Category: Miscellany 2004

For several months I have been trying to find a fishmonger – a good, decent purveyor of fine foods who will have fresh fish but prepare it for me on site and explain a little more about it. And today I found a great little place by Clapham South underground station: Moxons.

Happy Birthday Steve. Your Gail Tisley comments are on the site – honest! It’s my present to you!

In my little piece about gmail last week I noted that my journey to work covers many CCTV cameras. In a piece published on the same day at CNN it was noted that there are something like 4.2 million cameras observing our moves around the British capital. That really does seem like a great number. An American author – Jeffrey Rosen – notes,

Instead of being perceived as an Orwellian intrusion, the cameras in Britain … were hailed as the people’s technology, a friendly eye in the sky, not Big Brother but a kindly and watchful uncle or aunt [source]

Do you really think this is the case? I certainly don’t think of it as the people’s technology although I will admit to resigned acceptance of the devices. On the whole I suspect they are a necessary evil in the world we inhabit. Is that a foolish notion?

Since Google announced the gmail service there must have been a small rainforest of paper written about the privacy implications of scanning email. It’s never really bothered me (which you should not read as I don’t care about it – it just doesn’t bother me right now) and my lovely gmail account remains somewhat underused at the moment (oh, and I do have a spare of you’re interested and give me a good enough reason to send you the invite).

Anyway, Hublog has an interesting list of things Google knows about you (plus an interesting follow up). Froogle is not mentioned there but thanks to this link they could believe I’ve just searched on dog beds twice in 10 minutes. If they infer that I have a dog (or am about to get a dog) they would be misreading this data.

Lots of organisations have access to lots of data about you. That should never be the problem. Personally, I am on CCTV about 10 minutes after I have left my house until I arrive in the office. Anybody who cared to could tell you quite a lot about me from observing my travel patterns on a daily basis. My bank knows where I spend my money and my doctor knows about my illnesses (although I have been to other doctors that my main doctor is not aware of).

The point is that there are mountains of information about me available out there. The problem is that none of it constitutes a full picture of me as an individual and that is the real danger. Recording the data is not a problem until somebody tries to look at it. In itself that’s not a great problem until somebody actions an event because of that data. However, inferring something about me because of it is not a good idea.

I don’t watch much reality television but Digital Spy is telling me that Gary Lucy has signed up for The Match, an upcoming reality show which is set to start on Sky One in October. What fun. I will be tuning it – it makes owning a Sky dish all the more worthwhile. Maybe I should make Gary a future Man of the Moment.

And note to self: when this entry comes up in the ‘On This Day’ link it’s time to renew my membership to OutInTheUK which might be OutInTheUSA.com to you or OutInCanada if you are gay and in Canada. Everywhere else it is probably, erm, OutEverywhere. Are you a member? What’s your ID?

So at Waterloo station an hour ago I got a call from my boss – there was a client on the telephone who needs an urgent email – can you help them tonight. On the train I used my Treo to check locations of wifi spots. Starbucks in Wimbledon is where I am sat writing mails to customers. It’s tacky and yet cool at the same time. It’s great and also an example of how technology takes over our lives. And it looks like it is about to rain!

While trying to find a medal count for the olympics for my last post, I also followed some links at Wikipedia to their current affairs section where I came upon an interesting item about flash flooding relating to the floods in Cornwall. The advice “Turn Around Don’t Drown” is something we should all take on-board.

Purely for my own reference: Wikipedia’s Athens Medal Count. There is something compelling about watching gymnastics, sailing and boxing and I would only ever do that at the olympics. I even found myself watching synchronised diving last night. Why?

If you read any of what I write you will be aware that I don’t talk about work a great deal. This is supposed to be an outlet separate from anything to do with my working life but today I wanted to solicit you opinion on a trend I am seeing emerging through work.

Like all companies, on an almost daily basis we deal with new customers, prospects or organisations relating to our business. Often we will have meetings and presentations and start to build – what we hope will be – a good business relationship. Like most people who meet others in their sphere of work I hand out business cards to new contacts.

Three or four times in the past month I have found that – a few days after meeting somebody new – my email address will be subscribed to their company mailshot/newsletter etc. I know this is a reaction to the new rules on spam in the UK where there has to be some kind of business relationship before you can receive arbitrary messages from a company but I don’t like the trend. When you’re on the lookout for new business it’s a little hard to say ‘stop this’. Perhaps we should start doing something similar.

Poor Gareth Gates. It seems his career is on the rocks and his record company are trying to rebrand him. Perhaps something good has come out of all the Pop Idol shows. It was widely thought that Gareth was the industry’s preference for the Pop Idol when the public voted for Will Young. Will is still having hit records. I am not sure what it says about the Pop Idol phenomenon. In this instance the public got it right but where now Hear’say, One True Voice, Michelle …

Last September I visited Bush House, the home of the BBC World Service. It was part of the London Open House weekend which is an annual event allowing visitors behind the doors of buildings not usually open to the public. This year it’s the weekend of September 18th and 19th. The brochure can be ordered from the official site. If you’re in London that weekend I would encourage you to find something to visit!

I suppose that I should have given you a little update earlier in the week and I certainly should have recorded it for myself. So, as you can see, we managed to clear a great deal over the weekend – although I thought I had broken the hired shredder unit (but hadn’t). We cleared bags and bags of material away and flattened tons of earth. We placed paving slabs where the new shed is to go (it actually came on Tuesday but I have no pictures yet) and then, on Monday (after this picture was taken) this fence was replaced with a newer one (of the same style) which doesn’t look like it is about to blow over when the wind gets up.

So Michael Owen was left on the bench last night for the Champions League qualifier in Austria (Liverpool won 2-0 over Grazer AK). So will he really be leaving British football for Spain?

This Is London: Owen shows his value on the bench
Givemefootball.co.uk: Benitez refuses to be drawn on Owen
BBC Sport: Owen’s future uncertain

As a public service. Ericcson no longer make the DECT 260 telephone and it seems almost impossible to get support on the ‘phone. If, like me, you have been silly enough to lock it by not entering the correct PIN numbers at the right time, then you might need the universal IPEI code: 0000707402170