Please don’t tell Norma but, earlier this week, I spent £25 in Shagorika. Such is the life of a sad, lonely IT consultant on a slow Tuesday night in Sunderland. Unfortunately, contrary to my expectations, Shagorika turned out to be a rather mediocre, overpriced Indian restaurant rather than the sordid den of sexual iniquity I was hoping for. It took me a while to summon up the courage to cross the threshold. My nerves were soothed when I was warmly welcomed by a beautiful, flirtatious lady who led me by the hand to a cosy waiting area. She gave me a complimentary drink and asked me to wait a minute while she prepared a table. A table, not a bed ! How very exotic. ...

Two weeks ago, I sat in the business lounge at Newcastle airport. I chose a desk right in the corner away from everyone else because I am like that. Inevitably, the lounge filled up with business types trying to impress everyone else by speaking loudly on their slimline toy phones. A gentleman came and sat down next to me. He fetched an orange juice and two packets of delicious Kettle Chips (Sea Salt with crushed black peppercorns and Mature Cheddar and Chives) to occupy himself for the next 25 minutes. ...

Today, a gentleman approached me and politely asked if he could ask me a question. Normally, this dialog is a little more protracted and goes as follows: ‘Excuse me. Is your name Norman Brightside ?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you work for Siebel ?’ ‘Yes.’ (although strictly I work for Oracle on the Siebel CRM product) ‘Are you from Expert Services ?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you mind if I ask you a quick question ?’ ...

I was interested to read that Microsoft have over 17,597 employees registered on Facebook out of a total of 70,000 employees. I thought I would try to discover how other leading IT companies compared, including my own. The staff numbers come from Google Finance and the rounding errors come from me. The following Facebook networks are only open to company employees with a valid email address although, obviously, a better metric would have been some measure of recent activity. ...

Boring, alcohol fuelled haze Prelude Friday Saturday

My friends were disappointed, insulted and absolutely mortified at the suggestion (from a comment on this blog) that the Hook Norton Festival of Fine Ales was merely a ‘Boring, alcohol, induced haze’ However, I simply loved the turn of phrase that captures the very essence of Hook Norton in just four words. So much so, I had T-shirts made up for this weekend’s antics. New for 2007: The entire event will be live mob-blogged from start to finish so don’t forget to tune in to this blog, Twitter, Pownce, Facebook and BBC World Service for exciting, real-time updates. ...

Weird. This was also the subject of my final year project at University. My AI creation was written in ‘C’ on Unix and used the curses package. However, my effort wasn’t so accomplished, had severe problems when a piece was crowned and didn’t implement the ‘huffing’ rule correctly. Having said that, it did beat me on four occasions.

I own up. It’s a fair cop. It is 27 years and 5 months since my last confession. Since then, I have sinned, Holy Father. In fact, I have committed an absolutely heinous crime. Please forgive me for I have submitted multiple random guesses. May the high priests (and priestesses) of the BAAG movement, please have mercy on my wretched soul. Recently, I have been guilty of supporting and even proposing a multitude of ‘any guesses’, all of which were proposed as possible solutions to solve a critical system problem on a production system: ...

OK. I couldn’t resist any longer. Scoble’s recent post about this killer Google Reader application forced me to sign up for yet another pointless, short-lived, social network, Web 2.0 application - Facebook. I was keen to preserve my ‘Johnny Come Lately’ status and was relieved to find, coincidentally, that Donncha had signed up just ahead of me so I am now confirmed as the very last person in the world to sign up for Facebook. ...

The 80’s pop star - Prince - simultaneously delighted both his fans and horrified the music industry with his shock inclusion of a disposable CD with a leading (shurely shome mishtake) UK Sunday newspaper. Norman Brightside, an avid Daily Mail reader, was absolutely delighted with the complimentary inclusion of ‘Planet Earth’ with his £1.40 Mail on Sunday. ‘I simply love ‘The Artiste Formerly Known As Prince’. Whenever I get invited to a fancy dress or themed party, guess who I always go as ? With this latest gift from The King (geddit?), we really are ‘going to party like it is 1999’. I had heard a rumour that his latest CD would cost £8.99 and include a free copy of the Daily Mail but this surpasses all my expectations. Let’s go crazy !’ ‘I am hosting a dinner party on December 18. Normally, I like to get things underway with some David Gray, bread-sticks and dips followed by Dire Straits and amusingly shaped carrots that resemble human genitalia. However, this free copy of ‘Planet Earth’ will make an ideal ice-breaker and help initiate stimulating conversation for at least 3 minutes.’ ...