bigbluemeanie

Navigation

Home | Links | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) | Videos | Oxted Paris Cycle Ride | Scarlett | Site notices

About This Site

About
A personal weblog with photographs and comments. Quiet ramblings, quite rambling...

Members

Login | Register | Why?

Most recent entries

• Cyclists! Look out for each other
• Yellow vest is the new snow?
• Paris Gare du Nord
• Queen Elizabeth II
• Where you going to sleep tonight?
• Wildfire
• Francisco Alomar
• Cap de Formentor
• Kamel’s halaal butchery
• Versailles
• Oxford Street
• Hip-hopspital
• Street furniture
• Ebbsfleet International Station
• It’s in the gênes

Recent entries with comments

• Indications of Autumn - (1)
  
• Temple roofs - (2)
  
• My first experiences cycling in Paris - (2)
  
• A shrine on Limpsfield Road - (4)
  
• Zebra Crossing Part Two - (1)
  
• Courchevel - (2)
  
• Mersea Island - (2)
  
• Old school rice packaging - (1)
  
• Were you one of these car drivers in Oxted who nearly killed me yesterday? - (4)
  
• This Charming Man - (2)
  

Feeds

• RSS 1.0
• RSS 2.0
• Atom
• Subscribe by email

Categories

• Europe
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Czech Republic
  • Denmark
  • France
  • Germany
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Luxembourg
  • Malta
  • Netherlands
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • United Kingdom
    • England
    • Scotland
    • Wales
• Asia Pac
  • Australia
  • Indonesia
  • Japan
  • Middle East
• Americas
  • Canada
  • Cuba
  • USA
• Africa
  • Egypt
  • South Africa
  • Swaziland
  • Tunisia

Monthly Archives

• December 2018
• September 2018
• August 2018
• July 2018
• April 2018
• March 2018
• February 2018
• January 2018
• December 2017
• November 2017
• October 2017
• September 2017
• August 2017
• July 2017
• June 2017
• May 2017
• April 2017
• March 2017
• February 2017
• January 2017
• December 2016
• November 2016
• October 2016
• September 2016
• August 2016
• July 2016
• June 2016
• May 2016
• April 2016
• March 2016
• February 2016
• January 2016
• December 2015
• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• July 2015
• June 2015
• May 2015
• April 2015
• March 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• December 2014
• November 2014
• October 2014
• September 2014
• August 2014
• July 2014
• June 2014
• May 2014
• April 2014
• March 2014
• February 2014
• January 2014
• December 2013
• November 2013
• October 2013
• September 2013
• August 2013
• July 2013
• June 2013
• May 2013
• April 2013
• March 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012
• November 2012
• October 2012
• September 2012
• August 2012
• July 2012
• June 2012
• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011
• November 2011
• October 2011
• September 2011
• August 2011
• July 2011
• June 2011
• May 2011
• April 2011
• March 2011
• February 2011
• January 2011
• December 2010
• November 2010
• October 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• July 2010
• June 2010
• May 2010
• April 2010
• March 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• August 2009
• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• December 2006
• November 2006
• October 2006
• September 2006
• August 2006
• July 2006
• June 2006
• May 2006
• April 2006
• March 2006
• February 2006
• January 2006
• December 2005
• November 2005
• October 2005
• September 2005
• August 2005
• July 2005
• June 2005
• May 2005
• April 2005
• March 2005
• February 2005
• January 2005
• December 2004
• November 2004
• October 2004
• September 2004
• August 2004
• July 2004
• June 2004
• May 2004
• April 2004
• March 2004
• February 2004
• January 2004
• December 2003
• November 2003
• October 2003

Links

• Full linklist
• Bluemeanie.org
• Scarlett's weblog

Lately listening to

Site Statistics

• This website has been viewed 4288123 times
• Page rendered in 0.3877 seconds
• 47 queries executed

Site Credits

• Based on a design by:
  BlogMoxie
• 
  The original content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

We had these pink clouds at sunset today. The sunsets and sunrises are generally quite impressive around here. I wonder what the pollution levels are like.

