Been quite busy the last couple of weeks. More governor-y stuff for Ridgefield - I'm helping develop a new website (still in beta), and then I was just involved with the Head Teacher review, which was interesting, as I've not been part of that process before. Alas the training is not until next week, but I'm sure it will come in useful over the coming year.
Last weekend I went to the 20th (god I feel old) reunion dinner of my year at Fitzwilliam college. I think H was a little nervous, as she found the maths reunion dinner a couple of years ago quite intimidating. So being on the high table, next to the Master, was a bit of shock.
However it was actually really good - H got on well with the Master's wife, and I caught up with my former Director of Studies. We did see a few people who I remembered specifically from my year, but to be honest there weren't as many as I thought I might remember - probably, when I think about it, most of my friends at Cambridge were not in the same college as me.
Work is continuing to be very busy - we're just putting the finishing touches to the current release, but we also have maintenance releases going on at the same time, so I am being pulled in several directions.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Friday, 18 September 2009
Catch Up
Things have been going pretty well since the last post. I managed to fix the media centre, after slightly more fuss than I'd originally hoped - it turns out that to fit all the power leads, you have to also take out the DVD unit. That in turn led me to take off the front of the unit, only to find it wasn't necessary, but not before I found that I'd managed to unplug the front display and couldn't work out how to get it back on again. I managed after a struggle, and now we have IPlayer goodness again.
Wednesday was our anniversary, so I took the day off. Girls were both at school in the morning, so we made the most of it, and then we went out for lunch after picking Ella up. We went to Loch Fyne which we've not been to for a long time. Food was excellent - especially the mussels I had - really fresh and delicious. Ella liked them too.
Since then I've been fairly hard at work as we're coming up to a release date + I'm also quite busy with governor-y things for the school, which I won't post about here. Looking forward to a quiet weekend.
Wednesday was our anniversary, so I took the day off. Girls were both at school in the morning, so we made the most of it, and then we went out for lunch after picking Ella up. We went to Loch Fyne which we've not been to for a long time. Food was excellent - especially the mussels I had - really fresh and delicious. Ella liked them too.
Since then I've been fairly hard at work as we're coming up to a release date + I'm also quite busy with governor-y things for the school, which I won't post about here. Looking forward to a quiet weekend.
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Back Home
Back home after an overnight stay at H's parents house. Had a nice time there - the girls tested the local playgrounds, and Kathy (H's mum) spoiled us with delicious food. Tomorrow I want to try to fix my media centre PC - I bought an Acer Idea 510 a couple of years ago and it's generally been pretty good - I have a lot of music, photos and video loaded onto it, and it means we can watch IPlayer and other streaming video on the TV rather than on a laptop. However, it apparently has a fairly predictable problem involving the power supply and the external display on the front. I've seen various hackery suggested on the boards but I think the simplest answer looks to be to fit a new power supply. I haven't tried this particular bit of PC surgery before, but it doesn't look too bad - I'm going to take a photo of the cabling before I start, just in case I get in a muddle.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Up to date
We decided we ought to try a new restaurant (as a family I mean) since Pizza Express no longer uses a mozzarella that H can eat, so we decided to give La Tasca a try since we really liked the Tapas place we went to in Weymouth. I'd have to say it wasn't quite up to that standard, but the food was good - particularly the children's meals - and the service was excellent. So we'll have to give that another go.
After that we went to have a look at Kettles Yard's exhibition from the house collection. Not really impressed - out of their setting, a lot of the works looked pretty lifeless, or even amateurish. They have a big chalkboard though, so the girls were happy + they are giving out these museum Top Trumps type cards to children, which they also thought was good. I think H is taking them to the museum of Zoology at some point (or the Skeleton Museum as E describes it).
I've been reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, and finding the characters (especially Gary) and situations altogether too close for comfort. But it's a fantastic book - seems like ages since I read a new novel that I enjoyed.
We also watched Man on Wire the other night - fantastic film, just incredible. Apart from being an interesting story, it's also a kind of poignant memorial to the Twin Towers, before they became known for their terrible end. It's always strange now to see them on screen, particularly having been there almost a year to the day before the attacks.
After that we went to have a look at Kettles Yard's exhibition from the house collection. Not really impressed - out of their setting, a lot of the works looked pretty lifeless, or even amateurish. They have a big chalkboard though, so the girls were happy + they are giving out these museum Top Trumps type cards to children, which they also thought was good. I think H is taking them to the museum of Zoology at some point (or the Skeleton Museum as E describes it).
