Claim: The North Magnetic Pole has shifted, and is midway between King's Cross and Euston Underground Stations.
Facts required for proof: The North Magnetic Pole moves about in an elliptical path with a maximum radial distance of about 80km coinciding with movement about the sun (ignoring polar drift for now), and as such the Magnetic North Pole is considered to be on average an area rather than a point. A compass needle points towards magnetic north, and once you are atop the magnetic north pole the only direction it is …

What is it about blokes that, once they hit about 40-45, makes them want to own a good sturdy torch (that's “flashlight”, for people of American extraction)?
I remember as a 5 or 6 year old having a little square AA battery torch, which was next to bloody useless as a source of illumination, but hey – you switch the switch and LIGHT COMES OUT OF THE END! Since then I've had a succession of torches, ranging through the variety of cheap crappy supermarket D-Cell eaters, through various penlights (each …

Had a dream last night that the world had been somehow populated by giant apes and lizards (King Kong / Godzilla stylee), and that civilisation was generally freaking the f*ck out about it. The main trouble being that in these times of life largely being centred around retail and tourism, nobody seemed to have much of a survival instinct, and people were therefore getting eaten or crushed left, right & centre.

Upon waking up, my first thought seemed to be, “Hmm, good idea – better write out a risk management …

On the topic of Movember (these guys are the originals, although I suppose this relates MOre to the Flaming Mo's over at the jazzed up bandwagon-stealing fundraiser), whilst not participating or instigating an effort on this side of the pond, I thought it would be the decent thing to acknowledge the endeavours of my peers. So here's this year's lineup…
Winnie: the first person to contact me about Movember this year, he's sporting a bit of a Chopper. I remember when I first met Winnie back in 1992 he was …

Recently I got a sponsorship email from a mate in Australia for Movember, and always one to help out a mate, I flicked about £20 in his direction. He emailed back and said “Wow?! 50 bucks?! That’s awesome man! Although that’s probably only the price of a cup of tea to you, isn’t it?”.
It made me stop and think exactly what 20 pounds was worth, and I did this in my normal unit of measure: Beer Opportunity Cost. It’s similar to The Big Mac Index, …

Kitchen sink
There's some building going on over the road from work, and I was moderately amused at seeing what they'd thrown in the skip today.

It wasn't until I'd spent about 20 minutes trying to think of a witty headline for this post that my brain pointed out to me that it's not a kitchen sink at all, but a bathtub.
Consider yourselves lucky.

Ichronoclast
It would be fair to say that I'm not one of the world's great “early risers”. Getting out of bed is a traumatic experience that occurs daily, and I don't seem to always cope with the idea so well. Typically any problems with this manifest themselves mostly in a workplace context, however as it's a blog and therefore a place to express and explore my personal thoughts, I thought I'd y'know… do that.

My confusion I suppose is two-pronged: firstly, where this notion of 9 to 5 came from. …

I'm lucky enough to have been around a bit of England, and gotten involved in a few different traditional and folky fixtures & endeavours. Often they're steeped in tradition, so much so that the origins are often obscured or even totally lost to modern knowledge. However this is the first time I've ever found myself scratching my head and genuinely asking myself, “Why?”.
K, her Dad (Vic) and I went to the Devon township of Ottery St Mary for their annual and widely famed Tar Barrels night. When …

I've managed to avoid iPod envy thus far. I mean really, it's just a bloody mp3 player, isn't it? Having owned a 20 Gb Rio Karma since late 2004 the device – for me – is definitely a Nice To Have. Sure the iPod has nice integration with iTunes, but being forced into a controlled relationship with a buggy piece of software isn't my idea of a good time. The newer ones which allowed you to display photos on the screen were pretty neat too, but …

Paul, HC and I elected to broaden our intellectual horizons and attend a public debate at the Institute for Contemporary Art (previously a place I'd only ever been to see weirdass movies), entitled “Is Radio 4 Too Middle England ?“. Probably less of a debate and more of a discussion, however the lineup of panellists would guarantee that however it went, it would be eloquent, intelligent, and erudite: Mark Damazer (Controller of Radio 4, and possibly my new hero), Natalie Schwarz (director of radio at Channel 4), Miranda Sawyer …