Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 28 March 2003, 10:51 AM
Tuesday
Tuesday 25/03/2003
When a man is tired of London, he's tired of life. So said Dr Johnson -- the curmudgeon's curmudgeon -- but when a man's tired of London Transport he's tired of walking two miles, watching ten buses go past crammed to the gunnels, and finding three tube stations on the trot closed down. There were even fisticuffs at Highbury and Islington station, as 20 minutes of standing still in unbearably cramped conditions pushed people to the edge and beyond.
And I had to be in early today, as I'm off this evening to visit IBM down at its Hursley Park research labs. More on that tomorrow. As for today, I had to take a broken Nokia digital TV set-top box back to Tottenham Court Road through the worst chaos that London Transport could throw at me, then get into the office. Two and a half hours later, I succeeded -- roundly cursing the maggot-ridden midden full of blood-streaked stool that is London (only not in such polite language, you understand).
Thankfully, the good humour of the ZDNet UK office restored my own in short order. Reviews sidekick Jonno Bennett -- Robin to Charles McLellan's Batman, if you will -- misheard newsbunny Graeme Wearden saying "What happens if you type 3G Porn into Google?"
"Oh, you never would!" shrieked Jonno. He does do camp rather well, for a married man.
"Would what?" asked bemused Wearden, who is of the opinion that as an Internet journalist he can -- and should -- Google anything he darn well likes in the cause of sniffing down a good story. Not Safe For Work is a pretty small set of badness hereabouts. But Jonno got there.
"Take 3G porn to a funeral", said Jonno. "Mind you, if you did, there'd be two stiffs by the end of play..."
Sinful boy.
When a man is tired of London, he's tired of life. So said Dr Johnson -- the curmudgeon's curmudgeon -- but when a man's tired of London Transport he's tired of walking two miles, watching ten buses go past crammed to the gunnels, and finding three tube stations on the trot closed down. There were even fisticuffs at Highbury and Islington station, as 20 minutes of standing still in unbearably cramped conditions pushed people to the edge and beyond.
And I had to be in early today, as I'm off this evening to visit IBM down at its Hursley Park research labs. More on that tomorrow. As for today, I had to take a broken Nokia digital TV set-top box back to Tottenham Court Road through the worst chaos that London Transport could throw at me, then get into the office. Two and a half hours later, I succeeded -- roundly cursing the maggot-ridden midden full of blood-streaked stool that is London (only not in such polite language, you understand).
Thankfully, the good humour of the ZDNet UK office restored my own in short order. Reviews sidekick Jonno Bennett -- Robin to Charles McLellan's Batman, if you will -- misheard newsbunny Graeme Wearden saying "What happens if you type 3G Porn into Google?"
"Oh, you never would!" shrieked Jonno. He does do camp rather well, for a married man.
"Would what?" asked bemused Wearden, who is of the opinion that as an Internet journalist he can -- and should -- Google anything he darn well likes in the cause of sniffing down a good story. Not Safe For Work is a pretty small set of badness hereabouts. But Jonno got there.
"Take 3G porn to a funeral", said Jonno. "Mind you, if you did, there'd be two stiffs by the end of play..."
Sinful boy.
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