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Sherlock Burns and Dr. Hall investigate

‘Burns - I guess this means I can book the hotel for four nights and cancel the flights to OpenWorld then ?'

It was 10:30 am on a dull, grey overcast Monday morning in Manchester. Sherlock Burns and Doctor Timothy Hall had just emerged from a fractious, tense kick-off meeting at Tiger Telecom. Sherlock Burns and Dr. Timothy Hall had been called by the IT director at short notice to investigate a sudden and marked degradation in the performance of the production database

lost in translation

I don’t know if all the clever Spanish people who study English leave the country or whether translators aren’t very well paid in Spain but here’s some amusing signs from my recent holiday in Marbella.

‘Deposit all remainders here’ - Malaga airport.

I duly placed ‘2’ in the receptacle. This was left over when I was testing Norman Jeane and asked her to quickly divide 12 by 5.

‘Millionaires - Private Gentleman’s Club. Members only. Please always use rear entrance’ - Puerto Banus.

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non League Saturday

With no Premiership or Championship fixtures at the weekend, I went along to watch my local non league club, Kingstonian FC, play on Saturday afternoon.

Kingstonian play in the Isthmian League which is a regional league below the Conference (sponsored by Ryman so also known as the Ryman League) and were hosting Margate.

It was great to be able to saunter round to the half way line and watch the match from behind the dugouts. It was great to hear the coaches urging their players on and engaging in gentle banter with the match officials - ‘Here Lino - that [offside] had to be bloody close !’ It was refreshing to be able to walk into the bar and get a drink at half-time.

where's the crane ?

‘Where’s the crane then ?'

We had just embarked on our summer vacation to sunny Marbella (near Spain) and were sitting on the shuttle bus taking us and our suitcases from long stay parking to the North terminal at Gatwick airport.

‘Sorry what did you say ?'

‘The crane that gets the cars - where is it ?'

As I pondered what on earth my intelligent teenage son was on about, I sensed other passengers on the bus pricking up their ears in interest. The bus was now deathly quiet, in a very British way, as the small audience attentively and patiently waited for the next exciting exchange in this bizarre conversation.

urban artist

On Tuesday morning, as I stood on a hot, sweaty, overcrowded South West Train destined for London Waterloo, I happened to notice a pretty, young lady reading a magazine telling her what to wear, how to style her hair and how to look.

As I finally emerged from Bank station, the thoughts of skinny, overpaid, drug taking women as some sort of bizarre role model continued to rattle around my head. Inspired I decided to put my thoughts down on paper - or rather brickwork.

down the pan

Just pulled some ancient, fuzzy photos from my toy phone including one that captures a wonderful notice in a toilet in an unnamed, anonymous, large corporation looking for significant financial savings in Q4.

In 2009, we spent £75,000 unblocking toilets at HQ. Items found included:

• plastic cups
• oranges
• sandwiches
• newspapers
• magazines
• underwear

There were around 250 incidents like this.

I never purchased an orange from that canteen ever again.

complaint to Ofcom

Last night, Sky News played audio footage of Raoul Moat’s last moments. This included detailed analysis of the sounds by an expert of the three ‘gunshots’ and some idle chit-chat about whether someone was screaming ‘Aaarrgh - my arm’ (Moat) or ‘Get the firearm’ (police officers).

No matter what Moat was or what he had done, that was simply a step too far and unacceptable in my opinion.

This broadcast was not in the public interest and breached the standards of normal, common decency.

if carlsberg made drummers

They would probably produce Bryan Devendorf of The National.

• Plays the drums barefooted.
• Takes the demo tapes and composes the drum sections.
• Writes intelligently.
• Drums immaculately.
• Performs his own, separate soundcheck.

All things considered, I’m very glad I’ll be witnessing The National live again at the Brixton Academy on Wednesday 1 December.

lockdown in Rothbury

A tragic story is unfolding in the North of England with a gunman on the run after killing one person and seriously injuring two more (his ex-girlfriend and a traffic policeman) following his release from prison last Friday.

Obviously, the police are doing everything to apprehend Raoul Moat safely without any further loss of life. However, as Moat claims he has ‘lost everything’ and is determined to ‘wage war on the police’, it’s not clear this episode will reach a peaceful conclusion.

Deutschland - eine Entschuldigung

The British media may have given the impression in recent weeks that we considered the German national tootball team to be a rather workmanlike, efficient, collection of young talent coupled with experienced internationals but lacking in imagination and devoid of much creative talent.

Some less respected elements of the British media may have given the impression that England’s recent, comprehensive 4–1 defeat by Germany was somehow a freak result that was purely the result of a refereeing error that denied England an equaliser.