And so to the Autumn festival...

This morning I attended my kids' Harvest festival, except no I didn't - I attended their Autumn Festival. I'm not sure this is a politically correct name-change - just more perhaps a reflection that in these days of supermarket strawberries from Zimbabwe the idea of a seasonal harvest is slightly obsolete.

I wonder whether this is how the old Pagan festivals morphed out of existence. For years our forebears would turn up for a good old Yule knees up, then it was just a mid-winter hoe-down, and before the olde englanders knew it the Christians had nipped in and we had the twelve days of christmas.

Anyway it was an enjoyable, if random celebration, which was heart-warming to see - although I'm not sure if the pensioners who sat in the reserved seats in the front two rows really understood the relevance of the three High School musical tunes tacked on the end, and belted out with gusto by years 3-6.

Still they went home with a box of very assorted groceries to help them out so I'm sure they were happy. If they liked soup and beans that is.

Near death firework experience...

So the moral of the weekend is - don't put two rockets into one launching tube.

Obvious to many, but apparently not to my brother-in-law who tried aforementioned trick on saturday night.

As the first rocket sailed into the sky it blew the other back down just enough to prevent it gaining altitude. The second rocket flew through the air in a gentle arc of 15 feet or so before landing at the feet of the massed ranks of parents and toddlers standing on the patio. It then exploded with one piece bouncing off my brother-in-laws forehead, our poor mate Phil's eyebrow, into the kitchen and onto an interior glass door before bouncing out onto the patio again, where it came to rest under my father-in-law's chair. The other piece went past my left ear before exploding a yard away.

I couldn't hear for about 30 seconds in one ear, Phil now has a burnt eye-brow, and brother in law one (innocent party) then nearly kicked seven bells out of brother-in-law 2 (dud rocket launcher).

Nice.

Order was soon restored however, and we all lived to tell the tale. Kids now have a healthy respect for fireworks to the extent that my youngest is now nearly too scared to hold a sparkler.

This may be a positive to take from this. Sort of. Maybe not.

Alternative Cadbury's gorilla ad...

Endearingly silly remix. Made me smile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUnIvwyrfLg

This all raises the question of whether it'll be ok to like Phil Collins again soon.

Near HD on Youtube

Here's a neat hack for the nerdy to bypass Youtube's standard low quality video playback standards.

Examples:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVkD2k4byM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34tQi8HIpsA

How to do it:-
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic336882.html

Cool, let's all double Youtube's bandwidth bill...

:-)

Some things end

So after not blogging for a while I decided it was time to dust off the keyboard and get back to work.

The reason for the long break? At the start of the summer I went from being the second oldest man in the company to being the oldest ex-employee. Working for VCs can be tough...

Still it was good fun working for Blinkbox and we parted on amicable terms (or at least I think we did!). Sometimes you learn the most from the things that didn't go quite right, and I definitely learnt a ton while working there. So good luck to them. No, really!

Anyway back at work now after a summer of reflection and relaxation, and on to new challenges. New job is also in a great location near Victoria, which is I'm starting to find out fantastically close to some of London's most beautiful locations for eating lunch-time sandwiches.

Chicken and avocado on a bench in the autumn sun in St. James Park takes some beating. Bliss.

Sweating on the tube? TFL has worked it out...

It seems like the age old issue of how to cool the tube has finally been solved. A while back a mysterious empty cage appeared at Seven Sister's station on the Victoria line where I often change trains on the way home. A typed sign on the side informed commuters that it would be part of "TFL's ongoing commitment to cooling the tube".

Much debate at work - would this be connected to the much vaunted "ice under seats" innovation trailed across the papers a few weeks ago?

Now, the secret is revealed - the answer to the problem is a BIG FAN.

Genius.

Bicycle repairman

A weekend of fixing children's bicycles - largely unsuccessfully.