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I went to see Control last night which is a film directed by Anton Corbijn about the life of Ian Curtis, lead singer with Joy Division.

The film is based on the book 'Touching From A Distance' by Curtis' wife, Debbie and is as much about the disintegration of Curtis' marriage when he embarks on an affair with a music journalist, Annik Honore, as the story of Joy Division.

The film was brilliant and, in particular, Sam Riley's performance as Ian Curtis was exceptional. The visual likeness was uncanny, the butterfly dancing, the eyes, the clothes, even the way he clutches the microphone. Everything about Riley's performance was perfect.

Even the voice. Much to my surprise, the actors even play instruments and sing on the live performances in the film and John Cooper Clarke makes an appearance reciting 'Chickentown'.

If you are a Joy Division fan, the story is well known. Joy Division are formed after the band see the Sex Pistols play The Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Ian Curtis, working at the employment exchange, joins as a singer. The band are championed by Tony Wilson and managed by Rob Gretton.

Ian Curtis then develops epilepsy and his health deteriorates as he struggles to control his condition with various medications. Curtis takes his own life in May 1980 on the eve of an American tour.

There was some poetic license in the film; Tony Wilson faints in a pub after signing the Joy Division contract in blood and Ian Curtis sees a girl have a epileptic fit at work who subsequently dies - the origin of 'She's Lost Control'.

Annik's quote in the film that 'She was scared - of falling in love' is at odds with Wilson's recollection in the recent Factory documentary that she was indeed scared but 'because of the lyrics, Tony. The lyrics. He f**king means it'.

Thankfully, though the film doesn't air Debbie's view that Ian Curtis always had a death wish and believed he would die young although it does continually show Curtis as the depressed, tormented, angst ridden poet wearing a long overcoat and a glum face.

The performances of the actors playing the other band members (Sumner, Morris and Hook) and Rob Gretton are also excellent with great attention to every last detail and obviously, the soundtrack is superb.

Although the film is told from Debbie's point of view (she co-produces the film), Annik is still portrayed as the glamorous groupie while Debbie is the housewife stuck at home struggling with a young baby (Natalie) while the band are constantly touring.

The end of the story is well documented. However, even though you know what's coming, even though it's 27 years ago and Ian Curtis undoubtedly had his faults (the film shows him to be an unfaithful liar), there is no denying the closing scenes in 77 Barton Road are moving.

Especially when 'Atmosphere' starts playing over footage of smoke coming from the chimneys at Macclesfield Crematorium (where Curtis was cremated).

'Control' is filmed in black and white - not pretentious art but in keeping with Anton Corbijn's photographs of the band and the 'Atmosphere' video he directed.

'So what's Macclesfield like then ?' - Annik to Curtis. 'Chin up, Ian. Things could be worse. You could be lead singer of The Fall' - Rob Gretton to Curtis as he recovers from a fit at a concert.

'The experience of being Joy Division was really really funny. No films will ever show that. We used to have a right laugh' - Bernard Sumner - from 'Touching from a distance.'

Many years ago, Norma and I bought my son a Formula 1 racing car. The car cost £230,000 and the wrapping paper cost £47.50. It was really difficult to conceal the present prior to the big day and the mystery gift somewhat dwarfed the other presents around the Christmas tree.

No seriously, this particular Formula 1 racing car was actually a child's bed. The racing car was fantastic, tastefully coloured in white and red with large black (wet weather) tyres and the headboard was the cockpit.

My son loved the bed too but, as with all things, his interest slowly dwindled with the passing of time. From being proud and excited to show it off to his friends, he became a little embarrassed when pals entered his room and saw his novelty bed.

Finally, he convinced us to replace the bed with some anonymous, bland divan with a supportive mattress and drawers (instead of gigantic, silver exhaust pipes) underneath. He kept moaning that he banged his head on the aerofoil every morning, his legs dangled over the end of the front spoiler and that he was now 23 years old, after all.

As this was prior to the days of eBay, we advertised the bed in the small ads section of the local paper. On the day the paper was published, a gentleman called and expressed an interest and said he would come round on Friday night.

