Minimal

Yay for XML! :)

I may be fashionably late to the party, but this XML and server-side scripting stuff is the canine’s conkers. Petrolhead now has its archives working, with the permalinks going to a page with only that story on it (rather like frownland, xlab and any other decent weblog you care to mention). Okay, so I’m easily pleased, but it makes the next thing on my list a lot simpler. Comments, here we come. :)

I hate British winters

The buggers! Of course, I’m not envious at all. Oh no, not a bit. The fact that my parents have been away in Florida, lapping up the sun on the gulf coast while I sat here in miserable Britain with its miserable weather and miserable lack of daylight doesn’t bother me at all. The bastards.

I hate British winters. They’re so incredibly depressing.

Blyth Power Station

Took the car and camera on another digital photography practice session today. Our destination this time was Blyth Power Station at Cambois (pronounced cammus) in Northumberland. Once again I failed to apply the stuff I’d learnt from advice I’d read on the web. Once again, it’s Paint Shop Pro to the rescue.

Today was more than just a photo shoot, though. This was the first time I’d seen the power station up close, despite having lived within sight of it for over 20 years now. In fact, there probably aren’t that many places in South-East Northumberland where you can’t see it. Its smoke stacks tower over Blyth, the whole place managing to look enormous, even from many miles away.

But not for much longer. Later this coming year, Blyth Power Station will be but a memory on the local landscape. The demolition crews are already in and working and the place looks rather worse for wear. Call me sad if you will, but I find it quite poetic that right alongside the death of this monument to past industries we find the metaphorical green shoots of Blyth’s offshore and coastal wind farms. The coal that fired the old power station may be long gone, but we can still contribute to the national grid, dammit. If only things didn’t take so long to move on.

Of course, a few windmills aren’t going to replace the jobs that have gone, either in the coal industry or the power station itself. I just wish we could’ve gone one step further and set up something even more positive — a windmill factory, for instance. One industry’s death usually coincides with the birth of another, but Britain has failed to seize the initiative. Despite being ideally placed to be a test-ground for the things, we’ve let it slip and the Danes have got in there instead. Well, good luck to ‘em. Maybe they’ll set up a factory over here one day. Or maybe, just maybe, our Government will pull its finger out and give wind power the big push. We can but hope.

New background photo

If you’re wondering where the photo for the new background was taken, it’s the fishing village of Craster in Northumberland. I was hoping to get a picture of Seaton Sluice instead, as it’s where I grew up, but in the absence of such photos, Craster seems like a pretty good alternative. Must remember to go and get myself some fish and chips there this summer, though I think I’ll steer clear of their kippers... :)

Only 3 or 4 months late

Hmmm... I guess it’s about time I launched the petrolhead site. I said it would be ready by September, but that turned out to be a bit optimistic. Okay, very optimistic. :)

At some point, I hope to give it an RSS feed, but I’m making no promises this time. Also in the pipeline is the addition of karting and videogame (principally GP2) sections within it. Again, no promises on timescale — that list of 17 things to do that I mentioned in the previous post has since expanded to about 25.

It’s oh so quiet

If things have gone a bit quiet around here lately, it’s because I’ve just made myself a list of 17 things to do with the site over Christmas. Some tasks are bigger than others (just like girls and their mothers) and I’m not even sure I’ve got enough time to do them all. Of course, if I were tackling things from a Spolsky angle, each of my tasks would last 2 days or less and the whole thing would be a lot more predictable. Sadly, I’m not that organised.

Anyway, 20 points and a slap on the back for the first person to spot one of the changes I make. I’d like to offer a CD of your choice, but I’m too tight.

Missing

Missing: one large yellow ball of flame. Goes by the name of Sol. Last seen approximately one week ago peeping out from behind a cloud, somewhere in Surrey. Reports of sightings from people claiming to be airline pilots are believed to be hoaxes. If you have any information, please contact the Met Office immediately.

Finally dropped a (b)log

You know the relief you feel when you finally get over a spot of constipation? That’s me today. Not literally, mind — only in the Bloggerific sense. While the site may have been very much offline over the past month (god, was it that long?), Blogger certainly wasn’t. As a result, I’ve kept on posting meaningless tittle-tattle for you to wade through. Here’s the full list, in reverse chronological order:

• Bunch of arse (and spurs)
• It’s a baggy revival!
• A big fat zero
• Aaaah... such memories
• Normal service will resume shortly (fingers crossed)
• Depressing
• On the ball
• Tricky disco
• C for Crap?
• Weblong
• Rant!
• Wot no jeans?
• empty’s minimal lines
• Gigs a-plenty

Don’t gorge yourself all at once, mind — you’ll be sick. I know I was.

Bunch of arse (and spurs)

I see some idiot has suggested that Spurs could share their ground with Arsenal — permanently. Ha ha ha, he’s got to be kidding, right? If someone suggested to me that Newcastle share a ground with the great unwashed of Wearside, I’d laugh in their face, and rightly so. That would just be too much to swallow and I wouldn’t expect any other self-respecting fan to have to put up with such absurdity.

Mind, it's very interesting to see that the majority of people in favour of it seem to be Spurs fans. Have they no pride?

It’s a baggy revival!

Gerrin, yer bassers! The Inspiral Carpets are set to re-form and embark upon a tour in early 2003. Yours truly is over the moon. Off to Manchester we go for the gig of the decade. :)

A big fat zero

It’s good to see that the stylesheet I submitted for the Plink design competition is receiving the backing it deserves. Even I couldn’t bring myself to vote for it and I made it the damned abomination.

There’s one thing that confuses me, though — when I submitted my entry, its columns worked on IE6, but now they don’t. Nor, for that matter, do the ones in the skunk stylesheet (submitted by Kev of sorehead fame). Queer. Anyway, let’s all bow down and worship what will inevitably be the new pink plink. Congrats to Tommy! :)

Update: someone just gave me a sympathy fuck — I got a vote! Sucker. ;)

Aaaah... such memories

Warms the cockles of your heart, this stuff — local radio football commentary at its finest.

Normal service will resume shortly (fingers crossed)

Well, this is a bit of an extended outage, isn’t it? You’re gonna have a wealth of stuff to read by the time the site’s back up. The latest hold-up comes from a PC that’s decided to just stop working. No warning, no problems leading up to it, just an all-out “I refuse to boot” kind of protest. Maybe it thinks I’ve been taking it for granted (and it would be right). Hopefully, it’ll be a case of Ash to the rescue.

And if you’ve kept on checking this site during the downtime, emailing me, and/or kept me on your site’s list of links, you have my eternal gratitude. I know how easy it is to give up on websites. :)

Depressing

George W. Bush still isn’t even half-way through his term in office. Just what you wanted to hear to set you off for a great weekend, eh? No, maybe not.