station to work on Weds morning. ~1.5 miles 10% up up up. Really not the thing I want to ever do again (subject to change of heart!) but worth it for the ride home!!! Almost crashed into a car because I was going so fast: flying round a bend and a group of cars were stopped, waiting, to pass a parked car... need better brakes, better gears and a better bike. Huh.

SPRING is Now

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

For the now and here spring is with us, the blossom on the trees, the birds and the flowers are all fighting for audio and visual supremacy, warm bloody warm gorgeous days sunny and blue skied and perfect. I love spring! Running - Last Friday we did "Walter's Wood". Today (monday) we did "Stables" and I really pushed it. Without the two undone shoe lace stops I would have gone faster but. Ground really drying out, mud gone and can grip the earth again. In t-shirt and shorts, really gorgeous day out there and soo warm out of the brisk wind along the base of the hill.

Football

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

shite I am here inside and writing, whereas I should be outside - not writing - and enjoying the fine fine day. Adios Amigos. O.

Herman Dune

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Running this lunchtime almost killed my soul. For the last couple of running sessions my will to go fast has been somewhat lacking, legs aching heart tired brain cannot be arsed. I'm a much better runner imho when I am running solo. I think that this is the reason for the above problem. How do you people work around this problem? Today we did the "Reverse River" route, the weather was bloody spankingly marvellous: warm in the sunshine and breezy in the shade, the mud still sticky along the river path. First half of the route easy fine then the uphill, down and parallel to the river towards the bottom of Death Hill was not good. Im okay if there are not people with me, ahead of me... I can go my own pace and not think about what other people are doing, that gets on my tits. 5 Miles in ~40 mins. Last Week::: Fri (reverse river) Weds (super bloody wet running through rivers of fire would have been easier but less fun, it was great fun!!! Walters Wood route). Spring is here, the flowers are out and the cheeping birds are producing food (babies, chicks) for the awaiting death eaters from above the handsome Red Kites (there are loads of em!) but there there is a shitload of water in the ground still, the river is almost flooded. I need some new running shoes, I've had the current (my first pair of running shoes goddamnit) Nike Air Pegassus for 1.5 years. Shall get some new shoes once I have moved house - need lots of wonger for first month, deposit and such... this will leave me skint for a while. Have you heard of a band called Herman DÃ¼ne? Neither had I until I read the fantastic Plan B Magazine. They are (after many listens I like the second half of their latest album Giant) According to their myspace site they are "Surf/Folk/Grunge". whatever. It's great! Larsson!!! Is God. Just scorred his last goal for Manchester United. ManU 1-0 Lille (agg. 2-0). Could this lead to 4 English teams in the last 8? Noooooo... Arsenal are 1-1 with PSV thus losing 2-1 on agg and, with the away goal, effectively 3-1. That's it ManU through, Arsenal out. Fantastic.

bloody marvelous

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

okay, shit this is the second time I have sat down to write this post. the first was wiped out accidentally (my fault) when I re-booted following a software install (finally succumbed to the charms of wmp11; when i get vista - a big WHEN due to Dell's lack of speed on the upgrade issue - i will have to have wmp11 so i'm getting used to it sooner rather than later. ho-hum). Shit bricks. Last night there was a lunar eclipse (i.e. Sun :: Earth:: Moon) the only light that gets to the moon is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere so it is often a different colour than usual, last night the moon was "blood red". In times gone, way back when people didn't have tvs and internet,,, before football was invented, before electricity, etc... talking hundreds of years (possibly!) here, people believed that the "blood moon" was a signifier of forthcoming death, destruction and chaos. What did they know? Choon in for more (possibly apocalyptic) updates. Football: yesterday I went to the pub (the White Swan in Sandhurst) to watch the Liverpool vs. Manchester United lunchtime premiership game. ManU looked like they were going to get spanked but, thanks to a few kind refereeing decisions and a fortunate late late goal by John O'Shea, we walked away (except for Rooney who kinda hobbled away thanks to a Carragher studding) with all three points and a short-lived 12pt lead at the top of the premiership table over the southern london russian scum Chelsea. In the evening kick-off Portsmouth were beaten 2-0 by above mentioned scum taking the lead down to 9pts with Chelski now having played 1 game less than United. Reading (my "local" team) were beaten by the Scum of Arsenal 2-1. I'm going to see Reading again* in 2 weeks when they play Pompey (Portsmouth) at the Majeski (home). *I say "see reading "again"" because I saw them last week in the 5th-round FA Cup replay against Manchester United. Reading went 3-0 down inside 7 minutes. They could have wilted and got beaten by a much larger score but no, they stuck in and got reorganised and set about slowly beginning the massive task of trying to score at least three goals. They almost did it, thanks to their perseverence and ManU's lack of concentration, losing 3-2. The atmosphere at the Majeski was tremendous and it was an excellent game, very exciting, but it was a shame that Reading were asleep for the first 7 minutes. ManU now go through to the quarter-finals and face M'bro away on the 10th of March.

