Holidays

Clare and I had a two-stage holiday this year, starting with 5 days by Lake Garda in northern Italy.



View the Lake Garda album


We then spent a week by the Coast in Wales, with Heather, Joe, Steve and Kim. The holiday involved the usual rounds of 'Ring of Fire', with a vocal accompaniment on the Sing-Star (my singing skills, whilst very entertaining, do not seem to score many points - I need to have a word with Sony about their customer acceptance testing). We also did some walking, went into a dragon infested cave and sat on the beach. Awesome.



View the Wales album


Whilst in Wales, Heather and Joe treated Clare and I to an afternoon of mountain boarding, as part of a 30th birthday present. It was excellent, and surprisingly easy to pick up. Sadly confidence got the better of me and it didn't take me long to sprain an ankle. It didn't stop me though - can't wait to have another go. Here's a video montage of our boarding skills:

BBC iPlayer

I have been trialling the new BBC iPlayer (beta) service. The basic concept is that you can download programmes up to 7 days after they are broadcast, you then have 28 days to watch them before they expire. This is the perfect thing for me, as I'm stuck on a train for two hours a day with nothing to do, and in the evenings I'm normally busy.

I have to say, I've been quite impressed. The files download quite quickly, the quality is almost as good as broadcast TV and the application doesn't take over your computer (like the channel 4 on-demand service).

However, there are some short-comings, firstly the lack of content. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the TopGear Arctic special, there haven't been that many programmes that have caught my attention. Secondly; it's a bit complicated. You have two usernames and passwords, you use a website to browse the programmes, and an windows application to download them. Thirdly, the service needs some features like 'subscribe to this series' or 'favourites' to make it easier to find the programmes you want. This is only a beta, so I'm sure things will improve, but it's a great first step towards a far more preferable way to watch TV.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta/

Draycote to Rugby

To celebrate the only sunny day of the year (well that's what it feels like anyway) Clare and I cycled from Draycote Water to Rugby, stopping in at the walkabout pub for a much needed Australian beer.

View the album

Warwick castle with the Laughlins

Richard, Claire and the girls came to visit for the day, so we went to Warwick castle to take in some medieval action including dungeons, sword fighting, a giant trebuchet and ice creams. For certain younger members of our party, the main attraction was a giant mirror into which funny faces could be displayed at great amusement.

View the album

Godiva festival

Kev and Suzanne visited us for the weekend, so after a quick BBQ we headed off to the Godiva festival in Coventry. It was a free concert, with the Super Furry Animals headlining (who were excellent and weird as ever). However, the show was stolen by the support band, and Coventry locals 'The Enemy'. Amazingly the weather held out and we were treated to a great sunset, I can't say the same for our long walk on Sunday afternoon.

London maps

LondonTown.com have added a nice map to their website.

It has the tube stops and lines marked on, as well as some landmarks. You can also pan it around in the google maps style. Nice. It only covers central London, and is really geared towards hotels, but I think it's worth using to plan a trip!

View the website

Drayton Manor Park

Yesterday we decided to make ourselves feel dizzy and sick by going to Drayton Manor Park. The highlight of the day was 'shockwave', the UK's only 'stand up' roller coaster. It was one of those strange experiences where you think: 'why on earth did I agree to go on this ride' whilst you're slowly climbing up the first slope. For the rest of the ride you realise it was in-fact the most stupid mistake of your life. But by the time you get off, you think its brilliant and can't wait to get on again.

View the album

REZ style game in flash

http://www.geocities.jp/flashgame_zone/zero.htm

It's a bit like REZ, hold down the mouse button and move the cursor over the targets to get a lock on them. Press the space bar to fire and say goodbye to your Friday afternoons.

MUSE at Wembley

Last night Clare and I went to see Muse play Wembley. Arriving just as 'My Chemical Romance' finished their last song (perfect timing!) we waited we waited for Muse, whilst admiring the stadium's civil engineering, listening to Pendulum on the sound system (a good omen). With a dramatic opening, straight into 'Knights of Cydonia', they delivered a two hour set of their usual heavy riffs, over the top guitar solos and rock showmanship. With a light show which became progressively more jaw dropping, including ballerinas suspended from large helium balloons, swivelling satellite dishes and plenty of fire and smoke, we weren't disappointed. Such performances surely secure Muse as the greatest band in the UK/World/Universe? I think they are pretty good anyway.

First medical article

Clare just had her first article published, a letter to the Rural and Remote Health Journal - yey! You can read it here.

In other news, the Neufelds have gone back to Canada - boo. And the Talbots (Astburys in disguise) have returned from Cameroon - yey!