Nick Jordan

There’s something fascinating about time-lapse photography. This is just a simple video of me watching a bit of TV in the evening, but the accelerated time makes even this rather mundane activity take on a whole new life.

A quick poll.

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Jim Parsons, the Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper, plays a huge succession of different characters in this cancer charity video. Joyful, absolutely joyful.

A nice little article about tomorrow’s planned protest against companies like Boots selling this snake oil despite stating that they have no evidence that it works.

Homeopathy does not work beyond placebo, it is a menace to public health and a drain on the limited resource of the NHS. It is an 18th century quack medicine consisting of magical rituals practised by deluded, cargo-cult “doctors” that has no place in government thinking, and it should not be endorsed by the registered pharmacists who are at the frontline of public health in the UK.

Hear, hear!

If you haven’t yet come across Show of Hands, here’s a great place to start. I’ve liked this song for a while now, and every time I hear it I like it more. It’s a really good dig at the bankers and politicians who have got us into our current financial mess. Enjoy.

I was made redundant just before Christmas. It wasn’t unexpected; in fact I had a couple of weeks’ garden leave before the redundancy was confirmed. I decided to take a couple more weeks over over the holiday period to relax and contemplate my future, which I think was a good idea. As of yesterday I’m actively seeking employment as a Web Developer, working primarily with PHP and MySQL, so if you know of anything or would like a copy of my CV, please get in touch.

Update: I have now found a job, which I start on Monday 18th January. I’m very glad to have found something so quickly and I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas Day as I did. Good food, plenty of booze and great company – what more could you ask for? I also managed to get some lovely presents. Vally bought me something I’ve wanted for ages – an alarm clock from Voco, which features the voice of Stephen Fry and provides a lovely, gentle way to wake up in the morning. I tried it out today, of course. I have to play with my toys.

Today I may be having a wander around the shops before indulging in more nice food and drink. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.

I’ve been playing with the preview of Google Wave for a few days now and overall I’m quite impressed. It’s still a little rough around the edges but I think that by the time it’s launched in 2010 it’ll be much better. And as developers start to build extensions it’ll become even more useful. I’m already pretty happy to use it for collaborating with friends on small projects and as a replacement for email and IM as Google intend. The only downsides are that it clearly uses a lot of Javascript and users with older machines may not be entirely happy with its speed and that it’s a bit more complicated than regular email and instant messaging.

Incidentally, I have a number of invites to give away, so if I know you and you’d like one, drop me a line.

I have a Nokia 5800 mobile phone, which I really love. It’s easily the best mobile I’ve ever had. I’ve recently been playing with the podcast client, which is pretty good, and also the Last.fm client, Mobbler, which is great. But until Spotify release their client for my phone, something I’ve been awaiting eagerly, I wanted something that would allow me greater control over what I listen to. At this point, step forward MeCanto. Sign up, install the software on your computer and also the phone client and you’re away. Instantly, you can listen to all your music on the move, regardless of how large your collection is. The software uploads your collection (limited to a speed you can control) to the MeCanto servers, from where you can stream it to any computer with a browser or to your phone. And if it hasn’t been uploaded yet that’s OK as long as your computer at home is on, as it’ll grab whatever you want to listen to from there.

The service even preserves the file structure on your computer and allows you to connect multiple machines, so a whole family could share a collection with each other. I really am very impressed. It doesn’t quite do away with the need for an MP3 player, since the 3G/WiFi coverage required isn’t yet universal, but it comes very close indeed. Top marks.

Update: The Spotify client for Symbian phones is now available! Point your mobile’s browser at m.spotify.com to get it.

I’ve been showing this to friends for ages and thought it was about time I shared it with the rest of the world. Enjoy!

Last Sunday I went out for a pub lunch and made a great discovery – Crabbie’s Alcoholic Ginger Beer. It has just the right level of gingeriness to make it a real treat, and a nice kick thanks to the alcohol. A perfect drink for both Summer and Winter, I reckon. Not too far in flavour from Blandford Fly, another very gingery drink, but this time a real ale. If you like one you’ll almost certainly like the other. And the good news is that you can get it in supermarkets, so no hunting around for it.

This morning I had my first psychotherapy appointment, with a very nice lady called Barbara. I arrived at Thorpe Coombe hospital just a handful of minutes early and plonked myself in a chair in the waiting room. I didn’t have to wait very long. We basically had a chat, I told her some stuff about myself and she asked the occasional very open-ended question. She explained that I have to go at the same time every week for the next year, with breaks at Christmas, Easter and in August, and that some of the sessions may be fairly traumatic. Hopefully those particular occasions will be relatively rare as I don’t want to have to take more time off work than is absolutely necessary. Anyway, I left feeling pretty positive about the whole experience, and looking forward to sorting myself out a bit. If anything happens that’s worth mentioning I shall, of course, record it here.

