A few years ago, on a Saturday morning, I was crossing the road to the local shop with my daughter, Norma Jean. We held hands to cross halfway and paused. Suddenly, spontaneously, without warning, Norma Jean decided to burst across the road. Unfortunately, a car simultaneously decided to sharply turn left without indicating. It all happened quickly - very quickly. The car ran over Norma’s foot and she collapsed. The car stopped and the lady pleaded: ‘Oh God. I didn’t see her. I didn’t see her. I’m sorry. She just ran out.’ ...

4 November 1986. League Cup 3rd round replay. Attendance 17,914. Southampton 4 Manchester United 1 (Davenport). Ron Atkinson’s last game in charge and I was there. The United team that night was: Chris Turner Mike Duxbury Arthur Albiston Paul McGrath Graeme Hogg Remi Moses Jesper Olsen Norman Whiteside Frank Stapleton Peter Davenport Colin Gibson Subs: Kevin Moran, Nicky Wood I was partly responsible for Ron Atkinson’s departure. The seeds were sown the previous season when United won the opening 10 games of the 1985-1986 season, fuelling expectation that United might actually win the title. However, I was foolish enough to attend game number 11. Inevitably, that game was a 1-1 draw at Luton and ended the run. United finished 4th that season behind Liverpool and the writing was on the wall for Ron Atkinson. ...

Here is a series of email exchanges I had with Mark Burgess in late 1998. I converted the original text to HTML and corrected a couple of minor typos. I’m a great fan of The Chameleons and recently was sad enough to transcribe a few quotes from bootlegs and put them on the Web. Interesting, I’ll check it out next time I’m online. Were you a big fan of The Fall ? I just love the bit where you sing ‘Rowche Rumble’ in ‘Splitting in Two’. ...

For Sale: 1.8 kg of assorted sweets. The surplus of confectionery is the result of an unfortunate trick or treat incident a few years ago. The wife and I had argued for many hours over who was going to escort our two young children, dressed up in Halloween outfits, carrying pumpkins to demand money with menaces from neighbours. The alternative was even worse - to stay at home and answer the door to similar young, lovable street urchins. ...

Doug Burns posts a typically honest article about the art of self-promotion and the issue of references. Personally, I think Doug’s blog is itself an excellent tribute to his technical competence, his ability to communicate and share information as well as offering an insight into his personality. I must confess that my manager’s Inbox is not overflowing with glowing testimonials from colleagues and customers, let alone unsolicited ones. I used to reassure myself that this was because IT managers are exceptionally busy people with (justifiably) high expectations when paying for expensive consultants. Nowadays I just put it down to my lack of technical ability. ...