Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category

February 2012

July 2011

How to Give Less and Take More

In which I have a big problem with charity bike rides that are subsidised jollies. Or, in this case, double-subsidised jollies.

Aggressive Drivers in Denial

Oh look. People are publishing propaganda to try and justify drivers being able to just plough on and ignore everone else on the roads.

June 2011

Fixing the HTC Desire’s Biggest Flaw

If you have an HTC Desire, you probably keep running out of internal storage space. But it’s probably fixable. Here’s how.

May 2011

AV: Let’s Dispel Some Myths

The ‘No’ campaign say that AV hands power to racists. The opposite is true.

March 2010

Looks Like it’s 2010, Then

Well, apparently it’s now over a year since I put anything on here. Maybe it’s time for an update.

October 2007

A Fourteen, a Seven, a Nine and…

For those who don’t already know, one thing that I find irritating (although not as irritating as putting something down and then two minutes later forgetting where I put it – which invariably results in a big tantrum and a veritable tour de force of foul language – but I digress) is the existence of…

The Makeover Begins

Well, this place needs a spring (autumn) clean. OK, I spent an hour last night giving it a lick of paint with a few stylesheet adjustments, but it’s always been based on the default Wordpress theme which has always seemed to contain some frankly odd features. I’m starting to need a part of the site…

August 2007

Prince at the O2

It’s 15 years since I last went to a Prince gig, on the Diamonds and Pearls tour in 1992. I confess to being a fan back then, and whilst I’ve not bought much stuff since he ’symbolised’ himself after the Come album the following year, it’s still all good stuff.
So, it would have been daft…

June 2007

Spring Cleaning

Well, here we are with a new look for the site. Seeing as it’s been edited partly online and partly offline, and all in the wee small hours, chances are it’s not all tickety-boo, but I figured I’d go live with it anyway just to break the monotony.

I’ve added plenty of RSS feed links, and…

May 2007

Simple Logic Evades British Commuters

Trains are quite simple in operation. You wait at a platform, enter the train through a door, sit (if you’re lucky) on the train until it reaches your destination, and then leave the train through a door. What could be simpler? Well – for some people at least – the whole thing, it would seem.
Commuters…

April 2007

Coconuts

This evening I have been mostly getting into the Guinness Book of World Records…

…along with 4,381 other people armed with coconuts. Click the image for a few more (rubbish) pics.
Erratum: the final count is apparently in, with a grand total of 5,567 Patsies. Hurrah! And there’s even independent photographic evidence that I was there.

September 2006

I Hate My Office Toilet

I’ve had enough. Today we have no toilet roll. None.
Well, I say none. Some kind soul has left a few feet of it draped across the floor in one of the cubicles. Meanwhile one of the other pans has been streaked brown, one of the two hand drying rolls has also run out (the other…

The High Street: Land of Confusion

Today I found myself in the Guildford branch of Marks and Spencer, who have – unusually – for some years been manufacturing trousers in 35 inch lengths. After spending a few seconds flicking through the rails I decided it would be better to get someone to do the hunting for me, so I found someone…

Website Gets Annual Service

Well here we are then, now running under Wordpress 2.0.4 after what would appear to be a seamless upgrade. If only everything ran so smoothly.
In addition, the site template has acquired a missing slash which now makes is reportedly fully standards compliant and accessible for disabled users, who can now throng here in their thousands,…

July 2006

Blast from the (Slightly Tragic) Past

Was mucking around testing some visual search engines just now. One of the searches was for myself (as any egotistical tosser would do) and it came up with my old (and only) entry into a Terragen contest.
Despite the obvious tragedy of spending what was probably a few hours of my life creating a digital picture…

Samorost 2

If you liked Samorost (and if you didn’t you must be some sort of weirdo) then you’ll probably like (wait for it – oh, I’ve given it away with the title) Samorost 2.
Yeah, it’s probably been around for ages. I don’t care.

May 2006

Another Triumph For Pointless ‘Science’

This week the BBC invites you to test your happiness. All you have to do is say whether you agree or disagree with the following statements, proposed as a scientific test by “psychologist Professor Ed Diener from the University of Illinois,” and from that it is possible to determine via the magic of science how…

Pie Pontification

Apparently, “scientists have discovered why some people just can’t resist food.” Right then – I’ll believe this when I see it. According to some “expert in obesity,”
This research shows that it’s not simply explained by a loss of will power or greed. It’s much more complicated. An involuntary exaggerated neurophysiological response to pictures of desirable…

April 2006

Bike or Car?

This is ace and I want one now.