Friday came and went. The gentleman didn't come round. Surprisingly, we didn't get any more telephone calls. Reluctantly, we prepared to take to bed to the tip as we had not been able to access the lavatory for four whole days as a Formula 1 racing car was completely blocking the upstairs landing.

Norma and I managed to manhandle the bed down the narrow staircase where it perched vertically and precariously in the hallway. Dinner guests looked perplexed and politely enquired: 'Do you know you have a Formula 1 racing car in your hallway ?'

Fortunately, the gentleman called again, this time promising to come round on Sunday. This time, he did come round with his young son whose eyes immediately lit up at the sight that greeted him in the hallway. The gentleman agreed to take the bed and he didn't even attempt to haggle me down from the £40 price tag.

The prospective buyer was a builder and, because he was working on a big job where he wasn't getting paid until tomorrow, he asked if he could pop round tomorrow night with the money.

He was happy to return and collect the bed then but as he had his van with him, he wondered if he could possibly take the bed now. As his lad was so excited, I agreed and, with a tear in my eye, I helped him lug the Formula 1 Racing car outside and secure it on his van.

Off he went, with his lad beaming in the passenger seat, proudly looking back at his new acquisition, the best present he had ever had from the best dad in the world.

Inevitably, the builder didn't pop round on Monday with the money. Or Tuesday. So I summoned up the courage and rang him at home. His daughter told me 'My Dad says he's working in Cleethorpes on another big job and isn't coming back. Ever.'

I fleetingly contemplated tracing the gentleman to his home address and demanding what was rightfully mine. I thought better of it when I remembered how the burly builder had broken my middle finger with his very firm handshake.

Then I remembered the look on his son's face when he walked in and saw the Formula 1 Racing car cunningly disguised a bed, so I put it down to experience and thought

'That was the best £40 I ever spent.'

I'm confused.

Arsenal are playing like Chelsea.

Manchester City are playing like Brazil.

Manchester United are playing like Manchester City.

Chelsea are playing like Northwich Victoria.

Tottenham are playing like Wigan Athletic

Derby are playing like Watford.

Chelsea players are haranguing match officials like Manchester United.

Emmanuel Adebayor is playing with the swagger and arrogance of Thierry Henry.

In fact, I am so confused I am taking a day trip (and prawn sandwiches) to the Emirates Stadium next Sunday to watch Arsenal versus Sunderland.

Enjoyed this BBC4 program on the history of Factory with lots of interviews with Tony Wilson, Peter Saville, Vini Reilly, Shaun and Paul Ryder, Stephen Morris, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner.

So many amusing anecdotes and quotes:

New Order insisted on playing live on TOTP and, unusually, 'Blue Monday' promptly fell down the charts thanks to their abysmal performance (Sumner's appalling vocals).

Martin Hannett's unconventional approach to production: 'He used to piss the drummer off so he would hit the drums harder.'

Factory lost money on every single copy of 'Blue Monday' thanks to the prohibitive costs of the sleeve.

Peter Hook worked as crew at the Hacienda for 10 quid an hour and his wages were paid by New Order royalties.

The sandpaper sleeve for The Durutti Column's 'The Return of' may have destroyed the adjacent records but many customers found the record itself was totally damaged.

A really weird, early photograph of Warsaw with Peter Hook attired in black leather complete with moustache and cap.

Happy Mondays being dispatched to a heroin free Barbados to record an album only to discover crack cocaine was freely available on the island.

'Never did any drugs. A lot of people think he did because on some of the TV performances he looks like he's on some sort of drugs because of his arms but he wasn't on any drugs at all. That was just him losing himself in the music' - Sumner on Curtis

'The doctor says to him: 'I want you to be quiet. I want you to take it easy. No late nights. No alcohol. No drugs. Oh what do you do by the way ?' 'Oh I'm a librarian. No I'm a singer in a post punk rock band.' He didn't really have much chance, did he ?' - Hook on Curtis' diagnosis with epilepsy

The problem with installing typo is that, during the research for hints and tips to get the software installed, configured and running on a shared server environment at Bluehost, you Google across like-minded obsessives individuals who have also successfully installed typo in 30 seconds flat.

These people are technical types who sneer at PHP and lie awake at night, worrying about Ruby's scalability. These geeks tend to be obsessive characters who have now tired of typo and have subsequently migrated to a brand new exciting platform called django.

