How The Other Half Live

Return To The Alps

The last time I was on a ski slope was Friday 16th January 2009 and I did not believe I would be back so soon (if at all). A great deal has occurred in the 1087 days (or 2 years 11 months and 23 days) since my last group ski trip. My friends would probably say that they are pleased I have returned to the slopes. Personally I am perhaps looking forward to touching down at Gatwick (injury free, God willing) on 14th January more than anything else. (Although a week off work so soon after two weeks off for the Christmas break are not something to be frowned upon)

This could have been very different. If I had gone on that first ski trip with school way back in 1994, I may now have been an accomplished skier (or boarder) rather than a complete waste of space on the piste as I am now. The ‘statue’ as I am called by my friends (in particular Emily) or perhaps now the portly statue with all the weight I have put on in the almost three year break from the slopes. Perhaps the biggest criticism I received while on my first ski trip in Kitzbuhel back in January 2008 was, after a four days of lessons (not to include several hours of lessons at Escape MK) was as follows. “You are not really skiing!” Thank you so much for that great piece of positive feedback on a sport based ninety nine percent on confidence and a mere one percent on technique.

You are probably wondered why am I going all the way to Austria for a ski trip if I am not a big fan (or even accomplished) skier. The social aspect of the trip is perhaps the defining part of the holiday. This year the group is different (no Paul S or Mel or Ben) so we have new members in the form of Joe, Paul and Kate. The rest remain the usual suspects. The dynamics between t_dogg and The Prof will be interesting to say the least and you have to refer to Pav’s Stag do in Berlin, last year as a preview to this, the main event.

Based on previous trips, and particularly 2009 in Tignes, I have decided to very much play it safe this year. There will be no mistaking red runs for blue runs based on the name (Bluet not Blue A). I will keep myself occupied on the nursery slopes wherever they may be. Although Pav continues to remind me that Mayrhofen is an extreme resort. I will discover that for myself within the space of a few hours. While some may find it boring to complete the same basic run on repeated occasions, being a routine person I quite enjoy the monotony of such a day. My biggest regret from previous ski holidays has always been about ruining other people’s holidays. This is something I do not wish to repeat, there was Geoff chasing me down to the main gondola in Austria back in 2008 and then Emily moments away from raising the alarm to mountain rescue in France in 2009 (while, it should be noted, the rest of my so-called friends had a drink and joked at my demise on the mountain). My dearest wife was quick to respond to my thoughts, “Make sure you still have a good time, it is your holiday as well Teg!”. This of course is true but at times I have felt I am a burden on my friends for my lack of both skill but also winter sports experience. Being in a foreign country and not being able to say more than please and thank you does not help either (but that is a common sentiment with the British abroad). I do try I confess but I am sure most people in most places around the resort will speak English. Although it will be hilarious to watch t_dogg with his spoken English with a German accent once again!

With so many events taking place over Christmas and heading up to Edinburgh for Hogmanay (blog post and photos to be uploaded the moment I get back from holiday) this ski holiday has kind of crept up on me. There are mixed feelings here, meaning I have to rush around to get everything ready tonight, pack, ensure I have all the important items at my disposal (passports, Euros). On the other hand there is no long countdown waiting for the holiday to arrive, as has been the case with the 16th December. (Hardly Olympic standard but since starting my new job I have worked all the way up to my Christmas break from mid August).

One thing for certain, on my return I shall be blocking Pavneet Singh Khural on G-Chat (on Google Mail). He has already been a pain, chasing up this specific posting onto my blog. Even leaving off topic comments on my Facebook status updates throughout Christmas and New Year. The PBE (the preview blog entry is written before any major events I go on with my group of friends (Reading Festival as an example). In recent months, due mainly to my lack of time I have been unable to write these up, as by the time I get to blog, the event has already taken place and writing from a historical perspective is not easy, even if at times it does require a Orwellian style of journalism.

