Category: Misc

To be honest, lumping together these two people doesn’t do much service to either of them, but this weblog isn’t an obituary column. I just mention the deaths of people I respected for one reason or another. Alistair Cooke, who’s death was announced this morning, always struck me of something of a curmudgeon. But he…

So Coke have announced that Dasani’s not coming back anytime soon. They’re going to tend their wounds and rethink the brand. I suggest that they re-evaluate European water drinking tastes. Supposedly France is/was next on the list. They’ve been drinking bottled water longer than most of us, and I just don’t see a not Natural…

Much interest this evening in some filming taking place in Piccadilly Circus. As a public place, it’s very hard to close off (that’s certainly the case elsewhere according to Film London). Anyway, precisely nothing was happening, and I was hurrying on to actually see a film (see next entry).

I’m disappointed to read that Alex Cox is stopping his diary again. He wrote it for the Beeb’s film website for a while, but you get the feeling that it got a little too political for them. It’s a shame, because he’s an interesting guy who isn’t in the film industry for quite the same…

So what’s the story with YHA Adventure Shops? Their main London branch used to be in Southampton Row in Covent Garden, but they moved out some time ago (and I think Ellis Brigham moved in from across the road). Instead, they took a three floor shop on Wardour Street which is pretty odd. For those…

It goes from bad to worse for Dasani – the newly launched Coca Cola water, which was quickly “revealed” to be purified tap water. It seems that bromate levels are too high, and as a result 500,000 bottles are being recalled. You can see the UK launch of Dasani going down in the marketing text…

This is an odd one. I don’t really like musicals that much. Indeed, I usually go out of my way to avoid them. Real theatre is drama to me. But when I was offered tickets to this show tonight, I immediatly accepted. Why? Well it’s not because I’m an particular fan of the star, Amanda…

To the Menier Chocolate Factory in London Bridge to see Zena in a play called Photo Story, subtitled “the story of boy never meets girl.” It’s a one woman show in which Zena plays the parts of both mother and daughter. While the mother is preparing for her other daughter’s wedding, the daughter is starting…

Ryanair rightly lost their case against disabled passengers who needed weelchairs to get them to the planes. Then they issued a profits warning resulting in their shares taking a nosedive. They’re reported as charging their own staff for such things as uniforms. Finally, today the long awaited judgement from the EU was made. Broadly speaking,…

Well, it seems that a larger than expected number of my co-workers are regular readers of this site. So can I just wish them all, a big “Hello”. I know that you have to put up with discovering what it is that I think about various films, books and other artistic merits, but I like…

I can’t have been the only person disappointed when Francis Wheen’s column in the Guardian ended a year or so ago. The brief period of Rod Liddle really didn’t make up for it. OK, so his biography of Marx still stares at me guiltily from one of my bookshelves unread, and there’s been his collection…

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. The Guardian have published an LRB essay about the Orkneys Islands, and in particular the amazing Maes Howe. A couple of years ago I got to visit the Orkneys – for just a short day – taking the foot ferry from John O’Groats to Burwick…