Last Friday Vally and I met up after work and went to the Natural History Museum for a mooch around and a glass of wine, after which we found a restaurant and had a bite to eat.

On Saturday I bought a webcam (well, it was about time, really), did a bit of shopping and spent some time at Vally’s house. The evening was spent relaxing and being generally lazy.

On Sunday my old friend Ellison, who I hadn’t seen for seven or eight years, came down with her partner Patrick, who I liked very much, and we went out for a meal. We had intended to go to the Turkish restaurant on the High Street but it turned out, much to my embarrassment, to be closed. Fortunately Vally knew a good South Indian restaurant so we went there instead. As it turned out, it was more than good; the food really was superb. It takes a lot for me to have a starter, main course and dessert, but I just couldn’t resist. Especially since they had pistachio kulfi, one of my all-time favourites. And as for the pancakes we had to start, all I can say is, “wow!”

HMV are currently selling the box set of Ricky Gervais’ wonderful comedy, Extras, on DVD for £10 at the moment, so I had to pick up a copy over the weekend. I have to say, it was an absolute joy to see it again, and watching the episodes more-or-less back to back really added something. The whole story came together very nicely and, on second viewing, it was much easier to appreciate some of the finer moments. If you haven’t already got a copy, do it now. You won’t be disappointed.

This afternoon my friend Vally and I got on a bus to South Woodford (after quite a bit of waiting) and saw the new Ricky Gervais film, The Invention of Lying. The first half of the film was very entertaining, as it explored what it means to have a world in which nobody lies and everybody speaks their mind all the time, and what happens to that world when one person discovers they can lie. It falls apart a bit in the second half, though. The romance feels a bit forced and the pandering-to-Hollywood saccharin happy ending feels very contrived. On the whole, I’d say that it’s worth seeing if you fancy killing a couple of hours in a pleasant enough manner but it’s not worth going too far out of your way for.

I went to see my doctor this morning and I have some good news to report. She’s agreed that shortly I should start reducing the dosage of my medication with a view to getting off it completely, which obviously pleases me very much. I certainly feel a lot better than I did, and have real hope that the worst of my depression is firmly behind me. It’s going to be good to get back to normality and to be able to enjoy the odd drink again.

I’ve just got back from seeing District 9 and I’m very glad that I took the trouble to go out and see it. Even if science-fiction isn’t usually your cup of tea I’d still recommend it. Yes, it’s a none-too-subtle commentary on the way we treat immigrants and those we perceive as being different from ourselves and yes, it’s not saying anything new. But it’s clever, engaging and, to use the word so many others have applied to too many films, gritty. The pseudo documentary format of much of the film works well, the acting is good and the special effects are, as we’ve all come to expect these days, superb.

The only criticisms I could really level at it are that it’s quite predictable and that the ending is all-too-obviously leaving the way open for a sequel, presumably to be called ‘District 10′. That having been said, it’s well worth the money and the couple of hours of your time. You won’t be disappointed.

I’m really not a computer games fan. I’ve tried them and, for the most part, I really don’t get on with them. The only games I can consistently tolerate are first-person shooters, driving games and Scrabble (and Wordscraper) on Facebook. The games I really can’t stand are the ‘management’ type things. I’ve tried the Sims and I’ve recently been playing Farm Town on Facebook. The problem with these games, I think, is that they quickly become more like work than a means of relaxation. If I don’t tend my crops they’ll die. If I don’t constantly pander to my Sim he/she will be unhappy and I couldn’t have the misery of a computer-generated person on my conscience.

I know that many people love these things. They lovingly tend their Sim, farm, city, amusement park or whatever and seem to derive real pleasure from them. That’s great and I wouldn’t for one moment wish to deny them that. But for me there’s no enjoyment whatsoever in slaving away at an essentially meaningless  and never-ending task. So I’ll stick to blowing stuff up and being beaten at word games. Now if someone could combine Unreal Tournament with Scrabble…

I always thought that for most people a dual monitor set-up was complete overkill, totally unnecessary. However, the other day I hooked up my monitor to my laptop so I could watch a DVD on it while lying in bed and discovered that, actually, it’s really handy to have that extra space. It’s great when I’m watching a film and want to surf the web or chat via instant messenger, or if I just want a larger browser area than is available on my laptop’s screen. I’m completely hooked and I freely admit that I was wrong. It’s only been a few days and already I’d find it unpleasant to go back to my old setup.

‘Lying down’ NHS staff suspended. Is it me or does this seem to be an overreaction to a bit of harmless enjoyment. Somebody in management has clearly had a sense of humour failure. Besides, things like this are generally good for morale and, if there’s no danger to patients as a result, why shouldn’t staff let off a bit of steam and have a little fun?