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I'm not paranoid

I just think everyone’s out to get me.

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Please, please don’t let it be the BAA security staff from T4.

probably the best marketing campaign ever

Agency: London Rubber Company

Location: Heathrow T4 toilets.

• Durex Featherlite
• Durex Ribbed for Extra Sensitivity
• Durex Extra Safe
• Durex Gossamer
• Durex Lager & Lime
• Durex Chicken Korma
• Nurofen

Obviously two of the above are fictitious but the Nurofen is genuine. A great idea to counter that age old objection - ‘Not tonight dear, I have a splitting headache’.

[ This blog is brought to you by Tom Hanks who actually has lived unnoticed in Heathrow Terminal 4 for the past 8 years, sleeping on chairs by night and queuing in various parts of the building by day. ]

seldomly asked questions

People never ask me ‘Just who is this Norman Brightside character ?’

‘Norman Brightside’ is an alias for a fictitious Oracle Database Administrator based in Solihull, near England. Norman briefly flirted with celebrity, last year, when he had the temerity to criticise Tom Kyte.

Norman Brightside is also a bastardisation of Norman Whiteside, a Northern Irish footballer who played for Manchester United in the 80’s and the song ‘Mr. Brightside’ by the popular American beat combo - The Killers.

revenge of the BAA queue monitor

This morning at some unearthly hour, I found myself standing once again in the queue to clear security at Heathrow Terminal 4. I was almost at the X-ray machine when a member of staff approached me and invited me to ‘volunteer’ for a full body scan.

He took me behind some screens and for one moment I feared the BAA queue monitors were going to exact their terrible revenge for my outspoken criticisms last week. However, he explained that the body scanner would take three scans of my body, each of which would pass a small amount of radiation through my body.

less is more

‘Would you like any cashback today at all, Sir ?’

‘Oh yeah. That would be handy. £50 - thanks.’

‘Oh I’m awfully sorry. I haven’t got enough money in the till to give you £50, Sir.’

‘Oh OK - how about £30 then ?’

[Looks dolefully into depths of till] ‘Hmm - not really. That would leave me a little short of cash.’

‘Can you manage £20 ?’

‘Yeah, yeah. £20. I can give you £20.’

PC backups with SyncBack

Two years ago, my hard disk failed. Completely. This was excellent news as my computer ran a lot faster after a clean installation of Windows XP but bad news because I lost email, names and addresses, documents etc.

One thing on my to-do list was to investigate offline storage to backup key data files to avoid a repetition. And, yes, this ‘Next Action’ had been on the to-do list for two years.

sports bars of Europe

The first in an occasional series.

No. 1 - O’Reilly’s in Brussels.

Difficult to find, particularly if you hold the street map upside down and wander aimlessly down dark, empty streets and end up in Schaerbeek.

Easy to find if you hold the map the right way up.

Stella - 4 Euro per pint. Lively pub. One big screen and several small screens dotted around. Plenty of seating available.

Blackburn 1 - MUFC 1 (Carling Cup Semi Final). Two superb goals. One melee involving Rooney.

queuing theory at BAA

On Wednesday, I found myself patiently waiting in a queue, talking with a nice lady from Toronto, to get through airport security at Heathrow Terminal 4. Nothing unusual there.

Although, for someone from London to exchange pleasantries with a complete stranger is a little unusual (but she started it).

However, on this occasion, only two X-ray machines were in use so the queue was a little longer than usual and slowly and relentlessly growing in length.

in praise of Mark Burgess

A long time ago, there was a unique band called The Chameleons who hailed from Middleton, Manchester.

Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons made some records, built up a dedicated following, played lots of gigs and then split up.

Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons reformed.

Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons made some more records, played some more gigs and then split up (again).

However, unlike a lot of bands, the lead singer, Mark Burgess, once went to a private individual’s house and played at their birthday party.

starting out with GTD

A long journey starts with a single step…

I was curious about applying the concepts and ideas behind GTD to try to manage my time (both at home and at work) more efficiently so I read up a little about GTD over the weekend and actually ordered a copy of Dave Allen’s book (having read snippets in a bookshop who were nice enough to give me a nice leather armchair for my comfort).