Running

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Today - ~5 miles in ~45 mins (reverse long-toll, got very lost but made out of woods alive; next time I take a map;)). Last Week: Fri - River Route; Weds - Stables; Monday - "flat woods".

Running Muddy Snob

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

in the middle of the night I write this. For the first time in 3 weeks I went running (at lunchtime) and now I am feeling fucking knuncked. In the ferocious wind, in the howling gale, the rain was blown forcefully into our souls (and faces). Yet this didn't dampen our minds, nor darken our spirits, because we were out running and little else mattered. Of course it was bloody difficult to stay upright, with the slippy sloppy mud (result of supersaturated earth from last week's snow and rain) and buffeting wind. Feeling as though I needed to blow away 3 weeks of cobwebs I strode ahead of the others on the "Flat Woods" route and promptly got lost, eventually doubling back after losing Steve at the 3/4 point and then going through some of the earlier section of the route and making it back just after Steve and Dan (but before the others). I reckon it took me 45 mins to do the 5-6 miles (highly approximate!). Fantastic to get out again :)

tony parsons

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

("yeah its a mirror. see what I did there!") tony parsons' mirror column

England on FIRE!!!

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

England have just beaten a soggy Australian cricket team in the second match of the One Day Triangular Tournament Final in Australia, and thus WIN the Final 2-0!!! We have gone from being on the losing end of a 5-0 thrashing in, and thus losing, the Ashes less than 2 months ago, to handing out a 2-0 thrashing to the Auzzies, huzzah. We RULE!!! Yesterday I went to London to see "The History Boys" at the Wyndham Theatre (near China Town). It was the best play I have seen this year, it was so funny, clever, unpredictable, exciting! I chose to sit in the cheepo seats, soo high up at the very back of the theatre that got initial vertico cos the stage soo far down. The play, written by Alan Bennett, was about a group of 8 superbright 18yr-old boys preparing to take the Oxbridge entrance exam (after completing their a-levels, potential oxbridge students (up until the 1970s) went back to school for a term to prepare to try to get into Oxbridge) and the play dealt with this, the possible homosexuality of their teachers and "the boys", with clever interaction between the cast ensamble. The head teacher was more of a business man, concerned with buzzwords, management, he didn't give a fuck about the actual learning, just the results and the figures. There was a battle between the new teaching methodology (employed by the new "Oxbridge Graduate" teacher) and the old (as taught by their ancient General Studies teacher). Plus there was a not-so-bright kid, who wrote everything down, for contrast. Disco to drop Ivan and Co at end of 2007

me widgets ain't grooving to the Flux

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a quote:

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. - Thomas Szasz

What is up? Up before 8am on a Sunday morning but when the eyes open yer just have to get up, have a shower, then turn the computer on and type a Sunday morning blog post. Yeeeeeehahahahaha. ^-_-^ Widgets. This is concerned with this blog's development so let your eyes glaze over if yer aren't a development nooger. The widgets are not working, i want to install a flickr gallery link and the widgets are the easiest (only?) way of doing this. Seems that the JS is not working, should be installed in the latest Wordpress update/upgrade but its not grooving yet. Update:How to Fix the Problem (update the widget plugin)

Fuji Snow Suck

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Fuji Rock 2007 (pre-reg from Friday, costs Â¥32,800, till Feb 18th). An enormous dump of snow is now slowly melting. Woke up this am to find 10cm of it. Made me happy, cos I love snow wonderful snow. England are the worst team in the world. We suck. Cannot play for shit. But we knew that. Where is the passion, where is the class, where is the will to fight to win, the fight to score goals???

sugar, lick my salty chocolate balls

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

weds lunchtime and am really feeling like getting out and breathing. The sky is perfectly crystal blue and the air suffocatingly cold, sunshine glistens off the leafless trees while the birds and flowers shiver and wait for spring to arrive. I've not been running in well over two weeks; first of all because I was chronically unwell, then i had a nasty cold and (thus) couldn't breath for shit, finally the excuse was the "couldnotbe arsed" wildcard, but the power of that is finally waning and I will have to get my skank in gear or I will turn into a slow fat genie but without the bottle. So what is the solution? (1) Badminton this evening; (2) New Running Shoes; (3) Running on Friday... AND Remind me that I've got to get the LCD Soundsystem mp3::: "North American Scum"::: Pounding Bassline. ingreatness welive.

klaxons #1!!!

