Godspeed

I am watching the greatest car show around, Top Gear. It is to cars what The Footy Show was (5 years ago ... I quite hate it now) to football.

The UK Minister of Road Safety in one of the guests tonight and is the guy in the UK responsible for speed cameras on the roads. I want to quote him (if roughly):

"We paint them yellow, we put big signs up ... we even put their locations up on the web. If you get caught speeding, whose fault is it". He also admitted that he turned down a chance to purchase another 400 speed cameras because drivers just do not have faith in them.

What fools are Melbournians: stealth speed cameras and a 3 km/h tolerances. And the congestion charge is to come ...

Shiver me timbers

I don't know if you can make it out in this photo, but that is frost on them there cars. Frost means cold. And I can confirm that is indeed cold. Very cold.

Winter is fast approaching and this is our first winter in the UK. They are forecasting snow in London before Xmas this year, which I am told is quite a rare event - you know, with global warming and all.

So it probably doesn't make sense to say that this is a baptism of fire, now does it? 

Big pond. Small fish.

So I ran through some stats about how many people hit this blog. On average, it has take about 20 hit per week since it started.

But blogging is a big deal. And how big do the big blogs get?

According to the pulse on the web, Technorati, the most popular site blog on the web is Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things. Almost 18,000 sites link to this page a total of 68,000 times. According to one Technorati-based calculation, this means that Boing Boing is worth $10,139,702.94 (USD, I imagine).

So what is Paul and Mel's UK worth according to the same test? $0. How many links are there to Paul and Mel's UK? Zero.

If this were a pissing contest I would not sleep well tonight.

Project: Centurion

You may or may not know it, but I keep stats about this blog. This page has been hit a total of about 500 times. And you would be surprised how many of these come from 'new visitors': those who have never seen the site before.

Up until recently, Paul and Mel's UK was hit, one average, about 3-5 times per day. That sound about right to me. Then - on a whim - I entered this blog into an Australian competition. Since then, the site is often around the 20-25 hits per day. This got me thinking. If I applied myself, how many people would come and view the site on a daily basis.Well, viewers, I have a target: 100 hits per day by Xmas day 2005 - one month now.

Now ... please don't inflate the figures by refreshing your page repeatedly. Besides ... I will now if I have been successful by checking where the hits come from. I would expect a diverse, world-wide response. And my reports cover that.

It is late on a Friday night now. I have just watched The West Wing and am in the middle of a recorded episode of House. After that, it is time for the bed bugs to bite. But by Sunday I will have a plan of attack. And by Xmas day, I will tell you if my plan worked.

To eat your cake and have it too

You know I have a thing for words. Right pedant, I am. So the photo on the left is one I have had in mind for some time.

It is a photo of each of the 14 signs at a particular tube station in London. I did not miss any. Picasa added a couple of photos to make an even block of sixteen, but my point should still come across.

None of these shots are edited.

Can you see why this particular station is a source for frustration? It is not as obvious as it first appears. There is one very obvious reason. Then ... well ... look a little deeper. Click on the picture to get a expanded view. Let me know when you think you have found it. 

Winter Wonderland

London really does come alive in a whole different way as soon as the temperature drops. This week was the first week that I really felt the cold. I only came here with summer clothing so in the past five days I have purchased the following items:

• 5 pashminas (one hot pink, one black, one red, one cream and one light blue one)

• 1 cream coat (see pic)

• 1 pair black furry suede boots (see photo again - so comfortable and oh-so warm!)

• 1 black polo neck jumper

• 1 black & white stripped jumper

• 1 pair black long shorts
  

I'm feeling a little more equipped for the cold now. Still have to buy some thermals and maybe a hat or two ... but otherwise, I'm okay.

Anyway, this blog isn't really about my fashion purchases.

This blog entry is about how beautiful London looks when it's cold. As per Paul's last entry, we went to the Tower of London on Saturday and in this weather, everything looks just stunning. The colours seem brighter and the air is so much fresher and crisper. And as soon as dusk hits and the lights come on ... everything comes alive. In the collage above I tried to capture the cold. One shot is of our roof in the morning with ice on it and the sun beaming through the mist. I thought this shot was particularly stunning. There's me in my cute new clothes and there's a pretty cool one of Paul too.

Lots more photos to come soon as we're just getting into the swing of taking photos, so stay tuned.

I love it when a plan comes together

When I was here on my last stint. I used to work around Tower Hill - the very east end of the city. I used to walk past the Tower of London twice a day. At night, during winter, it was particularly appealing. The mist ... the lighting against the dark and the mist. The Tower of London and Tower Bridge were my two favourite London sites.