Django is a Python Web framework - not a blogging platform or a CMS - but you could use django to create your own perfect blogging platform.

Django has a endearing, minimalist administration screen and although the finished product looks like a 1980's HTML page or the stripped down WordPress sandbox theme, it's pretty impressive for 10 minutes and 100 lines of Python and HTML.

I was going to write a superb article, with lots of screenshots and poorly formatted code blocks, detailing all the obstacles I overcame before finally claiming success. However, as always, the very clever aforementioned people have already been there and done that.

So, if you are interested in installing django on bluehost, consult this thread. One quick note: my preferred method of installing into a sub-directory failed (403 permission denied) so I used a sub-domain which worked fine.

For a more generic django tutorial about how to create a project, add models and templates, read (and bookmark) this excellent article. This gentleman has a rare combination of technical skills and a brilliant, light hearted, humorous writing style. His site also serves as a brilliant example of the potential appearance and functionality of a django powered blog.

In fact, if I could summon up the time and energy to master HTML, CSS and Python, I would create my very own unique, stylish and distinctive blog but I don't so I won't.

I was about to say there was no Wordpress to Django import utility until I just discovered this.

Am I the first blogger to have more blogs than published articles ?

I have upgraded this blog to the recently released WordPress 2.3. However, I have deep rooted concerns that the new tagging functionality will simply overload my tiny brain.

The WordPress upgrade went smoothly enough although the editor now reports a missing table (wp_post2cat) which is slightly irritating.

Also, I sense increasing disquiet amongst some long standing, intelligent and loyal WordPress users so I took the precaution of installing YABP (Yet Another Blog Platform). Please put your hands together and welcome Typo (powered by a delightful lady called 'Ruby on Rails').

Update: The Google Sitemap Generator plug-in was causing the error. The problem is resolved in the latest version.

I'm not normally a sucker for these free, pyramid style, link exchange schemes to drive more traffic to your blog but as simply everyone is not just talking about it but actually doing it, I thought I'd better add BlogRush to this blog.

Now, I must hurry into town and join the lengthy queues at Northern Rock to withdraw my 1 million pounds life savings. To be honest, I think this media fuelled panic is a little overblown and as I have a contrarian investing style, I have just purchased £5,000 worth of NRK shares at £3.10 waiting for the 'dead cat bounce'.

The shares are currently trading at £2.93, £2.80, £2.69...

I like Robert Scoble. While I don't always agree with him and I have a love-hate relationship with his laugh, his blog is worth reading and he posts some varied and interesting videos but one thing is obvious.

The guy has a real passion for technology and writing. On occasions, he is subjected to vitriolic comments, hurtful criticism and abuse that is completely unjustified but he calmly takes it all in his stride and rarely retaliates.

Scoble is a family man and has a lovely wife. Indeed, he is a very lucky man. As I recall, my wife didn't have the forethought and love to buy me an expensive digital camera hours before she went into labour. Inevitably, Scoble will be posting live updates of his wife's lengthy and arduous labour via Twitter. I'm surprised he isn't live streaming the whole event.

Another 'A' lister recently admitted to hospital was Dave Winer. Unfortunately, Dave repeatedly broke rule two, regaling us all with updates on his state of health.

3 September - The saga begins...

'Had to take a break, I got a really bad cold, the flu, not sure what -- but it knocked me down. I had a fever, nasty cough, wheezing, and it was getting worse so fast that I went to the emergency room at a Berkeley hospital, where they gave me something to control the cough and help me sleep, and today I feel much better.'

6 September - Our hopes are briefly raised. Don't laugh. This is a disease !

'Yesterday was the first feel-good day after a horrible bout with whatever it was that hit me and dragged me under. But Naked Jen, who said she had the same disease, warned against believing you're better when you start feeling better.'

8 September - Our hopes are dashed but at least Dave received my email of support.

'I've gotten email from people who are concerned. Thanks for the concern. Yes, I have seen a doctor, even went to the hospital to get chest x-rays. I don't have pneumonia. Just a realllly bad cold. A monster proportioned cold. It attacks everything but my sense of humor.'