I R Husband

Well that’s that then: We’re now married. We’ve already discussed getting divorced as quickly as possible so we can do it all again next year. Here’s the best of the few photos we’ve seen so far – once we get them all in I’ll make a proper gallery of them.

One Day To Go…

It’s the day before The Big Day and we’ve just got back from setting stuff up at the barn. Had a quick chance to grab a couple of snaps with the phone before we left… it’s looking a bit less bare than it was when we arrived!

Better finish my speech sometime today I guess.

Wasted Opportunity

The journal “Psychosomatics” has published a report on a man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills over a nine-year period. They say, “at the height of his use, the man – known as ‘Mr A’ – was taking 25 tablets a day.”
So why isn’t he known as “Mr E?”

March 2006

Geek in Apple Fawning Shocker

According to Bill Thompson, the BBC’s technohippy-in-residence, Apple has changed the world more than punk. Eh? Whilst I for one wouldn’t want to pretend that punk was a substantial social revolution, can someone tell me how Apple specifically have changed the world? Thompson certainly can’t, other than to suggest that “Apple, uniquely among computer companies,…

Mmm, Tasty

Is there a campaign to encourage eating squirrels? If so I’d like to join. It seems a thoroughly sensible thing to do, seeing as we’re overrun with the buggers, and I suspect they’d be rather tasty, probably wrapped in bacon with a bit of chestnut stuffing.
When can I get squirrel at the local butcher’s, that’s…

February 2006

Beer

As noted by Mr. Barnes, it’s a bad day for local beers. And so I feel it’s best to advertise our local brewery, Ballard’s, who brew some fine ales. Buy some today because beer is ace.
And for anyone coming to the wedding, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re hoping to have a supply of…

133% Incompetent

Last Saturday I placed an online order for a new phone. Judging by the trail of information, O2 did a decent job of their part of the deal, as the phone was handed over to DHL at 3am the following Monday – impressive stuff. Unfortunately, that’s where it all went downhill.
The phone was dispatched for…

January 2006

Brittany Ferries – How Do They Do It?

It’s getting ridiculous. Pretty much all the Western cross-channel ports are now operated by Brittany Ferries, the sole exception being le Havre – the furthest East of the ports and fairly useless if you fancy visiting Brittany.
The mind-boggling thing, though, is how this ever came to be. Specifically, how do they get away with charging…

Catflaps

Electromagnetic catflaps: £33 well spent.
Not so much for keeping the neighbourhood cats from stealing ours’ food, more for the entertainment value of watching a bewildered moggy trying to part company with the 10mm spanner that’s attached itself to the magnet round its neck.
First one to steal anything useful from someone else’s garage wins a catnip…

December 2005

New Experience no. 12,853

Today I discovered something new. Today I took delivery of a brace of tailored shirts, which means for the first time in my life I actually know what it feels like to wear a shirt which fits properly. No more rolling up the sleeves to prevent me looking like I’m still wearing clothes I…

November 2005

All Your iPod Shuffle Are Belong To Tape

Still not bought into the iPod Shuffle? No worries. Simply grab yourself a boxful of tape compilations you made over ten years ago and forgot to write the track listings on, chuck them in the car and pick them out one by one. Hey presto, instant random music.
And there’s the added bonus too: not just…

Come Back British Rail

So, Stagecoach has launched its new Megatrain budget ticket service. Cheap train fares? Ace – count me in: trains are great (remember, traffic congestion sucks, kids), but at about three or four times the cost of driving (even if it’s just me in the car) I don’t tend to use them now that I have…

Telephone Hell

If anyone knows how to phone the DVLA and actually get through to a person, I’d love to hear from you. Or indeed if anyone knows which bit of the labyrinthine and non-retraceable menu system is hiding the pre-recorded message for the “we’ve royally bollocked up and you need to tell us to sort it…

October 2005

Tangfastic Disappointment

As an erstwhile fan of Haribo Tangfastics, today represents a black mark in the chronicles of the benchmark fizzy sour sweet. A filthy and unwelcome outsider has penetrated the sanctum of the Tangfastic bag: The Gummy Bear. This poisoned little character, who seems to taste slightly aniseedy, joins the Cola Bottle in being an out-of-place…

Testing, Testing…

Hello there!
Well finally here I am, having finally pulled my finger out and moved house to the “dot com” district. Yup, www.stewartpratt.co.uk has been stagnant for months, and thanks to my old hand-rolled blog engine being a bit susceptible to spam, the choice was rewrite it or replace it. And it seems that replacing it…