The weekend just past, Mel and I went. I have always wanted to go inside and have a look around. Will most likely post some more photos of us having a look around the tower. But for now, I will leave you with this shot - which I think is a pearler. In the way home after a stroll around St Katherine's Dock, we took a few photos of the ice skating rink set up in front of the Tower of London. We had seen it earlier in the day, but it took on a new life at night. Our photos revealed some great colours. But my favourite was this black and white image. The longer exposure produced the blurred images which give a sense of movement to this photo that I really like.

I hope you do to.

Monosyllabic

On the bus in the city today. There is a woman on a phone - speaking very correct English - who is telling the person at the other end about a group of people she was forces to hang out with, including some (allegedly archetypal) ... and I quote ... 'Single sylabelled Australian men'.

I look at her. And I look at her again. I have the words in the mouth.

'Monosyllabic is the term I would use'

I bit my tongue and as luck would have it had reached my stop. I got off the bus.

It's Another Pale Ale Sunrise

Really struggled to get up for gym today.By 6am I realised it was probably too late for me to do anything about it.

Two culprits at play here. One, I have been out of the gym cycle for a while, so I am finding the early mornings a bit tough. Two, winter is about here and it is cold in the morning.

So along the line of the latter ill, I bolt downstairs this morning to quickly put on the heating. On the way back up stairs to have a shower, I saw this out of one of the upstairs windows.

Have you seen the movie Bedazzled? I am reminded of a scene where the protagonist hope to be a sensitive, sensitive man in order to woo (spelling?) the woman of his dreams. He is so sensitive that he cries at ever sunrise.

Don't even think about it.

Court in the Act

All too often, Mel is up for an excursion, while I am less inclined to escape the confines of the city.

On this particular occasion, Mel was taken to Hampton Court by Man of Mystery, G-Roov, aka MS. She came back raving, which could prove problematic for me as it raises the bar.

She tells me, as I type this, that it was in fact a prior excursion to Bath that raised the bar. Wouldn't you know it: another G-Roov excursion (hello, M :-))

Mel wants me to come along to the next planned occasion, which is a tour of the sewer system of London.

As you can probably gather, there are two chances of me attending. And one of them is buckley's.

Oh what slackers we are

I'm very very sorry for being so slack. No excuses really ... just sheer slackness. Not too much has gone on since my last entry but I will give you a rundown regardless:

I finished work on 4 November (last Friday). Travelling four hours a day was getting way way too much and impinging on my lifestyle more than I wanted it to. So I'm now unemployed (quietly loving it) but also job hunting. Lots of prospects in the pipeline so I will keep all informed as I go.

Paul and I went to Thorpe Park the other weekend (London's equivalent of Dreamworld). Loads of fun was had and we even have the picture to prove it, you know, one of those cheesy ones that they take whilst you're spinning upside down). We went on all of the rollercoasters and had a ball. I didn't realise it was Paul's first time going upside down on a rollercoaster ... apparently the scariest he's ever experienced is the Mad Mouse and Luna Park in Melbourne. He was very brave though and enjoyed all of them just as much as me and is now even talking about Euro-Disney! Excellent! Bring it on! Although, there was one rollercoast that went backwards in the dark which made me feel very ill indeed. The three donuts that I ate straight afterwards certainly didn't help.

I'm still doing my harmonising course which I am really enjoying. Only five weeks left and in the last week we do a blind tasting. I'm getting better at identifying smells and flavours (as opposed to thinking that everything tasted and smelt like grapes). I am now picking out odd things like sulphur, burnt wood and flint. Yes, you'll be surprised what smells and flavours actually go into wine. This week we are doing Chardonnay ... not my favourite but hey ... who am I to complain.

Paul and I went to the Museum of Natural History the other weekend. A little ho-hum with the exception of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition - click here - which was absolutely mesmerising. Miss Kate ... I actually thought of you quite a lot whilst checking out the exhibit as I know it is right up your alley.

We are researching our trip home next year. It should be around Feb/March sometime ... so stay tuned. Oh ... that's if I get a job. I won't be going anywhere if I'm still unemployed. Highly unlikely though. I'm more worried about getting a job too quickly and then missing out on that perfect role that is just around the corner.

As some of you know, I am selling my beloved Vespa. So if you know anyone who may be interested please email me and I'll give you more details.

England celebrates Guy Fawkes night BIG TIME! For the past two weeks there have been fireworks going off everywhere! Every window that we look out we see fireworks going off. Initially ... really really cool. Now ... slightly annoying. Especially at 11pm when you're trying to sleep.


No other news for now. Apologies that this entry is a little bland but I figured I had to give you guys SOMETHING! Must be off. There's cooking shows a-plenty on these FREEVIEW channels and I'm loving it!