It's TIME

Yes, once TIME Magazine declares on its front cover that YOU are TIME's person of the year 2006 then you know the time has come. Web 2.0 is catching on. Big Time.

In a Far Away place, it's a different pace in a distant space... Jerusalem December 2006 Dean Whitbread.

Podcast or Art?

Is this a podcast or a piece of art? Thanks Count Crookula for the experience...

Cell Come Journey
Uploaded by countcrookula

Christmas Party Conundrums

Why can't I ever get it right? Party One last week I wore a little (old) black number and new high heels. I really don't know why because I hate dresses and high heels. Friends wore sensible trousers and low shoes. Ended up freezing, uncomfortable and dancing barefoot. On to Party Two. Wore sensible trousers and low heels. Everyone wearing black leggin(g)s and Seventies Clash Coloured Tops. Mmmm... Had got all that in warderobe but never had guts to wear yet (ever since Ms Sunday Times declared that if you'd 'been there first time around don't go there the second' - well more of her another time...) Party Three I should have known better. 'James Bond' theme = long satin flowing shimmering and svelt doesn't it? Yes, I knew it - but was I REALLY going to spend £150 on something I hated just to 'fit in'? Answer of course : No. Serves me right. My trousers and boots (admittedly high-heeled) were at least warm - though dancing on the balls of your feet for 4 hours solidly is just crazy if you ask me. But of course, the rest of the female tribe seemed quite happy to suffer in silence - or may be it was the alcohol which numbs the pain. Mmmm - now there's a thought. UK's Lasses love the alcohol - perhaps here is the reason why.... Realised however that if i took off my boots to get into some serious dancing amongst all those stiletoed, gold plated straps and nail varnished feet then my green thick socks just weren't going to inspire.... So woke up this morning with cramp in my foot. I wonder why....

End of a Year - Beginning of an Era

Well, it appears I have made it in one piece to the end of yet another year. If asked this time last year what I'd like to be doing now I could have told you. But I would have been talking idea, dream-surreality. But just occasionally in life, if you are persistant, and with sometimes excessively large dollops of help from people on your side, what start off as ideas can fall from the ether and land firmly in your lap. You just have to grab them, believe they are real, and don't let them go.

London's Old & New - Greenwich

My favourite London haunt.

Streets & cobbled walkways jumbled with old and new - Henry VIII's palace overlooking modern Docklands across the Thames...
London Underground's old power generator next to Seamen's Hospital of centuries ago (left), Henry VIII's deers (or off spring of offspring) in the Park, Nelson's uniform, the Market, First Tea Clipper, Greenwich Meridian Line, and the highest concentration of pubs in London...

I could go on - but easiest just to go and see for yourself!

Radio 5 Live - (or dead) at 02.00hours

Well I don't remember much about doing this - it was 02.00hours so brain was not there... was it a dream? Reality hit the next day however on listening back - mmmm..... Oh well, dreams sometimes unfortunately do turn into reality.... The best bit was being interviewed in bed in jimjams on the telephone (Skype not behaving London to London) by Rhod at the BBC and Chris Vallance in Canada (via Skype behaving Canada to London).... most bizarre... no wonder it seemed surreal...

A Quick World In Your Ear

Aaaaah... Sweet England!!

The Sweeps Festival - How Dickensian can you become...

As a true gesture to us Brits living in the past we had great fun at the 'Sweeps Festival' this May Bank Holiday.... whether you view Rochester as 'the town in which Dickens is claimed to write Oliver Twist' a few hundred years ago - or whether you remember it as 'just another Medway town' of the 20th Century - the good folks of Rochester have played a great spin and used the old to bring joy to the new.... any excuse to let that true British character shine through : a good pint, a good laugh and hidden well behind the masks a good excuse to forget who you are and be someone else for the weekend... Well played to you all - must remember my recorder next time!













And for those into history :
The Chimney Sweeps Procession did exist and was held traditionally on 1st May in Rochester - but in 1868 the Climbing Boys' Act made it illegal to employ young boys to climb the chimneys so the procession began to die out - the last one being in the early 1900s. It was revived in 1981 to become what you see today.....