I've been reading Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, and finding the characters (especially Gary) and situations altogether too close for comfort. But it's a fantastic book - seems like ages since I read a new novel that I enjoyed.
We also watched Man on Wire the other night - fantastic film, just incredible. Apart from being an interesting story, it's also a kind of poignant memorial to the Twin Towers, before they became known for their terrible end. It's always strange now to see them on screen, particularly having been there almost a year to the day before the attacks.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
OpenTech 2009
I went to OpenTech last weekend, which was a very interesting day. I'm still looking for a way to somehow balance doing some work for a group like ORG, No2ID, or MySociety with the other commitments on my time. At the moment I have, as one of the ORG people put it, "outsourced my activism".
But I'm convinced this is the direction democracy should be going in - transparent communication of as much government data as possible, in open formats, and allow external groups to use that data to provide accountability, new services, whatever is needed. And conversely, the government needs to start taking seriously the problems of collecting masses of personal data and think about how to design systems that are more opt-in for data-sharing, while allowing criminal investigations to take place with appropriate authorisation.
Anyway, there were loads of interesting talks - from the journalist who did all the FoI legwork to get MPs expenses into the public domain, to an interesting session on using Open Source software in schools (particularly relevant to me as school governor, currently looking at rebuilding a school website), to the extremely disturbing talk on Intercept Modernization from ORG and No2ID, which was preceded by this wonderfully deadpan introduction by Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom:
After the conference, I went out with my old friend Kath, and we had several pints of what turned out to be very strong lager (or maybe I'm just not used to drinking so much lately) so it was a good evening, but I was not feeling at my best by the time I got on the train back to Cambridge.
But I'm convinced this is the direction democracy should be going in - transparent communication of as much government data as possible, in open formats, and allow external groups to use that data to provide accountability, new services, whatever is needed. And conversely, the government needs to start taking seriously the problems of collecting masses of personal data and think about how to design systems that are more opt-in for data-sharing, while allowing criminal investigations to take place with appropriate authorisation.
Anyway, there were loads of interesting talks - from the journalist who did all the FoI legwork to get MPs expenses into the public domain, to an interesting session on using Open Source software in schools (particularly relevant to me as school governor, currently looking at rebuilding a school website), to the extremely disturbing talk on Intercept Modernization from ORG and No2ID, which was preceded by this wonderfully deadpan introduction by Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom:
Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom: "Three Pillars of Digital Britain", OpenTech 2009 from Richard Elen on Vimeo.
(there are some more videos on that site too from Bill Thompson, and Ben Goldacre - both worth a look).After the conference, I went out with my old friend Kath, and we had several pints of what turned out to be very strong lager (or maybe I'm just not used to drinking so much lately) so it was a good evening, but I was not feeling at my best by the time I got on the train back to Cambridge.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Back from holiday
It seems to have taken most of the last week to recover from going on holiday - I've just felt really tired until the weekend. Still Weymouth was great - we had fantastic weather so we went on the beach quite a bit, which the girls really liked. We did a walk along the coast, from Durdle Door to Lulworth Cove - quite a steep hill, so I was impressed Ella managed the whole distance with no problem (and very little complaint). Lulworth Cove is beautiful - I'd like to go back there sometime.
I also took the girls to MonkeyWorld (Mrs F declined to come) which was really good - it's a rescue centre, so there is a good reason for the apes to be there, and the girls really enjoyed seeing the chimps (who were equally fascinated by the crowds) and the Capuchins. However the thing they really enjoyed was the enormous aerial playground, with big climbing nets and slides.
We ate out far too much - I'd particularly recommend the Statue House Tapas Bar on the seafront - great view, nice food, and pretty reasonably priced. There were some very nice looking expensive restaurants by the harbour, but it didn't seem fair to the girls to drag them out there in the evening, and not fair to us to rush through a meal. On the last evening we went to Rossinis, near where we were staying and had a really nice meal. Lizzie drew a portrait of H on the tablecloth, which was so good we've kept it.
Back in Cambridge, we went to a party on the Saturday at Guy and Susie's house, which was really good fun. I stayed quite late, and drank too much red wine. Didn't feel ill, but I was pretty groggy and slow on Sunday. Then on Tuesday we'd arranged a babysitter, and so we decided we'd go out while we had the chance! We were going to go to The Bridge at Waterbeach, but the service was pretty surly, and we were promised a delay of up to an hour for food, so we skipped it, and went back to the Crown and Punchbowl, where the waitress was incredibly friendly and helpful, and we had a really nice meal (albeit a somewhat more expensive one than we were anticipating).
