Tangential Ramblings

They start at $30,000, allowing you to index up to 500,000 pages. And they're yellow; bright yellow.

I remember watching a talk by John Battelle to Google employees on my iPod Video a few months back. At the end of the talk, one Google employee asked how she might spread the word on the Google App. John's response was to give one or two to some high-profile web users, suggesting 'that guy from Fog Creek'. Hey presto, one turns up on Spolksy's doorstep. I wish he'd mentioned my name instead; or else Rob's.

I didn't follow the Tour de France this year, largely due to the drugs scandal that preceded it. Among others, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, both billed as strong contenders to win this year's Tour following Lance Armstrong's retirement, were dropped by their respective teams on 30 June following a doping probe.

I tuned in to the latter stages of stage 19 (the time-trial) and watched the parade up and down the Champs-Elysees the following day, but otherwise wasn't bothered; it didn't matter.

And now the Tour's provisional winner (for that must be what he is now) Floyd Landis has himself failed a drugs test. He was hailed by Armstrong after his win, who himself has been under the spotlight on the drugs front for many a year.

Cycling is in crisis. It needs to get harder on its testing and harder on its sanctions. Only then can it rise to the majesty that it enjoyed during the reign of Miguel Indurain.

It also needs some new characters. Laurent Jalabert, Marco Pantani, Viatcheslav Ekimov, Mario Cipollini, Claudio Chiappucci, Laurent Fignon, Eric Zabel, Djamolodine Abdoujaparov (spelt right first time, btw): all great and memorable characters of the sport. We need more like that, to take the sport out of the mess it's currently in, and into an exciting new future.

I've recently enrolled in Nike's 10k North vs. South race on 8 October. Having sent out a bunch of personalised sponsorship emails, I'm hoping that I can achieve my target of raising £2,000 for the NSPCC. And I'm hoping you can help me. If you'd like to sponsor me, please click here.

One very generous and early sponsor by the name of Chris (aka Mario) has kindly pledged a handsome £50, on the condition that here in blog-land, I don't compare anywhere in the UK with anywhere in the USA for six months. It's going to be a challenge (maybe more so than the 10k run), but I think I'm up to it. Roll on 28 January, 2007!

I used to eat sushi every now and again, but for whatever reason, I fell out of the habit. Thanks to Mr. R. McIver of Brixton and Ms. E. Urbanek of Wisconsin for encouraging me back into the world of sushi.

Tesco's large sushi pack is now standard fare for lunch, £2.99 buying the following:

• Four Nigiri rice blocks with toppings of smoked salmon, Japanese style omelette with seaweed and cooked prawn
• Two Californian rolls folled with tuna mayonnaise, red pepper and lettuce, coated with roasted sesame seeds
• Three Hosomaki filled with cucumber and wasabi and smoked salmon fillings
• A bottle of soy sauce
• A sachet of pickled ginger
• A sachet of wasabi
• A pair of chopsticks

It provides me with 18% of my recommended calorie intake, 23% of sugar, 8% of fat, 5% of saturates and 44% of salt. And it's lovely.

Here's the proof.

On 11 July, I sent an email to Lambeth Council confirming the date on which we moved into our London property, as the Council Tax bill we'd received had started too soon. The email contained an email conversation with our letting agents confirming the previous tenancy end date. In my covering email, I requested a receipt confirmation before the end of that day. I didn't get one.

I called Lambeth Council Tax centre on 18 July to confirm that they had received the email, and that they were re-issuing my bill. Despite not getting a bounceback email (and double-checking the email address over the phone), they claimed non-receipt of the email sent seven days prior. I re-sent that same day. Again, my request for a receipt confirmation fell upon deaf ears.

I called again today and they confirmed that they have received it. Now here's the beautiful part. They told me that it takes ten working days for the email to be scanned and put on to the system. You may need to re-read that sentence to appreciate it fully.

Given that virus scanning is a quasi-instantaneous process, I can only imagine that scanning here means the process of converting the email to an electronic medium.

I'll call back early August, when hopefully they'll have a hard copy in front of them to refer to.

