A few weeks ago, I signed up for a invitation to Google Music. The service is only available in the US but, by a lucky chance of fate, I just happened to be connected to my corporate VPN so I was successful and an invitation duly arrived in my Inbox. Initially, the Google Music Manager software didn’t support Linux. Nor was the Ogg Vorbis audio format supported so I didn’t pursue it any further as both of these were show stoppers for me. I don’t intend re-ripping my entire music collection to MP3 format. ...

Well - I lasted about 4 hours without a blog. This latest incarnation is powered by Hyde. This means I can write my posts in Markdown, generate and test the site locally and then upload using ‘rsync’.

BBC Breakfast ran a story this morning about the sale of woodlands. The gentlemen responsible for selling woodlands was quite a comedian. He started his act with: ‘In these difficult economic times, people are looking to invest in woodlands to hedge their bets…’ and then, referring to the potential investment opportunity and without a glimmer of a smile, he delivered the immaculate line ‘In a few years time, once the wood has matured, people will see that you can get income from trees’. ...

One of my favourite United players - for his sublime skills on the pitch and the modest, understated way he conducted himself off it. Thanks for all the memories, Paul.

The ticket allocations for the London 2012 Olympics haven’t been announced yet so I don’t know whether I’ll be watching Tom Daley competing in the 10m platform diving semi final on 9th August. If I do, I’ll be sparing a thought and probably shedding a quiet tear for Tom Daley’s dad, Rob, who lost his 5 year battle against a brain tumour yesterday. Last year, I enjoyed a BBC documentary about Tom Daley where his Dad interrupted a formal press conference to give his son a big hug, thoroughly embarrassing him in the process. You could just sense the immense sense of love and pride Rob Daley had in his son. ...