Nick Jordan

Yesterday afternoon we spent a very enjoyable time in London’s Docklands. At least we did once we managed to actually get there. First there was trouble on the bus to Stratford when a group of people decided they didn’t want to pay. Eventually they got off and we were on our way again. On our arrival at Stratford we found that the DLR wasn’t running. There had been no notice of this; in fact, it wasn’t included in the station announcements along with the other lines that were closed. We found our way to the rail replacement bus, after a bit of grumbling, and soon we were on our way.

Once we arrived at Canary Wharf we located a handy pub where we had a drink while awaiting the rest of our party’s arrival. Having had a bit of a chinwag we spent a very enjoyable time in the Museum in Docklands, which currently has a very good Jack the Ripper exhibition on. Not so much about the murders as about the time in which they happened.

After that it was back to the pub for a meal before wandering over the road to the cinema to see Hellboy II, which was great fun. Not only does it look fantastic but there’s bags of humour. If you like that kind of special effects extravaganza, go and see it.

An uneventful couple of bus rides brought us home again at a not-too-unreasonable hour, but I’m still very glad it’s a bank holiday Monday today.

It’s all very well to be bashed repeatedly over the head by adverts about copyright infringement relating to music and movies, but it seems that the Prime Minister’s new website apparently does a fine job of ignoring copyright and, specifically, the Creative Commons license on the Wordpress theme it uses. Why am I not surprised that the government feels it can ignore the law when it suits it to?

Update: More on this, and other stuff relating to the site, from the Register.

The Thamesreach SCA revel held yesterday was a complete success. Even after losing a couple of people after the mammoth rapier session, we still had nineteen people left for a proper feast, complete with live music courtesy of Lord Robert. One or two people brought their friends with them and we had some visitors from across the pond who are in the country for a week’s holiday. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

I’ve been playing with a number of location-based web services recently, thanks in large part to the joy that is Fire Eagle, and the most interesting so far has to be Rummble. As well as locating people you know it allows users to add places of interest, tag them and rate them on a sliding scale. And not just pubs, clubs and shops, either, but any sort of places. I’ve added mediaeval buildings of interest, for example.

The real fun comes when you’ve added enough places for Rummble to be able to figure out the kind of thing you’re interested in. At that point, it start colour-coding places depending on whether it thinks you’ll like them or not. Find people whose taste you trust and the system takes their opinions into account, too.

I should point out that Rummble is still under development but I think it shows real promise. The interface is, perhaps, a little cluttered but that’s fixable and it’s far from unusable. If this kind of thing floats your boat, give it a try. Oh, and try not to worry about the privacy issues – you don’t have to be too specific about where you are, you can set privacy options on the site and, of course, you can always lie about where you are.

A quick apology to anyone who’s tried to get in touch with me via the contact form on this site recently and hasn’t had a reply. I’ve just discovered that the usual emails haven’t been sent to me, so I won’t have got your message. If that’s the case for you, please try again. It’s all fixed now.

Thomas Hawk thrown out of SF MOMA. This poor guy was ejected from San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art for taking a photograph of the atrium, despite this being specifically allowed by the museum. I’ve been to this particular museum and really enjoyed it, so it saddens me to see them treating people this way. I certainly won’t ever be going back and I would encourage others to avoid the place like the plague as well.

After work yesterday I went to the Great British Beer Festival at Earl’s Court. I’d pre-booked my ticket but I needn’t have bothered as the usual massive queue was conspicuous by its absence. I bought a book at the CAMRA stall, met up with friends, listened to a rather crappy band, talked bollocks and (surprise, surprise) drank plenty of different beers.

It was a very enjoyable way to spend the evening although I can’t help thinking that simply going to the pub with the same group of friends would have been equally pleasurable. Still, I’m not compaining. A good time is a good time.