I must end by looking on the bright side. While most of my relatives, friends, colleagues and even complete strangers, head back to work after the Christmas break, they face the January blues. I will do, but I have just delayed them quite purposefully by heading to the Alps for a week with my friends. I wish you well, until I return. I will try to update Twitter and Facebook from time to time, should I find an internet cafe somewhere in the resort. Although the temptation to go fully cold turkey is actually quite appealing, even for me!

Hacking MP3 Players

Any true geek (or is the more fashionable modern term – nerd) will want to hack his/her gadgets – whatever they may be! I am no exception to this rule but still find myself shocked at the possibilities of the open source community to come up with ingenious options for a range of rather limited devices (if you stick with the stock firmware).

Most people expect me to own an iPod, they are surprised when I explain I own no Apple products and actually only bought an Pink iPod Mini for my sisters way back in early September 2005 as it was an offer not to be missed by MightyMouse. Instead just over a year later I purchased a Creative Zen Vision:M. Ordered online on Christmas Day 2006. This was a mighty 60gb beast but affectionately called a ‘Fatty’, due to the large casing. Creative would release a thinner model within the space of a few months, so it would match the same thin dimensions of the 30gb model. I missed out but was not that fussed to be honest. It was a beast but I enjoyed the fact that it played any audio or video I threw at it and only the odd older videos had be converted for viewing (which did not take that long on my PC). However, it was only once I started commuting by train (for the first time since November 2004) that I realised that I needed to upgrade. The Zen, as fantastic as it once was, was just far to bulky to bring with me to work every day. The media player actually weighed down one side of my coat. Add to this, the fact that transferring data across involved carrying a USB cradle. While not too cumbersome, was annoying if I left it at home and could not copy across the latest ArseCast on a Friday afternoon. (I have started to listen to the Arsenal podcast by Arseblogger of Arseblog fame every week). I needed a new player and something lightweight would be ideal for the gym.

I did some research and found RockBox. An open source firmware for a variety of mp3 players. Now it was just a case of making sure the device I purchased (or was kindly gifted by Santa) would be compatible.

I discovered the HotUKDeals website in a rather roundabout way, which I feel is worth mentioning. My colleague at Intel, Rich mentioned the website Bitter Wallet back in late 2010. I read it occasionally but soon realised it was run by the same team behind Gizmodo and Gawger. Every day, they would post a Deals Of The Day blog post, powered by the users of HotUKDeals. I checked out this website, which is just a glorified forum with users from all over the country posting offers. Some of them are phantom offers you will not find in your local supermarket but many are insane offers too good to be missed! It was on here on several occasions I noted the SansaClip+ MP3 player on offer at Play.com. I let my dearly beloved know and looked forward to Christmas Day when I would finally have the player all to myself.

Fast forward five days and I installed RockBox onto the player and finally unleashed the full power of the beast! The firmware enables a number of additional features, installs a database for playback and updates various features in terms of playback (volume, cross fading, advanced play-lists). They have even ported Doom over to the device, albeit plays extremely slowly due to the tiny screen and lack of colour display and high refresh rate. Unplayable but it is not about that, it is proving that such a major PC based computer game from 1993 can be ported across to a tiny device with a little elbow grease in 2011.

I have yet to actually use the device out in the wild, but am looking forward to the endless possibilities. Plus this gives me the perfect excuse to centralise and organise my mp3 collection. For years I tried to organise my collection manually with a folder for each decade. I then flirted with MusicMonkey Gold but I think I am going to start using free option of MusicBee. Much easier to use and many more features. My server has the majority of my albums stored as FLAC (lossless audio compression format) and following on from the demise of LimeWire over a year ago, I have been using MP3 Skull to download my audio. Good for recent releases, it does have limited options in terms of bit-rate, most files are 128kb/s. Trying to hunt down older songs would not be easy, plus the majority of my mp3 collection still resides on my desktop computer at my parents house. I probably will not get hold of that until I actually move into either a bigger flat or house. My 24 gb mp3 player will have to put in a decent innings until that time in the not too distant future!

