It seems like weeks and weeks since I've last been on-line. In reality - it has, but finally the essential engineering works on the PC and done and dusted, and before much longer a normal service should resume.
During the downtime a lot has been happening, not to myself especially, but certainly in the wider world, and even just the wider city of London. The pace of the London bomb investigation in particular has been quite amazing in its rapidity, and a true credit to the Metropolitan Police. It's eight days since four poor excuses for human beings tried, but fortunately failed, in their attempts to set off what would have been a second round of explosions on the London Transport system. 8 days later, they are all under arrest by the Metropolitan Police, with one arrested in Rome of all places.
One of the men, while being arrested was asking the police officers involved if they were going to shoot him. This from a man who was seemingly quite content to blow up himself and those around him but a week ago. There are some truly twisted people out there.
There was good news that the IRA are moving towards a permanent end to violence, but otherwise the TV news has been dominated by pictures of famine in Niger, flooding in Mumbai, even tornados in Birmingham.
As for myself I've recently discovered the wide world of podcasting, which may promise a whole new niche of online audio content. Whereas streaming audio generally requires considerable infrastructure and cost to operate, creating pre-recorded downloadable shows is well within the reach of a much broader range of would-be content providers. I've sampled just a few programmes so far, but have been impressed with the generally high quality, both technically and in terms of content. As broadband continues to spread like wildfire, the provision of multi-media content beyond that of the text pages we have seen to date is looking much more viable, and within the reach of a considerable audience. As nearly all MP3 player owners will use their PC to transfer music and audio to their player, it's a logical, yet nevertheless masterful stroke to make available a wider range of content for MP3 players using the same platforms users are current familiar with. It's early days for Podcasting, but an interesting future may well lay ahead.
As for website news, time and internet access (or more accurately the lack thereof) has meant that only a handful of photos from the Royal International Air Tatoo have been added to the photo galleries, in addition to a few snaps from the mobile camera. There is, however, plenty more to be added, and a fair number of photos have been backing up, awaiting optimisation and upload. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before they'll be available online.
20050730
20050710
News during downtime
My PC has been out of action for the past couple of weeks, which is why there's been nothing new either here on the website, although I'll hopefully be getting things back up and running shortly.
And what a week to be off the blog-scene. Wimbledon came to an end and normality returned to my little corner of London, yet that's about as far as normality went. Live8 kicked off with the mammouth musical experience to pressure the 8 world leaders to get their act into gear at the meeting in Gleneagles. Pressure was rising in Scotland as the G8 approached, but all focus was placed on it.
That was until London won the Olympics, and a sideline of euphoria in the city (and hopefully the country as a whole) made us feel good for a while.
Yet the feel-good feeling didn't last anywhere near as long as anyone expected, as the following morning bomb explosions swiftly changed moods and the focus of all those in London and much further afield. Over 50 are dead, yet the people of London gritted their teeth and proclaimed that it would business as usual. I'm in central London now on Sunday afternoon, and it seems as busy as ever. Not been on the tube yet, but that's due to the sunny weather rather than any fear factor. I can imagine some will feel put off for a while, but life goes on, and everywhere I look around, that is definitely what's happening. In the face of the atrocitity that occured just days ago, the city-wide attitude of resolve is truly fantastic.
Back to the G8, and although the focus wasn't there as much as would have been liked, their business continued and was concluded, and although it would never bring what everyone would have hoped for, there was a good deal of progress, not least it seems in bringing aid without the strings of privatising services of the developing nations, which normally meant benefits for the Western companies operating them, and increased problems in the countries supposedly benefiting.
I've never known a week like it. Such a roller-coaster ride of emotions, headlines, triumphs and tragedies. Apologies for this rather rushed update. Normal service will be resumed soon.
And what a week to be off the blog-scene. Wimbledon came to an end and normality returned to my little corner of London, yet that's about as far as normality went. Live8 kicked off with the mammouth musical experience to pressure the 8 world leaders to get their act into gear at the meeting in Gleneagles. Pressure was rising in Scotland as the G8 approached, but all focus was placed on it.
That was until London won the Olympics, and a sideline of euphoria in the city (and hopefully the country as a whole) made us feel good for a while.
Yet the feel-good feeling didn't last anywhere near as long as anyone expected, as the following morning bomb explosions swiftly changed moods and the focus of all those in London and much further afield. Over 50 are dead, yet the people of London gritted their teeth and proclaimed that it would business as usual. I'm in central London now on Sunday afternoon, and it seems as busy as ever. Not been on the tube yet, but that's due to the sunny weather rather than any fear factor. I can imagine some will feel put off for a while, but life goes on, and everywhere I look around, that is definitely what's happening. In the face of the atrocitity that occured just days ago, the city-wide attitude of resolve is truly fantastic.
Back to the G8, and although the focus wasn't there as much as would have been liked, their business continued and was concluded, and although it would never bring what everyone would have hoped for, there was a good deal of progress, not least it seems in bringing aid without the strings of privatising services of the developing nations, which normally meant benefits for the Western companies operating them, and increased problems in the countries supposedly benefiting.
I've never known a week like it. Such a roller-coaster ride of emotions, headlines, triumphs and tragedies. Apologies for this rather rushed update. Normal service will be resumed soon.
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