Finished this book off last week, but only now have got around to writing this review.
The book was picked up at the Lincoln Book Festival, when John Harvey and Mark Billingham did a crime novel talk. I’ve not read any Johns books before and he’s written quite a few, so wasn’t too sure of what to expect. I also don’t know what I’ve missed out on from not reading the previous novel.
However I was surprised to realise how much of the description of Nottingham I was able to recognise. I’ve been several times for various different reasons (although mainly drinking) yet I could picture most of the book. The plot is good and leaves you guessing , and when I finally started reading it I almost lost a Sunday. 7/10
Spam or mistaken identity?
Just got this addressed to my Gmail account
Subject: you
is there something you need? apparently you keep going through carol and my dad to get a point across. let me tell you something-I think we are a little to old to be running to someones daddy and telling on them when you have a problem. if you need something and you cant get a hold of tristan talk to me. you have my email address and i know you could have contacted me. but lets be mature about this. honestly, i dont even know whats going on and tristan isnt here but im sure it can be handled maturely and civilly. Tristan’s cell phone doesnt work half the time and that could be why your having problems getting in touch with him. Im gonna end this with a little word of encouragement-not all of us run to mommy and daddy every time we have a boo boo. maybe you should learn to do the same.allyson
Should I reply..?
Breakfast Vidcast
I decided after seeing the advert for the Breakfast Takeaway Vidcast to give it a go on my P990i. I was expecting the quality to be pretty poor, and wasn’t expecting many stories. However it’s 10 minutes of the mornings news in quality which is better than that off an analogue TV.
If you are one of these people who rushes out of the house without getting to catch the news, but then have a 10min+ train/bus/tube journey, give it a try.
The only shame was that it didn’t have the Borat story, where Sacha Baron Cohen kept calling the short BBC interviewer as small girl.
Firefox 2.0 – where?
So there was a lot of fuss yesterday about how Firefox 2.0 was to be launched today. Then today more fuss about how Firefox 2.0 had been launched today. Yet when I go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ it still shows only 1.5 available to download. It’s now 10pm (BST) so nearly Wednesday, so why can’t I download it?
ps. I don’t do RC’s after trying (for about 5 seconds) IE Beta 7, so don’t point me in that direction.
Semi-edit: whilst looking at the BBC website they say that it’s released at 1700 PST, which would be 1am here, so I’m off to bed.
Google Co-op LibDemBlog Search
Whilst surfing about on the net I came across this on the BBC website “Google offers personal searches“. Now Google had told me in the monthly newsletter about Co-op and as I’ve signed up to almost everything Google have to offer I though I would give this a try.
What I’ve been able to do is put all the URLs of the blogs which appear on LibDemBlogs into a Co-op, which then lets me and you search this subset of Google search results. I have previously built my own search engine using the Google Search API, but this only allowed me to search the contents of one site. So for now anyway I’ve changed the search box on LibDemBlogs to use the Co-op version instead.
24 Trailer
The season 6 trailer went live at 8pm (BST). Ooh can’t wait, only some two months to go before Fox start showing it again.
Well done Lincoln
Yesterday Lincoln thrashed Rochdale 7-1. I was thinking about going to the game as I had nothing else to do and the ground is only 2 minutes down the road, but not knowing anyone to go with sort of stopped that. So I missed out on an 8 goal game with Jamie Forrester scoring his third hat-trick of the season and it looks like that finally Lincoln might be able to get themselves out of League 2.
Young binge drinkers
As the government launches it’s new TV adverts, the press are quoting these figures
Latest government figures show that young people are more likely than any other age group to drink heavily [binge drink]. Among 16- to 24-year-olds in England, 33% of men drank more than eight units on at least one day a week and 24% of women drank more than six units on at least one day.
Source: Guardian
Now I can’t believe these figures. Are they really saying that two-thirds of young men don’t drink 3-4 pints in a night at least once a week? I had a look at a bottle of Bombardier this morning and it contains 3 units of alcohol. Which means as I’m just finishing off the third bottle I become a binge drinker.
Only recently was I asked how much I had drunk. It was two pints (4.544 units) and three large Baileys (3.57 units), therefore making it a binge. However I had started at 6pm having a pint with my dinner and was asked at 2am in the morning.
I think the definition is just too low, I always believed that someone who binged was drinking nearer 6 pints in a night if not 8. Maybe someone from the health profession can correct me.
Cameron spoof taken off website
The BBC are reporting that Cameron spoof taken off website, however on the same page is a link to their media player which still shows the clip.
16:01 Edit: Link now gone
16:07 Edit: Try this? (Can’t confirm if it’ll work as the firewall at work won’t let me try).
16:21 Edit: Does work for the time being with Window Media Player selected as your prefered player.
The Manuscript
Having purchased this book by it’s cover some time ago, I’ve finally got around to reading and finishing The Manuscript and whilst it had some geeky Usenet and Grepping, it let me down on the blackberries (as featured on the cover) and a plot line that was just too unbelievable. I couldn’t workout where in the 2000’s the events were taking place as I’m sure they were mixing technologies. The story had too many organisations, too many escaping shootouts and not enough geek. 6/10