Goodbye XBMC! You shall be missed!

I had never heard of the Freecycle online service, although I knew some sort of community based on giving away your old items existed. It was my sister, Samantha that mentioned the website to me back in April. I had just moved into my flat in Slough and had an old TV combi unit to get rid of. Her friend Kirsty had used the site before and been able to kit out a flat in next to no time! I posted on the site and within a few minutes, the item was taken. Great! I have now used the site on many occasions to get rid of items no longer required. It was particularly useful in the summer when my parents were re-decorating their lounge and needed to get rid of an old TV and home cinema system. Gone in seconds! Yes, I know I could have put them on eBay and perhaps made a few quid but it was just not worth the hassle and with any commercial sale, the buyer will always have a recourse to come back to you if anything goes wrong. Do you really need the extra hassle? I did not!

I have had an original XBox since 2003, when my sisters bought me the console as a Christmas present. I believe the console was discontinued a few months later. Do I play video games? No, so why did I request such a console? Well I had heard about the media centre software, XBMC through my dearest friend Hussein. With his expert help in August 2004, I was able to mod my XBox to install the custom media centre software. I now had the media centre I craved in the lounge, not only to play music video, movies and games. I could view movie trailers direct from the Apple website. Hussein had provided me with an optical audio output lead, which fed directly into my home cinema system. Movies looked and sounded awesome! Not pad for a CRT based television that was coming up to six years old. The software was constantly being tweaked by a friendly band of users online. A plugin repository was also created to include a number of features, Last.fm audio scrobblers, YouTube and weather applications. Remember this is the time before “App Store” became a trademark of the Apple Corporation. With the launch of BBC iPlayer, a plugin was soon made available, which meant you did not have to watch episodes from Albert Square I had missed on the small computer screen but on the biggest screen in the house. I know this may sound rather oldschool, if you already have a PVR. We did not get Sky+ until 2009, and even though we had Sky, the majority of the television we watched was from the Beeb. Even though Aunty did constantly try to block the service and add in additional security to their streams, someone out in the XBMC Community would put together a new release of the plugin with a workaround. This included a complete rebuild of the XBMC software at one stage but the plugin worked a dream for both radio and television streams. It had started off as a download service of the iPod / iPhone feed, which had to be downloaded before being played. A few months later, a download only option was found which worked a treat.

The XBOX was the media centre for my family home and in 2008, I had moved out to my flat in Newbury. At one stage I was considering building my own media centre from an old PC donated by Pav. In the end, I was gifted an on crystal XBox by his younger brother Rav (he had been given a 360 by his parents for his birthday in March 2009). It was late March when I finally had the time to set it up and install the latest version of XBMC. This device had already been modded with a custom dashboard. Two days later I was downloading and watching a music video by Keri Hilson.

With the advent of high definition services, the place for the XBOX was limited. It could show limited 720p video and to date there were only one HD video I had watched on the device. The first first HD video I ever saw (would not actually play on the device) All Night Long by Alexandra Burke and featuring Pitbull. Unfortunately the music video in question is Knockout by Lil Wayne featuring Nicki Minaj. Hardly outstanding contributions to the art of music videos and perhaps a poor reflection on my music video collection, which is close to the one thousand mark. (For reference the majority of music videos I download now are in HD, with only older archive or live performances in standard definition). As time went by viewer videos would play on the device which is a shame because up to that point in time, the software was extremely versatile and download any codecs it did not have stored locally from the web.

When I moved back in wtih my parents in October 2009, I had two XBoxes and decided to gift one away to my dear friend Sippy. I met up with him for the first time since I had left Uni in 2004, some six years ago! I do hope he appreciated the gift. I had driven all the way up to Birmingham to deliver by hand myself. I wonder if he is still using it? I know he had an older XBox but was that on it’s way out?

