Over the weekend, I was helping Norman Junior III with a C programming exercise (a wordsearch puzzle). I had rather hoped purchasing him the original and definitive text ‘Kernighan and Ritchie (Second Edition)’ would enable him to become a C wizard without any further intervention from me but no. In a flash of inspiration, I had introduced some symbolic constants for each of the eight possible directions. When I asked him - ‘Can you remember how to specify a constant in C ?...
Last year, I visited a customer in Swindon. When I arrived at the office, I noticed some water dripping from the underside at the front of my car. I didn’t have time to investigate or get my hands dirty so I subconsciously hoped it was just condensation from the air conditioning unit and tried to forget all about it. After work, I managed to navigate Swindon’s world famous roundabout of roundabouts and finally locate my hotel....
My two favourite typos of all time, which are guaranteed to bring a smile to my face, are: ‘Stationary Cupboard’ ‘Principle Consultant’ Until yesterday when I received an invite to: Date: 8 June 2009 Time: 16:30-17:00 (BST) Location: G27 Subject: Warp up meeting I opened the meeting with a summary of the day’s progress and my findings: ‘I have completed my analysis of Siebel performance, the Oracle configuration, the I/O infrastructure, the hardware specifications, application usage and my conclusion is as follows:’...
Last night, I flew home to London from Hamburg, near Germany. The flight was punctual and uneventful enough apart from the fact I was sitting next to a blind man. When the seat belts sign extinguished, he got his laptop out, booted up and started typing into a completely black screen. So, I assumed he must be blind and using a braille keyboard. However, this gentleman wasn’t blind. He had been reading ‘High Life’ while we taxied onto the runway....
Thank you for your email. I am currently working in a bunker deep underground in the heart of Brussels (near Belgium). I would normally say ‘Please call me directly on my mobile’. However, this secure facility is so secure that no mobile communications are possible. I would normally pledge to replying to your email on my return. However, I am not quite sure precisely when (or even indeed, if) I ever will return....