‘Good evening. Blueyond - sorry - Virgin Media Customer Services. Carol speaking. How may I help you ?’ ‘Slight problem. I can’t get Sky One any more.’ ‘Yes, Sir. I know [sighs inwardly ‘Oh God please not another one’]. Those nasty people from Sky increased the prices and Sir Richard called their bluff. Unfortunately, a horrid Australian man called Rupert then called his bluff back so we can’t show it any more.’ ...

Darren Prowse kicked off an interesting discussion asking what makes you unsubscribe from a feed. This prompted me to revisit my list of my inactive blogs in Google Reader. Normally, I tend to leave most blogs intact because I don’t religiously unsubscribe purely because an author hasn’t posted in a while. However, I find it useful to occasionally check the status of sleeping blogs to see whether the feed has actually died or migrated elsewhere and prune my subscription list accordingly. ...

Stuart Brown from the excellent Modern Life asks ‘Why is RSS adoption so abysmal amongst UK newspapers online ?’ with some interesting analysis including the staggering fact (to me at least) that Modern Life has more Bloglines subscribers than The Daily Torygraph. The detailed analysis in this article interested me. I (delude myself that I) am technically literate. I subscribe to around 100 varied feeds and am very lazy. I live in the UK and am interested in News, Sport and Technology. ...

This sign in my hotel room intrigued me. Every time I entered the bathroom, I gazed at the sign. I found myself entering the bathroom to study the sign when I didn’t actually need to use the bathroom. Was the pipe hot or not ? Unfortunately, this towel rail wasn’t listed anywhere on this site. Could the temperature really be as high as 140’ F ? How hot is 140’ F ? Finally, just before I checked out, I gave in to temptation, removed the towels and grabbed the silver rail with my right hand. ...

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. While I am not literally chained to the desk, the security officer is holding my passport which fills me with a sense of unease and practically equates to the same thing. ...

From a posting in the Google Reader newsgroup I have (approx) 383,240 feeds…

This post put me in a quandry. I found the video very amusing so I was torn between leaving a grateful comment on Donncha’s blog and awarding the article a (Gold) ‘Star’ in Google Reader. But if I only did that, my friend and a couple of (ex-) colleagues who might appreciate the joke may miss it. That would be very selfish. Forgive me Father, but briefly, I toyed with reverting to Web 0.1 (beta) and sending an mass email to ‘Friends/Ex Colleagues’. ...

Throw away that Mavis Beacon touch typing CD. This hilarious video shows that speech recognition is the key to (not so) rapid application development. Reminds me of working in tech support and the torture of spelling out Unix commands over the phone to customers.

When I returned from evensong last night, after I had ironed five shirts and read a bedtime story to my loving (but strangely uncommunicative) teddy bears, I sat down with a hot cup of Horlicks to enjoy two hours of high quality Sunday night viewing. I don’t know why but I have always had an interest in ‘conspiracy theories’. When I was a lad, I was convinced that Marilyn Monroe was killed by the Kennedy brothers. Ashley Grimes was a undercover Manchester City spy. JFK was assassinated by Norma Jeane Mortenson from the grassy knoll. UFO’s had landed at Roswell and probably deposited Ashley Grimes. Of course, that was then. This is now. Back then I was a boy. Now I am a man (sort of). With the passing years, I have matured and changed my beliefs accordingly. ...

‘OK. OK. I give in. Please stop hurting me, Brin. I now realise that resistance is futile.’ ‘Look I did what you asked. I have now converted to Google Reader. Please, no more. I will do anything you want. Please, Sergey - let my wife go.’ Even my son (newly hired Google enforcer) has now installed Google Desktop and is busy indexing the entire contents of the PC. Just about the only remaining product in the Google portfolio I don’t use is Adsense. ...