My parents now have a 50″ HD plasma TV and the XBox is surplus to their requirements. I brought it back to Slough yesterday afternoon, on my return from seeing Mission Impossible with my Dad. I then spend today clearing the personal photographs and video before giving the device away on Freecycle. I did have to make it clear this was the original XBox from 2001, not a 360! (Who in their right minds would give a working one of those away?). It went to a good home in Slough, to a younger brother who was trying to get a game on his older brother’s 360! Just a shame I could not find the original DVD remote and will have to list that separately on Freecycle another time! It was emotionally moment for me, giving the device away. I know it has gone on to an extended life with another family but for the past seven years it had served my family extremely well. Every dog has his day and the time has come to move on. I suppose this gives me a chance to appreciate my new media centre (the Humax HDR-Fox-T2) but also plan the media centre for my family in the near future. Subscription satellite will have to go!

Ghost Protocol Initiated

I am sure we can all recall a moment in time when we truly grow up. These, ‘rights of passage’ occur throughout our lives but generally are confined to our early teens and twenties. In June 1998 I headed on my first solo journey into central London. It was perhaps the biggest interview of my life. Any dreams of working for Microsoft were very distant at this point. I was off for an interview at Big Blue on the Southbank in London. This was the first time I would be travelling on the tube on my own. Actually, I had rarely used the tube with friends or family up to that point. London was were all the big people went, not a sixteen year old. My Dad worked in Ealing at the time, so I came to the office with him at the break of dawn and then walked from his office in the Broadway to the tube station. Anxious was not the word. Petrified was probably more accurate!

I had already mapped out the journey on a tube map but this did not stop me jumping on a tube heading in the opposite direction once I got off the Central Line. I believe I took the Central Line to Oxford Circus and here changed for the Bakerloo Line. Eventually I got to Waterloo and made my way to the office for my all important interview. I walked past, the in-construction BFI IMAX cinema. It would open less than twelve months later (the ribbon was cut by Princess Michael of Kent in May 1999). I did wonder, in passing if I would ever be lucky enough to watch a film at this, the biggest screen in the country.

Fast forward over a decade and I would be returning to the BFI IMAX for my third visit. (Transformers in October 2007, Toy Story 3 (IMAX 3D) with my fiancé in July 2010). I had booked tickets for my Dad and I to go see the fourth instalment in the Mission Impossible franchise – Ghost Protocol. I had looked forward to this movie for months and driving my dearest wife mad! Any spot or interview with the stars, would be recorded by me to digest a length later. Including a Jeremy Renner interview on Daybreak and going to lengths to read every single comment posted on a Stuart Heritage Guardian blog post once the original trailer was released. To be fair, I remember spotting the trailer was released on Twitter one morning and then grabbed headphones from my colleague Rich (I was still working at Intel back then) the moment he walked into the office at 8am, so I could catch the video on YouTube.

Yes I know I probably should change the record but I love Tom Cruise. For me, he symbolises the modern Hollywood action hero. While there are many things you can say about him, you cannot doubt that he always puts every inch of himself into his roles. Has he ever made a bad film? In my eyes, never, but then I have not even seen some of his better critically acclaimed roles. (They are queued on my media server waiting to be watched. I can never find the time or the permission from my other half!) In Ethan Hunt he has created a likeable spy with a toothy grin but a ferocious mean streak. Probably my favourite fiction hero and he appeals to be more than James Bond or even Jason Bourne (not seen any of the Bourne movies) because he is played by Tom Cruise. While Superman is my favourite comic book superhero, Ethan Hunt will always be my favourite secret agent.

