Captain Pugwash

Does anyone else have a constant loop of background music going on inside their heads? No? Oh well, at least there's no need to buy an iPod. This always - always - seems to play between my ears whenever I'm busy...

How would you make someone's day better?

How to clean a mirror spotlessly with Chelsea

Ruby Flipper

I've been enjoying the recent nostalgia-fest on BBC Four - the weekly repeats of Top of the Pops 1976 - because that was precisely the year, aged ten, I watched most avidly. I loved the show and never missed an episode if I could help it. But there's a puzzle: I have no recall whatever of the dance troupe, Ruby Flipper. I remember Pan's People well enough; I remember Legs and Co. though in neither case with any great affection. In those innocent, pre-pubescent days they were rather tiresome interludes; I wanted to see the bands. By the time I wanted to see the girls, I'd given up ToTP completely. So it's not really a surprise that Ruby Flipper don't feature in my I remember this 'live' in '76 moments; but not to remember them at all, not even any irritation at their half-naked cavorting to a tune I'd rather have seen mimed by the band? It's a mystery. Mind you, I rather think it would be a different story today. In googling them for this post I've found an entire site dedicated to the ToTP dance troupes as well as a bewildering and rather exciting array of YouTube videos of them in various stages of undress, of which this is one.

Oh yes,  these days it would've been a very different matter.

They Might Be Giants

... actually, there's no 'might' about it. Do the 'Boss of Me'. But not before the best cover of Chumbawumba ever:

Top Tip: How to Remove Permanent Marker from a Whiteboard

The launch of Atlantis - final Shuttle mission

I couldn't resist this. We sat in front of the telly yesterday - Charlie, Sally and Eloise (though she was far too young to take an interest) and watched a piece of history. It was a strangely moving moment, one that took me back to the seventies and being woken up by my mum and dad to see an Apollo launch, a splashdown, or - amazingly - a lunar landing. My early childhood seemed to be regularly punctuated by another moon landing and I was convinced I could see them when I looked out at the moon at night. I wonder if Charlie will remember the last Shuttle launch, or what future space missions there might be for him to tell his own children about...

Borg v McEnroe ... again!

Tree porn

It's not bad, but the acting's a bit wooden...

Oh, Blogger!

Well, that was interesting wasn't it? Friday 13th certainly did for Blogger yesterday - and for all of us with blogger blogs! I still haven't heard what caused the 'outage'. This morning things seem back to normal; lost comments are slowly being restored; we can post again. But my, what a catastrophe. Twitter was abuzz with it, as - no doubt - were other social media sites. I was surprised not to hear it on the six o'clock news. But behind the hoo-ha lies a serious point: we forget to back-up at our peril.

Paranoid as I am, I not only keep a file back-up of my posts (that's easy enough on Blogger) but have a 'mirror' site on Wordpress. I like Blogger, like it a lot. It's easy, simple to use and - of course - free. I know a lot of 'pro' bloggers prefer Wordpress - self-hosted or not and there's a handy comparison to the two main rivals here. But being a user of both platforms I can honestly say I prefer Blogger.

Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'm not extremely grateful for my Wordpress 'shadow'. The fact that my blog exists in both worlds and there's a version standing by, ready to be brought out into the light of day should anything permanently untoward occur is a great comfort.

But then, if they both went down I would be stuck!

Now, where's my old typewriter?

Home

In a quaint old English market town...

John Humphrey's doesn't know his AV from his elbow....

At least, according to David Cameron yesterday. The BBC is rather politely described the exchange between Today anchorman John Humphreys and the Prime Minister as a 'disagreement on a technicality'. What do you think?

It may not help you make up your mind for the vote tomorrow, but it sure is entertaining!