9 September - My diagnosis is that this is not merely a heavy cold. This is a life threatening bout of man-flu.

'It's been a really interesting morning, in a sick kind of way (that is, I'm still really sick, coughing and wheezing, rasping and sneezing).'

10 September - Dave manages to summon the strength to type a blog post with no mention of his health.

11 September - A nation sighs with relief.

'Feeling much better today. Health is beginning to return. I owe it all to patience, lots of sleeping, drinking fluids, and not trying to be healthy before I actually am. Today I'm going to take a 20 minute easy walk in the sun.'

Winer by name. Whiner by nature.

I thought it would be interesting to analyze the number of postings by month from 1997 to August 2007 to the Usenet newsgroup comp.databases.oracle.server.

However, I was wrong.

Spending a lot of time in airports is an occupational hazard in the glamorous and fast moving world of IT consultancy. Most of us are intimate with the various methods of tuning Oracle databases and Siebel CRM but here are some quick tips about optimising the airport experience.

1. Most airlines have succeeded in shifting the massive queues from the check-in desks to smaller queues at the self-service kiosks. The most obvious method to avoid this is to check-in online and print out your own boarding pass from the comfort of the office. One word of caution - ensure you have the hardcopy of the boarding pass in your hands before leaving the Web page. If, for any reason, printing is unsuccessful, it is impossible to check-in online a second time to print the page again. It is a little embarrassing to explain to the customer service agent that an unknown pre-sales guy mistakenly took your boarding pass as it was sandwiched between his 89 page RFC. Worse, it also wastes a lot of time.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to attach your own luggage labels thinking this will save time. The baggage label must be coiled in a loop Origami-style and stuck together in a very specific way. Please, I urge you, leave this to the experts at the Fast Bag Drop desk.
3. Look nervously at your shoes and repeatedly wipe your sweaty brow in the queue for security screening. This behaviour guarantees that you will be 'randomly selected' by BAA security staff to go through the new full body scanner. Don't worry when other passengers start giggling as you are asked to raise both arms and stand on one leg to assume a star shape. Revenge will be sweet when you are re-introduced at the head of the queue in front of the X-ray machine, skipping 23 people and saving a vital 17 minutes.
4. In the current climate, passengers are increasingly asked to remove their belts and shoes as part of security checks. Save time by investing in a pair of black, leather slip-ons. No need to waste time struggling to tie up your shoe laces. Consider buying some tighter trousers that don't need a belt.
5. Always select a seat at the back of the plane. Do not think you will disembark quicker if you are located near the front of the aircraft. You won't. Everyone else thinks the same way so the most determined, forceful personalities will always be seated in rows 1-18. You also risk being struck by an oversized case (that should have gone into the hold) from the overhead lockers. Worse, your brain will be irradiated by the hordes of business types eagerly turning their mobile phones back on after being incommunicado for a whole 55 minutes.
6. Make a date with Iris. In the UK, you can register to trial the optical recognition system at immigration. Watch your colleagues from Consulting gasp in amazement as you leave them behind in a lengthy queue as you waltz up to the empty Iris desk and quickly make your way out of the terminal.
7. Use a professional, competent taxi company and arrange to be collected at the airport. This may seem blindingly obvious but for reasons that now escape me, for a period, I used a completely incompetent taxi firm who were always late for the rendezvous, didn't have the right change for the car-park and couldn't even find my home address. The final straw came when they woke my family, in the middle of the night, by ringing my door bell at 05:45 for a 06:00 pickup.
8. The ever increasing capacity and falling prices of USB memory sticks now make it possible to think the unthinkable. Leave your laptop behind. Copy your mini-technical library onto a memory stick. I have done this on a couple of domestic engagements and it is truly liberating. My dodgy, aching back is also feeling the benefit. You can normally access SupportWeb, MetaLink and collect email from most customer sites.

One advantage of being severed from the laptop is that it really focuses the mind on what technical material is truly essential to do your job. Consequently, you incrementally build up relevant content on the stick. It is also perfectly feasible to copy all your email folders onto a memory stick. The only element I have occasionally missed is my own Siebel 7.8/Oracle 10g sandbox environment. Have a good trip.

[An edited version of this article was originally published in the Spring 2007 edition of the Expert Services' Newsletter where, unsurprisingly, it was met with a stony silence.]