My Dad is a big fan of the original Mission:Impossible series and I recall spending many Sunday mornings watching the show on Channel 4, instead of cartoons like most children my age. I did not really mind and in recent years, my Dad still watches the re-runs on Quest or whichever channel is showing them. I am sure once it lands on Blu-Ray I will gift them to my Dad. I recall him even catching the lesser known late 1980s reboot starting Peter Graves as Jim Phelps. Up to this point, I have seen all the first three movies with my family. I recall in 1996, waiting for my Dad to rush back from working in London, so I could catch the first movie at the local multiplex (it was probably still UCI Cinema chain at this stage). My sisters and I waited outside for our Dad to appear so we could catch the Friday night showing. We did eventually and I really enjoyed the showing. For the first sequel, I was now 19 years old but still went along with my family. My memory fades now, but I believe my Mum came along for this showing, which again was at the local multiplex referred to Wycombe Six. However both of these outings are in the pre-blogging days, so there are no blog posts for me to refer back to. It was in 2006, with the third and to that point in time best instalment in the franchise, that I took charge. I booked tickets for my family. The group had changed then, including my Aunty over on holiday from India, my Mum, Dad and youngest sibling Julie. My other sisters were busy. I recall the trip to Vue Reading very well. We got there early, had time to look around the shops and had coffee from Starbucks, sitting outside in the late Spring sunshine on a pleasant Friday evening. I remember my Dad grabbing the milk from inside, so we could enjoy our beverages out on the riverside complex. We took up almost a whole row in screen four (the largest at Vue Reading) and I remember having to ask a couple to move along one so we could all fit in and explain to people behind me that we had taken up all these seats. You can go back and read that blog entry if you so wish but I ended the entry with a question – would Hunt return for another adventure? I had to wait five years for that answer!

While I wish I could have taken all my family, my sisters are all grown up and have other plans. My Mum was busy and I doubt she would have enjoyed the underground at Christmas. It was a boys afternoon out, just my Dad and I. I was looking forward to spending time with him, as we have both been very busy over not just Christmas but since I got married in August. We caught the train into Marylebone and tube down to Waterloo. This was my first time at the newly renovated High Wycombe Train Station. The drop-off / pick-up point has been moved and a large multi-storey car park been built. Many years over due but well received Chiltern Railways. The journey via London Underground is easy as we have just the Bakerloo line to catch to Waterloo. From here we walked down the subway to IMAX. We had arrived. I grabbed my credit card from my wallet, swiped in the machine to collect our tickets. Mission Impossible 4 here we go!

The IMAX has had a refresh since I was last here, some five hundred and twenty days ago to watch Toy Story 3 with my fiancé, Michelle. Hosting the Ghost Protocol UK première was perhaps part of the reason to renovate the figurehead cinema. You cannot have Tom Cruise, Brad Bird, Paula Carter or Simon Pegg visiting a dilapidated venue. While it may boast the biggest screen in the country (United Kingdom) it has always been a let down in terms of furnishings and refreshments. My Dad and I did not bother with popcorn, as much as Brad Bird had said in recent spots it was a popcorn movie! We got to our seats early and I explained to my Dad that yes, this screen was the size of four double decker buses! I was looking forward to the IMAX preview but it was not shown to my somewhat disappointment. However, the IMAX is oldschool so each screening is introduced by one of the ushers. He welcomed us to the screening and also explained that the movie was not in 3D, as some rather foolish punters had asked. He also mentioned the prologue to The Dark Knight Rises. I am a fan of Batman, particularly Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the Caped Crusader but that was a bonus for me, I was here for Mission Impossible. In the end, I had to read the full script of the trailer online later as I could not understand the dialogue of main protagonist Bane, over the air plane noise. (A updated sound mix would be released to IMAX in early January but too late for us).

I really enjoyed the movie, it automatically has become my favourite of the franchise. It was good fun, funny and the action was out of this world. I am so glad I saw the movie at IMAX to appreciate the spectacular scenes shot on the tallest building in the world. The plot was far from perfect but it had enough going on to keep me on the edge of my seat. Pegg gave a great comedy performance in an expanded role from the previous outing. Paula Carter was smoking hot in her role as Jane Carter and Jeremy Renner, if he is to fill the shoes of Cruise, he is on his way to be a somewhat worthy successor. I loved every second of the ride and want to see the movie again soon (even though it will be sometime before it will be released on Blu-ray). I recommend it to you, just go read the reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, even the Tom Cruise haters will enjoy this first live action movie from Brad Bird. The man in my opinion can do no wrong! I just look forward to Paramount Pictures fast tracking the next instalment but please make sure Cruise remains in-front of the camera, in some description (even if just a supporting role from headquarters!) Being the producer I am sure he will have a big say on what happens next time around!