I genuinely don't understand TV weather maps anymore. It was simple when there were icons over each area of the two-dimensional country: full suns, suns with white cloud, white or black cloud, one or two drops of rain (depending on the strength) or snowflakes. Where the icons weren't sufficient, words would appear ('fog', 'mist' etc.) across swathes of the country. Little black arrows with numbers would indicate wind speed, while circles would contain Celsius temperatures.

Nowadays, the UK map is three-dimensional, with shadows, animated weather conditions and general confusion. Shadow could mean cloud or areas of lower temperature: I'm not quite sure.

It may look impressive, but I have little idea of what weather to expect in the morning. Bring back Michael Fish and magnetic icons.

A programme was advertised on Bravo today with the following introduction:

Next, meet a man who downs pints, shots and alcopops like a crazy fool.

Not sure what the programme was, but it's somewhat indicative of the state of British TV.

Meanwhile, while Tiger was busy winning the Open this afternoon, a close-up of his wife Elin, Peter Allis gave the following commentary:

There's Mrs. Woods. In for a treat tonight, I bet.

There's always that dichotomy as to whether to stand up on the Tube when someone that might be pregnant boards. The days of standing up for women in general seem to be over.

A lady boarded my carriage of the northbound Victoria line train at Vauxhall the other day. Including this lady, there were three people standing in the carriage (all women) and all seats were taken; and I would have put the chances of this particular lady being pregnant at 70%, perhaps 75%.

Above 50%, so I felt obliged to relinquish my seat; not nearly close enough to 100% for me to proffer it to her. So I took the only option I felt viable: I stood up without offering it to anyone in particular. Unfortunately, the seat remained unclaimed by any of the three women, and I stood for the remaining three stops to Green Park.

I quite enjoyed this article highlighted by my friend Gilbert. It's by ESPN's Bill Simmons, and talks through the seemingly logical, yet also illogical process that an American goes through to select an EPL team to support. Not sure if the EPL acronym (English Premier League) has made it over to the UK, but the Americans obviously needed a TLA to go alongside those of their other sports: MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL.

The whittling down to the chosen team is somewhat bizarre, as are some of the 'facts' throughout the article, but still it makes for enjoyable reading. Dubious facts include Theo Walcott being dubbed the 'LeBron of the EPL'; but my favourite was Liverpool being 'an English city that everyone compares to Boston' (maybe among people who haven't been to Boston; or Liverpool) and with a 'rivalry with London that mirrors Boston/New York'. Hm. And comparing Mourinho to Bill Belichick is somewhat off-mark.

Bill's (Simmons, no Belichick) glorified view of Liverpool is at odds with that of his compatriot Washington Times reporter. In his short article about Liverpool written while covering the Open, there's a likely more accurate view of the city (and the Adelphi hotel), culminating in this gem: 'a stunningly dirty port town that should be renamed Cesspool'. Among other things, I remember Boston for its incredible cleanliness.

www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com

The sun (as opposed to the Sun) is celebrating my birthday in true style today, giving us what is expected to be the hottest day in London's history. Watch this space.

Caption to a photo of Paris and Nicky Hilton in yesterday's Evening Standard:

Paris Hilton with dog and sister Nicky.

Harsh?

Ticketing on trains is ridiculous at the moment, as exemplified by the following announcement that the guard gave before my London to Birmingham train departed yesterday:

Saver tickets are not valid on this train unless you have supporting documents, unless you're travelling beyond Shrewsbury.

Which tickets are valid on which trains on which routes is a horrible mess, confounded by the fact that different networks can service the same route.

It needs to be cleared up so that the customer can easily understand what they're buying and what limitations that comes with.

As an aside, there was an amusing poster in the Virgin toilets carrying the title: Number Ones. At first I thought it was a notice about bathroom etiquette, but it was actually an advert for Virgin's at-seat music service: "Listen to all your favourite hits at your seat".

Google Sitemaps tells me that my site comes top on a google.com search for chimpancy. And it's true. Awesome!

Below are some other highlights:

• 4th: my own name (I make it third)
• 4th: martin's having a wank in the cupboard
• 5th: dan dan the mattess man
• 6th: karl pilkington diary
• 8th: evacipate
• 9th: jimmie krankie
• 54th: alan shearer singing
• 57th: rosanna scotto picture

I have an unusually high penchant for fruit at the moment. It has replaced the New York muffin as breakfast of choice.