This week I'm probably working in London one day, and then maybe back in London on Saturday for OpenTech.
I also took the girls to MonkeyWorld (Mrs F declined to come) which was really good - it's a rescue centre, so there is a good reason for the apes to be there, and the girls really enjoyed seeing the chimps (who were equally fascinated by the crowds) and the Capuchins. However the thing they really enjoyed was the enormous aerial playground, with big climbing nets and slides.
We ate out far too much - I'd particularly recommend the Statue House Tapas Bar on the seafront - great view, nice food, and pretty reasonably priced. There were some very nice looking expensive restaurants by the harbour, but it didn't seem fair to the girls to drag them out there in the evening, and not fair to us to rush through a meal. On the last evening we went to Rossinis, near where we were staying and had a really nice meal. Lizzie drew a portrait of H on the tablecloth, which was so good we've kept it.
Back in Cambridge, we went to a party on the Saturday at Guy and Susie's house, which was really good fun. I stayed quite late, and drank too much red wine. Didn't feel ill, but I was pretty groggy and slow on Sunday. Then on Tuesday we'd arranged a babysitter, and so we decided we'd go out while we had the chance! We were going to go to The Bridge at Waterbeach, but the service was pretty surly, and we were promised a delay of up to an hour for food, so we skipped it, and went back to the Crown and Punchbowl, where the waitress was incredibly friendly and helpful, and we had a really nice meal (albeit a somewhat more expensive one than we were anticipating).
This week I'm probably working in London one day, and then maybe back in London on Saturday for OpenTech.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
European Elections
I went to the hustings in Cambridge on Monday organised by the local Amnesty, NO2ID, and Oxfam groups. Since I've been inactive in both the AI and NO2ID groups for a while, it was good to see quite a few people I know but haven't met up with for a while.
The panel was quite interesting - they had UKIP, LibDem, Labour, Green and Conservative candidates and there was a good selection of questions. UKIP fell at the first fence when David Campbell-Bannerman said that he wasn't convinced of the case for climate change. To me, this kind of statement now puts you outside sensible political discourse.
The Conservative candidate suffered from the problem set by the UK party to leave the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament and start a new one with various loony and disturbing groups. I can't take their positions on Europe seriously while they are taking this stance.
That leaves Labour, LibDem and Green. To be honest, I could potentially have voted for any of them. I thought the chap from the Green party was very articulate, although unfortunately he isn't the candidate for the EU election. The Labour guy seemed very genuine, and certainly seemed to have a record of achievements. I didn't take to him personally though, and to be honest, I just can't bring myself to vote Labour in this election*.
So Andrew Duff for the LibDems gets my vote. I am pretty much a natural LibDem anyway, but his answers to the questions on climate change, data retention (which Labour weaseled on), and the position of Britain in the EU were by far the closest to my own views.
Overall a good evening, and I hope we'll have a good turnout tomorrow, and that the extremist groups don't profit from the venality of some mainstream politicians.
* I'm making an exception for the council elections, for various reasons.
The panel was quite interesting - they had UKIP, LibDem, Labour, Green and Conservative candidates and there was a good selection of questions. UKIP fell at the first fence when David Campbell-Bannerman said that he wasn't convinced of the case for climate change. To me, this kind of statement now puts you outside sensible political discourse.
The Conservative candidate suffered from the problem set by the UK party to leave the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament and start a new one with various loony and disturbing groups. I can't take their positions on Europe seriously while they are taking this stance.
That leaves Labour, LibDem and Green. To be honest, I could potentially have voted for any of them. I thought the chap from the Green party was very articulate, although unfortunately he isn't the candidate for the EU election. The Labour guy seemed very genuine, and certainly seemed to have a record of achievements. I didn't take to him personally though, and to be honest, I just can't bring myself to vote Labour in this election*.
So Andrew Duff for the LibDems gets my vote. I am pretty much a natural LibDem anyway, but his answers to the questions on climate change, data retention (which Labour weaseled on), and the position of Britain in the EU were by far the closest to my own views.
Overall a good evening, and I hope we'll have a good turnout tomorrow, and that the extremist groups don't profit from the venality of some mainstream politicians.
* I'm making an exception for the council elections, for various reasons.
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