Oh, I need to finish off with what happened with my interview at IBM office on the Southbank. I passed the interview with flying colours, they just could not find a placement for me on their Youth Training Scheme. Thankfully, some fifteen years later it has not stopped me achieving some major milestones in my career. This does not stop me wondering what could have been?

Last Christmas

Usually I do not make much of an effort for the Christmas party arranged by Emily. A Santa hat is as far as I go! Even that is more than the majority of my friends. This year, I thought I would go the extra mile and actually buy my own outfit. Unfortunately I would later discover that I was one of only only four to dress up!

It seemed fitting that George Michael was only released from hospital yesterday and made the briefest of press conferences this afternoon, which I caught live on Sky News HD, as I was at my in-laws. I will come back to that later (well you should be able to make the festive link yourselves to be honest!) First I need to get to Reading dressed as the original green Santa. I knew it was going to be embarrassing journey on public transport, but thankfully my wife dropped me off close to the station. I had to walk through the new Curve bus station, by my ticket from the machine and then head to platform two. The same platform from which I catch my train to work each weekday. I had a good ten minute wait, during which many people, including employees of First Great Western stared and smirked at me in my bright green velvet trousers. Thankfully this was the non-stop Oxford service so I had only fifteen minutes to endure on the locomotive before heading into the streets of Reading. I knew in the town the atmosphere would very different, with many more people out for the Christmas weekend. After-all for many this would have been the final working day (or half day if you were lucky) of the year. I made my way to Sahara to find all of my friends drinking. I knew Pav would not be dressing up, but I was extremely disappointed to find only Charlie, Emily and Sarah dressed up. Poor show guys! Although even the consolation of Christmas jumpers from Ben, Foxy and Pav were not enough to bring them into my good books!

I was the last arrive, so it was just time for a quick drink before we headed to Thai9.

After our buffet meal we headed upstairs to the karaoke room. Below is the set list to the best of my knowledge with the relevant main performer and backing singers in brackets. Highlights include Paul (AKA The Prof) with a super solo performance of My Humps. I wish someone had recorded his performance on video, it was perfect fodder for YouTube. Unfortunately I was sitting behind him, and did not take any photographs of this show stopping performance! Also of worthy note, Emily with her performance of Milkshake by Kelis!

Went it came to my turn late into the night, I did consider a number from MJ but instead one of my favourite 80s bands was selected. I am not sure if this was due to prompting from Pav beforehand or if someone had just been a regular reader of my blog. However the lyrics on the karaoke machine were incorrect! It was as if someone had only one chance to listen to the song and guess some of the lyrics they did not quite hear correctly. Poor show, but I decided to play along, more for the benefit of my duet partner Ben! I did not want to appear as a know-it-all fan in-front of my friends!

We had been provided with a bill at 11pm, so our time was nearly up. I believe we would be kicked out at 11:30pm. We had to end on a Christmas song and we decided upon Last Christmas. For some reason, I spent the majority of the time with my hands in a warm embrace around the Prof’s chest! The bromance continues. All the photos have been uploaded to my first official FlickR set since August. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cross Dressing

Michelle’s friend Ali was appearing in a London pantomime, so she eagerly booked tickets for us, mainly based on the fact the story was written by former One Show presenter Hardeep Singh Kohli. I had quite low expectations of Bollywood Cinderella after reading the blurb on the Tara Arts website. However, I liked the idea of finally going to a pantomine at Christmas. Even if it was a rather low key event in South East London rather than the de facto West End. Our tickets were for Thursday evening even though we thought we had booked for Wednesday afternoon. No afternoon matinee on Wednesday we were quickly informed by Ali.