Top five fruit, according to my palate:

• Pineapple
• Banana
• Melon (canteloupe, not galia)
• Strawberry
• Pear

Not sure if it's exactly in order, but the top three are safe.

As an aside, most irritating moment in sport: Michael Schumacher conducting the crowd to the Italian national anthem after winning a Grand Prix. See today's London copy of Metro for an irritating still. Come on Fernando!

I just called John Lewis. After being put on hold, an automated voice said "Thank you for choosing to hold for an assistant".

I wasn't aware I'd chosen to do so.

Summer is a nightmare. Extra stuff for the pockets (sunglasses) and less pockets in which to put said items.

Due to the sultry weather of late, I've decided to leave my coat, jacket etc. at home, leaving only my trouser pockets for storage, with the possible use of the shirt breast pocket. This limited set of pockets is being asked to accommodate the following items:

• iPod
• Wallet (which is slowly reaching the proportions of George's wallet in Seinfeld)
• Keys
• Loose change
• Sunglasses
• Phone (T-Mobile's MDA which is way too bulky for my liking)

The European carry-all needs to become socially acceptable among the male population so that I don't need to start wearing pocket-laden combats for work.

The Boots Meal Deal (BMD) has suffered some significant price rises since I left he UK in 2004. If memory serves me, the BMD cost £2.85 in 2004; it now retails at £3.30, an annual increase of 7.6%. However, it's not all bad.

The range has increased significantly, and throughout July, there's a buy four, get one free offer on the table, bringing the average price down to £2.64. Factor in 13 points on your Boots card when you buy, this brings the price down to £2.51. Couple this with the 50p off your next BMD sticker adorning the front of today's sandwich (roast chicken and stuffing), then you're truly in the world of the crazy. Over £5 of value for a mere snip!

Today's Shapers Blueberry and blackcurrant smoothie will taste all the better.

I don't think the jury ever deliberated on whether or not Mark Lawrenson was indeed a cock. Some comments tonight certainly justify this stance, while one comment, about Barthez, was quite amusing. Some excerpts from the first 90 minutes of the BBC's World Cup final commentary.

Motson: it's sweltering in here
Cameraman zooms to semi-attractive French girl in the crowd
Lawrenson: it's getting hotter

Lawrenson: Totti's optimistic looking to score from a 40-yard free kick; even against Barthez

Lawrenson (to Motson): this match is just like your living room: nothing in it.

A link on the Acrobat Professional page of the Adobe website, quoted verbatim:

Creating Accessible PDF documents with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 (PDF: 10M)

I suppose the document wasn't available for them to read at the time of publishing.

I received the pop-up below this morning, on logging into Yahoo! Messenger. Not sure whether or not to upgrade. Thoughts?

I miss paying $0.60 for a small coffee from the cart on the north-west corner of 33rd Street and 7th Ave.

Here in London, it's nigh-on impossible to get a coffee for under £2.00, as they insist on putting a freshly-made espresso shot in every cup, the customer (me) paying for the privilege. The fact that the carts in New York serve so much coffee means that the filter coffee that they produce can be nothing other than fresh.

The wide abundance of good, cheap, convenient coffee in New York is something that I miss hugely.

There's a notice up in the corridor at work:

Summer 2006
Playscheme
For Children of Staff
Aged 5-12 Years

The staff or the children?

I popped into my local, London branch of HSBC yesterday to withdraw some money from my HSBC dollar account - more money than the cashpoint was willing to give me, but not a crazy amount, and an amount that my balance could certainly afford.

The transaction that the teller attempted was declined, and they could not give me a reason why. I asked them to speak to their colleagues in the States to get to the bottom of the problem, but that wasn't in their remit. Instead, I was directed to speak to the HSBC US silo to identify what the problem might be.

I kindly referred the teller to the marketing material that we were surrounded by, which suggested that they were the world's local bank. In essence, they were living up to their promise. A world full of local branches that can't deal with things wider than their own remit. HSBC UK doesn't do HSBC US, in the Trevor and Simon sense of the word.

In the end, I withdrew as much as the cashpoint would allow, and repeated the process the following day to get around their disappointingly insular ways. A very disappointing customer experience.