Our most recent trip to Deauville …
Last night.
On the ferry from Portsmouth, I was thoroughly enjoying myself: the ‘Lady’, me, the Sunday Times, a Kir vin blanc – and a nice cabin [for later]. But then the drunk Brits arrived!
The ferry was very quiet – like the car deck was practically empty, and yet the drunk Brits still found time to come along on the same trip as us.
“Oi, Gar-con – three more double shots over ‘ere” etc etc. Swearing their heads off at the bar; how ashamed I felt.
At one point they went outside to play table tennis [in the dark]. “Do you know they charged me fuckin’ 20 quid for this! [waving a table tennis bat]”. A ‘chap’ who was stood nearby having a cigarette, and simply observing asked, “do you have a ball?” The answer was “of course I’ve got a fuckin’ ball you c**t!”
Oh, how I wish I was a black-belt in some martial art – that doesn’t require carrying around a big stick – although such an instrument would have come in rather handy; as I should have loved to knock each one of them overboard.
Today. A beautiful breakfast in the heart of Deauville, and a sun-kissed day to help the lot go down [and my indignation subside].
Quote of the day:
- Me: “Where’s the crossword babe?”
- H: “Next to the chair”
- Me: “Which chair?”
- H: “The chair I was sitting in while you were asleep”
- Me: “?”
Having previously been a signee to the petition to have Jeremy Clarkson made Prime Minister – along with 49,446 others – I was a bit disappointed in the Government’s response – which I’ve just been emailed. It promised much, or so I hoped ["maybe they'd done it" I thought!] – “The Prime Minister’s Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here”. ”
Well, on that page, there’s a further message – “We thought long and hard about the request to make Jeremy Clarkson the Prime Minister and in the end we put our thoughts down in a short film on YouTube. You can take a look here”. Well, what a funky government [not].
Well, if, as promised, they’ve embedded ‘their thoughts’, they’re pretty rubbish; which is quite normal for our government!
The video’s main piece is an image of JC’s framed picture – supposedly hung in number 10 alongside all our other Prime Ministers [which of course it wasn’t. A shame that; they’d have shown more wit if they’d actually hung it there].
The video ends with a ‘But maybe not’ remark – I don’t know why; I’m pretty damn certain that JC would do a better job than most!
I love Oxford [University], and, although I’ve published this more locally before, I thought I’d make it more public now. It’s probably of very little interest to non-Oxford people, but, you never know; it might give someone ‘out there’ a laugh [or provide vital information to a future Oxford applicant perhaps?]
Oxford University Terminology.
Let me know if you’ve got any questions!
It’s a bit ‘old hat’ nowadays, but, as I was perusing ThinkGeek the other night, and saw that this item was still a decent seller [indeed, top of the list in ‘watches’]; I thought I’d post a link to the BinaryWatch training program!
This is for this type of watch
Here’s a picture of the running training program.
Here’s the link to the program – zipped, and it should standalone [XP, Vista].
WhenI first looked at this article on the BBC’s website entitled BT injects life into its network, I was immediately struck by the picture.
It reminded me of this you see …
Even the arm placements are similar! Also, notice how, in the top picture, the engineer’s cocked right leg accentuates the illusion of his floating.
I’m sure that if I loaded up the movie, I could find a picture of ‘Dave’ where he’s looking more toward the camera!
Geeky eh!
A new series, Britain from Above starts on the BBC one this Sunday at 9.00pm.
In the main, GPS data is used to reveal traffic-information; on the sea [through the Dover straits], in the air, and even by London cab-drivers. The GPS data are overlaid, and visualised against a backdrop of the country. Additionally, there’s an interesting bit showing how the telephone system lights up during a working day.
A taster clip on the programme is here.
Going back to taxies, it reminded me of a piece of game-theory software I once wrote for a professor of economics here at Oxford. He had too many variables for which he/we needed to find some sensible constraints/limits for, or, better still, turn into constants! The game was about n cab-driver’s choice of strategies, as they drove around Belfast … such that they weren’t A) robbed [of their cash] B) robbed [of their cash *and* their taxi] C) shot, killed, i.e., robbed of their cash *and* their taxi *and* their life] You get the idea. The game-theory bit worked alongside a social sciences experiment examining moreorless the same thing [except that their experimenters had to be in Ireland].
Anyway, watching the clip, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that system, as it played itself on our cluster many 1000s of times a second, in either role; the cab-driver or the robber [and later the police], and in how it might suddenly switch into some very complex behaviour; perhaps as a result of a robbery, generated randomly by the system. Oh, fun times indeed!