You have to laugh: apparently the Green Party election broadcast on the BBC was dubbed with the (anti-Europe) UK Independence Party’s subtitles and they are livid.

This is supposed to be my zeitgeist, but it doesn’t link very well to my photos.
Edit: I removed the html breaks in the script and it now points to my own photos! (30.04.2005)

The above is a fire I spotted in a field near Ravenstone. I am sure it was nothing to be alarmed about.

I recently read a Wired article, Amazon knows who you are, found via Welsh View.  The article explains how Amazon tracks and stores as much information about its customers as possible.

For years, Amazon has collected detailed information about what its customers buy, considered buying, browsed for but never bought, recommended to others or even wished someone would buy them. It has built ever-more sophisticated tools to recommend more purchases, direct your searches toward products it thinks you’re most likely to want, or even stop the forgetful among us from buying the same book we purchased five years ago.

For example, a customer who buys the movie Lost In Translation might also be prodded to buy 21 Grams or Kill Bill, Vol. 1 because others have made similar purchases. And customers who searched several times for a Laurie R. King mystery novel might find a book by her the next time they visit Amazon’s home page.

More recently, the Seattle virtual retailer has launched a web search engine, called A9, that can remember everything you’ve ever searched for—and the site reserves the right to share that information with its retailing arm.

The article reminded me of my university lecturer who said that while a single Big Brother computer system to track us and record all our private information was not on the cards, we already have a Little Sister scenario with many small systems storing different private information about us. What the article highlights is a trend towards consolidation: little sister is growing up.

The article also reminded me of my own experiences with Amazon’s recommendations.  In the last two or three years I bought two hardcover editions of (separate) Harry Potter novels.  I subsequently had a problem where, every time a new HP novel was released, Amazon gave this to me as a recommendation. They did this even with a new edition of one of the books I had already bought. Now why would someone who has HP4 in hardcover (children’s version) want to buy the hardcover adult version, and the softcover child and softcover adult versions of the same book? The words in the books are identical.  The way to stop this madness was to inform Amazon (there is a link in their reccommendations page) that: I already own this book.  I had to do this for all the HP novels, DVD’s, etc.  All versions. 

I’ll brace myself for another round of this craziness when the next HP book is released. I hope that little sister’s IQ will have improved by then, but I won’t count on it.

Edit: With thanks to my colleague Lynn for her careful proof-reading of my blog, I have corrected the perennial error of typing seperate instead of separate (28.04.2005).

I came across this demonstration in Redhill on Saturday. I have no idea what is was for (or against), and the only clue is the word keep on the banner. The best I can come up with is the suggestion that they are campaigning to keep a local post office open.

If you are having a demonstration in your area, I would like to suggest that you don’t stand in front of your banners.

This is a large warehouse in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. I believe the company is a distribution company, and that there is another view of this building here.  They are next door to the building that recently went up in flames.  I was interested to read that the separate terms Mrs and Miss date only from Victorian times.  Before that the form of address Mistress was used for both married and unmarried women. 

Edit: With thanks to my colleague Lynn for her careful proof-reading of my blog, I have corrected the perinneal error of typing seperate instead of separate (28.04.2005).

I was looking at the posters that other people created at the Your own Conservative Poster site and the above was the first I found. (I assume it’s a joke about the Conservative’s anti-immigration stand). When I looked, there were other posters that promised free blood on the NHS, which I assume refer to the creepiness of the leader of the Conservative Party. The posters that you create are only stored for 30 minutes on the above site.

This is a view of Ashby-de-la-Zouch from the surrounding farmland.  The crop in the foreground is oilseed rape (sometimes called canola).

The crop, which has just started flowering around Ashby, produces a dramatic yellow colour, as can be seen in the following photo album.  They sky was hazy again yesterday evening when this photograph was taken.

This is another view of the Tory poster. The top half of the image seems to be based on an Olympic theme, with a retro touch.

I found a new UK Political Survey which assesses your position against real poll data, provided by YouGov.com.  Channel 4 have also set up a FactCheck site which is to independently assess the politicians’ claims during the campaign.