I tend to avoid reviews, particularly for movies I am all to eager to see (think Mission:Impossible – Ghost Protocol everybody). However my dearest wife did read out a few comments from a professional review and I have just found am amateur blog review. Overall the reviews were very positive and I was looking forward to the production but not expecting too much for a theatre (can you even class it as such) with a maximum capacity of seventy. Warm and cosy was how I expected to feel watching the show but I suppose there was an intimacy that I would never have got at the Apollo Victoria while watching Wicked last month.

On Thursday morning we headed off into London early (well earlier than we needed to for a 3pm show.) Michelle wanted to stop by at a bureau du change to exchange some Australian dollars. We caught the train from Slough to Paddington and then the tube to Victoria. When we caught the Jubilee line train to Waterloo, Michelle noticed a smart looking Asian gentleman in a beige woollen overcoat. It was the actor from the British satire Four Lions. You may know Kayvan Novak better as The Fonejacker. (Interestingly I share my birthday with British Iranian award winning comedian, he is a mere three years older than me!) We spotted him a little later at Marks & Spencers Food Outlet on the main concourse about twenty minutes later. Even after he had made a prisk exit from the tube station earlier (climbing up on the left hand side of all the escalators).

As we walked down the steps at Earlsfield station, I noticed the bright pink bill poster for the show pointing to the right. I expected the theatre to be further down the road but it was in fact directly opposite the exit. However Tara Arts was closed, we had to a thirty minute wait. We headed to The Wandle for a quick drink before the show.

As I posted soon after the show on Facebook the reality of the size of the arts centre hit home, when the performers entered the venue using the same door as the audience. We took a seat in the back row in the far right hand corner, with the young children and parents taking some of the cushion seats in the front row. The show started as you would expect with a song!

I enjoyed the show, it was much better than expected. You also need to appreciate that I am not in the target audience of families with young children, perhaps attending their first ever pantomime. (We will assume that this was not my first time). Some great performances, exceptional singing by Tanya Wells. It should be well noted she is the understudy performing only from the 21st to the end of the run on Christmas Eve. Ali of course stood out in his duel role of ugly sister Happy Lucky and Okra but I need to also give a mention to Simon Norbury as Auntji Shanti. For a non-native speaker, his command of various Hindi words was outstanding (even if the majority were put downs). Not a bad way to spend a Christmas afternoon in London. Entertaining and in places very funny but perhaps you need to get some of the Bollywood theme jokes. After the show at 5pm, we ended back to The Wandel to grab some food with Ali and present him with some cards and flowers. Well deserved!

What Is In A Name

My wife, Michelle received her new passport this morning and with it a new surname and new identity. We have now been married for just over four months and in a twist of fate, her ten year old passport expired a few days after our honeymoon in Rome in mid August. (The same week many cities in the UK were besieged by riots!)

However, there was a dilemma, which to be honest I never truly understood until much later. How would it feel to give up the surname you have grown accustomed to over the past twenty eight years? I was not asked to give anything up so important! A few tweets I have saved as favourites over on Twitter have perfectly summarised the now age old tradition of the married woman taking her husband’s name. One as recently as yesterday the other from just over a month ago, very much on similar lines. I have to say that I am very traditional when it comes to the name change. If the social convention was for me to change my surname, to that of my wife I probably would have gone through the motions. Personally I do not like double barrel names and our combination of surnames would have resulted in a sixteen character surname, including separating hyphen. Call me Victorian but I believe changing your surname is part of the commitment of marriage. Michelle decided to give up her now maiden name and take on my family name. The process begins with the arrival of a new passport.

From this point forward, every item of identification needs to be updated with the new name. Which I appreciate is quite an administrative chore but I am sure, I am worth the effort!

Received our first joint Christmas card yesterday morning from my friend Clive. The envelope had the recipients listed by joint addressee.