Category: Misc

Marks & Spencer’s Curiously Strong Mints are just Altoids aren’t they? Altoids, although made in the UK (by Wrigleys), are notoriously hard to find here, whereas M&S mints are, well, pretty easy to get. They also tend to be about 6p more expensive. They both have nice and awfully useful tins though, which makes them…

Inspired by Makezine, I tried out my new Speedart Fabric Screen Printing kit this weekend to make an “Ultimate Play The Game” T-shirt. I’m sure Rare will be delighted (You do remember Ultimate Play the Game don’t you? They made some groundbreaking games for the ZX Spectrum like Jetpac, Atic Atac and Sabre Wulf in…

I read this great extract from Mike Atherton’s new book, Luck Be a Lady Tonight: Gambling – A Story of Triumph and Disaster, in the paper this morning. And, yes, that is ex-England cricketing captain Mike Atherton. I may actually have to buy this book.

I’ve just spent the weekend down on the coast. Yesterday the weather was horrible (this happened just up the coast the other side of The Wash), and completely scuppered any chance of observing the Perseids last night. I took a few pictures today.

I note that the Daily Mail serialised Noel Edmonds’ new book “Positively Happy” last week, having first apologised for something they said about it. Edmonds talks about this in an interview with The Guardian today. All very lovely, but I had a bit of a flick through the book yesterday in a shop. OK –…

If you walk down a central London street like Carnaby Street, most lunchtimes you’ll come across in-street charity teams who are very keen to get you to sign up a direct debit order with whoever they’re representing that day. It’s called “chugging” – charity mugging. I’ve known for ages that these teams are not volunteer…

This news seems to have escaped me. For some reason, from the end of this month, you’ll no longer be able to buy your TV Licence from a Post Office. Instead, aside from all the various direct debit options, you’ll have to use a PayPoint location. The reasons given include that there are more PayPoint…

Every company needs a good meaningless motto. Someone at Euro Car Parks obviously liked the Microsoft “Where do you want to go today?” campaign and though they could tweak it just a little bit for a car park company. Hilarious, just hilarious.

I’ve spent the last few days in France going to a work thing before travelling on to watch the Tour De France with Saturday’s time trial in Rennes. I travelled via Paris, and got a TGV from Montparnasse station. Here’s something I didn’t know about TGVs. I thought that their layout was pretty much the…

I’m sure that no businesses in England at the moment would be concocting clever plans to make many out of England’s [relative] success in the World Cup at the moment. You know what I mean, selling Ikea chairs at 1p, offering 2-for-1 on pizzas on England match days at Pizza Hut or offering 10% off…

A nice profile of Arnuldur Indriðason in the Guardian Review yesterday. I’ve been catching up with the World Cup over the last couple of days – culminating in watching all three matches today. I did get out in the morning spending a pleasant time cycling around Hertfordshire. Here’s a nice pub I found:

If you’ve read any of Le Carré’s Karla novels then you’ll be familiar with the character of Connie – memorably portrayed by Beryl Reid in the TV versions. She was quite probably based on Milicent Bagot, a real-life spook who’s just died aged 90. Read The Times’ obit.