Nick Jordan

Yesterday I spent a very enjoyable day out with friends Jen and Steve visiting a couple of National Trust properties in Kent. First off we went to Ightham Mote, which I’d visited before but was very happy to see again, and then Bodiam Castle, which I hadn’t been to. It really is the archetypal medieval castle - very impressive looking indeed and great fun to wander around.

After all the wandering around we consulted my Good Beer Guide and found a suitable pub for a sit down and a couple of beers before heading back to Steve and Jen’s where we dined splendidly upon fish and chips before heading home. My idea of a good day out.

Yesterday I went to a recording of Have I Got News For You. I’d been to radio recordings before but this was my first TV show, and I have to say it was great fun. The half-hour show took about two and a half hours to record, and I got the distinct impression that this was unusually long, although it was all funny stuff so I’m not complaining. I shall be watching it so that I can see which bits they keep, and also so that I have the pleasure of seeing the back of my head in the audience shots. Exciting, huh?

I’d definitely go again, but as an experience I think that radio recordings are somewhat better. You don’t have to queue for hours in a howling gale, you get to hang around in a theatre bar instead, and the atmosphere is rather more relaxed.

I’ve been playing with the latest version of the Flock web browser, and it’s good. Very good. In fact, it’s come so far since the last time I tried it that it’s practically a different beast altogether. It now imports all your bookmarks, cookies etc. from Firefox, the browser upon which it’s based, flawlessly. It connects to services such as Flickr and Facebook automatically when you log in to them, and shows you a very nice summary of your contacts’ activities in a sidebar. It does all manner of cool things. But. I just can’t quite bring myself to use it as my main browser. Something’s still not quite right.

I think it’s partly that I can’t configure things I want to configure (I don’t want to see the bookmarks toolbar, but I do want to see the very handy Flock toolbar, for instance, but they seem to come together or not at all). It’s also partly that I don’t like the way RSS feed content is displayed and, while I could simply continue to use Google Reader as I do now, it goes against the grain to use Flock and not use all the facilities it offers.

In short, I recommend trying it. If you like it, and you may well, then use it. But I don’t think I’ll be switching just yet.

This morning I managed to have a minor accident on my motorbike. I won’t go into all the details here except to say that I wasn’t hurt at all and neither was anyone else. The bike’s fairing and headlight don’t look too good; I had a repair estimate this afternoon of £610.00 which, given my current financial situation, really hurts. Time to wave the credit card and try not to think about it too much.

Still, I just have to remember that it could have been a whole lot worse and that the bike’s just a thing which can be repaired or replaced. So I’m not too downhearted, all things considered.