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It has happened, I don't know how but it has happened. Indy, alt, decent... whatever you want to call it,,, it has returned to the cool. Klaxons are number 1 in the album charts, replacing The View. How the fuck, and when the fuck, did this all happen? Should we take interest in the charts NOW??? Does it matter? Mika is still number 1 in the singles (that should be re-named "the mp3" charts?). Thanks to Grace for giving me a copy of Just Jack's "Starz in their Eyes" and some juicy chinese music. You are a star!!! Appears that there is one more gorgeous person in the Family that I have yet to meet. Have you seen Jennifer Hudson? Wow she is hot hot heat! Like Kate Hudson and Rock Hudson she shure is the fucking bacon, yum yumm yummm!!! Jennifer Hudson's Homepage, wiki page, <-=->

deerhoof

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

listening to deerhoof and liking it much! I've gone through a faze of downloading every band that I hear is good (in nme, in the newspapers, on the radio online and so on!!!) and then have not really had the time to listen to much of it (other than the stuff that I put on my mp3 player). There is much much much more than I can ever listen to but I am doing my very best this evening to listen to a good % of it :) So far I've listened to the Noisettes' "What's the Time Mr Wolf" (yup, great stuff!) and now I'm onto Deerhoof's myspace collection. deerhoof (myspace). After the Klaxons gig I had half an hour to kill before the train arrived so I got NME. Used to read it every week, my god how has it changed. Where it used to be full of long insightful articles about the latest new music, now it is full of cranky short (50 word max) pieces about the cool bands. What a waste of paper. But what else is there for decent coverage, something decent to read? There is Plan B (arty, wordy and a free cd with every issue!) and drowned in sound (yes this site looks real good actually!) and wire (if you like bands that'll never get heard by anyone else). Went to Reading to see "Notes on a Scandal" this morning. Really excellent film. Dench and Blanchett deliver mesmerising acting masterclasses and its an intriguing story. Picked up a new pair of black converse boots and then hotfooted back home to catch the first rugger game. Sooo dull and boring that went to sleep and missed France annihilate Italy 39-3. But I did see England return to their World Cup winning form with a resurgant Jonny Wilkinson scorring 27 perfect points, Jason Robinson scorring a try and Scotland being destroyed 42-20. Days like these can never come often enough.

guardian muso blog

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Guardian Music Blog

we're thru to the Vth round of the FA CUP

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

manu beat pompey 2-1 in the 4th round of the fa cup thanks to the magestical subliminity of Rooney. Tesco open in Beijing Tesco in China's Capital "How do women work?" we men do often wonder... How Women Work good luck in the ultraworld!!! A

celeb apprentice

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

who is in this year's celebrity apprentice

ill Ill ILL

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Hillow, its Friday evening and I am at home ill as painfully and pitifully as can be. Two days of non-stop sleep and I'm getting bloody tired of it. Notice the new theme, much improvement upon the last ones but not 100% liking everything it offers. Expect changes;) Last weekend I was in Cambridge and had a wonderful time! I love the town and have excellent memories of it, I met the most wonderful and enchanting clever and amazing people, but I had to move away for good doesn't last forever and one has to experience different places, meet different people and so on... Gyu-Hyun and Lena are still living in my old house, I stayed there 2 nights going into town on Sunday to buy tea from Seoul Plaza (Korean supermarket) brunch at Cafe Carrington and a reflective stroll back along the river Cam before going back into town with Gyu-Hyun to meet up with Christoph and watch the Arsenal vs. Manchester United game at The Avery. The Gunners beat us 2-1. Saturday we went to The Avery to watch Liverpool beat Chelsea 2-0, then to the cinema and watch Rocky Balboa which we thought was bloody entertaining but (surprise surprise) a little far fetched. The rest of the week. I went running on Monday, we ran the "River" route and apart from having to walk up one hill (if we ran we would have slipped over because the mud was soo slippery) and I won a sprint finish for second place - Luc having finished a couple of hours before us;) I've watched a couple of DVDs: "Wasabi" and the fantastic "Run Lola Run", and the disgustingly nasty (but excellent nonetheless) "The Proposition" and the sad "Grave of the Fireflies". Gotta go and see Babel, Blood Diamond, and Notes on a Scandal. Not to mention the Oscar nominated films that I missed when they were first out in the cinema. This weekend I am lucky to be visited by family (3 cousins and uncle and auntie) from Germany/Belgium (they've just moved from Germany to Belgium). I'll recover from this illness, have my hair cut, go to the shops and also to the cinema. All the Best!

