I’ve even created a Facebook group to that effect which you can join if you think that I’m not totally talking out of my hat. http://www.facebook.com/groups/188805587884093/

Photo by National Media Museum on Flickr under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0.

• Setting up my photography business and actually starting to work photographing weddings!
• Attending “The Workshop” run by the awsomely-awesome Jasmine Star
• Having a great week in Cumbria, despite the rain
• Attending my first ever Grand Prix at Silverstone
• A full season of doing the Ubuntu Podcast live: the most fun season yet
• Flying to New York for Zoe and Stuart’s wedding and had a great time
• Meeting Colin Baker, John Leeson and David Gooderson
• The loss of both Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen
• OggCamp 11: the biggest and best yet
• Attending Home Camp 4. Mmm, vietnamese food!
• Helen and Jeff’s 1920s themed wedding
• Seeing Chris in his first stage appearance in a long time
• Recording a LugRadio reunion
• The Box
• Doing very well at Puretech Racing
• Seeing Richard Herring live twice
• Visiting the Doctor Who Experience
• Completing a weekend of fun and adventure with Graham Binns to make some great images
• Getting Ubuntu membership
• Losing a couple of stone (and so far have kept it off!)
• Doing fun things with Neil and Amy: A canal boat trip, a murder mystery, a tour of Christmas lights
• Visiting and playing host to more family and friends than last year!

I’m pretty pleased with that. Getting my business up and running has taken a lot of time and meant not seeing as much of some friends as I’d have liked. I’ll work to redress that. I think 2012 will be even more eventful though. Especially as I start a new job in January…

Richard Herring

On Monday, Laura and I attended the recording of the last ever episode of “As It Occurs To Me.” Released as an unedited weekly podcast for a few weeks a year, Richard Herring writes and performs the show based on events or thoughts which have presented themselves to him during the preceding seven days. At least, that’s the theory. The strain of writing an hour of original material every week has been massive and, as more lucrative and less stressful work has been coming along, Richard has decided to end the show. Over past three years I’ve become very fond of it, both because of the original concept and the multi-week in-jokes which became its distinguishing feature. It’s not a family-friendly show (the story behind the photograph above is typically disgusting) and not really accessible to new listeners (the story behind the photograph above has its genesis in the very first episodes.) But I feel much the same way about the passing of this show as I do about LugRadio, a sense of loss but happiness that I was a part of it in some small way. So thanks to Richard, TV’s Emma Kennedy, Dan Tetsell and Christian Reilly for all the memories.

I’ve prepared a slideshow of some photographs I took during the recording.

The perfect way to start my training for this event is obviously to spend the weekend in Dublin for OSSBarCamp, so please come and say hello if you’re going.

I’ve just watched “The President’s Guide to Science”, part of the Horizon series on BBC 2. It was narrated by Helen McRory who, it seems, is unable to pronounce the word “nuclear” correctly, pronouncing it instead “nucular.” This is unfortunate as the first twenty and last ten minutes of the program were largely about nuclear technologies as weapons and a power source.

Please ensure in future that narrators can actually pronounce all the words in the script correctly before employing them. If they are unable to pronounce a particular word, don’t employ them to narrate a documenatary which features repeated use of that word.

Thanks,

Tony

The site is now hosted in the US of A, so it may not be quite a zippy for those of us in the UK, but needs must. Basically my hosting provider stopped trading. Not without notice, it has to be said, but rather sooner than had been anticipated. This website was just about the last thing left on the old server when it got switched off. The only significant change is that my code repository now has its own subdomain as it’s hosted on a different box from the rest of my website: http://darcs.tonywhitmore.co.uk

I should also take this opportunity to randomly mention Harley Davidson Tours UK and Europe.

I knew exactly what to expect: Nothing I could ever predict. I was sure Amy would manage to find something totally random and yet reflective of her personality. I had been led astray somewhat by Neil, who suggested that I may need batteries, an aerial or an arc-welding kit to make use of the mystery prize. It was with a deal of trepidation that I opened the fairly innocuous package which arrived last week. Here’s what was inside:

A truly unique prize, I’m sure you’ll agree. As Dervla Kerwan might be paid to say, “This is not just an apron. This is a pink polka-dot apron with ‘A Little Bit Different Dot Com’ badge, lovingly wrapped in a luxury gold ribbon, topped by a certificate of congratulations.” The latter is presumably to prove the provenance of the former to any Lovejoy who might make my heirs an offer on such a prestigious item in generations to come. Here’s a closer look at the badge on the pink polka-dot apron:

She has managed to bring a bit of the madness of her life into mine. Thank you Amy, I feel special! If you and Neil come for dinner you’ll even get to see me wear it.

If you can direct me to a legitimate recording under a friendly licence, please help!