Furthermore: November 2004

November 25, 2004

The Crown and Punchbowl

Just a quick one. Mrs Freestone and I went to the Crown and Punchbowl at Horningsea last week. I’d been once before - it was the only time I went out for lunch at my last company and I heard so many bad things in an hour that it was one of the things that clinched my decision to leave. Anyway, the food was very good and the staff seemed pretty knowledgeable, and also willing to work with my wife’s dairy intolerance to produce something interesting. Wine list was also good - I had a glass of 3 different wines and they were all very good selections (and this was from the cheaper end of the list).

Anyway, nice place. Nice evening out. Bring a full wallet though. We spend 60 pounds without really pushing the boat out. I could see a blow out costing 80 to 100 without too much trouble.

Political Links

• Crooked Timber - interesting links and discussion on Putin’s power grab after the Beslan tragedy. Should have posted this months ago of course.



• Spy Blog - National Identity Register and Citizens Information Project


• Spy Blog - Childrens Bill


• Spy Blog - Civil Contingencies Bill

There we go, one global worry, and three pieces of truly dreadful local legislation. The thing that bothers me here is that most people have only the vaguest idea that there even is a Children’s Bill never mind what it says. I have to admit I’d only heard of the Civil Contingencies bill in a snippet on the radio before I read about it on Spy Blog. Bit late to complain now. Oh well, there’s still ID cards - more on that soon.

November 23, 2004

Links

• via James Tauber - Dragon Optical Illusion. Very cool cut out and make illusion that works by making you think something is convex when it’s really concave.


• Jabberwocky Translations - what it says on the tin.

Getting Things Done

I recently read Getting Things Done by Dave Allen and I thought it was great. I guess it’s been blogged to death by now, but I thought I’d just add my tuppence worth.

It gives you a system for managing all your tasks and projects. It’s lightweight, works from the bottom up (ie you don’t have to define your life goals before you start) and I’ve found it really works for me. I have a much clearer picture of what I want to get done, and mainly for that reason, I’m actually doing it.

It’s fair to say that I’m in a bit of a stock-taking phase of my life at the moment anyway, so perhaps I would be doing these things without the book (or, perhaps the book attracts me because it chimes in with what I want to do) but I’ve found that applying the system at home and at work has really given me a lot more control.

I think I’ll be writing some more on this when the first enthusiasm dies down, but I also kind of expect that once the mountain of small stuff is out of my head, it’ll give me more time to think and do the things I’ve been putting off by saying I have too much other stuff to do - ie the things I want to do, but which frighten me a bit.

November 13, 2004

Wha’ Happen?

So what happened to the blogging I was going to do? I had several things lined up and then I just haven’t got down to doing it. The main reason is that I found (for various reasons) that I’d become addicted to my feed reader. Not in a crack-cocaine sort of way, but it became apparent to me that I was using up time reading stuff in there when I should have been doing other things.

I’m not normally susceptible to this sort of thing I think, so it was interesting to me that I’d got sucked into a kind of irrational behaviour. The main reasons I think were firstly a desire to escape from what I should be doing (for reasons I won’t go into at the moment), and secondly, the way feeds are presented attracts the obsessively tidy part of me - once I see an unread item I have to read it or at least decide that I don’t want to read it. Hence, the more often I check the feeds, the more stuff I have to read.

The thing that became apparent to me since I stopped is that there’s also a really strong (but largely fake) sense of community in the blogosphere. I don’t mean that there isn’t a community of people who are genuinely communicating with each other - of course there is. But for me, I realised that I had found myself thinking that if I read the things those people read, and made the odd peripheral comment, then I was part of it too. Crazy. But it’s always attractive to think you’re part of the in-crowd.

Anyway, I feel I have a better handle on how I need to act to get the best out of feeds and blogs now. I’ll maybe talk a bit more about that another time.

Rice Dream

Okay, this is dumb, but I’ve been trying out different non-dairy alternatives to use instead of milk on my cereal in the morning (I’m not allergic, I just want to cut down on dairy a bit). Finally I can announce that the winner is Rice Dream. It’s not quite like milk, but it has a very similar sweetness and generally functions as a good substitute. Just thought I’d mention it - share and enjoy.