update and change, rewire and rebirth

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Calm down, hold your horses, mind the gap and batton down the hatches ... outside today was an exceptionally windy day. We were sent home from work at 1530 because it was so windy (to give us more time to get home, and it wasn't really safe at work either). This blog is currently undergoing a refit as I try and work out what the hell I want to use it for, get the hang of wordpress themes, learn PHP (if I really want to make it shit-hot) and play around with the CSS. So if it keeps on changing don't worry, you have still got the right place for my blog. This weekend I am going to Cambridge for the first time since I moved out last summer. My former housemate Gyu-Hyun is moving back to Korea next month and I am going to visit him. Today after work I bought a superslim sleeping bag (it's designed for use army use in tropical jungles so it is very light (700g!) and small but will not be of any use in the outside British winter but will do for visiting people allowing me to travel light). I'll have my haircut after work tomorrow, and by god it needs cutting! Two months since I last had a chop and its getting really long.

bright in the middle wick sunshine

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

yes. I went running this lunchtime. and for the first time this year I didn't kill myself doing it. There were only four of us due to the torrential rain in the morning, and a clash with the re-scheduled swimming club, but it was good fun. Never run this route this direction before, always finished with the killer hill up from the Thames... we started with that, then a steady flow along the flat parallel with the hill before diving into the woods for a non-stop killer hill run before a flat muddy field mud-skate hobble back to base. The air was warm and the sky blue. In the ultraworld the beatles are still scribbling in their mindless sleep. I finished "Sputnik Sweatheart" by Haruki Murakami last night, started "A Tramp Abroad" by Mark Twain, right excellent book that was... and it featured cats! Love, longing, loss, friendship and rejection... kept guessing how it would end and blown away by the ending, not what you'd have thought, or me.

HappyNewYear!!!

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

right, first of all i know it is already the 13th of jan and i have not written here this year but i have been bloody busy... so. Happy New Year! Right now I am in Cheltenham, visiting my brother and working up the energy needed to go into town and see the place (Rob needs his sleep and is sleeping). I got here remarkably quickly last night, after realising that no-one was leaving in the right direction from work to give me a lift to the station I stomped down down down the muddy sharp steep tabogan run hill that takes one from work to the river, to the station in a mile of very un-flat walking... after I crossed the river I realised that if I continued walking I would miss the train so I sucked in a deep lungful of river air and bombed it (ran) to the station... bursting lungs and cascading anti-overheating juices aside I made the train with a few milliseconds to spare. Yes! The journey, viaÂ Didcot and Swindon, arrived only 2 hours later and I missed most of it because I was playing with my new laptop. I watched the first half of "Thankyou for not Smoking" and did a few other things. Last night. Rob cooked a fantastic curry and we watched "Ong-Bak". WOW what an awesome film; I watched it Thu too, but I had to watch it again with the bro as the fight scenes are the best that I have ever seen, sometimes grusome but mostly jaw-droppingly dazzling. I got this laptop, a dell inspiron 1501 (my first laptop, and first new computer in 8 yrs!) on Thursday. Yup!

Hello world!

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Welcome you wonderful people, I am very happy that you stopped off to look at this first posting of my newly born blog, what will go here, I have a few ideas but now is not the time nor the place to share them. Hah. My eyes are sore from too many hours in front of this computer diddling and daddling with bits and bobs of website and blog development. I'm listening to RadioActive, a New Zealand radio station that I have grown attached to for the last couple of years since stumbling upon it somehow... It is fantastically excellent... Right now I must bid you an excellently good night and hit the sack for much needed rest. Until next time. Andrew